TruTV, 6:40 p.m. ET
The “First Four,” as the games for final qualifiers looking to make it into this year’s NCAA basketball tourney are called, feature eight teams who have to win one “play-in” game to advance to spots held for them in the final bracket. Two games are shown tonight, two more tomorrow, all on TruTV. (Get used to finding basketball in unusual places this month). Tonight’s games: North Carolina AT&T vs. Liberty at 6:40 p.m. ET, followed by Middle Tennessee vs. Saint Mary’s at 9:10 p.m. ET.
Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET
This episode is a follow-up to “the kiss,” in which Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) stopped being platonic roommates – but only for one long, revealing, impulsive passionate embrace. On tonight’s new episode, Jess, once again, gets mushy – but this time it’s because her brain’s a little mushy, too, a side effect of her pain meds.
Discovery, 9:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: This new series about interconnected scientific discoveries asks how the smartphone was made possible by, for example, Frankenstein’s monster, movie star Hedy Lamarr, and the Titanic? There’s no need asking, though how they invented How We Invented the World. In theory, it’s a ripoff of James Burke’s classic science series of the 1970s, Connections.
NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET
The biggest diva on this show, right now, is the one played by guest star Sean Hayes, who’s playing a popular comic actor with a huge ego and a sudden compulsion (fed by Megan Hilty’s Ivy) to take acting seriously. Is the transition working? Based on this point in the rehearsals for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the answer is a resounding no. And over at rehearsals for Bombshell, and for the other show within this show, Hit List, things aren’t so great, either.
FX, 10:00 p.m. ET
I’ve seen the previews, so calling this week’s show an explosive episode is by no means an exaggeration. There’s one point where a lot of things, in the words of those Farm Film Report guys from SCTV, “blow up real good.” Could you expect any less, with Boyd and the Detroit mob on one side, and Raylan and the elusive Drew Thompson on the other? What a show.