Variety calls Eric Sheffer Stevens ‘sensational’ | Plus 2011 Daytime Emmy Awards predictions round-up (go, Colleen Zenk!)

Well, that was a pleasant surprise. In today’s Daytime Emmy preview column, Michael Maloney writes for Variety about the Drama Series Casting category:

Casting directors from "All My Children," "General Hospital," "One Life to Live" and "Young and the Restless" submitted performers from primetime, film and the available stable of daytime players. "Children" includes Michael Nouri and Daniel Cosgrove. "General" contains Michael Learned, Daniel Benzali and Adrienne Barbeau (a contender for next year’s supporting actress race.) "One Life" has fan favorites and Emmy winners Kim Zimmer and John Wesley Shipp. "Restless" might have be the most diverse in terms of age, with 11-year-old Garrett Ryan and veteran thesp Elinor Donahue, who played Judge "Anderson," a nod to the actress’ role on "Father Knows Best.”

Overlooked: "As the World Turns" for discovering sensational Eric Sheffer Stevens, whose Dr. Reid Oliver made Hugh Laurie’s House look like Marcus Welby.

I don’t think I’ve seen Michael write about soaps or ATWT or Eric before, so it’s always nice to see that he has (yet) more fans!

Eric’s birthday and the Daytime Emmys are this Sunday, June 19th 8:00-10:00 PM (live ET/delayed PT) and will be broadcast on CBS from the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. Colleen Zenk is the frontrunner for lead actress (go, Babs!), and Jonathan Jackson is dominating all pre-broadcast polls for best supporting actor.

Links to live streaming options, plus a round-up of predictions from Michael Fairman, Michael Logan (TV Guide), Nelson Branco, SoapCentral, Gold Derby, and many more after the jump…

In case you’d (like to watch via live stream, these are the CBS livestream links from last year (haven’t checked to see if any of them work still; sorry, no time!).

• CBS | ShadowNet
• Watch CBS
• TVPC
• JayJay’s WebTV (the CBS link on the right has a larger embedded viewer than the other sites)

In the meantime, if you’d like to see some of the early buzz on Eric’s Emmy (non)-chances, you can check out this forum on GoldDerby.

For more Emmy buzz (and many of you will NOT be happy to hear that most pick ATWT’s finale to win best writing), check out:

• Michael Fairman’s guest spot on BlazinRy (blogtalkradio)
• Michael Fairman’s predictions (He picks Colleen and says about the finale, “We tried to separate how much we were frustrated with the final episode of As the World Turns, and its lack of certain decisions made in its home stretch, and focus on just the pure script, words and writing of this episode.  And we have to say, it had humor, drama, romance, and made us reach for the hankies, even though we had seen it a few times previously.  The ‘Our Town’-esque storytelling, gave us a glimpse of every town USA, Oakdale, as seen through the eyes of Dr. Bob Hughes, who is retiring after decades as the town’s favorite medicine man.  But who can forget these gems among some of the more lackluster scenes: Luke listening to Reid’s heart with a stethoscope to Chris’s chest, Holden and Lily’s final scene, or Casey saying goodbye to Tom and Margo.”)
• Daytime Confidential’s prediction podcast
• SoapCentral’s Daytime Emmys hub (ATWT’s Martha Byrne will be co-hosting their red carpet broadcasts)
• SoapCentral’s Predictions Overview (5 of 7 pick ATWT for writing – with one of the two exceptions being Lisa Svenson’s random-number generator selections)
• TVGuide’s Michael Logan’s predictions (For the writing category, Michael says, “Likeliest Upset: As the World Turns, which submitted its warm, lovely and daringly undramatic farewell episode. Sob.”)
• TV Guide Canada’s Nelson Branco’s predictions (he lists both ATWT and Colleen as spoilers)
• And, just for fun, Nelson’s pre-nomination predictions (published in February)
• Entertainment Weekly’s predictions (whose experts are from Soap Opera Network and SOD/SOW)
• Carolyn Hinsey has posted her “home runs” on her blog at SoapOperaDigest.com (but no comments on the Writing category)
• DenialIsland’s predictions
• GoldDerby’s predictions game and their general predictions thread (east/west has posted links to his really thoughtful, detailed analysis for the various categories which are buried in category-specific threads), and their overall Daytime Emmy forum which includes these threads and many more
• WeLoveSoaps does not appear to have posted its annual scorecard yet – at least I couldn’t find it; if anyone finds it, let me know!

For anyone frustrated with the lack of representation from our boys (and I’ll include Trent Dawson in there since at least ONE of the three should have made the ballot!), keep in mind how Michael Logan introduced his picks:

It’s time for that annual exercise in hopelessness, pointlessness and foolishness — predicting the Daytime Emmys! I mean, seriously, why do we bother? You can think you have good taste and know award-worthy talent when you see it. You can spend hours upon hours reviewing the reels that each of the nominees has submitted to the judges. And then it can all blow up in your face with three little words: Drew Tyler Bell. Yes, my little soap peeps, anyone can win at the Daytime Emmys (which air Sunday at 8/7c, on CBS). Anyone. So, with that in mind, here we go.

Keeping my fingers crossed for Colleen Zenk! 🙂