2008

Eligible Shows (meaning they predominantly aired between June 1, 2007 and May 31, 2008, and I watched them in their entirety)

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:

The BTA goes to:  Jane Krakowski for 30 Rock

Kristen Schaal is easily the funniest of the nominees, always making me laugh whenever she shows up to stalk Bret and Jemaine.  But Jane Krakowski gets to play more sides of Jenna, even though they're all basically just ways to attract more attention.  And this season, she kept me laughing even more than last year, as she gets fat from Mystic Pizza: The Musical, tries the Japanese porn star diet ("I can only eat paper, but I can have as much of it as I want"), meets with Dr. Spaceman to discuss her "crazy surgical options," dates a teenager who convinces her he goes to college, gets an entourage, falls for Kenneth when he's mean to her, takes over the musical number, and ends up recording audio for the porn-video game.  She's not used in every episode (to the show's detriment, if you ask me), but when she's around, I'm laughing. 

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy: 

The BTA goes to:  Jack McBrayer for 30 Rock

This was my toughest category of the night (in my head, the BTAs are awarded at a ceremony in the evening, televised with a red carpet ceremony hosted by Peter O'Toole and Oscar Wilde), but any choice would have been worthy.  Kenneth's caffeine addiction puts him over the top for me, especially since it made him the star of the midseason finale with his very own musical number.  He also had a page-off, worked as Tracy's work-wife, helped Jack coach Little League in Knuckle Beach, helped Jenna lose weight, did stupid things for money to buy Jack new pants, and tried to become a page at the Olympics.

"If you're not reading the Bible in German, you're not getting the real versteckte bedeutung of it."

"Uncle Butch was right.  I'm just a stupid country bumpkin with great skin and soft hands." 

Best Actress in a Comedy:

The BTA goes to:  Tina Fey for 30 Rock

Easiest call of the night.  Liz drunk dialing the Co-op Board is her version of Alec Baldwin's multi-character therapy session, and just as funny.  I also loved when she called Floyd in "Seinfeldvision" as a surveyor for the Ranford Group and then tried to play it tough when a woman answered.  And when CC asked her for advice and her taped-together bra broke (and she forgot her birthday).  And let's not forget Liz's German flashbacks, renewed relationships with Dennis and Floyd, and Liz going corporate.  Suck it, monkeys!  Lemon out!

Best Actor in a Comedy:

The BTA goes to:  Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock

"Da honkies shot me!"  With that, Alec Baldwin laid the first claim to the Best Actor in a Comedy BTA for this year, and he has yet to be bested.

"Never go with a hippie to a second location." 

Best Comedy: 

The BTA goes to:  30 Rock

Almost every episode has a guest star, and they were mostly perfect:  Greenzo, CC aka Mr. Spoonatelli aka Lakisha Guttierrez Arafat, Rosemary ("Help me, Liz Lemon.  You're my only hope"), James Carville, Cooter Burger, Angie (who got custody of Grizz), Raheem, the list goes on and on.  Season 2 of 30 Rock also gave us:  Svenborgia (a country only rich people know about), Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, Enorme (Make him chase the junk), Little Chechnya ("more murders per capita than Detroit"), being gay for Jamie, Jenna's entourage ("Bitch, are you in here?"), northrax, Sabor de Soledad, thought-sicles, hate-respect, gay-bones, nut-burgers, the therapy scene ("Lady, just because I'm an ignorant black man and you pay me a nickel to bust up your chifforobe..."), Liz drunk dialing the co-op board, Kenneth's party and the morning after, Knuckle Beach, Tracy's voting ad, Romeo and Juliet:  Capulets and Romulans, Samurai I Amurai, the German sitcoms, Liz's flashback to Germany, Child Liz's marriage to Saul Rosenbear, Candace van der Shark in "A Dog Took My Face and Gave Me a Better Face To Change the World:  The Celeste Cunningham Story," a bill to legalize recreational whale torture, the orange children of Scheinhardt Wigs ("this corporation has a very strict bros-before-hoes policy"), New York's anti-terrorism campaign ("If you suspect anything, do everything"), Grizz and Dot Com sucking up to Josh, Liz's corporate hairdo, Jack's surprise appointment to the Department of Homeland Security, Tracy's Pacific Rim Emmy ("Shark attack!"), Jenna's separate appointments for bone-shaving and eyeball-whitening, Kenneth's caffeine addiction and ensuing musical number, Dr. Spaceman's Amadeus cape, MILF Island, Are You Stronger Than a Dog?, and America's Next Top Pirate.  In my opinion, there was never any question as to the year's best comedy, actor, and actress.  Even when 30 Rock wasn't perfect, it was hilarious to me, and I'm happily surprised that it ended up sweeping the Comedy BTAs. 

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama:

The BTA goes to:  Christina Hendricks for Mad Men

From the first episode, I was obsessed with Joan the head secretary with sass constantly on call, partially out of obsession with Firefly and all related projects (except I Think I Love My Wife) and partially due to Christina Hendricks' clear relish in her part.  As the season progressed, however, it became clear that Joan was much more than comedy relief.  She is the first mistress of Sterling-Cooper, sleeping with Roger and keeping him lucid, while shouldering the responsibility for all the secretaries.  For all her hilariously bitchy barbs, she believes she's doing what's best for her girls and her company, and it's even sadder when we realize her life is not nearly as fabulous as she makes it out to be, and in fact, she has no life outside of Roger.  One of the many ways Mad Men shows us freedom is an illusion.  Through it all, Christina Hendricks is dedicated to finding the humanity in Joan so that we empathize with rather than pity her. 

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama:

The BTA goes to:  John Slattery for Mad Men

Roger Sterling is probably the most reliable comic relief on the show, especially when he avoids work, reveals that he's too high up to know what's going on among the junior accounts and creative guys, or expresses is disdain for Pete in front of him.  His affair with Joan only endeared him more, but in the last half of the season we saw more of his layers--taking Don's consideration of a job offer personally, his heart attack driving him to his wife Mona--and when Bert Cooper talks about the future standing in his office, we realize how great an asset John Slattery is. 

Best Actress in a Drama:

The BTA goes to:  Mary McDonnell for Battlestar Galactica

It's about damn time.  Mary McDonnell has been my favorite thing about Battlestar Galactica since the miniseries, and I finally get to reward her by saying, without a doubt in my mind, she gave the best lead actress performance in a drama this year.  I'd be dismayed at her lack of awards recognition (even outside the narrow-minded Emmys), but it's not surprising since Battlestar Galactica has failed to garner much attention outside of critical circles anyway.  But Laura Roslin has had yet another tremendous year, shooting at Starbuck, getting regular cancer treatments, moving ever closer to her closest friend, facing a tenuous alliance with cylons, and seeking answers to the questions she's been afraid to ask on board a rogue battlestar.  Her relationship with Baltar has always given Mary McDonnell phenomenal scenes, and this year continues that trend as she calls upon Baltar at his harem's dwelling in order to tell him she doesn't care about him, then coerces him into accompanying her to visit the hybrid where they are kidnapped, and eventually grapples with her conscience as she deals with his injuries.  But above even that glorious relationship, this year has pushed her into some surprising corners with Bill Adama, and I have been schoolgirlish in my tracking of their bond.  It's surprising that my favorite romance this year has been that of two middle-aged people, but when the "I love you" came, I actually applauded.  And because I have never yet been allowed to award Mary McDonnell with a BTA, I will ramble just a bit further in order to describe my favorite moment of hers this season:  As she bonds with a fellow cancer patient who passes on and crosses the river, Laura dreams of herself riding the boat to the shore where she sees her own lost loved ones, and the power of that single scene blows me away every time.  As much as I like the rest of this show, I desperately do not want to see a Battlestar Galactica without Mary McDonnell. 

Best Actor in a Drama: 

The BTA goes to:  Jon Hamm for Mad Men

Jon Hamm has been consistently impressive throughout the inaugural season of Mad Men, holding the existential period piece together with the simple question of Don Draper's true identity.  I'm not referring to Dick Whitman, Korean War soldier, either.  I'm talking about Don Draper's various roles, including condescending husband to wife Betty, big man on campus to Pete and the boys, occasional guide to secretary Peggy, and haunted escapee of his own past with his brother.  Hamm is a powerful center to Mad Men, and he only gets better as we delve deeper into Draper's life.  While I absolutely love his showdown with Pete leading them both to Cooper's office and his plea with Rachel to run away with him when faced with the prospect of his outing and his dressing down of Midge and the beatniks, my favorite scene of Jon Hamm's so far is his carousel speech.  Almost a year after I first heard it, thinking about Draper selling the idea of a carousel--not a wheel--travelling the way a child travels--amidst old photos of him and his family...well, it may even be more moving now.  He's such a good salesman, he even convinces himself, even though you know he's not really going to change. 

Best Drama: 

The BTA goes to:  The Wire 

It came down to Mad Men and the final season of The Wire (although it goes without saying that I think each of these nominees are brilliant and worthy over their competition that didn't make the cut), but skimming through The Wire, it's obvious that it has the advantage of four years of build-up.  Setting aside the season's excellent stories of McNulty and Freamon finally prosecuting the Marlo Stanfield organization through a unique, illegal method and the Baltimore Sun suffering cutbacks forcing its staff to deal with their precarious job positions, this final season gave us a lot of payoff for longer-running stories.  Marlo gets too big for his britches and kills Prop Joe and Butchie, bringing Spiros Vondas and Omar back to town.  Carcetti's fallen under the influence of Machiavellian Chief of Staff Michael Steintorf, fighting for the governorship while doing nothing to relieve the tragic lack of funding for the police department, whose officers must face no over-time and broken vehicles.  Meanwhile, Michael and Dukie fall more permanently into their lives on the streets, no thanks to the fearsome Chris Partlow and Snoop, while Bubbles starts living in his sister's basement, slowly getting his act together after the death of Sherrod.  And Randy, Namond, Bunny, Prez, Beadie, and everyone else get one last goodbye.  The highs were as high as the best television (Snoop's murder, Omar jumping out the window, everything in the finale), and the lows were hard-hitting emotionally (Randy, Dukie, Michael, take your pick).  As outstanding as I think the inaugural season of Mad Men is, nothing can really hold a candle to the final season of a show that has taken four years to develop an intricate universe of characters and histories.  And it doesn't hurt that I think The Wire is the best drama ever.

2008 BTA Winners: 

2008:  The Best of the Rest: 

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