Three winners, three losers in this year's Emmy nominations

For Emmy voters, deciding on the very best shows amid the ever-expanding television landscape should keep getting harder. More networks, streaming platforms and types of productions pop up every year, and the November arrival of Disney+ and its blockbuster content will only complicate things further.

This year, 25,000 members in 30 "peer groups" - which represent different disciplines such as acting, directing, editing, etc. - voted on the television academy's yearly awards to both delightful and confounding results. (See the full list online at emmys.com.) Here are this year's big winners and losers:

Three big winners

• Pop TV - The network formerly known as the TV Guide channel suddenly finds itself a major player with three huge nominations. "Schitt's Creek," created by comedy legend Eugene Levy and his son Dan, earned nominations for best comedy series, best actor (Eugene Levy) and best actress (Eugene's fellow "SCTV" alum Catherine O'Hara). Though this riches-to-rags tale has been around for five seasons, it's more likely that you've seen GIFs of the show than the show itself. (Unless you're reading this in Canada, where it has been nominated for a truckload of Canadian Screen Awards.) These nominations unquestionably raise the profile of this little comedy that could, and of its network - which will make even more headlines next year when it airs the fourth season of "One Day at a Time" that Netflix didn't want.

• Phoebe Waller-Bridge - The British comedian's Amazon series "Fleabag" won a lot of new fans this spring. The second season of the fourth-wall-smashing show created by, written by and starring Waller-Bridge picked up 11 nominations, including five acting nods for Waller-Bridge, Sian Clifford, "Favourite" Oscar-winner Olivia Colman, and guest-actress nominees Kristin Scott Thomas and Fiona Shaw. Shaw, by the way, was also nominated for supporting actress in a drama for "Killing Eve," BBC America's delightful spy yarn created by, you guessed it, Waller-Bridge. That got six nominations, and it sure would be great to see co-stars Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh tie for the lead actress award, wouldn't it?

• "Game of Thrones" - The biggest show in the world takes a victory lap with its record-setting 32 nominations, including 10 - 10! - for its incomparable acting ensemble. Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke compete in the lead drama categories, and the supporting categories are stocked with Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Alfie Allen (the biggest surprise of the "Thrones" nominees), Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, Lena Headey and Gwendoline Christie. Carice van Houten got a guest-actress nod for her fiery, one-episode return to Winterfell.

Three big losers

• "Game of Thrones" - Those 32 nominations represent an embarrassment of riches. Literally. The public response to the final season of HBO's sword saga was not exactly glowing, especially for the final episode - which happened to net Emmy nominations for writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss - and that staggering number, while expected, seems laughable to a large portion of the audience. (A portion which doesn't include me, but I digress.) A sweep could hurt the integrity of the Emmys in the eyes of the viewers; More than anything, those 32 nominations tell us that "Game of Thrones" is the one drama that almost everyone in the industry watches.

• Guest performers in comedy series - And "Saturday Night Live" is the one comedy they all watch, apparently. Six of the 13 nominations in the guest acting categories went to "SNL" hosts Matt Damon, John Mulaney, Adam Sandler, Emma Thompson and Sandra Oh, as well as perennial walk-on Robert De Niro. That last one is particularly grating, as De Niro can barely make it through a single appearance without flubbing a line. Should "SNL" performers be considered in the same categories as actors who aren't reading off cue cards? This longtime fan doesn't think so.

• Rhea Seehorn - What the heck does this incredible actress have to do to get an Emmy nomination? Her clever, confident Kim Wexler has been the heart and soul of AMC's "Better Call Saul" for all four of its stellar seasons but still hasn't enjoyed the recognition that co-stars Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks enjoy year in and year out. If Seehorn doesn't get one by the time "Saul" goes off the air, TV critics may take the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences by storm.

• The Emmys air at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22, on Fox.