Emmy Nominations 2015

As expected, “Mad Men” snagged an Emmy nomination today as it began its bid for a record fifth outstanding drama series prize, while “Modern Family” earned a nod for best comedy as it seeks a record sixth win in the category.

“Mad Men” will compete for best drama series with “Better Call Saul,” “Downton Abbey,” “Game of Thrones,” “Homeland,” “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black.

The AMC period advertising drama won the Emmy in the category each of its first four seasons, but last won in 2011. It completed its run in May and has history on its side. Both “Breaking Bad,” the winner each of the past two years,” and “The Sopranos” won in their final seasons.

“Mad Men” is among three series to be a four-time winner, along with “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “The West Wing.”

This is the fourth year in a row that none of the nominees for outstanding drama series came from the major broadcast networks. “The Good Wife” was the most recent nominee from a major broadcast network. A series from the major broadcast networks has not won in the category since Fox’s “24” in 2006.

HBO’s “Game of Thrones” led the list of nominees with 24, followed by “American Horror Story: Freak Show” with 19 and “Olive Kitteridge” with 13.

Jon Hamm was nominated for best actor in a drama series for “Mad Men.” He will square off against Kyle Chandler for “Bloodline,” Jeff Daniels for “The Newsroom,” Bob Odenkirk for “Better Call Saul,” Liev Schrieber for “Ray Donovan” and Kevin Spacey for “House of Cards.”

“Mad Men’s” Elisabeth Moss was nominated for best actress in a drama series, along with Claire Danes for “Homeland,” Viola Davis for “How to Get Away with Murder,” Taraji P. Henson for “Empire,” Tatiana Maslany for “Orphan Black” and Robin Wright for “House of Cards.”

“Modern Family” has won the outstanding comedy series Emmy for a record-tying five consecutive seasons. “Frasier” is the other five-time winner in the category.

The ABC comedy will compete for the honor this year with “Louie,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Silicon Valley,” “Transparent,” “Veep” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”

Anthony Anderson led the list of nominees for best actor in a comedy for his work in the freshman series “black-ish.” Will Forte was also a new face in the category for “The Last Man on Earth.” They will compete with Don Cheadle for “House of Lies,” William H. Macy for “Shameless,” Matt LeBlanc for “Episodes” and Louis C.K. for “Louie.”

Veteran actress and comedian Lily Tomlin scored a nomination for best actress in a comedy for “Grace and Frankie.” Perennial contender Edie Falco was nominated again for “Nurse Jackie,” along with Lisa Kudrow for “The Comeback,” Amy Schumer for “Inside Amy Schumer,” Amy Poehler for “Parks and Recreation” and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for “Veep.”

CBS’ “The Amazing Race” was again among the nominees for outstanding reality-competition program. It has been nominated each of the preceding 13 years the category has been in existence. It won each of the first seven years, and again in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

It will compete with “Dancing with the Stars,” “Project Runway,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Top Chef” and “The Voice.” The list of nominees in the category has now been the same for four years in a row. NBC’s “The Voice” and Bravo’s “Top Chef” are the only other shows to win in the category.

For this year’s Emmys, all references to mini-series have been changed to limited series, which is now defined as a program with two or more episodes with a total running time of at least 150 minutes, that tells a complete, non- recurring story and does not have an on-going storyline and/or main characters in subsequent seasons.

Nominations for outstanding limited series went to ABC’s “American Crime,” FX’s “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge,” Sundance’s “The Honorable Woman” and PBS’ “Wolf Hall.”

For outstanding television movie, nominations went to Acorn’s “Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Curtain, Poirot’s Last Case,” HBO’s “Bessie,” Lifetime’s “Grace of Monaco,” HBO’s “Hello Ladies: The Movie,” National Geographic’s “Killing Jesus” and HBO’s “Nightingale.”

The nominations were announced at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood by Cat Deeley, host of “So You Think You Can Dance,” and Uzo Aduba, who won a guest actress Emmy last season for her portrayal of Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren on “Orange is the New Black.”

Deeley scored her fifth nomination for host of a reality or reality- competition program. Also nominated in the category were Tom Bergeron of “Dancing with the Stars,” Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn of “Project Runway,” Anthony Bourdain of “The Taste” and Jane Lynch for “Hollywood Game Night.”

Aduba, meanwhile, was nominated for supporting actress in a drama, along with Joanne Froggatt of “Downton Abbey,” Emilia Clarke and Lena Headey of “Game of Thrones, Christine Baranski of “The Good Wife” and Christina Hendricks of “Mad Men.”

Nominations for supporting actor in a drama went to Jonathan Banks of “Better Call Saul,” Jim Carter of “Downton Abbey,” Michael Kelly of “House of Cards,” Ben Mendelsohn of “Bloodline,” Peter Dinklage of “Game of Thrones” and Alan Cumming of “The Good Wife.”

The nominations announcement was made at 8:30 a.m., a departure from the traditional early morning event timed to coincide with East Coast morning news shows. John Levrence, the Television Academy’s senior vice president of awards, said the nature of the “24-hour news cycle gives flexibility to the timing of the announcement.”

The 67th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, which honor programming initially airing between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. from June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2015, will be presented Sept. 20 at the Microsoft Theater (formerly the Nokia Theatre) with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star Andy Samberg as the host. The ceremony will be televised on Fox.

The bulk of the Primetime Emmys will be presented at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony Sept. 12, also at the Microsoft Theater.

City News Service; Photo: flickr.com