The Emmys Can’t Ignore TV’s Spy Obsession Much Longer

From left: Lashana Lynch in The Day of the Jackal, Diego Luna in Andor, Keira Knightley in Black Doves.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Limited, Lucasfilm Ltd., Stefania Rosini/Netflix

In all the years of the Emmys, only two shows about espionage have ever won the Outstanding Drama Series award: Mission: Impossible in 1967 and 1968 (it was the 1960s) and Homeland in 2012 (we’d just killed Bin Laden). It’s not that the Television Academy lacked for spy series, from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Alias to The Hour and The Americans. But for some reason, Emmy voters pre-2000 seemed to prefer shows about everyday folks doing everyday jobs. From 1981 to 1999, there were only two years when the Outstanding Drama winner wasn’t about cops, lawyers, or doctors (and in the case of David E. Kelley’s Picket Fences, all three!). In the quarter-century since, the genres expanded to include crime shows (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad), political shows (The West Wing, The Crown), and shows about the moral decay of the American character as incubated in Manhattan office towers (Mad Men, Succession). Yes, several spy series from this period produced Emmy winners in acting and writing — Matthew Rhys got Lead Actor in a Drama for The Americans; Abi Morgan won for writing The Hour — but in many cases, you could argue they deserved much more. We had to watch Victor Garber go Emmy-less for his Alias performance three years in a row. That damages a person!

Last year, however, the Emmys recognized two spy shows — Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Slow Horses — among its eight Outstanding Drama Series nominees, and while both lost to Shōgun, it’s a sign voters are open to bringing TV’s espionage obsession to the table. This year, it’ll be hard to ignore. Slow Horses is back again, ready to be that thing Emmy voters love the most: a repeat nominee. Peacock’s U.K. co-production The Day of the Jackal, starring Eddie Redmayne as the titular assassin and Lashana Lynch as the MI6 agent on his trail, is likely the streamer’s best shot at nominations outside of The Traitors. Netflix’s Black Doves is probably the best pure spy series I’ve seen on TV in a hot minute, with Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw daring to ask the question, how fun would it be to be spies with your gay bestie?

And there are so many more! Paramount+ shelled out for Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, and Richard Gere in The Agency. Apple TV+’s Carême is a spy series about a celebrity chef in Napoleonic France. And of course, lest we forget, arguably the best show on television right now is about a rebel spy within the Star Wars universe. The Emmy ceiling for Andor may be the highest of all of this year’s crop of spy shows, but it’s the visible part of a much bigger iceberg. To process the espionage television state of play, Vulture critic Nicholas Quah convened fellow television critics Roxana Hadadi, Jackson McHenry, and Kathryn VanArendonk for an intel briefing on why the genre has such a hard time at the Emmys. —Joe Reid

As Joe laid out in the intro above, spy shows have historically had a difficult time getting much traction with Emmy voters. Why do you think that is?
Kathryn VanArendonk: It feels like a classic, unsurprising Emmys story. The things that feel too genre, or too typically unserious, or too focused on action sequences rather than long stretches of people talking gravely to one another amid deep sighs and furrowed brows — these are shows that have trouble getting awards recognition. Emmy voters like to reward series that are very clearly About Something, like commercialism or wealth or artistic genius or what a millennial is, and spy shows are not a genre I think viewers are trained to think of as being thematically dense — unless that theme is like, institutions are evil.

And yet even that explanation seems a little paltry to me! Spy shows are so many things Emmys voters have been able to understand in the past, with so many opportunities for brooding, dark visuals, and masculine energy. Maybe Emmys voters simply don’t know what to do with masculine energy that’s sometimes fun?

Jackson McHenry: The two spy shows that have won Outstanding Drama tell an interesting story. It’s a spy caper (Mission: Impossible) and a very self-serious spy drama (Homeland) almost 50 years apart. Homeland’s about a woman, but in 2012, we were in the midst of peak TV anti-hero, which is certainly where Carrie Mathison lies. Plus, there’s plenty to dissect about how much the show was about the masculine fantasies of the War on Terror. Otherwise, I agree that the Emmys have trouble with genre blending, which is typically where spy stories lie. They’re not pure dramas, given that the stakes are usually leavened by gadgets and sidekicks, so they can come across as less weighty than their competition. That certainly explains the track record of something like Alias — nobody’s going to give Outstanding Drama to a show with that many wigs. And speaking of wigs, does that explain the Emmy response to The Americans?

Roxana, are Emmy voters just too snobby and simple for the spy show?Roxana Hadadi: I personally will never forgive them for not giving Keri Russell an award for that popping eye vein! I have two theories here. One, I think a spy show can only be acclaimed if it’s either not really about spy stuff (Mr. & Mrs. Smith is really about marriage; Slow Horses is a show about Gary Oldman farting) or if it’s so obvious in its political aims and perspective that there can be no divisiveness among people who watch it. You either loathed Homeland or you thought it was Important Television, you know? I don’t think Emmy voters take spy stuff seriously, just like how the Oscars for a long time didn’t take stunts seriously. There’s an aversion to fun happening here, which is unfortunate, because something being entertaining (Black Doves!) doesn’t make it any less worthy than something being boring, pretentious, and Islamophobic (I am talking about Homeland).

And now we find ourselves with a bumper crop of strong (and not so strong) spy shows on television, many of which should be up for Emmy contention: Slow Horses, The Day of the Jackal, Black Doves, The Old Man, Andor, The Agency, Lioness, Carême(!). Any guesses as to why we’re suddenly drowning in spies?
KVA: Spies are a way to do politics and international relations and “oh no things do seem pretty bad don’t they?” without actually having to be political. So many of these shows focus on the futility or grim determination or flawed goofiness of a few individuals set against the massive implacable nightmare of giant institutions. It’s an inherently cynical genre that nevertheless has all these ways to be fun and silly. It’s also, as Jackson pointed out, an easy transition from the age of the anti-hero. These are still highly imperfect protagonists, but they can occasionally take a break to smash someone’s face into a toaster, which is a nice change of pace.

J.M.: Spy stories also come hand in hand with competence porn, which I think is an especially comforting thing when we have deeply inept people in charge of the actual world. Slow Horses ribs that aspect of the genre as a whole premise, but even Slough House probably would not lose more than one fighter plane in the ocean. That blends well with other genres, because if you take the character type of the hypercompetent rogue, you can place them in all sorts of situations — maybe he’s trying to seduce every woman in France while also cooking for the pope and having a little earring; maybe he’s trying to take down the empire. We usually talk about Andor as a show about intragalactic rebellion, but its fundamental structure depends on Cassian Andor hopping from place to place getting out of various scrapes. It’s actually interesting how the dynamic between him and Luthen, especially in season one, is so much about what kind of show Andor is: Cassian would much rather be in a spy caper, while Luthen is trying to get him to commit to being a soldier.

R.H.: I can’t co-sign what Kathryn said about “politics without being political” hard enough. Spy stuff has an inherent excitement, right? Playing dress-up, staging honey traps, going pew-pew with shootouts, car chases; it’s all the lizard-brain stuff you want out of escapist television. And for the past 15 or so years, I’d say we’ve been craving that culturally. I’m not sure another Mad Men can ever get made, but everyone is going to ape off The Americans for years. (Not Citadel, though. No one is ever going to remember Citadel, which I think says more about Prime Video’s release and marketing strategy than anything else.) Otherwise, the formula holds because it’s so malleable, and because its component parts are so recognizable for viewers.

What do you think is the ideal delivery system — and perhaps the ideal form — for a spy show in 2025? I’m talking about the distinction between streaming, cable, and network television, along with the split between a limited series, a seasonal show, or something open ended.
J.M.: It’s interesting how the boom we’re talking about has really been in streaming, and especially the prestige-ish zone of tech companies elbowing their way into Hollywood: Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Netflix’s Black Doves, almost everything on AppleTV+. The Day of the Jackal and The Agency, by contrast, feel like studios elbowing back (via Peacock and Showtime/Paramount+). They trade on both stars and production value and the implicit promise that we’ll get a season wrapped up without too many episodes. Network TV, I guess, is for guys like Tracker doing cases of the week, not the intricate mysteries these spy shows promise to answer. So, I think the delivery vehicle we’re talking about is right for this boomlet in the midst of an overstuffed attention economy, but I do miss the sprawl of those 2000s shows like Alias or even 24 where you eventually have to save someone from a cougar because you’re out of plot.

R.H.: I’m sticking with weekly, episodic, you need time to recover from the spy show’s adrenaline rush and time to puzzle out exactly what is going on. I would love if HBO were doing a big buzzy Sunday-night spy show instead of forcing us to stare down the barrel of a decade of Harry Potter, but since it’s not, I’ll content myself with The Agency on Showtime. I agree with Jackson that part of Black Doves’s buzziness was because everyone could binge it on Netflix, but don’t we think it would’ve had a longer cultural tail if it had come out weekly? If we had to deal with a whole SEVEN DAYS of waiting to see how the cliffhanger of Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw covered in blood resolved itself? (Jackson, I refuse to acknowledge you defining this release schedule with the likes of Tracker.)

KVA: Maybe we should actually talk about what the hell is happening on Tracker, the most boring show to ever exist. But the answer for me is really two models that work, both of which have lots to recommend them. One season-long story, produced as a complete unit and ideally released as a binge — sorry Slow Horses, but it’ll be better that way! A tight six-episode mystery thriller is such a great weekend binge. Or, a more messy, multiform network model of the style we have mostly lost, a mix of episodic and long-running plots anchored by character relationships and released weekly. Both are great! Middle grounds between them feel like awkward misfits.

Aside from wigs and going pew-pew, what do you value in a spy show? 
KVA: One of the real strengths of this genre, for me, is the competence-porn element Jackson brought up. I ultimately want to watch people who are very good at their jobs doing those jobs well. But my other favorite element is something like a moment of self-discovery or the veil falling from a protagonist’s eyes — think of the slow shift Cassian Andor has experienced from the beginning of that series or the undeniable hook of the Alias pilot, where she suddenly realizes what world she’s been living in this whole time … and then has her entire world shift again. Those are the major eat-it-like-candy moments for me.

J.M.: Any time there’s a boss behind the boss who emerges from the shadows and they happen to be played by a well-regarded character actor.

R.H.: If there’s a stylishly directed and well-paced sequence where someone realizes everything they thought about their job and country was wrong, that’s the good stuff. Give me that destruction of self, baby!

So The Agency, basically.
R.H.: Yes, Michael Fassbender’s face crumpling into itself when he realizes love will always be incompatible with his job, I enjoy it deeply.

Make your case: Which show is doing the spy thing the best in 2024–25?
J.M.: Only one spy on television is solving political mysteries while making France’s flakiest pastries, so we must put some respect on the name of monsieur Carême.

R.H.: For a “spies are cool and rad,” it’s Black Doves. For a “spies are emotionally constipated and doomed by their governments,” it’s The Agency. Get your range on!

KVA: For me it was both Black Doves and The Day of the Jackal. I love Andor, and am happy to say it’s my favorite of any of these shows, but I do think there are so many other things happening on that series that calling it pure spy above all else isn’t really the full story.

Kathryn, I’m surprised you didn’t single out Slow Horses.
KVA: Yeah, and I love Slow Horses! But I am actually so bored with being shown a Fringe-style evil-spy-training facility for future spy babies, that I got annoyed with this season.

Could you each give me one or two performances from 2024–25 spy shows that you’d argue should get the Emmy?
J.M.: If we’re counting Andor as a spy show, then we have to acknowledge that Kathryn Hunter is giving two incredible performances as a terrifying woman in an imperial capital. That and Black Doves — Emmys for Kathryn Hunter!

KVA: Concur despite my genre skepticism!

R.H.: Michael Fassbender’s wolfish smile deserves an award, Keira Knightley’s underbite deserves an award, I swear I’m not trying to bring back Toothday. Most importantly, though, Stellan Skarsgård for capturing the emotional cost of all these double lives.

Last question: What’s one thing you’d like to see from the spy genre go away?

R.H.: What if my answer was just “America”?

J.M.: Similarly, invented baddie groups that allow shows to keep their villains as vague and apolitical as possible (a major frustration with Mr. & Mrs. Smith).

KVA: Both of those are good and important points, and so I’ll just add that spies should do more eating and peeing. Just give me one scene where having a human body is a pain, please! Or, if not that, then these shows need to go so far on the gadgets that I am absolutely flying, so completely awash in how cool the gadgets are that the fact that all their bodies are bulletproof doesn’t even register.