Emmys: Best Drama Series Field Almost Entirely Different From 2023

The 2024 Emmy Awards will feature a best drama series field that’s almost entirely different than the nominees for the last awards. But rather than a wholesale changing of the guard, the nearly unprecedented turnover is more a function of the way TV works now.

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Of last year’s eight drama series contenders, two — HBO’s Succession (which won the award) and AMC’s Better Call Saul — were nominated for their final seasons. Five others aren’t eligible for this year’s Emmys: Andor, House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets didn’t air any new episodes in the eligibility period of June 1, 2023-May 31, 2024.

Only The Crown is a repeat nominee from the 75th Emmys. The last time only one drama series from the previous year was nominated was exactly 50 years ago, when The Waltons (which won the award in 1973) was nominated in 1974 alongside Kojak, Police Story, The Streets of San Francisco and Upstairs, Downstairs .

Four of the eight nominees for drama series at the 2024 Emmys — 3 Body Problem, Fallout, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Shōgun — earned nods for their first seasons. The Gilded Age, The Morning Show and Slow Horses have been around longer but landed their first series nominations.

Emmys 2024: List of Nominees

While it’s become increasingly common for big-budget, effects-heavy series — Andor, HotD and The Last of Us definitely fall into that category — to take more than a year between seasons, the production stoppages during last year’s dual labor strikes also factor into the heavy turnover among best drama contenders. Writers rooms for several of the 2023 nominees had opened before the Writers Guild of America went on strike last May, and had studios and streamers come to a quicker settlement with writers and actors (whose strike began in July), it’s conceivable that some of last year’s nominees would have made it under the wire for consideration this time around.

House of the Dragon , which premiered June 16 and is midway through its second season on HBO, will be eligible for the 2025 Emmys. The others don’t yet have airdates for their next seasons, though they’re likely to premiere sometime next year. Andor wrapped filming on its second season in February, and The Last of Us , The White Lotus and Yellowjackets are all in production now.

The 76th Emmy Awards will be broadcast live Sunday, Sept. 15 on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu. Here is the full list of the 2024 nominees.

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