After 17 years of HBO leading the field of Emmy nominees, Netflix now has the most nominees with 112 this year. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Netflix is putting out so many shows that it's almost inevitable that they'll have a lot of honors. They've got good shows, okay shows, not so much shows. They have a ton of shows and are spending billions of dollars on new content.
BEST DRAMA
One of their best is Stranger Things (which I finally watched and loved, loved, loved!), and it's nominated in the Best Drama category. It's also got stiff competition... from HBO. The most nominated show is Game of Thrones, which is shocking only because it aired such a seemingly long time ago that I'm surprised it's even eligible this year. But they got 22 nominations. HBO's other signature show Westworld came away with 20 nominations, again including Best Drama. Meanwhile, Netflix didn't win the battle with its online streaming competition to win the first Best Drama award for a streaming show. Hulu did that with their dystopian drama The Handmaid's Tale, and it's back to compete again in the Best Drama category.
Check out the list of Best Drama nominees.
BEST COMEDY
The Best Comedy category has two Netflix shows -- Glow and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt -- but HBO still has more nominees, with three shows competing for the top prize: Silicon Valley, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Barry. I'm not big on the comedy shows anymore -- not sure why, maybe I've gotten grumpy -- so I don't know much about any of them.
Check out the list of Best Comedy nominees.
Pundits seem to think HBO, with its 108 nominations, will do just fine and maybe even win the most awards again. But it's certainly big news that Netflix is now the most nominated channel. For some time, they've seemed obsessed with how much time we spend watching Netflix -- making one show roll into the next before we can hit pause (I hate this about them), putting out ridiculous volumes of programming, even testing a much criticized program that rewards people for binge watching. I'm not sure why they do this, because once I'm giving them my monthly fee, that should be enough. HBO also gets my monthly fee, with a lot less content... and mainly because it's mostly good content. (And I'd pay for an FX without commercials, but that's another story).
The Emmys will air September 17th.
Here is the FULL LIST of Emmy nominations.