Emmy’s Obvious Oversights

It is encouraging to see some gorgeous work rewarded. When a precious resource such as “Frank’s Place” is nominated for Emmys in nine categories after not even winning a spot on the CBS fall schedule, you know there’s justice at least somewhere.

But not everywhere.

The 1987-88 Emmy nominations announced last week featured many other outstanding choices, from ABC’s “thirtysomething,” to Mary Tyler Moore’s performance as Mary Todd Lincoln on NBC, to HBO’s “Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam,” perhaps the most rewarding program on TV last season.

As always, however, the omissions were boggling.

Those goofy Academy of Television Arts & Sciences members did to Sam Waterston what John Wilkes Booth did to Abraham Lincoln in not listing Waterston for best lead actor in a miniseries or special. His work as Abe in “Gore Vidal’s Lincoln” on NBC was no less than heroic, far exceeding that of the nominated Jason Robards in “Inherit the Wind” and Jack Lemmon in “The Murder of Mary Phagan.”

And no mention for Ken Olin as Michael in “thirtysomething”? I mean, puhhhhhh-lease.

Just as startling was the indefensible slight of “A Year in the Life” in the category of best dramatic series, a sort of double whammy along with NBC’s recent cancellation of the first-year series, whose die-hard fans continue to lobby for its return.

Although each category is allotted five nominees, only four were named in this one (“thirtysomething” and the also-worthy “St. Elsewhere,” “L.A. Law” and “Beauty and the Beast”). A tie for the fifth spot gave academy officials the option of either extending the category to include more nominees or simply limiting the number to four, said awards director John Leverence.

Less surprising, but just as annoying, was the exclusion of “Tanner ‘88,” HBO’s absolutely brilliant strip of political satire. This is the first time that cable programs have been eligible for Emmys. But you have to believe that academy voters either didn’t see “Tanner” or were baffled by it, once again failing to reward the bold and unconventional.

If ever a comedy were at once important, smart and hilarious, “Tanner” was it, with writer GarryTrudeau and director Robert Altman expressing the routine madness of presidential campaigns with a scintillating comedic resonance. They, along with Michael Murphy as fictional candidate Jack Tanner and Pamela Reed as Tanner’s weary campaign manager, deserved nominations.

You could go on and on about those that will be missing from the Aug. 28 Emmycast on Fox.

Nothing on TV is more inventive or funnier than Showtime’s “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” which went unnominated as best comedy series. As did ABC’s defunct “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story,” even though it scorched the screen before frosting over at mid-season. Nor was “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd”--now headed for Lifetime cable after cancellation by NBC--acknowledged with the nomination it deserved, perhaps because irony and ambivalence confuse one-liner-oriented academy members.

As a drama in half-hour comedy clothes, “Molly Dodd” was one of those series (along with “ ‘Slap’ Maxwell,” “Frank’s Place” and a few others) that acquired the irritating label “dramedy,” as if humor minus a laugh track were aberrant on TV. Not so.

The label should either be retired or applied evenly to both hours and half-hours. Using the criteria applied to “Molly Dodd” and the others, “thirtysomething,” “Moonlighting” and “L.A. Law” qualify as “dramedies” because they too are frequently funny.

The nominations also underscore the decline of miniseries, most of which today are brief enough to fit into the credits of ABC’s coming “War and Remembrance.”

The four-hour “Gore Vidal’s Lincoln” is the class of the category. But one of the season’s rare legitimate miniseries, and a very good one--Showtime’s extended “Home”--lost out in the nominations to such lesser two-parters as NBC’s “Billionaire Boys Club.” Also deserving, yet unnoted by the academy members, was the eerie CBS drama “The Echoes of Darkness.”

Meanwhile, “The Trial of Bernhard Goetz” on PBS and ABC’s memorable “God Bless the Child”--with Mare Winningham as a homeless mother ultimately forced to surrender her child--were ignored in the drama/comedy special category. Unhappy endings make for unhappy voters.

Elsewhere on the Emmy front, the entire industry is excited about the informational series category, where a classic matchup awaits between the PBS documentary series “Nature” and the syndicated “Entertainment Tonight.” It’s a tough pick: the environment or Joan Collins?