Not everyone can be invited to the Emmys, and not a year goes by without the Television Academy snubbing some of the best that television has to offer. HBO shows Industry and Somebody Somewhere popped up on more year-end best-of lists than almost any other 2024 series, but neither show has been nominated for a single Emmy—and that trend may well continue in 2025. Apple TV+ has several contenders to push this year, between the triumphant return of Severance and the breakout success of The Studio. Yet few of its shows have found as much critical love as the unsung Pachinko, whose presence on the FYC circuit is relatively miniscule. And how is it that a combination of great reviews, chart-topping ratings, and a rich Keira Knightley comeback narrative isn’t enough to make Netflix’s Black Doves a top overall player?
So it goes when, as ever, there’s Too Much TV—and blockbusters like The White Lotus, The Last of Us, and Adolescence take up so much of the oxygen. With voting beginning today, on this week’s Little Gold Men roundtable (listen above), my cohosts Richard Lawson and Rebecca Ford joined me in championing some of this season’s awards underdogs—as well as a few actors that deserve highlighting too.
Some of those performances are at least tangentially on voters’ radar. Take the supporting cast of Andor, Tony Gilroy’s brilliant Star Wars prequel which is primed to receive another best drama series nomination for its second and final season. But Andor’s cast was ignored by the Television Academy in season one, and while Diego Luna now stands a decent shot at getting his first Emmy nod, the show’s exceptional supporting cast will likely again be crowded out by stacked ensembles in the likes of The White Lotus and The Pitt. This, despite that astounding speech from Genevieve O’Reilly, Adria Arjona’s powerful exploration of trauma recovery, the complex villainy of Kyle Sollner and Denise Gough, and perhaps most deservingly, the bracing authority projected by Stellan Skarsgård as the Rebellion’s shadow leader.
to back up her campaign. But there’s also Ken Leung, who’s done tremendous work for years as the veteran of the finance drama’s otherwise young cast. Leung is a true industry journeyman—see his small roles in Rush Hour, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Saw, to say nothing of his three seasons on Lost—now tearing into the best role of his career. His character’s delicious double-cross to close out the season would mark an ideal occasion for a first Emmy nod.
It’s the same story for the emotional explosives delivered by Jacob Anderson in Interview With the Vampire, or Minha Kim in Pachinko. If enough voters watch these shows, nominations should be easily within reach. The work is that good. Yet the Academy viewership figures, sadly, are not.
This is perhaps most tragic in the case of Somebody Somewhere, taking its last awards stand for its note-perfect third and final season. (Don’t take just my word for it: Critics from Rolling Stone, Vulture, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire and more named it the single best show of last year.) The Emmys’ acting branch may not be familiar enough with Bridget Everett’s ballsy alt-cabaret background to know just how striking a departure her tender, naturalistic, deeply vulnerable performance in the intimate slice-of-life has been, but her work on this show is simply revelatory. Ditto that of her co-star Jeff Hiller.
Somebody Somewhere belongs to a great but fading subgenre of idiosyncratic HBO half-hours that critics loved, even as viewership figures stayed small to tiny from beginning to end—shows like The Comeback, Flight of the Conchords, Enlightened, and Getting On. In each of those cases, the lead actors were, at least, eventually Emmy-nominated. Everett and Somebody Somewhere deserve the same recognition; current odds say they won’t get it. On this first day of voting, here’s a call for that to change.
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