National Television Awards nominations: 2012 ruined already

Woke up this morning feeling pretty good about the year to come. Then I read these. It's all gone to shit now. I'm not even getting dressed this year.

The National Television Awards nominations were announced today. The ceremony, on 25th January, rewards the greatest achievements in British TV over the last year. For convenience I'll divide these into two sections.
Section one: massive wastes of everyone's time

Talk Show
The Jonathan Ross Show
The Graham Norton Show
Alan Carr: Chatty Man
Loose Women

Reality TV
The Only Way Is Essex
I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!
Come Dine With Me
The Apprentice

Talent Show
The X Factor
Strictly Come Dancing
Dancing on Ice
Britain's Got Talent

Entertainment Programme
Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
Dynamo: Magician Impossible
Harry Hill's TV Burp
Take Me Out

Serial Drama Performance
Katherine Kelly - Coronation Street
Alison King - Coronation Street
Danny Miller - Emmerdale
Jessie Wallace - EastEnders

Newcomer
Chris Fountain - Coronation Street
Chelsea Halfpenny - Emmerdale
Jacqueline Jossa - EastEnders

Fine, whatever. Do as you will, just don't bother us with it, OK? Print the results in TV Quick or something.
Panel Gameshow
Celebrity Juice
QI
Mock The Week
Have I Got News For You

I wonder if the producers of Have I Got News For You anxiously await the NTA nominations every year to see if they're up for Best Panel Gameshow. No, of course they don't. They know they're nominated because there are no other candidates. It'll be renamed 'The Sepp Blatter Award' from 2013 onwards, I'm told. Or perhaps 'The "Thank Fuck the BBC Hasn't Got the Imagination to Cancel Things That Ran their Course Years Ago" Award'.

"This pen's got nothing left in it. A BIT LIKE NICK CLEGG, EH?" (*round of applause*)

Serial Drama
Coronation Street
EastEnders
Emmerdale
Hollyoaks

Some shock entries here. Just failing to sneak into contention this year was ... what's the other one called? Oh wait, THERE AREN'T ANY OTHER SOAPS.
Section two: what are presumably jokes

Situation Comedy
Benidorm
Miranda
Outnumbered

Now, in fairness I can't think of an alternative, unless you count Fresh Meat as a sitcom. So let's. It therefore wins, very, very easily, by virtue of having made a person laugh at least once.

OK, Outnumbered has its moments, but has anyone not receiving long-term care ever laughed at an episode of Miranda? What the fuck is Benidorm anyway?
Drama Performance - Male
Matt Smith - Doctor Who
John Barrowman - Torchwood
Martin Clunes - Doc Martin
David Threlfall - Shameless

Drama Performance - Female
Karen Gillan - Doctor Who
Eve Myles - Torchwood
Jaye Jacobs - Waterloo Road
Suranne Jones - Scott & Bailey

Quite apart from Idris Elba in Luther or Emily Watson in Appropriate Adult, here's a single scene from last year that contained a male and female performance superior to anything on this list, and moreover anything that has so much as crossed the mind of anyone who has ever been in Doc Martin.

Entertainment Presenter
Michael McIntyre
Dermot O'Leary
Ant & Dec
Keith Lemon

This has to go to Dermot O'Leary, who is just about the best entertainment TV presenter you could come up with if you were building an android one from scratch. You'd probably call it DerBot 0.33. Then you'd spend a week or so just hugging it.
Factual
An Idiot Abroad
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
This Morning
Top Gear

No Frozen Planet, obviously - it's not like that was any good. Still, great to see Top Gear rewarded for another year of talking about cars. Cars are brilliant. I like how some of them go a bit faster than others, then you've got how some of them are blue and some are red; it's fascinating. There should be more programmes like this. I'm going to pitch an idea to the BBC for a show where middle-aged men talk about the comparative merits of different toasters. Folk will lap it up as long as the presenters are racist enough and say carefully-placed, transparently contrived, controversial things in order to sell more of their own books and DVDs. Using a publicly-funded TV channel as their platform. In stonewash jeans.
Drama
Downton Abbey
Doctor Who
Merlin
Waterloo Road

Waterloo fucking Road again. I didn't even notice it was on. They probably don't bother writing or filming it any more; just put it in the schedules then broadcast a hypnotic tone and a voice saying: "You watched Waterloo Road tonight. Nothing that happened in it was of any consequence, but don't worry, you're used to that by now. Next up: Holby City."

Spooks? Misfits? Black Mirror? This is England '88? It's almost as if these people didn't read our Top 20 list for 2011. Maybe if we'd published it a day earlier. Or decided to fill it with shows we didn't really watch per se, more just didn't bother turning off.
So that's the cream of 2011's UK TV according to whoever the fuck decides the National Television Awards nominees. Pretty bleak outlook for 2012. This is probably what the Mayans are so worked up about.