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Television Critics Association Nominees: 'Homeland' Comes Up Big In Its First Year

Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in <em>Homeland</em>.
Kent Smith
/
Showtime
Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland.

The Television Critics Association (which I'm part of) has announced the nominees for its annual awards, which will be handed out during press tour in late July.

Showtime's Homeland is nominated for Outstanding New Program, Outstanding Achievement in Drama — basically our Best Drama Series category — and Program Of The Year. Its star, Claire Danes, is nominated for Individual Achievement in Drama. The other nominees for Program Of The Year are all dramas as well — Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, Mad Men, and Downton Abbey — and the first three of those are also nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Drama, with the last slot filled by Justified.

Individual nominees in drama alongside Danes also overlap quite a bit with those same shows, and include Jon Hamm, Peter Dinklage, and Bryan Cranston. The surprise inclusion is Jessica Lange for her campy turn on FX's American Horror Story.

Our nominated comedies are The Big Bang Theory, Community, Louie, Modern Family and Parks And Recreation, and the individual comedy nominees are Louis C.K., Jim Parsons, and Amy Poehler from those shows, as well as Lena Dunham for Girls and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Veep, both on HBO.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to me personally came in the Outstanding New Program category, where the ones I expected — Girls, Homeland and New Girl — were joined by ABC's juicy Revenge and (this one is the bigger shock) NBC's Smash, which was getting (to put it mildly) mixed reviews by the end of the season. As a couple of other critics have pointed out, the way our system works is that you get to choose two nominees for what will ultimately be a five-nominee category, which has some strange effects. If most people's ballots, for instance, included some combination of Girls, Homeland and New Girl, then Revenge and Smash wouldn't have needed all that many votes to grab the last couple of spots.

We also give out a Heritage Award every year to a show that's affected the culture, and this year's nominees for that are Cheers, Lost, Saturday Night Live, Star Trek, and Twin Peaks. And our Career Achievement Award nominees are Dick Clark, Andy Griffith, David Letterman, Regis Philbin and William Shatner. (I sort of want Shatner to win for the sake of a good time at the ceremony, though I don't see myself voting for him in the final round.)

The full list is after the jump.

Individual Achievement in Drama

Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, AMC)

Claire Danes (Homeland, Showtime)

Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, HBO)

Jon Hamm (Mad Men, AMC)

Jessica Lange (American Horror Story, FX)

Individual Achievement in Comedy

Louis C.K. (Louie, FX)

Lena Dunham (Girls, HBO)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep, HBO)

Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory, CBS)

Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation, NBC)

Outstanding Achievement in News and Information

Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN)

The Daily Show (Comedy Central)

Frontline (PBS)

60 Minutes (CBS)

The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC)

Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming

The Amazing Race (CBS)

Dancing with the Stars (ABC)

The Glee Project (Oxygen)

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)

The Voice (NBC)

Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming

iCarly (Nickelodeon)

Phineas and Ferb (Disney)

Sesame Street (PBS)

Switched at Birth (ABC Family)

Yo Gabba Gabba (Nick Jr.)

Outstanding New Program

Girls (HBO)

Homeland (Showtime)

New Girl (Fox)

Revenge (ABC)

Smash (NBC)

Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials

Downton Abbey: Masterpiece (PBS)

Game Change (HBO)

Hatfields & McCoys (History)

Hemingway & Gellhorn (HBO)

Sherlock: Masterpiece (PBS)

Outstanding Achievement in Drama

Breaking Bad (AMC)

Game of Thrones (HBO)

Homeland (Showtime)

Justified (FX)

Mad Men (AMC)

Outstanding Achievement in Comedy

The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

Community (NBC)

Louie (FX)

Modern Family (ABC)

Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Career Achievement Award

Dick Clark

Andy Griffith

David Letterman

Regis Philbin

William Shatner

Heritage Award

Cheers (NBC)

Lost (ABC)

Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Star Trek (NBC)

Twin Peaks (ABC)

Program of the Year

Breaking Bad (AMC)

Game of Thrones (HBO)

Homeland (Showtime)

Mad Men (AMC)

Downton Abbey: Masterpiece (PBS)

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.