Image via CBS
The Primetime Emmy Awards are this Sunday on CBS, hosted by Stephen Colbert, though you wouldn’t really know it. While the Emmys always lack the industry cachet of the Oscars and fail to produce timeline fodder like the Grammys or even the VMAs, this year’s celebration of TV excellence seems especially under the radar. Chalk it up to a combination of bizarre nominees (the ongoing recognition of House of Cards is criminal negligence), the absence of Game of Thrones, and the crushing inevitably of “topical” “jokes” about Russia and the White House.
Still, there are still reasons to be intrigued by the 2017 Emmys, particularly if you take all of the above as a given. I’ve finally come to accept that the Emmys don’t care about your faves, your feelings, or your predictions. The best way to approach TV’s most glamorous affair is as a series of interwoven storylines—some will carry through the entire telecast, some will disappear midway, and hopefully a few we’ll be talking about the next day. So you know, just like a TV show. Here are the six to keep in mind this year.
The Game of Thrones Vacuum Must Be Filled
The biggest show on the planet is not a nominee this year because Season 7 started too late, leaving an enormous hole in the drama categories. Thrones swept the series, writing, and directing races in both 2015 and 2016 and has consistency grabbed noms in the acting categories. Now its departure happens to correspond with an upswing in brand-new nominees in The Crown, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, This Is Us, and Westworld along with holdover talent from Better Call Saul, The Americans, and—unfortunately—House of Cards.
A major absence plus shocking turnover means we’re primed from some weirdness, particularly because this isn’t one of those changing of the guard moments the Emmys sometimes like to do. Thrones will be back to reclaim, its uhhh, throne, next year, so will voters throw longtime noms like Saul a bone, spread the love around to multiple projects, or find and replace Thrones with Westworld, another sprawling HBO genre series? This is the night’s most fascinating question.
If Netflix and Hulu Are Going To Do It, This Is The Year
You love streaming original series. I love streaming original series. But despite a significant number of nominations and some stray love for Transparent and Master of None, Emmy voters have yet to demonstrate that they fully love streaming original series. It is nice to be nominated, but not when you’re spending like Netflix and Hulu are, on both the shows and the endless For Your Consideration events used to woo voters.
This feels like the year that changes. Thrones’ absence is huge on its own, but Stranger Things and Handmaid’s Tale were surely behind it as #2 and #3 on the list of most-talked about dramas in the last year. The Crown is a show tailor-made for the older portions of the Emmy electorate. Performers from these shows (Elisabeth Moss, John Lithgow, Millie Bobby Brown, Claire Foy, Ann Dowd) have solid chances too. House of Cards is—elongated sigh—still here.
On the comedy side, Master of None turned in a second season with near-universal approval. Veep is still a force, but Master won a writing award in 2016, a telltale sign that voters know and appreciate what it does. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Grace and Frankie haven’t exactly broken through, but they’re still here.
Between all these options, Netflix and Hulu should be feeling good about its chances. Stranger Things and Handmaid’s Tale already started cleaning up at the Creative Arts Emmys. If streaming is shut out of all or even most of the big categories, it has to be viewed as a minor upset, and maybe an even bigger disappointment.
This Is Us as Broadcast TV’s Latest “Last” Hope
The last time a Big 4 (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) drama was nominated in the premier category was 2011 when both The Good Wife and Friday Night Lights scored a nod. 2011 was so long ago that people weren’t yet triggered by Modern Family winning awards, let alone five in one night.
But this year, the game’s done changed because broadcast is back, baby! This Is Us is not one of the seven best dramas on TV, but it’s a perfect representation of the big, warm shows that broadcast can do—and should do more of—and for that reason alone, it belongs in the conversation. (And really, once you nominate House of Cards again, merit is utterly meaningless.) The show is tellingly not nominated in writing or drama, but damn, that cast.
This Is Us is likely to pick up momentum early in the night when one or both of Ron Cephas Jones and Chrissy Metz win in the respective supporting categories, and Sterling K. Brown feels like a lock to win much later in the evening. Does the actor goodwill translate to a big night for NBC and broadcast TV? We also can’t ignore that the show would be the perfect choice for a feel-good, pointed Love Trumps Hate “message” that Hollywood would love to promote.
The Trump of It All
It’s unavoidable, folks. All award shows are now required to Be Political. Stephen Colbert, who pulled his CBS late night show out of a nosedive by going after the President, is hosting. Saturday Night Live is tied for the most overall nominations. Donald Trump probably loves the Emmys more than even I do and the producers of this telecast know that.
Alec Baldwin might not go Full Trump because the Emmys are airing on CBS, but you’re going to be bombarded with jokes about hacked ballots, The Apprentice’s sad lack of Emmys success, and, if we’re lucky, a few solid speeches from creatives who understand that entertainment and politics aren’t the same thing but that the platform should be used to say something meaningful nonetheless. Somebody on your timeline will tweet about how the Emmys got woke, again.
As far as awards go, the Trump Effect will play out most prominently with SNL—sure to win at least a couple of awards—and in the Variety/Talk Series races. The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was notably left out of the main competition, with Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and Colbert’s Late Show facing off to see who’s benefited most from the last year of hell.
'Atlanta’s' Coronation
Since this time last year, Donald Glover’s FX comedy has be honored by the Golden Globes, the Television Critics Association, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Writers and Producers Guild Awards, the NAACP, and the Peabody Awards. That’s about as strong of a case as you can build for a first-time nominee, especially one with a popular figure like Glover at the center.
There’s one problem with this narrative: Veep. Emmy voters love Veep just as much as they loved Modern Family in the first part of this decade, and the HBO aura is still very powerful. History says that it’s likely that Glover and Atlanta make it out of Sunday with at least one award, but it’s more probable to be in writing (where it’s nominated twice) or directing. Those are spots where similar figures like Lena Dunham, Louis CK, and Aziz Ansari have won for their hyper-personalized visions, and where voters can feel justified in recognizing new greatness when a stalwart like Veep wins the big one later.
The Limited Series or Movie Mess
It wouldn’t be a modern Emmy year without FX and HBO flooding the Limited Series and TV Movie categories, to the point where both networks have multiple projects competing with one another. Between Big Little Lies, The Night Of, The Wizard of Lies, Feud: Bette and Joan, and Fargo, cable’s two best networks have officially taken their exploitation of Emmy rules to its comical apex.
The Lead and Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie categories are, on their own, unbelievably stacked. Here are just some names to read, and potentially weep over: Carrie Coon, Nicole Kidman, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, Reese Witherspoon, Judy Davis, Laura Dern, Jackie Hoffman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Shailene Woodley. Felicity Huffman and Regina King from ABC’s American Crime are here too, just in case you weren’t sure that this was one of the greatest collections of talent we’ve seen in a given year. How voters decide to split up Ws in these races is the night’s biggest question mark, and it could matter a whole lot to HBO or FX—who pride themselves on being the most acclaimed spots on TV—if Netflix and Hulu run wild in the other categories.
I said I wouldn’t make any predictions, but for all their weirdness, the Emmys are predictable, in very frustrating ways. By the end of the night Sunday, three things are certain: 1) the show will be running over as the Veep producers accept another trophy; 2) you will be mad about almost every result; and 3) these are the storylines people will be talking about the next morning.