2014 Emmy Nomination Contenders – Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Reminder: For our annual Emmy contenders coverage, Sepinwall does his personal preferences, while I handicap mostly in terms of likelihood of landing nominations. As usual, the first six slides in each gallery are my nomination predictions. The next eight or nine slides are the actors and shows most likely to sneak in, based on precedent, quality or something nebulous. And then at the end of each gallery, I tend to throw in a couple oddballs who have no chance at all of being nominated, but who I think deserve to be a part of the conversation, or might accidentally become part of the conversation, just because.

Our next category:

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA

There are some great performances in the Lead Actor in a Drama field, but when it comes to  viable top-tier nomination contenders, no category can top Lead Actress in a Drama for depth. I only did 15 slides for this gallery, but at least 10 or 11 of them are legitimate contenders whose nominations wouldn't be even slightly surprising and then at least another two are former nominees who are still kicking around giving interesting performances.

Last Year's Nominees:
Claire Danes
Michelle Dockery
Elisabeth Moss 
Connie Britton
Vera Farmiga
Kerry Washington
Robin Wright

Attrition: Not only are all of the nominees returning this year, but you've got all of the nominees returning from a seven-nominee field. And you've got all seven nominees returning from a field that squeezed out a slew of former winners, including Julianna Margulies and Mariska Hargitay, plus a field that couldn't find room for Tatiana Maslany or Keri Russell, who gave two of last year's most acclaimed new performances. 

Here are Sepinwall's personal picks.

My predictions are below.

Your thoughts? Predictions? Analysis?

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