The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has recognized that it's still possible to be entertained and learn an important lesson at the same time.
The organization that doles out the Emmy Awards has selected episodes of Law & Order: SVU and Boston Legal, two Lifetime productions and documentaries from Showtime and CNN to be among its inaugural recipients of its Television Academy Honors.
The new kudos category will pay tribute to programming that deals with timely societal issues, such as the Iraq war, the environment, teen sex and religion, in a "compelling, emotional and insightful way."
For instance, James Gandolfini's collaboration with HBO on the interview special Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq, in which the Sopranos star sat down with U.S. servicemen and women to hear their stories, seems like one of the options that would jump out at a committee looking to honor a show for dealing with an incredibly pertinent issue in a savvy and compelling way.
But Television Academy members were hard-pressed this year to arrive at a final list of 10 deserving projects.
"We received almost 200 entries following the announcement of the Television Academy Honors and our call for entries this past December," TV Academy Chairman and chief executive John Shaffner said Thursday.
"It was very difficult to narrow them down to a final group of honorees. However, we felt the shows and movies we selected best represent what this honor stands for—programming that enlightens, educates, creates awareness and instigates positive change regarding a wide range of social and health issues."
In addition to Alive Day Memories, the following will be presented with the first-ever Television Academy Honors at a May 1 ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel:
- Boston Legal, for consistently taking on controversial issues such as euthanasia, immigration, race relations, sex education and other often volatile subjects
- Law & Order: SVU, for the episode "Harm," which involved a case that led back to the government-sanctioned torture of a suspected terrorist
- Girl, Positive, a Lifetime movie starring Jennie Garth as the mother of a teen who finds out the boy she slept with is HIV-positive
- God's Warriors, a three-part CNN documentary examining religious fundamentalism
- Pictures of Hollis Woods, a CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame feature about a troubled girl dealing with her foster mother's Alzheimer's disease
- Planet Earth, the 11-part Discovery series that made a case for having hi-def in all homes with its intricate look at Earth's ecosystems, climate, animal behaviors and other natural systems
- Side Order of Life, a Lifetime original series in which one of the main characters learns she has cancer and decides to make the most of her life
- Shame, a Showtime documentary examining human rights violations, particularly crimes against women.