Emmy Nominations 2023: 10 Biggest Snubs and Surprises

In many ways, the 2023 Emmy nominations were predictable. HBO’s Succession got 27 nominations for its final season, and the only thing preventing it from being the betting favorite in every category for which it got nominated is the possibility of vote-splitting when there are multiple choices. HBO had a huge day overall, thanks also to The Last of Us, The White Lotus, House of the Dragon, and Barry. Abbott Elementary and Ted Lasso racked up big nomination totals, and RuPaul’s Drag Race was of course nominated for reality competition series, etc. 

But there were, as usual, some unexpected choices in terms of who and what got nominated, and who and what didn’t. Here are 10 choices we didn’t expect the TV Academy to make:

SNUB: Atlanta

GUY D’ALEMA/FX

One of the best, most era-defining comedies of the last decade got a single nomination for its fantastic final season, with Christian Sprenger’s beautiful cinematography on the Alfred in the country episode being recognized. And that was it. Donald Glover wound up sharing a writing nom for Swarm, the Amazon miniseries he worked on with Atlanta vet Janine Nabers. But it’s shocking to see a show that had more than two dozen previous nominations and six wins get almost completely shut out like this.

SURPRISE: Obi-Wan Kenobi

LUCASFILM LTD.

It’s not that shocking that the Disney+ miniseries scored a few technical nominations, especially since it was competing in different categories from Andor. But how did a show that was greeted at best with indifference, and mostly viewed as yet another sign that the Star Wars franchise needs better quality control, get nominated as one of the six best limited series of a year that also included Swarm, Dead Ringers, and several other clearly superior options?

SNUB: Harrison Ford, Shrinking

BETH DUBBER/APPLE TV

Ford actually got doubly shut out, which we’ll talk about more in a bit. But it’s frankly shocking that the iconic actor couldn’t get a comedy supporting actor nod for his best-reviewed performance of this century. It would be one thing if the Academy had ignored Shrinking altogether, since the voters apparently couldn’t quit fellow Apple comedy Ted Lasso for its disappointing final season. But Ford’s co-stars Jason Segel and Jessica Williams both got deserving nominations. So the voters knew the show existed, yet didn’t nominate its best performer?

SURPRISE: Jury Duty

COURTESY OF AMAZON FREEVEE

On the one hand, the hybrid comedy — in which an unwitting civilian was placed in the middle of a staged trial otherwise populated entirely by actors — was a huge word-of-mouth hit this spring. On the other hand, for Freevee — aka Amazon’s free, ad-supported sister service, formerly known as IMDbTV — to get four nominations, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series, and one for James Marsden’s supporting performance as an exaggeratedly awful version of himself, is among today’s more unexpected developments. Freevee has had a very good year overall (see also: High School, Primo, and others), but for this low-budget series to nearly equal the nomination total of Amazon’s billion-dollar Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is certainly something that’s going to cause a lot of internal debate over in Jeff Bezos World.

SNUB: No Daisy Jones & The Six song nomination

LACEY TERRELL/PRIME VIDEO

It was mostly a very good day for Amazon’s adaptation of the Taylor Jenkins Reid bestseller about a fictional Seventies band’s dramatic rise and fall. Daisy picked up nine nominations, including for best limited series and for star Riley Keough’s performance. Given that amount of love from the voters, you would think one of the band’s many songs would have gotten a nomination, most probably “Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)” or “Aurora,” which were featured the most prominently across those 10 episodes.

SURPRISE: Keri Russell, The Diplomat

ALEX BAILEY/NETFLIX

Russell got a trio of nominations, but no wins, for her work on The Americans, so it’s not completely out of the blue that she would be recognized for her work as the flustered title character of the Netflix political drama. But The Diplomat is a light, breezy, and charming concoction, with Russell deploying pure star power rather than the heavyweight emotions of her work as deep cover spy Elizabeth Jennings on her previous TV gig. It’s a wonderful performance, but the sort of thing that tends not to get love at awards time.

SNUB: Reservation Dogs

SHANE BROWN/FX

Maybe we should put this one in the Surprise category, since the FX on Hulu comedy about four Indigenous teens from rural Oklahoma did manage to get a nomination this year, for sound editing, after being shut out in its first season. But this was the best show eligible in the comedy categories — yes, better than The Bear (which should be over in drama, but that’s an argument for a different day), and vastly better than Ted Lasso Season Three — yet it remained almost entirely on the outside looking in. To borrow the Rez Dogs’ favorite phrase, why do Emmy voters have to be a bunch of shitasses?

SURPRISE: Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face

PEACOCK

Speaking of the blurred lines between categories, it was something of a surprise when Peacock opted to submit Poker Face in the comedy categories, since it’s ostensibly an hour-long mystery series that has some comedic elements, most of them coming from Lyonne’s force of nature performance. But since that’s where Peacock chose to place it, there was some question of whether Emmy voters would go along with the choice. To some extent, they didn’t, since Poker Face creator Rian Johnson somehow failed to get either a writing or directing nom, despite impeccable work in both areas. But Lyonne herself got a deserved nomination.

SNUB: Better Call Saul supporting/guest actors

GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES TELEVISION

It’s almost a relief that the voters remembered Saul in the first place, since its final season was concluding right as voting for last year’s Emmys was wrapping up, and Academy members tend to have short memories. So nominations for drama series, writing, Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, and some technical categories is better than some Saul fans might have feared. But Odenkirk and Seehorn, spectacular as they are, should not have been the only actors chosen. This means that Jonathan Banks will have never won an Emmy for playing Mike Ehrmantraut, either on Breaking Bad or Saul. Ditto Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring. Carol Burnett was wonderful, and probably would have gotten a guest actress nomination if she hadn’t appeared in one episode too many. But eligibility rules put her in the supporting actress category, where voters seemed determined to nominate every person who appeared in The White Lotus this year. If nothing else, you would have assumed Bryan Cranston would be an automatic nominee for playing Walter White again in a pair of episodes, but no.

SNUB: Taylor Sheridan

PARAMOUNT NETWORK

We can debate another time whether any entries in Sheridan’s ever-expanding drama empire are good enough to deserve nominations over the series that were chosen. But they are unquestionably popular, Yellowstone most of all, and Emmy voters at a certain point tend to yield to success. (See, for instance, how well Netflix’s Wednesday did, beyond the expected Jenna Ortega nom.) At some point, you would assume the Academy would at least throw a token nomination at Kevin Costner, right? Perhaps Sheridan’s recent grousing about this state of affairs did more harm than good?

From Rolling Stone US.