It was a banner year for drama on television. So when Emmy nominations were announced Thursday why was Lost missing?

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences skipped over last year's best drama series and instead nominated 24, Grey's Anatomy, House, The Sopranos and The West Wing.

The canceled Fox series Arrested Development was a nominee for best comedy series, along with Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Scrubs and Two and Half Men.

24 led all series with 12 nominations, followed by Grey's Anatomy with 11. The Steven Spielberg produced miniseries Into the West, which aired last summer on TNT, led all nominees with 16.

Good shows get overlooked for awards all the time. Among the most famous Emmy snubs was 1989's Lonesome Dove, overlooked for best miniseries. (Star Robert Duvall was also overlooked.) But Lost and the popular new comedy My Name Is Earl seemed like shoo-in nominees this year.

Because of a flawed Emmy selection procedure, producers were permitted to submit only one episode for consideration in the best series categories. That, in effect, levels the playing field for all contenders, no matter if a series has one great episode out of 22 or a full season's worth. And it seriously hurts fantasy serials such as Lost, which are deeply dependent on faithful viewer attention to keep abreast of its mythology.

"Like me, many voters must have felt truly lost while viewing Lost's (submitted episode) 'Man of Science, Man of Faith,' " Tom O'Neill, author of The Emmys, a record book on the awards, wrote on his goldderby.com blog. O'Neill noted he only keeps up with the show periodically.

"'Man of Science' is all loose strings and none get tied up. And none of them wrap around the viewer's heart, either."

Lost and My Name Is Earl weren't alone in being slighted for this year's award show, which will air Aug. 27 on NBC (earlier than usual because NBC has Sunday Night Football). Though The Sopranos was nominated, stars James Gandolfini and Edie Falco were not, their first snubs in the series' history.

And last year's winner for best comedy series, Desperate Housewives, was shut out in series and acting categories with one awkward exception: Alfre Woodard, who has since left the show, was nominated for best supporting actress.

Awkwardness abounded. Several actors and shows that are no longer on the air received nominations, including Peter Krause and Frances Conroy of Six Feet Under, Lisa Kudrow of The Comeback, Stockard Channing of Out of Practice and Geena Davis of Commander in Chief.

On the other hand, there were several new deserving names on the Emmy list including Denis Leary of Rescue Me (best actor-drama); Kyra Sedgwick of The Closer (best actress-drama); Houstonian Chandra Wilson of Grey's Anatomy (supporting actress-drama); Gregory Itzin of 24 (supporting actor-drama); and Jaime Pressly of My Name Is Earl (supporting actress-comedy).

HBO led all networks with 95 nominations, followed by ABC, 64; CBS, 47; NBC, 46, and Fox, 41.

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