Some things about the Emmys are predictable. Every awards observer figured that FX’s Shōgun and The Bear would get lots of nominations today, and they did: 25 and 23, respectively, the latter a record for the comedy categories in the case of The Bear.

But unexpected things, both good and bad, always happen when the Emmy nominations are announced, and this year’s list was no different. Let’s run through some of those.

SURPRISE: Reservation Dogs
The FX comedy about Indigenous teens growing up on a reservation in rural Oklahoma was the best show on television for the past several years, yet its first two seasons only managed a single nomination, for sound editing in 2023. The comedy categories were a bit roomier this year thanks to the end of past favorites like Ted Lasso, so Rez Dogs finally got a couple of big noms, for comedy series and for D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as lead comedy actor, plus smaller nods for editing and cinematography. That still isn’t remotely as many as it should have gotten — Devery Jacobs being snubbed for acting, writing, and directing stings — but sometimes you have to take what you can get, even for all-time greatness. 

SNUB: Everyone on The Sympathizer other than Robert Downey Jr.
Many Reservation Dogs fans feared that the show would only get one nomination for this year, for Ethan Hawke’s (admittedly great) guest performance — Emmy voters somehow only noticing the show at all when a famous white guy appeared on it. Instead, that treatment went to The Sympathizer, HBO’s Vietnam War epic miniseries, whose sole nomination came not for the vivid direction of Park Chan-wook, nor for the work of any of its actors of Asian descent, but for reigning Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr., for the stunt of having him play nearly all of the show’s prominent white characters. 

SNUB: The Curse
Another reigning Oscar winner didn’t share RDJ’s luck, as Emma Stone wasn’t nominated for her performance on Showtime’s The Curse. But neither were her co-stars Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie (for either acting or writing/directing), nor anyone who worked on the series. The decision to submit a show that was obviously a limited series, and a comedically-oriented one at that, as a drama, was perhaps the most blatant piece of category fraud in a year filled with confusion about what shows belonged in what fields. Either Emmy voters didn’t like the ending, or they felt labeling this a drama was a bridge too far, even in a year where The Bear got all those comedy nominations.   

SURPRISE: Apple and Prime had big days
The Crown was the only one of last year’s Outstanding Drama Series nominees to be eligible this year. So even after FX ordered a second season of Shōgun and moved it from limited series to drama, that meant the drama categories were going to be pure chaos. Apple and Prime took advantage of the chaos to come away with two series nominations apiece there: The Morning Show, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Fallout each wound up with 16 total nominations, and Slow Horses got nine. Apple also pulled down another 11 for the critically panned period comedy Palm Royale, and 10 for its Brie Larson miniseries Lessons in Chemistry(*). The wide-open territory even allowed nominations for performances that don’t qualify as classic Emmy-bait: Idris Elba as the hard-negotiating hero of the Apple thriller Hijack, and a nose-less Walton Goggins as the gun-slinging Ghoul on Fallout. 

(*) The surprise showing by Lessons may have come at the expense of an even more high-profile Apple miniseries, since Masters of the Air only got three nominations, for its score and in a couple of sound categories.

SURPRISE: Matt Berry
Would you believe that What We Do in the Shadows, a.k.a. one of the absolute funniest shows of modern times, had never gotten an acting nomination prior to this year? Somehow, Emmy voters didn’t just mail a statuette to Matt Berry’s house after hearing the way he said the words “New York City” in the previous season’s reality-show parody episode. We’ll consider this a make-up nomination, at least, even if he seems unlikely to defeat Jeremy Allen White. 

SNUB: Tony Shalhoub
Emmy voters loooooove Shalhoub, who’s already won three trophies for starring in Monk, as well as a more recent one for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. But even though the reunion movie Mr. Monk’s Last Case was nominated in the oddball Outstanding Television Movie category (more on that in a second), Shalhoub couldn’t crack the five-man field for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie. 

SURPRISE: Unfrosted
Hey, remember when Jerry Seinfeld made a movie with a $70 million budget about the origin of Pop-Tarts? A movie that seemingly nobody liked? Well, Emmy voters did, since they nominated it for Outstanding Television Movie. Then again, you need an advanced degree to understand the rules of what straight-to-streaming films qualify for Emmys versus Oscars, so it may just be that there weren’t a whole lot of other options. It’s not even the most loathed program to get nominated, since The Idol — a god-awful show that even HBO would probably prefer that people forget existed — got a choreography nomination.

SNUB: John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A.
Speaking of arcane category rules, recent changes to the talk-show and sketch-comedy categories meant that a maximum of four series could be nominated for what’s now called Outstanding Talk Series. With old favorites The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night With Seth Meyers, and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert all getting nominations, that left no room at the inn for John Mulaney’s hilarious live talk-show stunt. We assume Mulaney’s sidekick Richard Kind is blaming Saymo the delivery robot for this.