'Game Of Thrones' Got More Emmy Nominations Than Any Other Show, Because Duh
For the first time since Game of Thrones premiered, the Emmys were completely without any dragons, castles, or Valerian steel last year, but HBO's fantasy smash is coming back for the gold this year. Due the late airing schedule of Season 7 in 2017, Game of Thrones missed out on getting any Emmy nominations last year due to the award show's deadlines, but now the seventh season is getting its day in the sun, because Game of Thrones' Emmy nominations came flooding in this year.
On Thursday, Samira Wiley (The Handmaid's Tale) and Ryan Eggold (The Blacklist) announced the nominations for the 2018 Primetime Emmy Awards, and after spending a year away, it was great for Game of Thrones fans to hear their favorite show was back in the swing of awards season in this year. The HBO epic's shortened seventh season, which consisted of seven episodes and aired last summer, was finally eligible for nominations, and it made a huge splash. In total, Game of Thrones snagged 22 nominations, including the coveted Outstanding Drama Series nomination. The impressive horde of nominations makes Game of Thrones the most nominated series of the year at the 2018 Emmy Awards.
With this year's Emmy nominations factored in, Game of Thrones has now been nominated 128 times by the Emmys since it premiered in 2011, and it has won 38 Emmys in the past, making it the most awarded show in Emmys history. In its most recent two showings (the 2016 Emmys and 2015 Emmys), Game of Thrones won the Directing, Writing, and overall Outstanding Drama Series award consecutively, marking it as the clear frontrunner in the Drama categories. This year, however, the fantasy drama will face stiff, new competition from The Handmaid's Tale, which swept the Drama categories at last year's Emmys in Game of Thrones' absence. Other heavily nominated dramas that could stage a Westerosi coup this year include The Handmaid's Tale and Westworld, who both fell just shy of GoT's 22 noms with 20 and 21, respectively.
Game of Thrones is nominated for its seventh season at the 2018 Emmys, despite the fact that the run of episodes aired in the summer of 2017 from July to August. The seven-episode season is the shortest in the series' history, and serves as the penultimate season for the show, which will end after Season 8 airs in 2019. The nominated season saw a number of previously separated characters finally join together in Westeros: Jon Snow met Daenerys Targaryen at long last, even starting a romance with her, and the Stark siblings Sansa, Arya, and Bran reunited in Winterfell with a whole bunch more life experience... and weird mystical powers. In the end, the season mostly served to set up the great war between the undead White Walkers north of the wall and Westeros, as the season finale concluded with the Night King destroying the wall with his brand new zombie dragon.
Although Season 7 of Game of Thrones did air before the 2017 Emmy Awards, it had to wait until this year to get nominated due to missing 2017's airdate deadline by a little over a month. The showrunners explained back then that they had to hold off production on the season because there simply was not enough snow when they planned to begin work, which unfortunately delayed them beyond the Emmy deadline. But thankfully, the season is getting its recognition this year, since it aired right at the beginning of the 2018 Emmys deadlines.
Fans will get to see how many awards Game of Thrones takes off with when the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony airs live on Monday, Sept. 17 on NBC. Saturday Night Live's Michel Che and Colin Jost will host the ceremony.
