My hypothetical 2013 Emmy ballot

With the Emmy nominations just a day away, it's time for me to once again submit a fake Emmy ballot. I had fun doing this last year when I watched far fewer shows, and though it was a bit trickier this time to weed out some very good performances and such, I think I'm happy with my choices. Of course, none of this matters because tomorrow the Television Academy will give a lot of nominations to "The Big Bang Theory" and "The Newsroom". Sorry, but it wouldn't be Emmy season without outrage and cynicism! If you're wondering what sort of ridiculousness you're in for after the break, you can take a look at my picks from last year, in which I just completely forgot to make picks in the Drama Lead Actor category. I suck.

After the break: Watch as I pad the miniseries categories by giving a lot of nominations to "American Horror Story" actors solely for their participation in the ridiculous but awesome "Name Game" scene. Plus, I only cheated twice!

Week 8 of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV"

I regretfully present a late instalment of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV," an entry that heads in a number of different directions in the hopes of making a larger point about the series in question as a whole. It's a thing I tend to do sometimes. I hope it makes as much sense on paper (or...Internet, whatever) as it does in my brain.

After the break: Every damn time I wrote it as "Louis" and had to change it back to "Lois".

Week 7 of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV"

Another week, another favourite episode. I feel like every week I think "Wow, I'm so happy I get to write about this episode because I think it's one of my favourites on the list," and then I remember what I'm doing and what the point of it is. Duh doy.

But seriously, this is one of my very favourites on the list. I'm fairly confident this is a top five contender, even though this list is in no particular order because narrowing down to 25 was hard enough. This turned out to be more of a piece on why this show works in contrast to lesser copycats, but I do touch on why this episode is great and all in all, I'm very happy with it. Also, new picture!

After the break: I managed to hold off a surprisingly long time before devolving this entry into unrelenting rage minor annoyance towards "The Event".

Week 6 of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV"

We have arrived at one of my most favourite entries on this big list of favourites. Much like the "South Park" episode I wrote about a couple weeks back, I can't imagine this one will ever get old for me. You might even say that if we were playing "desert island," this would be one of my five episodes. (I would of course still agonize over the other four slots, though.)

After the break: Write down your guess as to how much of the episode's dialogue is transcribed below. Closest to the full percentage point wins a jar of jellybeans.

Week 5 of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV"

Some real life drama didn't keep me from staying on track with "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV," but it did prevent from writing a whole lot about this week's selection. It's a brisk, 1,230-word read, though the more I think about it, the more I'm fairly certain this would have fallen into that category I described at the start of the project where I just list off the awesome scenes and talk about how awesome their awesomeness is anyway. Oh well - this episode rules and that's all I need to tell you. Much better analysis than I can provide can be found with a something search.

If you're noticing a recency bias, it's probably because I was born in 1993. Hopefully I'm not disappointing all two of my readers when I say that only one episode on this big list predates my birth.

After the break: Forgive any typos. Also, take a drink every time I use the word "just".

Week 4 of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV"

On to week 4 of a project I'm calling "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV". This week, I'm not gonna say much up here except for, "God damn. This is exactly why I decided to do this."

After the break: If I'm not still laughing at this episode after 100 more viewings, I will be shocked.

Week 3 of "My 25 Favourite Episodes of TV"

This was a fun one, probably because no one has ever seen or heard of this show before. Maybe it doesn't actually exist and it's just something I hallucinated in a Don Draper fever dream. Or a Don Draper meth high. Or a Don Draper hashish bender. No wait, I have pictures and video, so it must be real! Or maybe the video exists only on a YouTube that I hallucinated in a Don Draper fever dr- yeah, let's move on.

After the break: A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.