2014 Emmy nominations post-mortem: Ugh, Emmys, go wait in the car until we're done TV-ing

     Mindy Kaling of "The Mindy Project" and Carson Daly of
     "The Voice" announce the nominations for The 66th
     Primetime Emmy Awards in North Hollywood on Thursday
     (July 10) morning.

The most wonderful time of the year in television is that special Thursday morning in July when reporters and critics on the TV beat (at least the ones located on the west coast, where most television is produced) are awoken at 5 o'clock in the morning to hear two semi-famous television people read off most of the major nominations for the Primetime Emmy Awards. Some of these nominations are downright infuriating. Some of them are completely unexpected and pleasant delights. And the rest are somewhere in between, the recognition you'd expect to see but aren't jumping up and down about (partly because you're so tired).

But after about an hour, you start to realize that those three categories don't really exist simultaneously - rather, they are the sort of "Five Stages of Emmy Grief" that one goes through when they are forced to process a prestigious voting body showering recognition on works of art they feel passionate about on a very limited amount of sleep. On Thursday I found myself turning into Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons" and tweeting things like "Worst. Nominations. Ever." and "Really Emmys? Really," but with time to really take it all in I've realized that the nominations this year aren't really any worse than other years, nor should I continue to react with such haste in future years. The Emmys are at best a compromise, often paying dues to the quality programs that are simultaneously popular while tragically ignoring the ones that are not. Such is life. The process for nominating and organizing categories is so very, very broken, but this is not the place to suggest alternatives, nor am I the person to suggest them. What I am the person for is being annoyed and complaining or using too many exclamation points when I like things. Oh, and of course, what I hope is at least a vaguely knowledgable sense of the history, voting patterns, and other weird tics of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

So if you're down with that, let's go category by category for opinions, predictions, and other crap. And if you missed my hypothetical ballot from Wednesday, click here.

My hypothetical 2014 Emmy ballot

It's time for me to once again fill out a hypothetical Emmy ballot for the 2013-14 TV season! I always have fun doing these, but they can also create such a challenge in years where there's just so much good television (and these last two TV seasons have in no way been lacking for quality). So let's see where my preferences lie this year!

Of course, you'll notice that when the actual Emmy nominations are announced tomorrow, they will look nothing like the nominations I've listed below. That's because the Emmys are BAD and WRONG, but such is life. Also, something odd happened this year in terms of categorization - two of my favourite shows, Netflix's "Orange is the New Black" and Showtime's "Shameless," have submitted themselves in the comedy categories after seasons in which both were unequivocally dramas. Initially I worried this would affect how many nominations I would give each, but I think instead I'm just going to ask you to disregard the "comedy" and "drama" split below entirely. After all, it is and always has been (for example) "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series," not "Funniest Supporting Actor".

Recognition ho!