With Lost, Friday Night Lights and The Wire not in the running, the winner by default in this very flawed category should probably be The Sopranos for its gripping if uneven final season, acknowledging one of TV's true landmarks. Heroes is hot but way too spotty in execution. Grey's Anatomy: Also hot, but it got badly bogged down toward the end of the season, on and off camera. House? Not its best year, but it's well liked. Honestly, as long as the inexplicably nominated Boston Legal doesn't win, I'll be OK with whoever else does.

Michael C. Hall of Dexter and Lost's Matthew Fox (especially for that season finale) deserved the slots occupied this year by Boston Legal's overrated James Spader and 24's underutilized (last season) Kiefer Sutherland in a subpar year for the show. Of the remaining contenders, if there's a Sopranos sweep, James Gandolfini's probably a favorite. But House's Hugh Laurie is way overdue, and he has earned it. So has Rescue Me's Denis Leary, who suffered mightily last season. But the good/bad doctor is my pick.

In a crowded category, The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick epitomizes what it means to carry a show with personality and style. The episode she submitted, in which she had to deal with the first visit of her meddling mother (the very funny Frances Sternhagen), was a peach. I'd also be OK with Sally Field's warm, funny matriarch on Brothers & Sisters, who got a real emotional workout in her submitted episode (in which she was dealing with her son going back to war). Triple winner Edie Falco is always a factor, though, and don't count out The Riches' scene-stealing Minnie Driver.

A very tough call, but I'd give Heroes' delightful Masi Oka the edge. He embodies what's great about that show. Still, such terrific competition! Lost's creepy Michael Emerson and stalwart Terry O'Quinn, The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli (dying is often a good way to get an Emmy), and Grey's Anatomy's heart-and-soul T.R. Knight are all solid choices.

Minus Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell (for shame!), and with three excellent Grey's actresses possibly canceling each other out, I'd go with The Sopranos' Lorraine Bracco, for once in the appropriate category. (In previous years, she put herself in the lead-actress ranks.) She nailed every scene she had this year with Tony, and when she fired her most notorious client? Unforgettable.

The Office probably has the mojo for a repeat win, but my heart goes to the triumphantly lovable Ugly Betty, which was, frankly, often just funnier.

As 30 Rock's perversely amusing network exec, Alec Baldwin gave the comedy performance of the year. Hands down.

Gorgeous on the inside, endearing all around, Ugly Betty's America Ferrera had better not lose. Her biggest competition is probably between two past winners: Desperate Housewives' Felicity Huffman for that show's best episode last season (the hostage crisis in the supermarket, in which Lynette got shot) and The New Adventures of Old Christine's Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for a hilarious episode in which she fell head over heels for her son's teacher, Blair Underwood.

Hard to go against Entourage's Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon (long overdue a nomination for the hapless Drama), but How I Met Your Mother's Neil Patrick Harris is the comic engine of TV's most underrated sitcom. He has been unconscionably forced to wait... for it, and I'd love to see him get it. (Watch it go to The Office's annoyingly over-the-top Rainn Wilson.)

In terms of highest number of laugh-out-loud moments per episode, my vote's for My Name Is Earl's irrepressibly funny Jaime Pressly. But this tough category is anyone's game and could just as easily go to Weeds' sardonic Elizabeth Perkins, The Office's soulful Jenna Fischer, Ugly Betty's fabulous Vanessa Williams, or Two and a Half Men's Holland Taylor and Conchata Ferrell, who can make every episode a scream just by walking on the stage.

Five years running, you simply can't beat The Amazing Race. I enjoy all the shows in this category, but none are as ambitiously produced.

In what is easily the most eclectic category, which pits Kathy Griffin against the Dog Whisperer and Penn & Teller, I figure Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will win again, if only for humanitarian purposes.

The usual suspects: David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O'Brien and this year, Bill Maher. Day in and day out, The Daily Show is still at the top of its game in this arena.

I preferred HBO's quietly heartbreaking movie Longford to its more heavily hyped Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (the year's most-nominated program, with 17). In miniseries, AMC's majestic Broken Trail stands alone. For acting: Trail's Robert Duvall and, for her last bow as Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison, Helen Mirren.