What will win Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys?

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

There are many factors that go into the way Emmy voters choose the winner of their top awards. Since we already covered drama, today we’re taking a look today at where the Best Comedy Series contenders stand from a statistical and recent history perspective.

Barry (Season 2 – 17 nominations)
HBO’s black comedy about a hitman who becomes an actor saw its nomination total increase by four from last year. Bill Hader and Henry Winkler both won last year, and now they’re joined by three other cast members. The show earned the requisite directing and writing bids, only one of two shows in this race to do so, and it’s evidently beloved by many. Some might not love the violence and dark nature of its story, but even if this isn’t the frontrunner, it has a good shot at being the potential spoiler in a competitive category...

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FYC: Underrated Players on Emmy-Noticed Series

Team Experience is sharing FYCs as the Television Academy votes on Emmy nominations (voting closes on June 24th). Here's Abe Fried-Tanzer

There are so many deserving series and performers that never stand a chance at the Emmys simply because voters don’t seem to notice their existence. The best recent example of an extremely talented cast almost entirely missing the Emmy radar is Parenthood, which squeaked out one lone acting bid – for guest actor Jason Ritter – over the course of its six seasons. While it hasn’t received that level of acclaim, Billions is another instance of a show with tremendous awards potential that hasn’t picked up any to date. But then there are shows that do manage to earn accolades, yet the enthusiasm doesn’t extend to all players. John Krasinski never got nominated for The Office despite three costars being nominated, and he’s not the only one to be ignored even though Emmy voters were clearly watching his show.

Here are five underrated players from shows Emmy voters do watch that deserve to break through this year...

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Emmy Nerd Trivia: Will Julia Louis-Dreyfus win again?

by Nathaniel R

Final Emmy voting starts on Monday and the most exciting thing is that for the first time in ages, the Emmy voters will be forced to choose at least one major new winner (Drama Series). One could argue that only one incumbent is considered the frontrunner to win again making this a potentially unusual Emmy night -though knowing the Academy they'll probably deliver more repeats than people expect. That leading incumbent would be Julia Louis-Dreyfus, she who is already buried in trophies.

For the record she has seven Emmys, five of them consecutively for Veep's first five seasons. If she wins a sixth for the sixth season she breaks her tie with Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown) as most lead actress wins for the same series, drama OR comedy. But Louis-Dreyfus is already the record holder for most lead wins, drama or comedy (overall) and most lead nominations in a comedy (overall).

You know what all of that means --> TRIVIA after the jump!

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The Emmy Nominations!!

The 69th Emmy nominations have been announced! HBO need not worry that Game of Thrones wasn't eligible this year, as they landed the most nominated drama anyway with Westworld. The early-in-the-season genre hit tied Saturday Night Live for 22 nominations each, followed by Stranger Things and Feud tying for second place at 18 each.

Most of the nominations follow Emmy's expected players despite the openings left by departed perennials like Thrones, though this year isn't without surprises or fresh faces. The major breakthroughs this year were Hulu (finally in the major races thanks to the success of The Handmaid's Tale) and our beloved RuPaul's Drag Race (scoring 7 nominations, plus one for Untucked).

The team will be sharing their favorite nominations and frustrations on what missed the cut later today, but our dream ballot should give you a hint of our thoughts. Here are the nominees in the top categories:

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Team Experience's Dream Emmy Ballot!

Emmy voting closes tomorrow evening, dear readers! Since Nathaniel and the team here at The Film Experience have been writing up our favorite FYCs of the past television year, we have decided to also do some fantasy Emmy voting of our own. Our own Emmy dream ballot has favorites you've read about here before, like nomination leaders Big Little Lies (7 nominations), Feud (6), The Leftovers and the conclusion of Looking (5).

That's a whole lot of love for HBO here at TFE, with Veep also being our most nominated comedy at 4 nods. Might HBO earn similar success with Emmy itself, even though mainstay Game of Thrones won't be eligible? Will this allow for The Leftovers to finally get some love?

Take a look at the results after the jump...

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