One reason to love fall is there is so much to watch on TV, especially on one of our favorite holidays. There are several classics to be watched or DVRed on America's biggest holiday after Christmas, Halloween.

Some must-sees include Night of the Living Dead (on AMC in continuous showings from 6 p.m. on). This low-budget zombie shocker from the 1960s is set in Pittsburgh, and the stylized black-and-white makes it all the more terrifying. One of the best scary movies ever. Another superb film fit for the season is Carrie, Stephen King's perfect high school nerd revenge flick. Carrie is followed by Wes Craven's Scream, which is also terrific. (Encore)

Heath Ledger's final performance can be seen in The Dark Knight, the best and darkest of the Batman series. (Cinemax)

Fans of James Marsden (Spike, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel) will want to catch Disturbing Behavior, a creepy little thriller about a sinister town with a decidedly nouvelle way of handling unruly teens. (Also starring Katie Holmes in her pre-Mrs. Cruise days. On Flx.)

For those who need gore galore with their Halloween lore, lesbian heartthrob Mila Jovovich fights zombies to the bloody end in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Oxygen), and Malcolm McDowell is a creepy psychiatrist in Halloween, as Jason rises again to kill more locals. (TMC)

 SyFy is running Ghost Hunters all night long, FX has Nicholas Cage in the gory/campy/special effects extravaganza Ghostrider, and LMN and Lifetime have slasher thrillers throughout the evening, including The Messengers and Vacancy. Boo!

Blue dog hunting

Some (mostly over on Fox News) consider MSNBC's Keith Olbermann scary. And not because of his gigantic head. Olbermann has been known to take people to task in his "Worst Person in the World" segments on Countdown. These diatribes are nearly always well-deserved, although Olbermann did suffer from an extreme case of anti-Clinton mania during the primary, which led him to some cringe-worthy moments.

Like our gal Rachel Maddow, Olbermann has made the health care drama a central issue on his show. As most viewers know, Olbermann has had a long career as a sportscaster, and still does football commentary for NBC. Perhaps this is why he likes a good wager now and again. A few months back, he offered to contribute $10,000 to the charity of Sean Hannity's choice if Hannity would undergo water-boarding. Hannity had continually stated that water-boarding was no big deal, and had offered to do it for charity. Of course, chickenhawk that he is, Hannity never did do it.

Olbermann didn't suggest that senators be water-boarded into the public option, nor did he make any wagers to that effect. Instead he made the following appeal in a Special Comment hour on Countdown. Olbermann targeted the six Blue Dog Democrats.

"I propose tonight one act with two purposes," Olbermann said. "I propose we, all of us, embrace the selfless individuals at the National Association of Free Clinics. You know them, they conducted the mass health care free clinic in Houston that served 1,500 people. I want a mass health care free clinic every week in the principle cities of the states of the six senators key to defeating a filibuster against health care reform in the Senate."

Olbermann said he wanted "Sens. Lincoln and Pryor to see what health care poverty is really like in Little Rock. Sen. Baucus to see it in Butte. Sen. Ben Nelson to see it in Lincoln. Sen. Landrieu to see it in Baton Rouge. Sen. Reid to see it in Las Vegas."

Olbermann, who has been calling the public option "Medicare for Everyone," has raised $1.2 million for clinics from Countdown viewers. (You can still donate via "Countdown" at MSNBC.com. Olbermann himself donated $50,000.) On the Oct. 21 show he announced that thanks to viewers, there would be free clinics held in New Orleans on Nov. 14, Little Rock on Nov. 21, and Dec. 9-10 in Kansas City. So while conservative pundits like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are fomenting outrage (or just rage) among their viewers, Olbermann is asking his viewers to help alleviate the health care crisis in America. Not even a contest, is it?

Speaking of conservative outrage, in case anyone thought NBC was a completely dead network (fifth place out of five is as bad as it gets), it's still capable of stirring some controversy. The Oct. 23 episode of Law & Order proved that the longest-running network drama still has it.

The show that has claimed for 20 years to tell stories "ripped from the headlines" chose one of the most provocative news items of recent months to fictionalize: the murder, in church, of a doctor specializing in late-term abortions. The episode was superb, with Richard Thomas guest-starring as a pro-life activist attorney. L&O explored the complexities of late-term abortions while also making it clear that there will always be a necessity for them.

 Abortion is a topic that has become utterly taboo on the tube. One of the few shows to even discuss the issue is CBS' As the World Turns, which has been running a storyline for the past few weeks with one of the teenaged characters, Liberty, who found herself pregnant after an impulsive – and regretted – one-night-stand with a date.

Liberty, who is herself the child of an impromptu sexual encounter between her mother and father when they were high school seniors, didn't want her life to become her mother's life. She wanted an abortion. But her Catholic mother saw the choice as an insult, and tracked her to Chicago, dragging her out of the abortion clinic minutes before the procedure.

The show dealt with other options – adoption and keeping the baby – but never took abortion off the table. Liberty was on her way to once again have an abortion because she just couldn't see herself having a child at 17 when she was in an accident and miscarried. ATWT ultimately side-stepped the issue with the miscarriage, but the mere fact that abortion was even an option (pregnant teenage girls only have babies on TV, they never even consider abortion) was ground-breaking. But not as ground-breaking as the L&O episode. (Watch it at Hulu or NBC.com.)

Speaking of controversy, Fox, which seems to have a bizarre disconnect between its excellent series programming (how good will the already excellent and queer-ish Glee get now that Joss Whedon is on board?) and vile "news," debuts one of the more controversial stars, Wanda Sykes, in a new show on Nov. 7.

Sykes, America's favorite black lesbian comedian, who also co-stars on CBS' New Adventures of Old Christine and HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, married her partner last October, and she and her wife recently had twins. With her new show, Sykes becomes the first out African-American queer with her own show on a major network. (We don't want to slight RuPaul over on Logo.)

Fox calls The Wanda Sykes Show an "innovative and irreverent new Saturday late-night series," and notes, "The high-energy one-hour show will feature biting commentary on topical issues and heated panel discussions with recurring personalities. The series' unique format will highlight Sykes' outspoken comedic perspective on current events, and will also allow her to leave the studio to shoot segments in the field."

Sykes appeared live with Oprah on the Oct. 23 show. Oprah told her that since Sykes came out, she was prettier and funnier, because she was now honest about her life. Sykes told Oprah it is harder being gay than being black. "We're treated like second-class citizens." (Check it out at Oprah.com.)

Another new show set to debut Nov. 3 is ABC's sci-fi spectacular, V. In this updated re-make of the 1983 miniseries, which stars Elizabeth Mitchell, Scot Wolf, Laura Vandervoort and Lourdes Benedicto, aliens invade. Benign aliens (are aliens ever really benign?) take over the cities. Vandervoort is the eye-candy alien leader. For sci-fi devotees and anyone who likes good TV.

Finally, here's something really scary. As swine flu fears escalate nationwide, everyone from President Obama to the Muppets has been repeating the mantra, "Wash your hands!" on every TV newscast, PSA, and of course, Sesame Street. Hand-washing remains the best disease-prevention technique available. (We can thank Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis for this discovery back in 1847. He saved the lives of millions of women by virtually ending puerperal fever, which killed up to a third of women in childbirth whose doctors transmitted infection by not washing their hands.)

Alas, where is Dr. Semmelweis when you need him? John Berman reported on the Oct. 23 ABC Nightly News that while doctors claim to wash their hands 79% of the time (still not 100%), in reality they only wash their hands – wait for it – 9% of the time. Dr. Semmelweis is turning in his grave.

As Berman reported, doctors are now being asked to submit their hands for petri dishes, and the results are quite disturbing. (Berman himself submitted his hands for a petri dish, and what the viewing audience saw was revolting.) The bacteria being carried on the hands of doctors to their patients is sickening and killing patients.

Fill-in anchor George Stephanopoulous could barely contain his revulsion when he saw Berman's petri dish. (Neither could we.) He suggested that Berman scrub up. (Something about seeing what bacteria looks like is just way too creepy.)

So ask your doctor to wash his/her hands. And everyone else who is going to touch you, as well. Who says TV makes you stupid? Stay tuned.