Emmy Nominations Announced Wednesday Morning

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Nominations for the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced Wednesday morning with last year's actors' and writers' strikes contributing to a turnover in the nominees for outstanding drama and comedy series.

Of last year's eight nominees in the outstanding drama series category, only "The Crown" is eligible to be among this year's eight nominees. The Netflix drama about the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II will likely be nominated for the sixth time in its six-season run. Its final six episodes were released Dec. 14.

Three of last year's eight outstanding comedy series nominees are eligible for this year's eight nominations -- the winner, FX's "The Bear," ABC's "Abbott Elementary" and Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building."

Six first-season series -- which began and completed production before the strikes halted work on television programming and movies -- are among the contenders for outstanding drama series nominations: Disney+'s "Star Wars" series "Ahsoka," the Prime Video post-apocalyptic drama "Fallout" and its spy series, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," FX's historical drama "Shogun," the Netflix science fiction series "3 Body Problem" and the Showtime dramedy "The Curse."

Other contenders for nominations include Apple TV+'s "The Morning Show," whose latest season received the equivalent of outstanding drama series nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Producers Guild of America Awards, and the HBO historical drama "The Guilded Age," which also received a nomination for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, its outstanding drama series equivalent.

No series from a major broadcast network has been nominated in the category since the NBC family drama "This Is Us" in 2019. A series from the major broadcast networks has not won since Fox's "24" in 2006.

The winner for the 2022-23 season, HBO's "Succession," and the AMC legal crime drama "Better Call Saul," have both ended their runs.

There were no new episodes aired during the June 1, 2023-May 30, 2024 eligibility period for five other nominees from last year -- the Disney+ "Star Wars" series "Andor," the HBO "Game of Thrones" prequel "House of the Dragon," the HBO post-apocalyptic drama "The Last of Us," the HBO black comedy-drama anthology "The White Lotus" and `Yellowjackets, the Showtime series about a New Jersey high school soccer team whose flight bound for a national tournament in 1996 in Seattle crashes in the Canadian wilderness.

The final season of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is a contender for an outstanding comedy series nomination. It has been nominated 10 times in the category during its intermittent 12-season run that began in 2000. The only time it failed to be nominated was during its first season.

Two other previous nominees are also contenders.

HBO's "Hacks" was nominated in each of its first two seasons, but did not release any new episodes during the eligibility period for last year's nominations. FX's comedy horror mockumentary "What We Do in the Shadows" was nominated in 2020 and 2022 but failed to receive a nomination last year.

First-season series that are contenders for nominations include the Netflix action comedy "The Gentlemen" and the Prime Video superhero comedy "Gen V."

There were no new episodes aired during the eligibility period for five of last year's nominees -- HBO's "Barry," Amazon Freevee's "Jury Duty," Apple TV+'s "Ted Lasso," Netflix's "Wednesday" and Prime Video's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," which concluded its run in 2023 after five seasons.

The most recent time a series from the major broadcast networks won in the category was 2014 when ABC's "Modern Family" won for the fifth consecutive year.

MTV's "RuPaul's Drag Race" is expected to be nominated for outstanding reality competition program for the eighth consecutive year. It won for four consecutive years, lost to the Prime Video dance competition "Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls" in 2022, but won again at January's delayed ceremony for 2023-23 programming.

"The Amazing Race" is expected to be nominated for the 21st time in the 22 years the category has existed. It was nominated in each of the first 17 years, was not eligible in 2020 because CBS did not air a new season during the eligibility period, then nominated again each of the last three years. It is a 10-time winner, including each of the first seven.

Other contenders for nominations include CBS' "Survivor," a seven- time nominee including last year, Bravo's "Top Chef," a nominee for 17 consecutive years, NBC's "The Voice," a nominee for 12 consecutive years, Peacock's murder mystery game "The Traitors," and Netflix's first-season competition show based on its survival drama "Squid Game," "Squid Game: The Challenge."

Emmy-winning actors Tony Hale and Sheryl Lee Ralph and Television Academy Chair Cris Abrego will announce the nominations in the top categories at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. The announcement will be streamed live on Emmys.com/nominations.

Hale won outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series Emmys in 2013 and 2015 and was also nominated in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019 for his portrayal of the personal aide and body man to Vice President and President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in HBO's "Veep."

Ralph won the outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series Emmy in 2022 and was again nominated in 2023 for her portrayal of kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard in ABC's "Abbot Elementary."

The 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be presented Sept. 15. The bulk of the awards in 124 categories will be presented at the Creative Arts Emmys Sept. 7-8. Those awards are mainly in technical categories such as picture editing, costuming, hairstyling, makeup and sound, but also include awards for guest acting.

By STEVEN HERBERT, City News Service