Wow! Members of the Television Critics Assn. actually put their awards where their big mouths are! Finally, the TCA Awards recognized "Battlestar Galactica" after voters beat the beans out of the Emmys for failing to give the show any major awards in the past.

Can this mean a break from the TCA Awards' hypocrisy? In years past, voters whined, fumed and harrumphed about the Emmys failing to recognize "The Wire" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," then they snubbed them too. TCA members never gave those shows real prizes — just handed them that bogus "Heritage Award" after they went off the air and failed to win best drama series or program of the year.

"Battlestar Galactica" didn't win a significant TCA Award in the past and now finally reaped one after sailing off the airwaves, but at least it's fared better than other great TV series cruelly snubbed by TCA and the television academy. And while TCA voters skunked vampires back in Buffy's heyday, they did just hail HBO's walking dead by giving "True Blood" their prize as best new program. TV academy members recently drove a stake through "True Blood's" Emmy hopes by snubbing it in all top categories, including best drama actress, which was a major surprise considering Anna Paquin is a past Oscar winner ("The Piano") and Emmy nominee ("Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee").

But don't get too excited about the TCA Awards mending their old, harsh kudos biases. As usual, women just got snubbed in the performance categories. This year, those awards went to Jim Parsons ("The Big Bang Theory") and Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad") at the expense of Tina Fey ("30 Rock") and Glenn Close ("Damages"), the only women nominated this year. That's typical.

Sometimes TCA kindly permits a token female to get an honorary career achievement award. This year, that lucky (and deserving) gal was Betty White.

Below, a full list of winners:

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR
"Battlestar Galactica"

NEW PROGRAM
"True Blood"

DRAMA SERIES
"Mad Men"

COMEDY SERIES
"The Big Bang Theory"

Emmy-savvy HBO was smart to release the DVD set of the first season of "True Blood" just before voting commenced in June. In week five, it sold 107,115 units (1,099,995 total, nearly $38 million), according to The-Numbers.com.

"True Blood" came in second place among TV titles for the week, behind the debut of Season 7 of "Family Guy," which sold 273,627 units ($7.6 million). Why did Fox miss its big chance to grandstand with a DVD media blitz when Emmy nom voting commenced? To be consistent with how s-l-o-w its characters notoriously are? (Well, except for Stewie and that upright walking doggie.) This year, "Family Guy" ditched the Emmy race for best animated program in order to make the bold drive to be the second cartoon show ever nominated for outstanding comedy series after "The Flintstones" (1961 – it lost to "The Jack Benny Program"), so it could've used the extra push.

The Golden Globe-nominated drama series "True Blood" earned a slew of good reviews and socko ratings for its second season premiere last Sunday. And last month it picked up a nod from the TV critics association for best new program. However, to earn an Emmy nod, "True Blood" will have to overcome the TV academy's bias against shows about the supernatural. Remember how that critical darling "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" had a stake driven through her heart for seven successive seasons.

"True Blood" could benefit from the canny scheduling strategy that has reaped Emmy rewards for HBO in the past. While voters considered the merits of previous seasons of HBO series such as "Sex and the City" and "Entourage," new episodes were running on the paycaster. That could well help "True Blood" register in the popular vote of academy members.

"True Blood" stars Oscar winner Anna Paquin ("The Piano") as a telepathic waitress who falls for a vampire (Stephen Moyer). Oscar-winning scripter Alan Ball ("American Beauty") adapted a bestselling series of books by Charlaine Harris to create the show.

The last time Ball handled a series for HBO, the result was "Six Feet Under," which ran for five seasons and was a three-time Emmy nominee for best drama series. While that show was universally admired from the outset, this one divided opinions at first.

At Meta Critic, the aggregate score from 27 reviews of the first season was only 62. However, that result was skewed downward by several very harsh notices. Many prominent critics loved the first season, which is the one under Emmy consideration. Matt Roush of TV Guide thought the show "graphically sexy and scary, and often wildly funny," and judged it to be "a broadly entertaining, deliciously twisted slice of modern Southern Gothic." Misha Davenport of the Chicago Sun-Times found it to be "bloody, sexy and violent," and said, "The show is also both occasionally funny and frightening." And Robert Bianco of USA Today saw it as "part mystery, part fantasy, part comedy, and all wildly imaginative exaggeration," and thought it "proves that there's still vibrant life or death left in the 'star-crossed lovers' paradigm."

Maybe it's wacky to tackle this so early — nominations don't come out till July — but I just invited our gutsy forum posters to start forecasting the next Emmy lineups. So let's add some Gold Derby perspective too.

Nominees for this TV award are a lot like TV reruns. They come back again and again, year after year, but now there's a radical revamp in the voting process that may trigger somewhat different results. Among new series, "The Mentalist" has been a hit but is perhaps too fantastic and eerie for the safe taste of Emmy voters, who usually aren't too welcoming to crime procedurals anyway. Voters often do embrace new HBO series, whatever they are, but a stake may be driven through the Emmy hopes of "True Blood" (which was nominated for best drama at the Golden Globes), considering how that superhit "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was once so cruelly shunned by the TV academy.

"Kings" gets praise from some TV critics and mixed reviews from others. The L.A. Times calls the modern update of the Old Testament tale of David and Goliath "an interesting muddle of a show," but it's pretentious, so that's a plus with those notorious Emmy snobs. Read this L.A. Times article about a few more dramas premiering in midseason.

In recent years, nominees were selected using a two-stage voting process. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, 10 series and actors in each category (15 in the acting races in 2006) were chosen by academy members using a popular ballot. Then the semifinalists were whittled down to the final nominees after sample TV episodes were screened by judging panels that convened at the TV academy and the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

This year the TV academy just made the terrible decision to kill off the judging panels in an effort to save money. That means we're right back where we started prior to 2006, with lower-rated underdog contenders getting screwed. In other words, Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad") might be back this year because he gained stature after winning best drama actor last September, but don't expect other critically hailed work on little-seen, brilliant cable shows to get a fair shot.

However, this new system does make predicting the Emmys much simpler, since pundits need only to focus on the most popular faves. In an effort to help the small fries a bit, the academy has increased the number of nominees in each race to six (sometimes seven), up from the usual five.

Let's start off dishing the battles in the top drama categories for series, actors and actresses. See more noodling and predix in The Envelope's Gold Derby forums.

* = Nominee last year

BEST DRAMA SERIES
(Favorites)
"Boston Legal" *
"Damages" *
"Dexter" *
"House" *
"Lost" *
"Mad Men" * (last year's winner)
"No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency"
"24"

Due to an accounting quirk, there were six nominees in this race last year and five of them will probably be back: "Damages," "Dexter," "House," "Lost" and "Mad Men." "Boston Legal" is vulnerable now that it's saying bye-bye. Past champ "24" (2006) wasn't eligible last year, so there's a good chance it'll nab a bid now that it's jumping back into the derby. "The Tudors" made the top 10 rundown last year and "Big Love" in 2006, so they could make the next top six or seven. "In Treatment" didn't make the 2008 semifinalist list, but it could be buoyed now by its two Emmy victories last September for best supporting actress (Dianne Wiest) and guest star (Glynn Turman). Maybe in an alternate universe the critically praised "Battlestar Galactica" might have a shot. What about "Dollhouse"?

A few of our forum posters think past champ "ER" has a shot since it's experiencing a comeback in its final season. Among new series, HBO's "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" hasn't premiered yet, but reviews from U.K. where it aired last week are strong. "The Mentalist" is a relative ratings success, "True Blood" was nominated at the Golden Globes, and "Kings" reigns among some TV critics.

BEST DRAMA ACTOR
Gabriel Byrne, "In Treatment" *
Bryan Cranston, "Breaking Bad" * (winner)
Michael C. Hall, "Dexter" *
Jon Hamm, "Mad Men" *
Hugh Laurie, "House" *
James Spader, "Boston Legal" *
Kiefer Sutherland, "24"

Past champ Kiefer Sutherland will be back because "24" has been much missed. Denis Leary ("Rescue Me"), Kyle Chandler ("Friday Night Lights") and Patrick Dempsey ("Grey's Anatomy") made the top 10 runoff last year, so that tells us they have a strong base of popular support. Jonathan Rhys-Myers ("The Tudors") didn't make the runoff in 2008, but he may soon be forgiven for weighing 300 pounds less than the real King Henry VIII and being infinitely more pretty. Bill Paxton ("Big Love") made the run-offs a few years ago, but not since. This year's newbies who might break through include Ian McShane ("Kings"), who was nominated in this Emmy race for "Deadwood" in 2006,  Patrick Swayze ("The Beast") and Simon Baker ("The Mentalist").

HBO is missing from the Emmy race for best drama series for the first time in a decade, but does it have a potential entry for next year with the new series "True Blood"? Sunday night's launch attracted 1.4 million viewers which, as Denise Martin on Los Angeles Times' Show Tracker blog reports, "The 'True Blood' audience was lower than even the last new episode of HBO's 'Big Love,' which delivered 2.88 million in August 2007. And it pales overall when compared with the network's past drama premieres such as 'Big Love' (4.56 million in March 2006), 'Rome' (3.8 'illion in August 2005) and 'Deadwood' (5.79 million in March 2004)."

The series stars Oscar winner Anna Paquin ("The Piano") as a telepathic waitress who falls for a vampire (Stephen Moyer). Oscar winning scripter Alan Ball ("American Beauty") adapted a bestselling series of books by Charlaine Harris to create the show.

The last time Ball handled a series for HBO, the result was "Six Feet Under," which ran for five seasons and was a three-time Emmy nominee for best drama series. While that show was a critical darling, this one drew divided opinions. Over at Meta Critic, the aggregate score from 27 reviews is only 62, but that's somewhat misleading, because it includes many raves and enough pans to drag the final number down.

Matt Roush of TV Guide thought the show, "graphically sexy and scary, and often wildly funny" and judged it to be "a broadly entertaining, deliciously twisted slice of modern Southern Gothic." Misha Davenport of the Chicago Sun-Times found it to be, "bloody, sexy and violent" and said, "the show is also both occasionally funny and frightening." And Robert Bianco of USA Today saw it as, "part mystery, part fantasy, part comedy, and all wildly imaginative exaggeration" and  thought it, "proves that there's still vibrant life or death left in the 'star-crossed lovers' paradigm."

Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times was on the fence: "Vampire fantasy, murder mystery, star-crossed love story, political satire, 'True Blood' is all and none of the above. Not quite funny, not quite scary, not quite thought-provoking, the show's attempt to question the roots of prejudice is continually undermined by its own stereotyping."

Then there were those critics who loathed the show. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly found the TV adaptation paled next to the original books: "I'd say that the author is more vivid, subtle, and funny in her portrayal of Southern life; I'll be surprised if her fans aren't disappointed by this adaptation. The best thing about Ball's shows is their opening credits." Ouch! And for Linda Stassi of the New York Post: "'True Blood' won't so much make your blood run cold as it will leave you cold."

(HBO, WB)