With dozens of categories and fields of up to eight nominees in many categories, the Emmys tend to do a pretty good job at spreading the wealth among the best TV shows. However, in this age of "Peak TV," there are so many great series and specials that inevitably a few worthy contenders end up getting overlooked by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The following seven programs were disappointingly ignored by the 2021 Emmy nominations, though television this great doesn't need awards to prove its quality.
Invincible is a show that feels like a genuine breakthrough in the mainstreaming of serious animated drama series, so it's a disappointment that it got ignored by the Emmys entirely. The 2021 Outstanding Animated Program nominations mostly went to the same sitcoms that always get nominated: Bob's Burgers, Big Mouth, South Park and the way past-its-prime The Simpsons. Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal is a pleasant surprise nomination repping the more serious side of animation, but it would have been great if voters could have also made room for another nontraditional nominee. And to make matters worse, J.K. Simmons, just to name one stand-out in an incredible voice cast, also failed to earn a nomination for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance.
So Emily in Paris was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series, and while there's no evidence of the Emily in Paris team bribing Emmy voters the same way they did Golden Globes voters, there's no reason beyond pure hype that it got nominated over Everything's Gonna Be Okay? The second season of the Freeform dramedy was some of the best TV to directly address the coronavirus pandemic, making strides in queer and neurodivergent representation all the while being hilarious. In addition to the series as a whole, Josh Thomas, Kayla Cromer and Maeve Press all deserved acting nominations. Sadly, given low Nielsen ratings and lack of awards attention, the odds of a third season might be in question.
Another great limited series, The Good Lord Bird's single Emmy nomination is for Outstanding Main Title Design. It's a well-deserved nomination, and if not for having WandaVision's collection of opening themes as competition, it might actually have stood a shot at winning. Too bad it didn't get any other nominations. It might not have gotten enough popular attention compared to the nominees for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, but Ethan Hawke as the radical abolitionist John Brown and Joshua Caleb Johnson as the crossdressing ex-slave narrator Henry "Onion" Shackleford gave some of the absolute best performances on TV this past year and easily could have made it in if Emmy voters didn't feel compelled to nominate the entire cast of Hamilton.
It's a Sin was probably the darkest of dark horse candidates for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. HBO Max never gave it a major promotional push, and it hasn't won any major precursor awards. Even so, Russell T. Davies' miniseries about the AIDS crisis in England was absolutely some of the most powerful television so far this year. On Metacritic, it's the fourth best-reviewed TV program of the year, behind only Bo Burnham: Inside, The Underground Railroad and a PBS Great Performances production of Romeo and Juliet. Despite rave reviews, outstanding writing and acting all around and a surprising degree of topical relevance, It's a Sin was completely shut out from Emmy nominations.
In a year without live theater, filmed stage performances proved a godsend. Two such great stage shows, Hamilton and David Byrne's American Utopia, have been nominated in the Emmys' Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) category, but one similarly wonderful special that got overlooked is Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself. Live magic might not seem like it would be as effective on-screen, but Derek DelGaudio is no ordinary magician, and In & Of Itself is not an ordinary magic performance. If you haven't seen In & Of Itself, go watch it on Hulu without reading anything more about it. Once you've seen it, you'll be stunned that the Emmys ignored this in favor of The West Wing and Friends reunion specials. Plus, how do you turn down the opportunity to give the legendary Frank Oz his first Primetime Emmy nomination since The Muppet Show?
Some might consider The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's lack of an Outstanding Drama Series nomination to be a snub, but honestly, the show itself was too much of a mixed bag to truly demand a nomination even in a somewhat weak field. What does deserve awards, however, are the supporting performances by Carl Lumbly as the aging supersoldier Isaiah Bradley and Wyatt Russell as the terrifying replacement Captain America John Walker. Neither actor received an Outstanding Supporting Actor nomination despite there being eight nomination slots available -- though rather inexplicably, Don Cheadle's brief and unremarkable cameo was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor.
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