T Dog's Four Pack

A week of shock and awe - literally. A Halloween edition of T Dog's Four Pack:

Treats

- White Collar. USA had a lot of goodies in its bag - to the tune of 5.3 million viewers for the debut of its new Friday night drama White Collar. With the continued success of Dexter on Showtime, being a criminal has never been more appealing on cable TV.

- The League Championship Series. Whether if its the ALCS or the NLCS (and either way, Los Angeles was sent packing), Fox and TBS have a lot to be happy about, as both playoff series were up in the ratings from a year ago.

- Glee. When a series generates buzz like this - including a Gold single from the cast signing an old Journey tune - not to mention solid ratings - in my book, that's a hit.

- The Vampire Diaries. The vampire craze has been beneficial to The CW, with this show performing well week-to-week and stealing buzz from rival FlashForward - which was supposed to be the hot show of the year. Instead, Forward is going backward by performing only marginally better from Ugly Betty last year in the Thursday 8/7 Central time period - and sliding in the ratings every week.

Tricks


- The Chicago Bears. Their performance on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday was indeed scary and frightful, getting blown out 45-10 in the process. If the Bears don't make the playoffs, they will be the biggest flop of the fall season - even bigger than The Jay Leno Show.


- So You Think You Can Dance. Much like what happened to the Bears Sunday in Cincinnati , Dance came into Dancing With The Stars' house on Monday and got stomped on in total viewers, households, and adults 18-49. But both shows were out-danced by a Big Bang Theory repeat. So, who's going as Sheldon for Halloween?

- Apple. Once upon a time, Mac vs. Pc ads were hilarious. But since Microsoft has brought it with Windows 7, those ads don't seem so funny anymore, don't they? (Yours truly isn't letting Microsoft off the hook, either - thumbs down for deciding to sponsor - and then later pulling out of - a Family Guy special - without knowing what content the show contains.)

- Steve Rosenbloom returns to print daily in the Chicago Tribune. Who brought this Jay Mariotti-like loser back from the gutter? This cements the fact that Chicago sports media is a complete, utter joke. Thanks again, Sam Zellhead.