NBC’s Saturday Night Live and HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show will duke it out again for the sketch Emmy as the category continues to only have two nominations.
Both shows will compete again in the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series category.
SNL beat Robin Thede-created SNL last year. The pair also met up in 2020 to face Drunk History.
SNL received nine nominations this morning, which is a decrease in nominations from last year’s 21. Bowen Yang was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Artist in a Comedy Series, Kate McKinnon won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Jerrod Cartmichael won Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
The Outstanding Production Design, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series, Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming, Outstanding Writing For a Variety Series, and Outstanding Writing were all awarded to A Black Lady Sketch Show.
Saturday Night Live has won the sketch category in the past five years, five out of the seven since the category was separated into two categories – Outstanding Variety Sketch Series and Outstanding Variety Talk Series.
HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show, which has been renewed for a fourth season, entered the Emmy conversation in 2020 with its debut season.
Missing out are Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Show and True Story With Ed and Randall, Showtime’s Ziwe, HBO Max’s That Damn Michael Che, HBO’s Pause with Sam Jay and The CW’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
This category has seen a significant change in the past few years, with the number and quality of nominees dropping over the years. Last year, there were only two nominees – SNL and A Black Lady Sketch Show – while in 2020 there were three with the addition of Comedy Central’s now canceled Drunk History. This is a far cry from the six nominees in 2019 – SNL, Drunk History, At Home with Amy Sedaris, Documentary Now!, I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman and Who Is America?
The two nominations were due to the TV Academy’s sliding scale rule, given that there were only nine submissions in this category.