Nominations for the 2013 Critics’ Choice Television Awards have been announced, and along with plenty of welcome surprises there are a couple of snubs that are likely to have people talking.  Here’s a brief rundown of some of the highlights:

• Best Drama Series nominees include Game of Thrones, Homeland, Breaking Bad, and FX’s excellent new series The Americans.  Conspicuously absent is Mad Men, which only scored one nomination overall for Elisabeth Moss as Lead Actress.
• Best Comedy Series nominees include Louie, New Girl, Parks and Recreation, and Veep, with Emmy favorite Modern Family failing to land a nomination along with last year’s winner Community.  Instead, ABC sitcom The Middle made the cut.
• Netflix’s House of Cards scored two nominations for Best Actor (Kevin Spacey) and a very deserved Best Supporting Actor nod for Corey Stoll.
• David Lynch landed a Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series nom for his excellent work in Louie, and Happy Endings alums Casey Wilson and Adam Pally were recognized in the supporting categories.
• The love it/loathe it HBO comedy Girls didn’t get a Best Comedy Series nod, but received acting nominations for Lena Dunham, Alex Karpovsky, and Patrick Wilson.
• FX’s American Horror Story and CBS’ The Big Bang Theory scored the most nominations with six each, topping all other programs.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees, and sound off in the comments with your thoughts on the lineup.  The awards will be handed out on June 10th.

This week on The Collision, we are joined by Allison Keene and Charles Judson.  Our conversation is sparked by a Mad Men spec script from actress Erika Anderson, which brings African-American characters into Matthew Weiner‘s critically acclaimed show.  From there, our conversation expands to explore diversity in popular TV series, if showrunners should feel obligated to diversify their casts, the difficulty in writing minority characters, and much more.  As always, we finish up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“Violence and Evil Dead“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

After a very strange season of ups and downs for both the characters and viewers, Girls‘ second season ended on an upbeat note for (almost) all involved.  However, with Christopher Abbott, who plays the suddenly-rich-thanks-to-an-app Charlie, leaving the show just as filming on season three begins, that puts one of the finale’s major storylines in a quandary.  Though Abbott’s official statement is that he is leaving to pursue work on other projects, the rumor is that he and the polarizing HBO show’s creator, Lena Dunham, fought over creative differences.  Hit the jump for the specifics, and what it could mean for the third season (Note: Season Two spoilers).

After last week’s controversial Girls episode, I can’t imagine anything less controversial or interesting than “Together,” which felt like a very, very, odd kowtow to the exact conventions that Lena Dunham has seemed to strive to subvert through most of the series.  Further, the show has turned from the experiences of twenty-somethings — finding or not finding careers in a bad economy, confusing sexual trysts — to the mental breakdown of one twenty-something in particular: Hannah.  Are her issues real, or are they forced?  I have never identified with a character more on the show than Hannah’s father, who lashed out at her for manipulating him time and time again, and that she’s at a place where she should be old enough to take control of her life and stop making excuses.  Except she’s clearly not.  Hit the jump to see if I succeed in spinning something positive out of this unsatisfying finale.

Oh my.  I’m not sure what to do with this season of Girls.  It’s been all over the place — from a strong, legitimately funny start to some strange, meditative episodes (Hannah and her affair with the doctor, Jessa’s trip back home), to the odd and boring (“On All Fours”).  This season has become less of a commentary on girls, these or otherwise, and more of a ritualistic humiliation that has zapped one character off of the map completely (please come back, Jessa, please!)  As for this week, the best I can do with “On All Fours” is that it seemed to be about returning to your base instincts and coming to terms with who you really are.  Or something.  Hit the jump for why “I’ve been known to dabble in the Macintosh arts.”

With Jessa out of the picture this week on Girls (for how long and how far we know not), I felt as nervous as Shoshanna.  When will she be back?  When she put Hannah in her place for not knowing the difference between when something is a sexual escapade and when it’s not?  We know Jessa will be ok — as Ray points out, “she’s a fucking hustler.  And not in a good way.”  But what about us?  Will we be ok dealing with Hannah’s sudden onset OCD and Marnie’s insecurity issues for half an hour?  Or will we need Shoshanna to help save the day?  Hit the jump for what came back, and why “pantomiming is an inadequate way to express yourself (we have talked about this!)”

This week’s Girls actually found a way to improve upon last week’s fantastic Adam-Ray adventure by focusing, finally, on Jessa.  Jessa has often been a caricature at best, and while we have see a few glimpses of real emotion and fragility with her relationship with Thomas-John, she’s always existed on the fringes of the Girls group, floating in and out of episodes or even the frame (as she did last week).  Jessa’s breakdown with Thomas-John also hinted at a damaged past, one where the stability of a “normal” man would be something she innately seeks, even if consciously she doesn’t recognize it.  In “Video Games” she mentions briefly about how he doesn’t even want to work on their relationship, but suggesting in her tone that she would did want to.  She doesn’t want to be her father, and “Video Games” showed us exactly why.  Hit the jump for why “I am the child!”

Forget everything else that happened on this really depressing episode of Girls and focus solely on Adam and Ray and the possibilities, oh the possibilities, they could have in a spin-off.  One of my favorite things narratively is when two characters are put together who either have never met (but have big but separate presence on the show), or who rarely interact alone together (they may have been on screen together before, but in a group) because it really opens them up in ways we haven’t seen before.  The scenes between these two very different men, who decided maybe they aren’t so different (“because we’re both pretty weird looking”), and the way they went from antagonistic to friendly to antagonistic again were the best things Girls has done all season.  There was plenty more to unpack in this episode, including a lot of really fake crying, so hit the jump for more on why really, your date should pay $4 for a taco.

The Writers Guild of America Awards were held tonight, and Ben Affleck‘s Argo continued its sweep through awards season by netting Best Adapted Screenplay for writer Chris Terrio.  Mark Boal won Best Original Screenplay for the film that will actually continue to resonate for years to come, Zero Dark Thirty.  Meanwhile, Malik Bendejelloul‘s won Best Documentary Screenplay for the wonderful Searching for Sugar Man.  Over on the TV side, Breaking Bad won Best Drama Series, Louie won Best Comedy Series, and Girls won Best New Series.  Hatfields & McCoys and Game Change continued their awards winning streaks by picking up Best Long Form (Original) and Long Form (Adapted), respectively.  Finally, Portlandia beat out some stiff competition (such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) to pick up Best Comedy/Variety.

First thing this morning, critics who had seen this Girls episode ahead of time were filling up my Twitter timeline about who would love it and who would hate it, and what about it should be loved or hated.  Most were split.  I was nervous.  Frankly, there’s nothing about this episode that I should categorically like — readers will note I have always disliked Hannah-centric storylines and episodes, which this season has (with a mere five episodes) already had in spades.  So the weirdest thing about “One Man’s Trash,” besides it being entirely about Hannah and Hannah co-opting Jessa’s storyline from last week, is that I didn’t hate it.  Hit the jump for my take on this likely polarizing episode.

After last week’s shambolic offering, I was still looking forward to this week’s Girls largely because of the title, “It’s a Shame About Ray.”  “At last!” I thought, “less Hannah and more Shoshanna!”  It was blessedly true, with a lot more Jessa thrown in as well, and a dash of Marnie.  As irritating as the show can be, when it sticks to a theme (in this case, the idea or question of financially parasitic relationships) and shows real emotion (which came from a variety of sources — basically from everyone except Hannah), Girls finally lives up to the hype.  Hit the jump for more on why “when I’m 30 I’m going to look like I’m 50, and I’m going to be fat, really fat like Nico, because I will be full of experiences!”

The freight train that is Argo kept on trucking last night.  Though the film’s Best Picture Oscar chances were all but dashed when Ben Affleck was snubbed for Best Director (it’s incredibly rare for a movie to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination), the film picked up the top awards at two major guilds—the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild.  Now two becomes three, as the Directors Guild Awards were held last night and Argo pulled off the hat trick by landing Affleck the Best Director DGA trophy.

There is one major precedent that everyone keeps pointing towards with regards to Argo: 1995’s Apollo 13.  That film won the PGA, DGA, and SAG awards, only to find Ron Howard left out of the Best Director Oscar nominations and it ultimately lost Best Picture to Braveheart.  Is Argo in the same boat as Apollo 13 or can it pull off the win?  Furthermore, who wins Best Director at the Oscars?  Hit the jump for more, along with the full list of DGA winners that includes Looper’s Rian Johnson for his work on Breaking Bad and Girls’ Lena Dunham.

Did anyone count the seconds Shoshanna and Jessa turned up on screen in this episode of Girls?  More than twenty, but less than a full minute, surely.  The problem with any episode that focuses entirely on Hannah is that Hannah is, by far, the least likable of the foursome.  In small doses she can be fine — the cold open was a thing of beauty to anyone who works in, or pays close attention to, media.  Hannah, looking to do some kind of Woody Allen-esque “I just want to talk about how awkward I am” piece, or maybe some kind of long-form old-school journalism is told, “have a threesome with strangers you meet off of Craiglist.  Or go on a cocaine binge.  Just an idea.”  Hit the jump to see how that played out, as well as why you should “look at the doll and describe her!”

In a move that surprises no one, HBO has renewed its highly discussed, popular and divisive series Girls for a third season with an expanded episode count, totaling twelve.  The series was already brought back early this year (returning in January after premiering last spring in April with the sharp political comedy Veep), and HBO seems eager to ride the zeitgeist wave and bring even more of the series as fast as it can.

Elsewhere, the premium cable channel has ordered a half-hour pilot from Jay and Mark Duplass who are set to write, direct and produce (though not star or appear in) the series called Togetherness.  Togetherness will focus on two couples living under one roof, working through their relationships and pursuing their dreams.  Hit the jump for more.