The Emmys goes down in a matter of hours, and the big story has to be what will win outstanding drama. It’s a tight race between HBO’s Game of Thrones and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Handmaid’s won last year, and took the Golden Globe best drama prize, too, in January.
Game of Thrones is setting up for its final season, to premiere next year. It was not eligible for an Emmy last year. It did win the top drama Emmy in 2015 and 2016.
Handmaid’s is in the news, with women donning costumes from the show to protest Brett Kavanaugh’s potential Supreme Court appointment.
Game of Thrones has the most nominations of any show with 22, and HBO’s Westworld is just behind with 21, alongside Saturday Night Live on NBC.
Related: Comedy Puts the Drama In This Year’s Emmys
Also in the running for outstanding drama is Netflix’s The Crown and Stranger Things, FX’s The Americans and NBC’s This Is Us.
Netflix surpassed HBO in terms of most nominated network, a title HBO held for 18 years. Netflix had 112 nominations to HBO’s 108. Netflix had 92 a year ago.
NBC bagged 78 nominations this year and FX had 50.
HBO and Netflix are the big players for outstanding comedy, too. HBO has Barry, Silicon Valley and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Netflix streams GLOW and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Amazon holds The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, FX has Atlanta and ABC airs black-ish.
HBO’s Veep is not eligible for an Emmy this year.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel took top comedy at the Golden Globes.
It is the 70th Primetime Emmys, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The telecast starts at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on NBC. Michael Che and Colin Jost, anchors of “Weekend Update” and co-head writers on Saturday Night Live, host the show.
Lorne Michaels executive produces.
