Tomorrow, on April 10th, “Hacks” returns on Max following its biggest season ever, where it won at the Emmys for more than just Jean Smart as it took its first Outstanding Comedy Series victory. As such, while it was an underdog to “The Bear” last season, “Hacks” comes into this season and the upcoming Emmy race as the heavy favorite to repeat, almost regardless of how Season Four turns out. However, in a historical context, veteran comedy shows like “Hacks” have a harder time winning Outstanding Comedy Series when they’ve been around this long.
In this century, only a few shows have won the top comedy Emmy award when they are in their fourth season or later, and most of them won under special circumstances “Hacks” isn’t working with. The last exception was “Schitt’s Creek” sweeping the Emmys in 2020 for its sixth and final season, although that was a collective sweep for the show’s legacy and was held during a pandemic year. Otherwise, the other veteran Outstanding Comedy Series winners in the 21st century were “Veep” for Seasons Four through Six from 2015 to 2017, “Modern Family” for its first five seasons from 2010 to 2015, “Everybody Loves Raymond” as an overdue first-time winner for its seventh season in 2003 and for its final season in 2005, and “Friends” as an overdue first-time winner for its eighth season in 2002.
Except for “Veep,” these shows that won after their first three seasons were either long overdue, were honored in a final sendoff, or already won several years in a row beforehand. For a show like “Hacks” that only just won for the first time in its third season, and presumably isn’t ending in its fourth season, it doesn’t have those kind of narratives or established longevity to help it win again. Therefore, it can’t merely coast on goodwill or historic circumstances alone to repeat in 2025.
For the most part, Outstanding Comedy Series voters tend to honor hot newer shows rather than veterans, like “The Bear” for its first season in 2023, the first two seasons of “Ted Lasso” in 2021 and 2022, “Fleabag’s” second and final season in 2019 and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” first season in 2018. Yet once any level of backlash starts to hit, like for “The Bear” right around 2024, its more likely that a new fresher challenger or something else that’s never won before will overtake them.
“Hacks” took advantage of that last season, but now it is the one with the bullseye on its back this time. While “The Bear” Season Three is probably too divisive to get a comeback Outstanding Comedy Series win, newer shows like “The Studio” and other veterans like “Only Murders in the Building” will be waiting to pull upsets at the slightest opportunity. If challengers like that get as much buzz from voters in the next several months as they have online in the last several weeks, then it might not take a lot for “Hacks” to be seen as something that doesn’t need to win again – at least if it doesn’t seem as strong as usual elsewhere too.
“Hacks” Season Three was undeniable, returning from a two-year hiatus and a seemingly definitive Season Two finale to be as stronger, funnier, and ultimately more devastating than ever before. As such, it has set a very high bar for Season Four to match, with Smart’s Deborah Vance starting her new late-night show while at her worst odds yet with Hannah Einbinder’s betrayed Ava. With the promise of their shakier-than-ever partnership struggling through its highest stakes ever and the likelihood of total collapse as a result before a fifth and possibly final season cleans up the fallout, the expectations and the shadow cast from last season could be too much to live up to.
At this time in many a show’s existence, especially a comedy show, things start to get shakier by a fourth season and beyond. This is a point in time where “Hacks” will either cement itself as an all-time great, or merely coast on the success and past glories of its first three seasons as it nears the finish line. But if Season Four is seen as starting to coast, or at least as something that can’t quite match the brilliance of Season Three, Emmy voters and not just critics might take notice.
When it comes to the Emmys, many an aging show that’s seen as coasting on past glories still manages to keep winning, at least if voters have gotten into a habit of picking them already. Yet for a show like “Hacks” that was the rare comedy series to win after its second season, it is still not at the point where voters will automatically check it off. If they’re not, they might be more freshly enamored by a newcomer like “The Studio” or “Nobody Wants This,” or perhaps believe a different veteran show like “Only Murders in the Building” or “Abbott Elementary” is the next one due for its first win.
Smart is at the point where she is automatically checked off each time out, no matter what, although the long-denied Einbinder remains another matter. However, their success or lack of it was never influenced by the show’s fate in Outstanding Comedy Series, especially when Smart was the best way to honor “Hacks” while shows like “The Bear” and “Ted Lasso” were beating it elsewhere.
This is kind of the same way “Veep” started out, as Julia Louis-Dreyfus was an automatic winner despite the show’s own losses in its first three seasons. However, when “Veep” finally broke through for a series win in its fourth season, it kept sweeping in its final two and defied the usual tradition of an aging Outstanding Comedy Series winner. Now, a second show under the HBO banner with a multi-Outstanding Comedy Actress winner is trying to do the same, even if it isn’t actually airing on HBO.
Arguably, by the time “Veep” won its last two Outstanding Comedy Series Emmys, it wasn’t necessary for it to match its previous seasons. Over the next eight weeks, the big question for “Hacks” will be if it can match the heights of its last season – and if it falls short, whether it will matter that much in Emmy season.
Suppose season four is another season three or is only off by a small margin that doesn’t inspire much backlash. In that case, there will be little, if any, suspense in the Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Comedy Actress categories, if not a few more. Still, “The Bear” Season Two lost despite not falling too far from its first Emmy-winning season, as it was mainly dinged by a weaker Season Three that aired before voting and a growing “Is this a comedy or a drama?” controversy – which made it possible for “Hacks” to knock it off last year in the first place. Since “Hacks” is the rare show returning almost 12 months after its last season and is clearly at least 80 percent comedic, such outside circumstances shouldn’t be as much of a problem.
In that context, it might not matter if “Hacks” Season Four matches its first three seasons, at least when it comes to the Emmys. But as Deborah and Ava painfully learned in the Season Three finale and stand to continue learning this season, being seen as “bulletproof” matters above everything and everyone else – especially for female and veteran entertainers. As such, one stray bullet caught by this veteran entertainment show in the next two months may or may not throw the entire Comedy Series race off its axis, especially if something younger or more “due” has stronger or less rusty armor.
Are you excited for the fourth season of “Hacks?” Do you think it will repeat a win at the Emmys this year for Outstanding Comedy Series? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below or on our X account, and be sure to check out our latest Emmy predictions here. Please also be sure to subscribe to the Next Best Series Podcast where we are conducting a number of interviews with Emmy contenders throughout the awards season and discussing the race over the next couple of months.
