Anybody remember what happened in August 2023? “Barbie” passed $1 billion in worldwide grosses and became the top-grossing film in Warner Bros. history. Magnus Carlsen beat an Indian teenager to win the Chess World Cup championship. Spain beat England to win the Women’s World Cup in soccer. Former President Donald Trump was arraigned in Washington D.C. in one case, then indicted and arrested in Georgia in another.
And Television Academy voters cast their ballots for the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Normally, that would mean that those ballots would be counted in September and the winners handed their spiky trophies around the third week of the month. But there’s nothing normal about the past year, because the Emmy show, originally scheduled for Sept. 18, was one of the many casualties of the extended Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes.
With the show postponed, the Emmy ballots have been sitting around for the last four-and-a-half months. We’ll finally know the winners on Monday, Jan. 15, when the Emmys will announce winners for shows that aired between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023 – which is to say, anywhere from seven to 19 months before the ceremony.
Will anybody care? Will anybody watch? It’s on Fox, if you’re so inclined. On Martin Luther King Day.
By the time the envelopes are opened, most of the nominees will have spent time at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards and other kudos-fests, and some of them will have already aired and competed with seasons that aren’t even eligible for this Emmys. Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edibiri, for instance, won Golden Globes last Sunday for Season 2 of “The Bear,” but that season isn’t eligible for the forthcoming Emmys – so if they win on Monday, which at least one of them probably will, it’ll be for Season 1.
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It’s an absurd bit of timing, dropping last year’s Emmys in the middle of a month that already has the Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the AFI Awards luncheon, the Motion Picture Academy’s Governors Awards and more nomination announcements than you can count, including the Oscar noms coming on Jan. 23.
Dropped into the ides of January ’24, the Emmys may seem unstuck in time, to borrow a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five.” But a lot of people still have a stake in what happens on Monday night at the Peacock Theater. (Yes, it’s newly named after the NBC streaming service that received three nominations last year, all for the miniseries “Angelyne.”)
“Succession,” “Better Call Saul,” “Barry,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and maybe “Ted Lasso” are competing with their final seasons. “The White Lotus” has been moved from the limited series categories, where it cleaned up last year, to the more competitive drama field. “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” has been declared a scripted variety series rather than a variety talk series, which means it’ll go head-to-head with “Saturday Night Live” in a clash of Emmy titans.
Recent shows like the Golden Globes have embraced “Succession,” “The Bear” and “Beef,” but it’s worth remembering that momentum means nothing – those ballots were due back on Aug. 28, so nothing that has happened since then can have any bearing on who wins. Still, those programs feel like pretty good bets in a number of categories, particularly since the big program wins have often spilled over into acting, directing and writing categories in recent years. But watch out for “The Last of Us,” which topped all programs at last weekend’s two Creative Arts Emmys shows.
Here are our best guesses as to what’ll win on Monday, before we return you to this year’s current awards races.
Comedy predictions
- OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES: “The Bear”
- OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
- OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”
- OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: James Marsden, “Jury Duty”
- OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ayo Edibiri, “The Bear”
- OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY SERIES: Christopher Storer, “The Bear”
- OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A COMEDY SERIES: Christopher Storer, “The Bear”
Drama predictions
- OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES: “Succession”
- OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Kieran Culkin, “Succession”
- OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Sarah Snook, “Succession”
- OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”
- OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”
- OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA SERIES: Peter Hoar, “The Last of Us”
- OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES: Jesse Armstrong, “Succession”
Limited/anthology predictions
- OUTSTANDING LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES: “Beef”
- OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Evan Peters, “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”
- OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Ali Wong, “Beef”
- OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Paul Walter Hauser, “Black Bird”
- OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Niecy Nash-Betts, “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”
- OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Lee Sung Jun, “Beef,”
- OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Lee Sung Jin, “Beef”
Reality/variety/talk predictions
- OUTSTANDING REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM: “RuPaul’s Drag Race”
- OUTSTANDING TALK SERIES: “Late Show With Stephen Colbert”
- OUTSTANDING SCRIPTED VARIETY SERIES: “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
- OUTSTANDING VARIETY SPECIAL (LIVE): “Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium”
- OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A VARIETY SERIES: “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
