Early in the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday night, host Kenan Thompson mentioned that the Emmys honored hundreds of television shows over the past year, “and we gave awards to about five of them.”
In years past, that scathing joke about Emmy voters’ propensity to toss out a lot of trophies in just a few shows would have been spot on. Last year, after all, saw the first sweep in the drama categories, when “The Crown” won all seven awards handed out in the primetime show; the year before, “Schitt’s Creek” swept all seven comedy categories, the first show to accomplish that feat in any genre.
But within the first hour of Monday’s Emmys, the show had surpassed Thompson’s prediction and had already awarded awards to eight different shows. The top two comedy awards went to “Abbott Elementary” and “Ted Lasso,” the drama awards went to “Ozark” and “Succession,” and the limited series awards went to “Dopesick” and “The White Lotus.” No show received a second Emmy until Jennifer Coolidge won the second for “The White Lotus” 71 minutes into the ceremony.
Of course, that’s not to say that the Emmys remained totally egalitarian. Once Coolidge won that second award for “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s limited series ran up the table in the last three categories it was nominated for: directing, writing, and Best Limited Series or Anthology. “Ted Lasso” and “Succession” also finished well and picked up the series’ big wins, but they didn’t stop ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and Netflix’s “Squid Game” from picking up a couple of significant wins apiece.
In the end, four different drama series and three different comedy series went home with trophies. That’s a significantly more diverse showing than 2021, when one show won all the drama awards and two split the comedy ones. And when you add in the three limited series and four reality/variety series that also won, it means that Kenan Thompson’s quip about five shows that won all the Emmys missed the mark by quite a bit.
It’s good for the Emmys that voters found room to recognize “Abbott Elementary” star and creator Quinta Brunson’s achievement in bringing strong comedy back to broadcast television, handing out key directing and acting awards to the groundbreaking series. Korean “Squid Game” while also greeting Zendaya for “Euphoria” and Julia Garner for “Ozark”.
The big prizes for the most part went to the favorites: “Succession,” “Ted Lasso,” “The White Lotus,” “Saturday Night Live,” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” which apparently never lose, but there were enough surprises to make this a satisfying collection of winners. And voters suggested conventional wisdom may be suspect when dealing with the Television Academy, particularly when it comes to the idea that a show with multiple nominations in one category is in danger of splitting the vote. Coolidge won despite being one of only five (!) nominees for “White Lotus” in its category, Matthew Macfayden was one of three nominees for “Succession” for Supporting Actor in a Drama, and Sheryl Lee Ralph one of the three “Abbott Elementary” supporting comedies. nominees for actress
Another delightful surprise came in the Outstanding Competition Program category, which is known for its long winning streaks and seemed likely to go on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” for the fifth year in a row. Instead, “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” dethroned “Drag Race” and became the only freshman show to win in that category. (The Prime Video show’s nomination had already made it the first freshman series since 2006 to earn a nomination.)
This wasn’t a groundbreaking or shocking Emmy, but it did provide valuable evidence that voters aren’t all that united and that the past two years of sweeps might have been a passing phase rather than a trend. The wealth was also spread across networks and streamers, with HBO and HBO Max claiming a total of 38 Emmys, while Netflix followed with 26. (In addition to the HBO loot, Warner Bros. Discovery’s TBS and CNN each got one each.) one).
In the end, you can’t be too disappointed in a show that finds ways to pay tribute to Quinta Brunson. Y Brett Goldstein Jesse Armstrong Y Hwang Dong-hyuk, Mike White Y Michael Keaton Lizzo Y Jerrod Carmichael: A worthy and diverse list of winners on a night that needed them.
