Today marks for me the official
end of Phase One of Emmy Watch 2026 as this morning the WGA announced its
official end of year nominations for the year just past in almost every major
category.
Every major contributor to the
artistic process has end of year nominations but for the purposes of these
articles I've decided to focus on the four major ones. Earlier this month I
covered the SAG nominations for television and in this article I will look at
the nominations for the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild and the Producers
Guild.
Because these guilds cover the
entire year just past and because the Emmys remains different than that of
films historically these groups have a tendency to give their major prizes for
shows that may have aired for the previous season then the one to come. There
are exceptions in the individual awards rather than the overall ones but
because of this truth I'll be focusing more on the nominations for every group
then the actual awards.
So let's take a look at the
nominees. We'll start with the PGA which were announced on December 9th
2026.
OUTSTANDING PRODUCER OF TV DRAMA
Few surprises. Four of the
nominees were nominated for this past year: Andor, The Pitt, Severance and
The White Lotus. The other two are Season 3 of The Diplomat and Pluribus
both of which are expected to contend.
OUTSTANDING PRODUCER OF EPISODIC
TELEVISION
The Studio and Hacks represent the
past season. Season 4 of The Bear and Season 5 of Only Murders
in the Building will be eligible this next year. Despite the absence of its
nominations from the Critics Choice Awards The Bear will likely contend.
The biggest surprise is South
Park being included. South Park will technically be eligible to
compete in the comedy awards but there are different eligibility requirements
for the Emmys.
OUTSTANDING PRODUCER FOR A
LIMITED SERIES/ANTHOLOGY
Adolescence, Dying for Sex and the current season of Black
Mirror are all holdovers from last season. The Beast in Me continues
to contend. We also see the presence of the Netflix Limited Series Black
Rabbit which has received acting nominations from the Golden Globes and SAG
awards.
I'll forego the remainder of the
nominees because few involve fictional television. That said I'm glad to see Jeopardy
contending for Best Game Show.
Now on to the Directors Guild
nominations. The nominees were announced on January 7th. It's worth
remembering in television, individual achievements in direction are noting
rather than overall series.
Direction for a Drama Series
The Pitt is nominated both for the Pilot
and the 6 PM episode. Severance has a nomination for Ben Stiller for the
Season 2 finale. Andor was nominated for 'Who are You?"
Liza Johnson was nominated for
directing the 'Amagansett' episode of The Diplomat which will contender
this year.
Direction for Comedy Series
Note to the Emmys. The Directors
Guild considers White Lotus a comedy and The Bear a comedy. Keep the former in mind.
Mike White was nominated for an
individual episode but considering her writes the entire series that's
superfluous. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were nominated for directing 'The
Oner' episode of The Studio. Lucia Aniello was nominated for directing
'The Slippery Slope' episode of Hacks.
Christopher Storer and Janciza
Bravo were nominated for directing The Bear.
LIMITED AND ANTHOLOGY SERIES
In what I suspect will be the
biggest shock Adolescence was not nominated for directing. Let's
see what is.
The series finale of Dying for
Sex and the 'Common People' episode of Black Mirror were nominated.
So was Lesli Linka Glatter for Zero Day (he was also nominated by the
Emmys) Jason Bateman was nominated for directing 'The Black Rabbits' episode of
Black Rabbit and Antonio Campos was nominated for directed the 'Sick
Puppy' episode of The Beast in Me. Increasingly it looks like two series
will be contending for Emmys down the road.
Props to Jeopardy to getting a
nomination for direction. And is that the real Adam Sandler nominated for
directing The Price is Right ? No, it's someone with the same name.
Finally here are the nominations
for the WGA which were announced today
TELEVISION DRAMA
Hmm. The WGA considers The
White Lotus a drama while the DGA considers a comedy.
The other four nominees are Andor,
The Pitt, Pluribus and Severance.
COMEDY SERIES
Now The Bear is nominated
at all. The Studio and Hacks are here for the previous season: Abbott
Elementary covers this year and last. The Rehearsal covers last
year.
The new face: HBO's The Chair
Company. And the WGA likes it because…
NEW SERIES
Here's The Chair Company again.
This one might actually be the most helpful.
The Studio and The Pitt are here as
well as well as Pluribus. But we also see a face familiar from the
Golden Globes and Critics Choice nominees: Task.
LIMITED SERIES
Adolescence isn't here either. Looks like the Guild Awards have a different
opinion of it than almost everyone else. I'm beginning to like them more.
They've nominated Sirens in
its place which I find admirable and I expected to see Dying for Sex here.
Black Rabbit and The Beast in Me have cemented themselves as contenders
and we also see the presence of Death By Lightning which the Critics
recognized but no other group did.
Now on to individual episodes.
Episodic Drama:
The pilot episode of The Pitt is
the only familiar face. We do have two holdovers from last year though neither was
recognized for anything: Forever and The Handmaid's Tale.
We have the 'Got Milk' and 'Charm
Offensive' nominees of Pluribus and here is 'A Still Small Voice' for Task.
Task and Pluribus are now officially major contenders for Emmys this
fall in case there was any doubt.
Episodic Comedy
This is an interesting group. We
have the pilot episode of The Studio and we also have an episode of The
Rehearsal. We have the 'Worms' episode of The Bear for next year.
It's the other nominees I find intriguing.
We have the Prelude episode of The
Righteous Gemstones which famously told us showed how Bradley Cooper
founding the Gemstone line. We have 'A Call From God' from Mo which
hasn't really contended for much. And we have 'The Sleazy Georgian' from the
canceled Poker Face. So we're basically honoring the past but shows that
were overlooked unjustly by most awards shows.
In my opinion the biggest
surprise is that for all the acclaim that so many people gave to Adolescence
and the fact that it is the winner for Best Directing and Writing by the
Emmys last year, the respective guilds didn't even nominate the show. It's likely
this is because they consider Adolescence a British series and these are
the Writers and Directors Guild of America. Shows like Slow Horses have
faced the same obstacles from these guilds in the past and the SAG awards have
been more forgiving.
On the plus side it does give us
a chance to see which limited series may contend. The Ed Gein story
continues to be shut out but more troubling is the complete shutout of All
Her Fault by all three guilds. It
can't be laid at the feet of solely being on a service like Peacock; they had
no problem recognizing Poker Face at the WGA and numerous other programs
in non-fiction from it were nominated by all three guilds.
The most clarity we have so far
for the coming year is in Best Limited Series category. The Beast in Me now
seems like a lock to contend in every major category and Black Rabbit is
moving up rapidly. And its worth noting it is increasingly unlikely Season 2 of
The Studio will be released in time for the 2026 Emmy nominations.
The picture of the Emmy
nominations for 2026 is still fuzzy but its beginning to clarify at the official
end of Phase One. My next report will come when I deal with the NAACP Image
nominations for TV which came out earlier this month. Stay tuned.
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