The 2024 Emmy Nominations Signal That a New TV Era Is Here
Photos Courtesy of Apple TV+, Prime Video, and FX
Doesn’t it feel like we just did this? Well, we did. After the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes delayed the 75th Emmys ceremony to this past January, it’s already time to start looking at the nominations for the 76th Emmys that will air this September. And after a strange midseason ceremony, the hope is this awards season will be an evening out of a hectic year for TV.
But the 76th Emmys are also serving as a major turning point in the selection of nominations. The strikes acted as a dividing line; a definitive end to a certain era of accelerated production and a “sky’s the limit” mentality to what TV can offer.
The biggest changing of the guard can be seen in the Outstanding Drama Series category, where all the nominated shows except The Crown are newcomers to the categories. This comes on the sundown of a certain era of HBO that saw Succession come to an end, while also weathering a year between House of the Dragon and The Last of Us seasons.
Outstanding Drama Series is simultaneously home to shows like The Gilded Age and The Morning Show that have slowly collected more and more nominations with each passing season (The Morning Show especially has been a classic collector of a multitude of acting nominations with few wins). The remaining presence of the last season of The Crown marks the end of the era of prestige drama TV it came from. While the show is no stranger to major wins in the past (including a major sweep in 2021 that saw it win top prizes for Drama, Lead Actor, Lead Actress, and Writing, among others), a win for this season would feel more like a lifetime achievement award ala Game of Thrones’s win for its final season. But the category is also rife with shows coming right off their first seasons.
Instead, Outstanding Drama series is filled with a more unusual type of show: Hollywood’s beloved Intellectual Property. Four of the newcomers are based on existing material (videogames for Fallout, an existing movie for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and books for Shōgun, 3 Body Problem, and Slow Horses). While IP domination has become commonplace for film blockbusters and summer release slates, seeing so many shows based on existing material in the Emmys for Drama Series indicates that the IP mindset of film has infected the TV industry as well.
What is refreshing about this drama slate is a variety of tones and genres. Seeing two sci-fi series and several thriller and mystery shows is a welcome surprise alongside the classic period dramas and Funny Actors Being Serious types that have had success in the drama category in the past. Genre offerings have long been the backbone of TV, but rarely are they given such major accolade consideration.
The comedy categories are fairly business as usual, with the only major substitution being The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel bowing out and the entrance of Palm Royale. And while there are some small wonderful surprises (The Other Two getting a writing nomination for its last season and an actor nomination for Reservation Dogs’ D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) the category is mostly a formality. Last year’s sweep of The Bear across all its nominated categories for Season 1 was likely due to many voters thinking they were voting for Season 2. So now that it’s Season 2’s time to shine, it will likely face little competition.