“Hacks” stuck the landing in its fifth season, earning 24 Emmy nominations, enough to vault over “The Studio” and “The Bear” to become the most-nominated season of comedy television ever.
This means it also dethrones “Schitt’s Creek” to become the most nominated final season of a comedy series in history.
Dan and Eugene Levy’s beloved show (which aired in the States on Pop TV) scored 15 nods for its concluding sixth season in 2020. It eventually won nine statuettes, setting a still unbroken record as the comedy series with the most wins for its final season.
Meanwhile, the second season of “The Bear” and the first season of “The Studio” tied the comedy record, each receiving 23 nominations in back-to-back years. That makes this the third consecutive year that the comedy record has been broken or tied.
In addition to the 24 nominations for the series itself, the behind-the-scenes companion “Hacks: Bit By Bit” picked up a nod for Outstanding Shortform Non-fiction or Reality Series.
On the drama series side, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” holds both distinctions of most final season wins and nominations: Of the 32 nominations the eighth and last season received in 2019, it won 12. Whatever the legacy of those final episodes became, Emmy voters still showed their support.
“The Bear” competed this year for its fourth season, picking up only eight nominations — a perfect example of the more common occurrence of a show starting off strong with the Television Academy, only to flame out in subsequent seasons. Christopher Storer’s kitchen-set dramedy went from 13 nominations in Season 1 and 23 nominations in Season 2 back down to 13 nominations for Season 3 before this year’s paltry showing.
Compare that to “Hacks,” which picked up between 14 and 17 nominations every season before his year, when it saw a massive leap. It never reached the heights of its competitors’ early seasons before now, but it’s remained consistent across its run — not unlike the reliably entertaining comedy of Deborah Vance — bringing it to a massive final haul for a celebrated season.
