With Bryan Cranston taking the Emmy year off, is Jon Hamm the favorite?

Credit: AMC

Welcome to part six of our journey through the Emmy ballot on HitFix. Once again, Fienberg and I are approaching each category from two directions, with Dan as the pragmatist and me as the optimist. So as we move onto the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama category, Dan has his usual exhaustive photo gallery of potential nominees, starting with the most likely candidates before eventually moving onto a bit of wish fulfillment, while after the jump, I continue to pretend that I'm a voting member of the TV Academy and have to pick six nominees for this category. (And, again, actors determine what category to submit themselves in, or whether to submit at all. You can download the full performers list here.)

Toni Collette in the "United States of Tara" series finale.

Credit: Showtime

And so "United States of Tara" has come to an unplanned but still very effective end. My review of the series finale coming up just as soon as I own the world's first combination strip club and pancake house...

Time for what may be the first of two episodes of the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast this week. I say "may" only because our technical problems have been so hellacious of late that I'm not sure Dan or I have the heart to try two podcasts in one week. But at the very least, we got in a very long discussion of the finales of "The Killing" and "Game of Thrones," plus more "Twin Peaks" and a review of ABC's "Combat Hospita."  The run-down:

Harley (Steve Earle) and Annie (Lucia Micarelli) in "Treme."

Credit: HBO

A review of tonight's "Treme" coming up just as soon as I put y'all on a need-to-know basis...

Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) ponders the state of affairs in the "Game of Thrones" season finale.

Credit: HBO

"Game of Thrones" just wrapped up its terrific first season, and I have a review of the finale coming up (and, for anyone who DVR'ed "The Killing" finale but hasn't seen it yet, I briefly discuss my opinion of it in a non-spoiler-y fashion), just as soon as I favor my fingers...

Billy Campbell in a scene from "The Killing" season finale.

Credit: AMC

"The Killing" just concluded its first season and... well... I'm not a very happy camper right now. But you can go read my review for all of that.

I had the chance to speak to producer Veena Sud after I saw the finale, to discuss not only the way the episode went down, but to get her take on the season as a whole and some of the complaints people have had with it. Obviously significant spoilers for the finale and the season coming up after the jump...

Mireille Enos in "The Killing" season finale.

Credit: AMC

"The Killing" wrapped up its first season tonight. I interviewed showrunner Veena Sud about the season, and highly recommend you read that before we get to my review of the finale, as I'll be discussing what she said a lot. My review - with plentiful spoilers for the episode, of course - coming up just as soon as me doing math is like a dog wearing a hat...

Noah Wyle in "Falling Skies."

Credit: TNT

I published my review of TNT's "Falling Skies" on Friday. It's an effective pulp thriller, but as I said in the comments section, I'm not sure how well it lends itself to weekly analysis. It's good, but it's not deep. With a bunch of other notable cable shows ending their seasons tonight (or nearing the end), I definitely don't have any time to write individual commentary on the pilot itself. That's a shame, as these two hours were the strongest of the five I've seen. 

But why don't those of you who watched weigh in on the pilot, and going forward, we'll play it by ear. If there's enough interest, I may treat it the way I've treated  "True Blood" or "Big Love" - extremely short weekly posts mostly designed as a place for everyone to discuss it - or maybe I'll just check in now and then if there's an especially notable episode. 

What did everybody else think?

Anna Torv playing one of her many alter egos this season on "Fringe."

Credit: FOX

Welcome to part five of our journey through the Emmy ballot on HitFix. Once again, Fienberg and I are approaching each category from two directions, with Dan as the pragmatist and me as the optimist. So as we move onto the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama category, Dan has his usual exhaustive photo gallery of potential nominees, starting with the most likely candidates before eventually moving onto a bit of wish fulfillment, while after the jump, I continue to pretend that I'm a voting member of the TV Academy and have to pick six nominees for this category. (And, again, actors determine what category to submit themselves in, or whether to submit at all. You can download the full performers list here.)

In an ideal world, "Community" co-stars Donald Glover and Danny Pudi would be competing against each other for an Emmy.

Credit: NBC

Welcome to part four of our journey through the Emmy ballot on HitFix. Once again, Fienberg and I are approaching each category from two directions, with Dan as the pragmatist and me as the optimist. So as we move onto the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy category, Dan has his usual exhaustive photo gallery of potential nominees, starting with the most likely candidates before eventually moving onto a bit of wish fulfillment, while after the jump, I continue to pretend that I'm a voting member of the TV Academy and have to pick six nominees for this category. (And, again, actors determine what category to submit themselves in, or whether to submit at all. You can download the full performers list here.)