Yahoo News Emmy Noms Analysis: Handful of Shows Dominate Despite Voting Changes, But Other Signs Show Voters Are Doing Their Job
Apart from somewhat surprising snubs of Harrison Ford (for both Paramount+ drama 1923 and Apple TV+ comedy Shrinking), Steve Martin (for both Hulu’s comedy Only Murders in the Building and NBC’s scripted variety series Saturday Night Live), Rachel Weisz (for Amazon Prime’s limited series Dead Ringers), Imelda Staunton (for Netflix’s drama The Crown), Helen Mirren (for 1923) and Carol Burnett (for AMC’s drama Better Call Saul), and somewhat unexpected nods for Amazon Freevee’s comedy Jury Duty, Sharon Horgan (for Apple TV+’s comedy Bad Sisters) and four performers associated with the Hulu limited series Welcome to Chippendales (Kumail Nanjiani, Murray Bartlett, Juliette Lewis and Annaleigh Ashford), the 2023 Emmy nominations announcement unfolded largely as I expected it would.
Indeed, my final Feinberg Forecast, posted on Tuesday, correctly projected all eight drama series, seven of eight comedy series, five of six TV movies, all five variety talk series, all three scripted variety series, five of six live variety specials, four of five structured reality programs, all five unstructured reality programs, four of five reality competition programs, four of five game shows, all six drama actors, four of six drama actresses, five of eight drama supporting actors, six of eight drama supporting actresses, five of six drama guest actresses, four of five comedy actors, four of five comedy actresses, five of seven comedy supporting actors, six of seven comedy supporting actresses, four of six comedy guest actresses, five of six limited/anthology/TV movie actors, four of six limited/anthology/TV movie actresses, and four of seven limited/anthology/TV movie supporting actresses.
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Pedro Pascal, Quinta Brunson Among Actors Who Earned 2023 Emmy Nominations for Multiple Shows
Emmy Nominations 2023: Historic, Record-Breaking and Otherwise Notable Nominees
The big wild card in this year’s voting was whether or not a rule change implemented since last year’s voting would keep a small handful of shows from once again utterly dominating the acting nominations, as had been the case in the years since 2017, when the TV Academy ended its tradition of issuing nomination ballots with a fixed number of slots per category and instead began instructing members to nominate as many achievements in each category as “you have seen and feel are worthy of a nomination.” The goal of the rule change was to make the acting nominations more reflective of the breadth of quality TV that exists in the “Peak TV” era, as opposed to having a small number of shows dominating.
Did it work? Not really. All eight slots of the drama supporting actor category went to performers from just two shows — four from HBO/Max’s drama Succession and four from HBO/Max’s drama The White Lotus. On a more granular level, Succession landed 14 acting noms, tying its own record, set last year, for a drama. (This year, it landed noms for three lead actors, something unprecedented; one lead actress; four supporting actors; one supporting actress; two guest actors; and three guest actresses.) Meanwhile, clocking in with nine acting noms each were Apple TV+’s comedy Ted Lasso, down one from last year (with one lead actor; two supporting actors; two supporting actresses; one guest actor; and three guest actresses); The White Lotus, up one from last year, when it competed in the limited/anthology/TV movie categories (four supporting actors and five supporting actresses); and HBO/Max’s drama The Last of Us (one lead actor, one lead actress, four guest actors, three guest actresses).
The fact that so many of the acting noms still emanated from so few shows is certainly noteworthy — but, on the other hand, excellent shows with large ensembles that air/stream on popular platforms, like those just mentioned, have always done very well at the Emmys, even before the introduction of the voting system that was eliminated prior to this cycle (see Roots, The West Wing, etc.). Would these particular shows have done even better under the prior voting system? We’ll never know for sure, but it’s hard to imagine — only a handful of people associated with them who had a real shot didn’t make the cut. (See, in particular, The White Lotus’s Haley Lu Richardson, Tom Hollander, Beatrice Granno and Jon Gries.) So maybe they just deserved to dominate.
Another way of evaluating whether or not TV Academy members are doing their due diligence, as opposed to just watching and picking their nominees from a handful of high-profile shows and platforms, is to look at the breakdown of noms by platform. Yes, the perennial behemoth HBO/Max clearly had a banner year. Led by Succession, The White Lotus and The Last of Us, it landed far more noms (127) than any other service (Netflix placed second with a formidable 103), and became the first platform in 31 years to land four drama series noms.
But there is also encouraging evidence suggesting that voters are at least sampling other buzzy shows from lower-profile platforms. Amazon Freevee, with comedy Jury Duty, got a series nom for the first time. Peacock, with Poker Face actress Natasha Lyonne, cracked into a lead comedy acting race. And The Roku Channel, thanks to its TV movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and its shortform series Die Hart 2: Die Harter, accumulated 12 noms, one more than even broadcast network Fox.
One area in which the TV Academy appears to have done a fairly good job, at least relative to many other awards-dispensing groups, is recognizing diverse productions and people. Despite the fact that many of the year’s highest-profile shows were very white — see Succession, The White Lotus, Better Call Saul, The Crown, Amazon Prime’s comedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and FX’s limited/anthology series Fleishman Is in Trouble, among others — a considerable number of performers of color still received noms.
True, many of those noms emanated from a handful of shows — The Last of Us (Pedro Pascal, also nominated for SNL, Storm Reid, Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Montreal Woodard), ABC’s comedy Abbott Elementary (Quinta Brunson, also nominated for SNL, Tyler James Williams, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Janelle James and Taraji P. Henson), Netflix’s limited/anthology series Beef (Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, Young Mazino and Joseph Lee) and Ted Lasso (Sam Richardson and Sarah Niles). But other performers of color were also nominated for shows that were not behemoths, such as Ayo Edibiri for FX’s The Bear, Jenna Ortega for Netflix’s Wednesday, Jessica Williams for Shrinking, Niecy Nash-Betts for Netflix’s limited/anthology series Dahmer and Dominique Fishback for Amazon Prime’s limited/anthology series Swarm. Performers of Middle Eastern descent had a strong showing — see Succession’s Hiam Abbass and Arian Moayed and Chippendales’ Nanjiani. And a person identifying as nonbinary — The Last of Us’ Bella Ramsey — received a lead acting nom for the first time.
That, of course, is of small consolation to Andor’s Diego Luna, Only Murders in the Building’s Selena Gomez and Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito, nonwhite stars of shows that received series noms.
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