Emmy's picks for writing and directing nominees in the series categories are kinda like a state of the craft report card every year. They're often the category where new and innovative programs are recognized long before they crack the more prominent races.

But in a year when Emmy voters seemed to embrace new and different, the choices in the writing and directing heats seem more pedestrian, though some of this year's contenders were so obvious (Bryan Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld for "Pushing Daisies" Pie-lette, Matthew Weiner and Alan Taylor for the "Mad Men" pilot) as to take some of the suspense out of the race this year. Sonnenfeld (pictured left) and Taylor (pictured right) have already bagged DGA Awards for their work on these pilots.

Sonnenfeld, IMHO, can safely begin rehearsing his acceptance speech for comedy helmer. (Coming from him, it oughta be a doozy.) The competish is strong -- a six-nominee category meaning that there was one tie in the nom ballotting -- but nothing was quite so inventive and visually distinct as that first slice of ABC's "Pushing Daisies."

From my viewfinder, the dark horse in the race could be James Bobin of HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." Bobin, co-creator of the series with Kiwi comedy-rockers Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, is up for the "Sally Returns" episode of "Conchord's" 12-episode frosh season.

Dan Attias nabbed a nom for the "No Cannes Do" installment of "Entourage." Paul Lieberstein has shown that there's no end to his talents by performing, writing and directing segs of NBC's "The Office," and now he's up for helming the seg "Money" Parts 1 and 2 (sounds like a James Brown hit from the early '70s). Also nommed from "Office" is Paul Feig, for handling the season finale, "Goodbye, Toby," which happened to mark the farewell of Lieberstein's character. Michael Engler of NBC's "30 Rock" is up for the "Rosemary's Baby" installment.

Hot off the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nomination vote-tallying machine, here are the top 10 finalists for Emmy noms in the comedy and drama series heats. The final noms will be announced on Thursday, July 17.

(My 2 cents on the list follows after the jump)

COMEDY

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

DRAMA

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

Maybe you had to be a "Star Trek" geek as a kid, and it probably helps to have grown up with Caltech and JPL being places you visited on school field trips... but even if you didn't mark time by the "star date" calendar or spend your formative years in Pasadena, you've gotta be able to get a giggle out of "The Big Bang Theory."

CBS/Warner Bros. TV comedy, created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, is the frosh MVP of the tortured 2007-08 season, IMHO. Episode by episode, the ensemble is getting tighter and more playful, making the characters richer and, most important, funny. This is not one of those half-hours that is stingy with big, broad laughs, or more concerned with advancing soapy storylines than the pound-for-pound silliness of each episode.

Perhaps the buddy comedy's biggest accomplishment has been making Kaley Cuoco's Penny, the ditsy hot chick who moves in next door to the egghead Caltech-ers (played with aplomb by Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons), more than a one-note punch line.

Producers are promising some extra-special hijinks for "Big Bang's" May 19 season finale.

For a representative sample, spin this recent "Big Bang" seg, "The Bat Jar Conjecture," as pictured here. Hint: As always, keep your eye on the red shirts.

It sounds like something that will either be very good or very ... not so good. But I give 'em all credit for derring-do and willingness to try something totally off the wall -- a scribe swap that cuts across genres, and even studios.

"CSI" writers Sarah Goldfinger and Evan Dunsky have penned the May 5 seg of "Two and a Half Men," based on a story by "CSI" czarina Carol Mendelsohn and Naren Shankar. Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn, co-creators and exec producers of "Men," have done the script for the May 8 installment of "CSI."

The "Men" seg, "Fish in a Drawer," involves a CSI team coming to Charlie Harper's beach house to investigate -- what else? -- a mysterious death. It should be further enlivened by guest stars Robert Wagner and Jenny McCarthy.

"CSI" seg "Two and a Half Deaths" revolves around the death of a high-maintenance sitcom star, played by Katey Sagal, while shooting her show on location in Sin City. Suspects include the entire writing staff, her loser husband and her stand-in, played by Rachael Harris. 

I'm thinking positive and hoping these experiments be as playful as they outta be. I will do some more investigating and find out whose DNA is all over this idea, what the motivation was and the weapon (laptop, legal pad, etc.).

In the meantime, here's some more pics of the crossover episodes.

(In the pic above, that's Aronsohn leaning over the body, and Lorre directly behind him.)

From the "CSI" - "Two and a Half Deaths" seg:

NBC's tack in promoting the return of "Scrubs" on Thursday seems kind of unusual for the show.

Peacock's on-air tubthumping has emphasized that show is in its final season and playing up the will-they-or-won't-they? angle regarding Zach Braff's J.D. and Sarah Chalke's Elliot. The on-again, off-again sparks between those two have been a running thread of the laffer, fer sure, but not as much as you'd think from watching the promos.

Opening seg of season seven, "My Own Worst Enemy" -- penned by exec producers Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman and helmed by creator/exec producer Bill Lawrence -- and is zany-funny in typical "Scrubs" fashion but not one of the series' highest notes, perhaps because of its emphasis on laying plot track.

The highlight is a quick detour into the "Who Caresies" awards ("take that, Tony Shalhoub!," J.D. declares  in his acceptance speech), which comes on the heels of John C. McGinley's Dr. Cox calling J.D. an "annoying whiny manchild" more than once.

Those who have stuck with "Scrubs" through its ups and downs the past seven years won't be disappointed but here's hoping they return to laugh-out-loud form in the coming weeks.

Fan question: What have you learned from working with Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer on "Two and a Half Men"?

Cheeky answer: Absolutely nothing!

That was Angus T. Jones on Wednesday night at the Paley Center for Media, where the top-rated CBS/Warner Bros. TV sitcom was feted for reaching the milestone 100-seg mark.

Jones' quip got a good laugh, but in reality the Q&A sesh with the thesps and "Men" co-creators Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn was a full-on love fest among people who genuinely seem to like working with one another -- even the notoriously hard-to-handle Sheen.

Event also featured a screening of the triple-digit seg, set to air Oct. 15. "City of Great Racks" features a return visit by the always-funny Jane Lynch as the therapist of Sheen's character.

Pictured above: Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones. Pictured at right: Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre. Pics by Kevin Parry/Paley Center)

Among the guests on the next seg of CNBC's "Conversations with Michael Eisner" is the peacock's Ben Silverman. Episode is set to air Sept. 26 and also features L.A.'s hizzoner Antonio Villaraigosa and celeb blogger Perez Hilton....

Among the events of particular interest (to me) on the Paley Center for Media (fka the Museum of Television & Radio) sked of events for the 2007-08 season include seshes at the New York outposts with the writers from CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman," set for Nov. 9; a so-long-farewell-Auf-Weidersehn-etc. to "Scrubs" (Nov. 10); and an "Evening with" sitdown with the inimitable Angela Lansbury (Nov. 14), pictured left. At the Bev Hills branch, good times outta be had at the Oct. 1 "Inside 'Robot Chicken' panel -- that's gotta be a bizarre 90-minutes; the 100th-seg salute to "Two and a Half Men" (Oct. 3); and the "Lou Grant" reunion (Nov. 16)...

Kinda sad to see that Don Bellisario didn't appear to make it to the "NCIS" 100th-episode cake-cutting photo op on Tuesday. I never did figure out the story behind Bellisario's abrupt exit from the drama he created (one of many) at the start of last season -- some reports blamed it on a clash between him and star Mark Harmon. Oh well, Bellisario will soon (one day?) be able to take comfort in his syndie residual and profit-participation checks.

This time next week Warner Bros. Television and CBS will be celebrating the taping of the 100th episode of "Two and a Half Men."

Good grief, can it really have been four seasons-plus since the show debuted? (Just for fun here's Brian Lowry's dead-on first Variety review of the show from September 2003) Warners is inviting some industry folks to the taping at the studio, followed by a champagne and cake soiree. It ain't a 100th episode party if you don't have a big-cake cutting photo to show for it. So congrats to Chuck Lorre, Lee Aronson, Eric and Kim Tannenbaum, Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones, Conchata Ferrell and the rest of the folks behind the show that is not only TV's top-rated comedy but also Emmy-nommed this year. (Here's a highlights reel from last season). In these lean times for sitcoms (especially good ol' fashioned multi-camera sitcoms) the 100th seg is a real milestone (and as always a happy sign of the syndie coin that's soon to flow).

I'm sorry that I won't be able to make the "Men" taping, but not too sorry. I'm going to be out of town -- out of BlackBerry radar, even -- next week on vacation. During my absence, On the Air will be in the good hands of Variety's Stuart Levine, who did yeoman's work in this space in July during the long march of the Television Critics Assn. tour.

Take it away, Stu...!

POSTED BY JON WEISMAN

Chuck Lorre didn't even own a TV in the 1970s, so any similarities between his new CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" and the swinging late '70s icon "Three's Company" are completely coincidental. Really, Lorre insists.

Lorre, co-executive producer Bill Prady and the cast of "Big Bang" seemed a little taken aback to find themselves in the unexpected position of being asked to compare and contrast their program to that of Jack, Janet and Chrissy during the "Big Bang" TCA sesh on Wednesday.

Tops on the list: Three decades after Suzanne Somers redefined the role of the dumb blonde on "Three's," is it possible that Kaley Cuoco's Penny (pretty small-town gal befriended by two neighbors who are Caltech physicists) is ... dumberer? (Pictured from left, "Big Bang" stars Jim Parsons, Cuoco, Johnny Galecki)

No way, said Lorre.