As television wraps up its year, the Emmys are set to announce the biggest awards of the television season. The Pitt, Pluribus, Hacks, Widow’s Bay, Shrinking, and Paradise are due to clean up on nominations. An important distinction is that the Emmys eligibilty is from June of ‘25 to May of this year, so eligibility for a show like The Bear is for season four, not season five.
The 2026 Emmys will air on September 14th on NBC, hosted by Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star and Emmy Award winner Mariska Hargitay, while the Creative Arts Emmys take place the week before. The final voting period will be from August 17th to August 26th.
NBC Today announced two of the awards early, while the rest are to be announced by Liza Colon-Zayas, best known as Tina in The Bear, and Jeff HIller, who could find himself nominated for Widow’s Bay. The announcement is set for 11:30 AM EST.
Is Jean Smart going to complete the sweep this year to tie Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Cloris Leachman and Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus for most Emmy wins of all-time for an actor? Is Michelle Pfeiffer getting two nominations? Can Harrison Ford finally win for Shrinking? Do we see a genre series overperform on nomination morning this year?
Nominations:
Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Drama Series
Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Comedy Series
Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series
Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series
Limited or Anthology Series
Outstanding Talk Series
Outstanding Reality Competition Program:
Dancing with the Stars (ABC).
RuPaul’s Drag Race (MTV).
Survivor (CBS).
Top Chef (Bravo).
The Traitors (Peacock).
Oustanding Variety Show
The Daily Show (Comedy Central).
Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC).
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS).
Saturday Night Live (NBC).
Live Analysis:
Variety show should be rather simple to project. As good as SNL’s 51st season was, and you’ll likely see names such as Ashley Padilla pop up later this morning, this is a two horse race between Colbert and Kimmel, with Colbert likely lapping Kimmel. Kimmel’s win competitive because of the narrative that the government is trying to shut him down, a conversation that even the most staunch of conservatives, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, cite this in a legal briefing as agency overreach from the federal government. Colbert will take it, however, because the narrative that the government overreach is actually the reason the show isn’t on air anymore, particularly due to the Ellison ties to the President of the United States, who, instead of directing policy to help the U.S. citizens, has spent a significant chunk of his time focusing on how Late Night TV hurts his feelings because he’s a snowflake.
DSR has no frame of reference for Reality Show competition, but one thing worth mentioning is that this is the first time in its entire run that The Amazing Race did not show up in this category at the Emmys. Perhaps, they decided that the show peaked with its Hacks episode, and they’ll award that instead. Regardless, this category does feel very ‘old-guard’ television with its selections outside of the Traitors, so maybe that’s what wins here.
Photo credit: HBO.
Jameus Mooney is an entertainment writer for Comicbook Clique, having covered the entertainment industry for years. You can follow him on Twitter here, and Letterboxd here. You can also listen to his horror podcast, The 2:17 Horror Podcast, at the DeathArts XIII YouTube channel.