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

That rumble you might've heard earlier this week eminating from the Westside wasn't the screams of youngsters on the Ferris Wheel at the pier but the folks at HBO's Santa Monica headquarters.

With less than 1 million voyeurs tuning in to the premiere episode of "Tell Me You Love Me," the folks at the pay cabler couldn't have been pleased. Shocked may be a better description.

That's a shame, considering "Tell Me" is a smart and introspective look at four couples (including therapist Jane Alexander and her husband) in the midst of relationship turmoil. And, oh yeah, there's lots of sex, too.

There's lots of ways to interpret the numbers. HBO has always said it's more interested in cumulative viewer totals over the week of repeated viewings than what happens on opening night. And the network also previewed "Tell Me" before Sunday, which means some caught a sneak peak.

But even with all that into account, the numbers have to be disheartening. It was a major drop from the "John From Cincinnati" premiere in June, and that one was considered low. The 5.7 million who tuned in for the first-ever "Deadwood," which preemed in March 2004, seems like a "Seinfeld"-like number now.

Maybe some were turned off by all the explicit sex they had read about in reviews. Who knows?

Adding to the cabler's woes was the lowest-ever premiere for "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which obviously got no help from "Tell Me."

So where does HBO go from here? All they or any network can do is continue to make programs that rise above the common denominator and hope that folks give these shows a chance.

But it's undoubtedly been a tough year over there and hard to keep a stiff upper lip, with the sudden departure of Chris Albrecht and the end of "The Sopranos."

Where HBO once ruled the cable universe, those days are long gone now. Showtime has made huge strides with shows such as "Weeds" and "Dexter," while FX has established itself as the gritty basic cable alternative with skeins like "The Shield," "Damages" and "Nip/Tuck." Even networks that didn't have original drama programming just a few years ago, such as AMC and TBS, are now in the game.

This weekend should help, however. "Sopranos" and James Gandolfini could certainly be coming home with Emmys and "Longford" was a stellar piece of work, as was its star, Jim Broadbent.

HBO's closets are filled with Emmys but what it needs now, more than statues, are hits.

— Stuart Levine

Watching the season finale of "Big Love" last night and seeing Bill Paxton making out with his wannabe girlfriend/fourth wife to be Branka Katic (Ana the waitress), I wondered why it's OK for him to be unfaithful in his marriage and not anyone else who tires for old and wants something new and fresh?

Being polygamists, the Henricksons don't have to abide by normal laws of matrimony: one wife at a time. But under the guidelines of his religion, Bill Henrickson can, without discussion, announce to his three wives — all wonderfully portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin — that he's received a calling for a fourth woman to share his bed.

Suddenly, when Bill locked lips with Katic, my first and only wife turned around to me and said, "He's just a cheater." Can't really argue with that.

The episode was a strong, if not stellar, conclusion to "Big Love," the series that HBO moved to Mondays in order to allow "John From Cincinnati" to gather post-"Sopranos" momentum. Yeah, how'd that work out for "John"? "Love" often feels like it's traveling under that radar at HBO, which sees much bigger buzz on "Entourage" and even the low-watched but geek-friendly "Flight of the Conchords."

Even at Emmy time, "Love" seems, well, unloved. Granted, it wasn't eligible this Emmy season but in its first campaign it didn't receive a series or any acting nominations. And Paxton and his three ladies — or at least one of them — are certainly worthy of awards attention. Even Sevigny, who's so good that she makes me hate her Nicolette Grant.

With "Sopranos" gone and HBO looking for a drama series that might be able to capture some of that watercooler talk that Tony and the gang seemed to create week after week, "Big Love" is as good a candidate as anything they've got.

Certainly, the upcoming "Tell Me You Love Me," about three couples who go to therapy and reveal intimate details about their love life, will get plenty of publicity for all the sex that takes place. And it would be a shame if this addictive series is dismissed as exploitive and not given credit for the terrific dialogue and intricate interplay between characters, as created by Cynthia Mort.

But "Big Love" is the better long-term candidate for keeping viewers subscribed to their HBO. Though the network will rightly say that it counts its audience on a cumulative scale — adding up the different broadcasts during the week, including video on demand, rather than just on the premiere night — moving it to Mondays didn't seem right.

It's earned a move back to Sunday for season three. Polygamists, whether you agree with their philosophy or not, seem a better fit than surfers, no matter who they're sleeping with.

— Stuart Levine

Been a tough couple of weeks for "John from Cincinnati" fans. First, the show that its most ardent fans have embraced as life-altering (or at least mood-altering, eh?) gets unceremoniously dumped by its network -- though I still submit we gotta give HBO credit for sticking it out through the initial 10-episode order. Now today comes word that the titular star with the big wave on his head, Austin Nichols, has been busted for inebriated motorvatin' in Jackson, Mich. (Details here in this AP story)

Driving your silvery Mercury Mountaineer the wrong way down a one-way street is never a good thing, and there are no writers to get him off the hook in this episode...Meanwhile, the post-mortems on "JFC" are continuing to flow, and most of them have been rough on the show and its creators, David Milch and Kem Nunn, but the truly faithful have not given up. Ultra-fan Nancy Tippett is among those behind http://www.savejohnfromcincinnati.net/ website, which comes complete with a to-do list (No. 1 -- send postcards with the Monad stick figure -- fans of the show know what this means, sort of -- to HBO execs).

"If I learned anything from 'John from Cincinnati,' it's that an expression of love is never futile," Nancy explained to me in an email about her quixotic effort. What can it hurt? The Internet is big....

In truth, what little I know about HBO's intentions regarding a "John from Cincinnati" DVD set boils down to  this: Yes, they intend to put one out, but it won't be until next year. People who know more about these things than I do say that it takes a long time to master and "author" 10 hours of material for DVD, not to mention assembling packaging materials and marketing plans, etc.

Plus, how could you put out a DVD set of David Milch's spiritual surfin' safari without packing it with all kinds of cosmic extras, from commentary tracks (even if it might sound like a post-grad English lit course) to deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes hijinx. (Can you imagine the outtakes? Tee hee.) Certainly, all of the original viral-vid material produced during the run of the series would be a natural to fill out a nice bonus disc. They could even incorporate some of the puzzles and such that are built into the faux fan websites that have distributed this material to date, as chronicled here two weeks ago in this post.

HBO has confirmed what most "John from Cincinnati" fans already suspected: It's 10 episodes and out for one of the strangest examples of smallscreen drama ever to hit U.S. airwaves, as Variety's Steven Zeitchik reports. People either loved it or hated it, as the blogosphere chatter about the show proves. As co-creator/exec producer David Milch said during a lengthy interview yesterday, "You can't waste a second on remorse."

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

I’m man enough to admit I have a guy crush on David Milch. I’ve watched everything he does, and I mean   everything. “Hill Street Blues” … watched every episode. Hell, I was a fan of “Bay City Blues.” “Big Apple,” with his good friend Ed O’Neill, was intriguing and smart, but had little chance of succeeding as a midseason replacement where only easy-to-digest series have a chance to thrive.

And as for “NYPD Blue,” I might not have been fanatical about it as much as my friend Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger, who blogged about every episode on his informative “Blue” website, but I was devout. Watched every minute of it. From Caruso’s enthralling first season to Sipowicz’s promotion in the series finale, I was there for every second.

As I write this, I’m staring at my “Deadwood” poster, looking into the steely eyes of Al Swearengen, with Seth Bullock’s hand on his holster and Trixie looking pissed off, in the delicious way only she can. So don’t even get me started on the greatness of “Deadwood.”

Which only adds to my utter disappointment that was “John From Cincinnati.” With all due respect to my Variety colleague and curator of this blog, I think “John” was a monumental misfire, with lessons to be learned all around.

(Pictured above: David Milch, far right, with "John from Cincinnati" stars Luke Perry, left, and Austin Nichols.)

"JOHN FROM CINCINNATI" SPOILER ALERT, PART TWO:

Among the many interesting things about the "John from Cincinnati" finale seg is that it heralds the ascent, in WGA terms, of Zack Whedon.

Zack is the latest addition to the Whedon clan's tradition of producing fine TV and film scribes, stretching back to the 1950s and '60s with Zack's grandfather, John Whedon ("The Andy Griffith Show," "Dick Van Dyke Show"); and father, Tom ("The Golden Girls," "Benson," "Alice"); and on through older brother Joss ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Serenity").

Zack has been schooled in the David Milch tradition for the past four years, starting out as an assistant to Milch on "Deadwood" early on in its first season. He wound up co-writing a "Deadwood" seg with his boss last year, and this year he was a kind of permanent freelancer on "John from Cincinnati." And like the titular character, Zack had good timing throughout. In episode seven, he fell into a bit acting part as Wonderboy, aka the Stinkweed vice president armed with all the research about the company's target demo and its prospects for expanding in e-commerce -- all of which earns him a face full of Linc Stark's bare ass in the memorable mooning scene. In Milch-ian fashion, they wrote the character the day before the shoot and were time-pressed to find someone to play the part.

(HBO's hard-working publicists searched but could only find one production still above from that scene, with Milch at the center, and it offers only a glimpse of Zack's arm, his hand holding a pencil and a bit of his face in the far right-hand corner.)

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T SEEN THE FINALE OF "JOHN FROM CINCINNATI."

(This post updated Monday evening, after thinking more about all that Mr. Milch had to say this a.m.)

"Each character has the opportunity to generate God by his or her behavior. All of us are the mother and father of God, to the extent we accept the limits of our humanity."

David Milch, the Oracle of Imperial Beach, the co-creator with Kem Nunn of HBO's strange and wondrous "John from Cincinnati," was kind enough to indulge me in a few (but only a few) "what'd that mean" questions this morning as the hangover in the cerebral cortex from last night's season finale was really settling in. In this viewer's humble opinion, "JFC" wrapped on a high note -- high as the "whoooooos" that Little Richard vocalizes in "Long Tall Sally," the ecstatic R&B hit that was used to great effect in the final scenes.

The above quote is from Milch in response to my question about the very very last scene of Kai on the water. The shot of Kai expertly turning her body into a wave would've seemed to have stood alone, but then just as she turned her face to the camera to show a sly smile came the maddeningly intriguing voice-over from the John character: "Mother of God, Cass-Kai."

What!? After a second viewing of the episode, I was almost confident in my interpretation of nearly everything else that transpired in the previous 47 minutes -- even the pigeon-English scene between the two visiting Hawaiian drug dealers. But that voiceover clip at the very-very end threw me.

I should've known better than to think that Milch would've talked me through it frame by frame, explaining every syllable. That's just not how he works. But he was generous enough to give me the above quote as a hint as to what he was getting at with that "mother of God" business.

(Pictured above: Milch in the center of a crowd scene from the "JFC" finale seg.)

HBO's "John From Cincinnati" wraps its bizarro 10-episode run on Sunday, but the show's devotees will still be able to feast in the coming weeks on fresh viral Internet video connected to the show and its weird cast of characters.

Just as the series has taken absurdist storytelling to new heights for mainstream TV, so too did co-creator/executive producer David Milch set out to harness the "long tail" functionality of the Internet to extend the "JFC" saga in original, mysterious ways (the only way Milch likes to work these days, apparently.)

The man behind the curtain of all the Internet vids that have trickled out on the Web since shortly before the show bowed in June has been Marc Ostrick, a distant relative of Milch's who was brought on in the pre-production stage and encouraged to run free with his DV and Super 8 cameras. As the John Monad character keeps observing, "the Internet is big." And a filmmaker couldn't ask for a more vibrant setting than the border beach town of Imperial Beach, Calif., and its fertile surf culture.

(Ostrick is pictured above on location in Imperial Beach with two colorful grapplers who briefly but memorably made their way into an early "JFC" seg.)

Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen "His Visit, Day Eight" (episode 9) of HBO's "John from Cincinnati"

OK, so I know these "John from Cincinnati" faux PSAs featuring Bruce Greenwood's moody Mitch Yost (pictured right) pitching for a San Diego County coastal cleanup initiative have been around for a while. But I just found a link to one of them while reading Steve Hawk's insightful blog on the "John" home page on the HBO.com site.

Mitch references his past experience in doing the "PSAs for the Tijuana Sloughs" very briefly amid the big Mitch-and-Cissy reconciliation brawl scene as they come to grips with the realization that Shaunie ain't in his room anymore. And like everything else with "John," these PSAs are full of clues, of course. It's hard to tell exactly where these purported PSAs fall in the Yost family time line, but by the looks of Mitch in them they can't be more than five to eight years old, max. And in them Mitch clearly states that he sees the ocean as "my church" -- which explains a lot of things, right? Maybe? Kinda? Sorta? Oh, but what about those darn stick figures!!

"You wouldn't want somebody dumping sewage in your church...would you?" Mitch intones in the PSAs. Hawk's blog links to one posted in all sincerity on the web page of the enviro-centric nonprofit group Wildcoast (See for yourself by clicking here.)

Wildcoast is based in Imperial Beach and smartly forged a partnership with "John" once David Milch, Kem Nunn and their merry band of drama-pranksters hit town to begin shooting one of the strangest TV series ever to grace the mainstream smallscreen. There are at least two more PSAs to be found on our national bulletin board, YouTube:

We "John from Cincinnati" acolytes may be a small group but we're....devoted. As of this writing (Monday, shortly after 6 p.m. PT), there are 144 hours and counting until the "John" season (series?) finale.

Amid all the TCA and Emmy craziness, I finally caught up with this week's "John from Cincinnati." As Johnny Bravo would say, whoooaaa momma!

"His Visit, Day 5" is television of the absurd. Ionesco-TV. Samuel Beckett could've written the closing scenes with the motley crew hanging out in the motel parking lot, with assorted dead-gray ghosts and fantasy figures. You gotta give HBO credit for having the corporate courage to pay for it and put it on the air. It's TV that keeps on giving. Once you've seen it, you can't help but spend hours turning it all over in your head trying to answer the question "what just happened?!"

In fact, amid all of the mega-bizarro stuff, there were some discernable, and disturbing, plot-moving points served up, along with some important backstory details dropped in "Day 5." John's spacey soliloquy at the end is full of clues, at least I think they are after spending the past few days thinking about them, even when I was trying not to.

It was such a "John from Cincinnati" moment.

Moments after I strolled into HBO's poolside party at the W hotel in Westwood on Thursday, I meandered aimlessly (or so I thought?) by a small group of people conversing in a cocktail party circle. I was still scanning the crowd and overall scene when I heard a familiar voice say "...and it was printed on Variety.com that the show is good..." and then the cocktail-party huddle opens up and whaddya know! it's Willie Garson (pictured far left with Ed O'Neill), aka lawyer Dickstein of "John from Cincinnati," and no kidding (I couldn't make this up), he's talking about this week's On the Air column about taking a second look at "John" and how the cast is so damn good. I was stunned -- so much so I almost kept meandering on, but I couldn't. (What writer could?) The timing was just too perfect, the entree too good to pass up.

More than any TV series in recent memory, “John from Cincinnati” seemed to be nearly done in by bad buzz long before it premiered.

“Why would HBO think people would want to watch this?” one blog poster opined on AOL’s TV Squad site nearly a month before the show premiered June 10, on the coattails of “The Sopranos’” finale.
“One department has a pool going as to when HBO is going to pull the plug and not complete the season at all,” read a post on the popular TelevisionWithoutPity.com site way back in February. (The author of the missive claimed to be someone who worked on the “John” set.)

Sure, all shows endure a fair amount of post-pickup/pre-premiere drama and “oh boy is it in big trouble” rumor-mongering. But “John” endured a surprising amount of early carping, especially for an HBO skein with a solid pedigree as the creation of revered dramatist David Milch and cult-fave novelist Kem Nunn. Milch took a beating from many fans of his previous HBO creation “Deadwood,” who felt that he and HBO decided to drive a stake in “Deadwood” prematurely in order to free Milch up to work on “John.” (Given the tone of “Deadwood,” Milch surely couldn’t have been surprised when its hard-core fans were quick to express their hostile, profanity-laden revenge fantasies.)

The cast that Milch and Nunn put together last fall and winter for “John” was undeniably strong: Rebecca De Mornay (pictured above left), Bruce Greenwood (pictured right), Ed O’Neill, Matt Winston, Luke Perry, Luis Guzman, Willie Garson, and up and comers Brian Van Holt and Austin Nichols. But when the pilot script started to make the rounds, there was a lot of head scratching.

If “Deadwood” was a surrealistic Western, then “John from Cincinnati” was a psycho surf-themed family drama, as inter-preted via a bad acid trip. The talk was that it was not just unconventional, it was unbound, merely an indulgent exercise in how obtuse (with curse words) two talented writers could be if given the chance. The consensus opinion seemed to be that HBO had come to the crossroads and was at a loss at where to go next after its storied run of success.