William Shatner won his second Emmy Award for playing Denny Crane during a telecast in which the Captain Kirk actor performed the theme from the original Star Trek series with opera star Frederica von Stade.

Shatner won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Boston Legal, beating Oliver Platt for Showtime's Huff, Naveen Andrews and Terry O'Quinn for ABC's Best Drama Lost and Alan Alda for NBC's The West Wing. Last year Shatner won Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for playing Denny Crane on The Practice, of which Boston Legal is a spinoff.

In his acceptance speech, Shatner joked that he had never had a full conversation with series creator David E. Kelley. He thanked the producer and his own wife as well as his co-star James Spader - who also went two-for-two with a win for portraying Alan Shore on Boston Legal, after being named Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for The Practice last year.

CBS, which televised the show, allowed viewers to vote via their web site or text messaging on the favourite of four musical performances, which in addition to Shatner and von Stade's included Veronica Mars' Kristen Bell singing the theme song from Fame, singer Macy Gray and CSI's Gary Dourdan singing "Movin' On Up" from The Jeffersons, and The Apprentice's Donald Trump and Will and Grace's Megan Mullally singing the theme song from Green Acres. Shatner appeared to be shocked by his defeat by Trump and Mullally in viewer voting.

While Shatner recited the famous "Space, the final frontier..." voiceover and von Stade sang, images from the original Star Trek series were displayed on the giant screen at the Shrine Auditorium. Included were such scenes as the first interracial kiss on television between Shatner and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Kirk in the collar from "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and the Mugato attack.

The montage closed on photos of DeForest Kelley (McCoy) and James Doohan (Scotty), the two original series actors who are no longer living. The Emmys also had a memorial tribute to television entertainers who passed away in the past year, including Doohan, John Fiedler (Hengist), Frank Gorshin (Bele) and Brock Peters (Joseph Sisko/Admiral Cartwright).

A complete list of winners is available from The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

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