‘Empire’ & ‘Transparent’ lead 2015 Television Critics Association Awards nominees

“Empire” and “Transparent” were the big winners when the 2015 Television Criticis Association Awards nominees were announced, but will either newbie be able to knock off more well-established shows like “Mad Men” and “Big Bang Theory”?

The way the TCA Awards (which will be presented at an untelevised ceremony in Beverly Hills on August 8) are structured, with no differentiation between lead and supporting actors, or between actors and actresses, and with a separate category to honor new series, a new show inevitably leads each year’s nominations list. In this case, it was a pair of them: “Empire,” which almost single-handedly brought the primetime soap, the FOX network, and broadcast television itself back from the dead; and “Transparent,” the beautiful Amazon dramedy that the TCA membership at large opted to vote in as a comedy(*).

(*) There are no rules about which categories a show can be assigned to – see also “The Daily Show” frequently being nominated for, and even winning, the News & Information category, over Jon Stewart’s befuddled protests – which is why I tried nominating “The Jinx” for the reality and news categories, in addition to the movies and miniseries category (which has previously featured the likes of Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” and “Baseball”) where it was ultimately nominated. Also, the TCA employs a weird nominating process where each member only gets to pick two shows or people per category, which is why you occasionally get oddities like something being nominated for Program of the Year when it wasn’t also nominated in its respective genre category.

Both were nominated for Outstanding New Program and Program of the Year – competing with “The Americans,” “Game of Thrones,” and the final season of “Mad Men” – and nabbed individual nominations for stars Taraji P. Henson and Jeffrey Tambor, along with respective nominations for drama and comedy series.

Tambor plays a female role on “Transparent,” and is the only male performer in his category, competing with reigning winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus from “Veep,” Gina Rodriguez from “Jane the Virgin,” Constance Wu from “Fresh Off the Boat” and Amy Schumer from “Inside Amy Schumer.” Henson, meanwhile, competes with Viola Davis from “How to Get Away with Murder,” Jon Hamm from “Mad Men,” Matthew Rhys from “The Americans” and “Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk.

Though “Veep” won the comedy series category last year (and is in the midst of another great season, albeit one that wasn’t finished at the time of voting), it wasn’t nominated this year in that category, which features “Inside Amy Schumer,” “Jane the Virgin,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and former winner “Big Bang Theory” in addition to “Transparent.” The drama series category largely overlaps the Program of the Year list, with the addition of the final “Justified” season.

In what was another great year for new series, the Outstanding New Program roster includes “Empire,” “Transparent,” “Better Call Saul,” “The Flash” and “Jane the Virgin.” (I voted for “The Leftovers” here and in a bunch of other places, but this is a representation of a lot of critics’ tastes, and as we saw with the HitFix TV Critics Poll – held before several TCA nominees had even debuted – only a few of us really loved it.)

The Heritage Award was conceived of as a kind of Career Achievement Award(**) for TV series, but it’s an award the membership has never entirely decided how to use. Some years, most of the nominees are shows that just ended, but in a year with so many memorable series concluding, the only such nominee is David Letterman’s “Late Show” (which got a combined nomination with “Late Night”), which will compete with older shows like “The Shield,” “Star Trek,” “Friends” and “Twin Peaks.”

(**) The TCA will vote on five Career Achievement nominees, but it was decided recently to only publicly announce the winner after the August ceremony.

With so much great TV in any given year, and with fewer categories than a lot of other awards bodies, there are only so many people and shows we can recognize, but this is an interesting and eclectic list.

Here’s the full list of 2015 TCA Awards nominees. What does everybody else think of the lineup?