Category Analysis: Will sketch comedy prevail in Outstanding Guest Actress?

Team Experience will be taking a regular look at the episode submissions for major Emmy categories from now until the big night. 

Former "Saturday Night Live" cast members Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig face off against each other in Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

by Christopher James

Sketch comedy thrives in the guest acting categories. While Saturday Night Live hosts have long been a staple of this category, HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show has recently had success here, too. Those two shows take up four of the six guest acting slots in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category. The other two nominees are a famous actress in an underappreciated show (Bernadette Peters - Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist) and an underappreciated actress in an Emmy favorite (Jane Adams - Hacks).

In short, there are many ways the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category could go this year. With the Emmys, it’s always best to expect the unexpected. So who is most likely to win? Let’s dig into the nominees and their episode submissions...

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Team Experience Emmy Reactions

Hope y'all aren't done talking about the Emmy nods yet. Abe, Cláudio, Juan Carlos, Chris and myself got together to share our reactions to Tuesday's Emmy nominations. From our disappointments about the snubs (sorry about Small Axe, Cláudio) to our individual joys (Carlos remains the world's biggest Handmaid's Tale fan) and our suggestions about how to improve the system (I explain why ranked ballots are the only way to go in the conversation).

Have a watch and share your own reactions, now that the dust has settled.

• Which snubs are still irritating you? 
• Which shows will you know be watching to see what the big deal is? 
• Who do you think will win the hot-hot-hot miniseries category?
• Who are you rooting for? 

Emmy Nominations Are Here!

By Abe Friedtanzer

Nominations for the 73rd Emmys have been announced, and while it was nice to see short clips of each of the program nominees, the gimmick of having father and daughter, Ron Cephas Jones and Jasmine Cephas Jones, announce together would have worked considerably better if they had been in the same place and not experiencing a delayed reaction to their joke setups. But let’s move on to the nominees, which are mostly good but sure to reveal painful snubs as we break it down by category. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that The Crown is the nominations leader with 24 bids, but it did tie with The Mandalorian, which added to its technical total with a few acting, directing, and writing bids.

It took me until I got into the details of the limited series/anthology categories to realize that Small Axe was almost entirely shut out, earning only a cinematography mention. I think that has more to do with its questionable TV format, though that didn’t stop Hamilton from gobbling up a horrifying seven acting slots. Another underperformer was Girls5eva, which managed exactly one nomination, for writing. It was also a sad day for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which didn’t score any of the major bids I and others thought it might. That presumed domination by a few series in the supporting categories absolutely happened, though there were a few positive and unexpected inclusions thrown in. Let’s take a closer look at the categories our Emmy team predicted (plus the guest races) and go from there...

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A New Team Experience Emmy Panel

By Abe Friedtanzer 

Emmy nominations will be announced in just under a week. Now that we’ve finished our major category predictions, we had a chance to convene the Emmy team at The Film Experience (myself, Christopher, Nathaniel, Carlos, and Cláudio) for a broad discussion of our hopes and expectations. Watch below to enjoy an energetic conversation about many topics, and share your favorites and predictions in the comments! We’ll be back again in this format once nominations have been announced.

more on the upcoming Emmys

• COMEDY
• Actress Comedy
• Actor Comedy
• Supporting Actress, Comedy
• Supporting Actor, Comedy
• DRAMA
• Actress Drama
• Actor Drama
• Supporting Actress, Drama
• Supporting Actor, Drama
• LIMITED SERIES / MOVIE
• Lead Actor Limited Series/Movie
• Lead Actress Limited Series
• Supporting Actress Limited Series
• Supporting Actor Limited Series
• MORE...
• Emmy Ballots
• FYC The Handmaid's Tale
• FYC Kate Winslet and Mare of Easttown
• FYC Marielle Heller, Queen's Gambit
• FYC Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso
• FYC Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision
• FYC I May Destroy You
• FYC Small Axe
• FYC For All Mankind

Emmy Watch: Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

By Nathaniel R

Whoopi Goldberg in "The Stand"

The Emmy nominations are just under two weeks away so soon we'll have actual shortlists to discuss rather than speculation. But let's wrap up the acting categories with a discussion of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series Or Movie. This category isn't quite as heavy on honoring a single show as the parallel supporting actor category tends to be -- we'll generally get two nominees from one series here (though last year Mrs America took up half the list). According to Emmy ballots there are 116 women in the running which means there will be 6 nominees which has become the standard for this category.

MOVIES
Though this category includes stand-alone movies made for television, and stage shows that were filmed,  there's generally little room in the nominee circle for performances that weren't in limited series. It's been three years since a live event muscled in here (Sara Bareilles in Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert) and four years since an actress from a standalone telefilm was nominated (Michelle Pfeiffer in Wizard of Lies)...

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