BENJAMONSTER AWARDS 2026: Outstanding Writing of a Limited/Anthology Series

Today's award is Outstanding Writing of a Limited/Anthology Series!

Past Awards in This Category: 2025   2024   2023   2022   2021   2020

This year's nominees are...












STEVEN CONRAD, DTF St. Louis (HBO)
ISIS DAVIS & SMITA BHIDE, The Girlfriend "Episode 4" (Prime Video)
RICHARD GADD, Half Man (HBO)
MIKE MAKOWSKY, Death By Lightning (Netflix)
KIM ROSENSTOCK, Love Story "Battery Park" (FX)
LEE SUNG JIN AND ANNA OUYANG MOENCH & GREG HONG, Beef "The Increasing Flimsiness of Any Certainties About the Future" (Netflix)

And the Winner Is...
MIKE MAKOWSKY
Death By Lightning (Netflix)
One of my biggest gripes with Limited Series since I started doing these awards is how often they feel inflated. Even though I like longer seasons for on-going series like The Pitt, there have been way too many starry limited series that just don't have enough story to tell over eight or ten episodes but also can't detour in the way an ongoing series can. So Death by Lightning and its mere four episodes was a breath of fresh air. If anything, I think it could have stood to have one or two more episodes but that's a good problem to have. The writing was efficient enough to thoughtfully tell the story in four episodes and I'm here for that for stories that don't need to be longer.

Thoughts on the Rest of the Nominees:
Kim Rosenstock was the winner in this category last year for Dying for Sex and she returns to the category with a thoughtful interpretation of a famous paparazzi scene between JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in Love Story's "Battery Park" episode. The fourth episode of The Girlfriend was the most tightly plotted in a generally underrated show. The third episode of Beef felt the most locked in before it started to drift a bit off course for me, and it also had some great humor. A couple other full series writers made the list too. Richard Gadd's writing for Half Man was relentlessly dark but interesting while Steven Conrad struck an odd tone in DTF St. Louis but had some interesting reflections from the characters about life.

Tomorrow: Outstanding Writing of a Drama Series!

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