Newcomers Muscle Into Emmy Race

“Ally McBeal” and “The Practice,” two legal series from writer-producer David E. Kelley, injected some new blood into nominations for the 50th annual nighttime Emmy Awards announced Thursday, infiltrating lineups of usual suspects that have dominated the voting for years.

Fox’s “Ally,” in particular, bucks tradition by becoming the first one-hour program to compete for best comedy, joining “3rd Rock From the Sun” and perennial nominees “Seinfeld,” “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Frasier,” which could make Emmy history itself by being named the outstanding sitcom an unprecedented fifth time.

Beyond breaking a record the NBC program now shares with “All in the Family,” “Cheers” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Frasier’s” fifth consecutive Emmy would provide the Kelsey Grammer series additional ammunition as it prepares to fill “Seinfeld’s” oversized shoes by taking over its key “Must See TV” Thursday slot.

“Seinfeld” and “Larry Sanders,” meanwhile, are but two of many series and stars exiting the prime-time stage for whom the Emmys represent a sort of farewell, with Ellen DeGeneres (whose controversial sitcom was canceled by ABC) and “NewsRadio” co-star Phil Hartman, who died in May, among the slate of nominees.

Yet this year’s ceremony will also feature an infusion of new programs and faces--such as “Dharma & Greg’s” Jenna Elfman and “Ally’s” Calista Flockhart--after many of the categories had become seemingly bogged down in repetition.

As it is, “Seinfeld” and “Law & Order” each garnered their seventh nominations in a row and, with the exception of “The Practice,” all the drama series contenders have been nominated for at least four straight years--a testimonial both to the quality of those shows and to the dearth of breakthrough newcomers in recent seasons. In joining that august company, “The Practice” bumps another Kelley-created show, CBS’ “Chicago Hope,” a nominee for three years running.

Thomas O’Neil, author of the guidebook “The Emmys,” thinks “Ally” is misclassified, calling its submission as best comedy “a clever ploy on [the producers’] part to avoid a more formidable fight in the drama category.”

Kelley also avoided putting “Ally” in competition with “The Practice,” a moderately rated show that stands to benefit more from Emmy accolades. (Producers determine the category in which they wish to submit a show. “Moonlighting” was the last one-hour program to seek a best comedy nomination, in 1985, before switching to drama in its second season.)

A proven favorite among Emmy voters who claimed two best drama awards as the creator of CBS’ “Picket Fences,” Kelley--who wrote every “Ally” episode this year, and most installments of “The Practice”--acknowledged Thursday that he’s most pleased by the recognition afforded the latter, which has bounced around ABC’s schedule and will move again, to Sundays, in the fall.

“A year ago, it was in very critical condition,” he said. “When it was stuck on Saturdays, nobody expected the prognosis to be good.”

The producer also defended “Ally McBeal’s” submission as a comedy, saying in regard to its dramatic moments that “some of the most emotional characters on television” have been in comedies. The show already established some comedy credentials, winning the Golden Globe under that designation in January.

Led by first-year hit “Ally” and “The X-Files,” Fox amassed 35 nominations, an all-time high for that network, putting it just behind CBS, whose total plummeted from 60 Emmy bids last year. NBC remained the Emmy leader, again followed by pay channel Home Box Office, whose miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” led all entries with 17 nominations, breaking “ER’s” three-year streak as the most-nominated program.

The major networks had mounted a campaign to keep “From the Earth to the Moon” out of the miniseries category, feeling the 12-hour docudrama chronicling the space program was actually a series. Its nominations included a best directing nod to Tom Hanks, who also produced the $68-million project.

Those ill feelings may be defused a bit, given that producer Robert Halmi Sr.--who spearheaded the anti-”Earth” crusade--landed two of the other miniseries nominations for his lavish productions of “Merlin” and “Moby Dick,” which aired on NBC and the USA network, respectively. TNT’s “George Wallace,” starring Hanks’ “Forrest Gump” co-star Gary Sinise, and “Armistead Maupin’s More Tales of the City,” which found a home on Showtime after PBS balked at bankrolling a sequel to its 1994 miniseries, round out the category.

The fracas surrounding “From the Earth to the Moon” stems in part from the fact that HBO has claimed the Emmy for best movie for five consecutive years, a sore point among the major networks. This year’s nominations will do nothing to dispel the perception that cable in general and HBO in particular--with its bigger budgets and more provocative themes--makes more compelling movies than the major networks.

HBO snagged three of this year’s five best movie bids--for “Don King: Only in America,” “Gia” and “A Bright Shining Lie”--and has received 18 of 30 nominations over the last six years.

“There’s a difference between trying to make something good and trying to make something popular,” said Chris Albrecht, HBO’s president of original programming. “Those two things don’t always go hand in hand.”

Despite the hoopla surrounding “Seinfeld’s” finale, Jerry Seinfeld was again overlooked in the lead actor voting. In addition, Hartman’s nomination as supporting actor pushed out Michael Richards, a three-time winner for “Seinfeld.” Co-star Jason Alexander--nominated eight times for the show without winning--did get a nod, as did “Frasier’s” David Hyde Pierce and the “Larry Sanders” duo of Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor.

“Seinfeld” was chosen as best comedy in 1993, before “Frasier” began its winning streak. In terms of other long-running comedy hits that left with widely seen farewell episodes, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” went out on an Emmy-winning note, while “MASH” and “Cheers” did not.

The departing “Larry Sanders,” meanwhile, has never won for best comedy, despite garnering the most nominations among half-hour series the last two years.

In addition to Hartman, who earned an Emmy in 1989 as a writer on “Saturday Night Live,” two other actors received posthumous nominations: Lloyd Bridges, for his guest role on “Seinfeld,” and J.T. Walsh, for a supporting part in the TNT movie “Hope”--a category that also includes 82-year-old Gregory Peck, a first-time Emmy nominee for “Moby Dick.”

Several breakthroughs occurred in the comedy actress voting, where three stars of first-year shows--Kirstie Alley (“Veronica’s Closet”), “Dharma’s” Elfman and “Ally McBeal’s” Flockhart--claimed nominations. They join DeGeneres, Patricia Richardson and Helen Hunt, a winner for the last two years for NBC’s “Mad About You” who also earned a best actress Oscar this year for the film “As Good as It Gets.”

After collecting five Emmys playing “Murphy Brown,” Candice Bergen stopped submitting herself for Emmy consideration two years ago. Her long-running comedy nabbed just two nominations in its swan song year.

Jimmy Smits and Andre Braugher--leaving “NYPD Blue” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” respectively, to pursue other career options--will each have a chance at winning for those shows, although the competition includes “Blue’s” Dennis Franz, who has taken home three Emmys in the last four years. Jane Seymour is also nominated for her canceled CBS drama “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

Proving the Emmys aren’t always a highbrow affair, Comedy Central’s scatological phenomenon “South Park” will vie for best animated program, a bracket that includes Fox’s “King of the Hill” and “The Simpsons.”

This year’s televised Emmy ceremony will air Sept. 13 on NBC, with awards in technical categories handed out two weeks earlier. To commemorate the event’s 50th anniversary, the awards will expand to four hours, beginning at 7 p.m. No single host will be featured, and for the first time--with the presentation shifting to the 6,000-seat Shrine Auditorium--several hundred tickets will be made available to the public.

The upcoming show assumes greater significance for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which presents and organizes the Emmys, because it’s the last under a four-year deal in which the telecast rotated among the four major networks, meaning the academy must negotiate a new broadcast deal after this year’s show.

Asked this week if Johnny Carson would participate, Emmy producer Don Mischer conceded such an occurrence is doubtful, noting that Carson once told him he would “rather sit in Malibu and watch the hummingbirds mate.” Carson has shunned virtually all public appearances since leaving “The Tonight Show” in 1992.