A wide open race and a big challenge for Jimmy Kimmel and the show producers

If a Hollywood award is given in the woods (or on the zoom) and there is no one to appreciate the winner, is it really a prize?

The Television Academy faces some big questions as the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards approach.

For one thing, with the 2019 winners “Game of Thrones” and “Fleabag” going on this year, who will receive the top prize?

And second, how can you pull off an entertaining and entertaining Emmy show in the epidemic era, with host Jimmy Kimmel at the Staples Center and nominees and winners in their homes around the world?

That second question may be a more pressing one than the first. After all, if a Hollywood award is given in the wilderness (or on the zoom) and there is no one to appreciate the winner, is it really an award?

we will see.

Of course, Emmys has done some dress rehearsals for their big show with mixed results. Primetime Creative Arts Emmys, which was handed over to two live shows a week or two before the primetime show in recent years, spanned five nights this week – four of them broadcast live on Emmys.com last Saturday Was aired on FXX Night. All were virtual, and all were hosted by Nicole Baer, who stood by herself outside the Television Academy headquarters in North Hollywood; The presenters and the winners screened from their homes, and the whole thing was pre-recorded but gathered on the fly. (Academy accountants told the directors the names of the winners during the show, so that they could cite the correct clip.)

The shows were relatively smooth and fast-paced, albeit with a lot of dumb jokes, which seemed very flat without the audience. On Saturday, the announcer stated that Jason Bateman had won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, while Ron Seifus Jones said he did a fairly good job. (The card was correct, not the announcer.)

And those acceptance speeches, while sometimes heartfelt, felt horribly tortured – which makes perfect sense when you came to know that all the candidates were asked to record an acceptance speech that happened in that event. I will go on what they won. When you subtract the giddiness that a nominee realizes they have just won, you can tell that the winners don’t really have hearts.

This will not happen on primetime Emmys shows, as the speeches will be carried live wherever the winners are. Host Jimmy Kimmel, meanwhile, will be on the stage at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles – a venue that has been chosen by the Grammys as they can fit on two or three stages and a lot of fans, but one is used by Emmys Is done because it is so large that the crew can actually stand far away from each other.

All late-night hosts who have been joking to audiences for the past few months saying they can’t see or hear them are one of the best to overcome the crowd shortage at Kimmel Stride. But the Emmys will be bigger than any talk show, and the disturbances in Saturday night’s creative-arts broadcast are disturbing when you consider how much more complicated Sunday’s show will be.

Nevertheless, the point would be to hand over the golden statues in 23 categories, and crown the new winners in the Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Drama Series categories. Chambers, who ruled in those categories last time, was ineligible when both last year’s winners, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Up, Down,” went off the air and the award went to the eighth season. “All in the Family,” which had three previous wins, and the fourth season of “The Rockford Files,” which had never been won before.

This year, “Shits Creek” will hope to cash in on casting and costume, having already won creative-arts festivals, and take home a comedy-series award for its final season; The previous winner “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” stands in her own way, as is “The Good Place,” season 4 of “Insure”, and “What We Do in the Shadow,” among others.

In favor of the play, it appears to be a showdown between HBO’s “Saxation” and Netflix’s “Ozark”, although “Star Wars” ‘s spinoff series “The Mandalorian” is hard to rule, followed by the creative-arts show Is associated with. “Watchman” for most Emmy wins this year.

And it’s not just the HBO vs Netflix fight that will be teased on Sunday. HBO has spent each of the last two decades as the most-nominated network, but Netflix replaced it two years ago in the past. The streamer lost that top spot last year, but regained it this year with a record-breaking 160 nominations. But the best Emmy win was to tie Netflix to HBO two years ago – and although the companies are deadlocked with 19 wins each after the Creative-Arts show, it surpassed the strength of HBO’s “Watchmen” Can be tough for Netflix. Limited series categories and emerge as the most victorious network of the year.

Then, are people really going to keep score after COVID Emmys? More likely, we’ll talk about the show itself, and whether the television academy was able to pull the Emmys show like any other.

2020 Amy Nominee Portraits, Issa Raa to Jeremy Strong (Exclusive Photos)

See some of 2020’Emi nominees
Actress and series co-producer Issa Rai, “Insecure”
Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor and Sharpener Dan Levy, “Shit’s Creek”
Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actress D’Arcy Warden, “The Good Place”
Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor Billy Porter, “Pose”