Every year it’s been nominated, Game of Thrones has had the best drama Emmys category all to itself. Once it started on its winning streak, it couldn’t be stopped, breaking one record after another and succeeding even when its own cast and crew thought everyone had moved on. Ask anyone at the beginning of this year and they would have said that the enormously popular, technically ambitious show would, of course, dominate the Emmys this year and, once again, claim the top prize.
But that was before the controversial final season left a sour taste along with a torched King’s Landing. With enough time for the backlash to have fully settled in, will Game of Thrones stumble in its final run at the Emmys? Or is Thrones, like Daenerys’s favorite dragon, too big to fail? Early signs point to yes, but there’s a potential disrupter waiting in the wings.
The Thrones Emmy narrative was off to a rollicking start this summer when it broke yet another record by landing 32 nominations—the most ever for a single program. And the show walked away with more Creative Arts Emmys last weekend than any other competitor. But it wasn’t a clean sweep by any means. Production designer Deborah Riley and her team already have four Emmys, but they didn’t pick up the prize this year despite building a painstaking replica of King’s Landing’s original location in Dubrovnik so Daenerys and her dragon could blast it to smithereens. The show also lost in the cinematography category—though that doesn’t mean much. Game of Thrones has, surprisingly, never managed to win this prize even when viewers could see the camera work on display.
Thrones also lost in the hairstyling and prosthetic makeup categories to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Star Trek: Discovery, respectively. Then again, they won for editing for the hard-to-follow action episode “The Long Night.” How did they pull that one off? Well, there are two important things for folks playing at home to consider: 1) The people voting in these Emmys categories are members of very specific Television Academy branches. In other words, professional editors may be able to spot an award-worthy aspect we mere viewers cannot. 2) Emmy voters may not be watching the episodes in the same conditions. “The Long Night”—an excruciatingly difficult undertaking requiring 55 nights of shooting—got a splashy For Your Consideration screening at Hollywood’s famous Chinese Theatre, and attendees of that event, who saw the episode the way it was meant to be seen in all its properly lit glory, reportedly walked out dazzled.
That screening was only one small part of HBO’s muscular effort to promote its flagship show in its final season. According to a study from IndieWire, HBO dedicated 42.9% of its drama FYC ad space in trade publications Variety and the Hollywood Reporter to Game of Thrones. If Thrones takes the top prize, HBO gets to brush off its critics. In fact, at this summer’s Television Critics Association press tour, HBO programming chief Casey Bloys did just that, citing the show’s record-breaking nominations as a vindication for the final season.
But HBO is not only interested in burnishing its own past; it also has to heavily invest in its Thrones-less future. The network has recently launched a few dramas that it clearly hoped would take up the Thrones mantle. Westworld, despite its expense and spectacle, has failed to achieve the same ratings, critical, and awards success. But the true heir to the Thrones may have finally emerged in the shape of Jesse Armstrong’s biting family drama Succession, which already nabbed a Golden Globe nomination, as well as recognition from the DGA and WGA. And the network seems to know it. HBO spent 28.6%, the second most of its FYC drama ad budget, on Succession—which was nominated in the outstanding drama Emmy category for its first season. There was also a glossy Television Academy event in New York City with the whole cast earlier this year.
