Every year the Emmy nominations produce wild conspiracy theories about orchestrated snubs and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' hostility to one program or genre.

This makes the academy look far more organized than it actually is.

Nevertheless, even some top players in the creative community have assailed Emmy choices in the past, with "Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter unleashing an epic Twitter rant last year about academy members being "too old to understand my show." (They didn't understand it any better this year, apparently.)

So for those with inquiring minds, here are five questions that frequently come up about the Emmys, dissected and exposed (take that, Mythbusters):

Do the Emmys favor cable over broadcast? Cable has some inherent advantages, particularly on the drama side, where doing heavily serialized, shorter-order series tend to play better -- and feel more satisfying -- than broadcast fare, particularly procedurals. Notably, sitcoms are a little different -- many are self-contained, and funny is funny -- which has of late tended to even the playing field.

Do the Emmys discriminate against sci-fi and fantasy? To a point, yes. Series like "Game of Thrones" have been able to break into the list of nominees -- and Peter Dinklage, happily, scored a well-deserved trophy last year -- but it is difficult for them to amass enough of a following within the academy to convert nominations into wins. And it is true that concepts like "The Walking Dead," "Battlestar Galactica" and anything else that people dress up as at Comic-Con are probably a tough sell.

Are Emmy voters overly impressed with movie stars? Sadly, yes. If history is any judge, projects with big movie stars perform disproportionately well in the Emmy balloting, almost without regard to merit. On the plus side, they do tend to class up the joint and clean up nicely.

Are academy members too old to recognize hot new series? Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. Can you SPEAK UP A LITTLE PLEASE?

Do lavish Emmy campaigns skew the voting? Absolutely. So keep buying those "For your consideration" ads. My kid's feet aren't going to shoe themselves.

Not to sound cranky, but for the 20th-some-odd time, I'm going to drag my ass out of bed while it's still dark on Thursday to report on the nighttime Emmy nominations.

So on behalf of everyone on the West Coast -- who make up a likely majority of the nominees -- here's a respectful request: Next year, how about we celebrate by letting everyone sleep in?

To be fair, it's not just the Emmys that time their nomination announcement to 5:30 a.m. PT, to maximize exposure on the network morning shows. The Oscars set the precedent back in 1987, and the practice quickly spread through the industry.

Nor am I the first person to note the current approach is silly, with the Los Angeles Times' Patrick Goldstein writing earlier this year that the Oscar nods ought to be turned into a primetime special -- an interesting suggestion, which brings to mind an old adage about blind pigs and acorns.

My beef, however, has less to do with the inconvenience of the time than the fact it's so pointless, and not particularly efficient. For starters, the morning shows -- while still significant ratings-wise -- don't drive viewers to award shows the way they once did. And their coverage of the nominations is perfunctory at best, giving a couple of precious minutes to the nods before they quickly race to the next lifestyle/reality TV/concert segment.

Meanwhile, the pre-dawn timing saps most of the glamor from the festivities -- who wants to be in full hair and makeup that early if they don't have to? -- and doesn't seem calibrated to bring out the best in anyone, from journalists to the nominees.

In short, screwing up everyone's morning isn't just irritating; it's ineffective.

While the primetime-special concept (an idea already adopted by the Grammys) has some merit, there are all sorts of ways the academies could tinker with and enliven the formula. A classy nomination lunch? An elimination game where the publicists for those failing to receive nods drop through trapdoors into big vats of green slime?

Whatever the solution, doing something that makes little sense "because we've done it this way for a couple decades" hardly seems forward-thinking. And at this point, about the only company that has any reason to be happy about it is Starbucks.

Until then, see you -- through sleep-encrusted eyes -- Thursday.

Frankly, I thought I was on to a big original thought when I began toying with the idea of writing about how Heath Ledger's death elevated the current Batman theatrical franchise.

Until I began researching and found a piece on comicbookmovie.com a few months ago that essentially posed the exact same question.

Still, with "The Dark Knight Rises" about to open (and already favorably reviewed by my colleague Justin Chang), it is a discussion worth having, not so much to relive the circumstances surrounding Ledger's death as to remind us of the tenuous place in the pop-culture universe comic-book-derived movies have occupied.

First, all the necessary disclaimers.

For starters, "Batman Begins" is a sensational movie -- for my money, better than "Dark Knight" -- and thus set the table for enhanced interest in its sequel. Christopher Nolan also upped the prestige ante by stocking the supporting cast with classy players like Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, serving notice this isn't your average "Biff! Bam! Pow!" superhero.

Nolan also set both films in a largely realistic world, other than its protagonist -- in essence creating a crime drama, only where the vigilante hero happens to wear a cape and cowl.

Finally, Warner Bros., to its credit, didn't exploit the Ledger story in marketing the movie, and indeed went to great lengths to avoid the appearance of doing so. Everyone said, and did, all the right things.

Yet the current media being what it is, it was impossible for the death of a rising young star not to provoke enormous curiosity about his final role, culminating with a posthumous Oscar for best supporting actor.

As good as Ledger's performance was, would a movie like "Dark Knight" have brought about such recognition without the tragedy connected to it? Historically, no -- just as a lot of casual fans who wouldn't know Bruce Wayne from Bruce Vilanch probably wouldn't have rushed out to see a "comic book movie" (witness the ultimate differential in domestic grosses between "Dark Knight," which earned $533 million, and the $206 million for "Batman Begins") without the Ledger component.

None of this should detract from what Nolan and company have constructed, but it is an interesting commentary on our times.

Even with all the riches they've amassed through movies, comic books have still struggled to gain respect. It took a tragedy to help alter that equation, and contribute -- exactly how much we'll never know -- to "The Dark Knight" rising as high as it did.

Are you fired up about the big judging changes Fox will be making during the coming season?

Really? Just to clarify: The ones on "The X Factor," or the ones on "American Idol?"

The announcement that Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler are leaving "Idol" ought to provide an opportunity for the producers to build excitement, what with all the suspense associated with re-filling those shoes.

Except Fox will go through the exact same process during the fall with Simon Cowell's makeover of "X Factor," so by the time "Idol's" season rolls around, there will likely be an element of fatigue (Britney! Demi!), which ought to blunt whatever casting rabbits they pull out of their cash-stuffed hats.

The result? More pressure to make attention-getting, tabloid-type choices that will surely generate media coverage, but also threaten the more wholesome aspects of the "Idol" brand.

As I stated a couple of months ago, we'll never know exactly how much "X Factor" contributed to "Idol's" decline last season, but I still think it's fair to ask whether the ratings gains Fox enjoyed in the fall were eradicated by what was lost in the winter and spring. Certainly, Nigel Lythgoe has acknowledged the influx of singing competitions as a factor, though I think the similarities between "X Factor" and "Idol" (let's face it, they're basically the same show) exacerbate the problem.

Of course, the timing means if Fox hasn't squared away its whole "American Idol" talent lineup before the TV Critics Assn. tour in a couple of weeks the press will have a field day probing and speculating, but inasmuch as the show doesn't premiere until January, that's little more than an inconvenient blip.

The bigger problem, frankly, can be traced to an abundant commodity that was once arguably "Idol's" biggest asset: Simon Cowell's ego.

Although I fleetingly mention Ariane Bellamar's website in my review of ABC Family's "Beverly Hills Nannies," let me add -- for emphasis -- just how much something like this illustrates why people should not be unduly sold on the reality of unscripted television.

Bellamar -- presented in the series as a cartoon cross between Cruella De Vil and Jessica Rabbit, only with a Canadian accent -- is referred to on the site as "a Playboy Bunny and actress starring in ABC Family's 'Beverly Hills Nannies.'"

Got that? Not featured in. Not whose life is being profiled in. "Starring" in -- just like her resume credits for "Entourage" and "I Just Want My Pants Back." And it's really more the norm than the exception now for reality "stars" to come with there own imdb.com page, as Bellamar does.

Does this automatically mean most of the show is BS, that all the situations are staged, or that viewers won't be able to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy it? Not in the slightest, although I would question whether the participants -- knowing a little something about the genre -- play up excesses, knowing what will buy them more screen time.

But as I've asked many times before, if what we're really seeing, largely, is people playing at being "characters," other than the fact such shows are cheaper to produce -- which benefits the network, not the audience -- wouldn't you rather see it done with good actors?