For the 75th Emmy Awards, which honored television work from 2022-2023 but were postponed until January 2024 due to industry strikes, the TV Academy members nearly all rallied behind a single drama (HBO’s departing Succession), a single comedy (FX’s rookie The Bear) and a single limited/anthology series (Netflix’s Beef).

Eight months later, at the 76th Emmys — that is, both last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremonies and Sunday night’s Primetime ceremony — two shows had record-breaking grosses: FX’s limited series-turned-drama Shogun took home 18 awards, more than any other show in a single cycle; and the second season of The Bear scored 11, surpassing its own record for most comedy wins in a single cycle by one.

And yetOddly enough, there was less of a dominant sweep of the three major genres at the 76th Emmys than there was at the 75th. Hear me out…

The Beareven with his incredible accumulation of wins — including awards for directing (Christopher Storagefor the eccentric episode “Fishes” and three for the regular actors Jeremy Allen White and supporting actor Ebony Moss Bachrach for the second consecutive year, plus Supporting Actress Liza Colón-Zayas) — still failed to win Best Comedy.

For that price, in a shocking surprise that no one predicted, the second season of The Bear was beaten by HBO/Max’s third season Tricks(The two series had never directly conflicted before: the first two seasons of Tricks lost the first two seasons of Ted Lassowhile Tricks was no longer on TV last year when The Bear (was in the race for the first time.)

How did this happen? Well, for starters, there’s clearly a lot of love for Trickswho also defeated The Bear for Best Comedy Actress (Jean Slimwho also won the award for the show’s previous two seasons, topped Hello Edebiriwho won the award for best comedy in the previous cycle supportive actress) and best comedy screenplay (Trickswhich previously won a season for the first time, this cycle was probably helped by the fact that The Bear had two nominees in the category — but also delivered a stellar episode for the season three finale).

But more than that, I think, it’s talk about The Bear being Awesome But not funnywhich began during the first season, reached a peak during the final round of Emmy voting as voters considered the show’s second season, but also looked at the decidedly not funny third season, which had just started filming. (Another reason I think voters were thinking of season three when they voted for season two: Colón-Zayas’ victory in season two, even though she was much stronger in season three.)

While voters wondered whether The Bear is really a comedy, I suspect many have come to the conclusion that they shouldn’t punish the talent of The Bear because it was promoted as such – but I hesitated to give it another award for Best Comedy, which historically goes to laugh-out-loud shows like Modern family, cattle, Schitt’s Creek And Ted Lasso.

In addition, HBO, the outside agency it hired to help produce this season, Tricks awards campaign and the talent that goes with it Tricks convincingly emphasized during the campaign how difficult it is to make a comedy about comedy. It’s a zero-sum game: people either laugh or they don’t. And it’s impossible to argue that when it comes to Trickspeople laugh.

For me, it’s great that both of these great shows have now won top awards. And I think FX and the talent behind The Bear people are bluffing and promoting season three as a drama. It’s too early to know what the competitive landscape will look like, but I suspect the show would more than hold its own under that label.

When we talk about reclassifications of categories, Shogun was originally intended as a limited series, but was so well received by critics and viewers that additional seasons were ordered, making it an Emmy-worthy drama series. And it made history, not only for its total wins, but also by becoming the first largely non-English-language TV series ever to win Best Drama. (Netflix’s Squid game came close two years ago, but ultimately lost to Succession.)

For that reason, this Emmys will perhaps be remembered more for that than anything else: a historic turning point like the 2021 Oscars ceremony, where Parasite became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. Perhaps the idea of ​​a separate International Emmys ceremony will be seen as outdated in a few years.

Shogun also won awards for directing and both best drama actor and drama actress. And yet again, there’s reason to believe that wasn’t the result of lazy coattail voting, as it also lost the awards for drama supporting actor (the two nominees were beaten by Billy Crudup from Apple TV+ The morning show) and write (Slow horses dominated, perhaps partly because Shogun had multiple nominees who split the support). There were no nominees for Supporting Actress (which The Crown‘S Elizabeth Debicki (she won, as she had done at every other major awards ceremony in the past year).

Which brings us to Netflix’s limited series Baby reindeera personal and painful autobiographical adventure written by and starring the hitherto unknown Richard GaddAs recently as early June, even the streamer itself didn’t consider the show a major Emmy contender, but it organically amassed a massive audience, sparked passionate cultural conversations, and ultimately became an unstoppable force (despite the best efforts of the real woman who helped inspire it). It ultimately won over formidable competition for Best Limited/Anthology Series, Limited/Anthology Writer (Gadd), Limited/Anthology Actor (Gadd), and Limited/Anthology Supporting Actress (Jessica Gunning).

But at the same time, three of the four formidable competitors for best limited/anthology series also beat it out for other major awards. The director’s limited/anthology series was won by Steven Zailliandirector of another stunning Netflix project, Rijpleyabout Baby reindeer‘S Weronika TofilskaThe award for Best Supporting Actor was won by Lamorne Morrisstar of FX’s Fargoabout Baby reindeer‘S Tom Goodman-HillAnd in retrospect, Netflix probably wishes they had pushed Gunning as the lead, paving the way for a co-star. Nava Mau in the supporting and potentially resulting in two actress wins; instead, the limited/anthology lead actress category was won by Jodie Fosterstar of HBO’s Real Detective: Nightland.

Outside of the three major genres, there were some other notable results.

I’m happy for the folks behind the Peacock streaming service, who have worked hard for years to get Emmy recognition for their shows, but never really broke through until this cycle. It’s really hard to get people to change their viewing habits in any way, let alone check out another new streamer. But with The traitorsa rookie show, they managed to do this and eventually won the award for best reality program by beating MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Racewho had won the award in five of the last six years. The host of The traitors, Alan Cummingalso won the award for Outstanding Reality or Competition Series Host at this past weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, RuPaul‘s eight-year winning streak.

Meanwhile, Comedy Central continues to dominate the talk series category. The daily show – of Jon Stewartbut no longer with Jon Stewart — won this year, the first since Stewart’s return to the program. But while Stewart’s Monday night performances were great, the show wouldn’t have won if the other hosts hadn’t held their own on the other nights of the week, so special congratulations to Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta And Desi Lydic.The daily show also won last year, for Trevor Noah(Stewart’s final season as host, but the show had not been recognized since 2015, the last time Stewart held that seat.)

Finally, HBO/Max had reason to not only capitalize on the success of Tricksbut also of Last Week Tonight with John Oliverwho won the award for best scripted variety series Saturday Night Live (although, as I wrote recently, the shows have virtually nothing in common and do not fall into the same category); and Alex Edelman: Especially for usa television adaptation of Alex Edelman‘s one-man show, which won the award for Best Screenplay for a Variety Special.

While the 77th Emmy Awards are still over eight months away, I think we can already see a few titles playing a role in the race, including Apple TV+’s drama series Presumed innocentwhich was a huge hit on the service in June and July, and a limited series Disclaimerwhich was shown at a number of fall film festivals.

The race never stops.