The TV Critics Association Awards Nominees Are In: How’d They Do?

Pretty well, actually. In an awards show that gives out so few awards (11, including career achievement), you have to stand out as a show to earn enough nominations to make people notice. Sensational new comedy Modern Family leads with five nominations across the four categories for which it even could have been nominated (two of the five comedy acting nominations went to the show). The show deserves these accolades, but that isn’t necessarily the most exciting bit of news to come out of the nomination announcement. And neither is the troubling fact that Treme saw not a single nomination.

LOST earned nominations for Program of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Drama, and the Heritage Award, which could be contentious this year, but more on that later. This is really the first awards show poised to recognize LOST as an entire series. The Lord of the Rings films got their dues all at once after the trilogy’s completion. It looks like the ragtag band behind the TCA awards will be the first to decide whether LOST deserves the same treatment. They’ve at least put themselves in a position to do so. Even if Modern Family takes Program of the Year, which it certainly should, the Achievement in Drama award would be a good morale boost for those unsure of how LOST will be looked back upon.

Other nerd success stories from the nominations include the requisite nominations for The Big Bang Theory and its poster boy Jim Parsons, a Career Achievement nomination for William Shatner, and nominations for Torchwood, The Daily Show, and even Twin Peaks for the Heritage Award.

Ah yes, the Heritage Award. The nominees are 24, M*A*S*H, Law & Order, LOST, and Twin Peaks. This would be an incredibly intense race if 1) The shows weren’t all eligible to be nominated countless times again until each wins, and 2) anyone else cared about the TCA awards. But with three incredibly popular shows having just ended, and everyone’s favorite Twin Peaks thrown into the mix, this has really become the all-star category.

There is one final point I’d like to make regarding these nominations. You see all those 30 Rock nominations? Me neither. But wait, critics love that show, right? Not anymore. You know why? Because it wasn’t good this season. At all. The writing just wasn’t there and all the characters became irritating. And I have a theory why: Donald Glover doesn’t write for them anymore.

(Via Deadline, image via Weekend Watchers)

Appendix: The full list of nominees.