Emmys 2024: You have 10 days to watch the best of the nominated shows

The Emmy awards are only 10 days away, which means there is precious little time to catch up on all the best TV series that managed to nab one or more of those desired nominations.

Especially as you’ll want to authoritatively cast an opinion on the day. That winner wasn’t that great, you’ll want to declare during the ceremony. Or, if your favourite didn’t win (robbed, robbed!), how can you say for sure it was dudded if you hadn’t seen the competition?

So, spend the next few days catching up on the best kind of homework. Below is a list of Emmy nominees actually worth your time.

HACKS S3

Jean Smart is a legend, no ifs or buts about it. When she appears on screen, you pay attention, so mesmerising is her presence. Hacks is the culmination of a career that has contained many powerhouse performances but her turn as Deborah Vance, an older stand-up comic past her “expiration date” rediscovering relevance and learning to connect with different generations – and herself – is magic.

The third season is the best one yet too, as Deborah is confronted with her past mistakes, and what she’s willing to do to get what she wants. Hacks is honest and prickly, and utterly, utterly watchable.

Watch it: Stan

RIPLEY

Ripley is the most handsome and high-end series Netflix has made since it ousted its former creative boss, Cindy Holland, and replaced it with a mandate to commission “gourmet hamburgers”. Ripley is not a burger. Ripley is a 180-day dry-aged fillet steak. It is luxurious and guilty, and oh-so beautiful.

Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novels, Andrew Scott’s Tom Ripley is morally and sexually fluid, anxious and pleased. It is a masterclass in dangerous charm and it encapsulates the stunning play of light and dark present in its visual inspiration, Caravaggio, a man who more than flirted with death.

Watch it: Netflix

SHOGUN S1

Shogun really sliced up its competition with 25 nominations, the most of any series this year, and it’s also only the second time a non-English language series nabbed a drama series nod (the first was Squid Game).

It’s been recognised in all the major categories including the lead acting categories where Japanese legend Hiroyuki Sanada and young star Anna Sawei are the frontrunners.

Grand in scope and ambition, the series is set in early 17th-century Japan and explores what happens when there is a power vacuum and factional warlords all fighting for control.

Watch it: Disney+

SLOW HORSES S3

The Gary Oldman-led spy thriller has many vociferous fans so it was inevitable the show would eventually be up for an Emmy. As it should, it is that good.

The series follows a group of dysfunctional and rejected agents who have been relegated to a halfway(out) house for either stuffing up big time, general incompetence or riling up the wrong person. But they are somehow still dragged into some big operations, such as the one that anchored season three, the kidnapping of one of their own.

Watch it: Apple TV+

RESERVATION DOGS S3

A perennially overlooked gem, it took until its final season for Reservation Dogs to be acknowledged by the voting body that nominated it in both comedy series and lead actor (for D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai).

Created by Sterlin Harjo, the show follows a group of kids from a Native American reservation who are emotionally adrift after the death of a close friend. Loose, experimental and tonally confident, the show centres the experience of a marginalised community and does it with grace and humour.

Watch it: Binge

MR & MRS SMITH S1

This sexy remake of the 2006 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie movie has seriously cool, languid vibes, elevated by the undeniable chemistry between its leads, Donald Glover and Maya Erskine.

They play two operatives working for a mysterious organisation that sends them on dubious missions. Strangers when they meet, the assignment is to pretend to be married and throughout the show’s eight episodes, the pair’s sensual energy is as intense as the chase scenes and thrills.

Watch it: Prime Video

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY S3

Who doesn’t love a workplace comedy full of lovable kooks just trying to survive the day? Of course, the best ones, like Abbott Elementary, have characters who are also trying, every day, to be the best versions of themselves, even if they end up failing half the time.

Set in an American primary school, Abbott Elementary follows the work lives of a group of teachers trying to be good educators, good friends and acceptable colleagues.

Watch it: Disney+

THE BEAR S2

This might be confusing but this Emmy’s Emmy-nominated season of The Bear is actually the second one, not the most recent instalment that came out in June.

So, the one under consideration is the one with that hectic Christmas episode where tensions are at haemorrhage levels but also meditative chapters such as the one where Richie shows his love for Taylor Swift and Marcus feeds an invisible cat in Copenhagen. Ah! It’s such a great show.

Watch it: Disney+

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS S5

When it comes to supernatural hijinks and absurdity, What We Do in the Shadows has everyone beat. The series about the petty grievances and misadventures of a group of suburban vampires is a guaranteed bellyful of laughs at least seven times an episode.

Matt Berry, he of the perfect droll delivery, has an individual nomination for acting, but it’s always been a team effort. Every one of its ensemble cast deserves their moment in the sun – just, not while in character.

Watch it: Binge

BABY REINDEER

When it comes to trauma-fuelled confessional dramas, Baby Reindeer was, arguably, the one that drove the most obsession, on and off the screen. Richard Gadd’s semi-autobiographical story of a relentless stalker stealthily morphed into a tale of the effects of PTSD and how people manifest guilt over something not of their making.

It’s a punch in the guts, and one whose impact was not dampened by all the messy real-life drama that dogged the show in the aftermath.

Watch it: Netflix

FARGO S5

Jon Hamm’s menacing small-town sheriff in the fifth season of Fargo is a distillation of all the things that are wrong with power in America. He wields his influence with a heavy hand, violently enforcing his regressive view of the world, including trying to bring to “justice” his runaway ex-wife, played by a fierce Juno Temple.

Fargo has always found the venn diagram where crime and corruption meet the foibles and absurdity of the universe.

Watch it: Digital rental

FELLOW TRAVELLERS

Fellow Travellers failed to nab a nomination on its own but its two stars, Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, are both in the running for acting gongs. It’s their performances that make this glossy miniseries sing.

They play two men who become involved in an illicit relationship. Both characters are fictional despite the series’ story being grounded in actual history, spanning four decades from the 1950s, but the chemistry is very real and the sex scenes are hot and plentiful.

Watch it: Paramount+

TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY

With Jodie Foster as the lead and a new showrunner in Issa Lopez, True Detective: Night Country means business — icy, murderous business.

This season was set in the unforgiving climes of Alaska where a group of scientists went missing and turn up dead, very, very dead, their faces frozen in fear, literally. The atmosphere is tense, the characters are dangerous and peril is everywhere.

Watch it: Binge

LOOT S2

How do you make sympathetic one of the richest and most clueless women in the world? By casting Maya Rudolph as a divorcee who after amassing billions from her separation from her philandering tech tycoon ex, is forced on a journey of self-discovery. But this is far from some Eat Pray Love cringefest.

While Loot wasn’t nominated for a series Emmy, Rudolph nabbed a nod for best actress, a testament to her talent in humanising a character who is also ridiculous. It’s in the balance of Molly’s maximalist tendencies (the couture, the private jet, the extreme wealth) with her genuine desire to affect positive change.

Watch it: Apple TV+