The TV Zone

Boo!!! Now that I've got your attention, may I direct it to Wednesday's episode of "CSI: New York" (entitled "Boo," I believe) which heads out to poor, beleaguered, much-haunted, and much-maligned Amityville, where one house on one particular avenue known as Ocean reputedly bled, and told people to "get out," etc. A movie was made about it, too. I'm sure you've heard about that.

Tomorrow's "CSI" special Halloween edition is a keeper, however, because Mac, Stella and Danny head out to A-ville to solve a horrific crime when the local cops can't quite cope. What's the deal? Peter Lenkov, executive producer, told me yesterday, "It's something I've wanted to do for three years, and now the timing is right because the episode actually airs on Halloween, and the last two seasons, Halloween didn't fall on a Wednesday. So we got lucky.

"We've paced it a little differently - it feels much more like a ghost or horror story - and [use it] to debunk some horror myths along the way. The whole story of the house that bled from walls or has strange voices? It felt like our CSI could get into a situation where they could debunk or explain some of that to an audience."

The story line: There have been multiple homicides in A-ville, and "you find out that the local police are busy on another [crime] taking place at almost the same time. They bring in the pros from Manhattan to sort of help them.

Lenkov adds, "science will explain how [ghosts] exist, and - I don't want to give away too much...but the idea was to do a horror-like episode [and explain] how a house speaks, or has a voice, or how it can bleed through walls."

(Science!? And all along I thought the movie was a perfectly accurate representation of the facts...)