PBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: The fourth and final of this season’s documentary studies is devoted to Miniseries – but, like the other installments, dilutes the power of its subject by being maddeningly superficial. Except for a one-minute mention of NBC’s Shogun, the entire hour is devoted to three ABC miniseries: Roots, The Thorn Birds and Rich Man, Poor Man. Though all three deserve inclusion and study, this hour isn’t a history of the genre, it’s a TV fanzine. Why in the world wouldn’t you start with the real pioneers of the miniseries form? Why not salute the multi-part dramatic biographies of Abraham Lincoln and John and Quincy Adams on CBS’s Omnibus in the Fifties? Or super-early miniseries Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier on ABC’s Disneyland? Or CBS’s surreal The Prisoner series from 1968? Or the original public TV importations of The Forsyte Saga and Upstairs, Downstairs in the early Seventies? All of those miniseries predated the “pioneers” shown in this hour. What’s here isn’t worthless – but what’s missing is a shame, and a waste. Check local listings.
NBC, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: This two-hour season premiere, overseen by new show-runner Josh Safran, essentially hits the reset button. By the time the two hours are over, several old plots (and characters) are dismissed, and new ones set into action. And the future of Bombshell, the Marilyn Monroe musical at the heart of all this, continues to be in doubt, while formerly competing leading ladies Ivy (Megan Hilty) and Karen (Katharine McPhee) continue to find their respective paths. And early on, an established star is introduced in the character of new Broadway sensation Veronica Moore, played by Jennifer Hudson. Hudson, like McPhee, is a losing finalist on American Idol – and both of them (pictured) have proven themselves as true winners since.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
Instead of being a profile of Silicon Valley in the modern era, this documentary tells only the early story – starting in 1957, when a small team of physicists and engineers went out to start a new industry in a new setting. Check local listings.
FX, 10:00 p.m. ET
I don’t know why it happens, I just know that it does: In tonight’s episode, for the first time all season, Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) and Boyd (Walton Goggins) share the same scene. Stand by, sports fans. When these two actors are together, the results are never less than championship level.
TCM, 10:15 p.m. ET
Whatever your opinion of the recent Les Miserables movie, or even of the less recent Chicago, neither of those musical films would exist without this groundbreaking predecessor, Bob Fosse’s brilliant 1972 big-screen version of Cabaret. Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey are brilliant, as is the way this entire film is edited and presented. Oh, and the music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb? More brilliance. One verse alone, from the title song, proves that point: “Start by admitting from cradle to tomb isn’t that long a stay / Life is a cabaret, old chum / Life is a cabaret.” Indeed.