thePeanutBloggery

Welcome to the fourth and final night of the Peanut Awards, on which we crown the best of the best. We Peanuts would like to thank all our readers for their enthusiastic responses, especially those folks who posted their comments. Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the final act of the First Annual Peanut Awards.

The Nominees for the Best Individual Episode of a Comedy are

• “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” (Ugly Betty)
• “Hard Ball” (30 Rock)
• “My Musical” (Scrubs)
• “Showdown” (How I Met Your Mother)

And the winner is…“Hard Ball” (30 Rock).

Liz Lemon makes Josh do “the worm” in a contract negotiation meeting; Jenna mixes up Barrack Obama and Osama Bin Laden on live television; Kenneth becomes a member of Tracy’s entourage, and they sing an a cappella chorus of “Tomorrow” to seal the deal. It all adds up to 21 minutes of hilarity that would make Jerry Seinfeld jealous.

The Nominees for the Best Individual Episode of a Drama are

• “Blinders” (Friday Night Lights)
• “Company Man” (Heroes)
• “From a Whisper to a Scream” (Grey’s Anatomy)
• “Pilot” (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip)

And the winner is…“Pilot” (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip).

Last September, on a Monday night, NBC premiered a series that promised to change television as we knew it. The Pilot of “Studio 60″ was a call to arms, a manifesto, led by Judd Hirsh and a riveting monologue calling the networks to task for the quality and significance of their programming. Unfortunately, the subsequent episodes failed to answer his call, and the series slipped slowly into hiatus and cancellation. Despite this, the pilot episode stands on its own as the best of the season.

Now let’s take a moment to honor this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award, “Gilmore Girls“.

After seven years, the girls said goodbye forever in May. We’ll miss terribly the rapid-fire dialogue peppered with obscure allusions. We’ll also miss idyllic Stars Hollow and all its quirky town events, and we’ll continue to search Connecticut for Luke’s Diner and the Dragonfly, just as optimistic explorers continue to search for Atlantis. We’ll miss Friday night dinners, Hep Alien, and Babette’s gnomes. But most of all, we’ll miss the two Loreleis - mother and daughter, best friends, soul mates.

The nominees for Best Comedy are

• 30 Rock
• Entourage
• The Office
• Ugly Betty

And the winner is…30 Rock.

Having already won the Peanut awards for Best New Comedy and Best Individual Episode of a Comedy, it would seem we’d already said everything we could about this show. Not true. We haven’t said this: “30 Rock” is an outstanding comedy with very poor viewership, so, please, if you’re not already a fan, go to the NBC website where you can watch the entire first season - in one sitting if you want.

The nominees for Best Drama are

• Friday Night Lights
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Heroes
• Jericho

And the winner is…Heroes.

There’s a reason why at most awards shows the recipient of the final award tends to say very little in his or her acceptance speech. If it’s that good, it probably already won a pile of awards, and folks are sick of hearing about how great it is. So here you go: “Heroes” is a well-written, carefully stylized, and consistently compelling series. Now drop the confetti, roll the credits, and start downloading all those shows you missed.

Thanks for reading!