Emmy Nominees: Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series

My predictions: 5/7, picking Rami Malek over Odenkirk and Ventimiglia

I noticed as the nominations were being announced that they skipped over Malek’s name alphabetically and was deeply concerned. It’s a crazy thing that last year’s winner wasn’t recognized, especially since the show didn’t experience a huge drop in quality or anything like that. It’s also a shame that in a category with an extra nominee, there wasn’t even a place for him. I’m glad that Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) didn’t get left off the list even though I predicted it, and it’s nice to see that Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) has now become a regular face in this category. Kevin Spacey (House of Cards) made the cut again, as did Matthew Rhys (The Americans), whose show didn’t perform nearly as well as it did last year. Anthony Hopkins (Westworld) represented his show, which scored in all four major acting categories. Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) was an expected choice, and I can get behind his nomination a lot more than I can the surprising inclusion of Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us), who was a fan favorite but still didn’t merit Emmy recognition for this role. An interesting list at best, but it’s missing some key names.

Who should win? For this season, I think I’d give it to either Schreiber of Spacey, though a strong case can also be made for Hopkins.
Who will win? I think this should easily be Brown’s for the taking since I don’t see any of the others having enough momentum to win.