The 2012 Emmy nominations were announced Thursday morning, and while it's easy to point out huge nubs (no Parks and Recreation for Comedy Series?) or embarrassingly awful nominations (Jon Cryer for Two and a Half Men?), I'm going to focus on the positive.

2012 Emmy Nominations: Mad Men, Downton Abbey Dominate>>

This year includes a number of exciting new nominees. If you look deep enough, you'll find cool stuff like the sole nominations for Raising Hope and Community, hilarious fresh blood on the comedy categories and some truly amazing guest stars.

So here are my 10 favorite nominations of the year.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Mayim Bialik for The Big Bang Theory and Merritt Wever for Nurse Jackie

This unlikely duo added some fresh blood to this category. Bialik is brilliant as Sheldon's pseudo-girlfriend and Wever is so shiny and bubbly on Nurse Jackie that she almost single-handedly makes the show feel like a comedy.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: Max Greenfield for New Girl and Bill Hader for Saturday Night Live

With four of the six spots going to Modern Family's men, the competition was fierce for the other two nominations. Greenfield is more than deserving as the break-out star of the year, and Hader is a huge surprise, but it's hard to deny he deserves a lot of love for his amazing work.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama and Comedy Series: Michael J. Fox, The Good Wife and Curb Your Enthusiasm

Fox has the chance to take home two Emmys this year as he's competing as a guest actor in the comedy and drama categories. Both are well deserved.

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series: Margaret Cho for 30 Rock and Kathy Bates for Two and a Half Men

I don't actually think either of these women deserve nominations, but since they played Kim Jong-Il and Charlie Harper, I'm mostly just amused by the fact that two of the nominees in this category are woman playing men.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Jared Harris, Mad Men

I fully expected the awesome Giancarlo Esposito to be nominated for Breaking Bad, but Harris was a pleasant surprise as another character killed off this season.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series: All Six Nominees

One of the strongest categories of the year, I'd be equally happy with any of the nominees winning. There's Justified's Jeremy Davies as the on-edge Dickie Bennett. There's a pair of great Good Wife recurring characters from Michael J. Fox and the creepy Dylan Baker. There's Mark Margolis as the silent but deadly Tio Salamanca on Breaking Bad (who knew you could be nominated for simply ringing a bell). There's the wonderfully absurd Ben Feldman as the ambitious young copywriter Ginsberg on Mad Men. And finally there's the sweet, sensitive Jason Ritter on Parenthood (scoring the show's first and only Emmy nomination so far, which is a real tragedy).

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series: "Remedial Chaos Theory," Community

This utterly brilliant episode about alternate timelines helped earn Community its first-ever Emmy nomination.

Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics: "Welcome Back to Hope" from Raising Hope

Season 2 began with this charming little song that summed up the entire first season. Watch, listen and smile.



Louis C.K.'s 7 Nominations

You read that right. Comedian Louis C.K. is a huge winner this year. He was nominated for acting, writing and directing for his FX series Louie, and his FX comedy special was also nominated for Outstanding Special Class Program while C.K. himself was nominated for writing, directing and editing it. That's one heck of a renaissance man.

Outstanding Main Title Design: New Girl

The opening isn't elaborate or artsy like the other nominees in this category (all cable shows), but it's smart and well-crafted and completely worthy of this nomination.


What are some of your favorite Emmy nominees this year?


(Image courtesy of NBC)