TVSquad

11:00: OK, that's it for me tonight. Things have turned bold for some reason and I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since...well, I had a handful of almonds around 5:30, along with a Diet Coke, but that's it. Check out more Emmys on AOL, with a full list of winners, behind the scenes info, interviews, and a ton of pictures.

10:57: Outstanding Drama, Mad Men. Yes!!!!!

10:56: Tom Selleck delivering the Drama award? Random, but welcome.

10:55: Two years in a row for 30 Rock. Does this mean great ratings? (Probably not.)

10:54: Outstanding Comedy Series: 30 Rock.

10:53: Mary Tyler Moore: attractive woman, really bad dress.

10:50: ...and the Emmy goes to Jeff Probst (Survivor).

10:45: Outstanding Host, Reality Show is...after this commercial. Kimmel is becoming the MVP of award shows and specials.

10:41: Outstanding Lead Actress, Comedy: Tina Fey (30 Rock).

10:38: Outstanding Lead Actor, Drama: Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)!

10:36: The Fey/Scorcese American Express ad is great...but not when you see it 30 times in one night.

10:34: In case you're wondering, I still haven't eaten anything yet.

10:32: Impressed they're including some producers and other behind the scenes folks.

10:30: Ah, the annual "In Memoriam." The time of the show we try to figure out who they'll leave out.

10:28: Outstanding Lead Actress, Drama: Glenn Close (Damages).

• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes.
• ABC has the Jimmy Kimmel Big Night of Stars special at 8, then the Emmy Awards (we'll have a live blog here starting at 6pm ET).
• NBC has a new Football Night in America at 7, followed by the Cowboys/Packers game.
• At 8, Food Network has a new Challenge.
• Discovery has a new Raging Nature at 8.
• At 8:30, Disney has a new Wizards of Waverly Place.
• At 9, PBS has a new Masterpiece Mystery.
• HBO has a new True Blood at 9, followed by a new Entourage.
• At 10, Lifetime has a new Army Wives.
• Food Network has a new Feasting on Waves at 10.
• Also at 10: BBC America has a new Skins.
• At 11:30, Cartoon Network has a new Robot Chicken.
• At 12:30am, Cartoon Network has a new Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Our Monday morning roundup of a half dozen things TV Squad readers - and TV fans in general - will be talking about this week.

1. Emmy Awards. Fingers crossed that 'Til Death wins a special award. Oh please oh please oh please oh please. (Sunday at 7 on ABC - we'll have live blog coverage!)

2. House season premiere. I'm just guessing, but I bet there's some mystery illness and House figures it out. (Tuesday at 8 on FOX.)

3. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season premiere. I haven't seen this show but the new commercials actually make me want to check it out. (Thursday at 10 on FX.)

4. Burn Notice season finale. Doesn't it seem like the season just started? (Thursday at 10 on USA.)

5. Supernatural season premiere. Yes, Dean is alive and well (?). (Thursday at 9 on The CW.)

6. The Closer season finale. Actually, maybe that should say The The Closer season finale. (Tonight at 9 on TNT.)

As we've told you before, this is the 60th anniversary of the Emmy Awards. The September 21 show, telecast on ABC, will not only celebrate the Best Actresses and Best Dramas of the current prime time lineup, it will also celebrate the many stars and characters and shows of 10, 20, 40, 60 years ago.

ABC has created an ad that features a lot of those stars. A lot of the stars are easy to find and it's a no-brainer that they were included (Marge and Homer, Rod Serling, Dick Van Dyke, Stewie, the South Park guys, etc), but I'm happy to also see some people I didn't think would be in such an ad: Guy Williams as Zorro, Robert Culp from I Spy, Mike Connors from Mannix, Tim Daly from Wings, Wally Cox from Mr. Peepers, among others.

The third most important story in the Entertainment section of my news page this morning is this: which stars are going to present awards at this year's Emmy Awards ceremony (September 21 on ABC). And to that I say a big ... who cares?

Every year, in the weeks leading up to the Emmys, we hear about which stars are going to present awards. I've always found it odd because the people they say are going to present are, you know, TV stars. Seriously, this is the Emmy Awards, and like the Oscars or the Grammys, I expect the people who have something to do with television (maybe the people who actually star on the shows!) to either present awards, introduce segments of the show, or even host. Yeah, it's mildly interesting that William Petersen and Laurence Fishburne will present an award together, since Fishburne is taking over for Petersen on CSI, but it's not that big of a deal. And it's certainly not a big deal that America Fererra and Vanessa Williams are going to present an award or that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hugh Laurie are going to present awards - separately. I would assume that these current TV stars will be involved in some way, but even if they aren't, why is it news?

We're used to reading all of the lists that rank the best and worst TV shows of all-time, now ABC is getting even more specific than that. What are the top moments in television history?

You can vote for them at the ABC site and your answers will be revealed on the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sunday, September 21. There are two categories, comedy and drama (sorry fans of game shows and reality shows). No, you can't write in your own vote, you have to pick from the finalists that they've already chosen for you, so right off the bat you know there's going to be a lot of "but what about..." and "why did they include..." talk.

Here's a neat idea: the Burn Notice promotional kits that USA Network sent out to Emmy voters were written in invisible ink! You needed a UV flashlight to read the words, which was included in the kit. The Denver Egoist has all of the details and several pics from the kit, created by TDA Advertising in Boulder, CO.

The kit, which contains 12 episodes of the show on four DVDs, is set up to look like a classified file, and though some of the words are legible, you need the flashlight to read the others. Very cool and very spy-ish, though I wonder if they should have done it a different way. Isn't the preferred method of getting secret messages to Michael via a crossword puzzle? They should have included a secret message about the show inside of a crossword too.

Let it be known that my son knows a good thing when he sees it. He's 14 now, but between the ages of six and 10, he was obsessed with Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, a Cartoon Network show that just earned an Emmy. Character designer Ben Balistreri won in the juried award category for individual achievement in animation for the "Mondo Coco" episode.

I would see the show in passing and think, what the heck is this? It just looked so weird, and the animation is practically primitive compared to today's CG standards. But the concept is somewhat more complicated.

In the Foster's universe, imaginary friends become physical beings the instant a child imagines them. An Imaginary Friend is completely real and can be seen, heard, and felt by all under most circumstances. The only problem is that children outgrow them, and they're left to fend for themselves.

The Survivor producer is probably not the only person wondering that, but Burnett is getting a little more specific.

Mandel was nominated for his hosting gig on Deal or No Deal in the "Best Reality Host" category. Now, I'm just as surprised as you are to see that DOND is considered a reality show and not a game show (I think it's the amount of time they focus on the contestants and the family members on stage and the tears and the personal stories that tip some primetime game shows into the reality realm). Burnett doesn't think it's fair that you have someone like Jeff Probst, who hosts an unscripted (?) show like Survivor put up against people who host talent shows and game shows.

This news makes me cringe more than a little.

At this year's Emmy Awards (September 21 on ABC), celebrities will utter famous catch phrases and lines from 60 years of television.

Doesn't this immediately sound just awful? The scripts for these award shows are often cringe-worthy anyway, the forced humor and banter between two people presenting at the same time, and now they're going to make them say famous lines from TV shows? I can just see Helen Mirren up on stage saying, "And the award for Lead Actress In A Television Series goes to...Glenn Close!...Oh, and by the way, Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?"

Hopefully the lines will be put into some sort of context and not just randomly uttered. I mean, wouldn't it just be terrible in the stars came out on stage throughout the show for special segments on catch phrases, said them ("Kiss My Grits"), and got some weird round of applause from the audience?

Interesting yet - OK, I'll say it - odd piece over at the Los Angeles Times: Are the Emmys out of touch with what most TV viewers watch?

I would I think in some ways, yes, and thank God for that.

The main point of the article (titled "The TV Hit No One Watches") is that a show like Mad Men can garner 16 nominiations (a lot for any show but it's especially impressive for a new show, and a new show that's on cable) but still only average about one million viewers a week. And to this I say "so what?" If the Emmys just nominated/gave awards to American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, CSI: Miami, Two and a Half Men, and Grey's Anatomy, wouldn't we be a little ticked off? The fact that shows such as Mad Men, Damages, and Breaking Bad got so many awards is a very, very good thing, for the Emmy voters and viewers alike, because they also happen to be fantastic shows.

The Emmy nominations will be announced tomorrow morning at 8:30am, and I'll be live-blogging the announcement, so come back here at that time for all the news. Well, actually, you won't have to "come back here" if you never leave, right? So please keep TV Squad open in a separate window as you do the rest of your web surfing and keep hitting refresh for the latest news. Thank you.

I'm sure a lot of the usual suspects will be in the mix when they announce the nominees: Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, The Wire, Hugh Laurie, Boston Legal, etc. But there are several shows and actors that I'm really pulling for and should get nominations, if the world is fair. My list after the jump.

With Rescue Me's fifth season finally (kinda, sorta) getting closer, we're getting more and more news about what's in store for Tommy and the gang. In addition to the minisodes, we've also got some exciting potential casting news: Michael J. Fox may be joining Rescue Me for a multi-episode arc. Fox is set to play a love interest for Tommy's (Dennis Leary) on-again/off-again ex, Janet (Andrea Roth).

Rescue Me may seem like an odd show for the former Spin City and Family Ties star to pop up on, but Fox and Leary are longtime friends. This friendship means that even though the deal isn't completely finalized, there's very good chance that Fox will be seen on the FX drama next summer.

The Emmy Awards voting is different than it used to be (more steps in the voting process and a special panel watches episodes and votes after that), and last year the list of the semifinalists was leaked online before it was officially announced. Well, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences don't really want that to happen again, so they've decided to just announce the finalist list itself.

After the jump, the ten comedies and ten dramas that are semifinalists for the Emmy award this year. The list will be knocked down to five (more if there's a tie) once another round of voting is done. The nominees will be announced live on July 17, and we'll have coverage here at TV Squad.

Hey Miss Heigl,

How's it going? Good I hope! You must be enjoying the off-season, huh? I bet you can't wait to get back into production for Grey's Anatomy though. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I think you're a really good person. You seem awfully nice and it's very admirable the way you stand up for things you believe in.

You held your own against Isaiah Washington and stood up for your friend T.R. Knight when Washington's hateful words stunned us all. You even spoke out against the sexist undertones of Knocked Up, a film you starred in no less!

Since you seem so nice, I'm wondering if you could do me a small favor. I need a few thousand bucks to cover some recent medical costs. See, I sprained a muscle in my neck real bad a few days ago. How'd it happen you ask?

From craning to get a glimpse of your self-righteous mug way up on top of that high horse of yours.