With first-round voting performer ballots topping out at more than a dozen pages each, name recognition is important in the increasingly crowded space that is the Emmys, but it alone isn’t enough. Instead what grabbed voters’ attention this year was a combination of star power and consistent body of work on the small screen.

Going into Emmy nomination morning, it seemed pretty unfathomable that an A-lister like Al Pacino wouldn’t get recognized for his turn as the late college football coach Joe Paterno in HBO’s original movie “Paterno,” but that’s exactly what happened. The movie itself scored a nom in the television movie category, undoubtedly aided by the combined star power of Pacino, executive producer and director Barry Levinson and its ripped- from-the-headlines tale. But Pacino himself, who had not done a television project since 2013’s “Phil Spector,” couldn’t beat out more familiar TV names such as Darren Criss (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“Patrick Melrose”) and Jesse Plemons (“Black Mirror: USS Callister”) to earn a spot on the ballot.

Similarly, big-name creatives David Fincher and David Lynch were shut out of the drama and limited races, respectively, for “Mindhunter” and “Twin Peaks.” Drama was dominated by returning series, some in their sophomore years (“This Is Us,” “The Handmaid’s Tale”) and some longer-running (“The Americans,” “Game of Thrones”). The limited series category, too, was populated by familiarity, be it new installments of anthologies (“American Crime Story,” “Genius”) or those with a larger pool of year-over-year TV talent (“Godless,” for example).

Emmys: Ted Danson, Sandra Oh, Laurie Metcalf Among Familiar TV Faces Nominated