10 Shows You Should Be Watching Before the Emmys

Bring out the popcorn! Plenty of binge-worthy shows that have something for every TV lover’s appetite made the nominations list ahead of the 2020 Emmy Awards.

The Mandalorian earned lots of Emmy recognition this season with 15 nominations for the Disney+ drama series. The latest installment of the Star Wars franchise is set five years after the events of the 1983 film Return of the Jedi. The story follows lone bounty hunter Din Djarin’s (Pedro Pascal) adventures in the aftermath of the fall of the empire.

The Mandalorians are a race of warriors featured in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Boba Fett was a bounty hunter in the original Star Wars trilogy, who wore the Mandalorian armor as did his father, Jango Fett.

Show creator Jon Favreau told ABC News in November 2019 that he was intrigued by the Mandalorians after watching Boba Fett in the earlier movies.

“A Mandalorian is alluded to in the original films that I grew up with,” the director, 53, explained. “He was a bounty hunter and he wore Mandalorian armor. There was such a fascination with that character even though he didn’t do much in the films.”

Favreau added, “I like the image of the Mandalorian because it really hearkened back to the Westerns and samurai films that had originally influenced Lucas. It’s a deconstructed version of Clint Eastwood in The Man with No Name. That’s a great, mysterious, fun character to see the world through.”

TV fans also couldn’t stop watching the HBO drama Succession, which raked in nine Emmy nominations. The drama centers on the dysfunctional Roy family as they fight for control of their global media and hospitality empire amid patriarch Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) declining health.

Showrunner Jesse Armstrong told HBO that the Roys were based on multiple powerful families in the media mixed with some real-life experience.

“We thought of famous media families like the Hearsts, to modern-day Redstone, John Malone, Robert Fitz of Comcast, Murdoch, and Robert and Rebekah Mercer, who founded Breitbart,” the producer, 48, said. “Lots of real-life moguls. We collected a myriad of these kinds of relationships that we knew about.”

He added, “And then like all creative people, you raid a surprising range of relationships that you’ve known from your own life. So, lots and lots of places.”

Scroll down for 10 Emmy shows to binge before the awards show.