Why Best Drama Series at the Emmys is such a close call

All signs point to Best Drama Series being a two-horse race, but which show is in the lead depends on whom you ask.

From the outset of the For Your Consideration campaigns, Apple TV+’s Severance ran the category like a highly hands-on floor manager. The series had been off the air for three years — thanks in part to a shutdown for dual strikes in 2023 — and when viewers returned to Macrodata Refinement and the never-ending halls of Lumon Industries, they were treated to a second season that lived up to the promise of the first.

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And the Emmys responded in kind.

Severance filed away more nominations than any other series this year: 27 in all, up from 14 in its debut season. The haul included nods for leads Adam Scott and Britt Lower — as the star-crossed innie lovers Mark S. and Helly R. — as well as supporting performance nominations for Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman, John Turturro, and Patricia Arquette.

After nominations, the red carpet appeared to be rolled out for Severance to take the stage at the end of the night and claim Best Drama Series. The show’s combined odds on Gold Derby put it firmly in the lead to do so without much competition in the rearview.

But a dive into the numbers reveals a schism between our experts (comprising TV critics, journalists, and awards pundits) and our users. The users are overwhelmingly backing Severance; the experts, who have a historically better track record at predicting Emmy outcomes, are picking The Pitt.

The hype surrounding the reteaming of ER alums executive producer John Wells and star Noah Wyle promised nothing less than a return to the glory days of network TV dramas. And somehow, The Pitt delivered. Its first season scored 13 nominations, tying it with, The Bear and leading Limited Series contender Adolescence. In addition to a Lead Drama Actor nomination for Wyle (which he’s highly favored to win), the series earned two additional acting noms: one for Supporting Drama Actress for Katherine LaNasa and one in Guest Drama Actor for Shawn Hatosy for his work in the dramatic season finale.

Digging deeper, there’s data both series can hang their hopes on. Severance’s sheer volume of nominations shows widespread industry support, from the actors (who constitute the largest voting bloc) to the artisans (where The Pitt did not fare as well). And here’s a stat that’s hard to ignore: Over the past 10 years, the drama with the most nominations has won the series Emmy 90 percent of the time. But before you select Severance for the office pool, consider this: there’s one bellwether category that The Pitt is leading: casting. Over the past decade, Best Drama Casting and Best Drama Series have matched up seven times.

The drama race could be boiled down to competing modes of storytelling on TV. Severance, while a wonderfully bizarre creation all its own, follows the heavily serialized, deeply mythologized prestige model that arose in the late aughts and early 2010s, making it one of the truest heirs to Lost’s obsessive TV crown.

The Pitt, however, is a kind of show that serialized dramas replaced, an accessible ensemble medical series that could have headlined NBC’s Thursday night lineup. In her interview with Gold Derby, LaNasa summarized it thusly: “It’s not just about the dialogue. It’s about this strong arc that everybody had. I felt it was very satisfying to watch and to read. Everything kind of wraps onto itself, nothing’s superfluous.”

Severance or The Pitt? Which one a given voter goes for could come down to which era of great television they came up in.

In the final days before the Emmys, though, not every category has as much suspense built up. Kathy Bates, a storied figure in Hollywood on a hit network show, appears to be a lock not only to win Lead Drama Actress for her work on CBS’ legal reboot Matlock, but also to claim the record as the oldest ever performer to take the trophy in that category. At the age of 77, she already holds the title as the most senior nominee, and a win would knock Glenn Close (who won in 2009 for Damages at the age of 62) from atop the list.

Elsewhere among the nominees list, the most recent season of The White Lotus may not be competitive in the Best Drama Series category, but the HBO series from creator Mike White is far from checked out of the Emmys. The anthology’s third outing netted 23 nominations — the third most of any series in 2025, tying The Studio — including seven nods across Best Supporting Drama Actress and Best Supporting Drama Actor. And in those categories, beyond the show’s statistical dominance, The White Lotus has two odds-on favorites to win in Carrie Coon and Walton Goggins. Both are familiar faces from beloved series turning in phenomenal work for their third nominations. The killer combo of overdue and deserved. They’ll be competing, of course, with a host of their costars, including Parker Posey (who has an outside shot at taking the baton from Jennifer Coolidge as the show’s resident meme machine), Aimee Lou Wood (who, in addition to being the season’s beating heart, could bank some sympathy votes following the whole Saturday Night Live debacle), Natasha Rothwell, Jason Isaacs, and Sam Rockwell.

Looming on the fringes of all of these categories, however, is The Last of Us. HBO’s video game adaptation returned after eight Emmy wins in its first season to deliver a gigantic Season 2 that broadened the scope of the storytelling and delivered a twist so big that its audience was split open like so many of the show’s infected.

And yet despite the divide, The Last of Us managed 16 nominations, down from Season 1’s 24, but still competitive across some major categories. Hanging just outside the top slots are major names like Pedro Pascal, whose profile has (somehow) risen to even higher highs since the debut season, and Bella Ramsey, who would be the youngest-ever winner of Best Drama Actress.

An upset victory in Best Drama Series may not be in the cards for the fearless survivors of the mushroomy post-apocalypse, but the show is still strong in the Guest categories with nominations for Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine O’Hara, Joe Pantoliano, and Jeffrey Wright.

And if there’s a lesson to learn from the travails of Joel and Ellie, it’s that what looks dead doesn’t always stay that way.

A version of this article originally appeared in Gold Derby’s special Emmy digital magazine.

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