All of these people are awesome and deserve Emmys. That is all.

It’s Emmy Season! With the nominees officially announced, and months to go until the actual broadcast, there’s only one thing for TV bloggers to do: speculate and complain! But first let’s kick things off with what makes me happy.

The Good

Mad Men got 17 nominations, including one for Jared Harris (aka the mopey, bespectacled Brit Lane Pryce) for best supporting actor! Of course he should still lose to the brilliant Peter Dinklange from Game of Thrones, but I’m still glad to see his stellar work get some recognition. Louis CK, and his amazing show Louie, also got a ton of nominations! Yay good comedy! Speaking of, the comedy series they chose this year are mostly spot on, without any of those pesky pay cable “dramadies” poking their nose in and bumping out shows that actually have way more, you know, comedy. And finally, Margaret Cho was nominated as a guest star for her hilarious performance as Kim Jong-il on 30 Rock. If you saw any of those episodes, you’ll understand why it’s ok to root for Kim Jong-il.

The Bad

Sure, Amy Poehler got her much deserved best comedy actress nomination, but no love for the rest of Parks and Recreation?! No nomination for Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson?! Come on Emmys, get it together. You’ve had 4 seasons. The man is a living TV icon. Nick Offerman should be awards best actor in a comedy and his mustache best supporting actor in a comedy. That’s how good he is. And although I praised the academy for recognizing Louis CK for his acting, writing, and directing… why wasn’t the show nominated for best comedy? So you guys love every important element of the show but not the show itself? What, was the lighting not Emmy worthy or something?

The Ugly

Betty White is nominated as best variety program host for her show Betty White’s Off their Rockers. I get it, America still can’t get enough of Betty White for whatever reason. But this means a show about old people pulling lame pranks on young people is officially nominated for an Emmy. I’m not the only one who finds that unacceptable, right?

After a a year and a half away from our television sets, the best drama on television returned this Sunday night with a double-sized 2 hour premiere. And, if the premiere is any indication of the quality this season will deliver, other TV shows should have been very thankful for that extended hiatus which allowed them one year when Mad Men wasn’t up for an Emmy. Because Mad Men is back, and it is still as complex, engrossing, subtle, and just downright good as usual.

It’s been a long time since we got to check in with our pals at Sterling Cooper Draper Price, and the show wisely embraces that, dropping us right into the updated lives of the characters which kept on going since we last tuned in, forcing us to play catch up throughout the episode. Don Draper is married, in a new luxury apartment, seemingly in love, and actually acting like a…really good dad? He’s always been the “nice” one compared to Betty, but that wasn’t exactly a challenge. Speaking of Betty, no January Jones in this episode at all! That was reason alone to be love this premiere. One jarring aspect of Don’s home life is that once again we’ve got a new Bobby, further cementing him as the kid that nobody cares about while poor screwed up Sally gets all the attention. They’ve gone through a few Bobbys when he was younger, but I really liked the last one and thought he was going to stick around. Then again he gave an interview where he pretty much said January Jones was a frigid you-know-what who doesn’t like kids and he avoided at all costs. Yeah, her agents may have had something to do with new Bobby….

As far as I’m concerned Roger Sterling stole this episode. From his imitation of Megan’s seductive French dance number to his resignation to him and his young wife’s mutual dislike of each other, he crammed what might normally be half a season’s worth of classic Sterlingisms into one episode. But the fact that the writers have stripped him of his one big account, and whole reason for being involved in the company along with it, and forced him into the role of a desperate old man attempting to steal from his own employee to justify his existence really makes him a more complicated character than we’ve ever seen out of Roger.

My other favorite part of this episode? That despite all the terrible things we’ve seen Pete Campbell, Don Draper and practically every other character do, Harry Crane has emerged as the most delightfully unlikeable character on the show just by trying so hard to be cool. I really love to watch that guy become a bigger tool every season.

Welcome back Mad Men, you were missed.

In what might be the best possible metaphor for the current state of American television, right now there is a bitter feud between Jon Hamm and Kim Kardashian. One stars as one of the most complex lead characters ever in the most critically acclaimed show on television. The other, in the immortal words of Joel McHale on The Soup, is “famous for having a big @$$ and a sex tape.”

It all started when Jon Hamm, in promotion of the new season of Mad Men (which finally returns this Sunday! Yay!), commented on reality TV in an interview, saying: “Whether it’s Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. Being a f***ing idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you’re rewarded significantly. It’s celebrated. It doesn’t make sense to me.” Well, can’t say there’s anything wrong with that statement. Plus, from the perspective of a guy who has been working his tail off in Hollywood for decades and is finally getting his big break, you can see why someone getting money and fame thrown at them just because they already are rich is a bit insane. Kim was quick to comment back, saying she thought it was “careless” for Hamm to call someone who stars in a television show and runs a company an idiot. Yeah, I’m sure you’re doing all the number-crunching at that company of yours. Don’t you just sign a contract saying they can paste your name and face on any product that will pay you enough? Tough stuff.

Hamm, who seems sick of discussing the controversy, still refuses to back down in any way, saying the comments were “accurate” and that he stands by them. The saddest part of it all? The highest rated episode of Mad Men ever got 2.9 million viewers. A typical season finale of Keeping Up with the Kardashians gets 4.8 million viewers, and Kim’s “Fairytale” Wedding Special (it must have been one of those dark Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales based on how it ended) supposedly got 10.5 million viewers over its 2 nights. Well, there’s all the evidence for Hamm’s comments that we need.

The cast of Terra Nova and their dinosaur fence!

It’s that time again, faithful readers! Moving from the frivolous summer television schedule to the slightly less frivolous fall schedule! (Less frivolity due only to the excess of cop/law/medical shows premiering, of course) My stars, I love fall! It’s cold outside–why not watch some new and improved television? And how! Wanna know where to find me every day of the week, starting this month? Lemme break it down for you:

As of September 26th, Monday nights will see me tuning into Terra Nova, that new Fox/Steven Spielberg-produced vehicle, on at 8pm (who watches TV before 8pm? Unless you live in Central Time, I guess). It’s an ambitious, expensive concept: an ordinary family travels back in time to live in prehistoric Earth. Shenanigans ensue! As long as Terra Nova doesn’t get dragged down by it’s own hype, it should prove fascinating. You know, hopefully. I’m also rather intrigued by Hart of Dixie (Summer Roberts returns!) and The Playboy Club, but that one might get dumped pretty quickly. Oh well, there’s always Castle.

I have given up on How I Met Your Mother, because OBVIOUSLY Ted is never going to meet The Mother. I mean, BARNEY IS GETTING MARRIED before Ted meets The Mother!

Tuesday. Glee. Meh. New trainers on The Biggest Loser! Sarah Michelle Gellar returns at 9pm on Ringer on The CW–that’s where I’ll be! Welcome back, Buffy! Otherwise, Tuesday’s a bit of a wash for me without Pretty Little Liars. Come back soon, ladies!

Wednesdays are a bit delicious, with the All Star edition of America’s Next Top Model at 9pm (competing with Modern Family), and newcomers Revenge (revenge in the Hamptons! Yes! Stealthy!) and American Horror Story (with the wonderful Connie Britton) at 10pm. Pretty solid for Hump Day!

The Vampire Diaries and Community are a tough choice on Thursday evenings, and L.J. Smith, original author of The Vampire Diaries, has another show on The CW: The Secret Circle, which is about witches. You better believe I was all over that shizz as a teenager, so don’t be surprised if I live inside my television on Thursday nights. Otherwise, Maria Bello tries to fill Helen Mirren’s remarkable, amazing, enormous shoes on the American version of Prime Suspect. We’ll see.

If vampires, witches, sitcoms and cop shows aren’t your thing, there’s always the new Beavis and Butthead. Just sayin’.

Nikita kicks off The CW’s Friday evenings–is Alex now bad? Will we see lots more of deliciously evil Amanda? Will Shane West finally have the combat training he so desperately needs? New show Grimm, at 9pm on NBC, sounds pretty amazing, and the preview was no slouch either. Once Upon a Time (premiering at the end of October on ABC) seems…sort of similar? We’ll see which one survives.

Saturday is always a dud–I use mine for college football, but Sunday offers up the return of The Walking Dead, now with new showrunner, new writers, and new chaos! Pan Am, featuring Christina Ricci, pops up at 10pm. People keep calling it the Mad Men of the skies, so let’s hope it can rise above (rimshot!) that.

That’s where to find me–what are YOU looking forward to watching this season? Recommendations always welcomed!

By the way…has anyone caught any Big Sexy on TLC?

How in the world does the channel with the most critically acclaimed shows on TV right now get nothing but bad press? Ask AMC, they seem to have perfected the unique trick.

As we all know, AMC used to be a channel where you could only watch old movies, and there was nothing wrong with that. I like being able to watch Jaws at 9pm as much as the next guy. But then they scrapped together a budget and decided to dip their toe into the water of original programming with a little show called Mad Men. They followed that up with Breaking Bad, an equally acclaimed, and even more risky, show with some of the most brilliant dramatic acting seen on the small screen in years. With three straight “Best Drama” Emmy wins for Mad Men, and 3 straight “Best Dramatic Actor” wins for Breaking Bad, it’s safe to say the shows kicked AMC’s fledgling original programming department into the spotlight. There were a couple misses, but the record breaking premiere of the gorey, thrilling zombie serial The Walking Dead last October cemented AMC as the “new HBO.”

So just what in the heck is going on over there? After a tense contract negotiation with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, an agreement was finally reached to bring the show back, but too late for us to get our usual summer Mad Men fix. Although they just announced a deal to bring Breaking Bad back for one more season, for awhile there other networks were openly talking about adopting the show when it ditched AMC. And worst of all, veteran filmmaker Frank Darabont was fired from his role as showrunner for The Walking Dead only weeks after promoting the show at Comic Con, supposedly because him and the network could not agree on budgets. This last one is the best sign that things are very amiss at AMC. It’s one thing for a guy like Frank Darabont, arguably the only reason The Walking Dead got made at all, to step down now that the show is up and running. But to get fired? It stinks like AMC used his name and credits to launch the show and ditched the expensive producer as soon as they had a reliable audience.

But who is really to blame? If you listen to Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, a man who knows a thing or two about making a hit show for basic cable, it was all those boozy Mad Men. Sutter went on a twitter rant about Darabont’s firing, blaming Matthew Weiner for holding the network hostage with his demands for Mad Men to come back. AMC, afraid of losing their flagship show, agreed to his unrealistic budget demands, meaning that other shows had to have their budgets slashed to accommodate. Translation: bye bye expensive movie director!

Hey AMC: your making the best shows on TV, now pull yourself together as a network to keep your talent there. Otherwise I fear you’ll just be re-playing Jaws in prime time in no time flat.

We all survived the Rapture! Hooray! And good thing, because you would have missed out on this exciting entertainment news if you were whisked away to Heaven on Saturday!

- A famous rapper has changed his name yet again! Diddy? Yes he did! No, I’m asking, Diddy? I’m telling you he did! Ok, enough of that “Who’s on first?” rip-off! It’s true, Diddy, the artist formerly known as Sean Puffy Combs, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy, has changed his name to Swag. Apparently he wanted to sound less like a rap mogul and more like an MTV V.J. Don’t worry, it gets dumber: he will be known as Swag for only a week, as a way to celebrate his “comeback” after a nasty flu. Don’t we all change our names after common illnesses? I will be known as Inferno throughout the rest of allergy season.

-While visiting Katy Perry for her tour there, Russell Brand was deported from Japan. Oh, so I guess Arthur finally opened there?

-There’s a new strangest feud in Hollywood: The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis vs. Mad Men’s January Jones. Especially since it seems to be a very love/hate relationship. When January called Zach the most “naturally funny” man she’d ever met in an interview, Zach was baffled while recalling their only encounter: “That’s really funny because, if I remember correctly, she and I were very rude to each other. It was crazy,” he explains. “I was at a party—I’d never met her—and she was like, ‘Come sit down.’ So I sit at her table and talk for 10 minutes, and she goes, ‘I think it’s time for you to leave now.’ So, I say, ‘January, you are an actress in a show and everybody’s going to forget about you in a few years, so f–king be nice’ and I got up and left. And she thinks that’s funny?” Well, it sounds pretty funny to me.

-16 and Pregnant star Jordan Ward is already pregnant again only 17 months after having her last child. Some would say that’s highly responsible and that she hasn’t learned any of the lessons the show claims to be about. But with all the 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom shows MTV is churning out, I’d call it job security. She’ll have enough money for retirement by the time it’s appropriate to have a child!

-At the Billboard Music Awards last night, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez finally made things official by kissing when he received an award. And, for the second time over the weekend, I had to fear for the end of the world. The tears of tween girls everywhere threatened to give us a flood of Biblical proportions.

They’ll be back!

Great news for fans of excellent TV: Mad Men will officially be returning! Yayyyy! Bad news for fans of excellent TV: probably not until March 2012! Booooo! After some drawn-out and heated negotiations between series creator Matthew Wiener and AMC, an agreement was finally reached that will renew Mad Men for at least 2 more seasons. Now you’re probably thinking the same thing as me: how did a show that racks up Emmys and basically launched AMC as a premiere place for original TV shows have any chance of not returning? It seems the hold-up was over budget. AMC wanted to slightly cut the budget for Mad Men, but that would have proven very hard to do. It’s already a pricey show since everything from sets to wardrobe have to be made to fit the time-period, but with stars like Jon Hamm, January Jones and John Slattery all jumping into movies, their paychecks are going to go up as well. So the show gets the same budget for one more season and then will cut back a bit, giving Weiner time to prepare for those cuts. Somehow I don’t think he’s gonna take it out of his own (reportedly) $30 million paycheck. But the bottom-line is that Mad Men is returning. Awesome.

Now on to the fails of the week. First comes everybody’s favorite media meltdown spectacle: Charlie Sheen. His live tour kicked off in Detroit, and it was decidedly not “Winning!” Instead the rambling Sheen elicited boos fro the audience, with a significant chunk walking out of the show early and calling it one of the worst “performances” they had ever seen. And they weren’t walking out because they were offended, they were just embarrassed for him. So what kind of bits elicited such a harsh response? Sheen rambled a lot, burned one of his Two and a Half Men bowling shirts, rambled some more, brought out his “goddesses,” continued to ramble, and finally brought out a rap act to finish the show as he vanished from the stage. The only slightly amusing portion, most agreed, was a fake “unedited” version of his 20/20 interview that showed Sheen being self-deprecating and wacky. Sorry Charlie, people only think the Warlock and Tiger’s Blood is funny when you don’t realize it’s funny. A second show in Chicago supposedly got a better response, but Sheen may have threatened the crowd with a machete to be nice.

And finally, on this week’s episode of The Celebrity Apprentice, we got to see one of the greatest meltdowns in reality show history. Meatloaf and Gary Busey had a confrontation about crafts, and believe it or not Gary Busey really didn’t do anything wrong. During a challenge, Meatloaf became enraged that his painting supplies had gone missing and decided Gary had stolen them. It included my favorite first line in a fight ever: “I bought those motherf**king sponges!” Gary stood awe-struck throughout the thunderous explosion of anger, meekly saying, “No. I have my receipt.” Finally Meatloaf had to be physically restrained from attacking Gary. The best part? When they found Meatloaf’s bag of supplies a few minutes later. Check out the epic showdown:

ANTM goes Mad Men to sell…fake coffee?

Few surprises on last night’s America’s Next Top Model, would you agree? Alexandria continued her reign of bitchassness, occasionally trying to disguise it as helpfulness, Sara was still upset about her short hair (which…girl, you had short hair before!), and Molly’s weave was, thankfully, removed.

The episode’s runway challenge was all bark and no bite. Fire on the runway! Whoosh! But there was never any danger, any hint of someone going up in flames, no one’s hair or clothing caught fire. It was all very tame–no one even fell! There was no particularly bad walker, either–no one even approaching the trainwreck of last cycle’s Ann Ward. Wearing dresses by Geoffrey Mac, the girls had to light their be-gloved hands on fire, then walk down the runway cupping the flame. Easy does it, ladies! Kasia (for her signature Real Doll mouth), Sara (failed to get her hands to light), and Hannah (blank eyes and face), as the bottom three, were forced to walk home from wherever they were. Dalya ended up winning two Geoffrey Mac dresses, while Alexandria (sigh) and Brittani were commended for a job well done.

Tyra decides, hey, it’s time to sell a fake product! Remember H2T Water last year? Roller skates? Ann falling, Esther failing, and Kayla freaking? Nothing quite that exciting happens this time around. Sara suddenly has five or six talking heads about being a feminist and feeling uncomfortable exuding sexiness to sell a product, and the viewing audience said to themselves, “Goodbye, Sara–it’s confusing to be eighteen and to have opinions, but damn girl, you’re on a modeling reality show.” The costumes weren’t booty shorts, they were retro, Mad Men inspired looks to go with the theme and to sell (sigh) Fierce Roast Coffee. Man, at least H2T Water was kinda believable! Alexandria got it into her head that a good model takes over everyone else’s responsibilities–the director, the gaffers, the makeup artists–and bossed everyone around, thus endearing herself to yet another guest judge (not!).

Molly’s new weave, y’all? Oh. My. GEE. Just give her a wig and leave her alone!

Kasia and Jaclyn have the strongest commercial, and Kasia gets first screen capture. Bottom two end up as Sara, for total lack of anything even resembling confidence, and Alexandria, for being a stank know-it-all and giver of ‘tude. Alexandria continues on in the hopes of becoming America’s Sixteenth Next Top Model, but only if she finds some humility and zips her lip! Shorn Sara with the sad short hair, is sent back to Texas, to learn that feminists come in all shapes, sizes, and mindsets.

Next week: all the money in the world wouldn’t stop Alexandria from being a big ol’ you-know-what!

The cast of The Walking Dead. Spoilers! Their clothes don’t stay that clean.

Imagine the horror of being locked in a small space, no means of escape, still unsure of how you arrived in this dreadful situation. Outside the door a crazed, naked monster, bereft of human logic and compassion, paces back and forth, destroying everything in it’s path until finally coming after you. But that’s enough about staying in a hotel room with Charlie Sheen, this is supposed to be about zombies!

Last night, after a month long build-up on the channel (as anyone who watched endless promos for it during Mad Men can attest to), The Walking Dead finally premiered on AMC. Although the comic book series it’s based on is both critically acclaimed and sells well (being one of the only comic book series you can find always well-stocked in chains like Borders and Barnes and Noble), the show was still a risky move for AMC and their so-far spotless original programming record. Sure, nobody really cared about Rubicon, but it got decent reviews and wasn’t an embarrassment for the network. Mad Men and Breaking Bad, of course, are Emmy juggernauts that allow AMC to boast about having the best original shows on TV and have no one dare dispute it. So introducing an epic zombie show had the potential for disaster. After all, many would argue that AMC’s loyal audience who love sophisticated, character-driven dramas would scoff at the idea of tuning in to a genre schlock-fest like a zombie show. But boy were they wrong.

The Walking Dead premiered with 5.3 million viewers, AMC’s highest ratings ever for an original program, and gathered 8.1 million viewers in total counting the multiple encore airings into the wee hours of the morning. Take that vampires! Zombies won this Halloween! Part of the success of The Walking Dead (so far) can of course be attributed to horror fans who will tune in for anything zombie related, but I believe the rest is due to the fact that it is actually a good zombie show. While I could see other cable channels (say FX, for instance) taking the opportunity to draw in gore-lovers and push the envelope to gain some sort of infamy that got viewers tuning in to see what crazy thing they did next, The Walking Dead is really about the characters and how they react to this new, terrifying world. Of course there is still some pretty brutal and disturbing scenes, but so far it has always had emotion to go along with it, rather than mindless blood-splattering.

Will The Walking Dead continue it’s stride or will it take a quick plunge into the grave now that folks are out of the Halloween spirit and looking for something cheerier? Only time will tell, but I sure hope it sticks around. Anyone who has read the comic knows that there are some fantastic (and reeeaallly depressing) stories to tell.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Last night was the season finale of Mad Men, and although it’s tough to top the almost heist-movie levels of excitement and fun from last year’s finale, this one delivered great character moments and brilliantly left us on the edge of our seats for next season. Also, this is your last warning: SPOILERS AHEAD. If you haven’t watched the finale yet, seriously, don’t read this.

Anyway: Don is engaged! Joan is pregnant! Carla got fired! Pegi complained about no one appreciating her work! Ok, that last one isn’t surprising at all since it happens almost every episode. But the finale was packed with some truly surprising moments and ended on a hopeful tone. Unlike the first two season finales, which ended on fairly dark personal moments for Don, and last season, which ended on an exciting moment of new opportunity for Don’s business life, season 4 finally ended with a happy and exciting moment in Don’s personal life.

That’s right, Don Draper, the man who had to get an elderly secretary (who then croaked) to avoid sleeping with his secretaries, is now engaged to his secretary Megan. But the show sold me on the idea that Don is actually in love with her, reverting to his Dick Whitman grin that is usually reserved for trips to California when she is with him. Somehow it seems like he has allowed the Don Draper mystique to slip away a bit and finally fall in love with someone as himself and not a character he portrays through life. Who knows where season 5 will find them, but for now it seems like Don really is happy with his young fiance, and she is of course happy to be with him (playing to cool secretary who knows french and how to take care of kids definitely paid off for her!). You know who isn’t so happy about it? Faye, Don’s professional girlfriend who thought things were going great between them and they had a deep connection. Whoops! Sorry Faye!

You know what moment probably sold Don on proposing to Megan? When the kids spilled a milkshake and she nonchalantly wiped it up with a smile. She’s like the anti-Betty when it comes to kids! Speaking of Betty, she was up to her usual debbie-downer nonsense this week, but finally got called on it. That creepy neighbor kid yelled at her for wanting to make everyone else sad, and when Betty looked for her new hubby Henry’s backup when it came to firing their longtime nanny Carla, he commented “No one is ever on you side, Betty.” Something tells me at this point Henry wants nothing more than to call up Don Draper to go have a drink and ask him how he hung in there for as long as he did.

And then there’s Joan. There was doubt a few weeks back when she told Roger she had taken care of their “problem” after their little tryst, but now it’s clear: her solution is to start living her own life of lies and false identities. Might wanna consult Don on that, Joanie, he’s an expert. So Joan is keeping the baby and just pretending it’s her soldier husband’s. Of course, when the baby comes out with solid white hair and a bottle of scotch, some people might start suspecting Roger was involved. Then again, maybe they’ll throw in a real twist and it will refuse to ear shoes into an office and have a love of tacky Asian art. Bert Cooper, you dog!

In conclusion: it is very unfair that Mad Men will not be on for another year or so. Sorry Jon Hamm, we don’t care about your need for personal time and other projects. We want more Mad Men!