Top pick
Fox Sports Special: NFL Preseason: Kansas City Chiefs at Carolina Panthers (Fox, 8 p.m.): It hardly matters who the competitors are in this exhibition game. (But look over here: a recovering Cam Newton!) What really matters is that the hellish trials and tribulations of the last seven days have concluded, and everybody gets a fresh start with a new week and a burgeoning football season. Sure, the NFL is riddled with its own problems, but let’s ignore those for a night as we all look forward to a Sunday through Saturday drive that has to be better than what came immediately before it.
Also noted
The Operatives (Pivot, 10 p.m.): A new docuseries profiling ex-soldiers who now secure the homeland shared by all of humanity: Earth. No word on whether or not the stars of The Operatives can conjure an environmental superhero by combining their respective powers of earth, fire, wind, water, and heart.
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO, 11 p.m.): The one silver lining of the hellish week that just was is that we now get to hear John Oliver comedically dismantle its various low points, most likely preceded by what’s become the closest thing Last Week Tonight’s has to a catchphrase: Oliver’s many ways of saying “What a horrifying week.”
Robot Chicken (Adult Swim, 11:30 p.m.): Among the subjects skewered on the Robot Chicken rotisserie in tonight’s season-seven finale: Jurassic Park, Bop-It, and arcade power couple Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Recede into the warm bosom of nostalgia, then laugh at the many ways that nostalgia can be maimed and/or made to have sex with other people’s nostalgia. (Also: Don’t forget that nostalgia has a bosom, because that’s something that can be a Robot Chicken joke, too.)
Regular coverage
True Blood (HBO, 9 p.m.)
The Leftovers (HBO, 10 p.m.)
Masters Of Sex (Showtime, 10 p.m.)
The Strain (FX, 10 p.m.)
TV Club Classic
Farscape (11 a.m.): Alasdair Wilkins concludes season-three coverage, before putting Farscape coverage in temporary stasis. Don’t worry about Farscape coverage, though: Those stasis chambers are mighty comfortable.
Clone High (3 p.m.): This week on a very special Clone High: Marilyn Manson visits, presidential fan-fiction enthusiasts are thrown a bone when Abe and JFK vie for the class presidency, and the mystical powers of Mr. Butlertron’s sweater vest are investigated.