Sarah Michelle Gellar

There’s an eerie parallel between the Emmy bid by Anna Paquin ("True Blood") and that of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Back during the heyday of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003), Gellar had a strong cult following among fans and TV critics, but Emmys voters seemed to turn away in horror just like Oscar voters shunned Bela Lugosi in "Dracula."

Fantasy fare performs poorly at most industry awards, of course, but Gellar apparently wouldn’t easily forgive the fact that neither she nor her hit show had ever been nominated (at least for best drama series — it was in the running for lowly tech awards). When the TV academy tried to make amends to "Buffy" in its final year by staging a tribute gala at its headquarters in North Hollywood, Gellar was conspicuously absent. Even though it was after sunset.