The Pitt walked into Monday night's 78th Emmy Awards with more nominations than any other show on television this year. Twenty-five of them, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, enough to put the HBO Max ER drama comfortably ahead of the pack before a single envelope got opened.

Right behind it sat Hacks, also from HBO Max, with 24 nominations for its fifth and final season. Variety called that the most nominated season for any comedy in Emmy history, full stop, not just among final seasons.

Apple TV+ had two horses in the race. Widow's Bay pulled 19 nominations and Pluribus followed with 18. Netflix's Beef came in with 16, HBO Max's DTF St. Louis got 13, and NBC's Saturday Network Live tied with Amazon's Spider-Noir at 11 apiece, per The Hollywood Reporter's count. Variety's own tally had SNL leading the broadcast field outright, so the exact split between the two shows at that number depends on which outlet you're reading.

The acting categories were stacked accordingly. Best actor in a drama pitted Sterling K. Brown against Gary Oldman, Mark Ruffalo, Rufus Sewell and The Pitt's own Noah Wyle. On the actress side, Carrie Coon, Chase Infiniti, Keri Russell, Rhea Seehorn and Zendaya were all in the mix. The Pitt also dominated supporting categories on both sides, with three nominees each for Patrick Ball, Shawn Hatosy and Gerran Howell among the men, and Taylor Deardon, Fiona Dourif, Katherine LaNasa and Sepideh Moafi among the women.

Mariska Hargitay hosted the ceremony from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles for the first time, arriving already a two-time winner this year according to Just Jared. NBC's red carpet preshow, fronted by Trisha Paytas and Nicky Campbell, ran ahead of the main broadcast, with the Associated Press streaming its own arrivals feed alongside it.

The presenter list read like a cross-section of the industry: Zendaya, Shailene Woodley, Matthew McConaughey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Garner, LL Cool J, Woody Harrelson, Keke Palmer, Florence Pugh, Jon Hamm and Amy Poehler all had slots, among plenty of others.

The night wasn't only about trophies. Noah Kahan performed for the In Memoriam segment, and the show built in two nostalgia hits, a 30th anniversary nod to Buffy the Vampire Slayer with David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and a 50th anniversary celebration of Charlie's Angels bringing back Kate Jackson, Cheryl Ladd and Jaclyn Smith.

Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay produced the ceremony alongside Hargitay. Winners were being decided through the night, and with The Pitt and Hacks carrying such a lead in nominations, the real question by the time trophies started going out was how much of that lead actually converted.