The hilarious Halloween costume idea thread on Pajiba, got me thinking about what I should dress up as this year. Here’s the television show related costumes I’ve come up with so far:

“Doctor Who”

The Doctor is just a blue suit and converse sneakers, easy as pie! Or if you’re a girl, you could be Martha, Donna or Rose. All you have to do is track down their specific outfits, which isn’t too hard since they typically wear one get-up all season long.

“Smallville”
Buy the archetypical Superman costume or wear casual clothes with a superman shirt underneath to be young Clark Kent.

“The Office”
Basically wear your office/work clothes and pair it with a Dundler-mifflin mug, nametag or pen to give people a hint.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

Dress up like a cheerleader or late-nineties teenager. Then, pair your outfit with a wooden stake and fake blood splatter.

“Dexter” or “CSI”

Clear plastic coveralls splattered with fake blood, lab goggles, and fake scalpel if you go for the “Dexter” angle. For “CSI”, get any old cover-alls or jumpsuit and put label on the backing saying “CSI” + CITY NAME (depends on which incarnation you prefer of the CBS franchise).

Or you can get a cheap costume mask and go as a “Simpsons” character.

Here’s the massive list of episodes I watched this weekend in my pathetic effort to free up some much needed space on my DVR box:

The final four episodes of “Doctor Who”. The season finale was rewarding since the Torchwood gang, Rose, Martha, and Sarah Jane Smith all made appearances. The poor Doctor, he’s all alone again.

Robin Tunney and Simon Baker in"The Mentalist"

The first two episodes of “The Mentalist”. Simon Baker is cute and does a good job on the show, but somehow I feel it’s too darkly themed for the CBS crowd.

The “Personae Non Grata” episode of “Law and Order” from last season. Yeah, I keep shows forever and they re-run L/O all the time. But this time it was worth it and not just for the Jeremy Sisto scenes.

Law & Order (2008)

A mother poses as her daughter on the girl’s Bspace (i.e. myspace) page to con a guy into giving her $60,000…oh and getting said guy to commit murder later on. And then turns out, she’s more than just a sociopathic manipulator (well, duh). She’s a bonafide murderer! She killed the daughter she was impersonating like two years before! And buried her in her unsuspecting boyfriend’s cellar. That’s just plain demented, L/O.

The first three episodes of this season of “Lipstick Jungle”. Boy is that dialogue terrible. But that Kirby (Nico’s boy toy) is cute and the fashion designer character, Victory Ford, is actually funny and realistic.

Victory Ford

And can you believe Wendy got fired over insurance fraud?! Oh well, I never liked Brooke Shields character all that much. It was a bit over the top with the “world is falling down around me” camera effects on Wendy. She’s all melodramatically standing in the street alone (in NYC?), looking up at the sky as she realizes her life is pretty much screwed.

“Eleventh Hour”, cloned babies, Rufus Sewell as quirky scientist, tough FBI agent Marley Shelton…zzzzzz.

I like to give my undivided attention to “It’s Always Sunny”, so I finally got to watch the “Mac and Dennis: Manhunters” episode. It was crude beyond belief - gorilla mask/teabag pranks, cannibal jokes, and Frank confusing his life with the plot of Rambo:First Blood. Oh, how I missed the “Sunny” gang so much. I plan to watch the rest of the season tonight.

Col. Shepherd and Dr. McKay in "Stargate Atlantis"

Next, I watched the latest eps of “Adventures of New Christine”, “Heroes”, “Stargate Atlantis”, and “Sanctuary”, which is actually way better in the second episode. That pilot was redundant, but once the show focused on a specific story and no exposition, I liked it.

Gee whiz! How the heck is my DVR still at 69%?! Oh wait, because I still have entire seasons of “Burn Notice”, “Psych” and “New Amsterdam” on there!

“Kath & Kim” with Molly Shannon and Selma Blair. A US version of the Austrialian series (haven’t they figured out they usually don’t work out?) - 8:30/7:30 on NBC

The original Las Vegas version of “CSI” premieres at 9pm followed by the premiere of “Eleventh Hour” with Rufus Sewell in the role originally played by Patrick Stewart on the BBC version.

On ABC, after new episodes of “Ugly Betty” and “Grey’s Anatomy”, we’ve got the series premiere of David E. Kelley’s take on the original BBC show “Life on Mars”. This remake wins the award of the stuffing as many talented film actors as possible into one show (after firing 90% of the actors from the original pilot) to make it look good: Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli, Gretchen Mol, Lisa Bonet, and Jason O’Mara as the time-traveling cop Sam Tyler.

If you haven’t visited ABC today, check out the 1970s computer terminal re-design they put up in honor of the new show. Or if you’re lazy, just look at the screenshot on TV Squad. Watch the “Life on Mars” promo below to get the gist of the show.

I have no idea how I’m gonna watch (or even DVR record) all these shows tonight!

I saw a teaser last night for this new paranormal mystery show on CBS called “Eleventh Hour”. It stars the dashing Rufus Sewell as Dr. Jacob Hood.

“ELEVENTH HOUR from acclaimed producer Jerry Bruckheimer follows Dr. Jacob Hood, a brilliant biophysicist and special science advisor to the government, as he investigates scientific crises and oddities. His jurisdiction is absolute and Hood is dogged in his pursuit of those who would abuse and misuse scientific discoveries and breakthroughs for their own gain. His passion and crusade is to protect the substance of science from those with nefarious motives. He is called in at the eleventh hour and he represents the last line of defense.”

Jerry Bruckheimer?! Now, I’m scared to give it a chance. I fear it’s gonna be a supernatural tinged version of “CSI”! And doesn’t this sound strangely like “Threshold”, the David Goyer produced sci-fi drama with Carla Cugino that was swiftly cancelled. Am I the only one who dug that show? It was spooky, intriguing and had a decent cast (Charles S. Dutton from “Roc”!).

I’m not sure the senior citizen demographic of CBS will be down with a X-Files FBI procedural knockoff. Plus, isn’t “Fringe” already going there? In a television battle, JJ Abrams vs Jerry B, JJ is gonna win hands down.

But hey, by some strange fate, “Ghost Whisperer” still gets ratings, maybe it could work. However, GW’s success may be due to JLove Hewitt and not really the subject matter. I think I’m gonna give it a look, but no way I’m giving it an automatic TiVo season pass.

“Eleventh Hour” airs Thursdays at 10pm this fall.

My new favorite show (post-strike) was “New Amsterdam”.

But sadly, it was given it’s death sentence this week. Why Fox? Why, oh why can you not let things last? I shoulda realized it was doomed when they pushed back the premiere to March.

Fox isn’t the only one throwing around the axe this week. Also cancelled are “Moonlight”, “Shark”, “Canterbury’s Law”, “October Road”, “Back to You”, and obviously “Bionic Woman” and “Journeyman”.

(Source: The TV Whore’s column)

Another favorite show of my mom’s was “In the Heat of the Night”.

I had no idea it was based on a film (with Sidney Poitier, no less!) until I went to college. The tv show starred Carroll O’Connor (”All in the Family”) as the Chief Bill Gillepsie and Howard E. Rollins Jr(Ragtime) as Virgil Tibbs, Chief of Detectives. It tackled similar racial issues as the film. Both works strived to show how a southern white chief (despite his racist misgivings) could learn to work and respect his black lieutenant.

The show ran for eight seasons with half of the run on NBC and the other half on CBS. Regardless of the channel, it was on in my household for most of those years. My mom still watches the re-runs. So every time I catch an episode on TV Land, I remember all the times my mom would be curled up on the couch with her “In the Heat of the Night”.

Sad but true, I’ve been keeping up with “Moonlight”, a vampire detective show starring Alex O’Loughlin.

It’s not very good, actually some of the dialogue is down right terrible, but it’s a guilty pleasure that I can’t seem to shake. I’m not like those crazy fans giving blood or anything. I can relax and laugh at this show instead of how serious I need to be for “Lost”.

I’d mostly forgotten about it due to the strike gap, but yesterday, I noticed two episodes waiting for me on my Tivo DVR. As it turns out there’s only two more eps left to go. CBS has been quite mum on saying if it’ll be renewed. But hey, didn’t it win a People’s Choice award? That’s gotta count for something. Plus, Mick St. John is pretty easy on the eyes (despite his Criss Angel wardrobe), so I’m sure it’s doing well with the female demographic.

“Moonlight“, a thinly veiled “Angel” rip-off, airs Fridays at 9pm on CBS.