ABC Family, 8:30 p.m. ET
Very recent events have made this 1996 movie unfortunately timely, and uncomfortably prescient: a huge and powerful F-5 tornado touches down and juggernauts its way across the landscape, claiming lives, demolishing everything in its past, and even killing some of the researchers who flock to track and study it. But now, after the redesignated EF-5 that just accomplished all that in real life, this movie seems a little less like escapist fiction. Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton star.
ABC, 9:00 p.m. ET
The NBA postseason contest moves to ABC for the finals, beginning with tonight’s Game 1. It’s a team game, but most eyes will be on two dominant players: LeBron James for the Miami Heat and Tim Duncan for the San Antonio Spurs. One of them will be strengthening his legacy; the other will not.
USA, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: This entertaining, durable USA series returns for its seventh and final season, picking up nine months after last season’s cliffhanger left off. Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) went deep undercover to save his friends – but now, as he emerges after a long undercover mission on foreign soil, his relationship with them doesn’t exactly pick up without losing a beat.
BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES PREMIERE: Give credit to this three-part British miniseries, for finding a new way into the zombie craze. Its angle is to focus on a young man named Kieren (Luke Newberry), a zombie who, like many others in this fantasy drama, has benefited from medical research that provides an apparent cure, and return to living, breathing normalcy. The former zombies are given a medical syndrome term – Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferer, or PDSS – and returned to society to be assimilated. But is society ready? There’s a lot of zombie prejudice out there, allowing this drama to revel in all sorts of intriguing allegories and story lines. Runs nightly through Saturday.
NBC, 10:01 p.m. ET
Give this series credit, at least, for landing some impressively unusual guest stars. Hannibal already has featured Gillian Anderson as a therapist, and tonight it features guest star Eddie Izzard, returning for his second appearance as another doctor – twisted killer Dr. Gideon.