ABC Family, 8:30 p.m. ET
Here’s a new reason to revisit this iconic movie version of the Broadway musical. In January, the Fox network is mounting a live TV production of Grease: Live, starring Julianne Hough and Aaron Tveit in the roles played in the 1978 film by, respectively, Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. Also in the upcoming TV production: Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo, Carly Rae Jepsen as Frenchy, and Jessie J singing the opening number that was introduced in the movie, “Grease (Is the Word.)”
Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET
Curious about Lady Gaga’s screen presence in next week’s American Horror Story: Hotel on FX? Well, you can catch an early glimpse of her here, outside of her music-video comfort zone, in this 2014 sequel to 2005's Sin City. Frank Miller, creator of the original graphic novel on which this cinematic series is based, co-directs with Robert Rodriguez, and many of the famous faces from the first film are back for more noir, including Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis. As for the women, as always showcased arrestingly in this highly stylized visual series: They include plenty of dames and broads and killers to make you go Gaga, including Jessica Alba, Eva Green, Jaime King and (pictured) Rosario Dawson.
PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET
Ai Weiwei is an outspoken artist who has been jailed, prosecuted and persecuted by the Chinese government, yet defiantly becomes more visible, and more vocal, after every punishment inflicted upon him by the state. One inventively aggressive counter-move by the artist: after his release from prison, he installed four constantly operating webcams in his home, putting himself under global surveillance to catch any intrusions or abuses by government forces. What drives someone to be so brazenly and bravely defiant? That’s one of the questions this profile addresses, along with how social media are being used as a weapon, both defensive and offensive, against oppressive governments. Check local listings.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
So what if we’ve found water on Mars? What’s the big deal? On hand to explain, as scheduled guests on this week’s Real Time with Bill Maher, are evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
TCM, 11:30 p.m. ET
Here's the best of tonight's TCM "haunted house" movies: This slow-building but jarringly effective 1963 horror movie was directed by Robert Wise, two years after he made the film version of West Side Story and two years before he directed another screen musical, The Sound of Music. This film, by contrast, is anything but a tune-filled romp: Julie Harris stars as one of a small group of people terrorized by what appears to be a paranormal entity, and a sinister one at that. Also among the stars: Russ Tambyn, who starred for Wise as one of the Jets in West Side Story.