A recalibration of two Primetime Emmy Awards categories promises to broaden the scope and, to name a ripple effect, give Saturday Night Live greater competition in what was known as Variety Sketch Series racing.
For six years in a row (and six of eight years since the Variety Series category was split into Variety Talk Series and Variety Sketch Series), NBC SNL won the award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series.
But over the past two years, the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series category has fielded only two contenders: SNL and HBO A dark lady sketch show. (And in 2020, there was just Three nominees, adding in Comedy Central drunk story.)
In the Variety Talk Series category, meanwhile, HBO Last week tonight with John Oliver won for the past Seven years, competing with people like The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and Conan.
But a change to those categories for 2023 — now titled Outstanding Scripted Variety Series and Outstanding Talk Series — paves the way for SNL face more challengers, and in fact can force Last week tonight with John Oliver to rival NBC’s long-running sketch comedy series.
Under changes to the Emmys rules, a scripted variety series is defined as “a variety show that is mostly scripted or loosely scripted improvisationand comprised of understated scenes, satires, musical numbers, monologues, comedic stand-ups, skits, and more. Scripted variety series may sometimes feature unscripted elements, but the primary intent of the series is scripted or acted out entertainment.”
Meaning, the mostly scripted Last week tonight might now have to compete as a variety series.
Conversely, a Talk Series is defined as “a program where a significant portion of the runtime consists of unscripted interviews or panel discussions between a host(s) and celebrities or personalities. Usually these celebrities or personalities change for each episode, interviews or discussions usually take place in a studio (or studio) and are primarily for entertainment purposes as opposed to documentary purposes. A talk series may include scripted elements and other aspects of a variety series such as monologues, musical performances, etc., as long as the main intention of the program is interviews/discussions.”
What do you think of the above changes? Are you looking forward to SNLIs the streak of six consecutive years in question? And are you disgusted Last week tonightCan the seven-year streak end?