If it wins this category, "Sopranos" will become the first departing show ever to win best drama series. Several comedies have achieved that success.

Judge #3 ranked "Heroes," "Dexter" and "House" high up on his ballot, too.

"Heroes'" episode submission -- the pilot -- established "a lot of exposition in 48 minutes, no small feat," he said. "Some of the elderly voters turned away during the goriest scenes of 'Dexter,' but the rest of the room seemed to be very focused."

"House's" episode contained "a simple, self-contained story, very well told, and the humor was very character driven, unlike 'Grey's.'"

Judge #3 did not rank "Lost" as highly as Judge #1 and noted that the show's entry "suffered from being a two-hour episode after we'd been sitting for 6 hours," he said. "But despite early grumbling, I didn't get the feeling that the panel was taking it out on the show."

Judge #3 did not share the same enthusiasm for "Grey's Anatomy," either. "This has been cited as the best episode of the season by fans, but the soap still ran heavy and the humor seemed forced," he reported. "The Debra Monk scenes trying to explore George's love life particularly fell flat."

He also disagreed about "Rome": "Not quite stroke-inducing, but close."

"Boston Legal's" Hurricane Katrina episode "came off borderline exploitative," he said.

"24's" episode was strong (season premiere), but it may have suffered from being screened last on Saturday. However, the order that the episodes were seen (alphabetical on Saturday) was reversed on Sunday.

(NOTE: These reports come to us unsolicited. We pass them along when we know the sources to be usually credible, but information is unofficial and unverified. We stress that this is merely one person's opinion and may not reflect the group's consensus. Also, we do not encourage judges to break any agreement of confidentiality that they may have made with ATAS.)