TV Tonight: HIMYM, Ghost Hunters, Bad Girls Club, Rock Center

What’s new tonight:
How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Halloween Episode: Katie Holmes guests as the legen … wait for it … dary “Slutty Pumpkin” that Ted’s been whining about losing for six seasons now. Equally mind-blowing, Barney learns that he’s part … Canadian! They’re dragging out all the scary shit tonight, eh.

Ghost Hunters Live (Syfy) Six-Hour Special: Wait, did you hear that? It’s 360 minutes of not finding a fucking thing—and getting paid for it! Well played, spook scammers.

The Bad Girls Club (Oxygen) Season Finale: The seventh BGC season in New Orleans has been somewhat of a disappointment, with no real breakout “stars” or new twists on the usual Crazy Drunk Bitches = Fistfight formula. If there’s going to be a Season 8, Oxygen should include a fully-stocked gun case along with the fully-stocked bar in the next mansion. I can’t be the first to think of introducing firearms, can I?

Rock Center With Brian Williams (NBC) Series Debut: Now that the nightmare of The Playboy Club (and, locally, We Are Utah) is over, here’s NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams with … more news? Lifestyle features? Handsome tips? Given the name of the show, a re-imagining of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert? (Google—sorry—Bing it, kids.) Not really sure what Rock Center is supposed to be, other than yet another primetime newsmagazine whose only distinctions are Williams, his Ocean’s Eleven lineup of correspondents (including Harry Smith, Kate Snow, Ted Koppel, Meredith Vieira, Richard Engel, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Matt Lauer, Natalie Morales and Ann Curry) and a Halloween-night debut (which would have been a better slot for Grimm, but NBC knows what they’re doing … right?).

Also new tonight:
Scared Shrekless, Dancing With the Stars, Castle (ABC); 2 Broke Girls, Two & a Half Men, Mike & Molly, Hawaii Five-0 (CBS); The Sing-Off (NBC); Terra Nova, House (Fox); Hoarders (A&E); Bachelorette Party: Las Vegas (Oxygen); The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (Bravo); Ridiculousness, Death Valley, Cuff’d (MTV), Bored to Death, Enlightened (HBO)

Katie Holmes’ pumpkin doesn’t look all that slutty on HIMYM …

Mars Redacts

Veronica Mars Tuesday 5.1 (The CW) Return: Oh, relax. This is one of the last times you’ll have to read about Veronica Mars here—ever. Inside TV-biz buzz says that our dear Veronica has already been canceled by The CW, and this Season 3 runoff will culminate in a two-hour series finale on May 22. Well, unless there’s a pressing Search for the Next Pussycat Doll reunion/chlamydia-screening special, then forget about closure. On the upside, this will free star Kristen Bell up for deservedly bigger and better things; she was too good for UPN, and definitely above a leftovers network that would cast her aside for far-less-talented hoochies and skanks (Top Models, Pussycat Dolls, One Tree Hillers, take your pick). And, since you’re not watching Veronica Mars on TV, be sure and check out the DVD sets and send me all kinds of “Hey, why did they cancel this great show?” queries later this year, OK?

30 Rock Thursday 4.26 (NBC) Season Finale: Oh, relax. This is the last time you’ll have to read about 30 Rock here—until next season! That’s right: Tina Fey’s unlikely little hit will be back in the fall, which is more than you can say for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the other “Saturday Night Live show.” True to TV, the 30 Rock gang are heading into summer hiatus in the season finale, and wackiness ensues as Liz comes off her boyfriend high, Tracy’s still missing and Jack’s marriage to the brittle-boned British bird looms—can Dr. Spaceman help? Oh yeah.

October Road Thursday 4.26 (ABC) Series Finale: ABC had the perfect Thursday night with Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy and Men in Trees—until they pissed it all away on October Road, a maudlin 9 p.m. dramarama that might as well have “Just flip over to ER or Shark—hurry!” in the opening credits. Take heart: Men in Trees returns May 10, and October Road will fade into the television ether with …

Six Degrees Friday 4.27 (ABC.com) Online Burn-Off: Or, “Cross-Media Platform Repurpose,” as they probably say in the Wide World of Web. Like NBC’s The Black Donnellys (in case you didn’t notice), Six Degrees is playing out its final episodes online instead of in primetime—which makes perfect sense, to have a star-heavy multimillion-dollar series streaming on the Internet alongside no-budget YouTube videos of geeks in bathrobes smacking each other in the nuts with plastic light sabers. Also, as with the Donnellys, ABC is making the mistake of rolling the episodes out weekly (like it’s TV) instead of making them all available at once (like it’s, oh, the Internet).

Lake Placid 2 Saturday 4.28 (Sci-Fi) I’ll admit it: I actually paid money to see the original Lake Placid in ’99—it was a different century then, and Bridget Fonda was still hot. Not that she isn’t currently hot, I assume; just haven’t seen her since Monkeybone (yeah, paid for that one, too). In this long-unawaited sequel, the babies of the giant killer crocodiles of Lake Placid (which still isn’t the actual Lake Placid, just a placid lake prone to giant killer crocodiles) are grown and out for blood, and they can only be stopped by … John Schneider and Cloris Leachman? What, they couldn’t get Bridg?

The Bad Girls Club Tuesday 5.1 (Oxygen) Season Finale: God, I love this show. Sure, it perpetuates a certain stereotype of “crazy women” who fly into jealous psycho rages and/or crying jags after a few drinks, but come on … we all know one. Some of us even have a scar or bar ejection or two. Ahem. Anyway, imagine a Reality House filled with eight of ‘em while you’re safe on the other side of the screen. Beats the hell out of ESPN 2.

Girl Trouble

Survivor: Fiji Thursday 2.8 (CBS) Season Premiere: Last time around it was the controversial “race wars,” pitting tribes of different nationalities against each other … for two whole weeks, then it was business as usual. Now, evil reality-TV kingpin Mark Burnett is promising all kinds of new bullshit “shocking twists” that will eventually turn out to be the same old cast of grimy whiners playing sticks and fire on a stupid island—and you’re all still going watch rapt. Purely coincidental that his next project is Fox’s Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?

Juvies Thursdays (MTV) After years of creating young criminals, MTV now chronicles their daily lives in a juvenile center—I love this network! Whatever did they program before reality shows? What’s that you say? Music? Ha!

The 49th Annual Grammy Awards Sunday 2.11 (CBS) Everybody knows music is dead; the Grammy Awards prove it once a year. Take the Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal category—first of all, the title’s longer than the careers of most Best New Artists. Second, you’ve got The Raconteurs’ “Steady as She Goes,” a direct rip-off of Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” vs. the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California,” a blatant crib of Tom Petty’s “Last Dance With Mary Jane”—not to mention their 78th single featuring the abuse of a “California” reference. Then there are the nominations for talent-averse groups like the Pussycat Dolls (Spice Girls 2.0 with extra skank on the side) and Stone Sour (Puddle of Mudd minus the jaunty backwards baseball cap) … MTV really used to waste airtime on this stuff? Wild.

Tim & Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job; Saul of the Mole Men Sunday 2.11 (Adult Swim) Live-Action Series Debuts: Late at night, the Cartoon Network becomes Adult Swim—legally, it doesn’t have to include animation (call a lawyer if you must). The duo’s Tom Goes to the Mayor was barely animated at all, so Tim & Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job is a logical-ish extension that mashes-up elements of Mr. Show, Wondershowzen and blunt trauma to the head, all in network-defying live-action. Saul of the Mole Men sends up low-budget Saturday-morning action-adventures of the ‘70s (Land of the Lost, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, et al), then dumbs ‘em down even further and, like Awesome Show and most everything else on Adult Swim, shrinks it to an ADD-palatable 15 minutes—c’mon, we’ll watch anything for 15 minutes … Do you have any gum? Let’s ride bikes!

The Bad Girls Club Tuesdays (Oxygen) The new favorite show of The Only TV Column That Matters™ … at least for one episode. The set-up: Seven self-proclaimed “bad girls” live together in a typical SoCal Reality House in order to confront and tame their “badness,” or something. What really happens: Bitches go crazy! There’s fighting and crying galore, but The Bad Girls Club’s moment of infamy arrived when housemate Ripsi (no one saw it coming with that name?) got blackout drunk and went on a blotto furniture-destroying, trash-talking, hair-pulling, throat-throttling rampage that was like a harmonic convergence of Jerry Springer, Cops and America’s Next Top Tequila-Soaked Waif. In other words, great TV—and apparently the only episode Oxygen ever repeats, constantly. Cool with me.

DVD
The Amazing Screw-On Head Paul Giamatti voices the title character, a secret-agent metal head that screws into robot bodies to battle the evil Emperor Zombie at the behest of President Lincoln—yeah, hard to believe the Sci-Fi Channel has yet to turn this into a regular animated series. For steampunk geeks only. LionsGate.com

The Grudge 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Joan of Arcadia take on Japanese creepies in a horror sequel at least as unanticipated as The Ring 2—or even The Blair Witch Project 2 (remember that?). Since everyone here is more concerned with looking pretty than acting, it’s at least … pretty. SonyPictures.com

Incubus College coeds are terrorized by a serial killer in an abandoned factory. Don’t ask why the hell they’re in an abandoned factory—ask why we’re supposed to believe Tara Reid as a college coed. While you’re at it, ask why a horror movie is named after a pansy-ass rock band. Go ahead. SonyPictures.com

More New DVD Releases (2.6) Baywatch: Season 3, Charmed: Season 7, Flags of Our Fathers, Flicka, Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Hollywoodland, Running With Scissors, The Science of Sleep, Trust the Man

BROADBAND

The Bad Girls Club Oxygen, which was supposed to be a Web-savvy network when it launched, is sorely lacking in Bad Girls Club content—the drunken catfights and other good bits (whatever those may be) are everywhere else on the Internet but Oxygen.com. A YouTube search on the series is better than the actual show: