After years of gripes about tv shows "gaming" the system to get more nominations - like Downton Abbey pretending it was a miniseries before it was a series and True Detective pretending it was a regular series instead of a miniseries or Joan Cusack pretending she was a "guest" on Shameless for years on while starring in every episode - suddenly things have changed. Next year's Emmy races in both Drama and Comedy will be forced to look very different. And I'm not just talking about Breaking Bad finally being out of the way (thank God!)
The big changes and the one show most affected after the jump...
- there will now be seven slots for both Drama Series and Comedy Series due to the rapidly expanding television medium (it's true that way more shows are produced now than ever before)
- all half hour shows will be deemed comedy; all hour long shows will be deemed drama
- "guest actor" contenders may not appear in more than 50% of episodes
- "Mini Series" is now "Limited Series" and must be stand-alone narratives without recurring characters*
The half hour versus hour rule change will upset people but, as Joe said, it's "satisfyingly concrete."
The show that will be reeling the most from this decision is Orange is the New Black. Since it competed in comedy for Season 1 and hogged the Guest Actress category with its regular supporting cast (including guest actress winner Uzo Aduba as "Crazy Eyes" who is in most of the episodes), it won't be eligible for any of the same nominations and not even some of the same correlative nominations in drama for Season 2!**
The 67th Emmy Awards will be held on Sunday September 20th 2015 on Fox. Nominations will be announced on July 16th.
* This decision is also smart but not without loopholes. What will they do with American Horror Story for example. It always competes in Miniseries and even though the characters change, the actors stay the same and this past season they've taken great pains to tie it to the other seasons in terms of at least two characters (Pepper) so technically, where will it qualify?
** It's increasingly difficult to remember this but due to Emmy timetables which run June 1st to May 31st, next time around they'll be honoring Orange is the New Black's second season (the one with Lorraine Toussaint as Vi who will have to compete in supporting and not "guest" which I'm reasonably certain they were going to try for given that it's easier to win) which will feel like it was released forever ago, instead of Season 3 which everyone will have binge-watched just a month before the nominations)