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Specials

The two-hour documentary The Secret Life of Geisha (8 p.m. EDT/ 9 PDT Sun., A&E) goes inside the world of the geisha and chronicles the role these women played in Japanese society throughout history. Animal Farm (8 p.m. Sun., TNT), George Orwell’s classic novel about how power corrupts, comes to life in a “Babe”-esque
TV movie populated by talking animals. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop designed the special effects; Pete Postlethwaite heads the human cast, with Kelsey Grammer, Patrick Stewart, Peter Ustinov and Julia Ormond among those providing the voices of the animals. When animals behave like people, people behave like animals: the new TV movie Road Rage (9 p.m. Sun., NBC) stars Yasmine Bleeth as a woman terrorized by a driver (Jere Burns) sorely lacking in anger management skills. Mia Farrow plays a woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at an early age in the new TV movie Forget Me Never (9 p.m. Sun., CBS). Martin Sheen plays her uncommunicative husband; Colm Feore is the fellow patient with whom she bonds.

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Sports

Baseball:

Marlins at Braves (7:35 p.m. Fri., TBS)

Football:

Jaguars at Steelers, Ravens at Falcons, Patriots at Browns (1 p.m. Sun., CBS)

Cardinals at Cowboys, Saints at Bears, Eagles at Giants, Rams at Bengals, Buccaneers at Vikings (1 p.m. Sun., Fox)

Panthers at Redskins (4 p.m. Sun., Fox)

Jets at Broncos, Chiefs at Chargers, Titans at 49ers (4:15 p.m. Sun., CBS)

Raiders at Seahawks (8:15 p.m. Sun., ESPN)

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Talk

Rosie O’Donnell (syndicated) Mia Farrow

David Letterman (CBS) Kelsey Grammer, Rebecca Gayheart

Jay Leno (NBC) Keri Russell, Meredith Brooks with Queen Latifah

Chris Rock (HBO) Rev. Al Sharpton

Politically Incorrect (ABC) Jeri Ryan, Joshua Bell

Conan O’Brien (NBC) Kevin Spacey, Christina Applegate

I write two regular columns on sex and dating and have recently retired from a third. I know firsthand that any columnist who hopes to maximize tranquility in her relationships had better understand that her life takes precedence over the needs of her column. In her debut novel, “Run Catch Kiss,” Amy Sohn — a self-described scribe of “smut” for the New York Press — has ably and wittily depicted what happens when a writer instead permits her column to dictate how she lives her life.

Every once in a while somebody will ask me if I know Sohn personally. To date, I haven’t made her acquaintance. But I can see why they might assume we’ve crossed paths. From her column, “Female Trouble,” I know that we have much in common: We are approximately the same age, Jewish and Ivy-League-educated. We’re both strangers to shyness and feel constantly stymied by the cultural disapproval leveled on women who behave like men. We’ve both logged time on the therapist’s couch.

Most conspicuously, we have both exploited our youth, our relative comeliness and our willingness to publicize, for personal and professional gain, that which is normally private. (Not that comely young women are the only writers with a knack and taste for self-exploitation, but if you can find me a successful, first-person sex columnist who is 1) fat; 2) elderly or 3) a straight male who’s not automatically branded a misogynist for excoriating past lovers with the license that women are routinely granted, let me know.)

I do not, however, write about my personal life the way Sohn does. “Female Trouble” has always made me cringe, which is impressive, since no one has ever accused me of being squeamish. Sohn renders her printed sexcapades — which, even when she’s between beaux, seem as numerous and outrageous as mine are sporadic and comparatively vanilla — in minute, nearly pornographic detail (whereas just graphic might have sufficed) and in the crudest possible terms. (Lest anyone accuse me of envying Sohn’s accomplishment, let me promise here that praise for her savvy novel, which is well-earned, will come later.)

This is a woman who has described, among other things, an instance of swallowing on the second date; bantering sexually with a boyfriend’s father; and even the exact appearance of her own excrement. She has also penned frightful accounts of her pathetic attempts to win the affection of near-strangers who clearly view Sohn as nothing more than a receptacle.

I won’t deny that I read these vignettes with fascination, but I’ve had some trouble relating to them. This is because I — like the majority of single women I know — am someone whose orifices, are, alas, not being ploughed with such enviable frequency (though potential suitors with Madonna-whore complexes have trouble believing this) and such unenviable disdain.

The explicit bawdiness of Sohn’s column wouldn’t offend me if it felt like it amounted to more than a self-conscious attempt to shock — if it signified something bigger than a provocateur’s bratty tricks masquerading as sexual honesty. Such trash-talking pyrotechnics aren’t truly honest: Nobody — not even the extremely randy and gutter-mouthed troupe I’m proud to call my friends — says things like, “[He] flipped me onto my stomach and ground my beef,” or “He was such a terrific muff muncher that it only took [a short time] to make the kitty purr,” and certainly not “[N]othing makes me grin like the sweet fresh taste of seed” (not even those for whom this sentiment is accurate!). Sohn has also alluded to her own pudendum as her “Lincoln Tunnel” and her “gleaming manhole” (although sometimes she suffices with a simple “hole”).

The aggressive showiness and utter retardation of these bon mots, coupled with Sohn’s no-details-spared narration, suggest her hell-bent determination that people know her name at whatever cost to her personal life. This is a writer’s right, of course, and I don’t object to it on moral grounds — but even as a fellow byline-loving gal, I just can’t empathize. Say what you will about a columnist’s responsibility to lay herself completely bare: I have never felt an obligation to mine every last thought, fantasy, person and tryst (replete with positions and orgasmic utterances). I don’t tell all; I tell as much as I and the people I care about most can tolerate (which is still a lot more than is the case with the average Jill).

There are other reasons why, prior to reading “Run Catch Kiss,” I had determined that I probably wouldn’t like Sohn very much if I ever did wind up meeting her. For someone who kick-boxed “The Rules” (in an admittedly funny retort called “The Drools”), she sometimes seems awfully willing to scheme for a mate, even if the prospect in question is a prodigious loser. Then there is the recent New York Post article in which Sohn described Candace Bushnell, the glamorous creator of “Sex and the City,” as “the bane of my existence,” because Sohn’s column is always being compared to the one Bushnell wrote for the New York Observer. The way Sohn then pointed out the age difference between herself and Bushnell — ostensibly to differentiate their perspectives — seemed a nasty bit of intra-gender competition to me, especially since Sohn should consider the comparison a compliment.

And yet, while Sohn’s column ain’t my cup o’ whatever bodily fluid she’s writing about, I would be guilty of professional envy if I didn’t salute her kamikaze bravery. The extent to which she is willing to risk censure is almost mind-boggling. And as self-aggrandizing and self-destructive as she is, Sohn is also self-deprecatory and self-aware. (Still, just because somebody acknowledges her narcissism, as Sohn has, doesn’t mean that the trait becomes any more palatable.)

Imagine my surprise then to discover upon reading “Run Catch Kiss” that Sohn is a helluva comic writer! This touching, funny book operates on three levels. It’s a warped story about a young woman’s doomed endeavors to empower herself through a brazen, exhibitionistic sexuality. If we can believe Simon & Schuster’s press release, it’s also a roman ` clef about Sohn’s experiences as a sex columnist at the New York Press. And, last but not least, it just might be a confession that her most wince-worthy columns were utterly bogus. On all of these levels, it works.

“Run Catch Kiss” tracks the rise and fall of Brooklyn-bred Ariel Steiner, who is — like the author herself was three years ago — 22, fresh out of Brown, a temp and an aspiring actor when she becomes a weekly columnist at an alternative downtown paper. (The way Sohn skewers her own N.Y. Press employers and colleagues by limning the Press’ fictitious counterpart, City Week, is at once affectionate and impudent).

Ariel is intellectually but not emotionally sophisticated, and even prior to landing the writing gig, she displays a masochistic penchant for horrible men — for instance, a Rogaine-using, ex-junkie musician who sends her out to forage for food while he bathes and who won’t even kiss her as she masturbates him. She rewards these cretins with physical favors and far more chances than they deserve.

Her self-abasement is partially a counter-phobic response to insecurity about her attractiveness and sexual competence (caused by belated orgasmic capacity), but it’s also fueled by a competitive brand of egotism. Indeed, on some level, these unpleasant liaisons are failed power plays: As she explains, “I have always been a sucker for guys who think they’re hot shit because I want to be the one woman to turn them into the weak fucks they really are.” And Sohn is onto something here: How often do women willingly augment a slimy Don Juan’s rap sheet because they’re seduced by the ego trip, the ostensible coup, in the prospect of playing Annette Bening to his Warren Beatty? Suckers.

The opportunity to pen sex columns seems a logical answer to Ariel’s dual longings for fame and sexual power: “I was a hopeless romantic trapped in the body of a seething hussy,” she says. “I wanted passion and companionship and deep discussion … sidewalk embraces and hand holding and hair caressing … But I didn’t know how I was supposed to get it … If I couldn’t beat the boys, wasn’t it wisest to join them? And get paid for it in the process?”

So Ariel will have her rakes and eat them too. Deep down, she knows that playing the “pomo ho” (as she calls her anti-bimbo, lowbrow-by-choice, sex-kitten persona) will come between her and a relationship based on something real. But she doesn’t have faith that dropping the slut act will help her find the love she craves either, so she’ll settle for meaningless sex and notoriety for now. (I myself must confess that one of the most seductive perks of this job is the show-stopping effect that answering “What do you do?” has at dinner parties.)

Sohn’s facility with non-four-letter words is impressive. Perhaps it’s simply that she has more room here than in her column to humanize her protagonist — to buffer Ariel’s crudity, histrionic come-ons and ridiculous columns with lots of genuine feeling and sharp insights. An understanding of Ariel’s behavior doesn’t necessarily make her likeable, but it does make her intriguing.

For example, even as she rues the way men fuck and flee her, Ariel keeps presenting herself as interested in little more than fast, easy, uncomplicated, even predatory sex. Talking about her column persona in the third person, she says:

Ariel Steiner … wasn’t looking for any relationship deeper than her own vagina. She sought quick dick and nothing more, didn’t speak to her lays in the morning, and fucked to come, even though I couldn’t. Half of me despised her and the other half wanted to be her.

All too often, the second half wins out. Telling herself it’s good for the column, she calls up a man she hasn’t seen in years and leaves what’s essentially a phone-sex monologue on his machine. Later, she has two wholly unsatisfying assignations with him (one in a porno booth). While she can tell herself it’s for the column, Sohn reveals how Ariel’s need to hook up with this cad runs deeper:

Ariel Steiner … rubbed her face in the grimiest, most low-down centers of debauchery … then came up smiling … Ariel Steiner can fuck in a porno booth and come out feeling liberated, not gross. I wanted to be able to do it. I wanted not to be afraid.

Unfortunately, Ariel is always afraid — of loneliness, of rejection, of anonymity — which is why it’s so hard for her to turn the persona off, even when she’s not writing. When one of her editors first meets her and compliments her firm handshake, she retorts, “It’s from all those hand jobs.” Ariel substitutes effrontery for charm, just as she’ll take notoriety as a consolation prize for the greater fame that eludes her, and just as she’ll settle for soulless sex — it ain’t love, but hey, it’s better than celibacy.

Ariel eventually does find love. And throughout her protagonist’s painful journey, Sohn makes trenchant observations about the ways that sex and love can disappoint. Ariel’s frustration with her partners’ dishonesty and emotional cowardice is summed up concisely: “Usually when guys stroke my hair while I’m giving head it makes me want to stop, because it feels so disingenuous. I know they’re not feeling tender and it makes me angry that they’re pretending to.” I also admired this sadly wry riff on whether her boyfriend’s inability to verbalize his love truly means anything:

I was taking the word issue too seriously anyway. Because I love you never means I love you anyway. Usually, it means, I want to hear that you love me. It’s a cue and nothing more. Sometimes it means, The sex we’re having right now is feeling incredibly animalistic and nonemotional and I’d like for it to feel warm and romantic instead. And sometimes it just means, I really want to get off the phone.

Sohn has also wisely given Ariel many opportunities to check in with her parents and brother — who are ultimately, albeit nervously, supportive of her choices. Ariel’s brother is only weirded out by the way the column’s steamiest passages get him excited (this is, after all, his sister). Her parents are torn between pride at seeing their daughter’s byline and horror at the antics described under it. One week, Ariel runs a column sans sex, and while her editors aren’t happy, her father gives it a rave review: “If my dad was happy with what I was writing,” Ariel laments, “it meant I had to find myself some action, soon.”

Due to unconsummated seductions, a man who threatens to stop dating her if he’s turned into column fodder, or something she doesn’t want to confess to her readership (like her orgasmic difficulties), Ariel spends a lot of time fretting over how to fill up her column. This pressure, largely self-inflicted, leads her to engage in acts that leave her feeling horrible and it leads her to fabricate others.

Her smaller transgressions include embellishing the porno-booth incident (as if it needed help) and taking credit for aborting a liaison that was actually ended by the man. But she also makes up, wholesale, a lesbian affair (to satiate her readers and to avoid writing about a manic-depressive boyfriend) as well as a heterosexual one. (This last is to make another boyfriend — a sweet commitment-phobe — believe that she’s cheating on him. Don’t ask.) Eventually, Ariel’s employers discover her fabrications, and she is fired amid threats of a Stephen Glass-like uproar — replete, absurdly enough, with the specter of a grim fact-checking investigation into yarns with titles like “Smutlife,” “Stench of a Woman” and “Dyke Hands.”

What are we to make of the fact that Sohn refers to and appropriates some of her own past columns and presents them as Ariel’s experiences and writings, both real and made up? After all, Sohn could easily have concocted brand new columns to serve as her fictional alter egos. For example, Ariel alludes to a few columns she’s written about a female bedmate she calls “Beat Writer,” and tells us that her trysts with the woman are a fabrication. Well, a long time ago, Sohn wrote about a lesbian affair she had with a woman she called “Beat Writer.” So does this mean that Sohn didn’t have a lesbian affair, either, or is she just trying to distance herself from true confessions she regrets having made in the past? Are Sohn’s own columns sometimes fabricated or aren’t they? And if some of her Press columns are bogus, is their incorporation into her novel a safe way for Sohn to confess to her journalistic crimes — or is she merely making excuses for the shoddy, crass writing contained therein? And even if some of her tales aren’t true, does that negate the bravery I lauded earlier — i.e., that of publishing material that is sure to wreak havoc on her social life, in the name of baring her soul? (It’s not as if Ariel’s fabrications make her appear to be a kinder or mentally healthier person: just the opposite.)

Whatever the answers, this fusion of fact and fiction is as clever as it is transparent. Now Sohn can assure her parents and future partners that her most daunting and poorly-written columns were just fiction; yet by writing “Run Catch Kiss” as a novel instead of a memoir, she can tell her editors that Ariel’s fabrication is what’s fictional. Pomo ho, indeed!

Such ingenuity bodes well for Sohn’s future as a novelist, and I understand that she has also written a screenplay for a movie. Sohn has already acknowledged in print that she doesn’t want to write “Female Trouble” forever. I think that she can resist being typecast as a sex writer if she chooses. With “Run Catch Kiss,” Sohn is beginning to write her way out of a box: her own.

But, still … What if this were the year the Emmy nominations were really based on
merit, not popularity, snobbery or inertia? Hey, it could happen! Several
reliable nominees from years past, like “Seinfeld,” “The Larry Sanders
Show” and “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” are no more. Slots are up for grabs.
If ever there was a time for Emmy voters to make that great leap into the
present, it’s now.

To help the academy along, I’ve compiled my own list of fantasy-league Emmy
nominees. But I’m making some major rule changes. First and foremost, I’m
instituting term limits for Emmy nominees. Under this new rule, which shall
be known as the Candice Bergen Statute, once a performer wins two Emmys for
the same role, said performer is automatically enshrined in the Hall of
Fame and ineligible for further nominations in that role. This rule would
erase the high dij` vu factor that makes the Emmy telecast such a yawn. I
mean, would you watch the Academy Awards if you knew that Gwyneth Paltrow
was going to keep winning that Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love” for the next
four years? No! So what makes the TV Academy think we want to see Dennis
Franz (three), Helen Hunt (three), Kelsey Grammer (three) or Candice Bergen
(five) hogging all the hardware? Give it up!

Series, however, would be exempt from term limits. Unlike performances,
which tend not to vary greatly from season to season, wonderful shows can
easily have terrible years, due to cast changes, bad plot decisions and
mass cases of writer’s block. A series is a living, breathing, evolving
thing, as anybody who suffered through the “Seinfeld” slump of ’94 can tell
you.

My other big rules change would be to nominate prime-time animated sitcoms
– yes, cartoons — in the best comedy series category, where they should
have been all along (they’re currently segregated in an animation
category). Last season, there were more animated series in prime-time than
ever before — Fox has built entire nights around non-human sitcoms — and
the ‘toons deserve some respect. There was a live action sitcom drought in
1998-99, and it’s going to show up in the Emmy nominations, I betcha, with
shaky efforts like “Sports Night” or “Just Shoot Me” dragged in to fill up
slots that should rightfully belong to “The Simpsons” and “King of the
Hill.”

Of course, once you start nominating cartoons in the best comedy series
category, you’ve created a whole other problem: Where do you nominate the
voice actors? I’ve thought long and hard about this and I have to say –
beats me. On the one hand, Kathy Najimy’s voice-only Peggy Hill on “King of
the Hill” is a fascinating and fleshed-out performance (much more so than
her live-action work as Olive on “Veronica’s Closet”). So shouldn’t she be
nominated with the other comedy actresses? But, then, what do you do with
Pamela Segall, the woman who voice-acts the part of the most exquisitely
strange adolescent boy on TV, Bobby Hill from “King of the Hill”? Would you
nominate her for best supporting actress, even though her character is
male? You see how tricky this is?

So here’s a compromise suggestion. The animated sitcoms get nominated in
the regular best comedy series category (and in the comedy writing and
directing categories), but the voice actors are nominated in their own
voice actor categories. It’s not perfect, but, hey, if you don’t like it,
get your own fantasy.

And now, the nominees:

Best drama series

Last year’s nominees: “ER” (NBC); “Law & Order” (NBC); “NYPD Blue”
(ABC); “The Practice” (ABC, winner); “The X-Files” (Fox)

My nominees: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (WB); “Homicide: Life on the
Street ” (NBC); “NYPD Blue”; “The Practice”; “The Sopranos” (HBO)

The big question is, Will the academy have the cannolis to snub “The Sopranos,” far and away
the best drama series of the year? Given academy voters’ history of
embarrassing cluelessness, don’t be surprised if the nominations come out
and the sublimely written, directed and acted “Sopranos” is as invisible as
Jimmy Hoffa. In my fantasy, it gets a nomination (and the award).

It’s an even safer bet that the academy will once again ignore WB’s “Buffy
the Vampire Slayer” as best drama. Most voters probably hear that title,
look down their noses at its WB pedigree and dismiss it as “teen junk.” The
media uproar over (nonexistent) similarities to Littleton in the “Buffy”
season finale won’t help either. But “Buffy,” a dazzlingly original tour de
force of drama, comedy, horror and romance is second only to “The Sopranos”
on my list. Series creator Joss Whedon gets nominated, too, for his writing
and directing.

Last year’s best drama series winner, “The Practice,” is assured of another
Emmy nomination, and that’s OK by me — David E. Kelley’s legal drama had
another fine season of attorney angst and juicy personal crises. “NYPD
Blue” had a transitional year that dealt viewers one too many heartbreaks
and focused too heavily on Dennis Franz in the wake of Jimmy Smits’ departure. Yet
it remains the most haunting, emotionally naked series on TV. It’s more
than the sum of its parts, so I’m giving it the edge over “Law & Order,”
even though “L&O” has dealt with cast changes better (and more often) than
any other series on the air and keeps pumping out good, solid
entertainment. It just doesn’t move me the way “Blue” does.

I’m also torn when it comes to a personal favorite, “The X-Files.” The show
had some amazing episodes last season — Chris Carter deserves directing
nominations for “Triangle” and “Two Fathers”/”One Son.” But the conspiracy
angle seems to have run out of gas. And while the light-hearted episodes
were fun, they didn’t add up to much. So I’m going with “Homicide.” I know,
I know, I dissed it all year. But even though the show has lost some of its
luster, it still had enough left over to make you sorry to see it get axed.
“Homicide” has never been nominated for a best drama series Emmy, and
that’s a crime; I’m giving it a nomination for old times’ sake. Yes, I’m
breaking my “on merit only” rule, but this is my fantasy, so I get to do
stuff like that.

Best actor, drama

Last year’s nominees: Andre Braugher (“Homicide,” winner); David
Duchovny (“The X-Files”); Anthony Edwards (“ER”); Dennis Franz (“NYPD
Blue”); Jimmy Smits (“NYPD Blue”)

My nominees: Duchovny; James Gandolfini (“The Sopranos”); Steve
Harris (“The Practice”); Dylan McDermott (“The Practice”); Smits

Franz’s three Emmys for “Blue” disqualify him under the Bergen Statute.
Braugher left “Homicide” before last season began. Edwards does a solid
job, but I think there are worthier contenders. That leaves three slots,
and I’m filling them with James Gandolfini, Dylan McDermott and Steve
Harris. As Tony Soprano, the Jersey mobster and upwardly mobile suburban
family man on Prozac, Gandolfini gives the sort of powerhouse performance
you’d expect to find in a big-screen mob epic. His portrait of a man in the
middle — middle manager, middle-age, middle-class — is both tough and
lean. The bearish Gandolfini makes Tony as poignantly confused as any guy
who only wants to do what’s best for his family, but he doesn’t spare us
from the tension-sprung violence coiled around his heart.

In any other TV season, Gandolfini for best actor would be a no-brainer.
But this was the season Jimmy Smits died. Well, he didn’t really die, but
he had you fooled, didn’t he? Smits made a stunning exit from “NYPD Blue”; his
deathbed scenes were a lesson in subtlety and control. My vote still goes
to Gandolfini, but Smits sure did earn his nomination — even if he only
appeared in four episodes. As for Duchovny, he’s at his best when he’s
doing dryly mischievous comedy with an undertone of desperation, and last
season gave him ample opportunity to get seriously silly.

Don’t hate Dylan McDermott because he’s beautiful. McDermott is an unlikely, but fascinating, father figure on “The Practice.”
As the founder of his law firm, McDermott’s Bobby Donnell has to make the
decisions for his squabbling brood. But deep down, this whip-smart stud is
a package of insecurities and neuroses. I’m nominating McDermott’s burly
castmate, Harris, as a lead actor, not a supporting actor. Harris’
character, lawyer Eugene Young, carries as much of the emotional weight of
“The Practice” as McDermott’s Donnell. And Harris brings a quiet passion
to his role as an idealistic guy who can’t figure out whether his loyalties
should belong to the black community, to the law or to the dollar.
McDermott and Harris are an acting team. Look out, Franz and Rick Schroder.

Best actress, drama

Last year’s nominees: Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”); Roma Downey
(“Touched by an Angel”); Christine Lahti (“Chicago Hope,” winner); Julianna
Margulies (“ER”); Jane Seymour (“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”)

My nominees: Anderson; Kim Delaney (“NYPD Blue”); Edie Falco (“The
Sopranos”); Sarah Michelle Gellar (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Margulies

The looseness of this season of “The X-Files” worked well for Anderson,
too, who got to show off Scully’s charming playful side. Delaney has
already won a best supporting actress Emmy for her role as Diane Russell on
“NYPD Blue,” but I’m bumping her up for her lovely work in the Smits
deathwatch episodes. Margulies continued her fine performance as the
poker-faced, dry-witted and intensely complicated Carol Hathaway on “ER.”
The show’s male actors may get all the attention, but Margulies is the
heart and soul of the show. When she leaves after next season, “ER” may as
well close up shop.

Edie Falco deeply deserves a nomination as the no-bullshit Mafia wife
Carmela Soprano, especially for the episode where she finally tells off
Father Phil, the teasing priest who led her to believe that she was his
special favorite. Man, the look on her face when she dumped the rigatoni
she prepared for him into the garbage …

My vote for best actress, however, goes to Sarah Michelle Gellar for her
big, big star turn on “Buffy.” The girl can do it all: tender love scenes,
smart-mouth sarcasm, body slammin’ action, teenage flakiness. Gellar has
created a character who is the very essence of verge-of-adulthood emotional
chaos. There isn’t a better young actress working on TV today. Gellar
rocks. Do you hear that, academy members? She rocks.

Best supporting actress, drama

Last year’s nominees: Kim Delaney (“NYPD Blue”); Laura Innes (“ER”);
Camryn Manheim (“The Practice,” winner); Della Reese (“Touched by an
Angel”); Gloria Reuben (“ER”)

My nominees: Lara Flynn Boyle (“The Practice”); Alyson Hannigan
(“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Innes (“ER”); Manheim; Nancy Marchand
(“The Sopranos”)

These are all exceptional performances. Boyle’s prosecutor Helen Gamble is
a fierce portrayal of blind ambition. Hannigan has always been a delight as
Willow, the sweet class smarty-pants who is tougher than she appears.
Innes’ busybody Kerry Weaver remains a marvel of characterization; she’s
like the taskmaster professor who you can’t stand when you’re in her class
but, years later, you realize you admire. And Manheim, who won one
for all the fat girls last year, had another terrific season as Ellenor
Frutt, the attorney who says exactly what’s on her mind.

But these women are going to have to defer to Nancy Marchand’s Livia Soprano.
Marchand, who won four Emmys for her role as Mrs. Pynchon on “Lou Grant,”
is an academy favorite; she’s the only cast member of “The Sopranos” who is
virtually assured of a nomination. And she deserves to win; Livia is a
towering character, the antithesis of the sweet little old granny. Marchand
is best known for playing elegant ladies with strong backbones. Livia ain’t
elegant, but when it comes to backbone, she’s all steel.

Best supporting actor, drama

Last year’s nominees: Gordon Clapp (“NYPD Blue,” winner); Hector
Elizondo (“Chicago Hope”); Steven Hill (“Law & Order”); Eriq LaSalle
(“ER”); Noah Wyle (“ER”)

My nominees: Dominic Chianese (“The Sopranos”); Anthony Stewart Head
(“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Michael Imperioli (“The Sopranos”); Clark
Johnson (“Homicide”); Rick Schroder (“NYPD Blue”)

I have no idea what the academy saw in Clapp’s performance last year. The
guy is OK, but he’s strictly background noise. As for Elizondo (and the
other “Chicago Hope” nominees), does anybody watch this show? Hill
is a fine, sage presence; I’d nominate him again if I had room. And I
suggest that whoever submits the nominees for “ER” end their little
charade. Wyle and LaSalle are both lead actors, and it’s insulting
to cheat them into the nominations this way.

So I’m proposing a clean slate in this category. Chianese is a joy as Uncle
Junior Soprano, the proud, old-style mob boss who’s a few cards shy of a
deck (but, oh, he’s got a bedroom trick that drives the ladies wild). The
dark-browed Imperioli provides both heat and comic relief as Christopher,
the Soprano crew’s young gun and loose cannon. Clark Johnson has served
viewers well as Meldrick Lewis, one of the original characters on
“Homicide”; his cool, assured work deserves some recognition. Rick Schroder
came into as tough a situation as you’ll find on TV — former kiddie star
replaces popular lead of thinking-person’s cop show. But Schroder made an
immediate impact as tightly wound young Detective Danny Sorenson. He was
soon made to walk in Franz’s shadow, though, which is why I’m nominating
him for a supporting Emmy. But next year, when we find out what makes Danny
so antsy around sexual predators (was he abused as a kid?), Schroder will
be moving up to the bigs.

Buffy’s tweedy British watcher (protector), Giles, played by Anthony
Stewart Head, is one of the most intriguing characters on any series. He’s
a bookworm who’s proficient with a vampire-killing crossbow; he’s a
tongue-tied romantic who was once in a devil-worshiping punk band; he’s all
business, but sometimes he looks at Buffy with something approaching — I
don’t dare say. Giles is not your typical voice of adult reason, and Head
makes you appreciate the complexities of this repressed middle-aged man who
hangs around with teenagers because he’s mourning his lost youth. An Emmy
for the Taster’s Choice guy!

Best comedy series:

Last year’s nominees: “Ally McBeal” (Fox); “Frasier” (NBC, winner);
“The Larry Sanders Show” (HBO); “Seinfeld” (NBC); “3rd Rock From the Sun”
(NBC)

My nominees: “Everybody Loves Raymond” (CBS); “Friends” (NBC); “King
of the Hill” (Fox); “Sex and the City” (HBO); “The Simpsons” (Fox)

“Seinfeld” and “Sanders” are gone. “3rd Rock” is over. The frothy soufflé
that once was “Frasier” has fallen into a mess of tired “we’re smarter than
you” jokes and wimpy pathos. If any Emmy category is ripe for an overhaul,
it’s this one. So I’m nominating the long-neglected “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill,” two of the funniest,
wisest sitcoms about family life on the tube today. The voters will
probably nominate “Ally McBeal” again, which is great, because that means I
don’t have to. On my list, her slot goes to “Friends,” the last light of
Must See Thursday glimmering on NBC. “Friends” had a hilarious, resurgent
year, carried by the Chandler-Monica secret love plot line. Putting these
über-neurotics together was a stroke of genius. And in the “no chance, but
what the hell” slot, I’m nominating the good, dirty fun of “Sex and the City,”
a smartly written diary of the single-gal life in Manhattan with fizzy work
from its ensemble cast.

My choice for best comedy, though, is “Everybody Loves Raymond.” How the
academy has managed to completely ignore “Raymond” for the past two years
qualifies for an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries.” “Raymond” is that rarest
of shows: a sitcom about family ties that never gets tripped up in
cuteness, sentimentality or Very Special Episode-ness. It has a tart
undertone of truth about marriage and parenthood that’s unusual and
refreshing compared to sapfests like “Home Improvement” (and crapfests like
“Family Guy”). But enough of this “TV’s best-kept secret” stuff. “Raymond”
deserves an Emmy. And make it retroactive.

Best actor, comedy

Last year’s nominees: Michael J. Fox (“Spin City”); Kelsey Grammar
(“Frasier,” winner); John Lithgow (“3rd Rock From the Sun”); Paul Reiser
(“Mad About You”); Garry Shandling (“The Larry Sanders Show”)

My nominees: Drew Carey (“The Drew Carey Show”); Dave Foley
(“NewsRadio”); Kevin James (“The King of Queens”); Norm Macdonald (“Norm”);
Ray Romano (“Everybody Loves Raymond”)

With three-time winners Grammer and Lithgow ineligible for my Emmys, and Shandling off
the air, it’s open mike night at the comedy club. I’m tossing Fox because
being a nice guy shouldn’t be the sole criterion for getting nominated. I’m
tossing Reiser because, well, he bores me.

Carey has created a genuinely complex character, a single-guy sad sack who
happens to be very funny. James was a nice surprise as a cliché-free
blue-collar suburban husband in “King of Queens,” the funniest new sitcom
of the year. Macdonald showed some real flash in his mid-season replacement
series; OK, he’s a cruel bastard, but he has a killer delivery. He makes me
laugh — I’m sorry. And let’s show the brilliantly droll Dave Foley a
little appreciation for carrying the now-defunct “NewsRadio” through the
most difficult, storm-tossed run any sitcom has ever had. I’d give the
Emmy, though, to Ray Romano, who thinks he’s a bad actor, but he’s not. As
Ray Barone, a husband who can’t read his wife’s moods and a son who still
fears his mother’s wrath, Romano wears a crash survivor’s look of wary
blankness that occasionally breaks into a grin of goofy desperation. If
Romano isn’t acting and this is really his life, as he’s fond of saying in
interviews, we should all feel very, very sorry for him.

Best actress, comedy

Last year’s nominees: Kirstie Alley (“Veronica’s Closet”); Ellen
DeGeneres (“Ellen”); Jenna Elfman (“Dharma and Greg”); Calista Flockhart
(“Ally McBeal”); Helen Hunt (“Mad About You,” winner); Patricia Richardson
(“Home Improvement”)

My nominees: Flockhart; Patricia Heaton (“Everybody Loves Raymond”);
Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex and the City”); Leah Remini (“The King of
Queens”)

Three Emmys and you’re out, Helen Hunt. DeGeneres is long gone. Alley and
Richardson — are you kidding? The only one of last year’s crowded field
who makes it back on my list is Flockhart. Hey, anybody who can play a
character this annoying must be a good actress. Sarah Jessica Parker
is doing terrific work as the brainy sex columnist with a soft spot for the
wrong guy on “Sex and the City.” Leah Remini, too, is proving herself to be
a comedy diva on “The King of Queens”; playing a scrappy career woman
walking a tightrope between her blue-collar roots and her yuppie
aspirations, Remini has the tough-pixie sparkle of old-time Hollywood
comedienne Claudette Colbert.

But Patricia Heaton owns this category. As the cranky, over-extended Debra
on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Heaton is exploding a family sitcom trend. On
shows like “Family Ties,” “Growing Pains,” “Home Improvement” and “The
Hughleys,” the husband/father gets to do all the funny stuff, while the
wife/mom hovers around as a vague sassy-but-nurturing presence. Heaton, on
the other hand, is as commanding as Mary Tyler Moore’s Laura Petrie and
Lucille Ball’s Lucy Ricardo; she has impeccable timing, she isn’t afraid to
play her character as a woman who frequently makes a mess of things and she
gets to do as much funny stuff as co-star Romano. Plus, Heaton managed all
this while wrapped in blankets or photographed from the shoulders up to
hide her real-life pregnancy.

By the way, I couldn’t come up with a fifth actress who deserved a
nomination in this category. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Best supporting actor, comedy

Last year’s nominees: Jason Alexander (“Seinfeld”); Phil Hartman
(“NewsRadio”); David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier,” winner); Jeffrey Tambor (“The
Larry Sanders Show,” HBO); Rip Torn (“Larry Sanders”)

My nominees: Peter Boyle (“Everybody Loves Raymond”); Brad Garrett
(“Raymond”); Sean P. Hayes (“Will & Grace”); Matthew Perry (“Friends”);
Jerry Stiller (“The King of Queens”)

With “Seinfeld,” “Larry Sanders” and Hartman gone, and two-time winner Pierce ineligible under the Bergen statute,
this is another wide-open category. I’m continuing my “Raymond”
juggernaut with nominations for Peter Boyle as Ray’s combustible dad and
Brad Garrett as Ray’s neurotic, sibling-rivalry-consumed older brother.
“Raymond” has the finest ensemble cast of any sitcom and these two
performances are essential cogs in the machine. Matthew Perry had his best
year ever on “Friends” as finicky, commitment-phobic Chandler deep into a
secret affair with control-freak Monica. And on “Will & Grace,” it was
Carnaval, New Year’s Eve and the Gay Pride parade combined whenever Hayes’
divinely queeny Jack entered a scene. My Emmy goes to Jerry Stiller, the
old pro, for his role as Arthur, Leah Remini’s bellicose dad on “The King
of Queens.” Remini and co-star Kevin James don’t have any children on the
show; instead, they have Stiller, as an oft-widowed schemer who spends his
golden years sniffing paint and suing major corporations for stealing his
ideas. In any other actor’s hands, Arthur would be unbearably cute. As the
incomparable Stiller plays him, he’s deeply, mesmerizingly odd.

Best supporting actress, comedy

Last year’s nominees: Christine Baranski (“Cybill”); Kristen
Johnston (“3rd Rock From the Sun”); Lisa Kudrow (“Friends,” winner); Jane
Leeves (“Frasier”); Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Seinfeld”)

My nominees: Courteney Cox (“Friends”); Johnston; Laurie Metcalf
(“Norm”); Megan Mullaly (“Will & Grace”); Doris Roberts (“Everybody Loves
Raymond”)

Johnston remains a hoot on “3rd Rock.” Cox gets the “Friends” slot this
year for her wonderfully frantic performance as Monica trying to keep her
romance with Chandler a secret. After disappearing for a while after
“Roseanne” ended its run, Metcalf surfaced at mid-season as a perfect foil
for Norm Macdonald on “Norm.” Metcalf plays the I-will-remain-calm
straight man better than anybody, and it’s good to have her back. Mullaly
takes a brassy turn as Grace’s idle rich, fashion-plate, sex-obsessed pal
on “Will & Grace.” It’s the sort of over-the-top performance that has a
short shelf life, so I’m nominating her now before her delicious horniness
gets on everybody’s nerves. The Emmy goes to Doris Roberts as Ray’s over-protective, nosy mother, Marie, the bane of Debra’s existence. Roberts’
Marie is, in her cheery way, as formidable and scheming a matriarch as
Livia Soprano. I can’t resist the symmetry of Marchand and Roberts winning
supporting Emmys for playing two of the scariest moms on TV. If only I
could figure out a way to get Kathie Lee Gifford in there …

Best voice actors

Since I proposed this category, I’d better fill it. My nominees for best
voice actress are Julie Kavner (Marge, “The Simpsons”); Kathy Najimy
(Peggy, “King of the Hill”); Katey Sagal (Leela, “Futurama”); Pamela Segall
(Bobby, “King of the Hill”) and Yeardley Smith (Lisa, “The Simpsons”). For
best voice actor: Dan Castellaneta (Homer, “The Simpsons”); John
DiMaggio (Bender, “Futurama”); Mike Judge (Hank, “King of the Hill”); Eddie
Murphy (Thurgood, “The PJs”) and whichever one of those clowns plays
Cartman on “South Park.”

In another era, Parker would have been a Hollywood comedy goddess, like Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck or Carole Lombard, playing characters who were smart, wily, ambitious, sexual beings. But where Hollywood has failed Parker, TV has come to the rescue. In HBO’s super-glossy adult comedy “Sex and the City,” which has just begun its second season, Parker is at her gawky, sexy, sly best as a 30-ish sex columnist observing the mating rituals of New York singles. Based on Candace Bushnell’s droll New York Observer columns, “Sex and the City,” like its screwball comedy forerunners of the 1930s and ’40s, appreciates the humor in the complicated socioeconomic dance of marriage-seeking. Parker’s Carrie and her three best friends work the problem of finding a mate as if they’re plotting a complicated bank heist — which, many unhappily single people in major metropolitan cities will probably tell you, is easier to accomplish than finding a non-psychotic person to date.

OK, I admit it — at first I was put off by “Sex” for reasons succinctly articulated this season by Carrie’s friend, feminist lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon): “How does it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends?” But gradually, the show won me over. Producer Darren Star (“Melrose Place”) and regular writer Michael Patrick King juice up Bushnell’s pseudo-anthropological premise with dazzling guilty-pleasure voyeurism.

“I love a big dick. I love it inside of me. I love looking at it. I love everything about it,” exclaims Carrie’s 40-ish, well-worn, publicist pal Samantha (Kim Cattrall). But to appreciate the comic force of that speech, you have to realize that the sexually voracious, not-to-be-denied Sam is out of her mind with frustration because the otherwise perfect guy she’s dating is, as she somberly puts it, roughly the size of a gherkin. Let’s face it, you’re not going to hear dialogue like that on “Providence.” “Sex” is horny and witty, goofy and wise. Imagine Edith Wharton and Jacqueline Susann meeting for drinks at Moomba and you have some idea of its smart girl allure. “Sex” is literary sociology with a graduate degree in smut, and, boy, is it fun.

“Sex” revolves around the romantic misadventures of Carrie, Miranda, Sam and their refined, relatively naive art-dealer friend, Charlotte (Kristin Davis). The show’s structure is pretty straightforward — narrator Carrie taps away at her Powerbook, composing columns about such puzzlers as, “Are there certain things one should never say in an intimate relationship?” and “Are relationships the religion of the ’90s?” These dilemmas are then depicted in story lines involving the quartet and its acquaintances. Throughout the ensuing chaos, the girls still have many opportunities to gather ’round the bar or the coffee shop booth and debate Topic No. 1, the difficulty of finding marriageable men in New York who aren’t asses. Watching “Sex” is like eavesdropping on a conversation in the ladies’ room, and not a unisex bathroom, either — “Sex” knows the value of boundaries. Which is why “Sex” may be horny, but it’s never crude.

What sets “Sex” apart from the similarly relationship-obsessed “Ally McBeal” is that Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte are true-blue friends — they’re supportive, not envious of one another’s career or romantic successes. The second season opener of “Sex” had a denouement that sweetly illustrated the nurturing quality of female friendship at its best. Carrie has broken up with the commitment-phobic man of her dreams, known only as Mr. Big (played by Chris Noth with a degree of rogueish charm that, I believe, is illegal in several states). She runs into Big unexpectedly while she’s out on a rebound date, and it throws her off balance. She eventually sends her date home, goes to a pay phone and makes a call: “It’s me. I know things are weird between us right now but I really need to talk. Can you meet me at our place?” Carrie goes to the coffee shop and, after an anxious moment, spots — no, not Mr. Big. Miranda. Despite her earlier high-minded outburst about her friends’ conversational preoccupation with men, Miranda has answered Carrie’s call, because that’s what girlfriends are for.

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least acknowledge that “Sex” doesn’t exactly portray men in a heroic light. The show is a parade of “toxic bachelors,” “serial modelizers” and assorted other small-membered, ball-scratching, bad-breath-spewing, selfish, conceited, unfaithful, untruthful males who fail to measure up as husband material.

However, I know that some guys feel left out, bullied and dissed by girl-talk shows like “Sex and the City.” So I must inform those guys that there are two new cable shows, FX’s “The X Show” and Comedy Central’s “The Man Show,” that are allegedly designed to ease the pain of the average maligned, unappreciated, badgered, Dockered, “Titanic”-ed male. The nightly “X Show,” which features four hosts, advice segments and interviews with Playboy Playmates and sports stars, is basically a male version of “The View,” except without the sage presence of a Barbara Walters as elder statesperson. Hugh Downs, call your agent. As for “The Man Show,” fellas, listen to me: Nothing the women on “Sex and the City” say about your gender could possibly be more humiliating than what “The Man Show” says about your gender.

Hosted by Adam “Loveline” Carolla and Jimmy “Win Ben Stein’s Money” Kimmel, “The Man Show” (which premieres Wednesday) is a snarky schmuckfest dedicated to (as the hosts declare in the opener) “building a dam to hold back the tidal wave of feminism that is flooding the country. A dam to stop the river of estrogen that’s drowning us in political correctness. A dam to urinate off of when we’re really drunk!” (Hey, didn’t Comedy Central already build that dam and call it “Politically Incorrect”?) This weekly “joyous celebration of chauvinism” promises a testosterone-friendly lineup of things guys supposedly like to watch on TV, which in the first show includes women in bikinis, women jumping on a trampoline, explosions, supermodels and “one of the purest forms of entertainment” — monkeys, wearing costumes, doing people things.

Coincidentally (or not!), TNT has just launched a weekly sitcom called “The Chimp Channel,” starring actual primates doing spoofs of TV shows like “Treewatch” and “NYPD Zoo.” I don’t know where those guys on “The Man Show” get the idea that watching monkeys is strictly a male thing — I enjoy a good performing monkey act as much as the next person (Oh, that Marcel from “Friends” was pure gold!), but I am disappointed to report that “The Chimp Channel” just doesn’t cut it. The dialogue is unimaginative and sophomoric and the parodies aren’t so much funny as they are creepy. Putting a chimp in a blond wig and a “Baywatch” swimsuit with big fake Pamela Anderson boobs sure seems like animal abuse to me. Oh, jeez — I hope I didn’t just give “The Man Show” any ideas.

In her search for love amidst an endless stream of lunches and cocktail parties, Bushnell paints a bleak but funny portrait of her sisters in heels as they get everything they want except for a husband and children. We follow the intrepid, hungover “reporter” from a swingers’ club (where the hottest thing was the buffet table) to a male forum on threesomes; from dinner with men who bed models to a bawdy ladies’ tea where a serial dater is dissected. During the last third of the book, the voice shifts from the first person to that of Carrie (aka Bushnell). As she chronicles her relationship with Mr. Big (aka cigar-chomping “Vogue” publisher Ron Galotti), you may begin to understand why these womens’ relationships fail.

One compelling aspect of these juicy, fast-reading pieces is that they offer an insider’s view of a very elite Manhattan. Sure, names have been changed and events modified (and who knows how she records those quotes), but if you’re a bold-faced-name junkie, you know who she’s talking about, or can at least enjoy speculating. Bushnell delivers the bad news about love in Man-hattan in an engaging “he said/she said” style (“He gave her more drugs and she gave him a blow job”), as though she were hoarsely whispering in your ear during lunch at the Royalton.

As compelling as Bushnell can be, by the midway point of “Sex and the City,” the book’s message is painfully clear: In her New York, locating and securing a powerful husband is, sadly, a woman’s ultimate accomplishment.