Paulie’s Perspective: 2020 Emmy Awards Nominations

Delivered remotely, by Leslie Jones, Laverne Cox, Josh Gad and Tatiana Maslany, on Tuesday morning, July 28, The Emmys proved things were going to be different this year.

First, let me get to the Snubs – because those are always more exciting. Nicole Kidman, for being Exec Producer and star of HBO’s second season of Big Little Lies was shutout. Her co-worker and co-star was also shutout, Reese Witherspoon. Now Reese had her hands in AppleTV’s Morning Show and Little Fires Everywhere. She was flat out ignored for all her cute little work. 

Larry David – his show scored a Best Comedy Series nod – but he himself was ignored.

Al Pacino – made big news coming to the small screen for Amazon with Hunters, but it seems the only people impressed were Amazon.

Bob Odenkirk – surely has won over a lot of people’s hearts with his amazing work in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. However his show got a nod, and he did not.

Sir Patrick Stewart – Came back to the Captain’s chair after 20 years to star in the amazing CBS series Picard – yet phasers were set to stun, and this poor old man got zero for his valiant effort in a superb show which garnered 5 nods.

All these stars are absolute power houses, some with Oscar nominations and even Oscar wins – yet Emmy did not see fit to recognized them for their brilliant work this time around. All well, 2020 has not been kind, and this proves it will continue to be a pain in the ass.  

Here are the list of nods from the major platforms and networks. 

2019 2020

Netflix 118 160
HBO 137 107
NBC 58 47
ABC 26 36
FX 32 33
Prime Video 47 30
Hulu 20 26
CBS 43 23
Disney+ N/A 19
Apple TV+ N/A 18
Pop TV 4 16
Fox 18 15
VH1 14 13
BBC America 9 10
Comedy Central 8 10

As you can see – this year there is a new Sheriff in town. Netflix has finally overthrown HBO for most Emmy nods with a staggering 160, to HBO’s 107. I think this clearly states that Netflix is finally being taken seriously, at least on the television side of things. After Netflix and HBO everyone else seems to be in the same league. 

Watchmen 26
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel 20
Ozark 18
Succession 18
The Mandalorian 15
Saturday Night Live 15
Schitt’s Creek 15
The Crown 13
Hollywood 12
Westworld 11
The Handmaid’s Tale 10
Mrs. America 10
RuPaul’s Drag Race 10
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver 9

Looking at the top shows – the big surge here is The Mandalorian. Not only does it automatically put Disney+ on the playing field, but makes everyone take note as well. John Favreau has really hit a home run on every level with this series. Production, writing, acting, cinematography – all aspects of this series got an Emmy nod and puts Disney+ at the big boy table. 

The shows with a smaller number of nods that did well for themselves are Euphoria with 6 nods, HBO’s Insecure with 8 nods, and Picard with 5.  Schitt’s Creek – which has won accolades with everyone over the years with funny, fantastic, consistent writing, without a major studio backing them, received 15 nods. The dark horse that proves good work is never ignored. Congrats to all the quality small productions that worked hard and got the attention they deserved.