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Normally, when determining what I believe will be the Emmy nominations, I start with the question: “What were people talking about at the watercooler this TV season?” But, like the concept of coworkers chatting around the watercooler inside a corporate office, that notion is becoming lost to time.
People are still watching television by the millions, but not as a collective. Often, even if you are bonding with someone about the same show, you’ll be up to Episode 6, while they are on Episode 3. And those phenomena that do call for everyone to watch the entirety of the show the second it drops on a streaming service, like with the first seasons of “The Pitt” or “Squid Game,” are becoming more and more rare.
Although a show being a hit does not automatically make it an Emmy contender, that success certainly helps its campaign. I compare a lot to the Grammys, where not every song that topped the charts for several weeks is going to get a Record of the Year nomination. Sometimes, those chart successes are songs that your average person around the country has never heard of. For example, with all apologies to country singer-songwriter Ella Langley, the first time I heard her smash hit “Choosin’ Texas” was this week on one of the slides in “Saturday Night Live” star Marcello Hernández’s Instagram dump commemorating the end of Season 51.
TV is going through a similar effect, where it feels like there is a widening divide between the shows that the majority of the general public are watching and the shows that are being presented to Television Academy members as prospective Emmy nominees.
The only projects that have felt like they have gotten some juice this spring, in terms of being the talk of the town, are the projects that are in their final seasons, like “Hacks,” “Euphoria,” and even “ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” It has thrown prognostications off a bit because the norm is to check for which new shows made waves, as it would only take one season for an Emmy voter to catch up on them. This Emmys season is more focused on endings than beginnings.
There is a very strong chance that the only new show to be nominated for Outstanding Drama Series is Apple TV’s “Pluribus,” and much of that awards momentum is built off the back of it being the first Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn collaboration post-”Better Call Saul,” which some would argue is one of the most robbed series of all time with 53 Emmy nominations and zero wins. Even then, “The Pitt” is benefitting from a more recent afterglow as the reigning winner in the category. Though the Noah Wyle-led series winning in such a big way again would feel more like one of those years where Emmy voters are operating on autopilot, as the response to Season 2 has been tepid overall.
Fellow HBO Max series “Hacks” is just about the only comedy series people around Los Angeles are talking about these days, now that it has a couple more episodes left. Going into Emmys campaigning, it felt like the Jean Smart-led series was on more equal ground with the long-awaited third season of “The Comeback,” but for some reason the Lisa Kudrow vehicle is never fully embraced in realtime. I do think it will still earn Emmy nominations this summer, but it probably won’t receive its flowers until we really get a taste of how prescient it is about the invasion of AI in the entertainment industry.
Once again, Apple TV has the most notable freshman series in the Comedy categories with “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” but it does not feel like the show’s stars have been around LA enough to connect with the TV Academy voter base. That could easily change in the next couple weeks though.
Netflix just made its strongest push for the Limited or Anthology Series categories, which the streaming service has dominated the past three years. The FYC event for “Beef” Season 2 was even at a private golf club, reminiscent of the one the characters played by Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Cailee Spaeny all work at. Four of the “Lord of the Flies” boys also made their way to Los Angeles recently to endear themselves among voters in a similar way to Emmy winner Owen Cooper, who starred in “Flies” creator Jack Thorne’s previous series “Adolescence.”
HBO has also been pushing its limited series contenders “DTF: St. Louis” and “Half Man” in the same time window, building campaigns based off of strong word-of-mouth, but the FX series “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette” has a later FYC event date than any of its major competitors, and is both a strong critical and commercial success, so I reiterate that it will overperform on Emmy nominations morning.
Wrapping up on some of the other categories I cover with our Emmys predictions, the Animated Program to keep an eye on is “South Park,” as none of the older or newer series have made as much noise this TV season. Expect another elegiac Emmy for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in the rebranded Outstanding Variety Series category at the very least, though there is a case to be made that all five nominees will win, since that’s a possibility.
With Outstanding Reality Competition Program, “Survivor” really, really needs to stick the landing with Season 50 in order to have any chance of beating “The Traitors.” And for the documentary categories, it feels weird to say, but it is a positive look at Martin Scorsese versus a negative look at Sean “Diddy” Combs on the series side, and whatever portrait of an entertainment icon voters are particularly in the mood for on the documentary side.
I almost forgot the Outstanding Movie category as well, but maybe it’s better that way. (“Remarkably Strange Creatures” #INNOCENT.)
See IndieWire’s full list of 2026 Emmy predictions, complete with frontrunners, contenders, and long shots on our website. As a reminder, my email is majones@indiewire.com if you’d like to share any feedback.
