The 2026 Emmy Nominations Spread the Love, but Not Far Enough

DANIEL FIENBERG: Happy Emmy nominations day, Angie! Happy Emmy nominations day to all the nominees! Happy Emmy nominations day to Jason Bateman, who received a special Emmy nomination merely for waking up, in addition to his two acting, one directing and one producing nominations. But mostly, happy Emmy nominations day to Apple TV.

I’ve always said that Apple TV’s output looks better if you focus exclusively on the successes and pretend, like Apple TV does, that the failures or mediocrities simply don’t exist. Remember the Billy Crystal drama Before? Neither does Apple. But I probably need to stop saying it, because holy cow Apple TV had itself an Emmy nominations morning, with 87 nominations across the drama and comedy categories, including series nominations for Pluribus, Slow Horses, Your Friends & Neighbors, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Shrinking and Widow’s Bay.

Yes, Your Friends & Neighbors got an Emmy nomination for outstanding drama series and nothing else, a strange anomaly, though far from the day’s strangest anomaly. But Apple had such a successful morning that Pluribus, a show initially promoted entirely as a one-woman showcase for Rhea Seehorn, received four acting nominations, for Seehorn, Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga and even Jeff Hiller, last year’s comedy supporting actor winner, whose total screen time in Pluribus was…minimal.

The only thing Emmy voters love more than Apple TV shows are actors from The Pitt and guest actresses from Hacks.

I’ve got countless points of incredulity — a nomination for Amazon’s Heads of State is the latest piece of evidence that the original movie for television category is outmoded and probably needs to be scrapped — and irritation, but where do you want to start, Angie? Perhaps some points of happiness?

ANGIE HAN: Honestly, Apple’s dominance in this year’s nominations might be one of my points of happiness. The streamer still has plenty of middling shows — some of which, if we’re being brutally honest, are among the nominees — but it also put out some of my favorite shows of the past year.

Among the announcements that made me happy-clap: All the love for Widow’s Bay, but especially for Kate O’Flynn’s precise and hilarious work as Patricia! All the love for Margo’s Got Money Troubles, but especially for Nick Offerman’s achingly soulful turn as Jinx! (He also got a well-deserved nod for Netflix’s Death by Lightning! Double yay!) All the love for Pluribus — I expected Rhea Seehorn (and God, it feels good to say that after years of grumbling at her going under-recognized for Better Call Saul) but was thrilled to see several of her costars make the cut as well.

Outside of Apple’s lineup, I was pleased that the cast of HBO Max’s The Pitt got their due, even if part of me gets a little grumpy when one show dominates the acting categories too thoroughly. (At least it’s not as bad as those years when Emmy voters seemed to believe Succession and The White Lotus were the only dramas in existence.) And to see HBO’s DTF St. Louis make such a strong showing in an otherwise pretty weak limited series field.

Then there were the ones that just sort of made me laugh, like Connor Storrie scoring a “We’re so sorry the Emmy rules won’t let us nominate Heated Rivalry” nod for hosting Saturday Night Live. Or All’s Fair, quite possibly the most dreadful show I’ve seen in the past year, scoring two nominations (albeit in makeup and hairstyling, two very specific areas in which the show was fine).

What were some of the announcements that delighted or amused you?

FIENBERG: I can stick to happiness, sure! At least short-term. Trust me, it won’t last.

But yes, after all those years of “How are Emmy voters ignoring Rhea Seehorn and Nick Offerman?!?” post-nomination conversations, it’s wonderful to see Seehorn and Offerman as almost “What? You think we’d forget them?” no-brainers. (Carrie Coon, never nominated for The Leftovers has now similarly become an Emmy favorite, with her second The Gilded Age nod.)

I forgot to mention Miriam Shor among the Pluribus nominees. What? No room for Samba Schutte, Emmy voters? But not every show gets to be The Pitt. I guess it was nice to see Patrick Ball, Gerran Howell, Fiona Dourif and Taylor Dearden getting the nominations they deserved last year, though if we’re talking strictly season two, leaving out Isa Briones and Supriya Ganesh is peculiar. Really, the Pitt actors I was most pleased for were guest stars Tina Ivlev as the sexual assault patient and Ernest Harden Jr. as Louie, plus Brittany Allen, whom HBO apparently didn’t even submit initially.

I was more pleased with all the nominations for DTF St. Louis, a show I was worried might prove too tonally challenging for voters; it received nominations for nearly its entire ensemble, with Joy Sunday and Richard Jenkins joining more obvious accolades for Linda Cardellini, David Harbour and Jason Bateman, who has received six additional Emmy nominations in the past 30 minutes, not for anything in particular, just because Emmy voters love Jason Bateman.

Speaking of HBO shows I worried would perplex Emmy voters, the writing and directing nominations for The Chair Company made me smile.

Other happy surprises? Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s nomination for Wonder Man was the Disney+ series’ only recognition, but it was very worthy. Kudos to Salli Richardson Whitfield, with a pair of directing nominations for Task and The Gilded Age. Michelle Pfeiffer would have been a worthy double-nominee, but it was good to see her Margo’s Got Money Trouble nod as a reminder of how great the Married to the Mob star is when she gets to give human shadings within a broadly comic performance. And, given that she’s also hosting the Emmys telecast, it was nice to see Mariska Hargitay add “Emmy nominated director” to her resumé.

I think, however, that I’ve run out of happy-making observations.

Let’s start my irritation with Cailee Spaeny, legitimately my favorite member of the Beef season two ensemble for a performance that became increasingly funny and increasingly dark as the series went along, but the only member of the core ensemble who didn’t receive a nomination. Big miss.

Before I meander off on various extended rants, where would you like to begin your complaints?

HAN: Given the Emmys’ general lack of enthusiasm for Sterlin Harjo’s Reservation Dogs — by our estimation one of the finest shows of this century — I guess it’s not exactly shocking that his follow-up, The Lowdown, was totally blanked. But still! You’re telling me five-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke, in a starring role that fits him like a broken-in cowboy boot, couldn’t move the needle? Nothing for Emmy favorite Peter Dinklage’s pitch-perfect guest role? Or for previous Emmy winner Keith David’s excellent supporting work?

I could go on about The Lowdown specifically, but let’s move on to other shows. I was similarly unsurprised but disappointed at HBO’s Industry getting completely shut out yet again, despite only getting sharper, darker and more ambitious with its fourth season. I was hoping Marisa Abela and Myha’la’s rising careers might get their original breakthrough roles here some attention, at the very least. And while I don’t think NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins ever had a great shot, it would have been nice to see Emmy voters remember there are network shows besides Abbott Elementary. Oh, and it really bums me out that Netflix’s laugh-out-loud funny and profoundly moving Long Story Short got nothing, even if, again, no one seemed to know it existed.

Slightly more surprising to me was that Netflix’s Lord of the Flies only scored a couple of (well earned) nods in the sound categories. In addition to its impressive cast of young and undiscovered talents, its sumptuous and striking visuals made it perhaps the best-looking Netflix show since 2023’s Ripley. So many shows look downright awful these days; we need to reward the ones that make a real effort on that front! At least FX’s similarly gorgeous Alien: Earth scored in the cinematography and VFX categories, even if it strikes me as a shame that its cast — including a mesmerizing Sydney Chandler and a slippery Babou Ceesay — went without.

I could probably keep going, but I’ll stop before I get too nitpicky. What are some other omissions — or inclusions! — that frustrated you?

FIENBERG: Nah. You covered most of ’em. I could underline the shows and performances you mentioned, but in the time it would take me to complain more, Jason Bateman will have received between five and 10 additional nominations, and that’s not a risk I’m prepared to take.

I’m just finding it harder and harder to ascribe authority to a group of voters who have now snubbed Ethan Hawke in The Good Lord Bird, Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown. I’m finding it harder and harder to respect the judgement of voters who think the task of casting the two biggest stars on TV in The Beast in Me was worthier of recognition than finding a sprawling cast of wholly unknown juvenile stars in Lord of the Flies. I’m finding it harder and harder to defend or critique a system in which, by my own judgement, at least half the shows in the drama field are absolutely comedies and several of the comedies are probably dramas (though not Widow’s Bay, which is definitely a comedy). And, again, you get a nomination for Heads of State because there’s some fear of dissolving a field that no longer reflects the way television works in 2026. And this is without getting into my annual “If Emmy voters watched Dark Winds, Zahn McClarnon would have four Emmy nominations and instead he has none” rant.

Emmy voters are silly and don’t watch very much television. Emmy categorizations and classifications are silly and fundamentally broken. I’m sure we have better things to do.