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Follow the Guardian’s live coverage of the Emmy awards 2011 with Matt Wells, Sarah Hughes and Hadley Freeman 7.19pm: We’re playing the compulsory awards ceremony red-carpet drinking game. One for “I love your dress”, two for “my jewels are from Bulgari”. Sobriety will be a struggle tonight, I can tell this already. 7.13pm: Glee star Lea Michelle has arrived on the red carpet, dressed, appropriately, in a red capret. 7.10pm: Sharp questions from the Red Carpet on E! Entertainment. Presenter to Melissa McCarthy : “Do you own anything you wear?” 7.08pm: Sarah Hughes is next to me on the live blog sofa, and here’s her opening take. SH : Growing up in a gambling family awards shows were generally seen as just another forum to bet on so I thought we’d kick off with a quick guide to this year’s runners and riders. In the comedy category Modern Family looks almost certain to win for the second time, Downton Abbey is expected to see off Mildred Pierce in the best miniseries category (aka the compulsory HBO award), while the main drama category looks like a straight fight between Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men. That said I’m always a fan of a risky bet and would be very happy if football drama, Friday Night Lights was finally recognised for four outstanding seasons (we’ll just pretend that season two never happened). As for the rest while I’d love to see awards go to Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation), Louis CK (Louie) and either Jon Hamm (Mad Men) or Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) but the problem with the Emmys is that you never know exactly which way the voters will swing. Thus logic (and the bookies) might say that Jon Hamm is the favourite to win the outstanding actor, drama category but given that this is the event which awarded James Spader over James Gandolfini in 2007 it’s equally possible that Hugh Laurie will get the nod after six years of nominations and no win. As for the rest if I was placing my money where my words are then I’d say that in addition to Laurie, Laura Linney will take best actress, comedy, Julianna Margulies will win best actress, drama and Steve Carell will get the outstanding actor, comedy award as acknowledgement for his time on The Office, even though the season itself was pretty poor. Of course all those predictions will probably be completely incorrect so feel free to mock me all over the internet when I turn out to be wrong. 6.50pm: Lizz Winstead is raring to go already. You can follow her on Twitter if you can’t get enough of her here. She notes there are more black people running for the Republican presidential nomination than up for awards tonight. It’s always exciting to see pretty white folks in Hollywood congratulate themselves for finding so many pretty white people to reward. It makes People Magazine’s job that much easier. But alas again this year, I will be disappointed. I was really hoping now that they have added the category, “Outstanding Reality Show” or “Fame Thirsty Talent Vortex” if you prefer, they would have considered specifics Emmy’s for “Excellence In Defining Women As Shrewish Greed Bots ” and “Best Knocked Up Teen” but sadly I may have to wait another year. At least they will have pretty gowns and won’t have to suffer a tax hike. 6.30pm ET: Can last year’s Emmy’s be topped? Now there’s a phrase you don’t hear about the US TV industry’s annual gong-a-thon very often. In fact, mostly never. But in 2010, after years of shambolic broadcasts, badly briefed presenters, over-runs and idiosyncratic awards choices, the organisers finally got it together . In an article headlined ” Were these the best Emmy’s ever ?” New York magazine described last year’s event as the “least excruciating televised awards show since the 2009 Oscars”. Which is quite something for New York magazine. But it wasn’t just that new shows like Modern Family and Glee finally knocked the tired favourites off the podium. In fact it wasn’t that at all. It was mostly the best Emmy’s ever because of this: – an intro of unparalleled genius topped only by the reaction of Susan Sarandon, who summed up the feelings of the room when she wolf-whistled enthusiastically at Jimmy Fallon, the cast of Glee, Jon Hamm, Tina Fey and Randy Newman, who performed Born to Run in a contagiously full-on show choir style. This year, Glee star Jane Lynch is hosting the show, which is being broadcast in the US on Fox. Can we expect another classic year? It’s a pretty strong nominations field . (Here’s the full list .) Or can we just expect still to be here at midnight? On the live blog sofa for you tonight are Guardian fashion guru Hadley Freeman , TV blogger Sarah Hughes, and me, an Emmys newbie, for live coverage of the show. I know what you’re thinking: what do that lot know about anything. Fortunately we have a real expert on board: co-creator of the Daily Show, Lizz Winstead , is standing by to provide the sharp and snark that is the hallmark of Guardian live blogs. Well, except the ones about the Middle East . Emmys 2011 Television United States Television industry US television US television industry Matt Wells Hadley Freeman Sarah Hughes guardian.co.uk