The TV Zone

I'm terrified.

Seriously. It's Halloween tomorrow and I'm terrified.

This happens every year at this time. I start to catalog all the stuff on TV that really scares me. I write it down, show it to my shrink, and he tells me - "don't worry, Verne. It's only a TV show! Just turn it off."

Not so easy, Herr Docktor Freud! I have to write about this stuff.

So this Halloween, I decided, I would share with you all my fears - those deep elemental terrors that wake me at night from a deep sleep, and set my heart into palpitations, and my brain into overdrive. These are my own TV things that go bump in the night.

On the eve of Halloween, they are especially scary.

Here goes...

- Cloris Leachman, dancing once again, ever again, with Corky Ballas, or really, with anyone. Ever.

- Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar - backstage.

- Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise...after Atlanta, what? Toledo?

- Unsolicited DVDs that come across my desktop, notably Volume Two of "Son of the Beach," and the very first episode out of the box, "It's a Nude, Nude, Nude, Nude Beach."

- The end of political season on "Saturday Night Live." Soon, back to regular "SNL."

- That call coming from my editor, ordering a long feature story on We's "My Fair Wedding."

- That call coming from my editor, ordering a 2,000 word "Fanfare" feature on "Hulk Hogan & Family," "E! True Hollywood Story," while insisting that no where in this story can these words or phrases appear - "horrific," sad," "godawful," or "Jesus, so this is what TV has come to..."

- "Melrose Place: The Remake"

- The press conference at the winter press tour for "Melrose Place: The Remake," in which Dawn Ostroff, CW topper, is asked, repeatedly, "have you approached Heather yet...?"

- Watching - and being deeply disturbed by the fact that I'm enjoying - Chapters Eleven and Twelve of "Lipstick Jungle" (entitled, respectively, "The F Word," and "Scary Scary Night." )

- Lifetime and Hallmark Movies - all of them, though particularly "Mail Order Bride" (Hallmark, Nov. 8).

- The new episode of Sundance's "Iconoclasts," starring Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar

- "The Bill Engvall Show." I don't know why really. It's just very scary.

- The forthcoming Oprah Winfrey Network, airing 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Beyond terrifying.

- The name of Campbell Brown's CNN show, "No Bias, No Bull."

- Keith Olbermann's eyebrows.

- "True Blood:" Not the show, but the fact that HBO renewed it.

- Howie Mandel (Am I the only one?)

- "Dr. 90210" on E! (I'm sure I'm not the only one.)

- "20 Acts of Love Gone Wrong" on E! (where else!)