TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: Aug. 7
A select viewing guide for Tuesday, Aug. 7
REALITY House Hunters International HGTV, 7 p.m. This series is pretty much the same show as House Hunters, except it follows prospective home buyers and their realtors in foreign lands. Tonight, host Suzanne Whang lends her expertise to a nice couple named Rob and Lisa, who currently reside in a Cincinnati suburb. When Lisa lands a teaching job in Hong Kong, they pack up their three sons and go house-hunting. They quickly realize it makes more sense to rent than buy, but even with a budget of $6,500 a month, finding a suitable home in one of the world’s most congested cities is a challenge.
DRAMA NCIS CBS, Global, 8 p.m. It appears there is no off season for this sturdy crime-procedural series, due to return for a 10 th season in September. In tonight’s rebroadcast, NCIS honcho Gibbs (Mark Harmon) looks into the brutal murder of a navy captain whose body was discovered with a superhero costume beneath his uniform. Perrey Reeves, better known as Ari’s long-suffering wife on Entourage, guest stars as a journalist investigating the case.
REALITY Shipping Wars A&E, 9 p.m. If A&E can mine ratings gold with reality programs about faded rock stars (Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels) and parking officers (Parking Wars), why not a show about people who ship things for a living? Back tonight for a second season, this popular series follows six independent shipping companies that transport items most carriers won’t touch. Most of the screen time is devoted to veteran shipper Roy Garber, who operates out of tiny Contoocook, N.H., and specializes in shipping oversized bulky loads. In tonight’s new episode, Roy gets into hot water when he damages a massive sculpture of a baseball legend.
DOCUMENTARY Frontline PBS, 10 p.m. Sure, the global economy is in rough shape these days, but remember the great meltdown of 2008? Hosted by Martin Smith, this sharp documentary interviews more than 70 people – economists, journalists, politicians, bankers, et al – who were involved in the events leading up to the largest government bailout in U.S. history. Tonight’s instalment explains how the bailout was merely a Band-Aid solution that rattled the political landscape and left incoming President Barack Obama with a staggering debt. The program also takes sharp aim at the big banks, how they profited and how the same business model that produced staggering wealth eventually left America teetering on the next Depression.Joe Raedle/Getty Images
MOVIE Beautiful Girls Vision, midnight Rewind the clock to the nineties when feature films were stories about troubled souls looking for love in all the wrong places. Case in point: this 1996 dramedy set in a picture-perfect New England town and following a handful of complicated young men several years post-high school. The central character Willie (Timothy Hutton) is an intense pianist-poet about to take a job as a salesman. Weirdly, the only personal connection that rings true today is Willie’s relationship with a teen figure skater named Marty, played by a young Natalie Portman.