AFT Awards: Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series

This is the eighteenth category of the 3rd Annual AFT Television Awards, my personal choices for the best in television this past season. This year, semi-finalists are included to recognize more of the impressive work being done on television today. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.
Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series

Last year’s nominees: Californication, Entourage, The Office, Pushing Daisies, 30 Rock

Emmy nominees: This isn’t an Emmy category. SAG nominees for the 2008 calendar year were Desperate Housewives, Entourage , The Office, 30 Rock, and Weeds.

Semi-finalists: Everyone over on Showtime’s Californication and Weeds is doing a great job, but they just don’t make my top ten list this year. And judging from this summer’s additional episodes, Better Off Ted will very likely be here next year – the cast was already impressive in the show’s first seven episodes, and they show a lot of promise.

Finalists: The zaniness of 30 Rock wouldn’t be possible without the completely outlandish and hilarious cast. The supporting detectives and family members are just as good as the leads on USA’s Psych and Monk, and they’re just as fresh a number of years in as they were at the start of both shows. The dedicated ensemble of fashionistas and families on Ugly Betty is easily the best asset of the show. And like star Danny McBride, somehow the cast of Eastbound and Down makes stupid look good.

The nominees:

Government agents and minimum-wage earners have never been more charming and cohesive as a cast than on Chuck this year. Cube dwellers are still humorous, especially when they’re at war with each other, like this season on The Office. The same goes for a smaller unit of office workers, like the one on Parks and Recreation. And solving cases on dramedies still demands impressive teams, and Pushing Daisies and Burn Notice both provide their share of appropriate actors and devilishly-prepared group scenes.

Next up: Best Drama Series