The 71st Annual Primetime Emmy Award Nominations: 10 Hot Takes

Yesterday, I published a preview of this morning’s Emmy nominations, including predictions in most of the major categories. This morning, Ken Jeong (ABC’s Dr. Ken) and D’Arcy Carden (NBC’s The Good Place and HBO’s Barry) announced the nominations for this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards. The complete list of nominees in the 100+ categories can be read in full here, but below I digest it into 10 talking points.

1. Schitt’s Creek surprises in the major categories and I’ve never been happier to have my predictions be wrong. The Canadian sitcom — which airs in America on PopTV and has become a recent cult hit due to its past seasons airing on Netflix — was a long shot that I didn’t even bother predicting due to the fact that the station it airs on has never scored an Emmy nomination and the show didn’t have the budget to mount a major Emmy campaign. Nevertheless, it surprised with nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actress (Catherine O’Hara), and Outstanding Lead Actor (Eugene Levy). I’ve never been happier to be wrong with my predictions. It’s my favorite show on television. (Although the snub of co-creator/star/writer Dan Levy is ridiculous.)
2. The Emmys really embraced Game of Thrones’s final season. The divisive final season of the HBO mega-hit broke the all time record for most nominations by a series in a single season with 32. It scored a whopping 10 acting nominations, many of them first time nominees (Emilia Clarke/Daenerys Targaeryen, Kit Harrington/Jon Snow, Maisie Willims/Arya Stark, Sophie Turner/Sansa Stark, Gwendoline Christie/Brienne of Tarth, Lena Headey/Cersei Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau/Jaime Lannister, Peter Dinklage/Tyrion Lannister, Alfie Allen/Theon Greyjoy, and Clarice Van Houten/Melisandre). The show also scored three directing nominations and one writing nomination. The real question is this — is the abundance of nominations due to the fact that the Academy really loved the final season or is it due to the fact that the drama categories were thrown into such disarray by the ineligibility of 5 of last year’s 7 nominees (The Americans, The Crown, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, and Westworld), that they went for the familiar? My guess is on the latter, which would mean that a sweep on Emmy night isn’t inevitable.
3. The morning’s greatest mystery was the complete snubbing of Homecoming. Amazon’s highly pedigreed Homecoming, which was created by Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot) and starred screen icon Julia Roberts in her television series debut (not to mention Stephen James, Bobby Cannavale, and Sissy Spacek in supporting roles) was a big hit with critics when it premiered last year and scored major nominations at the Golden Globes. It only scored one nomination this morning, for Cinematography. Perhaps it’s the fact that it wrapped so long ago? That Amazon did a bad job with its Emmy campaign? Or is it that everyone assumed it was a limited series? Who knows. Equally baffling is the complete snubbing of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. After being nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series each of its first 4 seasons, the show didn’t score a single nomination (even in technical categories) for its final batch of episodes. My guess is that Netflix didn’t put a penny into its Emmy campaign since it had so many other shows to champion.
4. The morning’s greatest oddity is that despite technically not being eligible, The Handmaid’s Tale scored 11 nominations. Even though the new season of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale premiered after the end of the eligibility period, it still managed to score 11 nominations. How is that possible? Well, the final few episodes of the second season aired during this eligibility period and the Academy (rather confusingly) ruled that those episodes were eligible even if the series was not. Thus, it was eligible in categories like guest acting (where Bradley Whitford and Cherry Jones were nominated), writing, and directing — all of which it was nominated in. It will be interesting to see if the Academy sticks with this ruling in the future.
5. Thanks to NBC, the broadcast networks stay alive in the top series categories. Many wondered if this would be the year that the broadcast networks were completely shut out of the top categories. However, of the 15 nominations for Outstanding Comedy and Drama Series, two went to broadcast nets. NBC’s The Good Place scored its first ever nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series and NBC’s This is Us scored its third consecutive nomination for Outstanding Drama Series.
6. A host of new series fared very well. Bodyguard (Netflix), Pose (Fx), Succession (HBO), and Russian Doll (Netflix) all scored nods for Outstanding Drama or Comedy Series in their first go-around. Curiously, though, Bodyguard and Succession did not score any of their expected acting nominations. In contrast, The Kominsky Method (Netflix), Dead to Me (Netflix), and Black Monday (Showtime) all scored major acting nominations for their first seasons but missed out on Outstanding Drama or Comedy Series. Even though there was an odd spreading of the wealth, brand new shows over all did quite well.
7. The comedy categories may be more competitive than anticipated. After scoring a combined total of 33 nominations for its 5th and 6th seasons, Veep somewhat underperformed in its final outing with 9. It was still nominated in all the major categories, so it very well could threepeat in the Outstanding Comedy Series category but its low nomination tally combined with the fact that only two other comedies have won the top award in their final season (The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Everybody Loves Raymond being the others) suggest that it might not. If any show topples Veep expect it to be the second season of Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or HBO’s Barry both of which won big awards last year and did phenomenally well this year in the nominations.
8. The limited series categories played out as expected and will likely be the most interesting on Emmy night. The top-notch quintet of When They See Us (Netflix), Escape at Dannemora (Showtime), Chernobyl (HBO), Fosse/Verdon (Fx), and Sharp Objects (HBO) dominated as expected, with A Very English Scandal (Amazon) and The Act (Hulu) also having strong showings. Any one of those shows would have had a strong shot at the win in a less competitive year, highlighting what a force the Limited Series has become as a medium for high quality storytelling.
9. New records are made and milestones are achieved. Lorne Michaels (the creator of Saturday Night Live) and Game of Thrones extend their leads as the most nominated individual and drama series ever. Julia Louis-Dreyfus would set several records if she does 7-for-7 for her role as Selina Meyer. And a slew of well known actors got their first Emmy nomination last this morning: Amy Adams, Gwendoline Christie, Jodie Comer, Paul Dano, Benicio Del Toro, Hugh Grant, Mandy More, Kumail Nanjiani, Nick Offerman, Rosamund Pike, Billy Porter, Sam Rockwell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rufus Sewell, Fiona ShawSophie Turner, Emily Watson, Ben Whishaw, and Michelle Williams.
10. I did good but not great at making my predictions. 69 of the 96 (72%) I predicted went on to score Emmy nominations. That might not seem like a great number, but considering how many open spots there were this year, the dozens and dozens of shows there were to fill these slots, and the rapidly changing taste of the Television Academy, I think I did fine.

This year, the Emmys will air on Fox on Sunday, September 22nd at 8pm EST/5pm PST. No other details about the ceremony (e.g., who will host, who will produce) have been announced. I’ll be back with more coverage as the big night gets closer.

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