Emmys Analysis: How, in the Era of Peak TV, Did Just Three Shows Manage to Sweep Their Respective Genres at the Awards?
What makes the results of Monday night’s 75th Emmys particularly interesting to me is that they come at the end of a season unlike any other, in which virtually all traditional Emmy campaign tactics — as in, famous people shaking hands, kissing babies, doing interviews, appearing on FYC panels, etc. — were removed from the equation.
Even during the COVID-impacted 2020 and 2021 Emmy seasons, talent did press and made appearances, albeit remotely, which unquestionably shaped the viewing and voting priorities of TV Academy members. But the 2023 Emmy season — nomination voting for which ran June 15-26, final voting for which ran Aug. 17-28 — had none of that, at least after the Writers Guild went on strike on May 2, followed by SAG-AFTRA on July 14, with the former not resolving until Sept. 27 and the latter until Nov. 9.
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Therefore, it seems to me, voter considerations that led to the nominees that we got were as follows:
(a) What TV platforms do I already regard highly enough to pay for, and on which I can therefore easily return to ongoing programming and/or sample new programming?
The most common answers were undoubtedly HBO Max (with the returning shows Succession, Barry and The White Lotus, and the rookies The Last of Us and House of the Dragon) and Netflix (with the rookies Beef, Wednesday, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Diplomat, etc.), which lead all platforms in total nominations every single year.
(b) Which other TV companies were able to afford to thrust their programs in my face — via print and online advertisements, outdoor billboards, etc. — to the extent that I might ultimately bother to check them out too?
This list includes but is not limited to Apple TV+ (Ted Lasso, Black Bird and Shrinking), Prime Video (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Daisy Jones & the Six), Disney+ (Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium) and Hulu (Only Murders in the Building and Welcome to Chippendales).
(c) What are the “cool” people talking about on social media, the nearest thing that we have today to the water cooler?
This sort of chatter certainly reflected widespread interest in some of the aforementioned shows. But it also elevated into the conversation high-quality shows from less omnipresent and/or deep-pocketed platforms (e.g. FX’s The Bear, Showtime’s Yellowjackets, The Roku Channel’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and Amazon Freevee’s Jury Duty).
That speaks to the nominees. But how, on Monday night, near the height of the “Peak TV” era, with some 500 scripted shows currently on TV, did we end up with just three shows essentially dominating?
Specifically: Succession won best drama, directing for a drama, writing for a drama and three of the four drama acting awards (the other went to The White Lotus). The Bear won best comedy, directing for a comedy, writing for a comedy and three of the four comedy acting awards (the other went to ABC’s Abbott Elementary, the lone win for the Big Four broadcast networks that annually take turns airing the Emmys and further promoting their competition). And Beef won best limited/anthology, directing for a limited/anthology, writing for a limited/anthology and two of the four limited/anthology acting awards (the other two went to Black Bird and Dahmer).
The answer, I believe, is this: though there is more TV out there than ever before, your average TV Academy member is not able or willing to consume more of it than he or she used to. This might not be apparent based on the considerable number of shows that got at least some nominations. But I think it is clearer when you look at the relatively small number of scripted shows that got a substantial — as in, double-digit — number of noms: the dramas Succession (27), The Last of Us (24) and The White Lotus (23); the comedies Ted Lasso (21), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (14), The Bear (13), Wednesday (12), Barry (11) and Only Murders in the Building (11); and the limited/anthology series Beef (13) and Dahmer (13).
That is, I think, the core group of scripted shows that most TV Academy members at least sampled, and that were therefore widely seen and liked enough to have a real shot at winning. After those shows, I suspect there was a massive dropoff in the number of voters who watched anything else.
One thing that has changed is that, with so much quality TV out there for voters to pick from, patience for mediocrity is shorter than ever. Many used to criticize the TV Academy for rubberstamping the same shows year after year, even after their best days were behind them (see: Modern Family). But these days, if a show slips even a little, voters may continue to nominate it, but they will speedily abandon it and move on to something else on their final ballot, never to return, even if the quality of the show does. I think that this helps to explain how three past years’ Emmy darlings — Ted Lasso, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Barry — all got shutout on Monday night, in their last year of eligibility (unlike Succession, the quality of which never wavered, and which went out with a win).
And sometimes a show doesn’t even have to slip in order to be forgotten. I find it a bit sad that AMC’s Better Call Saul exhausted its final season of eligibility without any wins, meaning it finished its run by going an unprecedented 0-for-53, despite being every bit as great, in the eyes of many, as the show from which it was spun off, AMC’s Breaking Bad, which was an Emmys darling.
What changed in the intervening decade? It’s hard to say. It could be that AMC is no longer one of the handful of networks that voters prioritize, for whatever reasons (many have lost patience for commercial interruptions, which could be a factor). A portion of voters may have chosen to move on from the show after it failed to win earlier in its run, preferring to remain current with shows that were winning. Or any number of other things could have happened. But to me, Better Call Saul is the ultimate reminder — and cautionary tale — that contrary to popular belief, the Emmys does not recognize the best shows on television. Rather, the Emmys recognizes the best shows on television that 23,000 people from across 31 different parts of the industry could be convinced to watch.
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