10 Most Burning Qs Before Emmy Noms Next Week
Can HBO beat Netflix, are voters bearish on ‘The Bear’, does YouTube stand a chance, and will my ‘Andor’ ardor translate?
The Emmy nominations, at long last, are almost upon us. The next time you hear from me will be on Tuesday, when my colleague Christopher Rosen and I go live on Substack at 8:25 a.m. PT to watch the nominations announcement together and discuss our biggest takeaways in real time. It will be lively, maybe a little chaotic and, I promise, way more fun than watching it all alone at your desk (click here to add us to your calendar).
We’ll also be sharing some very exciting news about the future of Prestige Junkie that you won’t want to miss. Make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter to get a notification when we’ve gone live, and spread the word to your fellow awards obsessives!
Today, for my final pre-nominations dispatch, I’m sharing the 10 biggest questions on my mind ahead of Tuesday. After all the months of campaigning and speculation, what will we learn about the TV landscape from these nominations? Who will come out on top? And which so-called “surprises” can we already see coming?
1. Which network gets bragging rights?
No disrespect to the other networks and streaming platforms, but the chances are good that Tuesday’s nominations leader will be either Netflix or HBO. Netflix led all networks in 2024 with 107 nominations and seems poised to do so again, thanks to the sheer number of shows the company submits — although, as Rachel Bloom can attest, Netflix doesn’t submit everything. Netflix still holds the record for most total nominations with 160 in the plague year of 2020.
But I’ll be keeping a particular eye on HBO, which had Netflix’s nomination total beat in 2023 (the final year of Succession) and whose fate may ride entirely on two categories: supporting actor and actress in a drama series. If The White Lotus, The Pitt and The Last of Us and their vast ensembles overperform with fringe contenders like Leslie Bibb (The White Lotus), Patrick Ball and/or Tracy Ifeachor (The Pitt) and Isabela Merced (The Last of Us) landing surprise nominations, HBO may be able to reclaim its old bragging rights. (The network finished third last year behind Netflix and FX, which popped with a record number of nominations for The Bear — more on that below — and Shōgun.)
2. Will the ‘filmed in L.A.’ campaign pay off?
As I wrote last month, the easiest applause line at any FYC event this spring was shouting out the fact that your show was filmed in L.A. — even if, like The Pitt, about an emergency room in Pittsburgh, the show is not remotely set there. With so many Emmy voters based in Los Angeles, and the city still in need of feel-good stories as wildfire recovery continues, positioning your show as a boon to the local economy was a can’t-miss campaign slogan.
So how will we see this play out in the actual nominations? Los Angeles-set shows like Hacks, The Studio and Nobody Wants This were probably going to score a lot of nominations no matter what, as was The Pitt and the L.A.-made, Philly-set Abbott Elementary. However, locality might have given a boost to some more on-the-bubble contenders, such as Netflix’s Running Point or ABC’s High Potential, or helped Shrinking, now in production on its third season, grow its nominations total for season 2. (The show’s first season received just two nominations, for stars Jason Segel and Jessica Williams. Apple is expecting those nominations for season 2, and several more.)
It’s hard to point to any single campaign factor in getting a nomination — if it were easy, there wouldn’t be a whole industry of people like me paid to figure it out. But if you notice an unusual amount of L.A.-set shows among Tuesday’s nominees, hometown pride may be your simplest explanation.
3. What will happen with The Bear?
This time last year, The Bear was a record-breaking juggernaut, earning 23 nominations in the comedy categories — the most ever for any comedy series — and seemingly steaming ahead to its second series win. Of course, it didn’t pan out that way, and after beating The Bear in that top category last year, Hacks is very much expected to be the leader of the pack.
But I still think it will be interesting to see how The Bear fares with nominations for its third season — yes, not the one that just premiered, which debuted after nomination voting had closed and won’t be eligible until next year’s Emmys. The more muted response to season 3 will almost certainly reduce that nomination total. Still, Emmy voters are also famously loyal (or stubborn, depending on your perspective). I wouldn’t expect breakthrough nominations for actors who have never been nominated before, like Abby Elliott. But I also can’t imagine voters suddenly removing winners Liza Colón-Zayas or Ebon Moss-Bachrach from their ballots, either. The Bear may no longer be a frontrunner, but I’m betting it will remain a significant presence nonetheless.
4. What happens with supporting actor in a comedy?
Speaking of Moss-Bachrach, the two-time winner of the best supporting actor in a comedy trophy will almost certainly be nominated again in this category. But the other six nominees who will join him are virtually anyone’s guess. I’ve been convinced for months that a third win is unlikely as the heat around The Bear fades, but it’s very hard to predict who might be strong enough to beat him. Harrison Ford is doing great work on Shrinking, but wasn’t even nominated for the show’s first season. Paul W. Downs has an increasingly major role on Hacks, but as a series co-creator with victories for writing and producing already, has he maybe won enough? Are we underestimating Bowen Yang for Saturday Night Live, or maybe Ford’s Shrinking co-stars Michael Urie, who won for the series at the Critics Choice Awards, and Brett Goldstein, a two-time Emmy winner for Ted Lasso? It would be nice to predict that the nominations will bring some clarity here, but honestly, I’m only expecting more surprises.
5. Will SNL get a 50th bday boost?
It’s hard to find an Emmy race in the past 50 years when Saturday Night Live wasn’t somehow included. In the guest actor categories alone, the show has fielded at least one nominee, among its hosts or surprise cameos, since 2011. The regular show will surely score its typical raft of nominations, most of them in the technical categories for variety special, like hair and makeup, lighting and directing. NBC appears to be seeking even more recognition for its SNL actors than usual, submitting a record 42 names in the supporting and guest categories. But there’s also the live anniversary special, which will compete against the Oscars and the Super Bowl, plus Questlove’s documentary about the show’s music and the four-part docuseries SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night. Those will almost certainly pad the overall franchise’s nomination total and keep the 50th anniversary celebration continuing well into September.
6. Canceled but not forgotten?
Being canceled before you even get a chance to be nominated for your first Emmy is, admittedly, not great, Bob. But even if Prime Video has given up on the Amy Sherman-Palladino series Étoile, and Netflix has given the boot to the White House-set The Residence, I can’t help but wonder if either show might score a fluke nomination in one of the comedy categories. Maybe I’m biased because I spoke both series’ leads on the podcast. Still, Luke Kirby, an Emmy winner for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, certainly deserves mention for his turn on Étoile, and three-time Emmy winner Uzo Aduba is perfectly funny and compelling as the brilliant detective at the center of The Residence. Both shows have strong supporting casts as well, and as I mentioned above, the supporting actor comedy is a total mystery. Could Giancarlo Esposito, a five-time nominee, somehow be lying in wait for his performance on The Residence?
7. Who’s building the most momentum?
Most shows that don’t get Emmy attention in their first season never will; it’s the exceptions, though, that keep hope alive. Recent examples like Schitt’s Creek and Succession (which got zero acting nominations for its first season, if you can believe it!) prove that it really is possible to build an audience over the years, and for awards voters — stuck in their habits as they may be — to eventually get wise.
The most obvious series building this kind of momentum this year is Severance, which earned a respectable but not massive 14 nominations for its first season, and will almost certainly increase that number this year. (At the very least, if Britt Lower doesn’t get nominated for best actress in a drama, we riot.) Most of the rest of the drama category will be dominated by newcomers like The Pitt or popular stalwarts like The Last of Us. Still, I continue to hope that Andor will be another show that builds on its season 1 acclaim. The Star Wars series scored a best drama series nomination in 2023, in addition to seven other nods. It seems likely Andor will return to the drama series race, but, as I mentioned to Chris in our podcast predictions earlier this week, I may be overly optimistic that stars like Diego Luna and Stellan Skarsgård might be able to get in this time. For a few more days, at least, I can hold on to hope.
A few more shows to keep an eye out for that seem to have been getting bigger as they go on: Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, an oddball with just enough devoted fans to potentially sneak in somewhere; Apple’s Shrinking, which didn’t reach Ted Lasso-level ubiquity in its first season but seems to be getting there; and then AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, which got a proper FYC push for its second season and may have more devoted fans than all of these other shows combined.
8. Is this YouTube’s breakthrough moment?
As my colleague Natalie Jarvey has reported, and I witnessed firsthand at a YouTube FYC event in May, YouTube was fully committed to running awards campaigns for its creators — well, at least four strategically chosen ones. Hot Ones, probably the most well-known of the shows, is competing in the outstanding talk series category, where stiff competition from the likes of The Daily Show and all the network late-night shows — not to mention just three slots due to the total number of submissions — might make a nomination a challenge. But I’m especially interested to see what comes of Good Mythical Morning and Challenge Accepted, which have been submitted in two far less competitive categories — outstanding short-form comedy, drama or variety series and outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special, respectively.
The Emmy short-form category, in particular, has been notably behind the times, nominating spinoffs from network shows or streamers — such as Carpool Karaoke: The Series and Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime — instead of the numerous short-form series online that actually dominate culture. Good Mythical Morning looks a lot more like a traditional network talk show than many options on YouTube, which might make it exactly the right show to break down that wall.
The category for hosted nonfiction series or special is much more of a grab bag, with recent winners including Stanley Tucci’s Italy travel show and David Letterman’s Netflix talk show. (Why isn’t the Letterman show in the talk series category? I have no idea!) Host Michelle Khare has made an excellent case for why Challenge Accepted deserves inclusion for its episode “I Trained Like a Blackbelt for 90 Days.” The question remains whether the Emmys are up for, well, the challenge.
9. Who’ll score double noms?
It happens every year and never fails to be surprising: An actor who was very visible on one Emmy contender turns out to have popped up on another, scores nominations for both, and suddenly seems like the most ubiquitous person in Hollywood. This year, with so many people playing themselves on The Studio and Hacks in addition to the usual roster of Saturday Night Live hosts, the potential for double-nominees has never felt greater.
The surest bet is likely Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara, who delivered standout performances in both Apple TV+’s The Studio (where she’d be a nominee in the supporting actress category) and HBO’s The Last of Us (where she was submitted as a guest contender). O’Hara’s The Last of Us co-star Kaitlyn Dever is a frontrunner for the series in the guest actress category and may also pop up as a lead nominee for Netflix’s limited series Apple Cider Vinegar. Among SNL hosts from this past season, Jean Smart, Martin Short, Walton Goggins, Quinta Brunson, John Mulaney and Jon Hamm are all in the running for nominations for their own shows as well.
The double nomination I’m rooting hardest for, though, is for Julianne Nicholson, who played both the unhinged Dance Mom on Hacks and the steely, mostly evil billionaire on Hulu’s Paradise. What better way to reward someone with that kind of range than with an Emmy nomination for each!
10. Which multi-cam comedy will be the ‘surprise’?
Emmy rules are famously dense and ever-changing, but since 2018, there has been one consistent source of surprise on nomination morning. In the category for best director of a comedy series, the rules require that at least one multi-camera comedy — i.e., your classic sitcom filmed in the same style as Friends or I Love Lucy — must be included. So even though comedy frontrunners like The Studio, Hacks and The Bear are likely to be represented here, they’ll be joined by a show like Hulu’s Mid-Century Modern or NBC’s Happy’s Place, many of which are directed by some of the longest-working, best-connected TV directors in the business.
Last year, I spoke with Mary Lou Belli, a member of the Television Academy's board of governors and a three-time nominee in this category for her work on The Ms. Pat Show. That show isn’t eligible this year, and over at Vanity Fair, my old colleague David Canfield predicted that the multicam spot might go to Mid-Century Modern from TV legend James Burrows, a 46-time nominee (!!) and 11-time winner (!!!), which seems about right to me. But if you’re surprised to see a show that isn’t nominated anywhere else show up in this category, just remember: You were warned.