And The Agony Continues...

I'm not, by nature, an optimist.

So almost every Georgia-Florida weekend since I started at UGA way back in 1990 has been something of pure torture for me, as I'm sure it's been for the rest of Bulldawg Nation.

I carry little hopes that this year's Cocktail Party (CBS, Saturday, 3:30 p.m.) is going to be much better. Georgia got whipped by Tennessee two games ago and barely beat Vandy before this past weekend's bye week.

My lone ember of hope is that this season, there are about five upsets every weekend, everything from Appalachian State winning at Michigan to USC losing at home despite being a 41-point favorite. Will the Dogs get swept up in upset mania and change what has been a constant fate for most of the past two decades?

I don't know, but winning this game more than once a decade would be nice.

THURSDAY RECAP: Maybe it was having Jason Reitman on board as director, or maybe it was the return to the half-hour format, but last night's "The Office" was definitely the strongest effort of the season, from Dwight and Andy's different reactions to the initial "D" to Michael's commercial, a classic Michael Scott joint if I ever saw one. Hopefully, NBC will finally learn the lesson that you can have too much of a good thing.

WEEKEND'S BEST BETS: Well, I dissed "Moonlight" (CBS, 9 p.m.) with my initial review, and four episodes in, I still don't think it's very good, but it continues to pull together a steady following. One of the few things I liked about the show was Jason Dohring's character of Josef, but he has hardly had anything to do thus far and wasn't even in last week's installment. And I still prefer the wide variety of demons and supernatural creatures that the gang on "Angel" fought to the vampire-of-the-week or really-bad-human-of-the-week that "Moonlight" is seemingly stuck with. A new "Ghost Whisperer" precedes it, while the night wraps up with "Numb3rs."

"Women's Murder Club" (ABC, 9 p.m.) is carving out its own niche on Fridays. It's a solid show, certainly not appointment television, but fairly entertaining if you are home on a Friday. It's followed by the cult hit, "Men In Trees."

Unfortunately, with both "Moonlight" and "Club" doing well, it takes away potential viewership from the night's best show, "Friday Night Lights" (NBC, 9 p.m.) Much like the cast and crew of the show, I'm resigning myself to the fact that this is never going to get even fair ratings despite superior acting and writing. If this is the last year, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the ride. It's followed by "Las Vegas," in which former Tom Selleck's former "Magnum, PI" buddies Larry Manetti and Roger Mosley show up for a mini-reunion.

"Torchwood" (BBC America, Sat., 9 p.m.) is all-new and coming off its most ingenious episode yet last week.

On Sunday, new episodes of "Cold Case" (CBS, 9 p.m.) and "Shark" (CBS, 10 p.m.) compete with Game 4 of the World Series (Fox, 8 p.m.), as do ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Brothers and Sisters," from 9-11 p.m.

As always, the pick for Sundays is the ingenious "Dexter," (Showtime, 9 p.m.), which is followed by a new "Brotherhood" at 10 p.m.