Awards Circuit Podcast: The Roundtable tackles some of hottest topics facing the Emmy race now that nominations are out and Phase 2 is underway
On another all-Roundtable edition of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, the team opens by discussing their World Cup fever — and apologizing to Jazz for the nail-biter loss of her England team to Argentina. We then dive into burning Emmy questions, including the potential spoilers in the drama and comedy races (it’s probably “The Pitt” and “Hacks,” but there are a few backup contenders) and we look at some of the supporting races where one show dominates — do the contenders all cancel each other out?
Among this week’s highlights, Clayton Davis — who missed last week’s episode — shares his biggest surprise of the nominations: “Hands down, ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ being a sole nominee for drama series. Frst show in history to have one nomination as an outstanding drama series.” Meanwhile, “Nobody Wants This” almost did that on the comedy side, but did get a second nom in music supervision.
Michael Schneider noted that given how almost everyone on “The Pitt” and “Hacks” were nominated, that didn’t leave much room for other shows — hence so many of these one-nomination series. “That’s why you’re not seeing more nominations for these single shows like ‘Nobody Wants This’ or ‘Your Friends and Neighbors,'” he notes.
The team, meanwhile, is still surprised that “Half Man” received just one nom, for Richard Gadd in supporting limited actor. “So many of those shows were dark,” Jazz Tangcay notes. “‘Half Man’ was so hard to watch. And then like Chase Infiniti being nominated, but ‘The Testaments’ missing, and then ‘Lord of the Flies’ completely missing. It’s just like people didn’t want dark dystopian.”
So, the conventional wisdom has “The Pitt” and “Hacks” as the clear drama and comedy front runners. Is there any chance for a spoiler? “A thousand percent,” Davis says. And he pulled out this stat for proof: When you are the most nominated series, you win 56% of the time. (That seems low, right?)
Also on this episode, we dive into the supporting actor and actress categories. With so many “The Pitt” and “Hacks” players nominated, do they cancel each other out?