By Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Stars of Hollywood will toast the best of television on Monday night at the Primetime Emmy Awards, where Harrison Ford and Jean Smart are chasing history and emergency room tale “The Pitt” is competing to claim the top prize for a second straight year.
Mariska Hargitay, star of NBC’s drama “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” will host the ceremony, breaking with a tradition of having a comedian serve as emcee. The festivities will be broadcast live at 8 p.m. ET (0000 GMT on Tuesday) from downtown Los Angeles on NBC and stream on Peacock. Presenters will include Jon Hamm, Sally Field, Amy Poehler and Zendaya.
Hargitay, known for her “SVU” role as a police captain, said she worked with writers from Stephen Colbert’s former late-night show to craft Emmys material.
“To spend time in a room full of brilliant comedy writers and be in this just joy and celebration, it’s very different from what I do,” Hargitay said in an interview ahead of the ceremony. “It’s been a beautiful diversion and a beautiful gift and everything feels new.”
The Emmys offer a rare night of celebration as Hollywood grapples with production cutbacks, anxiety over artificial intelligence and the proposed Paramount Skydance purchase of HBO owner Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has divided the industry and faces legal challenges.
At the show, “Hacks” star Smart could become the first performer to win the Emmy for best comedy actress in every season of a TV show’s run while Ford could claim his first Emmy at age 84 for “Shrinking.”
HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” set in a Pittsburgh trauma center, is favored to win best drama – the night’s top award – for a second straight year. Competitors include newcomer “Pluribus,” an Apple TV show about a woman at war with an alien hive mind. “The Pitt” star Noah Wyle is a leading contender for a second straight best actor Emmy.
“Hacks,” featuring Smart as a septuagenarian stand-up comic fighting to stay relevant, looked like the clear frontrunner two months ago. Also on HBO Max, the series earned best comedy once in its previous four seasons.
The show must fend off surging support, however, for Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay,” a new horror comedy starring Matthew Rhys as mayor of a small New England town that appears to be cursed.
Emmy winners are chosen by the more than 27,000 writers, directors, performers, producers and craftspeople in the Television Academy.
This year, the academy revamped the late-night comedy competition. Shows including “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which was canceled by CBS, and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” will compete for outstanding variety series in a category that could produce more than one winner. Under the academy’s rules, each nominee is judged individually and any show with 90% approval receives an Emmy.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine;Additional reporting by Matt Silverstein; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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