When the nominees for the Emmy Awards are announced on July 12, do not be surprised if the acting categories are dominated by artists from a handful of performances – probably Follow-up, ted lasso, Saturday Night Live, The White Lotus, strange things, The Wonderful Mrs. Maisel, euphoria, yellow jackets, Squid Game and dope sick.
Yes, this is the era of “Peak TV”, with more quality shows for Emmy recognition than ever, but Television Academy members have spread their acting nominations over about the same number of programs over the past few years as they did decades ago, then there were only a handful of networks broadcasting content that was eligible for Emmy.
In that bygone era, the mini-series Rich Man Poor Man in 1976 and carrots in 1977, each received 13 acting names, which remains the record for that program format (some of the acting categories in which they were nominated were discontinued). Meanwhile, the record number of acting names for a continuing series for many years was nine – this is the number given by Hill Street Blues in 1982 (there were no guest game categories that year) and LA wet in 1989 — until The West Wing scored 12 in 2002.
So how, all these years later, with exponentially more content on TV, can a select number of programs garner nominations in the same series?
Last year, for example, hundreds of performances qualified in 119 categories, but only 12 series and 12 networks / platforms accumulated more than a single-digit number of nominations. But those programs and networks / platforms absolutely dominated.
In the acting categories specifically, Saturday Night Live landed 11 noms (including four of five comedy guest actors, three of seven comedy supporting actors, two of eight comedy supporting actors and two of six comedy supporting actors); The Maid’s Story scored 10 (four out of eight drama supporting actors, three out of eight drama supporting actors and two out of five drama guest actresses); The crown nine collected (three of eight drama supporting actors and two of six drama actresses); and ted lasso scored seven (four out of eight comedy supporting actors and two out of seven comedy supporting actors), just like Hamilton.
One can look at this situation and reasonably theorize that TV Academy members are capable and / or willing to consume only a limited amount of content, no matter how much is out there. But I believe the groups are much more to blame for the fact that in 2017 the TV Academy stopped issuing nomination ballots with a fixed number of slots and instead instructed members to nominate so many achievements in a category as “you see and feel is worthy of a nomination.”
Even if voters see more programs than they saw decades ago, not everyone watches the same shows, so this selection process naturally benefits the handful of “prestige shows” – those of popular networks / platforms that have strong word-of-mouth and significant campaigns behind them – that all, or at least most, members watch, because the will probably accumulate most nomination votes.
No one disputes that 2021’s nominees were excellent, but they simply did not reflect the year’s depth and breadth of quality TV. If you’re a voter and you only get six lines, you’re more likely to be deliberate with your choices and spread votes than when you’re told to tick off as many options as you feel are worthy, which increases the probability. that you help popular programs.
Unless and until the current naming process changes, the current pattern will repeat.
This year, I have every expectation that the comedy-supporting and guest-starring categories will once again be overwhelmed by talent from SNL (Bowen-Yang, Kenan Thompson, Peter Davidson, kate mckinnon, Cecilia Strong, Aidy Bryant and a host of hosts), the drama-supporting actor race will once again overflow with members of the Follow-up ensemble (kieran culkin, matthew macfadyen, Nicholas Braun and Alan Ruck) and the comedy-supporting actor race will once again be packed with members of the cast of ted lasso (Brett Goldstein, Nick Mohamed, Brendan Hunt, Phil Dunster and Jeremy Swiftyou).
The White Lotus will in all probability be responsible for a large part of the fields for restricted / anthology / TV movie supporting actor (Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, Alexandra Daddario and Natasha Rothwell) and supporting actor (Murray Bartlett, jake lacy and steve zahn), the latter a category in which several stars of dope sick (Peter Sarsgarard, Michael Stuhlbarg and Will Poulter) can also be included.
The category of drama supporting actors can be filled almost entirely by artists of only three performances: Follow-up (Sarah Snook and J. Smith-Cameron), euphoria (Sydney Sweeney, Maude Apatow, hunter shepherd and alexa demie) en strange things (Sadie Sink and Millie Bobby Brown). And half of the drama-actress field could have come from yellow jackets (Melanie Lynskey, Juliet Lewis and Tawny cypress) only.
As a result, the path to an acting name for standouts from similarly worthy but lower-profile competitors (Pachinko, The Good Fight, Julia, We own this city or Survivor) has never been rougher.
This story first appeared in the June 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to sign up.