Writers Guild announces TV nominees

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- PBS led the field with nine nominations Wednesday when the Writers Guild of America announced nominees for its 54th Annual WGA Awards.

CBS and HBO had eight nominations each. NBC had seven and ABC had five.

Eight of PBS' nominations came for documentary programs, as the public TV network swept both documentary categories, "current events" and "other than current events." The "Frontline" public affairs series received three nominations -- including the only two given in the category of current events documentaries, for "The Drug Wars," parts 1 and 2, and one for the program, "Medicating Kids," in the other documentary category.

HBO took three of the four nominations in the original long form category -- for "Conspiracy," "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story" and "61*." The other nomination went to Showtime's "Varian's War."

In the adapted long form category, ABC was nominated for "Anne Frank" and "Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows." TNT was nominated for "Baby" and "The Mists of Avalon." The remaining nomination went to PBS for "The Song of the Lark."

HBO's "The Sopranos" took three of the five nominations in the episodic drama category, for episodes entitled "Employee of the Month," "Pine Barrens" and "Proshai, Livushka." NBC's "The West Wing" was nominated for episodes entitled "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail" and "Two Cathedrals." A sixth nomination went to the CBS series, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," for the episode entitled "Blood Drops."

"The West Wing" won the WGA award for episodic drama last year.

Fox's popular Sunday night comedy, "Malcolm in the Middle," was nominated twice in the episodic comedy category, for episodes entitled "Bowling" and "Grandparents." The Fox series, "Titus," picked up a nomination for an episode called "The Pendulum."

HBO's "Sex in the City" received two nominations, for episodes entitled "Just Say Yes" and "My Motherboard, My Self." A sixth nomination went to the CBS Monday night hit, "Everybody Loves Raymond" for the two-part episode, "Italy."

Last year's winner, NBC's "Frasier," was not nominated this year.

"The Kennedy Center Honors" (CBS) and "Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash 2000" (NBC) were nominated in the music, awards, tributes and specials comedy-variety category. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (NBC), "The Late Show with David Letterman" (CBS), "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" (ABC) and "Saturday Night Live" (NBC) were nominated in the comedy-variety series category.

The nominees for daytime serial are "All My Children" (ABC), "Days of Our Lives" (NBC), "The Guiding Light" (CBS) and "The Young and the Restless" (NBC).

The nominations cover scripts originally broadcast between Sept. 1, 2000, and Aug. 31, 2001.

The guild will announce the nominees for its feature film prizes on Feb. 7. The 54th Annual WGA Awards will be presented March 2 in ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York.