TVSquad

Tina Fey's surprise return to Saturday Night Live as Sarah Palin was one of the ten greatest TV moments of 2008 (and quite possibly the decade, the century, the millennium and the eon).

So it's no surprise that Fey's name and show 30 Rock came up so many times in the recent list of Emmy nods. I'm no longer convinced that she's a woman. I'm convinced she's an experimental humanoid prototype designed by studio executives solely to win awards like Tom Hanks (aka "Project Red Shoe").

It's also no surprise that one of the two acting nods she scored included her Palin performance on SNL.

The Emmy nod is the perfect praise for the power of Fey's impression and performance of the polarizing Presidential applicant. (My apologies for the perplexing and repetitive "P" sound. My apologies for saying "apologies" and for saying it again and so on).

It's fairly easy to do a Palin impression. The woman is more one-sided and easier to figure out than a green Rubik's Cube. Here's the recipe if you want to make one at home: throw in a scoop of Minnesota housewife, a bit of Peggy Hill confidence, throw in two heaping scoops of "You betchas" and unnecessary winks, stir vigorously until it reaches the very edge of disorientation, ice and pour.

Fey didn't do that. She really threw herself into the whole character, mirroring the things people loved and hated about her all at the same time. She captured her charm and homespun uniqueness that helped her stand out in the political muck, and nailed her empty rhetoric and rambling responses that scrambled frantically around in darkness behind a perpetual cutesy smirk.

It might look easy, but playing someone who doesn't know what they are doing while they are trying to fake it is extremely difficult and deserves special recognition, much like Michael C. Hall's work as Dexter Morgan who also got a nod this year for Best Dramatic Actor. In fact, Fey should have been nominated for Best Guest Appearance in a Dramatic Series instead of a Comedy for her Palin performance. Either Fey is that good or Palin was that fake.