Emmys 2020: Why ‘Watchmen’ deserves the 26 nominations

‘Watchmen’, the HBO series that turned traditional comic-book tropes on their head by injecting hot-button issues, such as white supremacy, police brutality against Black people and political corruption, into its story line scored 26 Emmy nominations — the most of any show this year and more than any other limited series in the category since the current rules were established in 2015. (The classic miniseries ‘Roots’ earned a record-setting 37 nominations in 1977.)

The show, which attracted both critical acclaim and a massive viewership with its strange twists and unconventional story, joined the upper echelon of TV series to earn the most nominations in a single year, including HBO’s epic ‘Game of Thrones’, which earned 32 nominations in 2019, ‘NYPD Blue’, which notched 26 in 1994, and FX’s ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’, which received 22 in 2016.

‘Watchmen’ outpaced this year’s second-most nominated series, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’, by six nominations.

Among the marquee nods for the series were lead actress (Regina King) and actor (Jeremy Irons). The show also received three of the six supporting actor nominations (Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Marteen and Jovan Adepo) and three of the six directing slots.