Newest Emmy Nominations: Lots of Past Oversights Corrected!

The nominations for the 2009 Emmy Awards, announced early Thursday morning, offered a few surprises, many of them pleasant -- including an in-your-face nomination for Conan O'Brien's version of NBC's Tonight Show, while Jay Leno's version, also eligible, was snubbed in the variety category...

Because Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has won in that category for what seems like forever, it's not likely O'Brien will win. But if he does, after his show was taken from him by the network, it'd be the best example of Emmy revenge since The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour won as Outstanding Variety Series after CBS fired the Smothers Brothers and dumped the show.

So maybe, just to make NBC feel really, really awkward, enough members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will vote for O'Brien to make that happen.

The other big, big news -- and least for many writers and readers of this website -- is that both Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton of NBC/DirecTV's Friday Night Lights were nominated in their respective dramatic actor and actress categories. Could it be because more episodes were sent out to academy members this year, so more of them actually SAW how good Britton and Chandler were?

The series itself, though, did NOT get nominated this year. But, to be fair, it wasn't the show's strongest season -- and it WAS a year of exceptionally strong competition.

And finally, another quick series of nods to Fox's Glee, which got nominations for series, and for leading players Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison, among lots and lots of others.

Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse on AMC's Breaking Bad, got his supporting actor nomination this year, in a drama category that also made room for Martin Short on FX's Damages, Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson of ABC's Lost, John Slattery of Mad Men, and Andre Braugher of TNT's Men of a Certain Age.

On the actress side, on the supporting comedy side, Jane Lynch got nominated for Glee, both Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen were cited for ABC's Modern Family, and, among other nominees, Kristin Wiig was singled out for her chameleonic work on NBC's Saturday Night Live. And in the leading category, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was NOT overlooked for her final year of The New Adventures of Old Christine.

In drama, supporting actresses nominated included both Christina Hendricks and Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men, Rose Byrne of Damages and -- good call here, too -- Archie Panjabi of CBS's The Good Wife.

Finally, one of my favorite sets of categories, Guest Actor and Actress in comedy and drama series, made room for some very smile-worthy nominations.

In drama, John Lithgow's killer performance on Showtime's Dexter got noticed, as did Ted Danson's returning role on Damages and Robert Morse's on Mad Men. On the actress side, nominees include Elizabeth Mitchell from Lost and Lily Tomlin from Damages.

In comedy, guest actors given nods include Neil Patrick Harris on Glee, Mike O'Malley (Kurt's dad) on Glee, and Jon Hamm on 30 Rock. (I have no idea why O'Malley isn't entered as supporting actor, but hey, his standout role was so terrific, I'm not complaining.)

Guest actresses of note, or at least noted, include Kristin Chenoweth on Glee, Christine Baranski on The Big Bang Theory, Elaine Stritch on 30 Rock, and both Tina Fey and Betty White, competing as guest hosts of Saturday Night Live.

The awards are scheduled to be televised by NBC August 29.