It’s Emmy war! Can ‘Boardwalk Empire’ conquer ‘Mad Men’?

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Looks like ‘Mad Men’ finally has serious competition in the Emmy battle over best TV drama series. While the hit AMC series has gone undefeated for three consecutive years, our forums’ moderators are divided over whether it can prevail again. Four of our six pundits believe it will. Two foresee it losing to recent Golden Globes champ ‘Boardwalk Empire.’

The following gurus offer their predictions ranked by likelihood of winning: Chris Beachum, Matthew Cormier, Marcus Dixon, Darrin Dortch, Rob Licuria, Matt Noble. All of them forecast nominations for ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ ‘Dexter,’ ‘The Good Wife’ and ‘Mad Men.’ That’s no surprise, considering one of those shows just won the Globe and the other three were nominated last year. However, our pundits are split over the following choices for the other two slots in the category: ‘The Borgias,’ ‘Friday Night Lights,’ ‘In Treatment,’ ‘The Killing,’ ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ ‘True Blood’ and ‘The Walking Dead.’

Last year, those two slots went to the now-canceled ‘Lost’ and ‘Breaking Bad,’ which isn’t eligible this year, but will be back in competition at next year’s Emmy derby.

Missing from their predictions are past nominees ‘House, M.D.’ and ‘Big Love.’ Since ‘Treme’ was snubbed last year, none of them is betting on it now. Nor are they backing ‘Harry’s Law’ from past Emmy magnet David E. Kelley or Showtime’s new drama series about the ultimate dysfuntional family, ‘Shameless.’

-- Tom O’Neil