Six Feet Under on top in Emmy nominations

Usually the Emmy nominations are like TV reruns — the same old shows roll around every year, like Frasier and NYPD Blue.

Something went wrong this year. It was, as one American critic put it, as if the members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences actually watched TV this year.

And what they saw was a whole lot of new shows, like Six Feet Under, Alias and 24.

Six Feet Under, the black comedy about a family of undertakers, leads the crowded field of nominees for American television's highest honours.

The programme was nominated in a breathtaking 23 categories, including best drama. No fewer than six of its cast members are up for acting honours.

The nominations were a benefit for British actors, with Kenneth Branagh nominated for his docudrama on Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, and Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave recognised as Winston and Clementine Churchill in the one-off historical drama The Gathering Storm.

Competing with Six Feet Under in the drama category are two more newcomers, the real-time drama 24 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Rounding out the category are two more familiar titles, the multi-award winning political drama The West Wing and the police series Law and Order.

Six Feet Under's 23 nominations were not a record — four shy of the 27 racked up by NYPD Blue in its first season — but they did reflect the enormous critical enthusiasm that has greeted the series. It was conceived by Alan Ball, screenwriter for the Oscar-winning drama American Beauty, and is considered daring for talking openly and irreverently about the taboo subject of death.

Competition was more open, too, because this was the first listing for several years without The Sopranos, the Mafia drama which did not produce any new episodes this year.

But what would Emmy season be without a few glaring omissions? Among them: Friends star David Schwimmer, the entire cast of Scrubs, 24's supporting players, NYPD Blue's Dennis Franz and Charlotte Ross, and, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Buffy's only noms were for hairstyle, makeup and music direction," sighs Emmy expert Tom O'Neil of GoldDerby.com, an awards website. "Last year it didn't get any, so I guess this is better than none."

Powered by Six Feet Under's juggernaut, the HBO cable network notched the most nominations, 93, helped by Band of Brothers and The Gathering Storm, as well as last year's comedy victor, Sex and the City.

The Emmys will be awarded in Los Angeles in September. Last year's ceremony was overshadowed by the events of September 11. It was postponed twice and eventually went ahead in a ceremony so understated many of the invited celebrities did not bother to turn up.

And the nominees in major categories are:


Comedy

Lead actor:

Kelsey Grammer (Frasier)

Matt LeBlanc (Friends)

Bernie Mac (Bernie Mac)

Matthew Perry (Friends)

Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond)

Lead actress:

Jennifer Aniston (Friends)

Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond)

Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle)

Debra Messing (Will & Grace)

Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City)

Supporting actor:

Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond)

Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle)

Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond)

Sean Hayes (Will & Grace)

David Hyde Pierce (Frasier)

Supporting actress:

Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City)

Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me)

Megan Mullally (Will & Grace)

Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City)

Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond)

Series:

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Everybody Loves Raymond

Friends

Sex and the City

Will & Grace

Drama

Lead actor:

Michael Chiklis (The Shield)

Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under)

Peter Krause (Six Feet Under)

Martin Sheen (The West Wing)

Kiefer Sutherland (24)

Lead actress:

Amy Brenneman (Judging Amy)

Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under)

Jennifer Garner (Alias)

Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under)

Allison Janney (The West Wing)

Supporting actor:

Victor Garber (Alias)

DulÈ Hill (The West Wing)

Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under)

Richard Schiff (The West Wing)

John Spencer (The West Wing)

Bradley Whitford (The West Wing)

Supporting actress:

Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under)

Stockard Channing (The West Wing)

Tyne Daly (Judging Amy)

Janel Moloney (The West Wing)

Mary-Louise Parker (The West Wing)

Series:

24

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Law & Order

Six Feet Under

The West Wing

Mini-series or Movie

Lead actor:

Kenneth Branagh (Shackleton)

Beau Bridges (We Were The Mulvaneys)

Albert Finney (The Gathering Storm)

James Franco (James Dean)

Sir Michael Gambon (Path To War)

Lead actress:

Angela Bassett (The Rosa Parks Story)

Blythe Danner (We Were The Mulvaneys)

Laura Linney (Wild Iris)

Vanessa Redgrave (The Gathering Storm)

Gena Rowlands (Wild Iris)

Supporting actor:

Alec Baldwin (Path to War)

Jim Broadbent (The Gathering Storm)

Don Cheadle (Things Behind the Sun)

Michael Moriarty (James Dean)

Jon Voight (Uprising)

Supporting actress:

Joan Allen (The Mists of
Avalon)

Stockard Channing (The Matthew Shepard Story)

Anjelica Huston (The Mists of Avalon)

Dame Diana Rigg (Victoria And Albert)

Sissy Spacek (Last Call)

Mini-series:

Band of Brothers

Dinotopia

The Mists of Avalon

Shackleton

Reality

Non-fiction programme:

American High

Frontier House

The Osbournes

Project Greenlight

Taxicab Confessions

Trauma: Life In The ER