This year’s Emmys’ theme? Trying to keep it together.

When TV’s biggest stars walk the red carpet at Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles for Monday’s Emmy Awards , many of the frontrunners will have something in common. And, no, it’s not their designer outfits.

This year’s nominations have been dominated by characters just trying to get by.

Whereas the so-called Golden Age of Television was once overrun by stories of mostly white male antiheroes up to no good, many of this year’s Emmy frontrunners, across some of the biggest categories in comedy and drama, are regular people with good intentions trying to survive in increasingly dire times.

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From the traumatized doctors on “ The Pitt ” navigating Trump era cuts and crackdowns , to the city officials on “ Widow’s Bay ” struggling to protect their small town from a force seemingly out of their control, to the “ Abbott Elementary ” teachers trying to educate their students in an underfunded public school, this Emmy cycle had a plethora of stories about average people striving to keep their heads above water. Think of prickly writer Carol (Rhea Seehorn) and reclusive storage facility owner Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) trying to cling to the last vestiges of a lost world in “Pluribus,” or medical-student-turned-tour-guide Annie (Shailene Woodley, now an Emmy-winner) hiding out in Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion following another doomsday event in “Paradise.” Even on shows that aren’t as literally post-apocalyptic — “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” “Your Friends & Neighbors” and “The Diplomat,” among them — we’ve seen people resorting to extraordinary means to keep the lights on as things fall apart economically, socially or politically.

“Everyone is struggling in different ways,” said Alan Sepinwall, the former television critic for “Rolling Stone” who now runs “What’s Alan Watching?” after going through his own layoff a year ago. “There’s this idea that we’ve got to figure things out because the system that we either grew up in, or the system that we heard about from the previous generations, is really not quite there anymore. So what do we do? ”

Earlier this summer, the New Yorker’s television critic, Inkoo Kang, described 2026 as “the age of Broke TV,” pointing to characters struggling with economic troubles on Emmy-nominated shows like “DTF St. Louis,” “Beef,” “The Bear” and “The Comeback” as evidence of “the emotional cost of living in a broken world.”

But 2026’s TV slate showcased the fallout of societies fracturing for myriad reasons. In “Task,” for which Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey are both nominated, cops and robbers alike in blue-collar Pennsylvania must grapple with substance abuse, familial breakdown and corruption. “Slow Horses” (among the best drama series nominees) follows a band of decidedly average, if not still heroic, spies contending with both terrorism and populism. Even “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” was, at its heart, the tale of an average woman swept into a world of politics and celebrity that eventually sent her spiraling.

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Then there’s AI. “Hacks,” “ The Comeback ” and “The Pitt” all featured storylines in which well-intentioned characters must reckon with the changes artificial intelligence is having on their industries, for better or worse. Even the alien hive mind in “Pluribus” has been read as a metaphor for AI . “This is an anxiety that people in every industry are feeling,” Sepinwall said, “and it’s especially acute in entertainment.”

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That TV shows should want to reflect their viewers back to them is not necessarily surprising, but the medium has often been a vehicle for stories of particularly unrelatable creatures making particularly bad decisions. The shows most often associated with TV’s Golden Age — such as “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “The Wire” and “The Sopranos” — all centered on characters who could often be unlikeable as they wrestled for dominance.

Brett Martin, whose 2014 book “Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution” chronicled the rise of prestige TV , noted many of these antihero-led dramas of the late 2000s and early 2010s were obsessed with masculinity and power. “They were made by middle-aged men who were fascinated with middle-aged men and the problems of middle-aged men,” Martin said. “A lot of them have to do with a warring sense of being good or bad.”

But Martin believes those shows — many of which centered on men consumed with power and prone to giving in to their worst impulses and flouting rules— were also tuned into forces that gave way to the Trump era. “The last 15 years have revealed the extent to which those artists were prescient about the crisis that was coming and that has become America in 2026,” Martin said. “We live, in some ways, in the world that those shows were warning us about.”

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It’s understandable, then, that both creators and audiences may be both bored with pugilistic protagonists and craving a form of escapism in the form of characters different from the Machiavellian elites of “Succession” or the political narcissists of “Veep.” “It doesn’t feel like a parlour game quite as much anymore,” Martin said.

Previously, that yearning for a counterbalance might have been served by feel-good shows with relentless positivity, like “Ted Lasso.” Now, though, it appears audiences are connecting either with shows that reflect their own struggles back at them or remind them that there are others out there working tirelessly to make things right.

That’s certainly the case for Monday’s most nominated show, “The Pitt,” which abounds in gore and trauma, yet still feels oddly comforting. “It’s a show about heroic doctors trying to do the best they can under a difficult circumstance,” Sepinwall said. “You watch it and you feel better about human nature, even as you’re being reminded of all the many complications and bad things out there.”

周一，当电视界最耀眼的明星们走上洛杉矶市中心孔雀剧院的红毯，参加艾美奖颁奖典礼时，许多热门人选都会有一个共同点。当然，这并非指他们身穿的名牌服装。

今年的提名名单几乎都被那些努力求生的角色所占据。

所谓电视黄金时代充斥着大多是白人男性反英雄的无恶不作的故事，而今年艾美奖的一些主要奖项，包括喜剧和剧情类奖项，都是怀着美好愿望在日益严峻的时代中努力求生的普通人。

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这是你的艾美奖投票表：无论你是凭感觉投票还是做深度研究，我们都为你准备了投票表。

从《匹兹堡》中饱受创伤的医生们在特朗普时代的削减开支和打压下艰难求生，到《寡妇湾》中努力保护小镇免受看似无法控制的力量侵袭的市政官员，再到《阿博特小学》中在资金不足的公立学校里努力教育学生的老师们，本届艾美奖颁奖季涌现出大量讲述普通人努力挣扎求生的故事。想想《普鲁里布斯》中性格古怪的作家卡罗尔（蕾亚·塞洪饰）和隐居的仓库老板马努索斯（卡洛斯-曼努埃尔·维斯加饰）如何努力抓住一个逝去世界的最后痕迹；或者想想《天堂》中，医学生出身的导游安妮（谢琳·伍德蕾饰，如今已是艾美奖得主）在又一次末日事件后躲藏在猫王埃尔维斯·普雷斯利的故居格雷斯兰庄园。即使在一些并非真正意义上的后世界末日题材的剧集中——例如《玛戈的财务困境》、《你的朋友和邻居》以及《外交官》——我们也看到，随着经济、社会或政治局势的崩溃，人们为了维持生计而采取了非常规的手段。

“每个人都在以不同的方式挣扎，”艾伦·塞宾沃尔说道。他曾是《滚石》杂志的电视评论员，一年前自己也经历了失业，现在经营着“艾伦在看什么？”这个栏目。“我们有一种想法，那就是我们必须想办法解决问题，因为我们从小到大所处的体系，或者我们从上一代人那里听说的体系，实际上已经不太适用了。那么，我们该怎么办呢？”

今年夏天早些时候，《纽约客》的电视评论家 Inkoo Kang 将 2026 年描述为“破产电视时代”，他指出，在《DTF St. Louis》、《Beef》、《The Bear》和《The Comeback》等艾美奖提名剧集中，那些与经济困境作斗争的角色证明了“生活在一个破碎的世界中的情感代价”。

但2026年的电视奖项评选展现了社会因各种原因分裂后带来的种种后果。在马克·鲁法洛和汤姆·佩尔弗瑞双双获得提名的剧集《任务》（Task）中，宾夕法尼亚州蓝领阶层的警察和罪犯都必须应对药物滥用、家庭破裂和腐败等问题。《慢马》（Slow Horses，最佳剧情类剧集提名之一）讲述了一群平凡却英勇的间谍与恐怖主义和民粹主义作斗争的故事。就连《爱情故事：小约翰·F·肯尼迪与卡罗琳·贝塞特》（Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette）的核心，也是一个普通女性被卷入政治和名人世界，最终走向毁灭的故事。

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2026年黄金时段艾美奖：查看完整提名名单

然后是人工智能。《黑客帝国》、《归来记》和《匹兹堡》等剧集都讲述了善意的角色们不得不面对人工智能给各自行业带来的变革，无论好坏。甚至《Pluribus》中的外星蜂巢思维也被解读为人工智能的隐喻。“这是各行各业的人都在感受到的焦虑，”塞平沃尔说，“在娱乐行业尤其如此。”

《黑客帝国》联合创作人兼主演保罗·W·唐斯透露了他如何以幽默的方式告诉梅格·斯塔尔特她首次获得艾美奖提名。他还谈到了粉丝们是否会看到一部以深受喜爱的吉米和凯拉二人组为主角的衍生剧。现在就上CNN应用程序观看全新访谈系列节目《即将播出》。

电视节目想要反映观众的喜好并不令人意外，但这种媒介常常被用来讲述一些格格不入的角色做出糟糕的决定。那些与电视黄金时代联系最紧密的剧集——例如《广告狂人》、《绝命毒师》、《火线》和《黑道家族》——都围绕着一些往往令人反感的角色展开，讲述他们为了争夺权力而斗争的故事。

布雷特·马丁在其2014年出版的《难搞的男人：创意革命幕后故事》一书中记录了高端电视剧的兴起。他指出，2000年代末和2010年代初的许多以反英雄为主角的剧集都痴迷于男性气质和权力。“这些剧集是由一群对中年男性及其问题着迷的中年男性创作的，”马丁说，“很多剧集都围绕着善恶之间的冲突展开。”

但马丁认为，这些剧集——其中许多都以权力欲熏心、容易屈服于自身最恶劣的冲动并藐视规则的男性为中心——也反映了促成特朗普时代的种种力量。“过去15年表明，这些艺术家对即将到来的危机以及2026年美国所面临的危机具有多么敏锐的预见性，”马丁说。“在某种程度上，我们生活在这些剧集所警告的世界中。”

在本次访谈中，曾两度获得艾美奖提名的科尔曼·多明戈畅谈了他在喜剧和剧情片领域的工作，并指出同行对他的表演给予的认可意义重大。多明戈解释了他为何通过身兼编剧、导演、制片和演员等多重身份，不断挑战“对自身职业的简单定义”。

加入 CNN 主持人伊丽莎白·瓦格迈斯特的行列，她将采访艾美奖提名名人，畅谈他们职业生涯中的重要时刻以及对新闻事件的反思。现在就通过 CNN 应用程序观看《Coming Up》节目吧！

因此，创作者和观众都对好斗的主角感到厌倦，渴望通过不同于《继承之战》中权谋精英或《副总统》中政治自恋者的角色来寻求逃避现实，这也就不足为奇了。“感觉它不再像以前那样像是一场室内游戏了，”马丁说道。

过去，人们或许会通过像《泰德·拉索》这样充满正能量、让人感觉良好的节目来满足这种对平衡的渴望。但现在，观众似乎更倾向于观看那些能够反映他们自身困境，或者让他们意识到还有其他人正在不懈努力地改善现状的节目。

周一获得最多提名的剧集《匹兹堡医院》（The Pitt）正是如此，这部剧充斥着血腥和创伤，却依然给人一种奇特的慰藉感。“这部剧讲述的是一群英勇的医生在困境中竭尽全力的故事，”塞平沃尔说道，“你看完之后，会觉得人性更加美好，即使它也提醒着你世间存在着诸多复杂和糟糕的事情。”