‘Game Of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke & Kit Harington Score 1st Ever Emmy Lead Nominations; Finale Big Hit With TV Academy, Despite Backlash

Dominic Patten

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There was little doubt that the final season of Game of Thrones was going to have a big presence in today’s Emmy nominations, but the record-breaking dominance the HBO drama displayed is a true show of royal force.

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Burning through the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards with 32 nominations, the David Benioff and D.B. Weiss created series based on George R.R. Martin’s writing is not only a strong contender to win Best Drama for the fourth time but has seven of the 12 supporting actor slots and three of the Best Directing nods. Add to that first time Lead Actor and Lead Actress nominations for Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke, an inaugural nom for Sophie Turner in the Supporting category and a Best Writing nomination for all-time viewership high “The Iron Throne” finale, and you have yourself a juggernaut that even Drogon couldn’t scorch.

Point of fact, having won 47 Emmys over the years, GoT on Tuesday picked up more nominations than any drama ever has before in a single season. For you history buffs, the previous record holder was NYPD Blue’s 27 nominations back in 1994.

With past winner Peter Dinklage joined in the Outstanding Supporting Actor slot with co-stars Alfie Allen and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. First timer Turner shares the Outstanding Supporting Actress category with castmates Gwendoline Christie, Lena Headey and Maise Williams. In fact, Killing Eve’s Carolyn Martens and Ozark’s Julia Garner are remarkably the only non-GoTers in the category.

Though GoT’s place in this year’s Emmy race is no big surprise, the fact that the much-criticized final episode has been lauded with Best Directing, Best Writing, Best Cinematography and Best Editing, which actually has three of the series episodes in the category, must be a sweet reward for Benioff, Weiss and team.

Likely going through the stages of grief that their favorite show was coming to an end with this six-episode eighth season, a scattering of GoT fans took to social media to slam the series’ plots and presentation as it headed towards the bloody end. I disagreed with them in my review of the final episode and those leading up to it, but as of today, over 1.6 million people have signed a now pretty redundant online petition to compel HBO to “remake” the final season. Doubt many of them are Emmy voters. Really doubt the Emmy noms-topping WarnerMedia-owned outlet will be making any changes to what has proven a golden treat now, really doubt.

One more bit of GoT Emmy 2019 trivia – this year is the first time that four actresses from the same show have all been nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actress category.

As we await the results of the battle for Emmy’s Landing on September 22 on Fox, GoT fans will have a chance to catch up with the stars and the show this week at Comic-Con. As Deadline exclusively revealed on June 10, the series is taking a Hall H victory lap on July 19 starting at 5:30 PM.

The sure to be packed panel will include Benioff and Weiss, plus Williams, Coster-Waldau and director Miguel Sapochnik, who is also nominated for an Emmy this year. Cast Jacob Anderson, John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Nathalie Emmanuel, Iain Glen, Conleth Hill and now King Bran Stark himself, Isaac Hempstead Wright, will also be onstage.

For The Throne!

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