Emmy Analysis: Best Guest Actor in a Drama

Every year, the Emmy voters pick several men who have appeared in dramas on a limited basis as their "Best Guest Actor - Drama" nominees. While you might think this is a great chance for unknowns to get noticed for their brief TV appearances, this is not usually the case. Almost alwayts, the guest actors and actresses in both comedy and drama are movie stars or TV stars. Very infrequently are character actors or new actors noticed in this category. If anything about the Emmys proves that it's often a popularity contest/ name recognition contest- it's the guest categories. Which isn't to say the Emmy voters don't pick great actors in compelling roles a lot of the time. This season's nominee list consists of very good actors in somewhat memorable roles. Here's my analysis of the nominees and a few picks for "should have been included" actors. I don't really guess who's going to win. I'll leave that to you.

Christian Clemenson, Gerry Espenson, Boston Legal

Clemenson, though a veteran actor, is not a big name - yet he still won this award last year, which is unusual. I mean, take a look at who wins the guest awards: it's always known people, usually movie actors who are showing up on TV for a day. Name recognition is huge when it comes to winning and Emmy. I guess people knew who he was last year even though most fans didn't. Anyhow, this season, it seemed every time I turned around, Espenson, the mildly autistic eccentric lawyer Alan Shore has befriened, was on the Boston Legal. He had the mannequin he slept with (not in that sense...) ; he had this gimmick where his social ineptitude was cured by chewing on a fake cigarette, turning him into a rude bore; he and Alan had a spat and made up. Clemenson is good as Espenson, even if the eccentric character is straight out of the David Kelley Ally McBeal play book and totally improbable. Will he get another Emmy? Was he more a supporting player than a guest this year? I don't know, and I wonder if Clemenson cares, since Kelley just added him as a regular to the show.

Forest Whitaker, Curtis Eames, ER

As Curtis Eames, a man who Dr. Kovac misdiagnosed, Whitaker was strong, on edge, and dangerous. He appeared in a handful of episodes, getting progressively more unglued each time. There wasn't anything groundbreaking in the storyline- it was kind of slow and predictably ended with Whitaker mangling Kovac's hand and then shooting himself on a rooftop, as Kovac's wife and the police waited outside and then heard a gunshot ("Was Kovac shot, or Eames?" Well, duh...) But Whitaker sold every bit of it and the story highlighted how overworked, overextended ERs miss things, and those misses sometime ruin people's lives even if they technically live to tell about it. I'm definitely on board with Whitaker giving an excellent performance worthy of a nomination. However, I can't help but think of another outstanding ER guest performance- John Mahoney (Frasier's Martin) as a cross dressing torch singing gay man who watched his longtime partner succumb to illness in the ER. Mahoney was sensitive and charming and sad and even made John Stamos seem to suck less. But he didn't get any notice.

David Morse, Tritter, House

I love David Morse. I loved him in Hack. I loved him in movies like Green Mile and 16 Blocks and The Negotiator. I even loved him in the small pieces of Dancer In The Dark that I actually sat through. But I'm not sure he did anything all that spectacular in this season's recurring House role, as a ticked off cop who attempts to bring House down on drug charges after House is rude to him in the clinic. I mean, he's always good, no question. But the episodes I saw with him, I never said anything like 'Wow' or 'He's really going for broke here' or anything like that. I more said, 'David Morse, I love him.' It sort of feels like the Emmy voters did the same thing.

Tim Daly, Dolan, The Sopranos

I didn't see this performance, so I'm not going to comment. Daly's a good actor, though. I actually thought he should have been considered for an Emmy when he co-starred for an episode with sister Tyne Daly on Judging Amy. He played this public defender who litterally gets beat up on the job and then goes a little nuts. He was really good. Anyhow, if he loses I'm sure he'll be able to console himself with the fat check Private Practice is no doubt paying him this season.

John Goodman, Judge Bebe, Studio 60

John Goodman gets a lot of mileage out of Aaron Sorkin playing home spun Southern-ish politicians. Don't get me wrong, Goodman is good. But he has had two roles - on on The West Wing as a conservative House Speaker who takes over the White House for a bit and has his little dog with him; this year he was as a Judge in a small rural-ish county where an unusually high proportion of the Studio 60 cast gets stuck for a spell...a spell being a two-parter. The episode was okay, Goodman was really good, if maybe a little cliche - which could have been the, dare I say it, writing? I'm sort of glad he was nominated because he really created a character, in a short time.

Eli Wallach, Eli, Studio 60

I actually saw this episode of Studio 60, too. And then, later, when I watched Holiday, the Cameron Diaz/Kate Winslett movie on DVD, I thought of the episode again. First, I said to myself, though "Oh, THAT's Eli Wallach..." I always confuse the name with Jan Rubes' face, because, in my youth, I used to watch this show where Rubes played a character called Wallach. ANYHOW, in both Studio 60 and Holiday, the extremely senior Wallach played a writer from the good old days. In Studio 60, he was part of a stories writing crew that used to operate in the building during the blacklist days, or something. People ran into him over the course of the show and realized he was a real gem of the old days and took out some old black and white photos. In Holiday, he was about to get a lifetime achievement award and Kate Winslett gave him back the power to walk with impromptu water therapy. Don't ask. Wallach is Wallach and it's a nice sign of respect to give a guy of his longevity a nod. But I don't think there was all that much to the role, if I'm being honest.

But here're a few guys I think they missed.

Well, there's Mahoney as I suggested.

I'm not a big Grey's Anatomy fan. Actually, I'm not at all a Grey's Anatomy fan, but I think if the Academy is going to nominate Kyle Chandler last year for such a small, non-demanding role, then it's really dumb that they didn't look a some of the guys who did some more acting as guests this season on the same show. My pick would be Jeff Perry (Nash Bridges) , the ubiquitous guest and veteran of the Steppenwolf Theatre company, as Meredith's estranged dad. He gave several epsiodes worth of seriously good confused guy acting and then some grief. Plus he slapped Meredith. That's enough to get my vote.

Roy Scheider (Jaws) did a great portrait of an evil and manipulative SOB serial killer in the penultimate Criminal Intent this season. I'm not sure how he or co-star Rita Moreno didn't get noticed, because they were both a lot better than the typical peformances that get noticed off of Law & Orders. (No offense to Marcia Gay Harden who is nominated this year for being on SVU, but, Moreno, her fellow Oscar winner, did a ton more than play a straightforward cop with a southern drawl. Anyhow, that's another category....). Scheider was one of the more notable villains I saw on TV this year, and it's annoying that he got passed over, probably because of the low profile show he was on.

But here's my pick for best guest actor/drama - and biggest snub in the category- Brian Dennehey in Special Victims Unit. He was definitely as good as any actor named above, and better than a few of them. Playing a dying old time robber whose history was filled with twists, I think he may have made this, along with strong performances by the show's leads, and better-than-usual writing, the best SVU ever. But then again, I don't really like SVU that much. I can't believe the Tony-winner didn't get nominated, even. What a gip.