BEST BETS FOR APRIL 03, 2008

MY NAME IS EARL

NBC, 8 p.m. ET

This NBC series returns with a welcome two-parter, but with two elements that are less great than grating. One is the opening guest appearance by NBC/Universal executive Jeff Zucker, who recaps the show’s plot up until the writers’ strike stopped production, and the other is an intermittent guest appearance by Paris Hilton, who pops up in a series of sitcom fantasy sequences to repeat two words, and two words only. One word is "hot." Guess the other word? (That's right! "That's" right!) Neither she nor Zucker adds anything to the show but anti-humor, but there are some funny scenes here – and a third guest star, Alyssa Milano, actually helps more than hurts.

SURVIVOR: MICONESIA - FANS vs. FAVORITES

CBS, 8 p.m. ET

I don’t know how much more stupidly the contestants can play this game this cycle – but I’m confident they’ll find a way. Never before, on Survivor, have so many done so much that’s so idiotic. And it’s not over yet. The ladies try and align themselves into a voting bloc (a little late, girls, but nice try). And could this be the week the fool with the fake hidden immunity idol tries to save himself by putting in play, even though it’s nothing but a stick with a crudely carved smiley face?

COFFY

IFC, 9 p.m. ET

Pam Grier’s first solo starring role was in this 1973 blaxploitation film, an action movie that was as aggressive and cinematically significant for feminism as it was for the emergent subgenre of black action films. Grier plays a nurse who decides to take aim at local drug dealers – literally, with a shotgun. It’s followed at 10:35 by another Grier tough-gal showcase: 1974’s Foxy Brown. (The rapper known as Foxy Brown was named much, much later: She wasn’t even born until 1979.)

WITHOUT A TRACE

CBS, 10 p.m. ET

This time it’s personal: The missing person the team has to find is Jack himself, who was trying to find someone when he himself disappeared. And here you thought it was just because of the writers’ strike.

ICONOCLASTS

Sundance Channel, 10 p.m. ET

This is a repeat, but it’s one of this season’s most easygoing and entertaining entries. Paul Simon and Lorne Michaels, who have been friends for a long, long time, talk about their personal and professional relationship – including the time, on a Thanksgiving-week episode of Saturday Night Live, Michaels persuaded Simon to dress up in a giant turkey costume to sing “Still Crazy After All These Years.” Still an all-time comedy classic, and Simon sells it hilariously.