Singling out the grand and gay in this year's Emmy nominations

Prayers For Bobby Vs. Grey Gardens

The noms for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards were announced this morning and there were plenty of gay faves given the nod, including a battle royale between two women who both gave magnificent performances this year.

The category I was most looking forward to was Outstanding Lead Actress in a Television Movie or Mini-series, because the two greatest performances on TV this year were Sigourney Weaver in Prayers For Bobby and Drew Barrymore in Grey Gardens.

Sure enough, both actresses were nominated, as were both films. Oh dear ... how to choose?

The usual suspects got nominations: Neil Patrick Harris (who will also be hosting the show this year) for How I Met Your Mother, Vanessa Williams for Ugly Betty (but not lead America Ferrara), Sally Field in Brothers & Sisters (the lone acting nominee from that show), and Kathy Griffin's My Life on the D-List was nominated again (and the diva will be hosting the "Schmemmys" this year).

I was thrilled to see Toni Collette get a nom for United States of Tara, but another debuting series was shockingly snubbed.

No love for bloodsuckers?

What the hell? The most buzzed-about new series last year, HBO's True Blood was completely shut out in all the major categories, as was the final season of Battlestar Galactica (meanwhile, the tired House and Lost did get the Drama Series Nominations).

For a complete list of this year's nominees, visit the official Emmy site, and you can watch them pass out this year's awards on Sunday, September 20th at 8 PM ET on CBS.