2017 Emmys: FINAL Emmy Nomination Predictions

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The nominations for the 69th Emmy Awards are in just a few days and I have the FINAL Emmy Experts predictions for who will be in the race for television’s highest honor right here.

While the Emmys throw us curveballs year after year, this year could prove to be especially wild. With two of the Emmys’ biggest drama series’ not in the running (current champ Game of Thrones is airing outside of the 2016-2017 eligibility and Downton Abbey finished its series run last year) this means we will have a brand new winner that could come from one of the five shows returning for a nomination this year (The Americans, Better Call Saul, Homeland, House of Cards, Mr. Robot) or from one of the five NEW shows in the running (The Crown, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, This Is Us, Westworld). Then there’s the case of The Leftovers. The critics’ darling from HBO wrapped its series run just before the Emmy deadline but has never been nominated for a single Emmy yet. Even though HBO has Westworld they’ve made a real push for The Leftovers to go out with some gold this year and it may pay off.

What makes the Emmys often more fun to predict is how much more difficult it can be than the Oscars. The Oscars, set on a calendar year of eligibility and lined with a path of precursors in the form of of critics and industry kudos, build a story and a narrative for nominations and wins. The Emmys, with its standard (and old) television season period of September to end of May doesn’t have that. You can’t always rely on the Golden Globes or SAG that often because they’re on a calendar year as well. Neither have as many categories (or category placements) as the Emmys do; SAG doesn’t even have a supporting category for television, making someone like Uzo Aduba able to win – in Comedy and as a default lead. That said, this year may prove to be a bit different as the two shows that dominated the Globes and SAG awards, The Crown and Stranger Things, respectively, are both in the running for their first seasons. Sometimes it seems like a show that aired in summer last year is just too far out of voters’ memory to hit but quite often a new season of a show will start right as voting begins and it keeps the name recognition afloat. Sometimes a show will be a mid-season release and end its season (or most of it) right as Emmy voting begins.

One thing I think we’re all interested in this year is how two political shows, House of Cards in Drama and Veep, current Comedy Series champ, will fare in the face of our current political climate. What used to be seen as satire is now playing catch up to the absurdity of our reality. The Emmy voters could feel that or they could feel just so fed up with our political turmoil that they cast their ballots elsewhere.

We’re also going to pay close attention to Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Four of last year’s six nominees will not be showing up on Thursday (again, via Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey). This opens the door for a flood of new nominees, a possible returning winner (Uzo Aduba) and the two nominees from last year still in contention (Maura Tierney – The Affair and Constance Zimmer – UNreal).

The Emmy nominations will be announced on Thursday, July 13 at 8:30am PST by Anna Chlumsky and Shemar Moore. Follow the AW twitter (@awards_watch) as I tweet the nominations live.

Without further ado, here are the FINAL Emmy nomination predictions from the Emmys Experts of AwardsWatch.