The Pitt and Widow’s Bay Turn the Emmys Into a Shutout

25 Emmy nominations walk into Monday with The Pitt, the most of any series. Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay already has eight Creative Arts trophies before a single major prize is read aloud.

Hacks closed its run with a comedy-record 24 nominations, and still may spend that haul as a bridesmaid. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards air Monday, Sept. 14, at 8 p.m. ET from the Peacock Theater, with Mariska Hargitay hosting.

Three Shows, 68 Nominations

The Television Academy announced the ballot on July 8. By the official count, The Pitt led drama with 25 nominations and Hacks set the record for comedy nominations in a single year with 24, passing the 23 that The Studio held in 2025 and The Bear held in 2024. Widow’s Bay, a first-season horror comedy, landed 19.

Add those three and you get 68 nominations. Eight shows in a field of 176 nominated programs cleared 10 nods, about 4.5 percent of the list. HBO Max led every platform with 122 nominations. Netflix had 111. Apple TV had 87 from only 31 submitted shows, a 2.81 clip that beats Warner Bros. Discovery’s 1.74.

The Pitt and Hacks, both on HBO Max and neither a cable-first HBO flagship, account for 49 of those 122. That is the platform’s whole strategy in one pair: stack two campaigns until the rest of the room is fighting over leftovers.

THE NOMINATION PILE-UP

Apple still put three series into outstanding drama (Pluribus, Slow Horses, Your Friends & Neighbors) and three into comedy (Widow’s Bay, Shrinking, Margo’s Got Money Troubles). Volume is not the same as a path to the podium. Your Friends & Neighbors is in the drama eight with a thin nomination sheet behind it. The Bear, a former comedy winner, sits in a field it no longer controls.

THE ROAD TO MONDAY

1. June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026: Eligibility window. Widow’s Bay could not submit its last three episodes after the cutoff.
2. July 8, 2026: Nominations from the Wolf Theatre, with Liza Colón-Zayas, Jeff Hiller and chair Cris Abrego.
3. August 17, 2026: Final-round voting opens, compiled by Ernst & Young.
4. September 5 and 6, 2026: Creative Arts ceremonies. Widow’s Bay leads all programs with 8 wins.
5. September 14, 2026: Main telecast, 19 categories, live coast to coast.

Abrego called the ballot a spread of “intimate character-driven comedies and satires to fantasy, thrillers, and costume dramas.” The numbers under that sentence are less generous. Twenty-eight performers are first-time nominees, and a long string of them come from The Pitt’s bench.

This year’s nominees represent the extraordinary creativity and artistry that make television such a dynamic form of entertainment.

Cris Abrego, Television Academy Chair, July 8 nominations release

Why The Pitt Looks Unbeatable in Drama

Last year The Pitt won outstanding drama plus acting prizes for Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa, from 13 nominations. Season 2, which closed in April around a Fourth of July shift and a hospital cyberattack, pushed the total to 25, with 12 in the major categories that actually air on Monday.

Gold Derby’s combined odds put the series at 93.8 percent in drama and Wyle at 95.0 percent against Sterling K. Brown (Paradise), Gary Oldman (Slow Horses), Mark Ruffalo (Task) and Rufus Sewell (The Diplomat). Wyle is also nominated for directing the episode “12:00 P.M.” A five-person actor ballot with one name already treated as finished is how a stacked category still becomes a procession.

The supporting lists make the squeeze visible. Four of seven supporting-actress nominees are from The Pitt: Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif, LaNasa and Sepideh Moafi, with Allison Janney (The Diplomat), Julianne Nicholson (Paradise) and Karolina Wydra (Pluribus) on the outside of that cluster. Three of seven supporting-actor nominees are Patrick Ball, Shawn Hatosy and Gerran Howell, which splits Max’s own vote and still crowds out Jack Lowden, Tom Pelphrey, Billy Crudup and Carlos Manuel Vesga.

Pluribus, Vince Gilligan’s Apple drama, is the only freshman series with the raw nomination weight (18, including 6 major) to spoil a repeat. Rhea Seehorn sits at 84.5 percent in lead drama actress over Keri Russell, Carrie Coon, Chase Infiniti and Zendaya. If The Pitt takes series, actor and both supporting prizes, Seehorn is the one major drama acting slot the hospital does not own. That is the consolation prize in a category the Academy already filled with one show.

Creative Arts did not crown The Pitt. It won 4 there, including drama casting and the original song “Need Someone.” The series still heads into Monday as the show other dramas have to beat, and none of the betting lines say they will.

Widow’s Bay Already Has Eight Trophies

The live fight is comedy, and it is not the fight Hacks paid for. The HBO Max finale, which ended in May, broke the single-year comedy nomination record and is nominated for series, Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Megan Stalter, Paul W. Downs, writing and directing. Awards-site combined odds still give Hacks the writing race at 74.9 percent. They do not give it the series trophy.

Widow’s Bay is the Apple TV horror-comedy Widow’s Bay about a New England mayor, Tom Loftis, trying to sell a haunted island as a tourist spot. Katie Dippold wrote the pilot. Hiro Murai directed it. Matthew Rhys stars and produces. The eligibility window closed on May 31, so Apple could not put the last three episodes in front of voters. Combined odds still list the show at 66.9 percent to win outstanding comedy, with Hacks the distant second.

The craft branches already voted with their feet. Across the Sept. 5 and 6 Creative Arts shows, Widow’s Bay led every program. The Television Academy’s own tally now shows eight Creative Arts trophies already banked, all before Monday’s telecast.

WIDOW’S BAY’S EIGHT CREATIVE ARTS WINS

• Guest actress: Betty Gilpin, as Sarah Westcott Warren.
• Casting: Allison Jones, Emily Buntyn, Lisa Lobel and Angela Peri.
• Production design: Steve Arnold, Peter Borck and Jennifer Engel, half-hour narrative.
• Cinematography: Christian Sprenger, half-hour series.
• Sound mixing: the half-hour comedy team on “What to Expect on Your Trip.”
• Sound editing: the half-hour comedy team on the same episode.
• Music supervision: Toko Nagata.
• Original score: David Fleming, for “Our History.”

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show won 7. DTF St. Louis and The Traitors won 6 each. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert won 5, a farewell package of writing, directing, short form and craft prizes after CBS canceled the show. The Pitt and Pluribus won 4 apiece. Hacks did not lead a single night.

WHERE EXPERTS DISAGREE

• Widow’s Bay for series: Gold Derby’s combined board has the Apple show at 66.9 percent, and most public picks moved with the Creative Arts sweep.
• Hacks for series: Awards columnist Pete Hammond is still on the finale, the Hollywood-about-Hollywood send-off the Academy has rewarded before.
• The writing split: The same boards that favor Widow’s Bay for series still have Hacks in front for comedy writing, which would hand the closer a craft prize and not the one it wanted.

Debra Birnbaum, editor-in-chief of Gold Derby, has called the comedy series race a nail-biter even as her site’s numbers hardened. Gerrad Hall put the shift in plain terms in early September: three months earlier Hacks looked like a slam dunk, and then the Apple show took the industry. A record nomination total is not a win. Hacks has learned that before. It has only won outstanding comedy once, for season 3, and has lost the prize to first-year shows in other years.

Noah Wyle and Jean Smart Are the Locks

If the series races are a shutout plus one brawl, the lead acting races are a set of closed doors. Combined odds put Wyle at 95.0 percent, Smart at 92.3 percent, Rhys at 95.7 percent in comedy actor, and Seehorn at 84.5 percent. Those four names are how the telecast spends its acting hours unless a branch revolts.

THE ACTING BOARD

• Drama actor: Wyle at 95.0 percent, with Oldman, Ruffalo, Brown and Sewell running at a prize the lines already assigned.
• Comedy actress: Smart at 92.3 percent, chasing a fifth Hacks win and an eighth career Emmy.
• Comedy actor: Rhys at 95.7 percent as Mayor Loftis; he is also the only performer with two lead acting nominations, the other for The Beast in Me.
• Drama actress: Seehorn at 84.5 percent, the one major drama acting race The Pitt does not occupy.

Smart has already won lead comedy actress for every prior season of Hacks, four trophies on top of two guest-comedy wins for Frasier and a supporting-comedy win for Samantha Who?, for seven Emmys. A fifth Hacks win would make her the first performer to take that category for every season of a series. Lisa Kudrow is nominated for The Comeback and is the sentimental spoil. The numbers do not care.

Rhys won drama actor in 2018 for The Americans and has been treated as overdue in comedy ever since. His second lead slot, as Nile Jarvis in The Beast in Me, is the one he is expected to lose, because the Academy is not going to give him two speeches. Oscar Isaac is the limited-series actor favorite on most public boards, with Charlie Hunnam’s Ed Gein and Jason Bateman (four nominations this year across Black Rabbit and DTF St. Louis) in the mix. Bateman’s volume is real. It is also the kind of volume that scatters.

An 84-Year-Old Win Would Leave Root Out

The one acting race that still has air in it is supporting actor in a comedy, and it is a pure trade. Stephen Root plays Wyck Crawford, the stubborn center of Widow’s Bay, and in a year without Harrison Ford he would be the easy story. Ford, 84, is nominated for Shrinking as Dr. Paul Rhoades and has never won an Emmy. Combined odds have Ford at 56.0 percent, a coin toss dressed up as a tribute.

If Ford wins, he becomes the oldest winner in that category and collects a first major acting prize in a 60-year career, on an Apple show that is not the Apple show of the night. Root goes home with the better part and no statue. Paul W. Downs (Hacks), Nick Offerman (Margo’s Got Money Troubles), Michael Urie (Shrinking), Colman Domingo (The Four Seasons) and Tyler James Williams (Abbott Elementary) are the rest of a ballot that exists to lose to a legacy vote or a breakout.

Supporting actress in comedy is cleaner. Kate O’Flynn, a British stage actor most U.S. viewers met this summer, sits at 74.9 percent as Patricia Moyer, the deadpan final girl of Widow’s Bay. Einbinder is the reigning champion and could ride the Hacks closer, especially the AI monologue that clipped around the internet. Dale Dickey is nominated too, which means Apple put two women from the same new show in the way of a farewell campaign. That is what a 19-nomination freshman series does to a 24-nomination finale: it occupies the slots the finale thought it owned.

Limited Series Left Half Its Prizes Off-Camera

Outstanding limited or anthology series still airs on Monday: All Her Fault, The Beast in Me, Beef, DTF St. Louis and Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. The supporting acting, directing and writing prizes for that field do not. The Academy moved them to Creative Arts, so a chunk of the limited-series race is already in the history books.

WHAT WE KNOW

• David Harbour: Won supporting actor in a limited series for DTF St. Louis.
• Linda Cardellini: Won supporting actress in a limited series for the same show.
• DTF crafts: The HBO series also took limited-series directing and writing, part of a 6-win Creative Arts night, from 13 nominations.
• Remarkably Bright Creatures: Won outstanding movie. Sally Field remains in the Monday lead-actress limited race.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The series prize: Beef, the Netflix anthology’s second drop, is the critics’ darling in that five; DTF has the early hardware and the word-of-mouth.
• Lead actor: Isaac versus Rhys versus Hunnam, with Rhys likely paid in comedy instead.
• Lead actress: Field versus Sarah Pidgeon, Claire Danes, Carey Mulligan and Sarah Snook, a race the movie win does not settle.

DTF’s 13 nominations included a wrinkle the rest of the field did not have: Harbour, Cardellini and Bateman all went in as supporting, which padded the below-the-title sheet and left the series prize as the Monday argument. Beef has 16 nominations and 3 Creative Arts wins. Love Story has Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette and a lot of mood. All Her Fault put Snook in a Peacock thriller. The Beast in Me has Danes and Rhys and now has to win without its male lead’s attention.

The Monday Telecast Dropped to 19 Categories

The Academy cut the live show to 19 categories, down from 26 last year. In July it moved outstanding supporting actor, supporting actress, directing and writing for a limited or anthology series or movie, plus writing for a variety series, off the Monday broadcast. Outstanding Variety Special (Live) went with them. Chair Abrego said the shifts would make room for musical numbers and comedy bits and would “be as balanced and as equitable as possible.”

The guilds did not buy it. A joint statement from the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA said the decision “devalues the contributions of the talented people the Academy is meant to honor.” Limited-series actors who already won on the Creative Arts stage will not get a Monday camera. Variety writers are in the same boat.

The decision to eliminate these categories from the prime-time broadcast devalues the contributions of the talented people the Academy is meant to honor.

Joint statement from the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA

WHAT LEFT THE MONDAY SHOW

• Limited series supporting actor and actress: already awarded, Harbour and Cardellini on the board.
• Limited series directing and writing: already awarded to DTF St. Louis.
• Variety series writing: already awarded to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
• Variety special (live): moved back to Creative Arts, with Bad Bunny’s halftime show the weekend’s other giant.

Outstanding variety series is still on Monday, in a merged field built because the old talk-and-sketch split was running out of nominees: The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Saturday Night Live. Colbert’s 5 Creative Arts wins are a statement. They are not the series prize. Last Week Tonight is the show that usually wins this kind of room. SNL has 11 nominations and a 51-season total of 359, a record no other primetime series has approached.

Hargitay, 62, is the first woman to host since Jane Lynch in 2011 and the first non-comedian in the job since Angela Lansbury in 1993. NBC is using the booking as part of its 100th-anniversary year and as a nod to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the show that made her. She won lead drama actress in 2006 and picked up more hardware this month for the documentary My Mom Jayne. Mariska Hargitay hosting the telecast is the network putting a drama star in a job that usually goes to a stand-up, on a night whose biggest drama is already decided.

A combined Creative Arts broadcast is set for Saturday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FXX, then Hulu. The main show will stream live on NBC and Peacock on Monday at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Michael J. Fox will receive the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. Then the room will spend three hours confirming what the nomination math already said: The Pitt is the drama, Widow’s Bay is the comedy spoiler, and a lot of very good television will clap from the floor.