Ellen Gray: Emmy Awards categories need tweaking

SO MANY after-Emmy thoughts, so little time:

* Edie Falco, whose latest Emmy acceptance speech included the declaration, "I am not funny," may have a point.

But it's not that one. A smart, down-to-earth actress with great timing, Falco walks that line between comedy and tragedy where the darkest kind of funny is found.

There were weeks when "The Sopranos," for which she won three drama Emmys, was probably the funniest show on television and there have been weeks when "Nurse Jackie," which Showtime insists on calling a comedy, was one of the saddest.

That's how it works with truly outstanding television, the kind the Emmys are meant to honor but which force apples-and-oranges comparisons of shows that don't really fit their categories.

I'm sympathetic, for once, to the plight of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, having voted for years for Television Critics Association Awards, which aren't much clearer.

(This year, we recognized ABC's "Modern Family" for comedy but named Fox's "Glee," nominated in the same category, program of the year and outstanding new program.)

Maybe it's time the academy considered replacing "comedy" and "drama" with "half-hour" and "hour."

Yes, it might be just as perverse to pit a "Glee" against a "Mad Men" as to have a "30 Rock" competing against a "Nurse Jackie" - but at least the entrants would have a roughly equivalent amount of time to state their cases. And no one would be forced to pretend to be anything but outstanding.

* According to Variety, there's talk again of kicking movies and miniseries to the curb, or at least to the non-televised portion of the Emmys.

And while I get it that the broadcast networks might be tired of seeing HBO chew up a huge chunk of their airtime, this year that air was filled by the likes of Tom Hanks ("The Pacific"), Al Pacino ("You Don't Know Jack"), and Claire Danes ("Temple Grandin"). Not to mention showstoppers Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the real Temple Grandin.

If I were staging an awards show, I'd want those people.

* Where NBC and its fellow broadcasters might have a true beef, though, is with cable's refusal to honor the show that so often honors cable by easing up on the competition for a night.

At the very least, if a show's nominated, its viewers shouldn't have to choose between watching it in real time or seeing if it wins an Emmy, as fans of HBO's "True Blood" and AMC's "Mad Men" did Sunday.

"Mad Men" won its third consecutive drama Emmy on NBC at the same time AMC was running a new episode in which an inebriated Don Draper (Jon Hamm) wins - and briefly loses - a Clio.

Meant perhaps to be a sly allusion, it struck me as a veiled insult to the very awards that helped thrust "Mad Men," and once-drowsy AMC, into the public consciousness.

Everybody's a Critic

 

The search is on for Daily News readers who'd like to participate in my 16th annual Everybody's a Critic evenings, weighing in on fall TV pilots.

The coupon's in today's paper. Reading online? For details (including guidelines for this year's first-ever Twitter component), see: www.philly.com/DNCritic.

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com, follow me on Twitter at @elgray or join the online discussion at noon tomorrow at go.philly.com/tvchat.