TV Academy allows Carrie Preston’s quirky police procedural to make the move, following CBS show’s Critics Choice nominations in the comedy races.
Elsbeth will be laughing all the way to the Emmy Awards.
Gold Derby can exclusively reveal that the Television Academy has approved CBS’ petition for the lighthearted crime show to switch categories from drama to comedy, beginning with the 2026 Emmys. The decision comes after Elsbeth successfully jumped genres for various winter competitions, including the Critics Choice Awards, where Elsbeth received its first nominations for Best Comedy Series and Best Comedy Actress for Carrie Preston.
Created in 2024 by Robert and Michelle King with Jonathan Tolins serving as showrunner, Elsbeth is a spin-off of The Good Wife (2009-16) and The Good Fight (2017-22). Preston returns as the quirky Elsbeth Tascioni, an ex-Chicago lawyer who now works with the NYPD and Captain Charles Wallace (Wendell Pierce) to solve murders. The role was originally created in 2010 on The Good Wife, with Preston winning the 2013 Emmy for Best Drama Guest Actress for that show.
“We try to add joy and positivity and all those things that you think of when you think of comedies,” Preston previously told Gold Derby about Elsbeth. She explained how it is “quite different from The Handmaid’s Tale and Shōgun and things like that. … I don’t think that people knew quite what to do when they would see us on the drama ballots, [because] this is decidedly light and there’s a lot of levity.”
Originally submitted as a drama due to its police procedural roots and Good universe pedigree, Elsbeth eventually found its voice as a more comedic piece. Season 3 cemented this shift with increasingly wacky scenarios, including Preston’s character investigating a murder on a late-night set (Late Show host Stephen Colbert played the fictitious host), being held hostage in a toy store by an unhinged man (David Cross), and solving a Nutcracker-inspired killing while wearing a giant pink tutu.
CBS included key press clippings in its appeal to the TV Academy to help its cause, Gold Derby has learned. Notably, outlets like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter had referred to Elsbeth as a “crime comedy,” while The New York Times called the main character “the queen of quirk.”
Elsbeth is now in a small class of shows that have purposefully made a genre move at the Emmys, including most famously Shameless. After years of missing out on top drama nominations, that long-running Showtime series finally earned bids for lead actor William H. Macy once it started competing in comedy. And recurring guest star Joan Cusack took home an Emmy in the comedy race after three losses in drama.
Moonlighting was an hourlong hybrid that went the other direction, submitting for the Emmys as a comedy in its first year of eligibility (1985) before entering as a drama thereafter. The strategy successfully led to Bruce Willis winning Best Drama Actor in 1987 for a role that was arguably more comedic than dramatic.
Other programs, meanwhile, were forced to switch categories by the TV Academy due to rule changes.
Orange Is the New Black debuted as a comedy in 2014 and won three trophies for guest actress Uzo Aduba, casting, and picture editing. The next year, a “30-minute rule” was enacted for comedies, and since OITNB was 60 minutes, it had to compete as a drama (that rule has since been scrapped). While it continued raking in nominations, it only won a single Emmy as a drama, for Aduba’s now supporting performance.
More common is the required category shift for limited and/or anthology series that return for a second season. Downton Abbey, Big Little Lies, and The White Lotus all initially won Best Limited Series, but when they came back for additional stories, they were reclassified in Best Drama Series, which they lost. Interestingly enough, Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey and Jennifer Coolidge from The White Lotus won acting Emmys in both genres, proving voters didn’t care about classifications when it came to those standout performances.
Another unique genre-jumper is American Horror Story. FX’s spooky show has submitted as a limited series for almost all of its 12-year run, aside from Season 8, when the ghosts of AHS: Murder House and the witches of AHS: Coven came together for AHS: Apocalypse. Because that particular installment featured recurring characters in main roles, it had to enter as a drama series.
Elsbeth returns Feb. 26 on CBS and Paramount+ with the second half of its third season.
Gold Derby’s 2026 Emmy predictions opened last week, and Elsbeth is available to predict in the comedy categories. The Emmy nominations will be announced July 8.
