Intro for July 16, 2024

Dear Gossips,  

The Emmy nominations are tomorrow, and I know it feels like we just did the Emmys—because we did, in January—but this is actually the regular schedule for nominations ahead of the traditional September ceremony. 

Despite the strike-delayed 2023 award ceremony, though, the Emmys eligibility windows never shifted, so the nominations announced this week are for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards which honors the typical Emmy eligibility period of June 1 – May 31 (2023-2024). So, twenty-four hours out, what can we expect?

Well, it’s a foregone conclusion that The Bear* will dominate the comedy category, Shōgun will dominate drama, and Baby Reindeer will dominate the always competitive limited series category. But there are some questions remaining as to who else will compete this year, such as:

• Will quirky Australian rom-com-dram Colin from Accounts crack the comedy race?
• Will Reservation Dogs earn any nominations for its final season? (They currently have only one nomination, for sound editing in the Creative Arts categories. Reservation Dogs has never been nominated for a mainline Emmy.)
• Will Fallout and Mr. and Mrs. Smith be able to overcome genre bias?
• Will The Curse be able to overcome “no one enjoyed this” bias?
• Are we going to pretend like Feud: Capote vs. the Swans was a good show?
• Will we continue to pretend that The Morning Show is real?
• Did anyone notice that Jon Hamm gave his best television performance since Mad Men on Fargo season five?
• Will Our Flag Means Death get any love at all?
• How much damage will Hot Ones do in the talk series category?

These questions and more will be answered tomorrow! 

The Emmys have two very real problems with their awards and nominations. One is recency bias—there is just so damn much TV all the time, there is a tendency to nominate stuff that aired more recently in the eligibility period. For instance, in the comedy category, Our Flag Means Death aired back in October, and Reservation Dogs aired even further back, in August. Meanwhile, Hacks just aired its second season in May, right before the eligibility deadline, so it’s fresher in people’s minds. Not that Hacks is bad! Many nominations would be well deserved for that show’s sophomore season. But when there is such a glut of good stuff, recency bias can often tip the scales.

The other problem is Emmy voters clinging to the same shows year to year, despite declines in quality. The Crown’s final season will undoubtedly be a major player in the dramatic categories, but that show suffered a massive drop in quality over its run, and its final season was weirdly apologetic toward the royal family, as if creator Peter Morgan suddenly decided he doesn’t want to torpedo his shot at an OBE. But The Crown started strong all the way back in 2016, so around it sticks like it’s the same show now it was eight years ago.

We’ll see how it all shakes out tomorrow, how bad the recency bias and, I guess we’ll call it “tradition bias”, are, and how that affects nominations as several shows, like Our Flag Means Death, Reservation Dogs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Crown take their last shots at Emmy glory. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to cut this short and hide in a closet because there’s a freaking tornado in Chicago. Insert obligatory “Twisters promo doing too much” joke here.

*Not a comedy

Live long and gossip,

Sarah