Netflix gets its first TV BAFTA but it's not the one you expected

Netflix was one of the winners at this year's BAFTAs but it failed to pick up the Best Drama category. 

The Best Drama award went to Peaky Blinders, which was one of the surprises of the night as most people expected Netflix’s The Crown to walk away with award. 

Given royal fever is at its highest, as we are days away from a royal wedding, and The Crown was somewhat unfairly snubbed last year, it was only right that the drama did receive an award and it did. Vanessa Kirby won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Princess Margaret in the show.

Big winners

It was a big night for other streaming favorites, too. The Handmaid’s Tale, financed and first released through US streaming service Hulu, won Best International Drama. 

But it was the ‘nearly wons’ that paint best the picture of streaming sites and these awards. Black Mirror’s three entrants failed to win - losing out to the fantastic Murdered For Being Different and Little Boy Blue, while Joe Cole lost out to Sean Bean in the Best Leading Actor category. Amazon Prime was snubbed completely from the awards.

Netflix won’t be too worried, though. Peaky Blinders and other nominations such as Line Of Duty, End of the F***ing World and Detectorists (Toby Jones rightly won the BAFTA for Leading Actor in a Comedy) are available to stream on the service right now and feature in our best shows on Netflix list.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.