Emmy nominations came out on Tuesday, and the winners will be announced on September 14. There are a lot of familiar faces, a few new ones, and a few … new old ones. (You can see the list here.) Here’s what we noticed.

Shows with big, well-regarded casts ran up their totals

Seth Rogen in The Studio.

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Severance and The Studio, both from Apple TV+, were the most-nominated shows on the drama and comedy sides, respectively. Severance received 27 nominations, and The Studio received 23. Of those Severance nominations, nine were for actors. Of the Studio nominations, 10 were for actors — including quite a run through the guest actor categories, where five men and one woman were nominated. The Studio and Severance were both very well-reviewed shows, too, but when you look at totals, it helps to have a lot of famous faces people admire. (See also: The White Lotus, which continues to crowd the supporting categories in drama.)

Jeff Hiller and Bridget Everett in Somebody Somewhere.

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The supporting actor in a comedy series category has a couple of nice surprises

It will always be annoying that the Emmys never paid much attention to the beautiful, funny Somebody Somewhere on HBO. But in the show’s final year of eligibility, at least, they found room to recognize Jeff Hiller, who played Joel, and who gave one of the most distinctive, heartfelt, big-hearted performances of the season. They also recognized an up-and-comer named Harrison Ford — his first Emmy nomination ever — for his great work in Apple TV+’s Shrinking, which was one of the most disappointing snubs last time around.

Colin Farrell in The Penguin.

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The streaming players are always shifting

For a while, the big streamers at the Emmys were Netflix and Hulu, but Apple TV+, Max and Disney+ are all well-established in the awards game at this point. Apple TV+ has to be thrilled with the big showings for The Studio and Severance, plus Shrinking and Slow Horses and even the very so-so Presumed Innocent miniseries. HBO is still very popular among voters, but its presence is changing a bit. When it comes to big nominees, there are The White Lotus and The Last Of Us on the drama side, and those aired on traditional HBO. But then there’s The Pitt in drama series, and Hacks in comedy, and those were on Max, or what was then Max — in other words, they were streaming-only. (An outlier: The Penguin, which is competing in the limited/anthology series category, was developed for Max but ultimately did air on HBO.) Disney+ also got 14 nominations for Andor, and Netflix is still in there with Adolescence, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and with Black Mirror. Hulu’s top performer this year, at least by numbers, and excluding those FX shows like The Bear, is Only Murders in the Building, though Paradise did well also.

Ted Danson in A Man on the Inside.

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There are always some heartbreakers

There is a difference between the concept of a “snub” and a nod that just didn’t happen, but there’s always some very good work that goes unrecognized. As a big fan of The Pitt, I was disappointed not to see Taylor Dearden, who played Dr. King, nominated, and as a fan of Netflix’s A Man on the Inside, I would certainly have nominated that. There will be great consternation over Diego Luna and the rest of the cast not being nominated for Andor, often paired with eye-rolling over all those The White Lotus acting nominations, which do seem to be nearly automatic — you get on that show, you get nominated.

Tramell Tillman in Severance.

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The most fun comes from the first-time nominees

It’s always fun to see people get their first nods. There are established actors who just haven’t specialized in TV, like Harrison Ford, Colin Farrell (in The Penguin), and Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny (both for Monsters). There are surprising first-timers like Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, who have both been on TV for ages and were both finally nominated for Netflix’s Nobody Wants This. Exciting actors who are blowing up, like Tramell Tillman and Zach Cherry, both of Severance. The great Michael Urie, nominated for Shrinking and worth every vote; the marvelous Cristin Milioti, who’s been the best thing about several different shows and is nominated now for The Penguin.

And, of course, in the end, there are all those nominations for The Studio, which, as a show-business satire, would give a hefty side-eye to the whole process.

HBO’s two-part documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes is a revealing look at a complicated music star who has been at the center of pop music for decades.

But it’s also a good example of the challenge filmmakers face in making the modern celebrity biography: a tension between access and objectivity.

To be sure, this project — directed and produced by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, veterans of the PBS series American Masters, with superstar executive producers like Tom Hanks and Sean Hayes on board — walks that line very well. The documentary, which debuts Friday with a second part coming July 25, benefits from access to Joel, 76, his family, friends, songs and a tremendous amount of archival material.

When the documentary premiered earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival, headlines focused on the admission that Joel had an affair with the wife of a longtime friend and bandmember when he was in his early 20s, attempting suicide twice after the relationship was revealed.

Somehow, the filmmakers got ex-bandmate Jon Small to talk on camera about the moment he learned of the affair — he says “these [were] my two best friends” — alongside extensive interviews with Small’s ex-wife Elizabeth Weber. She eventually married Joel and managed his career through some of his biggest successes in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

There are stars on hand to talk about Joel’s impact, including Paul McCartney (he admits wishing he had written the 1977 ballad hit “Just the Way You Are”), Pink, Nas, Garth Brooks and Bruce Springsteen, who says Joel writes better melodies than he does. But the real revelations come from those who are much closer: his grown children, sister, former bandmates, and his former wives, including supermodel Christie Brinkley.

Billy Joel in 1977.

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Weber speaks about how Joel’s increased drinking — and motorcycle-riding — during his major success in the early 1980s led her to leave him after he was in a terrible accident. Both Joel and Weber talk about how spiky lyrics in early songs like “Big Shot” and “Stiletto” were references to their relationship. And other stories about the genesis of his hits sound like stuff scripted for a biopic: He wrote the classic “Piano Man” while working in a piano bar in Los Angeles trying to get out of a terrible recording/publishing contract; “New York State of Mind” came to him quickly on the bus ride to New York City after his time in California.

Still, for me, there is still a slight sense of punches pulled. Joel admits to a lot of terrible behavior during the documentary, from affairs to out-of-control partying, firing longtime bandmembers, writing autobiographical songs with insulting lines about people in his life, burying himself in work and neglecting his loved ones.

But the people on the receiving end of this stuff are mostly shown forgiving Joel for his transgressions and expressing their love and admiration for him — leading this critic to wonder if the picture would have a been a little different if he hadn’t been so intimately involved, to the point where new interviews with him are essentially used as narration for the documentary.

This is a question that surfaces regularly regarding modern documentaries on big stars. When Steve Martin opens up his personal archives for Morgan Neville’s Apple TV+ documentary STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces or Michael Jordan’s production company partners with ESPN to create The Last Dance, it’s impossible not to wonder how the story might have been affected by efforts to keep the celebrity excited and involved with the project.

Of course, this can feel like nitpicking. Particularly regarding And So It Goes, which ultimately provides an important reassessment of an artist often given short shrift by music critics during his big pop successes.

The documentary even talks about how Joel would rip up negative reviews from critics onstage back in the day. (Full disclosure: Joel once ripped up a newspaper onstage with a negative review I wrote about his first joint concert with Elton John in the 1990s, though we laughed about it when I interviewed him a few years later, and he didn’t even remember doing it.)

Ultimately, And So It Goes is an expansive, excellent look at Joel’s story – from his early days growing up Jewish in Long Island, right up until the end of his residency last year at Madison Square Garden, which concluded after a decade of performances. (The early screener I saw doesn’t address Joel’s recent announcement that he was diagnosed with a rare brain condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus, leading to cancellation of his concert dates this year.)

And it drops at an important time: A few years past his biggest hits, it’s the perfect moment to look at Joel’s career to see songs with an enduring appeal and impact beyond the trends and concerns of the time when they were first released.