Emmy Awards 2012: irrelevant or just plain fun?

What is there to say about the Emmys that has not been said before? Rather than flip for writing up the obligatory pre-broadcast essay, Times TV critics Robert Lloyd and Mary McNamara had a conversation in which they aired their grievances, their preferences and gave praise where it was due.

Robert: Well, Mary, the fall season is breaking and the Emmy Awards are upon us once again Sunday night. And once again I have failed to pay much attention to them; I understand that they’re popular and fun and give newspaper writers something to write about; but they seem to me irrelevant to the art and crafts they celebrate. Like most every other similar award — Oscars and Grammy and Tonys and on and on — they assume an impossible task and then do it poorly. They compare apples and oranges, even as they neglect the less obvious or talked-about fruits — the rhubarb and loganberries and exotic Asian pears that also make up the market, but which fewer people might have tasted. I am being metaphorical.

Mary: I must admit I did give some thought to boycotting this year’s broadcast when Hugh Laurie was left off the best actor in a drama category — the idea that he finished an almost decade-long run helping to create one of the most influential TV characters around without an Emmy to put in his loo seems proof of precisely what you say. But even so, I cannot bring myself to dismiss the Emmys. They are inevitably much more fun to watch than the Oscars. There is always a fair amount of repetition. Bryan Cranston is back in the front-runner slot this year, “Mad Men” has crowded the writing category again and is attempting to break the best drama record, “The Amazing Race” is apparently the only reality show academy members will cop to watching and if Jon Stewart wins over Stephen Colbert again, I may have to set fire to my hair. But inevitably I am mostly happy that people who do terrific work get feted for doing it.

TIMELINE: Emmy winners through the years

The problem is there is just too much good TV. Take “Homeland,” for instance, which certainly deserves to be a top contender for best drama, best writing, best actor and best actress, and yet is considered an underdog in all but the last. And that’s a cable show, so pity the poor networks, with their necessary commitment to procedural elements and other less creatively exalted dimensions.

Robert: Yes, it’s nice to celebrate excellence, which is, after all, what you and I do for a living, even, in a way, when we’re denigrating its opposite. Still, I have to think that Hugh Laurie knows he’s good, whether or not the academy dubs him the best. And that John Lithgow knows that those three Emmys (out of five nominations) for “3rd Rock From the Sun” were the result of factors not entirely based in his incomparable comic genius. If you didn’t consider these things kind of a crapshoot, you’d have to feel bad about your not winning them all or nearly all the time. And yes, there is more good TV than any person can watch.

As to your point about cable versus broadcast, obviously there are a number of things at work there: the larger audience a broadcast show needs to be considered a hit, the conservatism that comes into play when huge amounts of money are at stake, the ongoing commitment to the 22-episode season versus cable’s creator-driven, short-run series, with their clearer arcs, and the fact that cable networks succeed by creating prestige — getting people to talk about them, and to look where they otherwise would not — and can do this with just a few (or even one) good series.

BALLOT: Cast your votes for 2012 Emmy winners

Mary: Exactly. The television equivalent of doping — the premium networks can use profanity, nudity and violence in ways the network can’t. More important, they aren’t tied to the episodic confines of the procedural, which is the workhorse of American drama, or the sitcom, ditto the American comedy. And that gives them the freedom to more thoroughly, or at least more vividly, examine the darkness of the human soul, which is currently the hallmark of “great drama.” But I would argue that it is actually more difficult to create and maintain a show like “The Good Wife,” which miraculously manages to combine high art with commercial necessity, than it is to make “Mad Men.” That doesn’t make “The Good Wife” a better show, necessarily, but I can’t help wishing there was some way, short of setting up separate network and cable categories, to acknowledge that.

And while it’s easy to say that the creators and actors know they’re doing a good job — no doubt the fact that Laurie was the highest paid performer in the biz took some of the sting out — Emmys do matter to shows without huge audiences, adding a prestige factor that can keep them on the air. “30 Rock” survived for many seasons in large part because of its high Emmy factor. “Community” and “Fringe” would have benefited by a few (much deserved) nominations and a statue or two; “Parks and Recreation” still would.

Robert: I’m not sure it’s a question of profanity, nudity or violence — which can seem tediously gratuitous on the premium cable shows that can freely use them — so much as the ambiguity they allow. “Mad Men,” on milder “ad-supported” basic cable, has relatively restrained language and no nudity or (physical) violence. But its characters, who are constantly working out or reckoning with who they are, create all kinds of emotional mayhem. You could never have a “Louie” (thrice Emmy-nominated this year) on broadcast TV for the same reason. It doesn’t play by any of the usual rules; it wants you not to be able to make up your mind about it. The broader audience that comes to TV to relax wants to know whom to hiss and whom to boo — it’s less tiring that way.

EMMYS 2012: Full coverage

There are other ways TV is divided. Sutton Foster and Kelly Bishop on “Bunheads” are doing really nice work, but they’re on ABC Family Channel, which runs well below the radar. “Battlestar Galactica,” which won a Peabody Award, had to settle for technical Creative Arts Emmys. (Though it did receive one writing and one directing nomination in its four seasons.)

Mary: There are many reasons “Louie” couldn’t be on network TV, and artistic ambiguity is just one of them. Profanity, sexuality and violence (all gorgeously embodied by Melissa Leo alone this season) are a few of the others. “Louie” is fabulous, but not everything on cable is smarter than what’s on the networks — “House” was a very smart show, and it drew a big audience for many seasons. “Episodes,” which I like, might actually do better on the network (stripped of its F-bombs and gratuitous sex scenes) where Matt LeBlanc doing Matt LeBlanc would have wide appeal.

As for “Battlestar,” both the television and film academies are complete snobs when it comes to genre. Fantasy has just begun to get the attention it deserves, though “Game of Thrones” could easily fill most acting categories and yet received only one nomination there. Sci-fi and horror remain too often ignored. (“True Blood” being another exception.) Where are the nominations for “The Walking Dead,” which is — yes, I am saying this — a much better show than “Downton Abbey”? Where is John Noble’s Emmy for “Fringe?”

I know, I know, it doesn’t matter, and they find satisfaction in a job well done and a fine salary. But still, if there must be awards, it would be nice to feel like the people who hand them out have a more comprehensive view of the television landscape.

Robert: “House” was a smart show, but it was also a procedural and, the particular journey of its dysfunctional lead character included, very much about the comfort of formula. He was always going to be right, even when it looked like he was wrong, and he was always going to win, even when it looked like he was losing.

Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this — but as I say, these awards mean nothing to me — I have just bothered to read the complete list of this year’s Emmy nominations. And I see that as has often been the case the academy’s eye has fallen on a relatively few series and a handful of TV movies. (Four supporting actor in a comedy nominations for “Modern Family,” multiple nods to HBO’s “Game Change” and its less-than-great “Hemingway & Gellhorn.”) And while I dearly love “Veep” and “Girls” and would give them awards of my own making — something involving papier-mache and raffia and perhaps a soft chewy center — it seems to me that HBO’s 800-pound gorilla status does have something to with their presence on the best comedy list. (Conversely, there’s History’s out-of-left-field “Hatfields & McCoys” — 16 nominations! — but not surprising in light of its admittedly unexpected though not undeserved buzz.) And I will say that it’s nice to see Jared Harris nominated for “Mad Men,” because I love him in everything.

Mary: I was very happy to see all the noms for “Hatfields,” not only because it was terrific (if a trifle long) but because it will give History even more leverage when creating and casting its new historical series. It’s always easier to lure top talent if there’s real Emmy hope, as HBO and Showtime have known for years. And having History in the original content game would be fabulous — the historical mini-series, which gave us such great TV as “Roots” and “Holocaust” (introducing Meryl Streep!), has become all but extinct. How great would it be to have it back?

In the end, of course, the Emmys are a television show too, and I must admit they, and the Tonys, are the only awards shows worth watching. Not only are they done by people who understand the medium, but with so much great TV on, it’s hard not to have a horse or two or 20 in the race. Even for a cynic like you!

The question is, do you think John Noble and Jared Harris sit around wondering why we haven’t won Pulitzers yet?

Robert: I think you know the answer to that.

mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

robert.lloyd@latimes.com