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Succession, Ted Lasso, Ozark chase Emmys

Emmy Awards host Kenan Thompson and the ceremony's producers are promising a feel-good event - a phrase not applicable to several of the top nominated shows.

The best drama contenders include the violently dystopian Squid Game, bleak workplace satire Severance, and Succession - about a powerful and cutthroat family.

Even multi-award winner and comedy nominee Ted Lasso took a storytelling dark turn.

But after several pandemic-constrained awards seasons, Monday's 74th Primetime Emmy Awards (from 8pm Monday EDT, 10am Tuesday AEST) will be big and festive, executive producers Reginald Hudlin and Ian Stewart said.

The pair are actually taking a leaf from last year's scaled-down ceremony and its club-style table seating for nominees.

"They had a ball. They had a party. They celebrated themselves," Stewart said, recalling a comment made by actor Sophia Bush at the evening's end: "Oh, my God, I actually had fun at the Emmys".

The tables will be back and again reserved for nominees - and their "significants", Stewart said - but there will be some 3000 other guests seated traditionally in the temporarily reconfigured 7000-seat Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

"When the nominees are having a great time that translates on screen," Hudlin said, citing the "passionate, touching" speeches delivered by winners.

Thompson, the veteran Saturday Night Live cast member taking his first turn as Emmys host, said he wants to enjoy the ceremony and make sure others do, too.

"This should be a night of appreciating artistry and creativity and removing the stress of it all out. I get it - it sucks to lose, and everybody's picking outfits and trying to do the red carpet thing," Thompson said.

"But at the same time, it's an awesome thing to be in the room on Emmys night, and I don't want that to get lost in the stress."

Thompson said he does not expect anything mirroring the Will Smith-Chris Rock confrontation that cast a shadow over the Oscars earlier this year.

Although HBO's Succession, which won the best drama series award in 2020, and Ted Lasso from Apple TV+ are considered the frontrunners for top series honours, there's potential for surprises.

Netflix's Squid Game, a global sensation, would be the first non-English language drama series to win an Emmy.

On the comedy side, ABC's acclaimed newcomer Abbott Elementary could become the first broadcast show to win the best comedy award since the network's Modern Family in 2014.

It is also among the few contenders this year, along with Squid Game, to field a substantial number of nominees of colour.

At the Emmy creative arts ceremonies held earlier this month, the mockumentary-style show about educators in an underfunded Philadelphia school, won the trophy for outstanding comedy series casting.

Succession, for which Australian Sarah Snook is nominated in the best supporting actress category, won the drama series casting award.

Other Australian nominees include Toni Collette, for The Staircase, and Murray Bartlett, for The White Lotus.

The Crown, last year's big winner, was not in the running this time because it sat out of the Emmys eligibility period.

The dramatised account of Queen Elizabeth's reign and family life will return for its fifth season in November, as Britain mourns the loss of its longest-serving monarch who died last week at the age of 96.

© AP 2022