Saving Grace May Be The Best TV Drama Ever

What can I say about Holly Hunter?

The woman knows her craft and short of Meryl Streep, she is one of the best actresses film and TV has ever had.

Grace Hanadarko joins two other HH aliases, Edwina "Ed" McDunnough and Jane Craig as simply the most intriguing and complex a female character there is in fiction. The hard-drinking, hard-charging, highly sexed and religiously negligent Detective Hanadarko is why you should WANT to watch television again, only not network boob-tubery.

When the emmy nominations come 'round next year -- the 60th annual Emmys -- there is no doubt in my mind HH will be nominated, along with The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick/Dectective Brenda Leigh Johnson and The Riches' Minnie Driver/Dahlia Malloy. This year both were nominated along with The Sopranos' Edie Falco/Carmela Soprano. If she were nominated again along with Damages' Glenn Close/Patty Hewes, then the theory I am about to share with you will be right.

Do you see the pattern developing here? Cable television has its finger directly on the pulse of what the "average American female" wants to see, much more so than the stuffy, stodgy old white-male-run original 3 networks (ABC, CBS, NBC). As a result, we're getting incredible female characters from the savvy and intelligent greenlighting of programs cable networks such as FX, TNT and HBO are doing.

Here's to some of the best characters on the smaller, yet very entertaining screen. These women are nipping at Holly Hunter's Heels...and along with her, are my 60th Annual Emmy nominations for Best Actress in a TV Drama:

Kyra Sedgwick aka Brenda Leigh Johnson


Minnie Driver aka Dahlia Malloy













Courtney Cox Arquette aka Lucy Spiller




Glenn Close aka Patty Hewes













Edie Falco aka Carmela Soprano