I often laugh when someone says, “I have to breathe after Emmy!” Cheerful! In the TV business, it’s always the season of awards. And as we say goodbye to the 2025 Emmy, we are quickly moving to the winter awards cycle, especially the Golden Globes and SAG Awards.
Of course, most of the future glove and sugrace seem to be a repetition of the Emmy-style faceoffs we just saw. In Globe, “Retirement” and “Pit” will fight once more in the drama while “Studio” and “Hacking” do it again in comedy. The same is seen in early predictions from the Sister Outlet Gold Derby of SAG Race.
Well, it looks like a rather boring winter for TV admiration, but this fall still has time for surprises. But Globe, Thug, critics’ choices and other shows that thrived in recognizing the top new shows on television before the Emmys are embarrassing. When television was primarily operated on a September-May calendar, the January rituals were usually first cracked with new fall hits.
However, TV calendars have changed during the streaming era, and autumn feels like the quietest time of the day. On the broadcast side, as my colleagues Kate Orser and Emily Morpetta recently pointed out, there are only a handful of new script shows coming (one for ABC, three for CBS, and no for NBC).
That is, nominees for most major awards began in the January-May time slot. It’s too late for Globes/SAG eligibility to give freshmen the first crack of Emmy.
Can some entries this summer and fall infiltrate Glove/Sugrace? That’s always possible. In June, the latest season of “The Golden Age” made quite a bit of noise, but “Bear” season 4 was considered an improvement in season 3 (if, of course, voters remember which season is contested). “Squid Game” also posted the final frame, but that farewell is probably not the best, as the previous season of the show didn’t dent with voters.
In July, Netflix’s newbie “The Hunting Wives” and Prime Video’s “The Summer I Tunder Pretty” season 3 was phenom (although I don’t know if they’re award-winning or not). “Wednesday,” which won four Emmys in 2023, was returned in two installments.
The two epics that will premiere this summer were Apple TV+’s Jason Momoa-Starrer’s “Chief of War” and FX’s big budget, “Alien: Earth.” I’m sure their outlets want to keep both of them in the conversation.
“Wednesday” is not the only ex-Emmy Darling to return to the Glove, Thug and Emmy races in 2026. Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show” which will be last seen in 2023 has returned this month, while Netflix’s “Stranger Things” has returned in 2022 with three parts. Both shows can be confused with the 2026 race being front and center.
In the new fall show, we’d like to see Peacock’s “Paper” (Greg Daniels and Michael Coman join in the comedy conversation. HBO’s “Task” lives in the universe of “Marle in East Town” and is able to take part in limited series races. On the limited series serial killer front, Netflix will have the next chapter of “Monsters”, with “Ed Gain Story” coming, and Peacock will premiere “John Wayne Gacy: Devil In Highs.”
In fact, there will be so many new return series this fall, but we can’t list them all. However, it saves a special location for November’s “Pluribus,” Vince Gilligan’s Apple TV+ sci-fi drama starring Rhea Seehorn and serves as the next project following “Better Call Saul.”
Annoyed, “Saul” never won one Emmy out of 53 nominations. Let’s hope for even better luck this time. See you at the awards circuit!