DVDs in the Works

The Emmy Award nominations were announced last week, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell how well BBC did from the headlines because our shows get reported under the broadcaster, not the creator.  Nonetheless, as with last year, BBC received over two dozen prime-time Emmy nods, in many of the major categories including Outstanding Miniseries and Outstanding Non-fiction series.  Starting from the “bottom”, Emma and Cranford are vying with each other in the costume and hairstyling categories.  Moving up to the acting categories, Dame Judi Dench has been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in Cranford. Maggie Smith is also nominated in the same category for Stephen Poliakoff’s Capturing Mary, an HBO movie made with the BBC, but sadly, not yet on DVD in North America. The Outstanding Supporting Actor category looks like BBC Video’s spring release list: Michael Gambon for Emma, Jonathan Pryce for Cranford and Patrick Stewart in Hamlet.  And finally for the big grudge match.  It’s the ladies of BBC’s Cranford versus the brawn of HBO’s The Pacific for Outstanding Drama Miniseries.  The two critical heavy weights are going one on one for the second year in a row in this category.  Finally, on the documentary front, Life, our latest treasury of nature documentary firsts, is up for 6 awards: Outstanding Cinematography, Picture Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Writing plus the big one – Outstanding Nonfiction Series. The best news is that most of these DVDs are already available in the shop.