Television’s biggest night, the Primetime Emmy Awards, is coming on Sunday, Sept. 22. While we love the tense anticipation, daring red-carpet fashion, and heartfelt acceptance speeches of this awards show as much as any other TV fan, we have to admit that the award categories feel a little outdated and dull. That’s why we’ve brainstormed 11 new Emmy Awards categories that we’d like to see in 2019. These categories honor the enticing, outrageous, and sometimes sinister aspects of TV that keep us coming back for more binge-watching. Here’s hoping the Academy can take a hint.
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Emmy Awards Wish List
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Biggest Letdown
Fans took to the interwebs to bemoan their disappointment at the series finale of Game of Thrones. It seems only fitting that with the obscene number of award nominations the show receives that its ability to seriously bum fans out be acknowledged, too.
Related: Where 'Game of Thrones' Lands in the Most Historic TV Series Finales Ever
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Best Binge
Not all shows lend themselves to an entire weekend of binge-watching in your underwear as the food delivery packages pile up. Let’s recognize those series that you just can’t quit because they’re so damn addictive. We know the third season of Stranger Things doesn’t qualify for the 2019 Emmys because of its release date, but come on, this award was made for the Netflix series that attracted 40 million accounts in its first four days, almost half of which binged the entire season in that time.
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Best Body Count
If this award were real, it’d be a tight race between Better Call Saul, Game of Thrones, Ozark, and The Handmaid’s Tale. That’s a lot of fake blood and guts; somebody should get credit for it.
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Best Alcoholic
What drinker can’t relate to Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) in Sharp Objects? She’s a functioning alcoholic who really isn’t fooling anyone and always looks puffy and rumpled, like she just rolled out of bed hungover. (We don’t even want to think about how she smells.) Throughout the show, you feel like you’re watching Camille pickle herself from the inside out. Give this woman something other than cirrhosis, please.
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Alcoholic
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Best Ballbuster
Julia Louis-Dreyfus would be a shoe-in for this award thanks to her seven-season reign as Selina Meyer, a crass political force to be reckoned with on Veep. Natasha Lyonne would be a close runner-up for her no-bullshit embodiment of Nadia Vulvokov in Russian Doll and Julia Garner would also net a nod for her portrayal of manipulative redneck Ruth on Ozark.
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Best Creeper
Calum Worthy would totally take home an award in this category for his role as real-life sexual deviant and murderer Nick Godejohn in The Act. His performance gave us all the icky feels.
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Best Douchebag
Succession would easily sweep this category as it has more than one slimy character in its cast, but Benicio del Toro’s depiction of conscience-free convict Richard Matt in Escape at Dannemora would also qualify. James Marsden’s role as the commitment-phobic Steve Woods in Dead to Me would be in the running, too.
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Best Dysfunctional Family
Ozark, Succession, and Sharp Objects are just a few of the series that feature fantastically fucked-up families that make us feel so much better about our own.
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Best Worst Sex Scene
It’s hard to make a good sex scene, but it’s even harder to make a bad one that people still want to watch. We think one of Benicio del Toro and Patricia Arquette’s supply room bang scenes in Escape at Dannemora could totally take home this prize.
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Hottest Couple
Some twosomes just turn us on. Let’s honor the sexy duos that encourage us to turn off our screens and head for the sheets. This year’s strongest fire starters were undoubtedly Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Andrew Scott in Fleabag.
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Best Actor (Of Any Gender)
Gendered categories are so 20th century. Let’s embrace the wide range of the gender identification spectrum and stop forcing actors into male or female boxes.
