The Pitt and Pluribus enter Emmys race with strong momentum

Emmy nominations were announced Wednesday morning from the Wolf Theatre in the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center, with Liza Colón-Zayas and Jeff Hiller presenting the 78th Emmy Awards field at 8:30 a.m. PDT, 11:30 a.m. EDT. The awards ceremony is scheduled for September 14 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, and this year’s race opened with two series drawing unusually strong momentum: HBO Max’s The Pitt and Apple TV+’s Pluribus.

The Pitt arrives as a rare second-season awards force. The medical drama won Outstanding Drama Series at the 77th Emmys, and Noah Wyle took Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series while Katherine LaNasa won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. That kind of immediate return matters in a television landscape where prestige dramas often fade between seasons before voters can build a habit around them. If the series repeats its earlier showing, it could become one of the year’s biggest nomination totals, with Wyle and LaNasa both positioned for another run and other cast members in line to break into supporting categories.

Pluribus enters from a different position: a first-season show with the potential to rewrite the record book. Created by Vince Gilligan and built around Rhea Seehorn in a lone-lead setup, the Apple TV+ series could challenge the Emmy benchmark for the most nominations ever earned by a freshman show. The current comparison point is NYPD Blue, which led the 1994 field with 27 nominations, according to the Television Academy’s archive. That makes Pluribus not just a breakout candidate, but a test of how far a new streaming series can go when voters respond to a buzzy premise and a heavily watched creative pedigree.

The shape of the race also points to where television prestige is concentrated now. The Pitt shows how a broadcast-style genre drama can become an awards player when it lands with both critics and voters. Pluribus reflects a different path, one built around a streaming platform, a recognizable creator and a compact lead performance that can pull in technical and craft recognition even when the acting field is tighter. Hacks is also headed toward farewell-season attention, adding another familiar awards pattern to a field that looks unusually open.

The Television Academy says its awards search database now spans more than 70 years of nominations and winners, which keeps comparisons like these at the center of Emmy season. With The Pitt trying to sustain a back-to-back surge and Pluribus aiming for a first-year record, the nominations are already signaling which kinds of shows still command prestige in the streaming era.