Big Bang Theory gets extra Emmy nomination after Academy error

New math worked in favor of The Big Bang Theory on Emmy day.

While Big Bang did not score a Best Comedy Series nomination — its last appearance in that category was 2014 — it did receive a pair of nominations for its season 11 finale, “The Bow Tie Asymmetry”: one for Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing and another for Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control. But two nominations became three when it was determined that Big Bang Theory had been shortchanged a nod in the directing category for that same episode.

“Voting in the Emmy category of Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series resulted in seven nominees,” the TV Academy said a statement Thursday afternoon. “One of the nominees, The Big Bang Theory‘s episode ‘The Bow Tie Symmetry,’ directed by Mark Cendrowski, was inadvertently left off various Television Academy communications platforms during today’s nomination activities.” (Let’s just pretend that the statement said “Asymmetry” instead of “Symmetry” so no additional corrections have to be issued.)

How did the oversight happen? A new rule that went into effect for this year’s Emmys stipulates that at least one nominee has to be a multi-camera series and at least one must be a single-camera series in the comedy directing category. This year’s batch — two episodes for Atlanta, one for Barry, one for GLOW, one for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and one for Silicon Valley — were all single-camera installments. After an inquiry from The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the news, the TV Academy said that the category should have included a seventh nominee, which is the multi-camera Big Bang Theory.

The show, to date, has now received 52 nominations (including this new one), winning 10.

Last year, This Is Us experienced something of a reverse scenario. The Academy revoked the show’s Outstanding Contemporary Costumes nomination on a technicality, noting that the submitted episode did not meet the requirement of having at least 51 percent of the action take place within the past 25 years. And the previous year, the Academy rescinded Peter MacNicol’s guest actor Emmy for Veep, given that he had appeared in more than 50 percent of that show’sepisodes.

For a full run-down of all Emmy nominations, head over here.