New Delhi, June 17 -- "Ponies" is a bit of a unicorn.

The Peacock series that stars Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson as widows of CIA operatives who become intelligence assets in the 1970s Soviet Union has real stakes, and real blood. But its tone is comic first and foremost. And it has been submitted for the forthcoming Emmy nominations as a comedy, despite its hourlong episodes that on television usually mean drama.

The tone-mashing comes naturally to its co-creators, Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, a couple of veterans of film and TV writing. "Ponies" - intelligence-speak for "persons of no interest" - is the first show they have worked on that they originated.

"We understand that we're not a pure comedy and we're not a pure d...