SPECIAL COMMENTARY: 2021 Emmy Nominations Analysis

The 73rd Annual Primetime Emmy Award nominations were announced today and, as usual, there were plenty of expected nominations, some satisfying surprises and some mystifying snubs. Here are some of my thoughts from the nominations!

Comedy and Drama Front-Runners Cement Themselves

Going in, we knew that Ted Lasso and The Crown were the likely frontrunners and that was proven true on nominations morning with both leading the pack in their respective categories. Ted Lasso picked up 20 nominations, the most ever for a freshman comedy while The Crown had 24 nominations, tied with The Mandalorian for the most for any series. They also picked up just about every acting nomination they could so it's full steam ahead to the Emmys. The biggest threat to Lasso is likely Hacks which did better than expected and has the frontrunner for Comedy Actress in Jean Smart. The biggest threat to The Crown might be The Handmaid's Tale which way overperformed in the acting categories a year after several acting snubs.

Limited Series is a Tight Race

The third of the trifecta of frontrunners seemed to be The Queen's Gambit, but things seem a little closer now with Queen's doing well but perhaps slightly underperforming (including misses for Marielle Heller and Bill Camp). Meanwhile, WandaVision had a huge showing with 23 nominations, the most for any series not named The Crown or The Mandalorian. Mare of Easttown, I May Destroy You and The Underground Railroad all performed pretty well too and there are scenarios where I can see any of the nominees winning. I would still call Gambit the frontrunner but it's not nearly as strong a frontrunner as Ted Lasso or The Crown.

The Hamilton Problem

The biggest problem among the Emmy nominees was the presence of Hamilton, which picked up a whopping seven nominations in the Limited Series acting categories. It was controversial to include the actors at all in these categories considering it's a filmed Broadway performance in 2016 that was originally planned for the big screen and only moved to Disney+ because of the pandemic. Now that they took nominations from some very deserving actors of quality limited series, there's even more eye-rolling. The Emmys should have allowed Hamilton to compete as a special but not allowed the actors to compete. I love Hamilton but it did not belong here.

About Emily in Paris

An Emily in Paris nomination for Comedy Series seemed pretty unthinkable after how much mockery the Golden Globes received for nomination the show and its star, Lily Collins. Collins didn't pick up an Emmy nomination but the show did over some other hopefuls like Girls5Eva, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and Master of None. I'm not as outraged as some but I don't think the series deserved a nomination. Still, it speaks to the power of Netflix. There's no way the show would have been nominated on a less visible cable network or streamer (it was originally slated for Paramount Network). Meanwhile, a show like Girls5Eva seemed to suffer a lot from being on Peacock. If it had been on Netflix, I think it would have been a much different morning for that show.

The Snubs

For every pleasant surprise (yay Mj Rodriguez!), there are always going to be snubs. The most egregious this year was Ethan Hawke for The Good Lord Bird, a presumed frontrunner to win. Hawke's masterful performance really should have earned a nomination even if the show got nothing else and it's a big miss by the Emmys that he missed. Some other notable snubs were Renee Elise Goldsberry for Girls5Eva (though she got a nomination for Hamilton, sigh) and John Boyega for Small Axe, another presumed frontrunner. And of course there were some hopes I had for shows like For All Mankind and P-Valley even if I knew they were very unlikely.