Awards Daily TV’s 2019 Drama Emmy Predictions

It’s Emmy® time! Team Awards Daily TV gives their final Drama Series Emmy Predictions in advance of Tuesday’s nominations.

You’ve read our Comedy Emmy predictions, so now it’s time for the Drama race. All Emmy season, anything anyone was talking about as far as the Drama race goes was the near-certain dominance of HBO’s acclaimed Game of Thrones. This is the first fantasy series to win the Drama series Emmy. This is the series that holds records for nominations and wins. This was the juggernaut that nothing could topple.

And then the final season premiered.

Truth be told, there was little possibility that show runners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff would please everyone. Using George R. R. Martin’s sprawling text and eventual future outline, the show was a massive undertaking – a giant monster of a series – that anyone would struggle to bring in safely for a landing. But what we got didn’t seem to please anyone really.

Personally speaking, I’m still pissed about the ending of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys. After watching the series twice now, I’ve never felt more betrayed by a series in my life. I’d invested emotionally in it (my mistake, I completely understand – one I will never repeat, mind you). It’s not who lived or who died or who sat on the iron throne that upset me. It’s Daenerys’s all-too-sudden shift into madness and devastation that bothers me. If you rewatch the entire series, Clarke’s Daenerys doesn’t often show the seeds of destruction. She’s who I rooted for. She’s the breaker of chains, and when she said she wanted to break the wheel of power, I never expected her to crush thousands of King’s Landing’s poor under it. I really and truly feel that George R. R. Martin betrayed his own character with this ending. Maybe the books would have fleshed it out better. God knows there are enough pages in which to do that. Benioff and Weiss really should have taken on a longer final season to make this shift more palatable.

But how will the Television Academy react to the divisive final season?

There are probably two major things going in Game Of Thrones‘s favor right now. First, time sort of heals all wounds. By the time voting began, a full month had passed since the finale aired. That’s akin to a decade in television time, so maybe voting members only remembered the good times they shared with Westeros. Second and most importantly, there just isn’t a lot of competition this year. Literally almost nothing. You really just have a handful of series that are either new or returning shows that have never been nominated before. And nothing really seems to have the buzz that (love it or hate it) Game of Thrones has this year. Not Ozark. Not Homecoming. Not Better Call Saul. Not This Is Us. The only thing that could potentially center some broad support is Ryan Murphy’s Pose thanks to overall love and respect for its creator plus a ground-breaking and inclusive cast.

But any scenario where Game of Thrones doesn’t win is really just wishful thinking.

The most probable impact of Game‘s controversial final season is in the writing race. Directing, for all the grumbling about the course of the final season, will still be recognized either for the finale (“The Iron Throne”) as directed by Benioff and Weiss or for the extended battle sequence of “The Long Night.” The quieter and fan-servicey episode “The Last of the Starks,” directed by David Nutter, could be recognized as well. Remember, these names have long been recognized with some of the most impactful episodes of the series. There will be a desire to recognize them. On the writing front, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if Game of Thrones was completely shut out. This is where the faults of the final season will be recognized most likely.

Take a look at Team ADTV’s final Drama Emmy predictions below. Who do you think will receive nominations? Who will be left out? How high do you think Game of Thrones will fly? Be sure to leave your comments below!