Highlights from the 72nd Emmy Nominations

This morning at 8:30am PST, a chaotic, socially distanced Emmy nominations announcement streamed live.

A predictably off-the-wall Leslie Jones (Saturday Night Live) led an unlikely quintet that also included Television Academy President Frank Scherma, Orange is the New Black star LaVerne Cox, Frozen star Josh Gad, and Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany in announcing the nominations in the top categories.

Given an all-time high number of eligible series and performers, some recent rule changes, and the completely unprecedented landscape of campaigning and holding awards shows in the COVID-19 pandemic era, this morning was bound to have some surprises.

And there certainly were some surprise inclusions (What We Do in the Shadows for Outstanding Comedy Series, The Mandalorian for Outstanding Drama Series, and Steve Carell and Zendaya for Lead Acting in a drama were particularly surprising to me) and countless puzzling omissions (with Bob Odenkirk, Elisabeth Moss, Nicole Kidman, and Meritt Wever being among the most glaring).

But ultimately, it played out largely as I expected. Schitt’s Creek and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel dominated the comedy categories, Ozark and Succession dominated the drama categories, and Watchmen and Mrs. America dominated the limited series categories.

Below I highlight some of the most important trends and themes of this year’s Emmy nominations. Given the gigantic number of categories, I have certainly missed a few interesting tidbits and I opted not to list out all of the major nominations. (I recommend finding the nominations right here on the Emmys website, where there are tons of different options to sort through them.)

Make sure to come back in September when I will take a deep dive into who will and should win and review what is certainly going to be one strange Emmys telecast, as the Television Academy embarks into the strange new world of pandemic awards show.

Eight Key Takeaways from the 72nd Emmy Nominations

1. Streaming dominates, but HBO remains a force and the networks keep holding on by a thread. The most nominated comedy was Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with 20 nominations, bringing its three season total to a whopping 56 nominations. There was a tie between Netflix’s Ozark and HBO’s Succession for most nominated drama series, as each reaped 18. Of note, both of these dramas received far lower nomination counts last year, indicating an upsurge in quality and buzz for their latest seasons and the benefits of a Game of Thrones-free landscape. The most nominated limited series or TV movie was HBO’s Watchmen, which scored an astounding 26 nominations. And the broadcast networks managed to avoid a total shutout as NBC’s The Good Place was their sole representative among the 16 nominees for Outstanding Comedy and Drama Series. Of note, the networks also had a decent showing in the comedy acting categories with a total of eight acting nominations across NBC’s The Good Place, ABC’s Black-ish, NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and NBC’s Saturday Night Live. On the drama side things were bleaker. Sterling K. Brown’s Lead Actor nomination for NBC’s This is Us was the sole broadcast network representation across 28 acting nominees.
2. It was a good year for new streaming services and obscure cable networks. Significant love was shown to two of the three big streaming services that debuted this year. Although AppleTV’s all-star, big budget The Morning Show missed out on a nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, it reaped eight nominations, including a whopping five acting nominations (Lead Actress for Jennifer Aniston, Lead Actor for Steve Carell, Supporting Actor for both Billy Crudup and Mark Duplass, and Guest Actor for Martin Short). Meanwhile, Disney+ got off to a good start with Star Wars live action series The Mandalorian’s somewhat surprising inclusion in Outstanding Drama Series and its impressive 14 other nominations. Only HBOMax was left out, but in all fairness it debuted only a few weeks before the Emmy eligibility deadline and only premiered one high-profile new series (the Anna Kendrick comedy Love Life). It was also a good year for the more obscure cable networks. Gone are the days when you had to be on HBO, Showtime, AMC, or Fx to reap major nominations. Like last year, BBCAmerica (Killing Eve) and PopTV (Schitt’s Creek) scored big.
3. The Emmys love for a good ending helped Schitt’s Creek and The Good Place have their best years yet. Last year when perennial nomination powerhouse and top winner Veep scored only seven nominations for its final season and went home with zero wins, I wondered if the Academy’s love for a good send-off were over. But this year proves that is certainly not the case. The superb final seasons of Schitt’s Creek and The Good Place had their best nomination showings ever. Schitt’s Creek scored zero nominations for its four seasons and surprised with four nominations for its fifth. For its sixth and final season, it received 15. The Good Place had amassed a total of seven nominations over its first three seasons and scored six more for its fourth and final season. The Emmys also gave some sporadic love to the final seasons of Modern Family (three nominations, including a directing nomination for Gail Mancuso’s work on the series finale and a guest acting nomination for the late Fred Willard), Homeland (a directing nomination for Lesli Linka Glatter’s work on the brilliant series finale), Will & Grace (five nominations, including a directing nomination for the legendary James Burrows’ work on the I Love Lucy tribute episode), and How to Get Away with Murder (a guest acting nomination for the incomparable Cicely Tyson).
4. Diversity was front and center in a variety of ways. There is unlikely to be an #EmmysSoWhite campaign this year. Across the major acting categories there was a lot of representation across racial and ethnic groups. To name a few — Sandra Oh, Zendaya, Anthony Anderson, Tracie Ellis Ross, Kerry Washington, Octavia Spencer, Andre Braugher, Ramy Youssef, Sterling K. Brown (twice!), Issa Rae, Don Cheadle, Uzo Aduba, and Regina King. In fact, there were a few categories like Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Made for Television Movie and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series that were majority non-white actors. But it wasn’t just a great day for racial and ethnic diversity. Historically under-employed and under-awarded writers and directors also had a strong showing relative to previous years (particularly in the Limited Series categories). And there was also some impressive diversity in terms of genres represented. The notoriously mainstream Television Academy embraced a horror mockumentary (Fx’s What We Do in the Shadows), a space opera (Disney+’s The Mandalorian), a superhero saga (HBO’s Watchmen), and a philosophy-driven fantasy (NBC’s The Good Place) in the top categories.
5. Being an Oscar winner or a movie star doesn’t guarantee you a slot. As actors like Julia Roberts (Homecoming) and Emma Stone (Maniac) learned last year, the era of prestige TV means that just being an Oscar-winning movie star doesn’t guarantee you a nomination like it might have in decades past. That lesson was learned this year mainly by Nicole Kidman, whose brilliant work on the second season of Big Little Lies was snubbed, and Reese Witherspoon, whose work on The Morning Show, Big Little Lies, and Little Fires Everywhere was overlooked even though her co-stars reaped nominations. Also nowhere to be found were eligible Oscar winners like Viola Davis (How to Get Away with Murder), Al Pacino (Hunters), Rami Malek (Mr. Robot), Russell Crowe (The Loudest Voice), Helen Hunt (Mad About You), and Allison Janney (Bad Education and Mom). However, several Oscar winners did reap nominations this year, including Olivia Colman (The Crown), Regina King (Watchmen), Cate Blanchett (Mrs. America), Octavia Spencer (Self-Made), Mahershala Ali (Ramy), Meryl Streep (Big Little Lies), and Laura Dern (Big Little Lies).
6. There were some strange omissions for well-performing shows. The Morning Show got 5 acting nominations but missed out on Outstanding Drama Series. In contrast, The Handmaid’s Tale, Better Call Saul, and Stranger Things received nominees for Outstanding Drama Series, but most of their previously nominated (and in some cases winning) cast members were nowhere to be found. In fact, Saul’s Bob Odenkirk and Handmaid’s Elisabeth Moss were the most jaw-dropping omissions of the morning overall. On the comedy side, Curb Your Enthusiasm got its ninth (!) nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, but Larry David was omitted despite six prior nominations. In contrast, both leads of Black-ish got in, but the series was omitted from the Outstanding Comedy Series lineup. Over on the short-form side, Unbelievable was nominated for Outstanding Limited Series, but stars Meritt Wever and Kaitlyn Dever were omitted. In contrast, Hollywood scored four acting nominations but was left out of the top category. I strongly suspect that rather than being about the Emmys being “over” or unimpressed by certain performers, many of these omissions were simply due to the sheer avalanche of worthy nominees this year that just meant not everyone could get in.
7. The front-runners are wildly unpredictable. Last year’s top winners in Comedy and Drama, Fleabag and Game of Thrones, wrapped their runs and are no longer eligible. Add in Barry missing this eligibility cycle and half of last year’s top categories are guaranteed to have turn over. I suspect that this will be the year of Schitt’s Creek dominating in comedy with Maisel breathing down its neck with some key wins. Over in drama, I anticipate Ozark and Succession duking it out for dominance. In Limited Series, all logic says a Watchmen sweep given its avalanche of nominations, its undeniable quality, and its timeliness. However, it is a remarkably bizarre show that is tremendously difficult to comprehend for those not familiar with the source material, so don’t be surprised if something more comprehensible like Mrs. America takes the top prizes.
8. It wasn’t my best year in terms of prediction accuracy. For the last two years I hovered around 72% in terms of accuracy, with approximately 3/4 of all of my predicted nominees going on to reap nominations. This year it was down a bit to 67%. I did much better in the key Comedy categories (75% accuracy) than the key Drama (67%) or Limited Series (59%) categories. Honestly, though, I am impressed I was able to predict as well as I did given the ever-increasing number of eligible series and lack of reliable cursors. (Click here to see for yourself with my predictions that were posted on Sunday.)

For Your Consideration: Follow the author on Medium and Twitter.

Click here for my recap and review of last year’s Emmys

Check out other articles by this author about television and streaming:

I’m Not Ready to Leave “Schitt’s Creek”

Saying “Goodbye” to “The Good Place”

How “Homeland” Raised the Bar for Television Drama

“Love, Victor”: A Precious Pride Month Gift