The Fall Classic grows more slickly packaged and crassly commercial each year. Less and less a sporting contest and more and more a TV event.

The primary reason it got off to such an unseasonably tardy start is that Fox didn't want to begin the Series on a Saturday night, when viewership is at a low ebb.

How about the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving? Does that work for you? The players can wear batting mittens.

Did you sit through that protracted rain delay before the third game? Nice place for a couple of retrospectives on the rich traditions of the Yankees and Phillies franchises, right?

Instead, we got an excruciating 90-minute string of promos for Fox series like Lie to Me and Bones. The network even started showing an episode of its Sunday-night cartoon The Cleveland Show. That really whetted our appetite for the (wet) game.

Before the sixth and final game of the Series, Mary J. Blige delivered a blazing rendition of the national anthem. While her voice was still echoing in Yankee Stadium, Fox announcer Chris Rose boomed, "Look for Mary J. Blige's new album, Stronger, coming out later this year."

Because nothing says patriotism like a good album plug.

Fox might as well get rid of Joe Buck and bring Ryan Seacrest out of the bullpen. "Bases loaded. Full count. We'll be back for the pitch . . . right after this word from our sponsors."

Blimey! From House to Gossip Girl, prime time is full of British actors pretending to be Yanks. (Throw Aussies in there, and you also get The Mentalist, Fringe, and Three Rivers.)

But FlashForward is a rarity, an American series featuring two British leads (Joseph Fiennes and Sonya Walger) talking to each other in American accents. Can you name another?

Hey, Crockett. Interesting guest stars are busting out all over this season.

As the fourth season of Friday Night Lights rolls out on DirecTV, Matt has taken an internship with a boorish and eccentric metal sculptor. Diehard TV fans may recognize the actor as John Diehl, who once played Detective Larry Zito on Miami Vice.

This week's Bored to Death on HBO was missing only Jon Stewart. Daily Show regular (and the hapless PC from the long-running Apple computer campaign) John Hodgman played a supercilious Salon critic. And The Daily Show's Samantha Bee was half of a Brooklyn lesbian couple.

Straight downhill. Abruptly canceled by NBC, Southland has found a home on TNT starting in January.

There's simply no room for quality drama on the Peacock Network. In fact, NBC's new slogan should be: "Home of the Biggest Loser."

Stay close, boys. This week a stalker was arrested after trying to gain entrance to the E! studios to see Ryan Seacrest. The man had been issued a restraining order in September after attacking a member of Seacrest's security detail.

Even in light of these incidents, I find it hard to believe that the American Idol host really requires a "security detail." Unless he's emulating Simon Cowell again.