A Race of Recap Shows

Plus a Netflix sketch series with comic Tim Robinson make up the bulk of shortform noms

You know when you’ve just finished an HBO series on Max — formerly HBO Max — and a featurette about the episode you just watched autoplays? Well, those little programs make up the bulk of the contenders in the Emmys shortform categories. Yes, basically: TV Academy voters will have to vote for their favorite shows that explain one of their other favorite shows.

Take, for instance, the race for outstanding shortform nonfiction or reality series. The options include House of the Dragon: Inside the Episode, Succession: Controlling the Narrative, The Last of Us: Inside the Episode and The White Lotus: Unpacking the Episode. The only contender that doesn’t set out to do a deep dive into an HBO series nominated for outstanding drama is SNL Presents: Behind the Sketch, which is, of course, about Saturday Night Live, nominated for outstanding scripted variety series. Only one of these projects, the Succession one, features Jeremy Strong saying, “I thought it made sense, dramaturgically” — a moment that became a meme in its own right, which probably gives it a leg up.

The shortform comedy or drama category has a little more variety. There is at least one show that’s not a spinoff of any existing show: Netflix’s wonderfully bizarre sketch show

I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson. That joins Carpool Karaoke: The Series, birthed from The Late Late Show With James Corden. They compete against Better Call Saul Filmmaker Training, a partially animated guide to how to be a filmmaker, ostensibly from “Saul Goodman Productions”; Only Murders in the Building: One Killer Question, an interview series about the Hulu comedy hosted by castmember Ali Stroker; and Awkwafina Is Hangin’ With Grandma, featuring the eponymous comedian and Lori Tan Chinn, who plays her onscreen grandma in Comedy Central’s Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens.

This all goes to prove: If you want to be nominated for a shortform Emmy, the best way to do so is to be connected to an otherwise very popular television show. Or, be Tim Robinson.

Netflix’s sketch series I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson is the only Emmy nominee for shortform series that isn’t connected to another TV show.