10 Most Shocking Emmy Nominations: Portlandia, Kristen Wiig, and More

While the Emmys are known for their repetitive nominees and general stubbornness to let any one go, this year had its fair share of shockers. Now, nominees like Melissa McCarthy (Mike and Molly) and Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom) were surprising, but nor necessarily shocking. The nominees I'm talking about are the ones the made my jaw drop to the floor when I heard their names called.

Portlandia is one of the best comedy/variety series on television now. It's such an offbeat new brand of humor that actually works for the old and new school television viewer. However, it has been largely ignored until now. While its been nominated for Emmys before, even winning one for its costumes in 2011, it has never had performers nominated. This year it had two: Fred Armisen, who was nominated in supporting actor and Steve Buscemi, who received a guest actor nomination.

While both actors are well-respected within the industry, there were some shocking newbie nominations. Like Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black). While the show as expected to do well, reaping nominations for series, writing, directing, lead actress, among others, it was not expected for them to get 3 nominations in the guest acting category. Lyonne joined expected nominees Laverne Cox and Uzo Aduba.

Veep was also expected to do well after taking in an impressive haul of 3 Emmys last year, but for Gary Cole to reap a nomination in Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, while series regulars like Timothy Simons and Reid Scott still missed out is surprising. Especially considering that I have no idea what his character does on the show.

Similarly to Veep, House of Cards did extremely well last year and many anticipated an increase in nominations. Some were expecting Molly Parker or Gerald McRaney to pop up, even Kate Mara (who I predicted) were being thrown around. While Mara did reap a nomination, so did Reg E. Cathey as Frank's confidant Freddie. He had a killer season this year, but no one saw a nominations coming. It's even more impressive when you consider that character actors rarely make an impression at these award shows.

Kristen Wiig was one of the few Saturday Night Live cast members to receive nominations for their work on the show, but a nomination for her performance in Spoils of Babylon was downright surprising. Even more surprising, is that Kate McKinnon joined the pantheon of Saturday Night Live alums to be nominated for an Emmy. To make her feat even more improbably, she pushed out perennial nominee Sofia Vergara and last year's winner Merritt weaver.

American Horror Story: Coven did extremely well in the nominations reaping 17, while most of those were expected, like for Sarah Paulson, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett, some were out of left field. Noms like those for writing and directing were surprising, but a nomination for Frances Conroy was shocking. While the actress was nominated for the show in its first season and she's been nominated several times for Six Feet Under (I'm still mad that she never won for that show), few people saw a nomination for her relatively small role in this season.

However, the shocker that takes the top spot is one that we really should have seen coming. Ricky Gervais (Derek) is an Emmy favorite. With this nomination, he brings his total up to an incredible 21 nominations. How could we have overlooked this? Well, no one was really talking about Derek. Well, that goes to show you that sometimes a name will do it for you.