Actress in a drama series

This crowded race is a tossup -- with six women instead of the usual five, all giving impressive diva turns. That means one could triumph with merely 17% of the vote.

Like Oscar voters, Emmy judges really, really like Sally Field. She's won two of each award, but she may have trouble nabbing a third Golden Girl because of limited face time in the "Brothers & Sisters" episode she gave to judges ("Mistakes Were Made, Part 2"). Bravely, she bears a mother's broken heart and private terror as her soldier son marches off to Iraq, but she's often upstaged and outranked by Calista Flockhart.

Edie Falco is on screen for only 13 minutes during her "Sopranos" episode, "The Second Coming," at one point bravely bidding adieu to her son, who enters a mental institution. But it's her fierce face-off against tough Mafia hubby Tony in the kitchen one morning over breakfast that could nab her a fourth career victory. Allison Janney claimed this category in 2002 with a just-as-impressive and equally brief turn on "The West Wing."

Patricia Arquette staged an upset the other time she was nominated, but her episode of "Medium" ("Be Kind, Rewind") doesn't have the same emotional depth and ache of her 2005 winner.

After Emmy losses in 2004 and 2005 for "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Mariska Hargitay's victory last year was a surprise. She could win again, thanks to the tender, tortured performance she gives while trying to determine if her newfound brother is a rapist.

Golden Globe champ Kyra Sedgwick is overdue and could finally take the gold as a reward for battling L.A.'s tough street gangs in "The Closer."

But nobody is tougher or more fearless than Minnie Driver as a meth-addicted con artist whose family secretly assumes the identity of highfalutin folks in "The Riches." Sometimes snobbish Emmy voters punish nominees for being trashy, but maybe this time they'll herald one.

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