On 'Vampire Diaries,' a night of fright

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TV This Week
On 'Vampire Diaries,' a night of fright
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Oct 29, 2009 - 1:00:17 AM

There will be lots of Halloween-themed episodes on television tonight, as the November sweeps kick off, but perhaps none more thematically appropriate than that of "The Vampire Diaries," airing at 8 p.m. on the CW.

It is, after all, a show about vampires, which are forecast to be one of the top costume choices this Halloween.

In tonight's episode, Matt takes Vicki to a haunted house being staged at their high school, hoping to cheer her up, but things take a frightful turn that have nothing to do with the faux spooks. Meanwhile, Bonnie gets a special necklace to wear with her Halloween costume.

Sensing that Halloween would be a good time to hype its vampire show, the CW promoted tonight's episode to teens and young adults via ChaCha, a free mobile service that provides answers to people's text and voicemail questions.

In a promotion that began Saturday, ChaCha sent out text messages to users of the service teasing tonight's episode with phrases like, "If vampires R your thing, then you can't miss 'The Vampire Diaries' Halloween episode TONIGHT @ 8/7c only on The CW! Find out if Halloween really sucks!"

ChaCha ran a similar promotion for "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" earlier this year, resulting in 1 million texts and a 27 percent increase in awareness of the movie, according to the company.

Any viewership bump would be welcome for "Diaries," though the show is already tops on the network across most demographics, and it's seeing a nice bump from DVR viewing, according to Nielsen.

"Diaries" is averaging a 3.5 women 18-34 rating in live-plus-seven-day-DVR-playback, up 67 percent over its live average. Among women 18-49 it's averaging a 2.9 L+7 rating, up 65 percent from live.

A look at this week’s top TV draws
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29
Time	Network	Program	Description
7:30 p.m.	ESPN	“College Football” (S)	ACC matchup between North Carolina and Virginia Tech.
7:30 p.m.	Fox	“Major League Baseball” (S)	Game two of the World Series.
8 p.m.	CW	“Vampire Diaries” (D)	Something goes wrong when Matt and Vicki visit the school’s Halloween haunted house.
9 p.m.	ABC	“Grey’s Anatomy” (D)	A hospital lab technician has a tumor around his spine.
9 p.m.	NBC	“The Office” (C)	The office puts together a haunted house for area children. Gee, that sounds like a can't miss idea ...
10 p.m.	FX	“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (C)	The crew puts on a wrestling show for returning troops.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30
Time	Network	Program	Description
7 a.m.	ABC	“Good Morning America” (N)	Actor Jim Carrey makes an appearance.
8 p.m.	CBS	“Ghost Whisperer” (D)	Melinda is haunted by the headless horseman.
8 p.m.	Disney Channel	“Wizards of Waverly Place” (K)	Justin looks to Juliet’s vampire family for a monster-hunting course.
8 p.m.	ESPN	“NBA Basketball” (S)	The Bulls take on the Celtics in Boston.
9 p.m.	ABC	“Ugly Betty” (D)	Marc works as Betty’s temporary assistant.
10 p.m.	USA	“Monk” (D)	Monk takes care of a dog whose owner has gone missing.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31
Time	Network	Program	Description
3:30 p.m.	CBS	“College Football” (S)	SEC game between Georgia and Florida.
7:30 p.m.	NBC	“College Football” (S)	Notre Dame takes on Washington State in San Antonio. (Apparently neither school has a great geography department.)
7:30 p.m.	Fox	“Major League Baseball” (S)	Coverage of game three of the World Series.
8 p.m.	ABC	“College Football” (S)	Regional matchups, most likely Texas versus Oklahoma State for much of the country.
9 p.m.	Showtime	“Boxing” (S)	Bantamweight title fight between Joseph Agbeko and Yonnhy Perez.
9 p.m.	Animal Planet	“Dogs 101” (N)	A look at Italian Greyhounds, Border Collies and others.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1
Time	Network	Program	Description
1 p.m.	ABC	“NASCAR Racing” (S)	A Sprint Cup race from Talladega, Ala.
4:15 p.m.	Fox	“NFL Football” (S)	Most of the country will watch Brett Favre’s return to Green Bay’s Lambeau Field.
8 p.m.	Fox	“Major League Baseball” (S)	Game four of the World Series.
9 p.m.	ABC	“Desperate Housewives” (D)	Juanita gets expelled from school, and it’s Gaby’s fault.
9 p.m.	HBO	“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (C)	Larry has a string of bad luck on the golf course.
9 p.m.	Showtime	“Dexter” (D)	Dexter tries to ramp up his efforts in catching the Trinity Killer.
10 p.m.	AMC	“Mad Men” (D)	Peggy’s poor taste in men comes to light.
A = awards show or special, C = comedy, D = drama, DD = daytime drama, G = game show, K = kids, M = movie, N = news/documentary, R = reality, S = sports, T = talk/variety show.