That sound you hear is the 2026 Primetime Emmys clock ticking down the hours, minutes, and seconds to the evening of Monday, June 22, when Phase 1 voting officially wraps up. With only three days left to fill out ballots, that leaves little breathing room for on-the-bubble shows to make their case to voters to avoid having their hopes burst come nominations morning on July 8.
While Gold Derby’s leaderboards suggest that the most of the major fields appear to be set, the 72 hours left until Monday is just enough time for voters to binge through the last handful of shows they’ve potentially been putting off. And these three series are no doubt hoping to be at the top of those lists.
Bay watch
Talk about Peak TV. Following a relatively quiet debut on Apple TV at the tail end of April, Katie Dippold’s addictive mystery-comedy Widow’s Bay has since blossomed into a springtime streaming phenom that’s peaking in popularity at the perfect time for Emmy consideration.
Coming off of its widely praised freshman season finale (plus Season 2 renewal news), the series has been on the move on our experts-only Best Comedy Series chart, rising to seventh place over previous nominees The Bear and Nobody Wants This. It’s the third year in a row where a freshman Apple TV spring series is muscling its way into a category dominated by returning favorites; Palm Royale started the trend in 2024, with The Studio following in 2025 — and we all know how that turned out.
Comedy Series
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Only Murders in the Building
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Margo’s Got Money Troubles
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Before the Widow’s Bay surge, Margo’s Got Money Trouble was on track to be Apple’s designated Season 1 wonder, and David E. Kelley’s comedy is still sitting pretty at No. 4. The show that could find itself left at the altar, though, is Bill Lawrence’s Rooster, one of the three series we had our eyes on last week. The Steve Carell-led comedy has fallen to 10th place in the Best Comedy Series rankings after steadily climbing through the ranks based on its ratings success for HBO.
But Lawrence still has a bite at that apple thanks to his own Apple TV series, Shrinking, which is guaranteed a spot for its third season. And if Widow’s Bay, Margo and Shrinking all make the final Comedy Series ballot, it’ll represent a new personal best for the boutique streamer — the first time that three Apple series have been nominated in one of the three “best in show” categories in its six-year history. So yeah, the next three days are very important for the citizens of Widow’s Bay.
Carell can take comfort in the fact that our experts are still predicting a Top 5 finish for him in the Best Comedy Actor race, his first nod in that category since 2011. And the heat surrounding Widow’s Baby is propelling star Matthew Rhys into that final grouping as well, pushing out returning contenders Steve Martin and Adam Brody for Only Murders in the Building and Nobody Wants This, respectively.
Not for nothing, but Rhys — who previously won Best Drama Actor for the final season of The Americans — is also an odds-on favorite for a spot in the Best Movie/Limited Actor roster thanks to Netflix’s widely-watched (if divisively received) The Beast in Me. Does he get a free boat if he ends up with all three statuettes on his trophy shelf?
Comedy Actor
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Martin Short
Only Murders in the Building
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Jeremy Allen White
The Bear
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Adam Brody
Nobody Wants This
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Steve Martin
Only Murders in the Building
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Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
Wonder Man
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Tim Robinson
The Chair Company
The Madison‘s last stand
Early on in Phase 1, it seemed like Michelle Pfeiffer might join Rhys in the double-nominee wing of the Peacock Theater thanks to her well-received roles in the aforementioned Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Taylor Sheridan’s blockbuster Paramount+ melodrama The Madison. And that streamer did its very best to position that show as the prolific creator’s Emmy breakthrough, hosting a white-glove New York City FYC event that brought together top actresses from across the Sheridan-verse, including Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldaña.
Pfeiffer was notably absent from that gathering, though, with Beau Garrett instead representing Team Madison. To be fair, that was around the time that Margo launched on Apple TV and she and real-life partner Kelley were busy on the promotional trail. Since then, the Oscar nominee has made a point of singing the praises of both shows, most notably during her appearance at the 2026 Gotham TV Awards where she accepted the Legend Tribute Award with a Catwoman-style lick.
Comedy Supporting Actress
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Janelle James
Abbott Elementary
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Michelle Pfeiffer
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
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Jessica Williams
Shrinking
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Sheryl Lee Ralph
Abbott Elementary
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Kate O’Flynn
Widow’s Bay
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Carol Burnett
Palm Royale
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Ashley Padilla
Saturday Night Live
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Liza Colon-Zayas
The Bear
Pfeiffer has nothing to worry about with her Margo bid; she’s a rock solid No. 3 on the Best Comedy Supporting Actress leaderboard, and would likely be this year’s winner if she wasn’t going head-to-head with Hannah Einbinder for the final season of Hacks. But her Madison role has been trending downward, though not far enough that she can be counted out entirely. Pfeiffer is currently ranked in seventh place behind The Testaments star Chase Infiniti, who is riding a wave of industry goodwill thanks to her tireless campaigning on behalf of One Battle After Another during the previous Oscar cycle.
And unlike some of the other acting categories, the Top 5 slots in Best Drama Actress still feel unsettled, with our experts not viewing The Gilded Age‘s Carrie Coon and Matlock‘s Kathy Bates as definite locks. That leaves an opening for either Infiniti or Pfeiffer — or maybe both! — to sneak in during the final weekend catch-up. Pfeiffer would be the first actor from a Sheridan show to break into an Emmy race just as the creator prepares to descend from Paramount’s peak for his new home at NBCUniversal. As parting gifts go, that’s a pretty good one.
Drama Actress
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Keri Russell
The Diplomat
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Carrie Coon
The Gilded Age
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Chase Infiniti
The Testaments
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Michelle Pfeiffer
The Madison
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Jennifer Aniston
The Morning Show
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Kristin Scott Thomas
Slow Horses
City of Industry
While Rhys won his first Emmy for the final season of The Americans, he got his first nomination for the show’s fourth year — the same season where the show broke through with voters across the board, landing nods for Best Drama Series and Best Drama Actress for Keri Russell. That’s the model that HBO’s much-loved financial-world thriller Industry hoped to replicate in its fourth season, which shook up the status quo in big, bold ways and saw a significant viewership spike as a result.
But there may not be a critical mass of Emmy voters among those new viewers. Industry is currently tied with Euphoria‘s controversial third and final season for 10th place among Best Drama Series contenders. Both shows are trailing the fifth and final season of Stranger Things — which also met with a mixed response — as well as the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is holding onto the eighth spot.
That’s a definite deficit for Industry to overcome, no question, but unlike its closest competitors the show has the benefit of near-unanimous critical praise on its side, not to mention the presence of rising stars like Myha’la and Marisa Abela. And with Season 4 telling its own Michael Clayton-esque story, there’s less of a barrier to entry for last-minute viewers who can’t squeeze the three previous seasons into the final weekend.
“The idea of yearning has also always been important to Industry,” co-creator Mickey Down recently told Gold Derby about how this season is both a continuation and a “soft reboot” of what came before. “That’s what the show has always been about, and it’s turned up to 11 in Season 4.” We’ll find out in a couple weeks if the show’s yearning for Emmy recognition is finally over.
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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
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