Emmy nominations are out ... so are the actors

Homes are sliding into canyons, a renegade sea otter is menacing surfers and a “friendly” 15-foot python named Big Mama is on the loose in Chatsworth.

It all makes me want to head to a shady corner of the backyard and pop open a beer to escape the alarming news. Wait ... Anchor Brewing is probably closing? OK ... I might need something more potent to get me through this week. (I was thinking about listening to the bees buzz in a peaceful park ... why, what did you think I had in mind?)

Emmy nominations: Good news for ‘Succession,’ ‘The Last of Us,’ ‘Ted Lasso’

Voters offered some nice parting gifts for “Succession” and “Ted Lasso,” showering those departing shows with lots of love as Emmy nominations were announced this week. It all went much as I predicted a few weeks back, with “Succession” hauling in 27 nods, including three for lead actor (a record) and four of the eight supporting actor slots. (“The White Lotus” took the other half of that category, part of its 23-nomination day.) The first-year apocalyptic drama “The Last of Us” landed 24 nods. So, yeah, a good day for HBO.

Aside from those three dramas, the big winner Wednesday (well, in addition to “Wednesday,” which snagged a dozen nods) was “Ted Lasso,” which led the comedy field with 21 nominations. As I wrote in a predictions column, the strength of the show’s support would be measured by the number of supporting acting slots it earned. And the total was more robust than I imagined, with “Ted Lasso” scoring nods for Juno Temple, Hannah Waddingham, Phil Dunster and Brett Goldstein, as well as guest actors Sam Richardson, Becky Ann Baker, Sarah Niles and Harriet Walter. All that love makes “Ted Lasso” the overwhelming favorite to prevail again when the Emmys are handed out in ... well ...

Brett Goldstein and Phil Dunster, Emmy nominees for “Ted Lasso.”

(Luke Varley / Apple TV+)

So when are the Emmys going to be handed out?

For the first time in 63 years, both the actors and the writers unions are simultaneously on strike. To put it in perspective, Ronald Reagan was president — of the Screen Actors Guild — the last time this happened.

With Hollywood shut down, it’s unlikely that the Emmys ceremony will go off as planned in September. Sources within the Television Academy indicate that final voting for the winners likely will remain fixed in August — “We can just sit on the results,” one official told me — and that the ceremony will be bumped to January.

Why so late? As is the case with all scheduling decisions, it’s a network call. And Fox executives, sources tell me, want the ceremony delayed until next year, seeing no early end to the stalemate between the unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. “Maybe there’s an agreement with the actors,” one network exec says, “but probably not the writers anytime soon. And then, once you have a settlement, you need a ramp to be able to get the show off the ground and sell advertising.”

No, it’s not ideal, as a January ceremony will unavoidably feel dated. But the Emmys being delayed is far down the list of concerns at a time when productions are paralyzed and executives like Disney’s Bob Iger, who cashed in $27 million in compensation last year, blasts labor unions for not being “realistic” in their requests for fair pay. What a world.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says the writers and actors unions are not being “realistic.”

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

‘Snubs’ and surprises of the 2023 Emmy nominations

With 2,428 performers vying for voters’ attention, the free-for-all to earn a place at the table sometimes gave off the same desperate vibes as that “Succession” finale board vote on the GoJo merger.

Was anyone promised a nomination when they were 7 years old at the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton, N.Y.? We can’t say for sure, but maybe a nominee will come clean before the awards are handed out.

Even with the usual deluge of submissions, the nominations managed to deliver a fair number of surprises, pleasant and otherwise. And there were omissions, which, for the sake of alliteration and search engine optimization, we’ll call “snubs,” though, again, with this kind of volume, it’s not like voters were actively shunning anyone. (Really, if anyone connected with this superlative season of “Succession” wasn’t nominated, we’d consider that not a snub but a complete farce.)

Times television critic Lorraine Ali and I ran down the list of the unexpected, making mention of “Bad Sisters,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and, of course, the nods no one saw coming — the Freevee mockumentary prank program “Jury Duty” pulling in recognition for comedy series and James Marsden’s supporting turn as himself.

James Marsden, a surprise Emmy nominee for “Jury Duty.”

(Amazon Freevee)