Hammond @ The Emmys: A Record-Setting Night As The Once-Repetitive TV Academy Proves It Likes To Shake Things Up
There’s a simple way to sum up Monday night’s Primetime Emmy Awards: As we’ve seen in the past few years, there may be 24,000-plus voters in the Television Academy membership, but they only watch a handful of shows, and that membership has grown increasingly fickle as the Emmys near 80. To paraphrase the famous Oscar acceptance speech of Sally Field (who won her fourth Emmy last night), if they like you, they really, really like you.
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It seems like we are writing the same headlines year after year as Emmy keeps breaking its own records. In 2023, The Bear set the record for most wins for a comedy series with 10. The following year it won 11 to break its own record even without winning again for Best Comedy Series — that went to Hacks, its first and only win in the category. But the record-setting achievement of The Bear was eclipsed the very next year in 2025 when The Studio took home 12 wins, setting another record for a comedy series.
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But it didn’t last long for Apple TV to crow about that one: On Monday night, yet another of the streamer’s freshman Apple series, Widow’s Bay, set a comedy series record with 14 wins — including four for actors — as it was anointed the new comedy champ based on just its first seven episodes that didn’t even debut until near the end of the season on April 29.
The Widow’s Bay debut was so late that the final three episodes of the series didn’t make this season’s May 31 Emmy-eligibility cutoff, but the show clearly and quickly found a loyal audience in the industry and was front of mind when ballots were being filled out. Surprisingly, its 19 nominations trailed early front-runner Hacks, which itself broke the record of 24 noms in its fifth and final season, beating the record of 23 shared by The Bear and The Studio. (The HBO Max show only cashed in with two wins, for Editing and Jean Smart’s personal record run).
So voters absolutely have been showing they really like to honor shiny new toys in the comedy categories and are willing to go to the wall and just check off one for everything. In recent years, this has been a definite trend. Gone are the days of the same-old-same-old when Frasier, Modern Family and Veep would win repeatedly. Since 2018, only Ted Lasso (yet another Apple show) managed even back-to-back Comedy Series wins (for its first two seasons in the category in 2021 and 2022). Otherwise that has not been the rule anymore, as it has been a succession of newbies not previously registering in the category from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2018), Fleabag‘s second season (2019), Schitt’s Creek’s sixth season (2020), The Bear’s first season (2023), Hacks‘ third season (2024), The Studio’s first season (2025) and now in 2026 Widow’s Bay’s first season (well, most of it). Voters discover something — or finally discover something — instantly smother it with statuettes and then move on. This is not your father’s predictable Emmys anymore, at least in this category.
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The staleness of seeing the same shows awarded year after year definitely is wearing off. Yes, The Pitt won Outstanding Drama Series for a second consecutive year, but it still feels like fresh blood (sorry), and voters made room for other new drama series in awarding Emmys to Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn for Pluribus (six overall for the first-season show); Tom Pelphrey in Task; Allison Janney gaining The Diplomat’s first Emmy, and her eighth; and, slowly but surely, the sublime, just-renewed Slow Horses for directing.
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In the Limited Series/Anthology category, many were expecting front-runner Beef — which was returning to the category with an all-new season — to win on name value and comfort alone. But, after dominating in its first go-round in 2023, voters apparently felt a bit of “been there, done that” and awarded seven Emmys to quirkily original DTF St Louis, again indicating that voters are looking for something fresh and different. They like to discover things, even at the last minute like Widow’s Bay or in the second season of Fleabag or sixth season of Schitt’s Creek after previously not even acknowledging those shows existed.
From my vantage point in the Peacock Theater, this lively Emmy ceremony (nicely hosted by Mariska Hargitay, who had some very amusing bits), actually had some other pleasing fresh moments when the envelopes were opened. None was better than the unexpected win from the aforementioned Field, so great at 79 in Remarkably Bright Creatures and becoming the oldest winner ever in a Limited Series/Television Movie category that hasn’t awarded a single TV movie performance over limited series turns since Julianne Moore in Game Change 14 years ago.
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“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” the veteran star, now in her 62nd year in the business, said of the prediction markets. But it did. The Academy can bring in new blood, but its nice to know we still can recognize a truly worthy legend every now and then.
The Traitors, an exception to the new rule, won Best Reality Series for a third year in a row, cementing itself as the kind of perennial winner in the category RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Amazing Race used to dominate year after year. It looks like voters in this category do like the same-old-same-old.
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That would be true in the ever-changing Variety Series category as well, except The Late Show with Stephen Colbert won its second consecutive Emmy, shaking up a category that had mostly been won this century by either Last Week Tonight with John Oliver or The Daily Show. Of course, to do it Colbert had to go and get canceled. It probably goes back to Oliver or Daily Show next year.
But the trend is clear: Emmy voters (yes, I am one of them) indeed might be only watching a handful of shows, maybe overwhelmed by all the content. But when they happen on one they want to see, like Widow’s Bay, apparently there is no record that can’t be reset.
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