More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the best dramatic actresses of the decade.

Television has always been good to the ladies. Actresses have flourished in dramatic series, and in the past decade, we've seen some amazing performances. There have been lawyers, cops, a U.S. president, nurses, doctors, judges, mothers, daughters and even a real housewife from New Jersey whose husband was in the waste disposal business.

Many of these women have already been honored with Emmys and Golden Globes... and now they get the recognition of TV Squad.

Here, then, without further vamping, the best dramatic actresses of the past ten years:

Allison Janney, The West Wing

Allison says: Currently, Bravo shows reruns of The West Wing and I have watched over and over again the brilliant performance by Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg. It wasn't just that among all the president's men C.J. was one of the guys. It was that she was better than that. She played just as hard, was just as smart if not smarter, and never once was a stereotype of a press secretary (and later chief of staff). C.J. was a fully-realized character, and that was as much Aaron Sorkin's work as it was Allison Janney's portrayal.

Bob says: I have to agree with Allison (Waldman, not Janney). I guess Janney could also be picked for the Best Comedic Actress category, since she's quite funny in many of her scenes as C.J. But the dramatic moments stand out to me too, from her crying to Nancy about women people beaten in a foreign country to talking to Toby about her father, stricken with Alzheimer's. What a great character C.J. was, and what an awesome performance by Janney. Sure, Aaron Sorkin and others wrote the words that she said, but Janney truly put her stamp on it.

Mary McDonnell, Battlestar Galactica

Mike says: If the major award shows were kinder to sci-fi, then Mary McDonnell would have at least one Emmy or Golden Globe sitting on her shelf. Amid all the sexy Cylon action, the Starbuck drama, and Adama's emoting on Battlestar Galactica, McDonnell was a standout as President Roslin. She played a confident leader who showed strength and integrity while facing death. McDonnell, a two-time Oscar nominee, always knew when to act subtle and when to spit fire as the leader of a race on the edge of extinction.

Maura Tierney, ER

Joel says: Just like with Lauren Graham, I've had a crush on Tierney going back to her days on NewsRadio. But it was her turn as nurse-turned-doctor Abby Lockhart on ER that really made me realize how good an actor she really is. Abby's such a deep character -- the alcoholism, her bipolar mother and brother, authority issues, her trying romances with both Carter and Kovac -- and Tierney was able to make playing her look easy. She was able to carry all of Abby's emotional baggage and still make her look like the strong, sympathetic, persevering character she is, and she would have fit in well with the vaunted original cast... if she wasn't on a certain comedy at the time.

Oh, and I do appreciate the irony that my choice as best comedic actress of the decade (Graham) is replacing Tierney on Parenthood. It's almost like I'm replacing my favorite pizza place with my favorite hamburger joint. Let's hope Tierney gets well soon and comes back to TV with more knockout performances.

Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy

Michael P. says: Sandra Oh gives a solid performance week after week on Grey's Anatomy. Christina Yang is a good counterbalance to all the high school drama of the Grey's Anatomy world. She is someone who has the biggest drive to succeed, but has foibles with love. Watching her evolve in five seasons from her abortion in the first season to her relationship with Owen now is a believable and bright storyline, compared to the drama involving Izzie.

Glenn Close, The Shield/Damages

Jason says: When Glenn Close joined the cast of The Shield, she immediately injected a new sense of energy to the show, and made us TV fans wonder why she'd been "slumming it" in the movies all those years. Television is the perfect showcase for her brilliantly intense performances. But if we loved her there, we were in for a real treat when FX gave her her own show and Damages knocked us out of our seats from the first episode. Close is so intense, mysterious, brilliant and diabolical you can't decide whether to root for her or against her. But one thing you do know: she elevates every scene she's a part of, as well as the actors she shares the screen with.

CCH Pounder, The Shield

Danny says: The actress and supporting cast member of the long-running FX series only got one Emmy nomination in her seven season run and the shame of it isn't that she didn't win, but that she didn't earn more of them. Her performance as the proud and moral homicide detective Claudette Wyms made a perfect protagonist for the scheming Vic Mackey because she was a schemer herself, even if her motives for doing so were much different. And unlike Capt. Acevada, she was never "The Barn's" savior. She stood for something greater than herself and the duality of her own mortality in the later scenes just made her performance better since she wanted to do something good for the Earth before she left it by getting Mackey and his gang off the streets. Her work was so deep and inspiring that she can be forgiven for Brothers.

S. Epatha Merkerson, Law & Order

Nick says: If IMDB.com is right, Merkerson has appeared in 381 episodes of Law & Order dating back to 1991. That means that Merkerson has anchored this show since I graduated high school. Her supervisor character, Lt. Anita Van Buren, has outlasted countless pairings of detectives, district attorneys, and district attorney's assistants. She could be noted here just for endurance alone, but she's also been wonderful in a strong role, the one who says "no" to the flashier characters (the detectives) and now we're getting a little more of her personal life, as Van Buren has revealed she has cancer. Which may mean her streak is coming to an end, but hopefully not before she gets a good story of her own.

Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars

Kona says: A teen detective? Seriously? When I first heard about a show called Veronica Mars coming to UPN, a network that I had never found the need to watch, I didn't exactly predict greatness. After the pilot aired, however, I heard such good things about it that I had to tune in. Yes, the writing was amazing -- funnier, smarter and sometimes sadder than just about anything else on television -- but it was Kristen Bell as the title character that really made Veronica Mars great. She could go from fierce to vulnerable in an instant, and every line she said drew you deeper and deeper into the world of Neptune; the world that Kristen Bell made you a part of.

Jennifer Garner, Alias

Jonathan says: You might view this as an odd pick and I'd agree with you to some extent. Alias wasn't exactly a groundbreaking show and it crapped out slowly over its last two seasons. Jennifer Garner's performance as super-spy Sydney Bristow wasn't exactly award-worthy either. However, that's due more to the content of the show and not meant to knock Garner at all because you can't deny one thing -- week in and out, she knocked it out of the park in this role. From a sly raise of her eyebrow to a skull-crushing roundhouse kick as she leveled some bad guy to the ground, I looked forward to seeing Sydney Bristow in action each week. Garner's performance was why Alias worked and it easily stands out as one of the most memorable female roles in the past ten years.

Did we leave out some worthy actresses on our list? No doubt. Edie Falco, Kyra Sedgwick, Mariska Hargitay, Michelle Forbes, Rachel Griffiths, Felicity Huffman, Sally Field... many more, I'm sure. So, please, tell us your choices in the comments below.