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The Emmys are confusing this year, so here's a guide to what is and isn't eligible

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The Emmys are confusing this year, so here's a guide to what is and isn't eligible

We pull back the curtain on Emmy eligibility and explain why the seasons you’d think are up for awards just … aren’t.

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We pull back the curtain on Emmy eligibility and explain why the seasons you’d think are up for awards just … aren’t.

Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Here we sit in January 2024 and the Emmys are nigh — the ceremony that should have taken place in September was postponed due to the Hollywood strikes. Now, some of the Emmy contenders you’ll see Monday night aired well over a year ago – as far back as June 2022. How, exactly, did that happen? Skip ahead to see what’s eligible in outstanding drama and comedy. Or, gather ’round for a little history:

Some of us are old enough to remember a time before streaming, before cable, when there were just the three television networks. Back then, during the Cretaceous, as ichthyosaurs swam the turbid seas, there was a system that every network followed: Television series premiered in the fall and had their season finales in the spring; the summer was given over to reruns.

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From the mid-1970s on, the Emmys ceremony always took place in late August/early September, which made sense – they were, after all, largely a promotional tool to herald the new television season by honoring the one that came before. They were part of the hype surrounding the networks’ launches of their new fall line-ups, which used to be surprisingly glitzy affairs, replete with earwormingly cheesy theme songs.

But then came cable, and streaming, and the gradual phasing out of the hoary 22-episode season, even on broadcast networks. Today, television seasons start and end at will, yet the Television Academy has maintained a white-knuckle grip on the Old Ways: The Emmys ceremony takes place in September, and it honors shows that aired in the window between the start of summer of the previous year and the spring of the current one.

Other awards that honor television make it simpler. The Golden Globes ceremony, for example, takes place in January, and any television show that aired any time in the previous calendar year is eligible.

As prestige streaming services started lapping up greater and greater shares of Emmys, the Television Academy’s antiquated adherence to the notion of a September ceremony made it difficult to keep track of which seasons of a streaming series were eligible in any given year.

This year, that confusion is compounded by the fact that the Hollywood strikes caused the Academy to delay the Emmys ceremony. For the first time since the 1950s, Emmys will be handed out in January – this Monday night, in fact.

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Yet the Emmys’ eligibility window hasn’t changed. This year’s ceremony will only honor shows that aired between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023. That’s a long time ago, and it means that several nominated shows have had time to produce and air full seasons beyond the ones that are currently nominated.

Given all that, it’ll be useful, come Monday night, to keep straight which specific seasons and which performances are actually in the running. So here’s a handy guide.

Outstanding drama series

Andor, Season 1, Disney+

This one’s easy – we’re talking the first and only season (so far) of Andor, the Star Wars series that eschewed lightsabers, lore and lyricism for a refreshingly grounded tale of rebellion, sabotage, incarceration and (most marvelously!) the petty office politics that drive the engine of the evil Galactic Empire.

Better Call Saul, Season 6, Part 2, AMC

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For those of us, like me, who’d prematurely resigned ourselves to a world where Better Call Saul ended without the Emmys ever recognizing the outstanding work of Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn, good news. The series intentionally divided its sixth and final season so that its last six episodes would air during this ceremony’s eligibility window. So we’re talking about the episodes that take place in the immediate aftermath of a major character’s death, and that portray the resolution of the Nebraska flash-forward, involving a hilarious mall heist, and Saul Goodman’s final fate. That means those of us who’ve been pulling for this show and these actors for years are gonna get still another chance to get our hearts broken one last time.

The Crown, Season 5, Netflix

Take note: We’re not dealing with the most recent, bifurcated final season, but the one before it, which introduced a new raft of cast members, most notably Imelda Staunton’s Elizabeth, Elizabeth Debicki’s Diana and Dominic West’s Charles. The season mostly tracked the implosion of the Charles-Diana marriage; it ended with the handover of Hong Kong and the ascension of Tony Blair. (Last weekend, Debicki’s performance as Diana won her the Golden Globe for best actress in a television drama — but that award was for her work in the first half of the show’s final season. Got it? Still with me?)

House of the Dragon, Season 1, HBO/Max

Again, no confusion here: This is the only season of HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel that’s aired so far. All those characters with their irritatingly similar names (Rhaenys! Rhaenyra!), all those dragons, all those ghastly kids being even ghastlier jerks to each other. The series is a huge investment for HBO/Max, so the execs will be looking for some love Monday night. (It’s probably churlish to note the conspicuous absence, in these nominations, of another hugely expensive fantasy series from another major streaming service, so let’s just give Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power some time alone to lick its wounds.)

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The Last of Us, Season 1, HBO/Max

This twisty fungus-among-us post-apocalyptic series has only aired its first season, but that season was meaty as a portobello. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are in the running, and Nick Offerman took home the Emmy for guest actor in a drama category for his heartbreaking work in episode 3.

Succession, Season 4, HBO/Max

The series’ turbulent and triumphant final season ended juuuust under the wire. That surprising character death, and all the venal, grasping, desperate jockeying for position it kicked into motion, all took place during the Emmy eligibility window: The series finale aired on May 28 of last year, and the window closed just three days later; they knew what they were doing. Brian Cox gets his one last shot at an Emmy for the role of Logan Roy, but he’s up against fellow actors Kieran Culkin (who hasn’t won for his portrayal of Roman Roy) and Jeremy Strong (who took home an Emmy for his performance as Kendall Roy back in 2020).

The White Lotus, Season 2, HBO/Max

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Yes, this is Season 2 – the Italy season. Sex workers, Vespas, villas, “These gays are trying to murder me,” the whole sun-baked Sicilian schmear. Pretty much the entire ensemble cast is up for acting Emmys; root against Jennifer Coolidge at your peril.

Yellowjackets, Season 2, Showtime

The furious (you’ll forgive me) buzz around this time-hopping series cooled a bit in its second season, which earned it fewer Emmy nominations. But Melanie Lynskey’s fearless and funny performance as a survivor of a group of athletes stranded in the Canadian wilderness years before earned her her second Emmy nom for the role.

Outstanding comedy series

Abbott Elementary, Season 2, ABC

This raft of nominations are for the show’s sophomore season. The show’s first season earned it a win for outstanding writing for a comedy series, outstanding casting for a comedy series, and a win for Sheryl Lee Ralph. It’s up for all three of those again, along with repeat acting noms for creator Quinta Brunson, Janelle James and Ralph. New this year: acting nominations for guest Taraji P. Henson and series regular Tyler James Williams.

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Barry, Season 4, HBO/Max

Barry’s fourth and final season just beat the eligibility buzzer: Its harrowing/hilarious final episode aired three days before the window closed. This is the season where everything catches up to Barry at last, even as he escapes prison, and lives off the grid before returning to LA for a final reckoning.

The Bear, Season 1, FX

Cast your mind back, back to June of 2022, when all of a sudden your most TV-savvy friends started talking about this riveting, funny, stressful show about a sandwich place in Chicago. It’s hard to remember, now that The Bear is widely considered one of the best shows on television, what it was like to discover how raw and real and refreshing it was back then. But Monday night is the first chance the Emmys will have to recognize this show – all of the nominations are for Season 1, when it was still a scrappy underdog that could all too easily have disappeared into the glut of the cable grid. Rest assured: There will come a time for Season 2’s brilliant, cameo-studded Christmas dinner episode to receive its due – but that’s next year’s concern. This is the first chance The Bear‘s stars, writers, directors and producers will be able to step into the Emmy spotlight.

Jury Duty, Season 1, FreeVee

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This one’ll be easy to keep straight. There’s only been one season of this fake reality series that cast a good-natured real guy as a jury member, surrounded him with actors, and had him sit through a fake trial. It’s hugely unlikely that a second season is even possible, now that the game’s been revealed.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 5, Prime Video

The fifth and final season of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s profile of a fictional female comic took real chances, offering teasing flash-forwards that threw the show’s (too-comfortable) status quo into disarray. In the main storyline, meanwhile, Midge got a writing gig on a talk show, and chafed against its demands. The Emmys showered the show with awards in its opening seasons; it remains to be seen if the series’ gratifying willingness to shake things up in the home stretch will turn their heads again.

Only Murders in the Building, Season 2, Hulu

Don’t get it twisted – these nominations aren’t for the most recent season of Hulu’s comedy mystery series, which widened out the world of the show into musical theater, and featured guest stars Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep. No, we’re talking about Season 2, which stuck to the murderous goings-on within the tony Upper West Side apartment building referenced in the title. RIP Bunny.

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Ted Lasso, Season 3, AppleTV+

The third and final season may have its detractors, and the show never recaptured the cultural cachet it enjoyed when it debuted, but never mind. Season 3 has got plenty of chances to win something Monday night. It alone ate up half of the slots in the guest actress in a comedy series category, though that award ended up going to Judith Light for her work in Poker Face.

Wednesday, Season 1, Netflix

A huge hit that likely owed more to star Jenna Ortega’s pitch-perfect deadpan delivery and less to its setting (another school for outcasts) or its plotting (a clunky love triangle). But a hit it was, and it stands poised to soak up a lot of Emmy love on Monday night, albeit mostly for technical awards.

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You know the Mayflower. What about the White Lion? Here’s the story of ‘Two Ships’

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You know the Mayflower. What about the White Lion? Here’s the story of ‘Two Ships’

Just in time for a contentious 250th anniversary of the United States of America, historian David S. Reynolds’ latest book, Two Ships, helps us realize that any country that couldn’t agree on its own origin story is destined for divisive times.

Two Ships is about the complicated, conjoined legacy of the landings of the Mayflower, which carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth, Mass., in 1620, and the White Lion, which arrived in Jamestown a year earlier, bringing the first enslaved Africans to Virginia.

As Reynolds demonstrates, it’s not so much the facts of these two voyages, as it is the meanings ascribed to them, that made them such a powerful metaphor for two conflicting visions of American identity.

To simplify, the Mayflower’s passengers were separatist Puritans, dissenters to the reign of the English king, James I. As the United States developed, the Mayflower was credited with carrying the seeds of a radical democracy to the New World, one in which all men (in theory, at least) were equal before God.

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In contrast, the European settlers of Jamestown were Royalists, also known as Cavaliers. Loyal to the monarchy, they believed in a strict hierarchy.

But the meaning of the images of the two ships shifted depended on who was invoking them and when. Not surprisingly, the metaphor was deployed most vigorously during the Civil War. In abolitionist speeches and writings, the White Lion or the “Slave-Ship,” as it was commonly called, was condemned for infecting America with the “plague-spot” of slavery.

Reynolds says that Frederick Douglass resorted to the “two ships” metaphor frequently, while Lincoln avoided it, hoping to preserve a unified ship of state. Meanwhile, Southern descendants of Cavaliers invoked the Mayflower to emphasize the intolerance and “cruel, persecuting” character of the Puritans. In a comment that resonates for our own times, Reynolds says:

It didn’t matter to the South that … by the mid-nineteenth century, the North had become a kaleidoscope of religious denominations, …, few of which resembled the faith of the Plymouth colonists. Distortion is intrinsic to cultural memory, especially when amplified by sectional or political bias. For Southerners, the Mayflower had brought Puritanism, which had yielded fanatical movements like abolitionism, now a dire threat to the Union.

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A historically hot Paris Fashion Week photographed with a kid’s camera

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A historically hot Paris Fashion Week photographed with a kid’s camera

I took a kid’s camera to Paris Fashion Week, because was it ever really that serious? Yes and no. This men’s season happened during one of the hottest weeks in France’s recorded history, which inspired that specific brand of collective hysteria brought on by living through yet another unprecedented moment together — taking over our brains and ruining our plans to wear boots — and a grander reflection on what we were doing there and why. The throngs of teenagers doing back flips into the Canal Saint-Martin and playing soccer in the street set the mood for the week. If the world is ending, you might as well swim in dirty water and have fun doing it, no?

As far as the shows went, there was the coastal stoner energy of Tokyo-based Auralee — brightly colored leathers and furry flip-flops — that reminded me of the low-key elegance of hanging out in Southern California. At the Rick Owens show, Rick-heads made minimal weather-restrictive tweaks to their usual uniforms — platforms, leather, ground-grazing garments — making you appreciate the beauty in that level of ascetic dedication. Louis Vuitton built a literal beach as its runway, complete with sand and a giant wave that felt like a mirage: Is this a heat-induced hallucination or yet another buzzed-about set design under men’s creative director Pharrell Williams? At the Dries Van Noten show, there was an ice-cold beer fridge and popsicles, a chic and inspired detail only rivaled by a collection that was a breath of fresh air during a week where I Googled the symptoms of heat stroke more than once. The Willy Chavarria show was air-conditioned, pumped with Xinú perfume and felt expensive. Sven Marquardt, a Berlin photographer and Berghain’s most famous bouncer, was sitting in front of me, which I took as an incredibly good omen. The painted blue feet and Oakley collab sunglasses at the Kiko Kostadinov show felt auspicious as well.

A model walks with his hands in his vest

A look from the Auralee show.

There were conversations floating around about how apocalyptic it felt sitting at a fashion show in over 100-degree Fahrenheit weather, our backs soaked, our minds dizzied, when the industry is responsible for something like 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The cognitive dissonance contributed to the thickness in the air that week.

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At the Comme des Garçons show, called “If the War Were to End..,” models danced and ran and skipped out onto the runway for the finale, soundtracked by the joyous sound of children singing “You’re So Good to Me” by the Langley Schools Music Project. In that moment, we were happy, we were clapping, we might have even been hopeful. Humans have the capacity to hold a lot — a fan in one hand while attempting not to completely melt in the front row, and a fantasy that there might still be a future where we get to wear those leopard-print Dries shoes we fell in love with on the runway.

People stand in front of a wall bearing the words "Paris Tourisme"

The moments before the Comme des Garçons show.

Two people dressed mostly in black

Comme des Garçons show attendees.

A model wears Comme des Garçons, head-to-toe.

Comme des Garçons, head-to-toe.

A model walks in white light

The Comme des Garçons show.

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Models wear long jackets

The Dries Van Noten show.

A bottle of beer

A chic and inspired detail at the Dries Van Noten show: ice-cold beer.

Modeling on a pink bench
A person in black shoes, left, and a person in pink shoes

Scenes from the ERL presentation.

Seated attendees watch a model
Seated attendees watch a model on a blue carpet

The Kiko Kostadinov show.

The Eiffel Tower rises in the distance
A woman in sunglasses stands in a beach setting

Tapping in from Louis Vuitton beach.

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Quavo at the Louis Vuitton show.

Quavo at the Louis Vuitton show.

A person stands in a beachlike setting

Scenes from after the Louis Vuitton show.

People use their smartphones to photograph a person in a suit and tie

Scenes from the Louis Vuitton show.

A variety of shoes and laces

Scenes from the Nahmias x Puma dinner at Gigi Paris.

Scenes from the On X Online Ceramics rave.

Scenes from the On X Online Ceramics rave.

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On at PFW.
People walk under arcs of water
People in a nightclub

At Silencio to see Venezuelan DJ and producer Safety Trance.

Five models wearing sunglasses stand together

The Willy Chavarria show.

A glowing cross with curved ends

Scenes from Willy Chavarria.

People sit along a canal

The throngs of teenagers doing back flips into the Canal Saint-Martin and playing soccer in the street set the mood for the week.

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After weeks of speculation, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce wed in New York

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After weeks of speculation, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce wed in New York

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, pictured at a basketball game in May, announced their engagement in August 2025.

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Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

NEW YORK — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are officially married.

After three years of dating, The pop icon and Super Bowl-winning football player, both 36, tied the knot in New York, according to a statement from Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine.

There were neither bridesmaids nor groomsmen. “Instead, her brother Austin Swift served as Taylor’s Man of Honor and Jason Kelce was Travis’ Best Man. The ceremony joined both families together,” Swift’s publicist said in the statement released Friday evening.

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The ceremony was officiated by comedian and a friend of the couple, Adam Sandler, the statement added.

The singer’s rep said that the couple was dressed in Christian Dior Haute Couture.

“The bride and groom’s wedding ceremony looks have been created by Christian Dior Haute Couture. They are designed by Jonathan Anderson, Creative Director of Dior Women’s, Men’s and Haute Couture Collections, in close collaboration with the Bride and Groom,” the statement said. “This is the designer’s first couture wedding dress for a world-renowned celebrity. Their shoes were custom made by Christian Louboutin and the bride wore Cartier jewelry.”

Security around the event was intense, so it remains unclear if the wedding was charming, if a little gauche. But the night before the ceremony the 20,000-person stadium was bathed in a lavender haze.

Details gleaned from a city permit obtained by The Associated Press, showed details of a “special event at MSG” scheduled to begin Friday evening and running overnight Saturday.

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As speculation built, fans began gathering in front of the stadium ahead of the expected wedding, despite the couple’s efforts to keep details of the celebration under wraps.

Superfans and sleuths appeared to have their hunches confirmed on Friday, as dozens of black cars dropped off elegantly dressed guests outside of Madison Square Garden in New York City.

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