I TiVo’ed Sunday’s “Deadwood” finale on HBO and didn’t get to it until a couple of days later, when I just happened to watch it along with the second episode of Fox’s “Vanished.” It made for an intriguing study in contrasts.

As I watched “Vanished,” I kept thinking about how derivative it all seemed — how the look, the pacing and certain scenes felt like they had been blatantly ripped from the “24″ and/or “Prison Break” playbook. (Even the way the show segues to commercial feels just like “Prison Break” with its quick cuts and hyper-accelerated camerawork).

Ah, but then I watched “Deadwood,” and I kept marveling over how this show looks and feels like nothing else on television — from the remarkable costumes and mud-caked setting to its fascinating, fully realized characters and its Shakspearian-like dialogue. (It didn’t hurt, either, that the episode was capped by a song off the latest CD by Bruce Springsteen, a musician I ceaselessly admire).

And then I got a bit wistful because I realized I had just watched the last episode in what has turned out to be the final full season of this meaty, magnificent show. (A two-part movie is planned for next year). I’m sad, too, that more people didn’t discover “Deadwood” during its run. It isn’t often, after all, that the medium presents us with something this breathtakingly original.

Fortunately, there’s always the DVDs.

Did anyone happen to catch “Celebrity Duets” last night on Fox? Oh man, what a train wreck.

More bizzare than any of the excruciating singing performances (Ceech Marin? Chris Jericho?) were the antics of judge Little Richard, who started the night off appearing nearly comatose and spouting lots of incoherent lines that sounded something like this: “Mfffffrrrtttwwwfffump.”

Fortunately, someone must have slipped him his medication during a commercial break and he gradually began to display the brand of goofy energy for which he’s known. After Marin struggled through a number with Peter Frampton, the Little One insisted, “You got to get out of the mustard and catch up!” And when Lucy “Xena” Lawless performed a sexy duet with Smokey Robinson, he blurted, “It made my big toe shoot up in my boot!”

I’m seriously thinking of keeping a running log of all the Little Richard quotes here at the Freak House. I’m convinced that scholars, for years to come, will want to dissect and analyze them for meaning.

ON TO OTHER THINGS: Fox continues its early fall rollout tonight with “Bones” (8 p.m. Channels 2 and 4) and a new legal drama called “Justice” (9 p.m., Channels 2 and 40) that had me shrugging my shoulders. Here’s the TimeOut review…. Meanwhile, for those of you wondering about our Fall TV Preview, it will appear in the Times on Sept. 17, a day before the season officially begins.

NBC has apologized for the taped Conan O’Brien sppof that opened Sunday’s Emmy show. Here’s the network’s statement.

For anyone who didn’t see it, the segment started with Conan experiencing a plane crash that plunged him onto the “Lost” island, where he ran into Hurley. Of course, earlier that same day, 49 people died in a plane crash in Kentucky.

A few alert TV writers/critics who covered the Emmys, pointed out the bad timing in their stories, but most did not. As for me, I simply failed to make the connection. Maybe I just had too many other things on my mind as the show got under way. Maybe I’m such a huge of fan of “Lost” that I got lost in the moment. A couple of callers left messages saying that I was “insenstive” for not writing about it. I just want you to know that wasn’t the case.

What do you guys think? Did it bother you? Was NBC wrong to not ax the piece?

OK, here we go again. To answer, click on “Comments” and submit. I’ll hold back the answers ’til the end of the week and hold a drawing if necessary. Let’s see if we can get more entries this time around.

– Tony Shalhoub just won his third Emmy for his role in “Monk,” a detective who went off the deep end after his wife died. How did she die? (Winner gets Season 2 DVD set of “Monk”).

– Much to my dismay, Megan Mullally just won her second Emmy for her role in “Will & Grace.” Now that the sitcom is over, what’s Megan’s next TV project? (Winner gets Season 5 of “Will & Grace” on DVD).

As I write this, it’s almost midnight and I’m still on an Emmy high. Earlier this evening, I drove into Sacrmento (as I do every year) to view and review the Emmy telecast with my friend and fellow critic, Rick Kushman, of the Sacramento Bee. We hunkered down at KCRA-TV (Channel 3), where we kept a watchful eye on Conan O’ Brien, Jack Bauer and the “Office” gang.

The reason we watch at a TV station instead of in the comfort of our homes is because the stations are able to pull in the East-Coast satellite feed of the Emmy show. Thus, we see it three hours earlier than West-Coast viewers and are able to make our newspaper deadlines.

It’s a night that sort of harkens back to my sportswriting days, when I covered a lot of night games and filed on a deadline crunch. The adrenaline would be going so much that it would be tough to get to sleep after you’re done. Because the show ran fairly efficiently this year, I was able to get my story in to Ardua, my editor, around 9, and was actually back home in time to re-watch the end of the show with family members, who did the celebratory high-fives after the “Office” victory.

The only problem with writing in such a blur is that you don’t have a lot of time to analyze things and let them sink in. And you can bet I’ll be thinking about things I should have written — or pointed out — in the story, long after the fact. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy spending some time on post-Emmy day reading various accounts of the show from other critics/writers. It’s interesting to see what they may have picked up on (or not), what aspects of the show resonated with them, etc. And it’s always fun to see how opinions can range all over the spectrum.

Anyway, hope you check out my Emmy-show review, as well as Jessica Yadegaran’s red-carpet fashion piece. Our online team has also provided a complete list of winners as well as a red-carpet slide show.

All hail Carrie K. She’s our first two-timer in the Freak’s weekly trivia tournament. (Of course, if we had more people bothering to play … Hey, I’m just saying.) Anyway, she wins the “Roseanne” set. Meanwhile, Matthew Houser of Albany quite fittingly wins the “House” set. Congrats to both.

The Answers: George Clooney played Roseanne’s boss early on in the show, and “House” star Hugh Laurie was a rower.

Tune in next Tuesday for more fun and games. And let’s try to get some of the wallflowers out there to join in.

Ah. “two-a-days.” Those are dreaded words for anyone who has played high school football. (I played one year and that was enough for me). They refer to the ritual of two practices a day — usually in the searing summer heat in the weeks before school starts. So while your friends are still hanging out by the pool, you’re running countlless laps under the sun, pounding your teammates (and getting pounded) in one sadistic drill after another and occasionally barfing all over your cleats. Brutal.

Now, “Two-a-Days” also refers to a gripping new documentary series about prep football that debuted earlier this week on MTV. Set at Hoover High School in Alabama, the program follows the on-and-off-the-field exploits of a nationally ranked team gunning for its fourth state title in five years. Much of the show contains the elements we’ve come to expect: Militaristic coaches, fawning cheerleaders, self-absorbed athletes. …

But fortunately, the series delves deeper to explore relationships, not just between the guys and gals but the students and parents. And it also vividly illustrates the pressure these kids face as they compete at a very high level (think De La Salle in Concord) and battle for scholarships.

It’s an intriguing look into a subculture many of us don’t fully understand (NBC’s upcoming drama series “Friday Night Lights” also does a brilliant job of this). It’s also encouraging to see MTV explore a teen world that has nothing to do with the rich and pampered brats of Southern California. Yea, team!

The L.A. Times is reporting that “Saturday Night Live” will undergo a major makeover this season.

Obviously, we already knew that Tina Fey is leaving to do her new “30 Rock” sitcom and taking Rachel Dratch with her. But now a source says longtime cast members Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz and Kenan Thompson will likely exit the late-night comedy show.

Cast changes had been rumored since the summer press tour, when executive producer Lorne Michaels told reporters “SNL” was facing massive budget cuts dictated by NBC. Just earlier today, I e-mailed castmember and Lafayette native Will Forte to see if he avoided the ax (one Internet site speculated that he would be departing) and he responded by saying that he was, indeed, coming back.

CBS and “Survivor” could be asking for trouble. For the upcoming installment, they’ll be dividing the castaways along racial lines. Sounds like a really bad idea. I can’t even believe they’re doing it.

Anyway, the 20 new castaways who will compete in “Survivor: Cook Islands” have been announced. For bios and photos, click on here.

The group includes an Oakland resident (Cecilia, 29), as well as a guy from San Mateo (Yul, 31). “Survivor: Cook Islands” kicks off on Sept. 14.

The Emmys are a sham. Everyone knows that. But despite a nomination list that, in part, makes you wonder if the voters were dropping acid, the show must go on. And so it will — at 8 p.m. Sunday on NBC.

And even though we’re still baffled — and outraged — by the omissions of “Lost,” Edie Falco, Hugh Laurie and others, we still have several rooting interests among the chosen few. It would be nice, for example, to see Kiefer Sutherland of “24″ nab his first trophy after going 0-for-4. And a win by “The Office” in the Best Comedy category would give us a big thrill.

Other nominees we’d especially like to see be embraced by TV’s golden girl: Steve Carell, Kyra Sedgwick, Gregory Itzin, Jeremy Piven, Jaime Pressly, and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Predicting the winners, of course, is always a crapshoot. But once again I give it a shot in today’s TimeOut with my annual Emmy column. I hope you’ll check it out and, perhaps, share your own Emmy list with us through the comment process. Also today, my features department colleague, Jessica Yadegaran, has a fun interview with Joan Rivers, who, of course, will be patrolling the red carpet once again this year with her daughter, Melissa. So definitely give that a look.

On Sunday (for Monday’s paper), Jessica and I will be back at it as she’ll dish on all the fashion hits and misses and I’ll have a review of the show, which will be hosted by Conan O’Brien. I’m really looking forward to watching this guy handle the gig again because I thought he nailed it in his 2002 stint. For a sneak peek into what he has planned, check out the hilarious stupid-questions interview with Conan on the Entertainment Weekly site. Great stuff.

And then, of course, you’ll want to keep score on Sunday, so I direct you to this lovely printable Emmy ballot provided on the NBC site.

Finally, don’t you dare leave me hanging here. Tell us who you want to take home the hardware.

.