The 2019 Emmy nominations were a mixed bag of obvious contenders (hi “Game of Thrones”), surprising nominees (yay Christina Applegate) and unforgivable snubs (boo Eric Lange). As it turns out, lightning struck this year and I ended up with a prediction accuracy score of 73.83% — that’s better than all of Gold Derby’s Experts from major media outlets as well as our in-house staff Editors. (Twenty-seven Users still beat me though, including our top scorer Will with 77.85%.) So how was I able to wallop my fellow colleagues and awards pundits in predicting this year’s noms?
I didn’t take big risks
For the most part I went along with Gold Derby’s official predictions — that is, the combined picks of our Experts, Editors and Users. Almost 4,000 people can’t be wrong, right? The tricky part was to figure out where the consensus was correct and where they were going off the ledge. I had a feeling everyone was onto something with all of the late-blooming “Fleabag” love, so I added those in recently. Conversely, I just knew “When They See Us” was being under-estimated by the masses, so I was one of the few who went out on limbs for leads Niecy Nash and Jharrel Jerome.
My longshots paid off
Last week I wrote about my five “no guts, no glory” predictions in which I was throwing caution to the wind and ignoring the odds. Amazingly, three of the five got in: Applegate (“Dead to Me”) who had lowly 54/1 odds, Gwendoline Christie (“Game of Thrones”) with 46/1 odds and Glynn Turman (“How to Get Away with Murder”) at 100/1 odds. Alas, my other two longshots didn’t make the cut: Cecily Strong (“Saturday Night Live”) and Gerald McRaney (“Deadwod: The Movie”).
I knew the “GoT” backlash wasn’t real
For months I’ve been warning you to ignore the vocal minority of so-called “Game of Thrones” fans who were angry at how the final season played out. I argued that Emmy voters, who are often a step behind the curve, wouldn’t see it the same way, and I was right. Not only did HBO’s fantasy epic receive a historical best of 32 nominations, but 10 of those were in the acting races. I called nine acting bids correctly (missing out only on Alfie Allen) which greatly helped my predictions score.
I didn’t make any last-minute changes
The last time I touched my predictions was on July 10 when I went through and made my final updates. I told myself that I wouldn’t make any last-minute changes because those almost always bite me in the butt, so I’m glad I took my own advice … for once. For the record, my last major switcheroo was to add Billy Porter (“Pose”) and remove Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”), which turned out to be a wash anyway since both got nominated for Best Drama Actor. Did any of YOUR last-minute changes pay off?
PREDICT the Emmys now; change them until September 22
Be sure to make your Emmy predictions today so that Hollywood insiders can see how their TV shows and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions as often as you like until just before winners are announced on September 22. And join in the fun debate over the 2019 Emmys taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our television forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
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