Christina Hendricks on "Mad Men."

Credit: AMC

Christina Hendricks did not have much time to bask in the news of her first Emmy nomination before getting back to work at the show where she earned it.

The Emmy nominations were announced at 5:30 a.m. Pacific, and "I had to be at work at 6:30 this morning," the red-headed "Mad Men" co-star said in an interview last night, "so I was drawing a bath when I heard about the nomination."

She wasn't expecting the Emmy recognition three seasons into the show, particularly after a year when her character, the sexy and super-competent Joan Harris, was absent much of the time because she had quit Sterling Cooper because of her loser husband Greg.

"The material was amazing, but I wasn't there as much," she reasoned. "I thought that might affect how people might pick."

Omar and the Bunk have a difference of opinion.

Credit: HBO

Before we get to this week's review of "The Wire" season three (and, as always, you can find my reviews of the other four seasons on the side rail of my old blog), I have to warn you that the dog ate my homework - or, rather, the MacBook ate my original, very long, obviously brilliant version of this review. I had hoped my local Geniuses could salvage the data in time, but it didn't work out. So due to scheduling problems and my frustration at having to start over from scratch, my review of "Homecoming" will be a bit shorter and rougher than it otherwise would. Sorry. My own damn fault for not backing up my data every five seconds.

As always, we're taking this trip down memory lane in two versions: one for viewers who have seen the whole series from start to finish, and one for people who aren't there yet and don't want later episodes and seasons spoiled for them. This is the veteran version; click here for the newbie-friendly one.

Spoilers for "Homecoming" coming up just as soon as you tell me if you want the Class A or the Class B uniform...

Omar and the Bunk have a difference of opinion.

Credit: HBO

Before we get to this week's review of "The Wire" season three (and, as always, you can find my reviews of the other four seasons on the side rail of my old blog), I have to warn you that the dog ate my homework - or, rather, the MacBook ate my original, very long, obviously brilliant version of this review. I had hoped my local Geniuses could salvage the data in time, but it didn't work out. So due to scheduling problems and my frustration at having to start over from scratch, my review of "Homecoming" will be a bit shorter and rougher than it otherwise would. Sorry. My own damn fault for not backing up my data every five seconds.

As always, we're taking this trip down memory lane in two versions: one for viewers who have seen the whole series from start to finish, and one for people who aren't there yet and don't want later episodes and seasons spoiled for them. This is the newbie version; click here for the veteran-friendly one.

Spoilers for "Homecoming" coming up just as soon as you tell me if you want the Class A or the Class B uniform...

"Parks and Recreation" star Amy Poehler was nominated for an Emmy today.

Credit: NBC

Amy Poehler has some comforting words for "Parks and Recreation" fans who wish that her co-star Nick Offerman and the mustache he wears as parks department boss Ron Effing Swanson had been nominated for an Emmy right along with her.

"A lot of people don't know that there's a separate Emmy for people's mustaches," Poehler told me a few hours after getting the good Emmy news. "Ron Swanson's mustache will be the Tony Shalhoub of mustaches."

More from Poehler after the jump...

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"Friday Night Lights" stars Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton were pleasantly surprising Emmy nominees.

Credit: NBC

Emmy voters tend to be conservative, predictable or lazy, depending on how charitable you want to be towards them, which leads to the same series and actors being nominated again and again and again. But the 2009-10 TV season was so loaded with memorable new series that even Academy members with their heads deepest in the sand couldn't help but notice, and then nominate many of them.

Click here for a complete list of Emmy nominees.

There were still plenty of lame "once a nominee, always a nominee" picks - "30 Rock" got 15 nominations for its worst season by far - and a number of superb newcomers (and relative newcomers) were either marginalized ("Treme" and "Parks and Recreation" only picked up two nominations apiece, though at least one for "Parks and Rec" was Amy Poehler as lead comedy actress) or shut out completely ("Community" and FX's incredible "Sons of Anarchy," which had one of the three best seasons of any drama on television last year), but the drama and comedy series categories featured five first-time nominees, and all the series acting categories featured at least one, and at times several first-time nominees.

Are you ready for more Lane Pryce and Joan Harris in your life when "Mad Men" comes back? I sure am!

Credit: AMC

From the Department of Why I Love My Job: this morning, the FedEx truck arrived with the "Mad Men" season four premiere, which gives me two and a half weeks to fully process it so I can have my review ready to go as soon as AMC finishes airing the episode on Sunday, July 25.

Per the usual gentleman's agreement on this sort of thing(*), I can't/won't say anything about the content of the premiere - including when it takes place, since Matt Weiner likes to treat the setting as a surprise for the audience - but I will say that I enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish. Don at one point makes a reference to how the press loves to build people up so they can tear them down, and if Weiner threw that in as a preemptive strike against some kind of critical backlash this far into the run, I don't think he needs to worry.

(*) Not everyone in the media will stick to that agreement, of course, so let's remember the usual No Spoilers rule around these parts. If you've read something elsewhere that gives more detail about what happens - or when it happens - please do not mention anything in the comments here. Thanks.

Much as I'd love to invite you all over to watch it with me when I take my second pass through it, I can't. But if you want to at least get a sense of the look of season 4 - and try to search for clues about what's going on and when - HitFix has up a gallery of 17 new photos from the season. Enjoy, and I look forward to discussing the show with you here as much as I did back in the old digs.

LeBron James is enjoying being the center of attention during the NBA's free agent sweepstakes.

Credit: AP

My productivity has gone to hell this week because of one man: LeBron James.

I'm a Knicks fan, and after a decade of misery and humiliation, and after two years spent gutting the (admittedly heinous) roster for a shot at this one guy, I'm far more invested in the LeBron free agent sweepstakes than I should be. As a member of the media, I understand how the business works, and therefore that at least 99% of the tweets and blog posts and ESPN interviews about what "league sources" and "a source close to the James camp" know about where LeBron is going are bogus - because it's more important to report anything at all and have content than wait for the right info - yet I can't stop reading every damn one of them.

I said to a friend yesterday that I finally understand all those people who are constantly scouring the tabloids for new news bout the Jake/Vienna "Bachelor" split. This is completely meaningless, and yet the soap opera of it has consumed me.

So of course last night LeBron went and made the link even more overt by telling ESPN he wants to announce his decision in a one-hour primetime ESPN special on Thursday night. (And I love that in the linked story, "independent sources" had to confirm the LeBron/ESPN talks to an ESPN reporter. In-bred 21st century media, boys and girls.) The sportswriters I follow on Twitter (and goodness knows I've added a lot of them since July 1) have mostly been aghast, both at LeBron's desperate need to be the center of attention and at the idea of a one-hour special to reveal something that can probably be dealt with in 10 minutes or less.

Clearly, most of these guys don't watch a lot of reality TV (as opposed to Bill Simmons, who tweeted, "It's the dramatic season finale of The LeBrachelor!"), because anyone who has knows there are many, many, many ways to pad out a few minutes worth of content into at least an hour. After the jump, I have some thoughts on which reality show models LeBron might try to follow...

"Warehouse 13."

Credit: Syfy

"Warehouse 13" returned last night on Syfy, and that's another one on my long list of shows I watch from time to time but never feel strongly enough about to write about. (In that hierarchy, I'd say it ranks above Syfy's very similar "Eureka," simply because I enjoy the Eddie McClintock/Joanne Kelly partnership and the presence of Saul Rubinek more than I care about anyone on "Eureka.") The premiere had some good guest turns by Roger Rees and Jaime Murray, plus one of the show's cooler bits of steampunk, and I'm curious what those of you who watched thought of it.

Aaron Douglas in "The Bridge."

Credit: CBS

As the American broadcast networks have tried to find a financially-viable way to air scripted programming in the summer, they’ve frequently tried reaching beyond our borders for help. Foreign shows, whether straight-up imports or co-productions where the American network shares the cost, are a lot cheaper, and can justify the lower ratings that come in summer. So far, though, only one particular type of foreign series has really resonated with American audiences:

Canadian police dramas.

CBS is now airing the third season of “Flashpoint,” which has been such a sturdy performer that the network has on occasion aired it during the regular season. ABC’s “Rookie Blue” (“Grey’s Anatomy” with cops) has been one of this summer’s few scripted success stories (though airing after “Wipeout” certainly doesn’t hurt, since public appetite seems bottomless for people going splat into mud pits). If CBS’ “The Bridge” (which has a two-hour debut Saturday at 8) is a hit, we’ll officially have a trend, and you’d better be ready for more shows where the cops are called “Constable” and the streets look really clean.

I’m not so sure about the prospects for “The Bridge,” though. It has an unusual premise and a strong lead performance by Aaron Douglas, but not all the execution is great, and it feels like it’s on the wrong network, on the wrong night.