Taylor Swift, Michael J. Fox and a sea hag: The highs, lows and woahs at the 2026 Emmy Awards

Did you watch the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards on Tuesday morning? Or did your boss rudely insist you do your job instead? Thankfully, deputy TV editor Meg Watson, senior culture writer Karl Quinn and culture reporter Nell Geraets were busy live-blogging for you. Here’s what you missed:

Even just a few months back, this win would have been unthinkable. It was widely presumed Hacks would sweep the comedy categories for its final season – a series beloved by fans and critics that ended on an extraordinary high . But the unstoppable word-of-mouth buzz for this strange and extraordinary horror-comedy was just too strong.

Despite the show just sneaking into the eligibility period, with the final episodes not even making the cut, Widow’s Bay has become the most awarded comedy in Emmys history. It won outstanding comedy, writing and directing, along with acting wins for Matthew Rhys, Kate O’Flynn and Stephen Root. And that’s on top of eight more wins at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month.

The win is not only well-earned – it was easily my favourite show of the year – but exciting proof of what can happen when a studio takes a risk on an unconventional idea . MW

Getting the balance right for the in-memoriam segment in any awards show is always tricky. Who do you acknowledge, who do you draw special attention to, how do you celebrate the life without diminishing the loss? With the tribute to Canadian comic actor Catherine O’Hara, the producers got it just right. Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin McAllister in Home Alone, paid tribute to his on-screen mum. Then Annie Murphy, who played her spoilt no-longer-rich-kid daughter, Alexis, in Schitt’s Creek , talked about some of the ways ordinary people had expressed their grief. And Dan Levy, that show’s co-creator (and O’Hara’s screen son in it), spoke at length, and with humour, of her enormous gift for improvisation. “Say yes to giving her space to experiment and create,” he said. “It will amaze you on a daily basis, and it will change your life.” KQ

For my money, comedian John Mulaney’s intro to the most outstanding actor in a drama award was not just a highlight of the show, it was perhaps the funniest thing I’ve seen on any awards show, ever.

“Finally, something for the fellas,” he said facetiously. For the next few minutes, he regaled us with tales of how overlooked men had been in the industry, poo-poohing Bluey’s dad, Bandit, as “soft” and “a joke”, digressing into some R-rated observations about how a “real man” might ease the pressure in his domestic life by paying a little lip service to his wife’s needs (so to speak), before finishing with a reading from A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man , a book published in 2006 by actor Frank Vincent. “A man’s man can be wearing the best clothes, drinking the finest wine, sitting with the most beautiful woman in Las Vegas,” Vincent observed. “But if he doesn’t treat everyone around him with respect and class, he’s not a real man’s man. He’s just a jabroni [loser] in a good suit.” Pure gold.