A Few Emmy Nods for Sci-Fi / Fantasy

The nominations for the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards came out this week, and again this year sci-fi and fantasy have been recognized largely in the technical production categories and not so much in the creative, though the genre managed to accrue 29 total nominations in 19 categories (out of 100), down from 49 nominations last year. (The 2009 Emmy Awards will be announced Sept. 21, 2009.)

The genre shows recognized with Emmy nominations include:

• Battlestar Galactica (6 nominations),
• Chuck,
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog,
• Fringe,
• Ghost Whisperer (2),
• Heroes (2),
• Legend Of The Seeker,
• Life On Mars,
• Pushing Daisies (5),
• Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II (2),
• Sanctuary,
• Smallville,
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and
• True Blood (3).

Three of the nominated series have been canceled.

(An honorable club membership goes to CSI, whose sci-fi episode, "A Space Oddity," got a nod as well for prosthetics.)

Battlestar Galactica was nominated in the Directing category for the finale, "Daybreak: Part 2" (all of the show's other regular nominations were also for this episode). That episode was directed by Michael Rymer. The only performance nods go to the invaluable Kristin Chenoweth, who was again nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress for Pushing Daisies, and to Seth Green, nominated for Voice-Over Performance for the second Robot Chicken Star Wars special, also nominated for Outstanding Animated Program.

Two genre shows were nominated in a special Short-Format category: the Battlestar "Face of the Enemy" webisodes, and Joss Whedon's whimsically wonderful Dr. Horrible minisodes.

The rest of the nominations are in the technical categories. I'm not hitting on editing, sound, and effects, all of which are accomplished by artists and magicians to whom we are greatly indebted for realizing our dreams and expanding our imaginations. I just wish that Emmy and Oscar voters didn't consign sci-fi and fantasy only to these categories. There was some amazing writing in genre series this year, but, in contrast to last year, this year none of it was recognized. It's great that Rymer was nominated for "Daybreak: Part 2," but there was other impressive direction as well. And Kristin Chenoweth is certainly not the only actor from the two dozen sci-fi and fantasy series I watch to be deserving of recognition.

The other nominations are in Art Direction (Heroes, Pushing Daisies, True Blood), Casting (True Blood), Cinematography (Life On Mars), Costumes (Pushing Daisies), Editing (Battlestar Galactica), Hairstyling (Pushing Daisies), Main Title Design (True Blood), Makeup (Pushing Daisies), Music Composition (Ghost Whisperer, Legend Of The Seeker), Sound Editing (Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Sound Mixing (Battlestar Galactica), Stunt Coordination (Chuck), and Visual Effects (Battlestar Galactica, Fringe, Ghost Whisperer, Heroes, Sanctuary).

All of the above nominations are well deserved. Congratulations to all the nominees!