What the Doctors Ordered : ‘ER’ Makes 20 Emmy House Calls

NBC’s fast-moving new drama series “ER,” about a hospital emergency room, was the runaway leader in nominations for the 47th annual nighttime Emmy Awards announced Thursday.

Capping its freshman season, in which it ranked No. 2 among all series and averaged 33% of the audience--more than any other regular program--”ER” collected 20 nominations.

With dramas making a comeback in network prime time, the runner-up was ABC’s police series “NYPD Blue,” which picked up 12 nominations. It earned a record-setting 26 last year.

While honoring these dramas, voters of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences also showed their disdain again for the much-praised series “Roseanne” as a candidate for best comedy.

It was ignored once more as a contender and has never been nominated for top comedy series in its seven seasons on the air. However, the show’s stars, Roseanne and John Goodman, were nominated, as was Laurie Metcalf as supporting actress. Roseanne has already won an Emmy for the show and Metcalf has three but Goodman has none.

Instead of finally honoring the influential “Roseanne” series with a nomination, academy voters instead chose “Frasier,” “Friends,” “Mad About You,” “Seinfeld” and “The Larry Sanders Show” as the best comedy nominees.

ABC, though the No. 1-rated network, took it on the chin from Emmy voters. Not only did it manage only 39 nominations overall--compared to 85 each for NBC and CBS and 48 for HBO--but three of its top comedies were snubbed in one way or another.

In addition to the “Roseanne” rejection, the academy also passed up ABC’s “Home Improvement” and “Grace Under Fire” in the best comedy category, as well as its headliners, Tim Allen and Brett Butler, as lead actor nominees. “Home Improvement” and “Grace Under Fire” were the third- and fourth-rated series of the season among viewers.

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The academy’s list of nominees, which covered the period from June 1, 1994, to May 31, 1995, surprisingly was not completed in six categories, including best comedy writing and drama series direction.

According to John Leverence, awards director of the academy, the accounting firm that tallies the balloting “reported on Tuesday that there were an extraordinary number of ties, from seven to 11 in a category.”

“The board decided that to have a glut of 11 nominations in a category would unfairly diminish the significance of any single nomination in that category. So it decided to hold runoff balloting.”

Leverence said that plans are to announce the results of the runoff votes on Aug. 7.

ABC, which is being pressed for the ratings lead by NBC, also fared poorly in the specials categories, where it once was the leader with such miniseries as “Roots” and “The Winds of War” and TV movies that included “Something About Amelia” and “The Day After.”

The top specials nominees included HBO, with “Barbra Streisand: The Concert,” “Indictment: The McMartin Trial,” “Citizen X” and “The Burning Season”; CBS, with “The Piano Lesson” and “Buffalo Girls”; NBC, with “Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story”; and cable network TNT with the biblical drama “Joseph.”

“ER” executive producer John Wells was ecstatic. “Oh, boy,” he said. “It’s great. I’m particularly delighted that all six of our regular stars were nominated.”

They included George Clooney, Anthony Edwards and Sherry Stringfield in the lead actor category and Eriq La Salle, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies as supporting players.

Four guest actors on “ER” were also nominated, including Clooney’s aunt, veteran singer Rosemary Clooney.

Nominated with “ER” for best drama series were another new medical show--CBS’ “Chicago Hope”--”NYPD Blue,” “Law & Order” and “The X-Files.”

Competing with Edwards and Clooney in the best drama series category are Mandy Patinkin of “Chicago Hope” and the two leads of “NYPD Blue,” Dennis Franz, who won last year, and Jimmy Smits, who replaced David Caruso on the show when he quit to make movies.

Nominees for best actress in a drama series, in addition to Stringfield, are teen-ager Claire Danes of the canceled “My So-Called Life,” past Emmy winner Kathy Baker of “Picket Fences,” Cicely Tyson for another axed show, “Sweet Justice,” and Angela Lansbury of “Murder, She Wrote,” who is still trying to win her first award for the program as it goes into what may be its final season.

The Emmy Awards, which will be telecast Sept. 10 on Fox from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, will be a curiosity in one regard: “Picket Fences,” which won as best drama series the past two years, is not nominated in that category this time around.

In its two triumphs, it upset two favorites, “Northern Exposure” and “NYPD Blue.”

Academy voters, however, are clearly impressed with NBC’s moves, particularly its Thursday lineup of the past season. In addition to “ER,” three comedies from that night--top-rated “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Mad About You”--are in major contention. “Mad About You,” however, has been switched to Sundays for the fall.

The lead actor nominations for best comedy series further indicate Emmy voters’ liking of NBC shows. Three NBC comedy stars--Kelsey Grammer of “Frasier,” Jerry Seinfeld of “Seinfeld” and Paul Reiser of “Mad About You”--are in the running, along with Garry Shandling of “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Roseanne’s” Goodman.

In the lead actress category for a comedy series are Helen Hunt of “Mad About You,” Cybill Shepherd of “Cybill,” Candice Bergen of “Murphy Brown,” Ellen De-Generes of “Ellen” and Roseanne.

Following “ER” and “NYPD Blue” with the most nominations were “Barbra Streisand: The Concert,” “Buffalo Girls” and “Frasier,” with 10 each, and, with eight apiece, “Chicago Hope,” “Friends,” “Indictment: The McMartin Trial” and “The Piano Lesson.”

HBO’s increasing presence on both the series and specials scene was just as impressive as its passing of ABC in total nominations. “The Larry Sanders Show,” regarded by many as TV’s best series, is on HBO. But Emmy voters all but ignored another brilliant HBO comedy series, “Dream On,” which picked up only a nomination for sound mixing.

Among its drama specials, HBO’s “Indictment: The McMartin Trial” dealt with the troubling circumstances surrounding the famous child abuse case; “Citizen X” was about a Russian detective and colonel hunting for a serial killer; and “The Burning Season” starred the late Raul Julia, in his only Emmy nomination, as Chico Mendes, a rain forest activist and preservationist who was killed while trying to protect his home and people in the Amazon.

NBC’s “Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story” starred Glenn Close in a true story of a high-ranking military officer discharged for being a lesbian; CBS’ “Buffalo Girls” offered Anjelica Huston as Calamity Jane and the same network’s “The Piano Lesson,” with Charles Dutton and Alfre Woodward, was a searing drama by August Wilson that dealt with a decision among black relatives over whether to sell a prized piano to buy land in Mississippi, where the family once were slaves.

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Top Nominees

Shows with the most multiple nominations for the 47th annual nighttime Emmy Awards are listed below. A complete list of nominations is on F26.

* “ER”:20 * “NYPD Blue”:12 * “Barbra Streisand The Concert”:10 * “Buffalo Girls”:10 * “Frasier”:10 * “Chicago Hope”:8 * “Friends”:8 * “Indictment: The McMartin Trial”:8 * “The Piano Lesson”:8 * “Citizen X”:7 * “Mad About You”:7 * “Seinfeld”:7