Expect lots of drama when Sofia Vergara and Joel McHale reveal this year's Emmy nominations on Thursday morning at 8:30AM ET -- drama that won't come just from the 2009-10 season's trophy-worthy acting and writing, but also from the behind-the-scenes trends that have driven this year's TV.

The resurgence and innovation seen in new comedies (notably, 'Glee' and Vergara's 'Modern Family'), the farewells of many veteran series (including 'Lost,' 'Law & Order' and 'Monk'), the continuing rise of additional cable channels besides HBO as destinations for quality scripted shows -- all of these could shake up the often stodgy choices of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences voters.

How will these dramas play out in this year's nominations? What trends should TV fans watch for when Vergara and McHale read the list? Here is our guide to the burning questions we'd like to see answered as the Emmy race heads into the final stretch.

I haven't been a 'Top Chef' fan for its entire run, but I've been watching it long enough to notice that a few odd things come up here and there, some involving the cheftestants themselves and others about the show in general. And all of it makes me scratch my head, just a little bit:

Why do so many of the chefs smoke? In a scene from last week's episode, Amanda is being grilled (pun intended) by Angelo and a few of her fellow cheftestants about her cooking methods. What struck me about this scene is that just about everyone in that scene was smoking (probably the house's designated smoking spot).

I know being a chef is a very stressful job, and I get that smoking is a way to deal with that stress. But when your palate is key to doing your job well, you have to wonder why these chefs would purposely handicap themselves by smoking, which has been shown to dull a person's taste buds.

(S02E15) You can add "glamourtunity" and "preg-nasty" to the Ugly Betty lexicon. While this episode gave us some cute moments and clever dialogue, I felt like it was light on plot. Yes, we got Renee's storyline out of the way, but the rest of it was build-up to the season's bigger issues. I'm ready for things to start happening.

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