As always, this is historically the time of year
I begin my attempt to predict the Emmy nominations. Television is in a time of
transition and while Peak TV may officially have ended that doesn't mean
they're still isn't a lot of great television around.
Furthermore with television completing its first
full season post-strike many contenders who were ineligible in the last year or
even the last two years have returned to battle for Emmy glory. And as the
Golden Globes and so many previous awards shows during the early months of 2025
have indicated there is a strong possibility that many new faces will be making
their Emmy debuts in both drama and comedy and could very well be there for
years to come. And best of all, considering how many upsets there were last
September, long-time viewers now know very well there are no certainties in any
category for front-runners.
With that mind I will continue the system of
predictions I did last year. With each category I will divide the number of
nominees between those shows that are certain to be among the contenders and
those that are somewhat more likely to fall under the radar. I am now also
aware of the sliding scale of nominations that the Emmys follows – it is
now based on the number of submissions
for each category rather than a fixed number. How closely I follow that rule,
well, will see. And as always for each category there will be one nominee that
I list as FYC: that the Emmys might very well overlook.
I will begin as I always do with Drama.
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
For the first time since 2012, when Breaking
Bad managed its first Emmy victory over previous winners Mad Men and
Homeland, there is no out-and-out frontrunner in this category. Game
of Thrones and Succession are gone and previous winners like The
Crown and Shogun are either gone or ineligible this year. Furthermore
all of the major awards at the end of 2025 more or less gave the majority of
the awards for Drama for Shogun, which isn't going to be contending
until next year at the very least.
Early contenders in this category have included Day
of the Jackal and The Diplomat but their buzz has started to fade if
the Astra nominations are any indication. Industry which had some early
buzz is likely to fall by the side for other HBO dramas and I can't honestly
see The Old Man contending. And there's only one drama from 2024 still
eligible for this year.
So with that in mind, here are my predictions for
what will certainly be a wild race.
The Last of Us (HBO)
There has been a lot of controversy, particularly
from the toxic world of gamers who are really angry about the portrayal of
Ellie onscreen and have spent a lot of time trying to review bomb this series
to death the way they do so many other IP that dares to deviate one iota from
the original material. There was also quite a bit of anger by some people who
were upset the show was too faithful to the source material,
particularly considering that it led to the death of Joel in the second
episode.
Because I am concerned with such insignificant
details as seeing a great story unfold, brilliant writing, directing and acting
on the screen I did the best I could to shove all of that aside. (That's only
slightly easier than avoiding infection in the series.) And by those minor
standards Season 2 of The Last of Us was one of the great achievements
of 2025, full stop. The secret that Joel had kept from Ellie the last five
years finally came out and we realized the horror of it and we also saw the
long trail of broken people it left in its way. We saw revenge carry every
major character in this season: Abby's quest to kill Joel, Ellie's
determination to kill Abby that led her to Seattle and to an endless quest of
dead bodies even before it was, shocking, called short.
But we also saw the power of love. Not just in
the penultimate episode which showed moments of joy but the fledgling romance
between Dina and Ellie, but the devotion between all the characters – and the
horrors it left in its wake. It not only made this show one of the most
frightening series but one of the deepest and profound. That all of this comes
from a video game adaptation strikes me that for the first time great art can
come from gaming.
The show dominated the Emmy nominations in 2023
and won the most with 8. The question is not how many nominations it will get
this time but whether it can win the prize with the Roy family out of the
running.
Matlock (CBS)
Network TV has been having a moment which is one
of the most pleasant surprises of TV post-strike. I honestly thought the labor
stoppage would be the final nail in the coffin of what was once the only game
in town. Instead, it is beginning to flourish not just critically but from the
perspective of audiences. There are shows that deserve to be here and I could
argue for Elsbeth or Will Trent but the general consensus is that
the series that has the best chance of breaking into the field since This is
Us left the airwaves is this reimagining of Matlock.
To be clear this is a reboot in name only. In the
world that Mattie Matlock inhabits Matlock was a TV show and she has
decided to use that personality to infiltrate a New York law firm in order to
find out who is responsible for hiding documents that could have ended the
opioid crisis ten years earlier and avoided countless deaths – including her
daughter's. Kathy Bates has been a presence in Peak TV since her guest work in Six
Feet Under but she's never had a role like this in which her cheerful front
is a cover for a shark who is just as determined for justice as anyone we've
seen on TV in years. Annalyse Keating would bow to this woman.
The series also features a superb group of
co-stars from newcomer Skye P. Marshall who's work as Olivia shines throughout
to Jason Ritter as her ex-husband who's innocent look hides a cutting force. There
have been such extraordinary recurring character portrayals by such genius
talents as Beau Bridges, never more frightening and Julie Hagerty and Sam
Anderson as Mattie's nearest and dearest.
It's likely many of the actors will receive
nominations but Matlock's only history with the Emmys in the original
series may help it here. Mattie is the hero we need this era and Matlock is
the kind of show broadcast TV needs right now.
Paradise (Hulu)
The last time Dan Fogler and Sterling K. Brown
got together it was for This is Us and the result led to multiple Emmy
nominations and quite a few awards for both Brown and the show. Now the two
have reteamed for a series that couldn't be more different from the world of
Pearsons save it's for extraordinary quality.
The series initially frames itself as a murder
mystery – who killed the former President of the United States Cal Bradford(James
Marsden cast immensely against type) and then unfolds to reveal that we are
actually in an underground community after an extinction level event. The twist
could have completely undone the series. Instead, it became a riveting
character portrayal of a world that came a bleak portray of a dystopian future
by arguing that even after the apocalypse, nothing in our society would ever change.
We will still have the powers that be trying to distract us with cheese fries
and carnivals while denying both the outside world and how it has infiltrated
inside. Furthermore the penultimate episode of the series is one of the most
gripping portrayals of the world coming to an end as I've ever seen on the
small screen – and rarely on the big screen. It was shocking not just to see it
unfold but to see how even to the very end the powers were more determined to
keep the illusion of normality going right until the lights went out for good.
The series features three of the best
performances of 2025, Brown, Marsden and Julianne Nicholson all of whom deserve
to contend for Emmy this year (I'll get to them one by one) but I believe Paradise
should contend for Best Drama because it tells a story that for all its
very real desolation has moments of hope and happiness in it. I can't wait for
Season 2 and I want to see it contend here.
The Pitt (HBO Max)
It started out seeming very much like a rip-off
of ER or perhaps a reboot of it. But very quickly The Pitt became
one of the most riveting dramas of 2025.
Noah Wyle is back in scrubs but no one will
mistake Dr. Rabinovitch for Dr. Carter even fifteen years later. The boyish
look that has carried him all this is gone and there's someone more cynical
underneath. As he leads the ER through a chaotic shift (the season is filmed in
real time) we see some of the great actors many unknown return to form. Some of
them are children of famous talent: Fiona Dourif and Taylor Dearden and they
more than make their parents proud. Other like Katherine LaNasa and Patrick Ball
have been around for a bit but they shine in a way we haven't seen.
Shonda Rhimes has done much to kind of waylay the
medical drama is as much bedroom drama as in the OR and ER. There's no time for
that in The Pitt. It helps that John Wells, who's been working in this
world even after ER ended is one of the forces behind it and that none
of the people here are the best of the best the same way we see at whatever
they're calling Seattle Grace now.
Somehow Noah Wyle has never won an Emmy. That's
unjust. I would love to see him take the prize this time out even though I know
he'll get more than a few chances. But I'm also thrilled to see the medical
drama reviving itself (sorry) after years mired in Shondaland and back in
contention for awards.
Severance (Apple TV)
We had to wait almost three whole years to return
to the corporate world of Lumen that we left on such a bizarre cliffhanger back
in March of 2022. Once we returned the weirdness started early and never left.
We had a goalkeeper played by Gwendoline
Christie. We learned more of the story behind Helly, the woman who was the new
employee in Season 1 and may have been more behind the whole thing in Season 2.
We learned the truth behind the relationship of Mark and the wife he thought
was gone forever but was really just down the hall. We saw one of the severed
lives choose to destroy himself. And we saw the story of Burt and Irv play out
even further – and to what may be a heartbreaking conclusion. And then we saw the
realization of what Cold Harbor was and what Luman may be working on.
We also saw, yet again, some of the greatest
actors in television history at the peak of their profession. We saw Adam Scott
demonstrate yet again why he is one of the greatest actors in TV and why John
Turturro, Christopher Walken and Patricia Arquette are among the greatest in
history. We saw that Dan Erikson continued to create one of the most memorable
and surreal dramas of all time. And as a bonus, we realized that Ben Stiller is
one of the greatest directors of all time far beyond the level of comedy that
we've associated him with all this time.
Severance is currently the front runner for Best Drama in what is likely to be
a very close race among four major contenders. I may not watch the show but I
am a huge fan of all the talent involved and I would love to see quite a few of
them on the Emmy stage this year. They will be, if not this year then soon.
Slow Horses (Apple TV)
Like the Emmys themselves, last year I fell in
love with an ugly, flatulent, alcoholic chain smoking, dirty old man named
Jackson Lamb and the agents at Slough Houses. "They don't like to be
called the rejects", Lamb tells a newcomer even though he openly berates
them. The difference is, he's the only one who's still willing to give them a
chance.
From the extraordinary adaptations of the novels
of Mick Herron, we return to the world of London under MI5. 'Lady Di' is now
First Desk at MI5 (an extraordinary Kristin Scott Thomas) having decided that
she'd waited to long for a promotion and was willing to throw both her mentor
under the bus and allow many of her own people to die in order to do so. Now
terrorism and an assassin is walking through the streets of London after a
bombing and the only people who have a chance of stopping it are the Slow Horses.
The fact that they've done so for three straight seasons doesn't stop us from
being filled with terror at that concept – as well as often hysterical
laughter.
The recently knighted Gary Oldman is clearly
having the time of his life as Jackson Lamb, as every line out of his mouth is
a hysterical insult that Logan Roy would be envious of for its originality. It
covers what is a first-class mind who always seems so put out when he realizes,
yes I have to save London again. He's joined by a wonderful group of performers
including the marvelous Jack Lowden, who's energy and dynamism is balanced by a
complete lack of competence in everything else – and he's probably the best
agent Lamb has. Now he finds himself dealing with the real ghosts of his own
past and they are terrifying to look at.
Slow Horses actually managed to win Best Dramatic teleplay in a year that was
dominated mostly by Shogun particularly when its very presence at the
Emmys (it received eleven nominations) was one of the most pleasant surprises
of 2024. I can't wait to see it back there yet again to continue playing that
strange, strange game.
The White Lotus (HBO)
Last time I refused to give credit to The
White Lotus in this category because I was not willing to conceded that the
show was a drama. The fact that Jennifer Coolidge received awards from various
organization for 'Best Comic Performance' should have told the Emmys they were
wrong. But having seen the start of Season 3 I'm far more comfortable with it
being considered one this time around – mainly because almost from the start,
the show seems to be willing to explore far darker territory.
As always we have the wide away of brilliant
character actors assembled but this time around the guests are far more
comfortable walking the line between drama and comedy. What laughter we get has
a meanness to it we haven't usually seen and for once the bleakness begins to
infiltrate the glamorous setting (in this case the jungles of Thailand) almost
from the start and never leaves. The Ratliff's are on a college project and
they're snapping at each other from the start, the father too noisy, the mother
laughing too loudly, the children too clearly dysfunctional. Three childhood
friends are here on a 'girls trip' and it doesn't take long for the laughing
and joking to have barbs and for two to start talking each other down. The
middle-aged man and his yoga instructor girlfriend can't even wait until they
get properly in the cabin to start snapping at each other and it's clear that
there isn't enough wellness at this retreat to fix the hole in the man's soul.
As always some of the greatest and most
underrated character actors in television are among the guest and I will have
no problem advocating and indeed seeing many of them receiving nominations and
wins. I'm already pulling for Walton Goggins and Carrie Coon finally getting
the Emmys they've been unfairly denied for their careers but I wouldn't object
to seeing such talents as Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey recognized for their
work as Timothy and Victoria Ratliff either. How much Emmy love the show
receives is an open question (it received eight nominations in these categories
last time out) but while I won't personally advocate for them, seeing such
undervalued talent as Sam Rockwell, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb among the
nominees would be restorative to my soul.
It's worth noting White Lotus is the only
previous winner of any kind eligible, albeit in Best Limited Series the first
time. Could it prevail against some of the other contenders? We'll have to see.
Yellowjackets (Showtime)
What if there was nothing in the woods but the
girls? What if all they brought back with them was trauma they never dealt
with?
After two years since the shocking end of Season
2, Yellowjackets resumed with no real break and demonstrated yet again
how as adults the survivors would rather do anything else that deal with or
discuss the trauma they suffered in the woods. Tai spent the season denying the
reality of Van's cancer, willing to kill and give sacrifices to the wilderness
that Van didn't want. Misty denied dealing with Nat's death by trying to
essentially become her and refusing to acknowledge she was just the same loser
who came out of the woods. Shauna continues the long path of blaming everything
that happened on everything else until we increasingly realized she enjoyed
being the agent of chaos. And Lottie seemed to move towards a fate she's been
waiting her entire life for.
By contrast everything in the past almost seemed
a day in the woods as the girls slipped deeper into their madness and
increasingly seized on visions that weren't there and their own cliques. Shauna
raised a lynch mob to kill Coach Scott and when they were feasting on him,
rescue came – and the girls seemed to want to stay.
We now know that next season will deal with
rescue and we now know the girls will never recover from it. What is unclear is
what will happen in the future now that everything has blown-up. We do know
that this remains the absolutely wildest and craziest show on television and
one of the most popular. We know it contains some of the greatest actresses at
the peak of their form and that Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci absolutely
deserve both Emmy nominations and awards as does everyone else in the cast. And
we know it can only get more crazy, fun and wondrous and strange.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
High Potential
I could use this space to advocate for Will
Trent or Elsbeth again but this time there's a possibility one of
the shows I like might contend. High Potential has been rising in the
Emmy odds, particularly for the work of Kaitlin Olson. This is another well
done procedural with a superb mix of comedy and drama that I find irresistible.
It features one of the greatest comic actresses of all time (and she's going to
get at least one Emmy nomination this year, don't worry) tweaking her
personality just enough in the same way that such masters as Bryan Cranston and
Bob Odenkirk have done over the years. That she's using her powers for good
rather than evil might be an argument against her were the series around her
not one of the more imaginative and well done procedurals I've seen so far this
decade – and we've had a lot of good procedurals.
The series handles both the case of the week and
an underlying mystery extremely well. It has a group of exceptional character
actors to follow both in the cast (Carla Reyes!) and as guest stars (Garret
Dillahunt!) It has a great sense of humor, love for the family, cracking
romantic chemistry and in the season finale, the possibility of a serial killer
having targeted the family. It might be a bit pat to say this series has high
potential but it does deserve the recognition of so many other shows.
Tomorrow I deal with Outstanding Lead Actor in a
Drama. That's going to be a headache.
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