Outsmarting the Bear: Shogun’s Game-Changing Tactics
For the 75th Emmys ceremony, which honored TV work from 2022-2023, but was postponed until Jan. 2024 because of industry strikes, TV Academy members lined up almost entirely 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, meaning both last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremonies and Sunday night’s Primetime ceremony, two shows had record-breaking hauls: FX’s limited-turned-drama series Shōgun took home 18 prizes, more than any other show in a single cycle, and the second season of The Bear snagged 11, surpassing by one its own record for most wins by a comedy in a single cycle.
And yet, oddly enough, there was less of a dominant sweep of the three big genres at the 76th Emmys than there had been at the 75th. Hear me out…
The Bear, even with its incredible accumulation of wins — which included prizes for directing (Christopher Storer, for the off-the-wall “Fishes” episode) and three for its regulars (actor Jeremy Allen White and supporting actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach for the second consecutive year, plus supporting actress Liza Colón-Zayas) — still came up short for best comedy.
For that prize, in a shocking upset predicted by no one, the second season of The Bear was beaten by the third season of HBO/Max’s Hacks. (The two shows had never gone head-to-head before: the first two seasons of Hacks lost to the first two seasons of Ted Lasso, whereas Hacks was off the air last year when The Bear was in the running for the first time.)
How did this happen? Well, for one thing, there’s obviously a lot of love for Hacks, which also beat out The Bear for best comedy actress (Jean Smart, who also won the prize for the show’s two prior seasons, topped Ayo Edebiri, who last cycle won best comedy supporting actress) and best comedy writing (Hacks, which previously won for its first season, was probably helped this cycle by the fact that The Bear had two nominees in the category — but it also submitted a hell of an episode in its season three finale).
More than that, though, I think that chatter about The Bear being great but not funny, which had started during its first season, reached a crescendo during the final round of Emmy voting when voters were considering the show’s second season but also watching its decidedly unfunny third season, which had just begun rolling out. (Another reason that I think season three was on voters’ minds as they voted for season two: Colón-Zayas’ win for season two, even though she was much stronger in season three.)
As voters contemplated whether The Bear is really a comedy, I suspect that many arrived at the conclusion that they should not punish the talent from The Bear for being promoted as such — but had pause about giving it once again a prize called best comedy, which has historically gone to laugh-out-loud shows like Modern Family, Veep, Schitt’s Creek, and Ted Lasso.
Additionally, HBO, the outside agency that it retained to help with this season’s Hacks awards campaign and the talent associated with Hacks convincingly emphasized on the campaign trail just how hard 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 Hacks, people laugh.
To me, it’s a nice thing that both of these great shows have now won top prizes. And I think that moving forward, FX and the talent behind The Bear should…