HBO dominated this year's Emmy nominations, even breaking its own record for the most nods in a single year. The announcement for the 71st Primetime Emmy Award nominations kicked off yesterday morning and included a slew of new shows alongside previous nominees making their triumphant return. This year also saw nominations for past Emmy winners whose shows recently came to their climactic close. Namely, HBO's Veep and Game of Thrones were some of the bigger presences during this year's nominations whose series finale occurred only a few months ago. They'll once again be honored for their wildly-successful productions and performers, even despite the latter's controversial final season.
This year's nominations also saw plenty of successful newcomers joining the races. Netflix's quirky, sharp-witted comedy Russian Doll nabbed 13 nominations, Phoebe Waller-Bridge saw 11 nominations for her newly-nominated Amazon series Fleabag and 9 for returning nominee Killing Eve, and HBO's latest mini-series Chernobyl nabbed a whopping 19 nominations. Overall, streaming services nearly stole the show as far as nominations go, even breaking new ground along the way.
Amongst all the streaming services and networks, HBO and Netflix are usually the ones going toe-to-toe. This time, though, HBO has the high ground, toppling its opponent by 20 nominations (137 versus 117). According to THR, HBO even broke its own record for the most nominations in one season, surpassing its previous record of 126 nods from 2015. Game of Thrones took the lead amongst the service's programs, grabbing 32 nominations, with Chernobyl finishing third with 19, and the dark comedy Barry tying for fifth with 17. HBO's Last Week Tonight With John Oliver also received a nomination, along with a variety of other shows, limited series, and documentaries from the network. This year also marks the fifth time that Game of Thrones has led the nominees since it became eligible for Emmy notations. The latter show also broke the Emmy record for most nominations by any show in a single year.
The nominations for HBO's fantasy series don't come as much of a surprise. Despite how fans may have felt about the finale, Game of Thrones broke monumental records this year with its final season, bringing in an audience of 19.3 million for its final episode alone. This marked the series as the record-holder for the highest viewership on HBO, knocking The Sopranos out of its previously-held top spot. Even the shows that succeeded Thrones found massive amounts of success, proving that HBO still has an array of spectacular content at its disposal.
The war of the streaming services has begun, and amongst the sea of familiarity, it's nice to see so many newcomers making their grand debut. Many of these new shows also saw an increase in female-directed and female-written shows joining the masses, which brought a refreshing and thrilling change-of-pace to this year's nominations. Gender-parity is still a long ways away for the Television Academy, but seeing such bold female-created and female-centric shows like Fleabag, Russian Doll, and the returning Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to name a few, dominating in a variety of categories brings a sense of hope as to what the future of Hollywood and television has in store for its audience.
Source: THR