For the 75th Emmys ceremony, which honored television work from 2022 to 2023 but was postponed to January 2024 due to industry strikes, TV Academy members almost entirely lined up behind a single drama (HBO's departing drama). Succession), a one-off comedy (FX's debut The bear) and a single limited/anthology series (Netflix Beef).
Eight months later, at the 76th Emmy Awards — both last weekend's Creative Arts ceremonies and Sunday night's Primetime ceremony — two shows scored record-breaking numbers: FX's limited series-turned-drama Shogun took home 18 awards, more than any other show in a single cycle; and the second season of The bear He won 11, breaking his own record for most wins by a comedy in a single cycle by one point.
AND StillOddly enough, there was less dominance of the big three genres at the 76th Emmys than there was at the 75th. Hear me out…
The beardespite the incredible accumulation of victories, including awards for directing (Christopher Storerfor the quirky episode “Fishes”) and three for its regular characters (actor by Jeremy Allen White and supporting actor Ebony moss – Bachrach for the second consecutive year, more supporting actress Liza Colon-Zayas) — was not awarded as best comedy, however.
For that award, in a shocking surprise that no one predicted, the second season of The bear It was beaten by HBO/Max's third season Tricks. (The two shows had never clashed before: the first two seasons of Tricks lost in the first two seasons of Ted LassoWhile Tricks It was taken off the air last year when The bear was in the running for the first time.)
How did it happen? Well, first of all, there's obviously a lot of love for Trickswho also beat The bear for Best Comedy Actress (Smart Jeanwho also won the award for the previous two seasons of the show, took first place Ayo Edebiriwhich in the last cycle won the award for best comedy support actress) and best non-original screenplay (Trickswho had already won for his first season, was probably helped in this cycle by the fact that The bear had two nominees in this category, but also delivered a spectacular episode in the third-season finale).
But more than that, I think the chatter about The bear being Great But it's not funnywhich had begun during its first season, reached a fever pitch during the final round of Emmy voting, when voters were considering the show's second season but also looking at its decidedly not funny third season, which had just begun. (Another reason I think season three was on voters’ minds when they voted for season two: Colón-Zayas’ win for season two, despite being much stronger in season three.)
While voters were pondering whether The bear It's really a comedy, I suspect many have come to the conclusion that talent should not be punished The bear to be promoted as such, but hesitated to give it once again an award called best comedy which historically has gone to laugh-out-loud shows like Modern family, Vice President, The Schitt Stream AND Ted Lasso.
Additionally, HBO, the outside agency it hired to help with this season Tricks awards campaign and associated talent Tricks He convincingly emphasized during the election campaign how difficult it is to make a comedy From comedy. It's a zero-sum game: people either laugh or they don't laugh. And it's impossible to argue that when it comes to Trickspeople laugh.
It's a great thing to me that both of these great shows have won major awards. And I think that going forward, FX and the talent behind The bear should call people's bluff and market season three as a drama. It's too early to know what the competitive landscape will look like, but I suspect the show could more than hold its own under that designation.
Speaking of category reclassifications, Shogun was originally intended to be a limited series, but critics and viewers liked it so much that additional seasons were ordered, turning it into a drama series for Emmy purposes. And it made history not only for its totality of wins, but by becoming the first largely non-English language television program to be crowned best drama. (Netflix's Squid Game He came close two years ago, but ended up losing Succession)
For that reason, these Emmys may be remembered more than anything else for this: a historic turning point like the 2020 Oscars ceremony in which Parasite became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. Perhaps in a few years the idea of a separate ceremony for the international Emmys will be considered obsolete.
Shogun also won awards for directing and both Best Actor and Best Actress in a Drama. And yet, once again, there is reason to believe that this was not the result of lazy vote-taking, because he also lost the awards for Supporting Actor in a Drama (his two nominees were beaten by Billy Crudup from Apple TV+ The morning show) and write (Slow horses prevailed, perhaps in part because Shogun had multiple nominees that split its support). It had no nominees for supporting actress (which The crown'S Elizabeth Debicki won, as he had done in every other major awards ceremony in the previous year).
This brings us to the Netflix limited series Baby Reindeera personal and painful autobiographical adventure written and performed by a previously unknown character Richard Gadd. As recently as early June, not even the streamer itself considered the show a major Emmy contender, but it organically amassed a massive audience, sparked passionate cultural conversations, and ultimately became an unstoppable force (despite the best efforts of the real-life woman who helped inspire the show). Ultimately, it overcame formidable competition to win Outstanding Limited/Anthology Series, Outstanding Writing (Gadd), Outstanding Actor (Gadd), and Outstanding Supporting Actress (Jessica Gunning).
But at the same time, three of its four formidable contenders for Best Limited/Anthology Series also took home major awards. Directing Limited/Anthology Series was won by Steven Zailliandirector of another extraordinary Netflix project, RipleyAbove Baby Reindeer'S Weronika TofilskaThe award for best supporting actor was won by Lamorne MorrisFX star FargoAbove Baby Reindeer'S Tom Goodman Hill, Tom's sonAnd, in hindsight, Netflix probably would have wanted to push Gunning as the lead, thus paving the way for the co-star Mau Ship in a supporting role and potentially resulting in two actresses winning; instead, the Limited/Anthology Lead Actress category was won by Jodie Fosterstar of the HBO series True Detective: The Land of the Night.
In addition to the three major genres, other noteworthy results were recorded.
I'm happy for the people behind the Peacock streaming service, who have worked their asses off for years trying to get Emmy recognition for their shows, but never really broke through until this cycle. It's really hard to convince people to change their TV viewing habits in any way, and especially to convince them to watch yet another new show on yet another new streamer. But with The TraitorsThey did it: the show won the award for best reality show, defeating MTV RuPaul's Drag Racewho had won the award in five of the last six years. The host of The Traitors, Alan Cummingalso won Outstanding Reality or Competition Series Host at last weekend's Creative Arts Emmys, taking RuPaulthe streak of eight consecutive victories.
Meanwhile, Comedy Central continues to dominate the talk show category. The daily show – with Joanna Stewartbut no more with Jon Stewart — won this year, the first since Stewart returned to the program. While Stewart's Monday night appearances were great, the show couldn't hold its own against some formidable competition — The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live! AND Late Night with Seth Meyers — if the other guests had not held up the other evenings of the week, special congratulations to Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Coast AND Desi Lydico. (The daily show he also won last year, for Trevor NoahStewart's final season as host, but before that the show hadn't been recognized since 2015, the last time Stewart held that role.)
Finally, HBO/Max, while having racked up fewer wins than any year in recent memory, still had reason to celebrate, not only because of the success of Tricksbut also that of Last Week Tonight with John Oliverwhich won the award for best scripted variety series over NBC's Saturday night live (although, as I recently wrote, the shows are practically not similar and do not belong to the same category); and Alex Edelman: Just for usa television adaptation of Alex Edelmanthe one-man show, which won the award for Best Writing for a Variety Special.
While it will be more than eight months before the 77th Emmy Awards, I think we've already started to see some of the titles that will be considered in that race, including Apple TV+'s upcoming drama series Presumed innocentwhich was a huge hit on the service in June and July, and limited runs Disclaimerwhich has begun screening at some fall film festivals.
But it's too late and too early to think about it!