AFP-BNS
The science fiction series Severance, which airs on the Apple TV+ platform, was nominated for 27 Emmy Awards on Tuesday.
The Emmys are considered the television equivalent of the Oscars.
In second place was the HBO Max series The Penguin, a spin-off of the Batman saga about the villain, which scooped up 24 nominations.
Another HBO Max series, The White Lotus, and Apple TV+’s The Studio each received 23 nominations.
The comedy series Hacks earned 14 nominations, closely followed by The Bear, which garnered 13.
The nominees were announced a few months ahead of the 77th Emmy Awards ceremony, which will take place on September 14.
Last year, the historical epic Shogun was named Best Drama Series and set an all-time record. Shogun, about warring dynasties in feudal Japan, won 18 trophies and became the first non-English-language series to win the Best Drama award.
Severance, which tells the story of a biotech corporation called Lumon conducting a medical experiment on employees whose subconscious minds are surgically severed from their work and personal memories, is seen as an early frontrunner. The show’s lead actor, Adam Scott, is nominated in the Best Actor category.
However, he faces competition from ER veteran Noah Wyle, who plays the lead role in HBO’s The Pitt, a series about trauma center staff working around the clock to save lives.
“It’s ER on steroids!” awards columnist Pete Hammond from Deadline told AFP about the show, which received 13 nominations.
These two series are competing for Best Drama alongside the Star Wars franchise spin-off Andor on Disney+, HBO’s apocalyptic series The Last of Us adapted from the iconic video game, Hulu’s political thriller Paradise, Apple TV+’s spy drama Slow Horses, and HBO Max’s The White Lotus.
A. Scott and N. Wyle are up against Oscar-winner Gary Oldman, who starred in Slow Horses, Pedro Pascal from The Last of Us, and Sterling K. Brown from Paradise in the Best Actor category.
The Penguin will compete for Best Limited Series with Dying for Sex and three Netflix miniseries — Adolescence, Black Mirror, and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Comedy Competition
In the comedy categories, The Studio, a satirical comedy about the film industry starring Seth Rogen, has emerged as a clear favorite alongside last year’s nominees Hacks and The Bear.
Hacks, in which actress Jean Smart plays a comedian constantly clashing with her young assistant, won Best Comedy and Best Actress last September.
The dark satire The Bear, which dives into the behind-the-scenes chaos of a Chicago restaurant, won the top prize at the 2024 Emmy Awards ceremony, which was postponed to January due to the Hollywood strikes. The show’s stars, Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, won awards for Best Lead and Supporting Actor, respectively.
Also vying for Best Comedy are last year’s ABC nominee Abbott Elementary, the romantic comedy Nobody Wants This, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, Shrinking, and What We Do in the Shadows.
The nominations were announced during a live-streamed ceremony by What We Do in the Shadows actor Harvey Guillén and Brenda Song from the sports comedy series Running Point.
The final voting round for the 77th Emmy Awards will begin in mid-August.
This year’s Emmy Awards ceremony on September 14 will be hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze.