TV is confusing. Who needs consistency?
That was the big lesson of the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards nominations that were announced on Wednesday, as the 25,000-plus voters of the Television Academy didn’t even try to make sense with their choices.
So the drama series “Your Friends and Neighbors” landed a surprise nomination for Outstanding Drama Series even though it wasn’t nominated in a single other category, not even for star Jon Hamm.
“Nobody Wants This” stars Kristen Bell and Adam Brody were overlooked, and so was everybody else associated with the show except its music supervisors – but the show was nominated in another top category, Outstanding Comedy Series.
“Beef” led all limited series in nominations and earned four acting noms, but Cailee Spaeny – one of the four central actors around which the show is based – missed out.
“The Bear” maintained its hold on a nomination in the comedy-series category and received eight nominations despite naysayers who thought it was vulnerable, but two-time winner Jeremy Allen White was bypassed for the first time in favor of Yahya Abdul-Mateen, who was the sole nominee from “Wonder Man.”
Walt Whitman summed it up pretty well about 170 years ago when he wrote in “Song of Myself,” “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large. I contain multitudes.)” And if Walt had been sitting in front of a TV set or computer monitor for the last decade or so, he would no doubt have more to say about the maze of contradictions that was contained in Wednesday’s nominations.
Then again, shrugging it off the way Whitman did is probably the right way to treat the Emmys these days. The slowdown in production caused by the 2020-2021 pandemic and the writers and actors strikes may continue to reduce the number of Emmy-contending shows, but it doesn’t stop the feeling that it’s crazy to expect much in the way of consistency and cohesion.
The nominations were a clear triumph for “The Pitt,” which turned last year’s 13 noms into a big Emmy night with wins — including an upset Best Drama Series — over “Severance,” which had a staggering 27 nominations and was considered the frontrunner. Voters underlined that win by making the second season of “The Pitt” the most nominated program of the year, with its 25 nominations topping “Hacks” by one and beating its closest drama-series contender, “Pluribus,” by seven. Last year, “The Pitt” won as a plucky underdog; this year, it’ll have to win as the defending champ and clear favorite.
Another HBO series, “Hacks,” might be the comedy frontrunner at this point, with its final season getting a bump from its usual 14 or 15 nominations to land 24 noms and lead the upstart “Widow’s Bay” by five. The show’s well-received finale could return “Hacks” to the winner’s circle, but the late surge for “Widow’s Bay” makes that new show a formidable contender.
“Widow’s Bay” is one of four freshman shows that broke into the two top program categories, with “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” also making the cut in comedy and “Pluribus” and “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” doing it in drama. That makes 2026 the third year in a row for four new shows in those categories, but it left out potential nominees including “Task,” “The Testaments,” “Rooster,” “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” and “I Love LA,” the last two of which joined “The Lowdown” on the dishonor roll of worthy shows that didn’t receive a single nomination.
And apart from “Hacks” and Stephen Colbert, voters weren’t terribly kind to departing programs. “Stranger Things” and “Euphoria” had both been nominated for Outstanding Drama Series in the past, but neither turned the trick this year, and both fell significantly from their showing last time they were eligible: “Stranger Things” dropped from 19 nominations to seven, while “Euphoria” fell from 16 to seven.
In the limited series category, which was without a true frontrunner for the first time in several years, the nominations didn’t clear things up. “Beef” received the most nominations, 16 to 13 for “DTF St. Louis” and nine for “The Beast in Me,” but that doesn’t mean much: Last year, “The Penguin” dominated the noms but “Adolescence” cleaned up on Emmy night, and the year before “Baby Reindeer” did the same over “True Detective: Night Country.”
Final voting doesn’t begin for a month, but at this point it looks as if we’ve got some real races on our hands: “The Pitt” v. “Pluribus” in drama, “Hacks” v. “Widow’s Bay” in comedy, “Beef” v. “DTF St. Louis” in limited series, 100-year-old David Attenborough v. himself for Outstanding Narrator …
Then there’s the Outstanding Variety Series category, in which “The Daily Show,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Last Week Tonight,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “Saturday Night Live” will be competing not against each other, but against a magical nomination number that could result in five different winners. That category changed format this year, and voters will be asked to consider each nominee separately and cast a yes or no vote; any show that gets 90% yesses wins an Emmy. (If none hit that figure, the one that gets closest takes the award.)
At the Primetime Emmy ceremony on Sept. 14, by the way, the variety series category will be the only one using that voting system.
Consistency? Who needs it? This is the Emmys.
