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Karen Tong

Emmy winners and nominees to add to your watchlist

The Emmys have been handed out – but chances are you haven't seen some of the award-winning titles.

Don't worry, we're here to bring you up to speed.

Revive your streaming accounts, reset your forgotten passwords, sign up for free trials – and start adding these shows to your watchlist.

Outstanding Drama Series: Severance

Comedy legend Ben Stiller is the surprising director at the helm of Severance, an intense psychological thriller that made its Emmy debut with an impressive 14 nominations.

The premise? Employees at a mega corporation have chosen to undergo a procedure that separates – or severs – their brains into work selves (innies) and home selves (outies).

It's meant to be work-life balance perfected, but the façade slowly unravels in a series of painfully gripping and mind-blowing cliffhangers at the end of every episode.

Adam Scott is a revelation as a former professor who signs up for the procedure to escape the pain of grief for eight hours a day – because his innie has no idea that his wife has died.

Veterans Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette and John Turturro are exceptional in their roles, as expected.

Severance is also beautifully shot, which is no easy feat given the number of scenes that are shot in a plain white office with no windows or external light – that cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné was overlooked for an Emmy nomination is beyond comprehension.

Severance is on Apple TV+ and has been renewed for a second season.

Special mention: Yellowjackets on Paramount+ is Lord of the Flies but with girls, or Big Little Lies but with cannibalism. It deftly navigates a split timeline, with half of the show set in the 90s following the teen survivors of a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness, and the other half set 25 years later as the now-adult survivors navigate the trauma that still haunts them.

Outstanding Comedy Series: Hacks, Abbott Elementary

Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a legendary comedian with a Vegas residency, and Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels, a supremely entitled (and recently cancelled) LA comedy writer, make a perfectly imperfect odd couple in Hacks.

Einbinder holds her own as one half of an odd couple alongside veteran comedic actor Jean Smart.

In the first season, a twisted mentorship begins when Ava is sent to Vegas to help Deborah "reinvent" her act in order to keep her residency.

They're unlikeable in many ways as individuals, and unkind to each other – but as they wade through the messiness of each other's lives, they learn and grow.

By season two, everything is turned on its head.

Deborah and Ava take Deborah's new act on the road in season two.

A series of events ratchets up the tension between Deborah and Ava, while somehow also bringing them much closer together.

There's nastiness and bitterness, but also tenderness, which makes the uneasy relationship between the mentor and mentee surprisingly easy – and irresistible – to watch.

Hacks is on Stan and has been renewed for a third season.

A look at the lives of hardworking teachers providing the best education they can to kids they care about deeply, in an underfunded, predominantly black public school in Philadelphia.

Sound like the synopsis of a heart-wrenching documentary or an episode of This American Life?

That's because it is.

But in the hands of Quinta Brunson, it's painfully brilliant and hilarious mockumentary called Abbott Elementary.

It's part Dangerous Minds, part Parks and Recreation, albeit with updated pop culture references.

Not surprising given Brunson attracted a sizeable fan base after her Instagram series 'Girl Who Has Never Been on a Nice Date' went viral in 2014.

Abbott Elementary is on Disney+ and season two is coming very soon.

Special mention: The Great (on Stan) is very loosely based on the rise of Catherine The Great, Empress of All Russia. It has all the stylings of a period drama but with plenty of laughs and plenty of bloodshed, sometimes all at once. And it's delivered in modern vernacular, with the more than occasional proclamation of Huzzah!

Outstanding Limited Series: Under the Banner of Heaven, The Dropout

When Andrew Garfield plays religious, he goes all in.

In 2016, he starred in Silence as a Jesuit missionary in 17th-century Japan.

In preparation for the role, he famously took up celibacy for six months and spent a week at a silent retreat in Wales.

The same year he starred in Hacksaw Ridge as Desmond Doss, a Seventh-Day Adventist who served as a medic during World War II – but refused to carry a weapon.

In an interview with Time, Garfield said: "It was vital to me that we communicated that Desmond's faith was deeper than any dogma … he was in touch with a deep knowing in his bones, as opposed to any ideology".

Andrew Garfield goes full religion – again – for his role as a Mormon detective in Under the Banner of Heaven

Now, Garfield fully embodies the character of a devoted Mormon and detective in Under the Banner of Heaven, investigating a brutal crime that is seemingly linked to his beloved faith.

The limited series is dark, disturbing, tragic and devastatingly based on a true story – two in fact, a brutal double murder as well as the formation of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

But more than that, it's a nuanced exploration of a crisis of faith and what it means to believe in a modern, secular world.

Under the Banner of Heaven is on Disney+.

Amanda Seyfried is perfect for the role of disgraced medical entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes.

Staying with the true crime genre – albeit the white-collar variety – Seyfried is expertly cast in The Dropout as Elizabeth Holmes, fallen CEO of the now-defunct medical technology company Theranos.

Seyfried shares the same blonde hair and big blue eyes as Holmes, but transforms her voice drastically to achieve Holmes' low register – Holmes also adopted the deeper voice as she began to grow her company in order to be taken more seriously.

Also, Holmes has somehow maintained an air of mystery about who she really is, despite her highly publicised downfall and trial.

But Seyfried managed to flawlessly execute the complex and sometimes contradictory things we do know about her – her ambition and intelligence, her ignorance, and her compelling yet sometimes repulsive personality.

Compared to Inventing Anna, which has all the hallmarks of a Shondaland drama (think Bridgerton, Scandal and Grey's Anatomy), The Dropout leans into the terribleness and absurdity and reality of the rise and fall of Holmes with more nuance, less drama and a subtle score.

The Dropout is on Disney+.

Special mention: If you haven't watched The White Lotus (Foxtel, Binge) yet, there's just enough time to catch up before White Lotus: Sicily premieres in October. The first season is wonderfully quirky – and dark – offering a scathing review of classism without being preachy. The second promises more of the same as well as the only returning cast member, an outstanding Jennifer Coolidge.

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