How overwhelming? Well, for starters, the Television Academy dispensed with decades of tradition and didn’t bother to break down the nominations by network, in part because the advent of streaming platforms has made tallying up who owns those bragging rights — Netflix? Some combination of HBO and HBO Max? Disney’s assorted platforms with Disney+, ABC and Hulu? — too much of a headache to tackle.
For what it’s worth, after a neck-and-neck race last year, HBO opened up a wider lead over second-place Netflix this time around, with a whopping 140 nominations, buoyed by the 25 for drama favorite “Succession,” followed by “The White Lotus” (20, including a staggering eight supporting-acting bids), “Hacks” (17), “Euphoria” (16) and “Barry” (14). Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” (20) was again the most-nominated comedy. (Like CNN, HBO is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)
One complicating factor has become the longer-than-traditional breaks between seasons, meaning several of the shows nominated this year weren’t in the running in 2021 — heck, FX’s “Atlanta” was absent for nearly four years — while something like “The Crown” is missing after dominating last year’s awards.
In terms of episodic series, the balance between nostalgia and the freshness of discovery is very much evident, as well as the influence of streaming, which swept the limited-series choices and accounted for half of the comedy and drama series contenders.
Last year’s Emmys did include a populist touch in the form of several Disney+ shows, which might have contributed to a rebound in the ratings after record-low numbers in 2020.
Whether that will impact the audience for this year’s show remains to be seen. Perhaps the best thing the Emmys have going for them is a wide assortment of tastes to tease different palates, in what’s become a pretty crazy galaxy of television.
