TVSquad

Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for ... drumroll, please ... the announcement of The It's a Paycheck Award nominees. The esteemed actors who have been carefully chosen as nominees for this award have shown themselves to be most worthy movie actors slumming it on TV.

Now people, some of the comments on the intro post intimated that you all took this award slightly more seriously than it was intended. Being on TV certainly isn't really slumming it in this era; however, the actors that made the cut showed an interesting, shall we say, transition from movies to TV. Here they are in alphabetical order:

1. Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Wait a minute, how could Alec Baldwin get nominated for this award? He's been on TV for years! This is true, but no one does it better than Baldwin. Like most actors seem to, he started in TV, doing soap operas. He became known for serious roles on the big screen, like in Hunt for Red October, Malice, and Glengarry Glen Ross. When the box office career just wasn't as lucrative as it had been, Baldwin reinvented himself as a comedic actor. Since he had been making fun of himself on Saturday Night Live for years, it sure wasn't a stretch. 30 Rock marks a defining comedic role for Baldwin.

This award is for the show that was renewed for this fall that, damn it, should just be canceled already!

I'm sure when everyone read that line the first show that snapped into their heads was ABC's According To Jim, so I'm sure that's definitely going to be one of the nominees. Other shows I can think of putting in this category are NBC's Law and Order (please, the "ripped from the headlines" is used so much now it's almost like a parody of itself), NBC's The Apprentice (whenever a reality show goes to celebrity editions you know it's time to hang it up), NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly (really, this has to be one of the "who cares" shows on TV right now), and ABC's America's Funniest Home Videos (how many times can we see a dad hit in the balls?). I also thought of putting ER on the list but, since this fall is definitely the last season, it's at the bottom of the list for possible contenders.

What primetime shows do you think should be nominated? Maybe one of the CSI shows? I'm sure SNL will get some votes, though I don't agree.

We here at the TV Squad offices have been mulling this idea over for years now, and it's finally time we took action. Now that the network upfronts are over and we now know for certain (or, to give some a sliver of hope, near-certain) what shows aren't returning next season, we can start the process of submitting nominations - and then winners - of the TV Squad Awards (or as we sometimes call them internally, The Squaddies).

Over the next few days we'll have posts calling for nominee considerations for each of the twelve award categories. These posts are where you, the readers, should state your case for who or what should be nominated and why. Then, next week we'll post the nominees as chosen by the TV Squad team, along with a poll for the readers. Finally, in two weeks we'll submit the winners as chosen by TV Squad, along with the reader's choice award for each, based on the polls.

The list of awards categories after the jump.