Emmys 2024: Will ‘Chemistry,’ ‘Usher’ Break Into Next Year’s Limited Series Emmy Race?

We’ve made our second major update to the 2024 Emmy Tracker.

It’s hardly a reason to stop traffic, but we do update when major series premiere. We probably won’t see many truly heavy Drama Series contenders rate on the charts until Netflix drops the first half of The Crown‘s final season in mid-November. Yes, The Gilded Age debuts its second season in a few weeks, but Emmy nearly completely ignored its freshman season. Maybe Season 2 ranks higher in the Television Academy’s esteem next year, but that will depend entirely on what new drama series studios can rush into production whenever the SAG strike ends. If the season grows in esteem, then anything is possible.

Things are also fairly quiet on the comedy front. Only Disney+’s Loki Season 2 made a splash recently. Deservedly so. Loki‘s second season is so good that it brought the excitement of old-school Marvel projects back into my heart. The production design, special effects, and performances by Owen Wilson, Ke Huy Quan, and especially Tom Hiddleston are all outstanding. Season one only saw Creative Arts nominations, but the general reaction to its widely praised second season could buoy its chances. The comedy races will be tougher than drama with slots already reserved for The Bear and Only Murders in the Building. Maybe Loki breaks into that. Maybe not.

It’s the limited series front that brings the action this week with Netflix and AppleTV+ debuting two hugely anticipated new releases.

On the “just in time for Halloween” front, Netflix drops horror aficionado Mike Flanagan’s Edgar Allan Poe-inspired epic The Fall of the House of Usher. My personal favorite of Flanagan’s remains The Haunting of Hill House, which brings more scares than most films. Honestly, it’s something I can’t wait to revisit. Of his post-Hill House projects, Usher is definitely my favorite. It balances Flanagan’s knack for thrills with his love for troubled characters. The always reliable Bruce Greenwood stars as Roderick Usher, a drug company billionaire forced to suffer through the death of his six children. The series tracks his recanting of the mysterious events leading to their deaths, which are each homages to famous Edgar Allan Poe stories. Oscar-nominee Mary McDonnell co-stars as Usher’s sister Madeline with the rest of the cast filled by Flanagan regulars like Henry Thomas, T’Nia Miller, wife Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan, and more.

Imagine The Fall of the House of Usher as Succession if Logan Roy were forced to watch his children die around him.

The limited series feels like Flanagan’s most balanced and mature work to date. It’s scary without resorting to constant jump scares. It’s thematic and thoughtful without drowning in prose. It propels us through the narrative with anticipation for how these (generally very awful) children are going to die. It’s never too tough to watch, although there are some gruesome moments — particularly in episode two. The performances across the board are strong, although at least one death happens way too early in the series for my taste given the talent of the actor. Only Greenwood and McDonnell appear poised to break through if anyone does. Likely the whole cast goes for supporting contention as this is an ensemble piece.

I’m just not sure the very good project is enough. I say that not as a reflection of quality in the series. Rather, it’s because the Academy completely ignored The Haunting of Hill House and recognized Bly Manor and Midnight Mass only in Sound Editing categories. Midnight Mass, for all my problems with the series, arguably boasts the very best acting of any Flanagan-conceived series and still failed to merit any significant attention. Can House of Usher change that? My gut tells me no, but it’s a strange year. Regardless of that, it’s a very strong limited series that should keep viewers enthralled through Halloween.

AppleTV+’s Lessons in Chemistry lives in a completely different universe.

Based on the novel by Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a chemist who stumbles into a new career as a nationally celebrated cooking show host. That’s a very 100,000 foot view of the plot, but you get the general idea. The book is one of those novels that nearly everyone in an airport seems to be reading. It’s a quick, engrossing, and very fun read, and the adapted limited series looks to have all the right ingredients for a huge Emmy play next year. Larson does a fine job embodying the character in her own interpretation of Zott backed by strong supporting work from Aja Naomi King and Lewis Pullman. Yet, the real star of the series is the jaw-dropping production and costume design, some of the absolute best crafts work I’ve seen all year.

As far as the series itself, I’m challenged in some ways to react to the changes the filmmaking team made to the original novel. That’s the problem with an adaptation of a novel that you’ve just literally put down. The book that lives in your mind almost never compares favorably to what you see on the screen. In this case, I understand why some changes were made, but I suspect strong fans of the novel will bristle at them. It’s a very tough scenario to be in honestly. Without giving away too much, I would never have wanted to be in the shoes of the creative team adapting a very white novel (or at the very least colorblind) set during the social upheaval of the 1960s. The creative team wanted to tell a broader story of the period and, particularly, of Los Angeles at that time. It’s just not the novel I saw in my head. Most of the time, I can separate the two, but I struggled with this one.

I doubt, however, that the Television Academy will similarly struggle. I can see the limited series contending for Actress and Supporting Actor primarily in addition to series, writing, and directing. Craft nominations seem all but ensured, particularly that amazing production design. Apple is smart to keep it running through the end of November just when guilds and critics start to vote for year-end awards. Whether or not the Television Academy falls for it deeply depends entirely upon whether or not the fires from slavish readers’ torches have been extinguished.