This year’s Emmys demonstrated the bewildering state of television today

What a weird time to be alive and own a TV (or a Netflix subscription). The 71^st Primetime Emmy Awards demonstrated the bewildering state of television today, with streaming service originals making up around half of the nominations, and a stronger selection than ever in the limited series category.

This weird sense of the TV world changing before viewers’ very eyes was best summed up by the ceremony’s first presenter: Homer Simpson, in a partially-animated Roger Rabbit-esque sequence that kicked off the Los Angeles event on a surreal note. Like this year’s Oscars back in February, the ceremony did not have any one single host, a relatively successful creative decision which allowed more room for winner’s acceptance speeches. In previous years, Emmy winners were warned not to speak for longer than half a minute.

HBO’s Game of Thrones, until recently the most popular show on the planet, loomed large over the proceedings with its astounding 14 nominations, with nine of the cast in consideration in the acting categories. The show’s sole winner for performances was Peter Dinklage, winning Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the fourth time in his role as Tyrion Lannister. Dinklage is still the only Game of Thrones cast member to win an acting Emmy.

Despite negative fan response for its scattered last season, Game of Thrones also picked up the ceremony’s ultimate award for Best Drama Series, beating out critically acclaimed programs like Pose, Succession and Better Call Saul. Perhaps Emmys voters couldn’t resist giving the series a final round of applause, despite its angsty-fan-petition-inducing conclusion.

Elsewhere, the second season of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag swept the comedy categories, winning Best Comedy Series as well as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Waller-Bridge herself.

The sardonic, fourth-wall breaking British comedy was one of many big wins in the name of streaming platforms, a rapidly growing presence at the Emmys. Most categories included at least two or three entries from non-network creators like Netflix (responsible for nominees Russian Doll, Ozark, and When They See Us) and Hulu (The Handmaid’s Tale and The Act).

Streaming services can be considered a kind of new wild west for television, where runtime and season length are highly fluid; Netflix’s Black Mirror was honoured with an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie, but what do any of those words even mean when applied to the experimental Bandersnatch episode for which the show won the award?

Regardless of whether we should be excited by streaming services or terrified of them, presenter Bryan Cranston embodied the evening in his declaration that “TV has never been so goddamned good.” See below for a list of 2019’s Emmy winners and try not to feel a little giddy at the rapidly broadening definition of what we call television:

Best Comedy

“Fleabag” (Amazon)

Best Drama

“Game of Thrones” (HBO)

Best Limited Series

“Chernobyl” (HBO)

Best Actress, Comedy

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, “Fleabag”

Best Actor, Comedy

Bill Hader, “Barry”

Best Actress, Drama

Jodie Comer, “Killing Eve”