Sunday, September 20, 2020

Emmy Predictions 2020 Results

 About a year ago, as I've done for many years, I made 10 predictions about how I thought the 2020 Emmys would go. Now, COVID complicated things a bit, but I suspect it will mess with my 2021 predictions much more.

I don't have much to say about this year's actual Awards ceremony or winners. They did they best they could with the program. In terms of winners, they mostly went in expected directions, which was pretty clear from the nominations themselves. Schitt's Creek's sweep was one for the history books. Zendaya's win fully surprised me (not in a bad way). That's about all my thoughts on that. Let's see how my predictions from last year did.


Prediction:
Combined, Disney+, Apple TV+, and Peacock will only have 1 major Primetime Emmy nomination.
Reasoning: It was a vote of no confidence for Apple TV+ playing the game right, and all the other services would be too new or uninterested in going for Emmys.
Reality: I missed, fairly resoundingly. The Morning Show collected many acting nominations and The Mandalorian even got a shocking Drama Series nomination.

Prediction: HBO will still get the most Emmy nominations.
Reasoning: HBO had a ton of offerings, even without Game of Thrones' record-breaking nomination hauls.
Reality: While HBO still got an impressive 107 nominations, they were way down from 2019 and Netflix gained even more nominations (160!). Netflix just offers too many programs to compete with.

Prediction: The Drama and Comedy series awards go to shows not in their first seasons.
Reasoning: The Schitt's Creek model of discovering a show over time via streaming would continue.
Reality: I was entirely correct about this. And, before you accuse me of stacking the deck for this last September, it was not that clear that Schitt's Creek would win and Succession had to battle a year of competitors to keep its place as the favorite. 

Prediction: Netflix still won't have a major series winner.
Reasoning: Despite all their might, Netflix still can't get that elusive series prize. Nothing on the horizon looked set to change it.
Reality: By my count, Netflix is 0/30 for the Drama, Comedy, and Limited Series awards. To date, their biggest overall wins are a couple TV Movie awards for Black Mirror episodes. I can't figure out if it's sad or funny at this point that all their spending hasn't been enough to get a win yet.
 
Prediction: No repeat winners in the major Comedy and Drama acting categories.
Reasoning: 2 of the 8 winners were for series that ended and the other 6 weren't strong winners.
Reality: I was wrong, but not by much. Only Julia Garner repeated from last year. I can't count this as a correct prediction, but I don't feel bad about how close I got.

Prediction: Rhea Seehorn finally gets nominated for Better Call Saul.
Reasoning: The show looked ready for a Breaking Bad-style ramp up for its final couple seasons.
Reality: The show actually took a step back with Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks falling out of the nomination field. I don't get it. 

Prediction: Regina King gets nominated for Watchmen.
Reasoning: King gets nominated for nearly everything. 
Reality: I way underestimated the Watchmen love out there.

Prediction: Pose gets an historic nomination for one of its actresses.
Reasoning: Billy Porter just won the Lead Actor prize and the second season was getting a lot of buzz.
Reality: Pose fell off in a lot of categories. I suspect this may have been hurt by Covid, with a third season not being ready to air during the nomination period. Voters just had too long to forget about Pose.
 
Prediction: Variety Talk Series, Variety Sketch Series, and Competition Series only see one repeat winner between them.
Reasoning: Surely, voters would get tired of voting for the same shows every time. 
Reality: Yeah, that was dumb. All three repeated. Emmy voters love voting for the same shows every time.
 
Prediction: Neither HBO nor Black Mirror win the TV Movie award.
Reasoning: It just seemed like the category was ready for a change of pace.
Reality: HBO won it for the first time since 2015. I forgot that at this point, an HBO movie winning was considered a change or pace.

Not my best year ever. I'll try to have my 2021 predictions ready tomorrow. All I can say for sure is that the pandemic is going to make this brutal.

No comments:

Post a Comment