Ant and Dec have finally been avoided! Baftas TV party makes some clever one-off omissions | BAFTA

TThe Bafta TV Awards have recently been dominated by emotional shows So last year. In 2025, Mr Bates vs. the Post Office statues arrived so late – 16 months after the series’ premiere on ITV – that viewers suspected they had been sent by Royal Mail. This year, if “Teenage” wins any of the 11 awards it is nominated for, it will have been 14 months since the drama about the misogynistic influence on young people online premiered on Netflix.

This results from two events in the calendar: the BAFTA qualifying period extending from January to December of the previous year and the networks’ front-loading schedules with their big shows.

When setting odds for the acting categories, it seems unlikely that bookies would risk losing money on Stephen Graham (lead actor) and Owen Cooper (supporting actor) playing the roles of traumatized father and radicalized teenage son. In the supporting cast, it’s also difficult to see Erin Doherty as the young defendant’s court-appointed psychiatrist due to her startling stillness, and her demand for an exceptional level of physical and emotional control, in a single shot that lasts about an episode.

Doherty, 33, pulled off a rare double BAFTA nod (most closely associated with Julie Walters) by also being nominated as Best Actress for A Thousand Blows (Disney+). Also in two shots is contender Amy Lou Wood, 32, for leading actress in Film Club (BBC) and supporting actress in The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic).

However, Sheridan Smith – a previous winner and two-time nominee – must double her wins in the Best Actress category for a performance, emotionally authentic even by Smith’s excruciating standards, as An Ming, the mother who changed the laws to imprison her daughter’s killer, in ITV’s I Fought the Law.

It will come as a shock if Adolescent doesn’t win a limited series, but there’s a notable contender out there Trespasses, Channel 4’s adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s novel about a star-crossed love affair in sectarian 1970s Northern Ireland where love can lead to death. With six nominations, Trespasses is the most anticipated film among the front-runners (behind Adolescent, A Thousand Blows and the level of Star Wars spin-off Andor) but it is well deserving of the kudos which once again proves Channel 4’s drama policy of funding a few big pieces rather than many small projects.

While most categories feature a wide range of performances, actresses in comedy feature monopolies. Three of the six nominees are from Amandaland, while that series and another contender, Pushers, are both produced by the same independent channel Merman TV.

Best Entertainment Performance is usually the most anticipated shortlist – generally featuring Graham Norton and Ant & Dec throughout this millennium – but this year it got neither. (Although Norton’s show got a nod.) It’s too early to tell if this is just a moment or the end of an era, but in the absence of Donnelly and McPartlin, two new double acts go head-to-head: Romesh (Ranganathan), Rob (Beckett), Amanda (Holden) and Alan (Carr). With two shows in the category, Ranganathan would be unlucky to lose, but if Norton and Ant & Dec abdicate, Claudia Winkleman (of The Celebrity Traitors) is feeling the new TV royalty, although, on early evidence, her chat show looks unlikely to upset the judges next year.

Awards announcements are always partly about absence. I particularly regret the omission of Jamie McGovern’s BBC One drama Unforgivable – about the consequences of child sexual abuse in a family – and the same channel’s Virdee, based on the crime novels by A. A. Dand in Bradford. Disney+’s Suspect: The Shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes also deserves recognition. Channel 5’s sense of being belittled by the TV establishment may be further reinforced by the omission of The Forsytes, its lively modern take on John Galsworthy’s long-standing TV novels.

David Tennant extends his claim to be the Academy’s underserved great actor. Despite his distinguished screen career, he had to wait until 2024 for his first nomination (Good Omens) and followed it up last year with a second nomination (Rivals), but did not win either time. This year, there’s another tremendous performance – like Guardian investigative journalist Nick Davies in The Hack – on the judging room floor.

The special awards – honoring key TV personalities – have not been announced at this stage. But surely there should be a Dimbleby Fellowship or Award for outgoing BBC director-general Tim Davie, the most capable director ever to sit in the corporation’s highest seat, but who was sorely let down by his own press department over the jigsaw that led to President Trump suing the public broadcaster for $10 billion.

Although the BBC still leads the nominations (with 73 votes), Davie’s presumptive successor, Matt Brittain, will inherit the concern that none of this year’s Bafta-nominated dramas that most vividly depict modern Britain – Teenage and the Toxic City (Netflix), Trespass (Channel 4) – are produced by the BBC, which arguably exists largely to do so. The success of streamers, in particular, in creating content in the UK has become one of the biggest issues facing the BBC. As Brittain previously worked at Google, the BBC’s board policy when it comes to punishing competition from digital giants seems to be: if you can’t beat ’em, ask them to join.

However, it seems likely that the 2026 ceremonies – the Craft Awards on April 26, and the Television Awards on May 10 – will be dominated by a long deluge of statues dedicated to the teen.

After a second celebration in two years, it should be a relief to organizers that, nearly a third of the way through 2026, there may have been a few things likely to excite the 2027 jury – Channel 4’s Dirty Deeds, BBC Two’s Little Prophets, Louis Theroux’s Into the Atmosphere for Netflix, and performances by David Morrissey and Emma Appleton in ITV’s Gone – but nothing as dominant as Mr Bates vs. Post office or teenager. What the BAFTAs desperately need are some blockbuster films in the late summer and fall.