At the 76th Emmy Awards, the biggest surprise was perhaps the most telling. At the end of a night the bearArguably not a comedy, it flunked most of the comedy categories, missing out on the all-important trophy for best comedy series.
victorious in the end HacksAnother longtime Emmys favorite is that Sometimes accused of not being a true comedy. Hacks Also beat the bear For Best Actress in a Comedy Series and Best Writing in a Comedy Series.
This semi-upset encapsulates the current state of the Emmys.
After the industry spent a year recovering from a historic dual strike by both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild in 2023, Sunday’s awards were mostly marked by familiarity. Every era of the Emmys has its favorites, and this year is largely reserved for the current darlings of the Television Academy.
the bear It may not have taken home Best Comedy Series, But it broke its own record for most wins by a comedy in a single seasonCleaning up with four awards tonight and eight awards in the non-televised portion held last weekend.
The Emmys’ were the new darlings Baby reindeerwhich won four awards and took home the Best Limited Series trophy. Perhaps the most daring was the new favorite the shogunwhich dominated the drama category with three wins, including Best Drama Series, and asked viewers to at least read the subtitles.
Yet these Emmys were abysmal in more ways than just predicting winners. For starters, this was actually the second Emmy Award of the year. The 75th Emmys, which recognize television from June 2022 to May 2023, also aired late in January after being delayed by a strike.
Sunday’s Emmys recognized a particularly rare season of television. The strikes shut down the industry’s biggest shows for months, pushing their premieres out the window for recognition this season. (Eligible shows had to complete a certain number of episodes Between June 2023 and May this year.) Calendar produced some specialties: although the critics soured the bear In its third season, which premiered in late June, it was heavily rewarded on Sunday nights for its second season, which aired all the way through the summer of 2023.
While the awards were relatively dull, the event itself managed to keep things lively. Father-son hosting duo Eugene and Dan Levy break out their old ones Sheets Creek Comic timing oversees the show with affably low schtick aplomb. (Continuously distracting Eugene, a runner, lost in the audience, his texts riddled with errors, was much more charming than it should have been.)
An extended bit about its cast SNL Assuring Lorne Michaels that he is not a failure despite 85 losses. Lamorne Morris got a surprise win for his supporting performance FargoAn upset that surely had more than one family new girl Fans chanting “Winston!” in joy
Even in this election year, Emmy has gone political. Mega showrunner Greg Berlanti, who was behind network TV’s first gay kiss Dawson’s Creekaccepts the Governor’s Award by remembering what TV meant to him as a gay kid growing up in the 1980s. John Leguizamo, introducing Television Academy Chair Chris Abrego, gave a fiery speech invoking the many brown faces of Hollywood’s past and celebrating the diversity among this year’s nominees (34 actors of color were nominated performance category).
Liza Colon-Zayas, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role the bear“For all Latinos who love to love me” called “Vote for Your Rights.” Candice Bergen, presenting the award for leading actress in a comedy, compared Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance to her former nemesis Dan Coyle, VP under George HW Bush. (“Meow,” he deadpanned.)
On the other hand, in classic Emmy fashion, the liberal speeches were followed by a celebration of TV cops, which was themed the policeOne of the most infamous pieces of copaganda on television.
Awards predictions can also feel overwhelming — especially when many of the current Emmy darlings are not only over-familiar but on the edge of abusing category rules, or sometimes not very well.
morning show What remains is a glossy, high-budget camp nonsenseBut it received 23 nominations. the bear Had a great second season, yet it’s hard not to think about how its comedic accolades — for a season that’s largely about cycles of domestic abuse — shunned real sitcoms, e.g. Abbott Elementary. (“I know some of you might be expecting us to joke the bear It’s really a comedy,” Eugene Levy said in the opening monologue, “but in real spirit bear, We’re not kidding.”)
It is possible that TV could see an upturn after this year’s low point. The strikes have been resolved, and there’s a crop of promising shows premiering this fall, including FX’s english teacher and Hulu’s How to die alone. TV can and should be good again.
The bad news is that there are still deep structural problems with producing shows of the caliber that defined the golden age of TV mad man, 30 Rockor the girls. Despite gains from the strike, writers, actors and production staff have all struggled to find work as the streaming boom has cooled, Hollywood is in a chronic economic slump. The latest generation of writing talent is still being trained after a decade of mini rooms that isolated them from the old apprenticeship model of TV and which were basic skills (eg Where work breaks are supposed to gofor example).
when it shows is Well made, they also often fall into the key category New York Times critic James Ponioczyk told MidTV: Expensively made and well-cast shows that nevertheless display a “willingness to retreat, to settle down, to trade ambition for the reliable”. All slick remakes of beloved old properties, all those paint-by-numbers genre warhorses starring beloved movie stars.
If luck allows, we won’t have to suffer through a year of television as frustrating as it was again. It will take much more than just ending the strike, though, to usher us into a new golden age of TV.
