The 75th Primetime Emmys has officially come and gone, and unfortunately for Better Call Saul, the final season of the critically and commercially reviewed series walked out empty-handed. What’s even worse is that the prequel to Breaking Bad has an unwanted record as Better Call Saul has 53 Primetime Emmy nominations and does not have a single win.
Its predecessor, Breaking Bad, was an Emmy darling as it has 16 wins under its belt. The Emmys are no stranger to snubbing television content before – The Wire, The Leftovers, Peaky Blinders, and Mindhunters are some of the most notable examples. However, to have the series get 53 nominations and not a single win is unheard of. There’s no firm reason why Better Call Saul failed to win an Emmy, but here are several possible ones that might’ve resulted in the series never got its due from the Emmy voters.
Breaking Bad Started A New Wave Of Television
When Breaking Bad burst onto the scene in 2005, it was something that audiences had never seen before. Granted, television was no stranger to anti-heroes, with Tony Soprano kicking off that era. However, no television show has seen such an evolution of a good guy going bad. In the beginning, Breaking Bad wasn’t even on many people’s radars as the show was at severe risk of being canceled. But once its popularity grew because of Netflix, then it became a must-see TV until its final season.
It was fascinating to see the rise and fall of Water White. Supporting characters like Jesse Pinkman or Skylar White played an integral part in the iconic series. Breaking Bad was an unpredictable series because you simply didn’t know where the show was going for a good portion of it. Vince Gilligan crafted an excellent series that subverted expectations and created some of the most iconic names in television history.
Better Call Saul Was Never An Important Conversation Starter
Better Call Saul had a tall task to live up to and to be honest, it did. Out of the gate, the prequel came out swinging with a fascinating character study on Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill. But the issue was that we know Saul is a bad guy. In fact, we know that Saul was a big part of Breaking Bad. There was no mystery or intrigue with his character because we know his final destination. Sure, his rivalry with Chuck or assisting a lunatic like Lalo Salamanca were compelling watches, but his future was never in doubt.
Better Call Saul relied on new names like Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) or Nacho Varga (Michael Mando) for the unpredictability factor. But it wasn’t their story, so they didn’t get as much focus as Saul Goodman. Don’t get me wrong, Nacho and Kim were extremely compelling characters; In fact, Kim’s character was a crucial piece of the final two seasons, but Better Call Saul didn’t have that new car smell that Breaking Bad immediately did.
Better Call Saul Was Continuously Overshadowed By Ground Breaking Shows
It remains baffling that Better Call Saul hasn’t won an Emmy. Game of Thrones didn’t deserve an Emmy for Best Drama in its final year. Yet it got one. However, Better Call Saul continued to get overshadowed once GOT was done. Succession burst onto the scene and blew everyone away. Then Squid Game arrived, which became a massive hit. Better Call Saul is nearly a flawless show, but there’s no denying the slow-burn aspects didn’t do the series any favors.
This goes back to Better Call Saul being an important conversation starter. The show just never generated the buzz that the respective shows above received. Even with the final season masterfully wrapping up its incredible journey, Succession dominated the talk of best drama series. For the mainstream crowd, there wasn’t an Ozymandias episode that made people truly take notice of the series. Granted, Breaking Bad‘s notoriety started around the third season, but the point was that the original series always had game-changing moments that couldn’t be ignored.
By the time Better Call Saul got to their game-changing moments, it was simply too late. Many people dropped off the series by that point and the mainstream stopped buzzing about it long before then. Better Call Saul will go down as one of the best shows ever made and the fact that the show hasn’t won a single Emmy is criminal. But at the end of the day, the series was continuously overshadowed by other shows that dominated the mainstream spotlight.