Emmy nominations 2021: Surprises, snubs and momentous milestones

It’s taken 11 years but late actor Jessica Walter has finally been recognised for her work in a long-running series four months after her death.

The Crown was nominated 24 times.

With the world locked down through most of 2020 and early 2021, TV became a source of entertainment and comfort for many people.

Yes, we watched a lot of TV, and it’s always a thrill when our favourite shows are nominated by the American TV academy’s glittering awards, the Emmys.

And every nomination crop has its share of baffling snubs, delightful surprises, history making moments and revealing trends. Here are the most notable ones in 2021.

JESSICA WALTER’S POSTHUMOUS NOD

Jessica Walter was posthumously nominated for an Emmy for her voicework on Archer. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

After 11 seasons, Jessica Walter was finally nominated for her voice performance in Archer – a long overdue achievement.

Walter, who previously won an Emmy in 1976 for cop show Amy Prentiss, had never before been recognised for playing Mallory Archer, the head of a reckless spy agency. Her voice performance of the imperious, dismissive and ruthless Mallory dripped with contempt. She was, in a word, perfect.

While Walter, who died earlier this year, will be the sentimental favourite, she has tough competition from four-time winner Seth MacFarlane, Julie Andrews and Stanley Tucci.

BIGGEST SNUBS

Girls5Eva was snubbed in the Comedy category

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With several Emmy favourites out of the running this year because of covid-interrupted productions, including Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Succession, Atlanta and Barry, there was more space for some newcomers – and in this era of TV, there are so many newcomers.

But even then, the voters overlooked some truly deserving nominees.

Peak among them must be Girls5Eva, the Tina Fey-produced comedy about four women who were part of a manufactured 90s girl group reuniting more than two decades later, a hilarious treatise on fame, ageing and friendship. Its creator Meredith Scardino scored in nod in Comedy Writing but not so Renee Elise Goldsberry for Lead Actress or the series overall.

And where was Ethan Hawke’s wild and committed performance in The Good Lord Bird, which only managed a Title Design nomination. At least The Good Lord Bird got that single craft nomination because P-Valley and It’s A Sin were shut out completely.

P-Valley, an unflinching, female-led story about strippers around the Mississippi delta, and It’s A Sin, centred on a group of young gay men at the start of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, were both arresting and honest storytelling.

While The Underground Railroad and Barry Jenkins were nominated in Limited Series and Limited Series Directing, its leads Thuso Mbedu and Joel Edgerton were both snubbed. Do the voters think no one acted in the series?

And finally, Steve McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe, a collection of five films, didn’t get a look in at all, not for McQueen or stars Letitia Wright and John Boyega, the latter of whom won the Critics Choice Award.

STREAMING WARS

Netflix’s best chance of claiming a top prize this year is with The Crown.

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No one would undersell the foundational work Netflix has done for many years in legitimising streaming originals at awards shows, but one of the big Emmy prizes (Limited Series, Drama Series, Comedy Series) has remained elusive.

Despite the millions and millions of dollars it’s spent campaigning since House of Cards and Orange is the New Black were in their freshman seasons, Netflix has always pulled up short, unable to fend off the might of HBO and then seeing Amazon run off with Comedy Series two years in a row.

But at least Amazon had been in the streaming game for almost as long as Netflix. What would really sting is if one of its newer rivals – Apple TV+ and Disney+ – came in swooped one of the main prizes after not even two years.

Apple’s Ted Lasso, with its 20 nominations and considerable critical and audience buzz, looks like the frontrunner in the Comedy category. And its second season is about to drop in a week, just as voting gets underway. Meanwhile, Disney has 24 nominations for The Mandalorian in Drama and 23 nods for WandaVision in Limited Series. Both are decent shots.

If Netflix is going to claim a top prize this year,The Crown, with 24 nods, is its best chance in years. It was a strong season with really engaging performances – and there’s no consensus pick in the Drama category with critical love spread widely among the shortlist.

GUILTY PLEASURE TV

Rege-Jean Page won’t be in the second season of Bridgerton.

No doubt Emily in Paris and Bridgerton were popular – if we are to believe Netflix’s metrics of “watched more than two minutes”, tens of millions of households watched it. But, are they Emmy-worthy shows?

The Emmys are often a mix of quality and populist choices with high-rating broadcast comedies such as Big Bang Theory showing up year after year. With broadcast almost shut out of nominations in recent years, of course you’d expect some middling streaming fare to take its positions.

Emily in Paris, which was critically derided, especially when the Golden Globes gave it so much love, managed to squeeze into Best Comedy while Bridgerton nabbed 12 nods.

Bridgerton – at least – has craft credentials such as its period costumes, production design and hair design but is it actually great TV or is it just horny TV? And is the admittedly charismatic Rege-Jean Page’s swoony performance on par with The Crown’s Josh O’Connor, Perry Mason’s Matthew Rhys or Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors. Hmmmm. No.

Perhaps it’s enough that loads of people watched it and liked it rather than actually believed it was well-written and performed – at the Emmys, sometimes that’s enough.

HISTORY MADE

Mj Rodriguez in Pose.

Mj Rodriguez was nominated in Drama Lead Actress for the third and final season of Pose, a show that broke new ground for transgender representation on screen.

And so did Rodriguez’s nomination, as she became the first transgender performer to be nominated in a major acting category.

She told Variety: “This is a pivotal moment. There’s never been a trans woman who has been nominated as a leading outstanding actress and I feel like that pushes the needle forward so much for now the door to be knocked down for so many people – whether they be male or trans female, gender non-conforming, LGBTQIA+, it does not matter.”

Previously, Laverne Cox had been nominated for her role in Orange is the New Black in the Guest Actress category.

CATEGORY CONFUSION

Is Cobra Kai really a comedy?

Genres and formats are blending and defying categorisation, which is increasingly clear when you look at how inadequate some Emmy lines are – but then that can work in a show’s favour if they’re willing to colour outside those permeable lines.

The snubbing of Girls5Eva in Best Comedy really smarts when you consider that among the shows that were nominated was Cobra Kai, a series that is arguably extremely not a comedy.

Cobra Kai’s episode length is under 30 minutes, which is likely why it was able to sneak in here, but its laughs-per-episode ratio is about on par with The Sopranos. Over in Drama, The Boys is a funnier series than Cobra Kai.

So why is it here? Obviously, Netflix thought Cobra Kai had a better chance to get up in Comedy than in the more competitive Drama category.

The industry term for such a practice is category fraud, where studios submit actors and titles in categories which they think there’s a better chance of being nominated or winning.

Another prime example is Big Little Lies, which still submitted in Limited Series at the Globes and Critics Choice in late-2017 when it was clear a second season was coming but not official. Its US network likely wanted the spoils of both Game of Thrones winning in Drama and Big Little Lies in Limited – well, Game of Thrones lost at the Critics Choice anyway.

There was a rule change this year that actually disadvantaged Small Axe, an anthology series which could no longer compete in TV Movie after Black Mirror used a loophole in previous years in submitting individual episodes as movies.

Of course, what is even a TV movie now that so many films are being released first or simultaneously on streaming? Or if they’re a streaming movie of a filmed Broadway performance from 2016 – ahem, Hamilton.

COMPETING AGAINST YOURSELF

Ted Lasso is returning for its second season next week.

The absolute dominance of a handful of shows means it ends up competing against itself in the same category, which always risks splitting the vote and letting someone through, such as Ozark actor Julia Garner’s surprise win against four Game of Thrones stars in 2019.

Multiple nominees in the same category this year includes Ted Lasso, which has four nominations in Comedy Best Supporting Actor, up against two nominees from Saturday Night Live, leaving the door open for The Kominsky Method’s Paul Reiser or Hacks’ Carl Clemons-Hopkins to burst through.

Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple will also face off against each other Comedy Supporting Actress and against Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong from Saturday Night Live.

The Handmaid’s Tale similarly faces the same challenge. Yvonne Strahovski is up against three of her co-stars in Drama Supporting Actress and three actors from The Crown, leaving Aunjanue Ellis, the lone solo nominee in the category, with an increased path to victory. And if she won, well deserved because Lovecraft Country was an excellent series, especially its ensemble cast.

And all the Hamilton acting nominees – which is cooked because what is this 2016 Broadway performance of Hamilton doing at the 2021 Emmys? – are up against each other: Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr in Limited Lead Actor, Phillipa Soo and Renee Elise Goldsberry in Limited Supporting Actress, and Daveed Diggs, Jonathan Groff and Anthony Ramos in Limited Supporting Actor.

If nothing else, it’s evidence that acting ensembles in 2021 are so strong – everyone is pulling their weight.

The Emmys will be broadcast on Fox Arena on September 20 at 10am AEST

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