Of the five nominees, I really like “The Americans,” “Masters of Sex” and “Orange,” was lukewarm on “Cards” and didn’t think much of “Ray Donovan.” Probably too much to hope a lower-profile show like “Rectify” (or even “Orphan Black”) could have wound up here. * In some ways, the new series category is the most interesting one, given that “Breaking Bad” is likely to win anything it’s eligible for, and given the metric tonnage of great new shows debuting this year. ( UPDATE: As a reader reminded me, a submissions mix-up made “GoT” ineligible for a series nomination, but it’s individual episodes still qualified, and “The Rains of Castamere” would have seemed like a favorite to be nominated.) Then again, no “Mad Men” individual nominations, either – not even for one of the scripts that didn’t have Matthew Weiner’s name on it. * The WGA voters still like “Homeland” as a series, if not enough to nominate an individual episode. * Network/provider-wise, the big winner was Netflix, which won the gamble on submitting “Orange Is the New Black” as a comedy, and as a result wound up with five nominations between “Orange” and “House of Cards.” I’m somewhat shocked that Moira Walley-Beckett’s script for “Ozymandias” – the best hour of TV of the year, by far – wasn’t nominated, but I also can’t impeach the three episodes that were chosen (“Buried,” “Confessions” and “Granite State”). * Series-wise, “Breaking Bad” was the big winner, nominated for drama series and landing 3 of the 6 nominations for individual drama episodes. I’ve got the full WGA list at the bottom of this post, but let’s start with some specific observations: I’m going to be curious to see the results for our second annual HitFix TV Critics Poll (here’s last year’s), which will be published later this month, and I’m also interested to see how the Golden Globes and the various Hollywood guilds like the WGA (all of whom attach their TV awards to their movie ones) pick and choose among all the possibilities.

There’s so much good TV right now that any kind of Top 10 list, or set of awards nominations – like today’s announcement of the Writers Guild of America TV nominees for 2013 – will inevitably omit an awful lot of great material, and will lean on the specific preferences of the individuals or groups making the picks. So did Sundance, and History, and others. Netflix entered the original scripted series game. “Breaking Bad” went out with an amazing final season. This was, as I’ve written about several times – and will be writing a lot more in the coming weeks as we publish various Best of 2013 lists – an insanely good, and deep, year for scripted television.

King of the Bottom by William C. Gordon