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Going into the week before final Emmys voting kicked off, if you asked me which nominee would win Outstanding Comedy Series, I would have said “Widow’s Bay.” To be second in Comedy nominations after only premiering in May (and with its final three episodes not even eligible this year) is quite the feat for Apple TV’s freshman horror comedy. However — and disclaimer: I say this not having gone to the show’s events at the Culver Hotel and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery — I’ve since changed tune.
For as much of said feat it was for “Widow’s Bay” to build that kind of momentum, I fear many of us have been overlooking how “Hacks,” in its final season, broke the record for most nominations for a single season of a comedy with 24 nods. The pioneering HBO Max has only won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series once, but it has been a major player in the comedy categories from the start of its run, winning three Emmys each year the show’s been eligible.
Recently, I talked to Television Academy President and CEO Maury McIntyre about the significance of having major Emmys frontrunners like “Hacks” star Jean Smart and the “South Park” creators as this year’s TV Academy Hall of Fame inductees, and how clips of Smart’s speech really proved to be resonant after the fact. But the event that really sealed the deal was the “Deborah Vance & Friends & Enemies Live!” concert at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, which happened last Friday, right before voting opened.
Smart and her fellow Emmy-nominated costars Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs, Lauren Weedman, and Meg Stalter (via video message), all made appearances in character for the standup show that also incorporated sets from actual comedians Naomi Ekperigin and Pat Regan (a longtime writer on the show). The finale, in which Smart and Einbinder lip-synced to Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland duet “Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again” to close the series finale, did serve as a beautiful bookend to the whole “Hacks” experience.
But the aspect that felt the most pivotal to the Emmys conversation was the reminder that the award is for comedy.
I do easily believe people find “Widow’s Bay” to be funnier than “The Bear,” for example, but the Apple TV series transparently presents itself as a genre mashup. There are many moments where it’s downright scary. Having “Hacks” hammer that its ultimate goal is to really make the audience laugh is a strategy that helped the show best “The Bear” in 2024, even as the FX series ended up with a record amount of Emmy wins for a “comedy.”
So while “Widow’s Bay” has even more credence than said predecessor to call itself funny, this being the last moment to recognize “Hacks” may up the show’s significance even more in the eyes of voters.
And again, for due diligence, I did go to the “Widow’s Bay” panel at Televerse, the festival organized by the TV Academy, which had panels for five out of the eight Outstanding Comedy Series nominees. Knowing that it was one of the first panels to sell out across the board, I had been anticipating it being a fight to get into the room, but there was really not that type of Comic Con-level hysteria I expected. The room was full, but it did look like there were empty seats here and there. Nominated stars Matthew Rhys, Kate O’Flynn, Dale Dickey, Stephen Root, and Jeff Hiller were all very charming, to the point where I’d have them as frontrunners in their categories still, but I think “Hacks” just did a better job over the weekend with its messaging for why someone should vote for it to win Outstanding Comedy Series.
The other panels I went to at Televerse were for “Shrinking” and “Beef,” as I tried to gauge whether the event would do anything to boost the campaigns of nominees like Harrison Ford or Oscar Isaac or Charles Melton, who would all benefit from just one last blitz toward the Emmys finish line. However, I do feel like the festival was lacking that bit of encouraging energy. It was not an overwhelming amount of attendance, it was more a whelming amount of attendance. The rooms were just full enough.
What I found most interesting was that actors who received an Emmy nomination in spite of their shows not being nominated are pretty much screwed in terms of getting stage time at Televerse. For example, “Wonder Man” star Yahya Adbul-Mateen II is the sole nominee for his Disney+ series. If he wanted to participate in Televerse, the festival would not have a panel for the show, so he would need to find a different panel to participate in. However, the panels and workshops that are separate from the festival’s FYC programming hardly include any actors at all unless it’s a reunion like the ones staged for “Band of Brothers,” “Revenge,” etc. this year.
The only studio that found a way around the issue was HBO, which had “Task” star Tom Pelphrey, who is in a similar boat as an Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nominee for a show that did not receive an Outstanding Drama Series nomination, moderate the Televerse panel for fellow HBO series “DTF: St Louis,” an Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series nominee.
That is another small example of the ingenuity HBO showed over the final weekend before final Emmys voting opened. While it felt like other studios were bending to will of what feels like mandatory participation in Televerse, HBO both milked the event for all it was worth and took the risk of becoming counter-programming for it.
In addition to the “Hacks” stand-up event being on the same Friday that the festival started, HBO had its annual all-day Emmy Nominee Celebration on Sunday, the closing day of Televerse. While Televerse takes place at the J.W. Marriott in Downtown Los Angeles, in an area really only accessible by car or train, the HBO event occurred right in the center of Hollywood at Nya Studios.
Whether it was the programming itself, or the more central location, the Emmy Nominee Celebration had that effect of eager audience members spilling out the aisles to see a panel that I was looking for when judging the efficacy of a show’s presentation at Televerse. Obviously, there was a ton of interest in “The Pitt” and “Hacks,” which have both already won the Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series before, respectively, but because the event had a no re-entry policy, there was also a full house for panels on Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series nominee “The Yogurt Shop Murders” or Outstanding Movie nominee “Miss You, Love You.”
It even opened with Mariska Hargitay, a current double nominee for her documentary special “My Mom Jayne,” using her presentation as practice for hosting this year’s Primetime Emmys on NBC on Monday, September 14.
In the final weekend before Emmys voting, HBO Max really exemplified the phrase “It ain’t over till it’s over.” While I’d argue that “The Pitt” was never really at risk of ever slipping out of favor among Outstanding Drama Series voters, I do think the final push was needed to tip “Hacks” back toward being the top Outstanding Comedy Series contender.
The real question will be whether “Beef” or “DTF: St. Louis” wins for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. While the latter show had well produced panels, even industry insiders I spoke to over the weekend all fear voters are too familiar with the Emmy-winning Netflix anthology to vote otherwise.
See IndieWire’s full list of 2026 Emmy predictions, complete with frontrunners, contenders, and long shots on our website. As a reminder, my email is majones@indiewire.com if you’d like to share any feedback.
