Just because Oscar season is upon us doesn’t mean that other forms of entertainment are ceding the floor to major motion pictures — especially when that motion picture is the divisive Digger. A flurry of TV premieres have blanketed both coasts in the past week as the first wave of fall shows look to register in the Golden Globes and SAG Actor Awards television races, with their eyes on the Emmys after that. And here in New York, the 2026-2027 Broadway season hard launched in earnest with one big opening night, a few big preview nights, and a smattering of press days.
So let the critics and prognosticators throw dirt on Tom Cruise’s Oscar odds — we’re digging these Emmy and Tony contenders on the stage and (small) screen.
Staying Live?
Kimmel and Molly McNearney in front of the Brooklyn (Disney/)Randy Holmes/Disney
“This is a Peabody-winning show,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live! hype man boasted to the live audience packed into the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House for Night 4 of Kimmel’s weeklong residency in New York’s bougiest borough. “And we won a Critics Choice Award,” he quickly added before rattling off the run of show, which had traded its usual Los Angeles digs for a set tricked out to resemble the boardwalk at Brooklyn’s seaside playground of Coney Island.
No matter which coast its being prerecorded on, Jimmy Kimmel Live! is clearly a well-oiled machine 23 years into its run. Although we were warned ahead of time that the tapings can last upward of 90 minutes, Kimmel and his team had the crowd in and out of BAM in a tight 70, and that included the monologue, three interview segments, a couple promo tapings, and plenty of japery with the host’s mustachioed wingman, Guillermo Rodriguez, freshly flown in from his Dancing With the Stars side hustle earlier in the week.
“You’re going to become too famous to be on the show anymore,” Kimmel told Rodriguez during a commercial break before handing the comedian a T-shirt cannon and instructing him to fire it at well into the audience. The host also warmly thanked the Brooklyn audience of making him feel what it was like to potentially “die from hospitality” because of their warm reception throughout the week. Although BK crowds can keep it real; when Kimmel did a bit about the recently leaked jailhouse photos revealing how incarcerated rapper Sean Combs was living large behind bars, an audience member in our vicinity made it very clear that they’re still Team Diddy.
Kimmel at his Brooklyn showsRandy Holmes/Disney
Of course, one award the JKL hype man couldn’t hype up in his pre-show spiel was “Emmy-winning,” as the ABC late-night staple just went winless for another year despite the Best Variety Series category being relaunched as a non-competitive category where, theoretically anyway, multiple shows could win. But in the end, only the end of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was deemed Emmy-worthy, although it should be noted that Kimmel nabbed a second statuette for his emcee duties on the daytime version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Colbert is now (forcibly) retired and spending his days writing a Lord of the Rings movie among other post-TV pursuits. That leaves Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon as the last two hosts standing in the traditional 11 p.m.-midnight block that defined broadcast network late night for so many decades. The other survivors are Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers — the latter two of whom were Kimmel’s guests on Thursday night. As expected, talk among the trio inevitably turned to Trump with Oliver semi-jokingly thanking Kimmel for taking all of the Oval Office’s ire, while Meyers joked that the president’s obsession with the ABC host proves that least someone is still watching linear ad-supported television.
That joke hit a little differently considering that, hours earlier, Disney President Dana Walden struck an ambiguous note about JKL’s future on the Mouse House-owned network, and the costs of producing the show has reportedly been one of the sticking points. (Certainly, the video podcasts that have supplanted so many traditional late night shows don’t require employing the army of skilled artisans that make JKL run on time on a nightly basis.) Last month, Page Six reported that the show would be dead and buried as of May 2027, and while ABC quickly issued a statement suggesting otherwise, they also didn’t not not say that Kimmel would still be on its late night schedule as of next fall.
Kimmel didn’t address Walden’s comments on the air or between commercials, but there’s a chance that his latest trip to Brooklyn could also be his last trip to Brooklyn depending on how things play out. Perhaps that’s why he invited Paul McCartney to be the final guest on his weeklong New York stint; after all, the former Beatle literally turned The Late Show’s lights off on Colbert’s final night. And since Colbert won an Emmy months later, maybe McCartney can be the lucky charm that earns Jimmy Kimmel Live! its first variety series win… when the host is 59 instead of 64.
Prom night
The corsages ran red at the Bloody Prom-themed party that followed the NYC premiere of Prime Video’s Carrie on Monday night. Fortunately, you can blame the messiness on spilled spiked punch and/or the ketchup that topped the hearty servings of cafeteria fries, as opposed to, you know, loose buckets of pig’s blood.
This new Carrie arrives as Brian De Palma’s 1976 big screen version celebrates its 50th anniversary, and Prime Video wisely entrusted the series to pop culture’s Stephen King whisperer, Mike Flanagan, who has successfully cracked adaptations of Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life of Chuck from America’s best-loved boogeyman. Brought up to the present day — with plenty of timely Adolescence-style commentary about social media woven into the revised fabric of King’s text — the series feels rooted in contemporary concerns yet still hits many of the beats that book lovers know and love.
Not surprisingly, Flanagan was a popular dance partner at the after-party, sought out by waves of well-wishers while swinging his hips with the show’s cast, including stars Matthew Lillard, Amber Midthunder, Summer H. Howell, and, of course, Flanagan’s wife and regular collaborator, Kate Siegel. Needless to say, that pair didn’t have to keep each other at middle school dance distance all night.
Before Prime Video came calling, Flanagan was Netflix’s go-to horror maestro, overseeing the much-loved Haunting trilogy of updated literary adaptations, as well as Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club. Despite blockbuster streaming numbers for (most) of those series, they never scared up enough votes to qualify for the major awards ceremonies.
Carrie faces a similar hurdle, although it’s worth noting that Howell’s performance has stirred awards buzz and we’re also living in a post-Widow’s Bay world where a series filled with monster and mayhem can make Emmy history and likely still add some Globes and SAG statuettes to its freshman year haul. It goes without saying that the visual effects that accompany Carrie’s final rampage could find their way into contention, while the production design team deserves some recognition for painting that high school gym red with non-ketchup based fake blood.
Prime Video kept the contenders swinging out on the West Coast where the Michael B. Jordan-executive produced series The Greatest had its first peek-out to industry press. First teased at the streamer’s upfront presentation earlier this year, the sports drama zeroes in on the early years of Cassius Clay, the boxer who would become Muhammad Ali, played by newcomer Jaalen Best doing credible, charismatic work as the iconic pugilist. Two episodes were screened at the event, which covered the young Clay’s gold medal victory at the 1960 Olympics and subsequent decision whether or not to pursue a professional fighting career. (Spoiler alert — he did.) In addition to the emergence of Best, an early MVP of the series is Dana Gourrier as family matriarch, and fixer, Odessa “Bird” Clay.
Chatting with showrunner Ben Watkins (Cross) after the screening, Gold Derby learned that the creative team has a three-season arc in mind, each of which culminates in a famous Ali bout; Sonny Liston in Season 1, Joe Frazier in Season 2, and George Foreman in Season 3. As you might expect of a boxing show overseen by Adonis Creed’s alter ego, The Greatest’s fight scenes certainly hit heavy, which bodes well for the recreations of those vintage brawls.
Oh yeah, and Carrie might have some competition in the production design department from a fellow Prime Video series. “Remember this name: Elisa Sauvé,” Watkins told us, crediting The Greatest’s production designer for bringing the past to life for a certain cost. “She did an incredible job given our budget constraints.”
Speaking of Netflix, the streamer is bouncing back from its broken three-year streak of Limited Series wins — which started with the first helping of Beef in 2023 and ended after the show’s second helping saw DTF St. Louis eat its lunch last month — with the lush period drama, East of Eden. Boasting great reviews, classic lit pedigree courtesy of the John Steinbeck novel, and an A-list star in the form of Florence Pugh, the seven-episode series is well-positioned to light up red carpets and awards ceremony ballrooms in the first quarter of 2027.
Gold Derby experts already have the show in a three-way tie for the No. 1 spot in the Limited Series/Movie category at the Golden Globes alongside Beef and DTF St. Louis. It’s always tempting for January voters to reward the shiny new series in their midst, so East certainly has a shot at sending those two Emmy leftovers into the West alongside Frodo Baggins.
TV Limited Series/Movie
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
6.
7.
8.
9.
Remarkably Bright Creatures
10.
Meanwhile, those same experts have Pugh ranked as No. 2 for the Best TV Limited/Movie statuette, just behind Beef’s Carey Mulligan, who already lost the corresponding Emmy to beloved Hollywood veteran, Sally Field. Let’s wait and see if Globe voters like Flo — really like her.
TV Limited/Movie Actress
1.
2.
3.
Florence Pugh
East of Eden
4.
Sally Field
Remarkably Bright Creatures
5.
Ella Beatty
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
6.
7.
Melissa McCarthy
The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey
8.
Emma Corrin
Pride and Prejudice
9.
Rose Byrne
The Good Daughter
10.
The well-reviewed stage version of Paranormal Activity soft-launched the new Broadway season in August, but this week is really where so many Tony dreams (and nightmares) begin. On Monday, the curtain rose on the opening night of the wildly funny School Girls, or the African Mean Girls Play, the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway mounting of Jocelyn Bioh’s off-Broadway smash starring Denée Benton and Jasmine Amy Rogers.
And speaking of stars, The Odyssey’s Bill Irwin is currently in previews for his much-anticipated return to Broadway, The Imaginary Invalid. Meanwhile, Tuesday brought the first preview performance of Other Desert Cities, featuring the smashing ensemble of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe. Then on Thursday, Billy Crystal did an inaugural run of his latest one-man show, 860, with an eye toward being at the Tonys as a nominee rather than host.
There’s more — lots more — Broadway to come in the next few weeks, including the season’s first original musical, Wanted, which explores the legacy of outlaws Mary and Martha Clarke, two Black siblings who passed for white in the highly racialized society of late 19th century Texas. Their story has been translated into song by one of their descendents, Angelica Chéri, who is the first Black woman to write the book and lyrics for an original Broadway musical in over five decades.
The significance of the season’s first big play and first big musical being centered around Black women isn’t lost on Chéri or Wanted’s stars, Solea Pfeiffer as Mary and Liisi LaFontaine as Martha. “Jocelyn is a great friend and mentor … we’ve grown up together in this industry,” Chéri told us at a recent press day ahead of the musical’s first previews on Oct. 15, with opening night scheduled for Nov. 8. “It’s so apropos that School Girls just opened because … it’s just a mirror of what we’ve been building with Wanted. The voices of Black women are being amplified and shown on the highest platform of theater in the world, and I think that’s historic.”
“We also have Midnight and Imitation of Life coming off-Broadway this season,” LaFontaine adds. “They’re all kind of stories about race and colorism in America. We’re going through a reckoning as a country about what it means to be American and the importance of valuing our history so we don’t repeat it.”
Looking ahead to next year’s ceremony, Tony voters are likely hoping to avoid repeating the relative paucity of actors of color who took home statuettes this past June. Rogers and Rachel Zegler are already expected to go head-to-head for the Best Actress in a Musical prize for their respective revivals of The Sound of Music and Evita, while Wanted supporting player, Ledisi, could belt her way into the Featured Actress category as the Clarke family matriarch, Tallulah. During a medley of the show’s original songs, Ledisi’s performance of “Inheritance” — a recent addition to the musical — left the audience’s souls audibly shaken and stirred. That kind of energy might power Wanted to a home on the Tony range.
— Additional reporting by Marcus Errico