Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET
Well, we don’t have Erika Van Pelt around any more – the blonde who went brunette for Billy Joel week, but was ousted despite her one-woman extreme makeover. So now it’s another live two-hour performance show – and then, tomorrow, another show where Jimmy Iovine assesses the performances bluntly, while the “real” judges play verbal versions of "duck and cover."
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
You gotta get a gimmick, and in this 1962 movie version of the famous stage musical, Natalie Wood plays the child performer who grows up to be infamous burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, after a lifetime of being pushed into and around show biz by her overbearing mother, Rose (Rosalind Russell). Think of it, if you like, as Toddlers and Tiaras: The Musical.
NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET
One of tonight’s reports looks at the currently ubiquitous practice of negative political advertising – who generates it, who pays for it, and who approves it. The segment’s title is a good one: “Let There Be Mud.”
Comedy Central, 10:00 p.m. ET
How can you mine any excitement, much less comedy, out of a grade-school filmstrip? In tonight’s new South Park, you do it by speeding up the process of evolution, so that there’s a mutant-type new life form running around South Park. And actually, there’s more than one…
BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: Last season, this modern-day British detective series made headlines by revisiting them – and examining a serial killer who borrowed heavily from the historical crimes and legacy of Jack the Ripper. To open this second season, Whitechapel unearths another old case with apparent ties to a current crime spree. This time, the case is the Ratcliff Highway murders of 1812, where killings took place behind closed doors – an unusual event at the time, when most murders were committed in more public spaces. Ray Davis and Rupert Penry-Jones star.