Netflix’s The Boroughs on Wednesday became the latest notable casualty of the 2025-26 season, joining a dubious list that includes Palm Royale, Gen V, and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, among others. However, just because these programs were forced to close up shop early doesn’t mean they are out of the 2026 Emmys race.
Last year, for example, Prime Video deep-sixed its ballet-themed Étoile one week before nominations-round voting began. The dramedy from Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino wound up receiving nods for Best Choreography and Best Cinematography, winning the former and joining a select list of canceled shows that actually won Emmy Awards.
One of the most famous examples of a canceled show winning trophies came in 2009. The second season of Pushing Daisies claimed four of the five categories for which it was nominated, including Best Comedy Supporting Actress for Kristin Chenoweth. “I’m unemployed now, so I’d like to be on Mad Men,” she said at the podium. Pushing Daisies‘ other post-cancellation wins were for Best Non-Prosthetic Makeup, Best Costumes, and Best Art Direction.
Season 1 of The Boroughs is eligible in the drama categories at this year’s Emmys and has submitted eight actors for consideration: Alfred Molina as Sam Cooper, Denis O’Hare as Wally Baker, Clarke Peters as Art Daniels, Geena Davis as Renee Joyce, Alfre Woodard as Judy Daniels, Ed Begley Jr. as Edward, Bill Pullman as Jack, and Mary McDonnell as The Duchess. The show figured to be especially competitive in below-the-line categories like production design, score, and music supervision. Music supervisor Nora Felder, who won an Emmy for bringing Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to Stranger Things, could still contend for needle drops that included David Bowie’s “Golden Years” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” the latter of which had never been licensed for a show before and was a major plot device for The Boroughs.
The series was launched as an aged-up Stranger Things and touting that mega-hit’s creators, the Matt and Ross Duffer, as executive producers. The cancellation came two days after Paramount announced a November 2028 release date for an “event film” written and directed by the Duffers. The duo left behind a deal at Netflix last summer, just before the final season of Stranger Things began, to refocus their careers on features — theatrically presented ones, specifically.
Jane Kaczmarek, a guest star on The Boroughs who played Lilly, Sam’s recently deceased wife, told Gold Derby she had her fingers crossed for a second season. “Maybe Lilly will keep haunting him, I don’t know,” she said. “That was just a wonderful experience.”
Creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews also spoke with Gold Derby last week about having a map in place for the series beyond Season 1. “We know how it ends, because we know how it all ties up,” Addiss claimed. “But if we don’t get a second season, we feel like we left the characters in a really good place.”
Besides Étoile and Pushing Daisies, here are other TV shows that won Emmy Awards after being canceled.
★ The NBC sitcom My World and Welcome to It lasted one season and took home a pair of 1970 Emmys: Best Comedy Series and Best Comedy Actor for William Windom.
★ Ron Leibman won Best Drama Actor for his one-season CBS courtroom drama Kaz in 1979 and was the show’s only nomination.
★ Taxi scored three acting wins for Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, and Christopher Lloyd in 1983 after NBC axed it just a year after acquiring it from ABC.
★ That same year, Tyne Daly won Best Drama Actress for Cagney & Lacey months after CBS canceled the cop drama for the second time, before reviving it and getting it back on the air by March 1984. She took home her fourth Emmy for the show in 1988 after CBS canceled it for a third and final time despite a cliffhanger finale. Eight years later, Daly won Best Drama Supporting Actress for Christy, which lasted just 21 episodes across two seasons, more than a year after it last aired.
★ The 1990s saw unceremoniously canceled shows like China Beach, thirtysomething, and Picket Fences produce major acting wins for, respectively, Dana Delany, Timothy Busfield and Patricia Wettig, and Kathy Baker and Ray Walston.
★ The Ben Stiller Show was infamously canceled by Fox after 12 episodes in 1993, but the sketch series still went on to win Best Variety Writing for people including Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, David Cross, and Bob Odenkirk.
★ Freaks and Geeks also only aired one season, but it was over two Emmy cycles, and so it received writing bids in 2000 and 2001, and won casting in 2000.
★ In 2006, Blythe Danner won her second consecutive Best Drama Supporting Actress statuette for Huff, three months after Showtime pulled the plug after two seasons. “I guess I have to thank Showtime even though they canceled us,” she said in her speech. “They’re nice guys. They couldn’t help it, I guess.”
★ That was the same year networks started gaming the system by submitting a canceled low-rated, meant-to-be-ongoing show as a limited series, which is what FX did with the Andre Braugher-led Thief. Braugher ended up winning Best Limited/Movie Actor.
★ In 2007, Deadwood, dead after three seasons, won Best Non-Prosthetic Makeup from its six nominations, all in the craft races.
★ Also that year, John Goodman won his first Emmy for his guest spot on Aaron Sorkin’s one-and-done Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which received five nominations. Sorkin’s two-and-done Sports Night reaped five bids in 2000, winning Best Cinematography.
★ In 2021, Lovecraft Country received a whopping 18 Emmy nominations for its first and only season, leaving many pundits stunned that a canceled show nabbed the fifth-most nominations of all shows that year. It went on to win two Emmys: Courtney B. Vance for Best Drama Guest Actor and Best Sound Editing.
★ The Idol, The Weeknd’s critically panned drama about a pop star, was put out of its misery in August 2023, but still managed to win Best Choreography a full year later at the 2024 ceremony.
Versions of this story were originally published in 2021 and 2025 by Joyce Eng.
