Contending at the Water Cooler

With the Television Academy voting underway, we reveal the 2026 Cooler Award nominations and our Emmy wish list!

The 2026 Emmy voting window is finally here. So, with the Television Academy weighing in on their favorite television series, Joey, Megan, and Clarence offer their Emmy wish list recommendations. What do we think that the Television Academy should most definitely consider? What personal favorites do we advocate? Find out on this week’s podcast!

But first, Clarence unveils the 2026 Cooler Awards nominations! Find out what surprises the readers and staff of The Contending have in store for the best in 2026 Emmy season television. Nominations will post on the site Tuesday night, so you’ll get a first-hand look at the noms via our podcast! Starting Wednesday, August 19, check back at The Contending to vote on the 2026 Cooler Awards winners!

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes or subscriptions, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen to our audio podcast. Our video podcast follows below!





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The post Our Emmys Wish List and the 2026 Cooler Awards Noms! [VIDEO] appeared first on The Contending.

We review three new series including The Shards, Furious, and a new season of Emmy-winning comedy Ted Lasso.

This week, Joey, Megan, and Clarence take a break from the 2026 Emmys to look at three new series. Ryan Murphy returns to directing in the pilot of FX’s The Shards. Based on the novel and co-written by Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards stars Igby Rigney as a fictionalized version of Ellis growing up in the posh world of early 1980s Los Angeles. Being a Ryan Murphy project, social norms emerge as frightening as the serial killer targeting Ellis’ prep school friends. Then, Megan has already raved about Furious, so Joey and Clarence weigh in with their takes on Liz Meriwether’s serial killer limited series loosely based on the 1987 film Black Widow.

Finally, in a 180-degree shift, Ted Lasso returns with a fourth season that’s both sequel and reboot. Does the new season merit a return of Jason Sudeikis’s underdog soccer coach? Or is this beating a dead horse?

Plus, along the way, we wonder if we’ll be talking about any of these series a year from now at the 2027 Emmy Awards.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes or subscriptions, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen to our audio podcast. Our video podcast follows below!





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The post New TV Reviews: Do ‘The Shards,’ ‘Furious,’ and ‘Ted Lasso’ Offer Emmy 2027 Hope? appeared first on The Contending.

In a very special episode of the Contending at the Water Cooler podcast, Megan McLachlan is joined by freelance writer Joshua Axelrod to discuss all five 2026 Outstanding TV Movie Emmy contenders.

Notably, the Outstanding TV Movie category is completely unpredictable, with past winners including Rebel Ridge, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers. There is no one type of TV movie.

In terms of the 2026 Outstanding TV Movie category, this year we have a buddy comedy with John Cena and Idris Elba (with Priyanka Chopra as the third wheel), a rom-com that steals from When Harry Met Sally, the latest Jack Ryan film entry, a film that explores the beautiful relationship between a sentient octopus and a cleaning lady, and a dramaedy that explores the not-so beautiful relationship between a grieving woman and her son’s assistant.

Remarkably Beautiful Creatures is the clear frontrunner, but special guest Joshua Axelrod thinks there’s a better movie in the bunch.

Watch or listen below, where we recap each film, list what we like and didn’t like, and then rank the films in terms of likelihood to win.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes or subscriptions, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen to our audio podcast. Our video podcast follows below!





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The post Emmys 2026 Outstanding TV Movie Podcast: Two Differing Opinions on Frontrunner ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ appeared first on The Contending.

The Contending co-founders Megan McLachlan and Joey Moser are joined by special guests freelance writer Fawnia Soo Hoo and costume dresser Eoin Daly to discuss the four Emmy costume categories.

Is 2026 the year of Middle-Aged Malaise?

It appears to be in the Emmys 2026 Contemporary Limited Series/TV Movie Costume category. Series like DTF St. Louis, Black Rabbit, and Remarkably Bright Creatures tackle growing older and what that looks like—especially in the costumes these characters wear, in khakis, ill-fitting tees (looking at you, David Harbour), and darker colors.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles…but she certainly doesn’t have fashion problems, as Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman, and Elle Fanning all look fabulous on the show, whether they’re sitting poolside or shooting an OnlyFans alien video. Will the new Apple TV comedy crash the Contemporary Costume race? Or is it Hacks and Deborah Vance’s show-stopping red deck-of-cards-themed outfit for the taking?

In the Period Costumes category, it’s a battle of the wedding dresses, with Taissa Farmiga in The Gilded Age versus Sarah Pidgeon in Love Story. Two extremely different turn-of-the-century looks, a little more than 100 years apart!

Finally, the Fantasy/Sci-Fi category asks, what do you put on in space when you’re about to battle aliens?

Megan McLachlan and Joey Moser were joined by freelance fashion writer Fawnia Soo Hoo and costume dresser Eoin Daly to break down each category, memorable fashion moments on each series, and who they think will win.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes or subscriptions, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen to our audio podcast. Our video podcast follows below!





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The post Emmys 2026 Costume Extravaganza Podcast: Is It the Year of Middle-Aged Malaise? appeared first on The Contending.

We review Christopher Nolan’s take on the original epic: Homer’s The Odyssey. Does it withstand all of the hype?

Homer’s The Odyssey is one of the great tales to be handed down within humanity. Oddly, or perhaps due to its epic scale, there haven’t been as many takes on the epic poem as you’d imagine. Many films carved bits and pieces of the story into a narrative, and NBC offered a 2-night miniseries with an all-star cast including Armand Assante, Isabella Rossellini, Vanessa Williams, Bernadette Peters, and more. Now, with Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s epic tale, it’s difficult to imagine anything following it.

Starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, and many more, The Odyssey sails into theaters with massive expectations. By selling tickets a year in advance, Universal Pictures threatened to capsize the film by stoking rabid fan expectations as hard as they could. And the gambit paid off: the film grossed over $260 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Most critics and audiences loved it, and an awards future seems bright.

On this week’s podcast, Jalal joins Joey and Clarence to review Nolan’s film. Does it hold up to the hype? How will the Academy react to the film? And what do we make of the casting controversies that, in some quarters, plagued the film upon its release?

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes or subscriptions, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click here to listen to our audio podcast. Our video podcast follows below!





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The post ‘The Odyssey:’ Is Nolan’s Epic a Homer Run? appeared first on The Contending.