Bravo, 8:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: This is the Season 8 opener of The Real Housewives of Orange County, the grandmother of this particular strain of Housewives reality shows – and yet I can honestly say I’m just as enthusiastic about this series now as I was when it began. And for tonight’s season opener, Bravo offers us glimpses of Tamra Barney’s bachelorette party. No longer does the phrase “Barney and friends” mean, on TV, we’re about to see a purple dinosaur. Just watch out for some other sort of brightly colored gyrating reptile.
USA, 8:00 p.m. ET
Three hours of Monday Night Raw in prime time? Somehow, that doesn’t seem like enough. The Rock is back as a guest fighter, promoting his upcoming pay-per-view WrestleMania bout against John Cena. How 'bout that! And if you think tonight’s three-hour installment serves only as a 180-minute commercial for a subscription TV event, well then, you’re just not getting in the WWE spirit. This series isn’t hitting rock bottom. It’s a hit with the Rock, bottom line.
Bravo, 9:00 p.m. ET
I missed this new Bravo series when it premiered last month, because I presumed it was a sober documentary about the 2010 census, suggesting that Los Angeles was losing population compared to a decade ago. But I was wrong. L.A. Shrinks turns out to be new Bravo reality show, following the private practices, and private lives, of three “high-end” therapists (including Venus Nicolino, pictured) treating patients in the City of Angels. Wow! Who wouldn’t want to see a show about that? You’d have to be crazy to miss it. In which case, I guess, you really shouldn’t miss it.
TLC, 9:00 p.m. ET
TLC presents two episodes of this “moppet beauty pageant contestant” reality-show series tonight in prime time. They aren’t new episodes – but does anyone tune in to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to learn anything new? Or learn anything, period? But this show is worth championing, I feel, because of its subtle insights. Like, for example, how it helps, on occasion, to superimpose even English-speaking, U.S.-born natives with subtitles.
Flix, 10:00 p.m. ET
In terms of film comedy, you could draw a straight line from Charles Chaplin as the Little Tramp to Julia Sweeney as Pat, the person of unidentified gender, in this 1994 movie. I don’t know why you’d want to, or what it might mean – but you could. Everyone knows that every Saturday Night Live sketch should be turned into a full-length movie… just ask Will Ferrell, who starred with Chris Kattan as the Bubati Brothers in that 1998 big-screen comedy film, A Night at the Roxbury. He must have learned a lot from that experience, because every movie he’s made since has been an improvement. As for It’s Pat, it also co-stars Charles Rocket, who left SNL after accidentally launching the F-bomb on live TV. And Kathy Griffin, who plays herself. Just think: “Pat,” Kathy Griffin and Charles Rocket all in one movie… and yet they never made a sequel. Let’s hope for them all: It’s Still Pat. Holding Pat. And, of course, the dramatic-departure spinoff: Pat on a Hot Tin Roof.
