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CBS, 7:30 p.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: It was precisely 49 years ago today – on Sept. 24, 1968 – that CBS presented the inaugural telecast of a new TV newsmagazine, 60 Minutes. Created by Don Hewitt and co-hosted by Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner, it not only has survived on TV ever since, but has generated a consistently excellent, usually unparalleled body of work in the TV newsmagazine field. To date, 60 Minutes has earned 20 Peabody Awards, 138 Emmys, and still manages, many weeks, to land installments in the week’s Top 10. With tonight’s 2017 season premiere, CBS and 60 Minutes are celebrating the show’s 50^th anniversary (which confuses me a bit: shouldn’t it be 49?), and doing so by introducing a new 60 Minutes correspondent. You may have heard of her: Oprah Winfrey. Expect it to start a bit later than usual, after football.

WHO SHOT BIGGIE & TUPAC?

Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET

Ice-T and Soledad O’Brien, a reporting team you don’t encounter every day, collaborate on this two-hour special, which poses the long-unanswered question, Who Shot Biggie & Tupac? Don’t expect it to be answered tonight, either, necessarily. But here this special is, anyway…

THE VIETNAM WAR

PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET

Part 6. This begins week two of the Ken Burns-Lynn Novick documentary miniseries The Vietnam War. And though the five episodes to date have been remarkably instructive, powerful and emotional, these next five more than double down on everything. Tonight, for example, is the episode entitled “Things Fall Apart,” a title that refers to both sides of the war – beginning, in January 1968, with the country-wide attack known as the Tet Offensive. For a full review of tonight’s episode, see Alex Strachan’s TV That Matters. Check local listings.

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

CBS, 8:30 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: The newest entry in the Star Trek TV canon, launching a dozen years after the end of Star Trek: Enterprise, begins tonight – and begins as sort of a mystery, because no episodes were provided to critics for advance preview. I know I should be offended by that, but these days, any new TV I don’t have to watch is a gift. But Star Trek: Discovery, like CBS’s the Good Fight last season, is being presented as a bait-and-switch lure to try to get viewers to subscribe to CBS All Access. The premiere episode of Star Trek: Discovery, which is set in time a decade before the original Star Trek, will be televised on CBS – but from then on, episodes will be shown only on CBS’s streaming service, beginning with episode two immediately after CBS finishes showing the premiere. Sonequa Martin-Green stars as First Officer Michael Burnham.

THE DEUCE

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

It’s great news that HBO has renewed Deuce for a second season, because this first season ends just as the story is really heating up. But these intervening episodes are fascinating, and deep, character studies – and tonight, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Candy makes her first stiletto-heeled steps into the porn film business.

RAY DONOVAN

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

Jon Voight, as Ray’s loose-cannon dad, has taken on unofficial avenging angel status this season – and tonight, intends to right a wrong by recovering the money – more than $1 million in cash – stolen from one of his sons. Meanwhile, another son, Ray, gets more dangerously intertwined with two different woman, while, at the same time, mourning a third.

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

CBS All Access, 9:30 p.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: Part 2 of 2. So here’s the deal: After CBS is through televising the premiere, for free, of Star Trek: Discovery, viewers immediately can watch episode two. But that’s only if they switch over to CBS All Access, the network’s subscription-fee streaming service, which will be showing all remaining Star Trek: Discovery episodes Sundays on a weekly basis. In other words, the first taste is free. Everything else, you have to pay for…

EPISODES

Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET

Matt LeBlanc and his writers are in deep huddle mode, trying to come up with one more series idea for him while his iron is hot, and his network has agreed to a contractually mandated new show. Matt already has a title, and a concept – but it turns out Whores is taken. So this week, the creative spit-balling continues.

LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER

HBO, 11:00 p.m. ET

Last week, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was not televised, because Oliver was in Los Angeles, winning a couple of Emmy: outstanding writing for a variety series, and outstanding variety talk series. This week, carrying all that gold, Last Week returns.

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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.

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