This well-timed biography of Billie Jean King, who made history both on and off the tennis court, arrives just one day after a two-day series of brilliant tennis finals at the U.S. Open. Watching this profile explains, in part, why tennis has become such a popular TV sport – and especially why, when Serena Williams won the other day, she was given as much prize money as the men’s winner, Rafael Nadal. Check local listings.

Another great night of classic early films is presented tonight on TCM, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the 1924 silent swashbuckler, The Thief of Baghdad. And the evening starts, at 8 p.m. ET, with this influential, classic 1922 documentary – originally a silent film, but with narration recorded and added a generation later, for a new audience. It’s the images, though, that matters, as director Robert Flaherty captures the simple yet proud life of an Eskimo. I remember watching this in high school, and pitying poor Nanook because he was smart and agile enough to spear salmon swimming upstream, yet so dumb he would eat his catch raw, rather than cook it on the fire that kept him warm nearby. It was many years later before I realized Nanook was dumb like an arctic fox, and was enjoying what must have been the world’s freshest, most fabulous sashimi.

Blame my enthusiasm for this new NFL Network biography on growing up in southern Florida in the Sixties and early Seventies. When I was a teenager, the Miami Dolphins handed me a perfect season, which is why I’ve been loyal to them ever since. And spent way too much time and money, in recent years, watching the Dolphins play every week on satellite TV. Sigh. But here’s a profile of the coach who got them through an entire season, and a Super Bowl, without a loss.

These overviews of WNET-Ch. 13 in New York aren’t televised nationwide, but should be – because these well-produced local TV history lessons are a true treat to watch. It would be enough, in this compendium of local and national programming produced by WNET, to start and stop with Bill Moyers’ Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, one of the best talking-heads TV series ever made. But the other stuff sampled and saluted here includes David Attenborough’s Life on Earth, the movie Koyaanisqatsi, and the late, great American Playhouse.

SEASON PREMIERE: As this new season begins, Clay (Ron Perlman) has been framed for murder and is behind bars, but Tara (Maggie Siff) may be heading there also, charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Jax (Charlie Hunnam), who’s now running the club with a free hand, has to handle all that, and more. His mission, should he decide to accept is, is to keep Tara out of jail, and keep Clay in. Clay in prison, after all, is the next best thing to a sequel to Oz.

There’s a special, delightful chemistry on view tonight, as two former Friends continue to play well together in Lisa Kudrow’s Showtime comedy series. She plays a goofy online therapist named Fiona – and last week, she met a new client, an online gambling addict played by Matt Matt Le Blanc. He, of course, played Joey to her Phoebe on NBC’s Friends, which began nearly 20 years ago. And here they are again, just as much fun to watch. In tonight’s show, his character discovers that Fiona has been spying on him by playing online poker at the same virtual table.