TV: Five shows worth watching tonight: November 12
A select viewing guide for Monday November 12
DRAMA Bones (Fox, Global, 8 p.m.) Still holding strong in Monday-night network ratings–even up against such heavyweight fare as The Voice and Dancing with the Stars–the Fox Network’s highest-rated crime procedural series has taken a slight conceptual shift in its eighth season. In a welcome change of pace, the focus has pulled back from stolid FBI agent Booth (David Boreanaz) and moved more toward his parter-in-crime-solving Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel). To the show’s writers credit, the fact the pair had a child together last season rarely factors into the storytelling. In tonight’s new episode, Brennan challenges her five favourite “squinterns” to identify some human remains from 9/11 heretofore deemed unidentifiable. The big question: Was the deceased a victim or a perpetrator of the terrorist attacks?
FOOD Health Inspectors (Food Network, 9 p.m.) Finally, a food-themed series that doesn’t glamourize the restaurant industry. Hailing from the U.S. Food Network, this series follows the work routine of professional dining consultant Ben Vaughn, who specializes in helping restaurants clean up their kitchens in order to pass health inspections. Tonight’s opener takes him to New Orleans for a rescue mission to a local eatery called Big Momma’s Chicken & Waffles. The good news is that Big Momma’s has a loyal stream of customers coming and going each day. The bad news: Big Momma’s kitchen is a disaster area with filthy deep-fryers, piles of rotting food, kitchen workers who refuse to wear hair nets and only days away from a health-code inspection. You’ll never see a group of cleaners scramble faster.
COMEDY Wedding Band (MuchMoreMusic, 9 p.m.) The TBS network is becoming the new assembly-line of the American sitcom. Following the modest success for the TBS laughers Men at Work and Sullivan & Son (both picked up here by The Comedy Network), the U.S. superstation just keeps cranking out inoffensive half-hour comedies aimed at a broad audience. This new TBS entry casts former Beverly Hills, 90210 regular Brian Austin Green as Tommy, a confirmed bachelor who spends his weekends singing in a wedding band called Mother of the Bride with his pals Stevie (Harold Perrineau), Barry (Derek Miller) and Eddie (Peter Cambor). In tonight’s opener, Tommy’s former girlfriend shows up to announce that she’s getting hitched and desperately needs his band to play at her reception. Does Tommy turn her down for spite or take the gig to impress the local hottie wedding planner Roxie (Melora Hardin)? Sitcom hilarity ensues.
REALITY Teen Mom 2 (MTV, 10 p.m.) It’s back. Launched in early 2011, the MTV series documenting the lives of high-schoolers turned young mothers returns tonight and my how the kids, all of them, have grown. The third-season opener finds Leah, now 20, recently divorced from her husband and trying to keep up with her two-year-old twin daughters. Jenelle, 20, has failed her latest drug test but has found a new boyfriend, Josh, who moves in with her and three-year-old son Jace. Meanwhile, Kailyn’s son has recently turned two and is none too pleased about mom’s new boyfriend, Javi. And poor old Chelsea, 21, is still trying to reunite with her ex, Adam, while balancing her dreams of finishing high school with her duties of raising two-year-old Aubree. Bless ‘em all.
MOVIE From Here to Eternity (TCM, 10:15 p.m. ET; 7:15 p.m. PT) Nearly six decades after its theatrical release, this 1953 feature remains one of the most powerful anti-war stories in cinema history. Set in Honolulu in the days immediately before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the story focuses sharply on two opposing military figures: Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) suffers the indignity of an arrogant commanding officer in order to romance the man’s wife (Deborah Kerr), while the brooding Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) simply wants to do his time in the service interrupted by occasional liaisons with the local beauty Lorene (Donna Reed). Everyone’s priorities change of course, on Dec. 7, 1941, when the skies above Pearl Harbor are full of Japanese bombers. Winner of eight Academy Awards.