Before the Emmy ceremony began Sunday (Sept. 18), awards-show expert Tom O'Neill told the reporters assembled backstage that "Desperate Housewives" Felicity Huffman was a relative longshot to win the award for outstanding actress in a comedy. She didn't submit her best work to Emmy voters, O'Neill reasoned, and therefore her co-stars Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross were more likely to win.

Standing on the same podium, Emmy on her hip, later in the evening, Huffman had but one word for awards handicappers (O'Neill was far from alone in his forecasting a win for Cross or Hatcher). Glancing down at her shiny gold statue, Huffman smiled and said, "Oops."

Huffman provided one of the genuinely funny moments backstage, where winners alighted after running a gantlet of photographers and TV interviewers to share their surprise and joy at having been selected Emmy winners.

And then they talked about sex.

Sexiness was a running theme in the backstage conversations, beginning with the night's first interviewee, "Boston Legal's" William Shatner. Someone asked him how he accounted for his "staying power." We're assuming the questioner meant his long showbiz career, but Shatner's eyes gleamed.

"Technique," he deadpanned.

Shatner's co-star and repeat winner James Spader, informed he was becoming a sex symbol in Great Britain, said he was "pleased" to hear it. "How can I complain about that?" he says. "Of course, it's all by design."

S. Epatha Merkerson, the longtime "Law & Order" star who won for HBO's "Lackawanna Blues," tried to explain how her acceptance speech slipped down the front of her dress -- creating one of the Emmy telecast's more amusing moments.

"I have this cute little purse. You'd think I'd just put it in there," she says. "It was just the names of people who have been very supportive. I'm 52 years old. I've been kickin' the boards a long time. I have hot flashes."

About 25 people -- cast and crew members, plus co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, crowded the small stage after "Lost's" win for best drama. Things were so tightly bunched that Evangeline Lilly took her champagne and parked herself in the front row of the press seating.

Matthew Fox says the Emmy win puts pressure on "Lost" to keep telling good stories, but Jorge Garcia, who plays Hurley, figures something else might result from the victory as well.

"The DVD's gonna go through the roof," he says.

Despite host Ellen DeGeneres' admonishments that winners not act surprised, "Everybody Loves Raymond" creator Phil Rosenthal couldn't help but pronounce himself "stunned" that his show won a swan-song award for best comedy series over "Housewives."

"It's nice when people remember the elderly," he says.

Huffman, who handled the inevitable will-this-cause-tension-on-set question with aplomb, says she was shocked to win as well. So much so that she had to extemporize in her acceptance speech, which included a heartfelt thanks to husband William H. Macy.

"It was off the cuff because I didn't think I was going to -- I didn't even think I was in the running, to tell the truth," she says. "Writing a speech seemed like a fool's errand. I hope I did all right."