Two years out from the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, you’d think the television landscape would feel fresher, stranger, riskier. Sure, television is still doing more ambitious work than film (which remains locked in IP wars and superhero purgatory), but the creative energy feels oddly redundant. Every prestige drama or buzzy limited series is essentially a remix of one of two templates:
Rich People Are Miserable: The White Lotus, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Gilded Age, The Hunting Wives (slated for later, but spiritually in the mix)
Capitalism Is Killing Us: Severance, The Studio, and countless riffs on corporate dystopia
Outside of the endless video game adaptations and superhero IP, you can practically see the pitch decks: Succession, but with a sci-fi twist. The Office, but set in the entertainment industry. Even the titles have lost their flavor, everything reduced to some variation of “The ____.” The whole cycle feels like déjà vu, the way the post-Twilight era flooded us with vampires and werewolves. We get it!
This sameness bleeds over to the Emmys themselves. The nomination tallies are similarly repetitive: Severance (27), The Penguin (24), The Studio (23). These are powerhouse series, sure, but when the same handful of shows rack up 20-plus nominations, the awards themselves become a snooze fest. There’s no suspense, no chaos, no surprise, just a stuffy ceremony in a packed theater.
Even the choice in host is uninspired: Nate Bargatze is a perfectly pleasant comedian, but his style of clean comedy with his flat affect is anything but remarkable. You don’t tune into award shows for “pleasant,” you tune in for spectacle, for candid moments of disappointment, unhinged speeches and the occasional knee-slapper. This year doesn’t feel poised to deliver on any of those key moments.
Maybe that’s the real irony: television is still obsessed with criticizing wealth, work, and capitalism, but the award shows celebrating this art can’t stop replicating the very structures they claim to mock — bloated, repetitive, risk-averse.
This year may be a first in my household: prioritizing Sunday Night Football over a main award show.
Key Nominees
Outstanding Drama Series
Severance
The White Lotus*
The Last of Us
Andor
The Diplomat
Outstanding Comedy Series
The Studio
Abbott Elementary
The Bear
Only Murders in the Building
Shrinking
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Noah Wyle (The Pitt)
Adam Scott (Severance)
Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us)
Sterling K. Brown (Paradise)
Gary Oldman (Slow Horses)
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Kathy Bates (Matlock)
Britt Lower (Severance)
Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us)
Keri Russell (The Diplomat)
Sharon Horgan (Bad Sisters)
Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series
Adolescence*
The Penguin
Black Mirror
Dying for Sex
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
*who I’m rooting for