Why are we doing this, you may ask? For the first time in its 35-year history, the PCAs run deep with comic-related and genre nominations. Moreso than almost any big show during awards season, you’ll likely see winners from “our world” crowned tonight. And, most importantly, it represents the things that the fans actually like seeing.

Let’s get to it . . . watch along on CBS if you’re so inclined . . .

9:01 pm: Queen Latifah is your host; that’s a loooong way from “Ladies First”, y’all.

9:03 pm: Ellen presents Favorite Funny Male Star. It goes to Adam Sandler over Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey. I am already mystified by the people.

9:06 pm: Just so you know, I’m regularly skipping the categories that lack genre connections. This is why I won’t say anything about Favorite Star Under 35, also known as the Arbitrary Anniversary Acknowledgement Award. What’s that? Now you’re curious. Fine. It’s Carrie Underwood. Now you’ll trust me.

9:11 pm: Reality TV Shows and The Dark Knight used in the bump out to commercial.  That’s called hedging your bets for audience attention.

9:13 pm:  The kids are in bed and the wife’s out of town and I’m sitting through Carrie Underwood ballads for you people.  I’m getting a beer.  Be right back.

9:14 pm: There is still voting underway at PCAVote.com for certain things.  It’s like the Minnesota Senate Race.

9:15 pm: Former Birds of Prey star Shemar Moore shills for his current show, Criminal Minds before handing out a reality award.  No, you won’t trick me this time.

9:25 pm: Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanaugh present Favorite Combined Forces together, demonstrating that NBC missed a spin-off opportunity for “Will & Ed”.  This turns out to be essentially a duet award.  And that’s a shame, since I was rooting for Electricity and Magnetism. 

9:30 pm: Oddly, Watchmen star Malin Ackerman takes the stage.  She’s accepting the Comedy Film award for 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl.  This is somewhat like acid.  Without the stomach cramps.

9:35 pm: I get it now.  The early talk of all the genre nominees was to lure people in, and then confuse them by peppering the show with folks with limited genre connections (ooooh, Heigl was in Roswell!) so that we’ll go insane waiting for the actual awards.

 9:37 pm: Hey, voting is STILL open.  Vote for Fringe.  JJ Abrams will love you.

 9:38 pm: Angelina Jolie is up for Favorite Female Movie Star, and her clip is from Wanted. Keira Knightley, amazingly enough, has a clip from a period drama.  And Reese Witherspoon from a light comedy!  Crazy!  And the Favorite is . . . not Fox from Wanted. 

9:41 pm: Montage of winners not on the show! Relevant entries:
Favorite Family Movie: Wall-E
Favorite Male Star: Will Smith (Hancock)
Favorite Male Action Star: Will Smith (Hancock)
Favorite SciFi/Fantasy TV Show: Heroes (whattt????)
Favorite Female Action Star: Angelina Jolie (Wanted)
Favorite Animated Comedy: The Simpsons
Nice.  That covers several of that categories that you guys will care about. 
Hey, where’d my beer go?  Be right back.

9:49 pm: Former Lois Lane Teri Hatcher presents for Favorite Male TV Star.  Okay, you win.  Hugh Laurie won this again.  Some people say that this is the Second Golden Age of TV.  I say it’s the Golden Age of The Same TV Actors Getting Awards Over and Over, aka The Frazier Era.  Discuss.

9:56 pm: Seal, who sang “Kiss from a Rose” on the Batman Forever soundtrack, arrives to present.  Remember when he had the crazy dreads and made 3-D videos?  That seems like it was two or three crises or invasions ago, depending on your religious affiliation. 

9:59 pm: Favorite Scene-Stealing Guest Star!  Surely this will have something cool.  Let’s see, crazy-ass Luke Perry from SVU, crazy-ass Britney Spears from HIMYM, and crazy-ass Robin Williams from SVU.  So, no.  And . . . Robin Williams.  Clearly, this was meant as a salve for the time that the Academy overlooked Patch Adams.

10:02 pm: Rascal Flatts?  Oh, now I get it.  I had a heart attack after I put the boys down for bed, and I’m in hell already.  At least they have beer.

10:03 pm: And now a montage on the fact that the website picks stuff all year long.  Who knew?

10:05 pm: ANOTHER commercial bump to pimp the fact that The Dark Knight is coming up.  Oh how they taunt us all.

10:10 pm: Gavin Rossdale, Mr. Gwen Stefani, checks in from 1995.  Okay, so he WAS in Constantine.  Yeesh.  Nominees here for Favorite Leading Lady are Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson (quick, name two good movies she’s made since Almost Famous) and hey, Queen Latifah!  Inexplicably, Kate Hudson wins.  This am Bizarro Awards Show!  Hudson incidentally lost Best Mother Award for announcing that she’s at the show on her son’s birthday.

10:13 pm: Oscar Winner Marisa Tomei is here to present Favorite Movie Drama.  Nominees are 21 (starring two-thirds of the Superman Returns headliners), Eagle-Eye (Transfomers and Indy Jones star The Beef), and The Secret Life of Bees (Latifah again!).  The Secret Life of Bees, but that’s not important as the weird Angel Heart triangle that Tomei forms by having co-starred with Lisa Bonet on A Different World and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.  By the way, Bees is also Favorite Independent Movie.  Man, times change. 

10:19 pm: There’s a commercial for The Mentalist.  I liked this show better when it was funny and called Psych.

10:21 pm: I’ll show these people; I’ll read today’s new issue of Jonah Hex until something happens.

10:23 pm: Rafa Garres’s art is fantastic. And that’s good, because now Rascal Flatts is here to perform. 

10:25 pm: Okay, have to interject here.  The band was introduced as performing a couple of “their” biggest hits.  The second song is their cover of “Life is a Highway” from the Cars soundtrack?  What’s next?  The Mickey Mouse Club March?

10:28 pm: Hey, David Boreanez!  Genre royalty.  Bones star, Angel star, Buffy star, voice of Green Lantern from The New Frontier.  This award appears to be Favorite Female TV Star, and it goes to Christina Applegate.  Well, that’s all right; she deserves it for getting right back to work after her cancer fight.  Apart from that, it’s always funny when Mariska Hargitay wins something because she’s the daughter of Hercules and Jayne Mansfield.  That’s still crazy.

10:37 pm: Queen Latifah quotes Cyrus from The Warriors.  I can, in fact, dig it.

10:37 pm: DUCKY! Jon Cryer was Lenny Luthor, you know.

10:38 pm: He’s presenting Favorite TV Drama.  Nominees are . . . CSI:Original, Grey’s Anatomy, and House.  The People love House.  But The People know . . . that the People’s Champion . . . is still . . . THE ROCK.

10:41 pm:  And the polls are closed!  The judge without the accent from Dancing with the Stars now presents Favorite New TV Comedy. Come on, Jay Mohr . . . do your Walken!

10:43 pm: Jay Mohr lets me down again.

10:44 pm: Favorite New TV Drama, here we go!  90210, Fringe, and The Mentalist.  The People chose . . . The Mentalist.  Lucas will be happy, since he IMed me to chide me about mocking The Mentalist over the fact that it maps Psych.  But come on, Simon Baker deserves a hit after starring in 137 failed shows that begin with “The”.

10:48 pm: ANOTHER Dark Knight bump.

10:50 pm: Jay Mohr is back!  Do your Walken!  Do it now!

10:50 pm: He just made a Homeboys in Outer Space joke?  I’m going to kill Matt Brady for encouraging me in this endeavor.

10:53 pm: The Two-and-a-Half Men kid tells a dirty joke.  He’s no Man Show Boy.

10:54 pm: Hey, they finally get to a category with The Dark Knight.  And holy crap, they held it because it’s taking all kinds of stuff. Favorite Action Movie, Favorite On-Screen Match-Up (Bale and Ledger), Favorite Cast, Favorite Superhero, Favorite Movie . . . wow.

10:57 pm: Bale is here, Nolan, Emma Thomas  . . . big standing-O. 

10:58 pm: Bale makes it very plain spoken.  He thanks the cast, the fans, and says, “Here’s to Heath.”  That’s it, and that’s class.

10:58 pm: Nolan adds a coda, but you can see it on the faces of all involved.  It’s clear that they’re honored, but this massive triumph will forever be bittersweet for all involved.  It’s a rare moment of pathos in a pretty vacuous affair.

Well, hey, how about that?  A dominant night for Knight . . . and mind-numbing fear in terms of some of the rest of the stuff America likes.  Do we read this as any kind of barometer for Sunday’s Globes?  One thing’s for sure . . . I won’t be doing covering THAT whole thing.  Thanks for reading!

P.S. Jonah Hex was great.

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