(Image via Television Academy)
Volunteer Writer: Mariana Peñafiel
Email: mpenafiel@umassd.edu
Last week, the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards took place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, recognizing and celebrating the best television of the year.
The ceremony awarded every actor, series, director, and scriptwriter who was nominated. With a few surprises and some new records, the most important night for television left a lot to talk about for the following days.
The Studio, an Apple TV+ comedy series, dominated the Comedy Category with four awards that included Outstanding Comedy Series, Lead Actor, Directing, and Writing.
The series also broke the record of most awards for a comedy series in a single season with a total of 13 awards, four of which were presented during the main gala and nine at the 77th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Seth Rogen, the lead actor, producer, director and writer of the series, also made history with four awards in a single evening.
The previous record used to be held by The Bear, which lost all thirteen of their nominations.
Despite the dominance of The Studio, the female duo Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder won the Outstanding Lead Actress and Supporting Actress awards for their performance in Hacks.
Jeff Hiller won Outstanding Supporting Actor, becoming the first and only Emmy for the HBO series Somebody Somewhere.
Another series that secured multiple awards with only one season was The Pitt. A medical drama series with just fifteen episodes won 5 Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. It overcame strong competition like Andor, The Last of Us, Severance, and The White Lotus.
Katherine LaNasa won Best Supporting Actress, surpassing several actresses from The White Lotus who were considered favorites. Also, Noah Wyle won his first award for Outstanding Lead Actor while dedicating his win to healthcare workers.
Andor, which is part of the Star Wars franchise, won a couple of awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series among other technical categories. The series was not nominated for any acting awards, which left many viewers disappointed.
Severance was one of the big surprises of the ceremony, but not in the way a lot of people thought. With the most nominations, the series only took two awards that night: Outstanding Lead Actress for Britt Lower and Supporting Actor for Tramell Tillman.
The Emmy for Outstanding Directing went to Adam Randall for the British drama Slow Horses. Adapted from the novel Slough House, the series arrived at the ceremony with only five nominations yet pulled off a surprise victory against the big contenders of the night.
Adolescence was the biggest winner at the main ceremony, taking home six awards. The Netflix series won every category in which it was nominated that night.
Stephen Graham received the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor. This was his first nomination and win, just like Erin Doherty who won Best Supporting Actress for her role as the psychologist in the mini-series.
Without a doubt, all the spotlight was on Owen Cooper, who at just fifteen years old received the Outstanding Supporting Actor award, making him the youngest male actor to ever win an Emmy.
The series was also awarded the Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Directing and Writing. The only award they weren’t nominated for was for Best Lead Actress, and the award was granted to Cristin Milioti for her role in the series The Penguin.
The Penguin entered the evening with eight Creative Arts Emmys, making it the second most-awarded series of this year with nine Emmys—just one award ahead of the shows tied for third place: Adolescence, Severance, and SNL50: The Anniversary Special. All are still under the shadow of the night’s biggest winner, The Studio, with thirteen wins.
Several shows left the ceremony empty-handed. The Bear ended up as one of the night’s disappointments, with not a single win between the two ceremonies despite its huge success at last year’s awards.
The White Lotus, one of the most nominated series with 23, and The Last of Us, which entered the night with 16, also left without a win. In the end, both HBO series took home just one trophy each from the Creative Arts Emmys.
The 2025 Emmy Awards once again proved that television continues to surprise year after year, with fresh faces, new formats, and record-breaking numbers.
Platforms such as Netflix, HBO Max, and Apple TV+ continue to dominate the streaming sector, with two of them being tied with a total of thirty awards in this year’s edition and the latter securing their place with 21 Emmys.
The 77th Emmy Awards also showed us that in television, records can be broken, favorites can stumble, and nothing is guaranteed.