Couch potatoes everywhere are rejoicing that we're into October, and most of their - OK, our - favourite shows are back. After the writer's strike, when pickings were slim, it's nice to have that old TiVo filling up again.
But despite the season premieres of all those highly rated shows - Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and even, heaven help us, Dancing with the Stars - the TV landscape has been profoundly altered by that one television event that rolls around every four years: the presidential debates.
Given the historic nature of the campaign - 'Look, it's a black man for president!' ... 'No, it's a white woman for vice-president!' - it's not surprising that shows which usually command millions of viewers are being held off for a week so people can gather round their tellies and mock the debates. There are viewing parties around the US, in bars and people's homes, where the real purpose of politics is sidelined for the evening in favour of good old-fashioned heckling.
After all, sometimes it's the best TV ever. Around 70 million people tuned in to watch Alaskan governor Sarah Palin wink her way into the annals of history when she debated with Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden, he of the perfectly coiffed hair and gleaming smile. And those same 70 million people - with the possible exception of dyed-in-the-wool Republicans in the Alaskan town of Wasilla, where Palin was once mayor - argued over the water cooler the next day, dissecting what she had said (or hadn't said). As in - and I paraphrase her - 'I'm not going to answer questions, I'm just going to say what I want.' Roll on, November 4.
Really, the debates can be hugely compelling - more so than your average reality show. You have snide comments, obfuscation, chicanery and barbed insults being whizzed back and forth.
Palin, with her grating tone and 'gee shucks' persona, isn't too far removed from the blonde bimbettes on Girls Next Door, the reality show about Hugh Hefner's three favourite Playboy bunnies. John McCain is awkward, Barack Obama looks confused (in a presidential way), and Biden resembles an overly tanned Hollywood producer lunching at the Ivy. And, like good reality TV, it makes you want to throw something at the screen.