2017 Emmy Nominations: Sibling Rivalries, ‘Game of Thrones’ Out, and Other First Impressions
The nominations for the 69th Emmy Awards were announced Thursday morning, and the TV Insider staff is still sorting through the list and our initial reactions to the announcements. Here are our initial thoughts:
It’s Understandable But Weird Not Seeing Game of Thrones On The Emmy Nominations List: For the first time since it debuted in 2011, Game of Thrones is not anywhere to be found on a given year’s Emmy nominee list. That has nothing to do with the show’s quality, or a deliberate snub, but everything to do with timing—the acclaimed drama’s seventh season is debuting later than usual this year (this Sunday, in fact), so it was not eligible to be among this year’s Emmy nominees. You can undoubtedly rest assured that next year at this time we’ll be seeing it on the 2018 Emmys list. In the meantime, Game of Thrones‘ exclusion opened up the field in the Outstanding Drama Series a bit—HBO’s new drama Westworld helped fill the GoT Emmy space with 22 nominations.
It Will Be “Sibling” Rivalry Of Sorts In Certain Emmy Categories: In a few acting categories, more than one actor from the same show will be vying for an award in the same category. It speaks to the high quality of a series when there are just too many good actors to narrow down for recognition. And as you can see from the names of the shows where this is happening, they are, unsurprisingly, among the most acclaimed and buzzed-about series of the year:
- Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: Milo Ventimiglia and Sterling K. Brown of NBC’s new hit This Is Us will compete here.
- Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie: Riz Ahmed and John Turturro of HBO’s The Night Of are two of the six nominees here.
- Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie: FX’s FEUD: Bette and Joan has costars Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon (pictured below) vying in this category, while HBO’s Big Little Lies also has its two strong leads—Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon—nominated here.
Emmy nominees Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis, and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford, in FEUD (FX)
- Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Hulu’s gripping The Handmaid’s Tale has both Ann Dowd and Samira Wiley nominated here.
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: Tony Hale and Matt Walsh of HBO’s Veep are in this field.
- Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: While Anna Chlumsky received her fifth straight nomination here, the rest of this category is dominated by NBC’s Saturday Night Live and Amazon’s Transparent: Vanessa Bayer, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon are up for SNL, and Transparent puts forward both Judith Light and Kathryn Hahn.
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie: FEUD puts up both Stanley Tucci and Alfred Molina in this category, while Bill Camp and Michael Kenneth Williams from The Night Of are also both nominated here.
- Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie: Big Little Lies costars Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley are both nominated, as are Judy Davis and Jackie Hoffman for FEUD.
- Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series: Denis O’Hare, Gerald McRaney and Brian Tyree Henry of This Is Us total half the nominees in this category.
- Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series: SNL captured half the nominations here, for Dave Chappelle, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Hanks, while HBO’s Girls has two nominees of its own here with Riz Ahmed and Matthew Rhys.
- Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series: SNL is at it again, here with two nominees: Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy.
Binge Is Definitely Not Fringe: At this point it’s no surprise that the age of streaming services and binge-viewing is pretty well solidified in our culture. But it’s one thing to churn out shows for streaming, and it’s quite another to make them high-quality, must-see viewing. That’s what has been happening in recent years, with high production values and big-name stars from traditional TV and films making their forays into the streaming world. This quality is reflected in the strong showing for streaming services among this year’s Emmy nominees. Netflix received 91 nominations this year, a bit behind HBO with its 111, but well ahead of the broadcast leader, NBC, which has 60 nods.
Some of the most-talked about and acclaimed TV of the past year has been on streaming, and those series names pop up throughout this year’s nominees: Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Amazon’s Transparent, Netflix’s The Crown, House of Cards, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Stranger Things (the latter show, with its 18 nominations, tied for second in overall nods). Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and the increasing other number of new streaming services are helping push all platforms to be better, and the viewers are the ultimate winners.
What about you? What have you noticed about the Emmy 2017 nominees? Any notable snubs you are upset over? Let us know in the comments section below!
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