HBO’s Westworld and NBC’s Saturday Night Live have bagged the most number of nominations for the 69th Emmy Awards. The list of nominations was announced on Thursday by actors Anna Chlumsky and Shemar Moore and Hayma Washington, the CEO of Television Academy. The awards ceremony will be aired on September 17.
“Game of Thrones, which has won best drama the last two years, is ineligible for this year’s Emmys because of a later start date,” wrote the New York Times. “And HBO’s competitors are gleefully ready to fill the vacuum.” Unsurprisingly, HBO is leading the list, for the 17th consecutive year, with 110 nominations.
The list of nominations features a number of first-timers. Some of them include such shows as Stranger Things, Westworld and The Handmaid’s Tale. Certain nominations were expected of course: Elizabeth Moss for The Handmaid’s Tale, Bob Odenkirk for Better Call Saul, Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Veep and Uzo Aduba for Orange is the New Black.
The New York Times also attributed the nomination of several late-night shows, including SNL to a “Trump bump”. The newspaper said, “Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal” got its first nomination, along with Jimmy Kimmel and HBO’s Bill Maher, all of whom have capitalized during a year when liberals have turned to their TV sets to bathe in criticism of Mr. Trump. John Oliver, last year’s winner, was nominated yet again.”
Several popular actors and shows were left out of the nominations, wrote The Hollywood Reporter. These include Jimmy Fallon, The Leftovers, Girls’ Lena Dunham, Homeland’s Claire Danes and TV star Oprah Winfrey, among others.