Goodbye The Bear and hello Widow’s Bay, as the Emmys crown a new comedy champion

The comedy horror series Widow’s Bay , medical drama The Pitt , the reality competition series The Traitors and the evergreen award-season favourite Hacks swept the 78th annual Emmy Awards.

In a not-quite-a-changing-of-the-guard, the sweep signalled that the television conversation has moved on swiftly – perhaps a sign of the times – from The Bear , Beef and Stranger Things .

The night’s first and most deserving standing ovation went to Jean Smart, who won lead actress in a comedy. Smart has had a decorated dream run on the series, winning the category four times since 2021. ( Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson won in 2023.)

Matthew Rhys won best actor twice – lead actor in a comedy ( Widow’s Bay ) and limited series ( The Beast Within Me ). Another unsurprising, deserving winner: actor Noah Wyle, lead actor in a drama ( The Pitt ), with Wyle describing fellow nominee Gary Oldman as “the benchmark I want to hit in my career”.

The highlights? John Mulaney, introducing lead actor in a drama. “Since the creation of television, men have been historically unrepresented,” he quipped. And former Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke, introducing the actress in a limited series segment in her mother tongue, High Valyrian. (Sally Field won, beating Australian actress Sarah Snook in the same category; it was Fields’ fourth win ever, for Remarkably Bright Creatures .)

And a surprise cameo from Taylor Swift, playing a rookie detective in a pre-taped skit challenging the Law and Order: SVU cast to answer the biggest mystery of the night: would Swift herself show up at the Emmys? (She did not; she was 2000 kilometres away at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, watching her husband Travis Kelce play in the Kansas City Chiefs v Denver Broncos match.)

So, who was not on the stage? The Bear was nominated for comedy series and Ayo Edebiri for lead actress in a comedy, but the show’s star Jeremy Allen White didn’t crack the lead actor category this year. It feels like an omission; he won in 2023 and 2024.

Netflix’s Stranger Things was similarly shut out. The super-buzzy streaming drama did get a swag of nominations, winning only one (for visual effects) at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month, but the series’ fifth and final season was shut out of the acting and directing categories.

The “in memoriam” segment opened with an acknowledgment of the passing of Schitt’s Creek star Catherine O’Hara. “She may have forgotten me – twice – but we will never forget her,” actor Macaulay Culkin quipped. (O’Hara played his mother in the Home Alone franchise.)

Other notable figures featured in the “in memoriam” included costume designer Bob Mackie , director James Burrows, CNN founder Ted Turner, Grey’s Anatomy and Euphoria star Eric Dane , Nashville star Hayden Panettiere , actor James Van Der Beek and beloved actor-director Rob Reiner .

Breaking down in tears on stage, actress Jamie Lee Curtis described Reiner as “generous and kind to all”.