On Monday, nomination voting ended for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards. On July 8, nominations will be announced in about 120 categories, and we’ll have answers to a lot of mysteries that hang over this year’s awards race.
Until then, here are some of the biggest questions.
What new shows will break into the top comedy category?
Six of the eight Outstanding Comedy Series nominees from last year are eligible again this year – and given that Emmy voters are creatures of habit, that could mean that “Abbott Elementary,” “The Bear,” “Hacks,” “Nobody Wants This,” “Only Murders in the Building” and “Shrinking” claim 75% of the category, leaving only two open slots for newcomers.
But this is a strong year for freshman comedies, including “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” “Widow’s Bay,” “Rooster,” “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins,” “The Chair Company,” “I Love LA,” “The Lowdown” and “Spider-Noir.” There’s also the return of “Jury Duty,” which was nominated for its first season in 2023, and the long-awaited third season of “The Comeback,” which did not earn a comedy series nomination for either Season 1 in 2005 or Season 2 in 2014.
Over the past 10 years, the comedy-series category has averaged a little less than two first-year nominees each year, which means that six returning shows and two newcomers would be about right. But if the new shows have more strength than that, which may well be the case, which of last year’s nominees could fall out? “Nobody Wants This,” maybe? Or is “The Bear” vulnerable after winning in this category only three years ago but then dropping from 23 nominations and 10 wins in 2024 to 13 noms and 0 wins in 2025?
Which past nominees will get back into the top drama category?
In the Outstanding Drama Series category, four programs – “The Diplomat,” “Slow Horses,” “Paradise” and last year’s winner, “The Pitt” – are on the ballot again after being nominated in 2025. It’s likely all four will make the cut, but that leaves half the category open.
New shows in the running include one sure thing, “Pluribus,” plus “Task,” “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” and “The Testaments.” But the field also includes a large number of series that have been nominated in the category in the past but weren’t eligible last year: “The Gilded Age,” “Stranger Things,” “Euphoria,” “Fallout” and “The Boys.”
But which will be welcomed back and which will seem like old news? “The Gilded Age” and “Fallout” are the most recent nominees, each of them landing a nod two years ago. “Stranger Things” and “Euphoria” haven’t been nominated since 2022, when they were part of a lineup that also included “Better Call Saul,” “Ozark” and the first season of “Squid Game.” And “The Boys” has only been nominated once in its five seasons, back in 2021.
If I had to guess, I’d say that two of the four open slots will go to new shows and two to past nominees.
Will (impending) absence make the heart grow fonder?
Several major shows are in contention with their final seasons, and the inclination is to think that sentiment will help the chances of “Euphoria,” “Stranger Things,” “Palm Royale,” “The Boys” and especially “Hacks.”
But Emmy voters haven’t been terribly sentimental in recent years, averaging a little less than one final-season nominee per year in the drama and comedy categories. “Hacks” seems guaranteed to receive nice parting gifts from the Academy, and maybe “Stranger Things” too, but other farewells may not be as fond.
How much better will “The Pitt” do?
Last year, “The Pitt” pulled off a remarkable feat: It won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series despite earning only 13 nominations, as compared to the 27 noms for its chief rival, “Severance.” No drama series had won the top award with so few nominations since the first season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” did it in 2017, and no series with a total in the low teens had ever beaten a show with more than 25 noms.
Its success at the Emmys suggests that the series surged with voters after nominations were announced last year – and that, in return, suggests that it’ll fare a lot better in Phase 1 voting this time around. It’s likely that “The Pitt” will increase its total to 20 or so this year, largely due to a surge in the acting categories.
Noah Wyle (lead actor), Katherine LaNasa (supporting actor) and Shawn Hatosy (guest actor) were the only 2025 performing nominees for the series, and all three of them won. This time around, the question isn’t whether they’ll be joined by others; it’s how many others will earn nominations, now that viewers have more of a grasp on who the show’s actors are and what roles they play. Patrick Ball and Gerran Howell are strong contenders to join Hatosy in supporting actor (the category to which he’s been moved), while the supporting-actress category is swimming in “Pitt” names: LaNasa, Taylor Dearden, Sepideh Moafi, Isa Briones, Fiona Dourif, Shabana Azeez and Supriya Ganesh.
Another four men and seven women are eligible in the guest categories, though it could be harder to stand out in a show jammed with so many storylines featuring brief but impactful performances.
What actors will be snubbed because there’s just not enough room?
For the second year in a row, the lack of entries in the Emmys lead acting categories mean that lead actor and actress in a drama series, comedy series and limited series will all have the minimum of five nominees. (With more entries, the guest categories will have six and the supporting drama and comedy categories will have seven.)
This means that shocking omissions are inevitable in the acting categories, though it’s hard to call them “snubs” when the problem is simply too few nomination slots.
At any rate, the list of performers who may be on the bubble and in jeopardy of missing out in the reduced categories includes Adam Brody and Kristen Bell for “Nobody Wants This,” Carrie Coon for “The Gilded Age,” Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White for “The Bear,” Elle Fanning for “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” Walton Goggins for “Fallout,” Ethan Hawke for “The Lowdown,” Steve Martin for “Only Murders in the Building,” Michelle Pfeiffer for “The Madison,” Matthew Rhys for “Widow’s Bay,” Rachel Sennott for “I Love LA,” Rufus Sewell for “The Diplomat,” Billy Bob Thornton for “Landman” and many others who hardly belong on a list of those left behind.
Will the nominations establish a clear frontrunner in the limited series category?
Recent Emmy seasons have brought obvious leaders in Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series: “Adolescence” last year, “Baby Reindeer” the year before, “Beef” the year before that, “The White Lotus” the year before that.
This year, not so much. The second go-round for “Beef” doesn’t have the heat that the first did, and nothing else has come close to the dominance of recent winners. But maybe that’ll change once the nominations are announced. “The Beast in Me,” “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette,” “Half Man,” “All Her Fault,” “DTF St. Louis,” “Black Rabbit,” “Death by Lightning” and “Lord of the Flies” could all get a boost, and they all certainly need one. Then again, the limited series with the most nominations isn’t necessarily the frontrunner in this category. Last year, for instance, “Adolescence” got 13 nominations and beat “The Penguin,” which earned 24; the year before, “Baby Reindeer” (11 nominations) won over “True Detective: Night Country” (19 nominations).
In the past five years, the limited series with the most nominations has won only once and lost three times, with winner “Beef” and also-ran “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” tying with 13 nominations in 2023.
Will the Emmys give one final nomination to Jimmy Burrows?
The legendary multi-cam comedy director and producer James Burrows – “Jimmy” to just about everybody in the business – is as beloved as anybody in television over the past 50 years. From his days directing “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Taxi” to his co-creation of “Cheers,” “Frasier” and “Will & Grace,” he earned Emmy 28 nominations for directing and 20 for producing, far outstripping any of his peers.
Burrows died last week at the age of 85, three days before Emmy voting ended and less than a year after he received his final directing nomination for “Mid-Century Modern.” He has another chance to receive one last nomination, but it’s not on the directing or producing ballot.
Instead, Burrows is eligible in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category for playing himself in the “Valerie Does It All” episode of “The Comeback.” The episode finds Burrows directing the pilot episode of her new AI-scripted sitcom, after which he quits because there’s nothing surprising in the jokes. “I have a fun clause,” he says. “If I’m not having fun, I’m out.” (And yes, Burrows famously did have that clause in his contracts.)
What better way for the performers peer group of the Television Academy to simultaneously honor a true TV pioneer and strike a blow against a tech menace?
