Five-time champ “Modern Family” could set an all-time record by winning a sixth time as Best Comedy Series at the Emmys on Sunday, but we are not projecting that to happen. Instead we have the HBO show “Veep” as a 1-1 favorite to win this election. It is the fourth consecutive shot for the poltiical program, which has mostly counted on wins by star Julia Louis-Dreyfus in past years but not the big prize yet.
Watch our recent Emmy webchats with dozens of 2015 contenders
“Veep” has nine total nominations this year and won the comedy casting award at last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony. In addition to comedy series and Louis-Dreyfus, it also has bids for Tony Hale (supporting actor), Anna Chlumsky, directing, and writing this weekend.
Rookie show “Transparent” is in second place with 13/5 odds. It has 11 nominations this year and won last Saturday for Bradley Whitford (guest actor), costumes, and main title theme music. For the next ceremony, it is nominated for Jeffrey Tambor (actor), Gaby Hoffmann (supporting actress), directing, and writing.
It is somewhat surprising to see “Modern Family” in third place with 11/2 odds since it has never lost the top race before. But for the first time ever, the ABC show fails to have a key nomination in either directing or writing. The only comedy series in the past 40 years to win this category without one of those was “Friends” (2002). The show only has six nominations this year, including Julie Bowen (supporting actress) and Ty Burrell (supporting actor). It also won last weekend for sound mixing.
“Parks and Recreation” returns to this category for the first time since 2011. The NBC program stands in fourth place with 25/1 odds but only has three overall nominations for its final season. Star Amy Poehler is once again nominated for Best Comedy Actress.
The last three spots are held by shows with distant 100/1 odds. Freshman program “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” from Netflix has a total of seven nominations, including Tituss Burgess (supporting actor) and Jane Krakowski (supporting actress). Previous nominee “Silicon Valley” for HBO has seven bids this year and won for picture editing and art direction last week. Perennial FX hit “Louie” has six nominations with half of those individually for director, writer, and actor Louis C.K.
Experts Emmy predictions: All 32 categories
Make your own Emmys picks now for Best Comedy Series to the right or at the bottom of this post. You could win one of our three prizes ($500, $300 and $200 Amazon gift certificates) as well as a place of honor on our leaderboard and a starring role in next year’s Top 24 Users (the two dozen folks who do the best predicting this year’s Emmys line-up).
Last year, our Experts had an accuracy rate of 58.62% when it came to predicting the Emmy winners. That score tied them with both Gold Derby’s Editors and the Top 24 Users (those two dozen folks who did the best at predicting last year’s Emmys). Our Users scored 51.72% (Click on any of these groups to see what they got right and wrong last year.)
Which group will be victorious this year? Meet the guy who won our contest to predict the Emmys last year — and learn how he did it and how you can be our next Gold Derby superstar.
As some of our Users turn out to be our smartest prognosticators, it’s important that you give us your predictions. Your picks influence our Users racetrack odds, which also factor into our official combined odds.
Photo Credit: Patrick Harbron/HBO
