LOS ANGELES • Television stars from Westeros to the White House will hit the red carpet in Los Angeles today (Singapore time) as Game Of Thrones and Veep take their final tilts at Emmys glory.

With 74 Emmys between them, the long-running HBO smash hits helped the premium cable network raise the game for television.

While the divisive final season of Thrones enraged many fans, it is the 24,000-plus voters of Television Academy who get to choose the winners.

There is an "overwhelming" chance the blood-soaked fantasy epic will win the top drama series, according to Mr Pete Hammond, awards editor at entertainment news outlet Deadline. "There was controversy over how it ended... but that just shows the impact of this piece of television," he said.

Thrones won 10 Emmys in lesser categories at last week's Creative Arts Emmys. It needs three more wins to top its own record for most Emmys in a single season. Nine of its stars - including Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen, left), Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Peter Dink-lage (Tyrion Lannister) - are vying for acting prizes.

They will all be on stage as presenters too - American broadcaster Fox hopes to squeeze a final ratings boost out of the global cultural phenomenon in a year which sees the Emmys without a host.

Also on the list of presenters are Gwyneth Paltrow, Michael Douglas and Julia Louis-Dreyfus - who has won six straight Emmys as the foul-mouthed vice-president-turned-president in political satire, Veep. The show won best comedy in 2015, 2016 and 2017, but took a forced hiatus last year as its star battled breast cancer.

However, Veep is back this year in both categories with a critically acclaimed final season. If it can overcome stiff competition including The Marvelous Mrs Maisel - Amazon's story of a 1950s housewife-turned-stand-up comic - HBO could achieve a rare clean sweep of all three major programme categories.

Chernobyl, HBO's drama about the 1986 nuclear catastrophe, is tipped for the limited series prize. It faces off against Netflix's When They See Us, the true story of five teens wrongly accused of raping a Central Park jogger.

If Chernobyl prevails, said Mr Hammond, it will be a dagger in the heart of Netflix which, despite hundreds of nominations, has yet to win any of the top three programme awards at the Emmys.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE