How Hackers Defeated the Bear, Shogun Changed the Rules of the Game

At the 75th Emmy Awards, which honored television work spanning 2022-2023 but was postponed until January 2024 due to industry strikes, Television Academy members rallied almost exclusively behind one series (the departing HBO series Inheritance), Single Comedy (FX Series Debut) Bear) and a single limited series/anthology (Netflix Beef).

Eight months later, at the 76th Emmy Awards — both last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony and Sunday’s Primetime gala — two shows achieved record numbers: the FX limited series-turned-drama Shogun won 18 awards, more than any other show in a single series; and the second season Bear won 11, breaking her own record for most comedy wins in a single series by one.

AND Alreadystrangely enough, at the 76th Emmy there was not such a dominant role of the three main genres as at the 75th. Listen to me…

Beareven with an incredible number of wins — including awards for directing (Christopher Storerfor the episode “Fish” crazy) and three for regulars (actor Jeremy Allen White and supporting actor Black Moss-Bachrach for the second time in a row, plus supporting actress Liza Colon-Zayas) — still hasn’t won the award for best comedy.

The second season competed for this award, in a shocking surprise that no one had anticipated. Bear was defeated by the third season of the HBO/Max series Hacks(These two shows have never competed against each other before: the first two seasons Hacks lost the first two seasons Ted Lassowhereas Hacks it wasn’t on air last year when Bear (He was in the race for the first time.)

How did that happen? Well, first of all, there’s clearly a lot of love for Hackswho also defeated Bear for best comedy actress (Jean Smartwho also won the award for the two previous seasons of the show, came out on top Ayo Edebiriwhich won the best comedy category in the last series supporting actress) and best comedy script (Hackswho had previously won his first season, was probably helped in this cycle by the fact that Bear (it had two nominees in that category — but it also sent out a hell of a good episode in the season three finale.)

But apart from that I think that these rumors about Bear existence Great But not funnywhich began in its first season, reached its peak in the final round of Emmy voting, as voters considered the show’s second season but also watched its decidedly not funny season three, which has just started airing. (Another reason I think voters were thinking about season three when they voted for season two was because Colón-Zayas won season two, even though she was much stronger in season three.)

When voters were wondering whether Bear it’s really a comedy, I suspect many have come to the conclusion that talent shouldn’t be punished Bear for promoting it in this way — but I hesitated to give it the Best Comedy award again, which traditionally goes to shows that make you laugh like Modern family, Spectator, Schitt’s River AND Ted Lasso.

In addition, HBO, an outside agency that was hired to help with this season Hacks awards campaign and the talent behind it Hacks he convincingly emphasized during the election campaign how difficult it is to create a comedy about comedy. It’s a zero-sum game: people either laugh or they don’t. And there’s no denying that when it comes to Hackspeople laugh.

For me, it’s a nice thing that both of these great shows have already won major awards. And I think in the future, FX and the talent behind them Bear should call people’s bluff and promote the third season as a drama. It’s too early to know what the competitive landscape will look like, but I suspect the show would hold up under that label.

Speaking of category reclassifications, Shogun was originally intended to be a limited series, but was so well-received by critics and viewers that it was ordered for additional seasons, turning it into a drama series for the Emmys. And it made history not only for its number of wins, but also for becoming the first largely non-English-language television show ever to be honored as best drama. (Netflix’s Squid game he was close two years ago but ultimately lost to Inheritance.)

For that reason, this Emmys may be remembered more for that than anything else — as a historic turning point, similar to the 2021 Oscars, which Parasite became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. Perhaps in a few years, the idea of ​​a separate International Emmy ceremony will be considered obsolete.

Shogun also won awards for Best Director, Best Drama Actor and Best Drama Actress. And yet, once again, there is reason to believe that this was not the result of lazy voting for the “collar,” as he also lost the awards for Supporting Drama Actor (his two nominees were beaten by Billy Crudup with Apple TV+ Morning program) and writing (Slow horses won, perhaps partly because Shogun He had multiple nominations that divided his support). He had no nominations for supporting actress (which Crown‘S Elizabeth Debicki (she won, just like she did at every other awards show over the past year).

This brings us to Netflix’s limited series. Little reindeera personal and painful autobiographical adventure written by and with the participation of an unknown author Richard GaddBack in early June, even the streamer itself didn’t consider the series a major Emmy contender, but it organically built a massive audience, sparked passionate cultural conversations, and ultimately became an unstoppable force (despite the best efforts of the real-life woman who helped inspire the show). It ultimately beat out stiff competition to win Best Limited/Anthology Series, Limited/Anthology Screenplay (Gadd), Limited/Anthology Actor (Gadd), and Supporting Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series (Jessica Gunning).

But at the same time, three of his four fierce competitors for Best Limited/Anthology Series also beat him out for other major awards. For Directing a Limited/Anthology Series, he won Steven Zailliandirector of another stunning Netflix project, Ripleyover Little reindeer‘S Veronica TofilskaThe award for best supporting actor went to Lamorne MorrisFX star Fargoover Little reindeer‘S Tom Goodman Hill. In retrospect, Netflix probably regrets not casting Gunning in the lead role, which would have paved the way for his co-star Nava Mau supporting and potentially resulting in two acting wins; the category for Leading Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series was won instead Jodie Fosterstar of the HBO series Detective: Night Country.

Apart from the three main species, there were several other noteworthy findings.

I’m happy for the people behind the streaming service Peacock, who have been toiling away for years trying to win Emmys for their shows, but have never made it this far. It’s really hard to get people to change their TV viewing habits in any way, let alone check out another new streamer. But with Traitorsa fledgling show, they managed to do just that, eventually winning the Best Reality Show category, beating out MTV RuPaul’s Drag Racewho has won the award in five of the last six years. Host Traitors, Alan CummingHe also won the award for best host of a reality or competition show at last week’s Creative Arts Emmys, snapping RuPauleight-year winning streak.

Meanwhile, Comedy Central continues to dominate the talk show series category. Daily program – With Jon Stewartbut not anymore with Jon Stewart — won this year for the first time since Stewart returned to the show. But while Stewart’s performances on Monday nights were great, the show wouldn’t have won if the other hosts hadn’t done well on the other nights of the week, so special congratulations to Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta AND Desi Lydian. (Daily program he also won last year, Trevor Noah(This is Stewart’s final season as presenter, but the show hasn’t been recognized since 2015, when she last held the position.)

Finally, HBO/Max had a reason to celebrate not only its success Hacksbut also Last Week Tonight with John Oliverwhich won in the category of best scripted entertainment series Saturday Night Live (although, as I wrote recently, these programs are practically not similar to each other and do not belong to the same category); and Alex Edelman: Just for ustelevision adaptation Alex Edelmana one-man show that won in the category of best script for an entertainment program.

With more than eight months to go until the 77th Emmy Awards, I think we’re already seeing some of the titles that will impact the race, including Apple TV+ dramas Presumed innocentwhich was a huge hit on the site in June and July, and also a limited series Reservationwhich premiered at some fall film festivals.

The race never ends.