Two shows weren’t overlooked: Season 3 of “Sex Education” and the inaugural season of “Heartstopper.” While both series earned wide acclaim, Netflix elected not to submit either for Emmy consideration, given the steep competition in the comedy and drama categories.

This was thought to be the year of “Yellowstone,” which would then extend to its Paramount+ prequel spinoff “1883” in the limited series category.

Yet, Taylor Sheridan’s Western, the most popular scripted series on TV, didn’t receive any nominations. No Kevin Costner for actor, no Kelly Reilly for actress, no Sheridan for anything, and no nominations in below-the-line categories, either.

“1883” did receive three below-the-line nominations: two for cinematography and one for music composition.

Snub: Selena Gomez, “Only Murders in the Building”

While Hulu’s freshman comedy favorite earned 17 nominations, including leads Steve Martin and Martin Short, their partner in crime-solving, Selena Gomez, missed out on a nomination for lead actress. Was her deadpan, straight-woman delivery lower on laughs than Short and Martin’s antics?

Surprise: Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh, “Killing Eve” Final Season

The audience and critical consensus about the final season of the once-beloved “Killing Eve” was that it was terrible. It was thought to be so terrible that even Luke Jennings, who wrote the novellas on which the show was based, repudiated its ending. And yet, Academy voters are such habitual creatures that they nominated both Oh and Comer (surprise winner in the category for the BBC America show’s first season).

Snub: “Black-ish” and “This Is Us”

Both top nominees in previous seasons, ABC’s “Black-ish” and NBC’s “This Is Us” finished their runs with strong finale. And yet neither show earned any top nominations this year — especially surprising for the career-best work by “This Is Us” star Mandy Moore. “Black-ish” earned nods for contemporary hairstyling and contemporary costumes, while “This Is Us” nabbed just one nomination for original music and lyrics — for a song co-written by star Moore’s husband, Taylor Goldsmith (with Siddhartha Khosla).

Snub: Genre Shows 

Last year, “WandaVision” and “The Boys” led unprecedented wave of top-tier nominations for comic book adaptations, after the back-to-back best drama nods for the first “Star Wars” series, “The Mandalorian,” and Emmy winmfor the HBO limited series “Watchmen.”

This year, “Loki” and “The Book of Boba Fett” missed in the top drama categories, “Hawkeye” and “Peacemaker” couldn’t hit the best comedy target, and “Moon Knight” was shut out of the limited series category. Of those titles, “Loki” arguably had the best shot at a top-tier nom, but its June 2021 premiere meant it was overshadowed by the likes of eventual nominees “Squid Game,” “Yellowjackets” and “Stranger Things.”

Surprise: Unexpected Love for “The Great”

Elle Fanning delivered a nuanced performance this Emmy season as the tortured Michelle Carter in the Hulu limited series “The Girl From Plainville,” but voters prefer to see her in comedy. She received her first Emmy nomination ever in comedy lead actress for her turn as Catherine the Great in The Great. Nicholas Hoult was nominated for lead actor in a comedy for his portrayal as Peter. The Hulu comedy received 4 nominations total, for costumes and production design as well.

All of the supporting categories were rife with surprises. It was expected that the entire cast of “Succession” would be nominated in the drama categories.

But no one was expecting that for the cast of limited series “The White Lotus”: Only Fred Hechinger (as the social media addicted Quinn Mossbacher) and Brittany O’Grady (as the conflicted guest of the Mossbachers) missed out among the main cast.

Meanwhile, Sydney Sweeney earned supporting nominations for “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria.”

“Abbott Elementary” stars Janelle James and Tyler James Williams were also surprise nominees, and the core cast of the South Korean sensation “Squid Game” all earned nods: supporting actor nominees Park Hae-soo and Oh Yeong-su, and supporting actress nominee Jung Ho-yeon.

“Pam & Tommy”

“Pam & Tommy,” the Hulu limited series about what happened to Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee after their sex tape was stolen, got a ton of love on Emmy nominations morning. Not only was the show nominated in the very competitive limited series category, but it received 10 nominations overall, including for Lily James as Pam and Sebastian Stan as Tommy (neither was a sure bet). Oh, and of course it got nominated for hair!

Maid, its competitor, proved to be a word-of-mouth sensation upon its release–on the Netflix Top 10 charts for weeks. The series itself was not nominated, though its star Margaret Qualley received a nominated for lead actress in limited series, creator Molly Smith Metzler got a writing nomination and John Wells got one for directing.

Sarah Paulson Nominated for “Impeachment”

Ryan Murphy’s “Impeachment: American Crime Story” had been anticipated for years. In order to play Linda Tripp, a central figure in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Sarah Paulson changed her entire physicality, gaining weight and donning prosthetics. She also perfected Tripp’s accent and flat manner of speaking. And yet, despite all the hype, when it premiered last year, the series made no impact.

Although previous entries in Murphy’s anthology series — “The People v. O.J. Simpson” and “Versace” — had been favorites, during Emmys campaigning season, it was as if “Impeachment” had never existed.

Today, Paulson received a surprise nomination in the ultra-competitive limited series lead actress category.

Movie Stars on TV

Actors best known for headlining feature films have turned to television and won acclaim and Emmys for doing so, but this year, a great number of A-listers turned in awards-worthy TV that was conspicuously overlooked: Costner for “Yellowstone,” Samuel L. Jackson for “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” Jessica Chastain for “Scenes From a Marriage,” Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway for “WeCrashed,” Julia Roberts and Sean Penn for “Gaslit,” Tom Hiddleston for “Loki” and “The Essex Serpent,” Viola Davis and Michelle Pfeiffer for “The First Lady,” Josh Brolin for “Outer Range,” and Renée Zellweger for “The Thing About Pam.”

Few movie stars did earn Emmy nods, including Oscar Isaac for “Scenes From a Marriage,” Michael Keaton for “Dopesick,” Seth Rogen for “Pam & Tommy” and Andrew Garfield for “Under the Banner of Heaven.”