JESSICA WALTER (Arrested Development) Longtime stock player Walter — who already has a statuette for the 1974 police drama Amy Prentiss — throws herself into the beastly role of Lucille Bluth each week with such cockeyed precision (example: walking face-first into a parking-garage pillar and moaning, ''Who the hell put that there?!''), it's a wonder our screens don't emit gin vapor.
LAUREN GRAHAM (Gilmore Girls) She's deftly turned Lorelai Gilmore into a study in contradictions: flighty, yet driven enough to open the world's most perfect B&B; sometimes self-centered, but a mother lion when it comes to protecting her whiz-kid daughter from a broken heart. Lorelai could have stalled out at ''cool mom,'' but Graham's made her magnetic, complex. . .and always real.
HARRIET SANSOM HARRIS (Desperate Housewives) Guest-starring as the shady Felicia Tilman, sister of murdered busybody Martha Huber, Tony winner Harris livened up the cul-de-sac with her manipulations and mystery revelations. The actress, so gleefully glib as Frasier's agent, Bebe, proved she's the master of a zillion personas: Her spooky performance punctured Housewives' sometimes-grating bubble of plasticity.
