Netflix’s Baby Reindeer Just Upended the 2024 Emmy Race

The 2024 Emmy race has been rocked by an April surprise, courtesy of Netflix.

After debuting rather stealthily on April 11, Baby Reindeer — Scottish writer-comedian Richard Gadd’s semi-autobiographical dark comedy/thriller — has been slowly scaling the steamer’s consumer-facing Top 10 chart.

On Friday, nine days after its release, it finally hit No. 1.

Critical buzz surrounding Baby Reindeer is intensifying in lockstep with its surging popularity. The seven-episode series, which some (yours truly included) have likened to Michaela Coel’s acclaimed, Emmy-winning HBO miniseries I May Destroy You, currently boasts a 100% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

“Shocking, hilarious, painful and devastating, Baby Reindeer is a rare gem on television, reminding us of what is possible in the medium,” raved Variety’s Aramide Tinubu, while Slate‘s Imogen West-Knights posited that the show “deserves its word-of-mouth success,” adding, “It’s very good and very horrible, and a lot less of a comedy than its comic lead might suggest.”

Adapted from Gadd’s one-man show, Baby Reindeer chronicles an aspiring comedian’s twisted, years-long entanglement with a female stalker (played by Jessica Gunning). The kerfuffle ultimately forces him to reckon with unresolved trauma surrounding a past sexual assault. The story is loosely based on Gadd’s real-life experiences.

“It’s all emotionally 100% true,” Gadd recently explained to Variety. “It’s all borrowed from instances that happened to me and real people that I met. But of course, you can’t do the exact truth, for both legal and artistic reasons.”

Baby Reindeer‘s April release makes it eligible for the 2024 Primetime Emmys, where TVLine can confirm it will compete in the Limited Series categories, facing off against likely shoo-ins (per TVLine’s sister site Goldderby) Fargo, Shogun and True Detective: Night Country.

Gadd, meanwhile, is a lock for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series/Movie, likely jeopardizing Mad Men vet Jon Hamm’s current frontrunner status for his villainous turn in Season 5 of Fargo.

And Gunning? It’s fair to say the Supporting Actress in a Limited Series/Movie trophy would be hers to lose.

Have you binged Baby Reindeer? And, if so, how would you assess its Emmy worthiness?