TV awards season starts Sunday with the Golden Globes, and the buzz is that Kevin Spacey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus could win as best actor in a drama and best actress in a comedy or musical, respectively.
But the bigger story here is the way both of their Maryland-made productions, "House of Cards" and "Veep," continue to pile up nominations for excellence -- even as the number of voices calling for the state to end incentives to them grows.
I wonder if some of the people on that bandwagon appreciate how rare it is to have two productions of this quality filming in a place like Baltimore. Read what you will into that sentence. As much as I love living here, I know a lot of TV producers and performers who would rather be in Los Angeles six months out of the year.
I understand how attractive economically and politically a fast end to incentives is when you have the kind of budget deficit Maryland does - and a new governor elected on a pledge of just such action.
But here's a prediction from someone who has been covering this story since "Homicide: Life on the Street" started filming here: You end incentives in this next legislative session, and you will never get back to the level of production excellence Maryland has now. In fact, Maryland might have a hard time getting any kind of serious TV or online production here again.