Julia Louis Dreyfus

THE cast of CBS' "The New Adventures of Old Christine" has just finished the first scene of the show's second-season finale. The studio audience has laughed big eight times in 12 pages of script, making the warm-up guy's smile just as big. But this, apparently, is not enough. The writers and producers huddle quickly behind the video monitors while the actors hang loose.

When you gather five comedic actors to discuss their work, the conversation naturally turns to, well, pain. And anguish. And desperation. But thankfully, when the performers are as thoughtful as Laura Dern (who plays Amy, an aggressively well-meaning woman on HBO's "Enlightened"), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (who as Mitchell is raising a daughter with his partner on ABC's "Modern Family"), Ed Helms (the under-appreciated Andy on NBC's "The Office"), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who as Vice President Selina Meyer finds her ambitions thwarted on HBO's "Veep")

Armando Iannucci's droll, fleet "Veep," which premieres Sunday on HBO and stars Julia Louis-Dreyfusas Selina Meyer, vice president of the United States, has nothing to do with Sarah Palin, who once came close to occupying that post and bears a minor resemblance to the star. It is, rather, an Americanization of Iannucci's fitfully ongoing 2005 BBC series "The Thick of It" and its spun-off 2009 film "In the Loop," whose protagonists are minor ministers in the U.K. government, and which make comedy from the place where power and powerlessness, ambition and limitation overlap.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Rip Torn led off Sunday's 48th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards with honors for outstanding supporting acting in comedy series. Dreyfus, who crossed her fingers and mouthed "Please" before the winning actress was announced, won her first Emmy in five nominations for her role as Elaine on NBC's "Seinfeld." "A lot of people say that our show is about nothing, but of course it's been about plenty of something for me," she said tearfully.

IN EACH of the last three seasons that her sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine" has been on CBS, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been nominated for an Emmy as lead actress in a comedy series; she took home the statuette in 2006. Curse? What curse? Louis-Dreyfus played Elaine Benes on "Seinfeld" for nine seasons (and won an Emmy for it). When the series ended, she and other alumni of the show launched new -- yet very short-lived -- series, hence the buzz of a post-"Seinfeld" curse.

With the presidential election just six weeks away, it was only fitting that politics took center stage at the 64th Emmy Awards . Showtime's political thriller "Homeland" made television history Sunday evening when it delivered the cable network's first dramatic series Emmy for the show about a Marine under suspicion of being an Al Qaeda operative. The freshman series won four Emmys. Besides the top prize, it also won in the drama categories for best actress for Claire Danes, best actor for Damien Lewis and for writing.

Cable dramas and network comedies dominated the nominees for the 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. In the drama category, cable favorites such as "Homeland," "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad" and "Boardwalk Empire" picked up multiple nominations, while network series were all but overlooked. On the comedy side, the situation was reversed: Only one cable series, "Nurse Jackie," made the cut in the ensemble category, with SAG favoring network sitcoms like "30 Rock," "Modern Family" and "The Big Bang Theory.

Viewers tuning in to the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards could be forgiven for thinking they were watching an updated version of "Groundhog Day. " The show was flavored with a taste of déjà vu. Despite a few surprise wins - notably freshman series "Homeland" ruining the win streak of "Mad Men" as outstanding drama series - the ceremony was dominated by victors who had previously made trips to the Emmys winners' circle. In upholding what has become an unofficial Emmy tradition, the results in the dramatic, comedy and reality categories demonstrated that Academy of Television Arts & Sciences voters continue to lean toward the familiar when it comes to handing out honors.

With a film crew crouched round her, Julia Louis-Dreyfus sits alone at a table in a hotel bar. As cameras roll, she starts fishing an olive from her drink with a cocktail stick. Behind her, through a window, traffic hurtles down Park Lane, on the eastern edge of Hyde Park. At last she extricates the olive, but drops it on the carpeted floor. Horrified, she searches frantically for it beneath the table. "Aaaaaaand cut," director Jay Sandrich says as everyone chuckles at Louis-Dreyfus' antics.

Even before it was over, Sunday's Emmy Awards on CBS won raves for sprightly pacing, (mostly) classy jokes and emcee Neil Patrick Harris. There were predictable winners -- NBC's "30 Rock" won for the third time as best comedy, AMC's "Mad Men" won again for best drama -- but enough upsets to keep things interesting, including a big nod for Showtime's little-seen comedy "United States of Tara." But there was also a different kind of tension. Harris cheerfully greeted viewers with a Broadway-esque tune that urged them not to channel-surf away from the show or watch it later on DVR. "Don't jump online, 'cause this fine mug of mine needs a huge high-def screen," sang the star of CBS' "How I Met Your Mother."