2025 Emmy Awards Roundup: The Good, the Bad, and the Why?

It’s time once again: Hollywood’s biggest night is back. The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards aired on CBS, hosted by Nate Bargatze. Like every Emmys, there were some well-deserved wins, shocking upsets, and studio-sponsored presenter pairings (now we all know Jason Bateman and Jude Law will be in a TV show together).

But whether you want to reminisce about those three hours of television you just watched or you want to catch up by reading the highlights, Paste Magazine is here to run through the best, the worst, and the why of the 2025 Emmy Awards.

Nate Bargatze’s Mixed Bag Hosting Duties

Bargatze was a solid choice as a host. His turns on Saturday Night Live helped catapult him to fame, and he has a unique comedy persona. But in practice, his time as host at the Emmys was filled with hits and misses. The best hit: his opening sketch about the invention of television with SNL cast members Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson, and Mikey Day. It played to all four actors’ strengths and provided a fun way to poke fun at TV (although I will admit, “The Bear isn’t a comedy” jokes are getting a little old now). And while I love a showman as a host for the Oscars, the Emmys are often a great stage for slightly weirder comedians.

Hey, Maybe Don’t Make People Feel Evil About Their Long Speeches?

Every award show has to do a bit centered around how acceptance speeches are too long. Part of it is utilitarian; these broadcasts can get fined or mess up the rest of their network’s programming for the night if the show runs long. For the 77th Emmys, the joke was that Bargatze would take $1000 from an original donation of $100,000 for the Girls & Boys Clubs of America for every second a speech ran long, or add $1000 for every second they had to spare. I did find Bargatze’s initial joke about threatening to take money away from charity funny. What was not funny was that the broadcast actually committed to the bit. Having the donation amount tick down in the corner of the screen when speeches went long was a step too far.

I think sometimes the people who write award shows lose track of what these shows are about. The Emmys are about celebrating the great work artists put into their craft. I understand that these shows are still content and that networks have rules to follow. But when you make the winners feel bad for jumbling their words or having lots of people to thank for helping them get to that great moment, it just feels mean-spirited.

Look, I knew during the whole show that the Girls & Boys Clubs would get that money regardless (in the end, it was actually $250,000 more than the $100,000 Bargatze originally announced). But those winners are so stressed out that they think they are being a nuisance for taking a few extra seconds. Even worse, it means that speeches often included references to how the winners felt bad for taking money away, further taking the moment away from their own accomplishments.

**Love for The Studio, Not for Sal Saperstein**

Big shocker: Hollywood loves The Studio. The Apple TV+ comedy series took home several major awards, including Outstanding Actor for Seth Rogen and Outstanding Comedy Series. The show also had many wins last week at the Creative Arts Emmys, when many people in their speeches thanked the fictional Sal Saperstein, an exec on The Studio who ends up getting thanked in several Golden Globe speeches in one episode. And yet, not a single speech after a win for The Studio during the main broadcast thanked Sal Saperstein.

Maybe the show didn’t want to make its wins into a joke (they were the first Emmy wins ever for Rogen), or maybe they’re saving the bit for the actual Golden Globes. Either way, I was a little bummed.

Some Great Wins!

Every year, the Emmys make some truly inspired choices in various categories, and this year was no exception. Some highlights include Hannah Einbinder finally winning after four nominations for Supporting Actress in Hacks and being genuinely shocked (and props to her for using her platform to make a political statement in support of Palestine and against ICE, although the latter part was censored out of the broadcast).

Tramell Tillman gave the best speech of the night in honor of his mother following his historic win as the first Black actor to be named Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Severance. Jeff Hiller’s surprise win for Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for Somebody Somewhere, beating favorite Harrison Ford, had me clapping from my couch. I also loved Cristin Milioti’s earnest speech about how much she loves her job after her Outstanding Lead Actress win for The Penguin. These are the moments that make award shows so special.

Does No One Know How to Do a Good In Memoriam?

Last year, I was a bit mean toward Jelly Roll for his extremely weird song choice for the ceremony’s annual In Memoriam section. This time I have a different gripe.

Highlighting one specific person who passed away is inappropriate. I don’t care if it’s Mr. Television himself. The dedicated section for Malcolm-Jamal Warner before the rest of the In Memoriam section feels unfair to the rest of the people included. They’ve done this in previous years, and I complained about it then. Also, don’t clap for specific people, it’s rude. And who chose the most low-resolution photos imaginable? They couldn’t reach out to the families? Also, will I sound like I’m from the 1940s if I say it’s rude to sing the In Memoriam while wearing a big giant cowboy hat? I don’t care that the hat is black. If you wouldn’t be allowed to wear it during the National Anthem, you probably shouldn’t be wearing it on TV while trying to honor people we’ve lost.

The Bear is Dead, Long Live The Pitt (and Procedurals)

Well, I think it’s happened. The Bear’s reign of terror at the Emmys has come to an end. This year, the show took home zero awards during the main broadcast. After becoming everyone’s favorite show during Season 2, it seems the series has finally left its moment in the spotlight behind.

Meanwhile, it’s The Pitt’s time to shine. Not only were its wins well-deserved, but they also feel like the beginning of a return to form for TV. The Pitt is a 15-episode procedural series with no big stars. Its season ended a few months ago, and they’re already almost done filming Season 2. The Pitt’s popularity—and now its success at the Emmys—mixed with the waning popularity of The Bear signals a new period of TV is upon us.

People crave old-fashioned TV driven by strong performances, interesting character arcs, and with enough episodes to feel like you experienced a complete story. The cast of Law & Order: SVU giving The Pitt the award seems especially fitting. Expect many more procedural-esque shows like The Pitt to be greenlit in the years ahead.

The Paramount-Sized Elephant in the Room

The big winner of the 77th Emmy Awards was Stephen Colbert. And not just because The Late Show won its category. He presented the first award and was greeted with the largest standing ovation of the night, followed by a joke about needing a job soon. His acceptance speech for Outstanding Talk Series was beautiful as he described how his show started as a talk show about love and turned into a talk show about loss.

Yet, there was a very big P word not mentioned during the night. The Emmys aired on CBS, whose parent company, Paramount, decided to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and end The Late Show entirely after its next season, likely as a stipulation for the Trump administration’s FCC to okay Paramount’s multi-billion dollar merger with Skydance. Colbert was one of Trump’s biggest critics on late night and the president applauded the decision.

No one mentioned Paramount by name during the show, which I think is a shame. Mega conglomerates collect power in silence. The whole night, I was craving a larger political statement about the company’s capitulation. It was a missed opportunity that does not bode well for our current moment in media. You can give the Corporation for Public Broadcasting all the awards you want: if we do not call out the companies and executives who are allowing free speech and art to be canceled in the name of stock payouts, then all of this is for naught.

The closest mention of the night actually came from Bargatze, who made a quick quip about calling Warner Bros Television “Warner Brothers for now.” This joke comes just days after reports came out that Paramount Skydance is interested in an acquisition of the company. And by complete coincidence, those reports landed the day after Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount’s new CEO and founder of tech giant Oracle, became the richest man in the world when his net worth jumped $100 billion. But the era of playing coy about capitalism and right-wing politics taking over the film industry is over. Bargatze is right, but it’s not just a joke. Every freedom in the arts is temporary. And if we’re not too careful, there is a lot more in this industry that we could start tacking “for now” onto.

Leila Jordan is a writer and former jigsaw puzzle world record holder. Her work has appeared in Paste Magazine, the LA Times, Business Insider, Gold Derby, TheWrap, FOX Digital, The Spool, and Awards Radar. To talk about all things movies, TV, and useless trivia you can find her @galaxyleila

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