Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Tuesday, May 3. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Person Of Interest (CBS, 10 p.m.): Normally, we’d put this in the premieres and finales section, what with this being the premiere of the final season—that’s like a premiere and a finale!—but we know better than to trifle with Person Of Interest fans. You’re like Limitless fans except much more intimidating, possibly because you always have Jim Caviezel brooding menacingly in the background. So yeah, topmost pick it is for Person Of Interest, and tonight’s episode picks up with our heroes trying to rescue the Machine’s source code from the supercomputer equivalent of mortal peril, all while Amy Acker’s Root deals with the actual kind of mortal peril as she takes on the Samaritans. Alexa Planje is on board to lend a hand with any and all rescues the show needs.
The Flash (The CW, 8 p.m.): We feel like we spotlight The Flash a lot, which is probably unfair to the rest of the Tuesday night stalwarts. But hey, tonight features the return of Barry’s dad, who comes back from television’s most poorly motivated journey of self-discovery to look on as his son and Dr. Wells go to extreme measures to recharge the Flash’s powers. Considering Barry’s dad is also original live-action Flash star John Wesley Shipp, Scott Von Doviak is wondering whether Barry’s going to be the only one zipping out of that chamber with renewed powers. Or, you know, Barry’s dad is just going to be kind of uselessly soulful, as has been his wont on the show thus far.
American Masters/Frontline (PBS, 8 p.m./10 p.m.): Come get your culture, as a two-hour American Masters profiles Janis Joplin. Beyond interviews with her colleagues and her spiritiual successors in the world of music, there’s also readings of letters she wrote to her parents and interviews with her surviving siblings. After that, keep your incoherent Twitter acrostics on standby, because Frontline reports from the Benghazi that isn’t some poorly explained right-wing conspiracy theory, as the program heads to the war-torn Libyan city to witness the continued fighting between ISIS and various militias. Dan Jakes reports on that report.
Yes, dammit, New Girl is airing at a special time again, but we’re not giving it another top pick slot, because we feel like New Girl is playing us at this point
New Girl (Fox, 8 p.m./9 p.m.): It’s on twice again, with a new Grandfathered in between. We guess this is just the new normal? Anyway, we trust you to check the listings without us have to keep making this a courtesy Top Pick. Nothing at all against New Girl, but moving on.
Premieres and finales
Below Deck Mediterranean (Bravo, 9 p.m.): The one problem with moving Person Of Interest to pole position is it leaves this section pretty damn bereft. So then, here’s a spinoff of Below Deck, that show about the yacht people. Let’s see: “Charter guests arrive on the luxury vessel the Ionian Princess and chef Ben Robinson serves up a traditional Greek meal.” Jolly good then. We’re also told the show’s stars will be “making waves” in the Mediterranean, which, yes, we’d expect nothing less.
Dance Moms (Lifetime, 9 p.m.): We never thought we’d have to ask this for a non-Kurt Sutter show—and it’s hard to imagine anything more diametrically opposed to Sons Of Anarchy and The Bastard Executioner than flipping Dance Moms—but we have to ask: Hey, how long is the Dance Moms season-six finale overrunning tonight? And the answer is that this sucker is going until 10:36, so 36 minutes. (The levels of service journalism in tonight’s listings are frankly staggering. You’re welcome.)
Car Hunters (History, 10 p.m.): History claims this is the series premiere, but surely we’re being gaslighted, because how is there not already a show that has “a father-son duo check out three classic cars in their search for a ride that they can bond over”? Isn’t that the basic description of like half of this channel’s non-alien, non-Hitler programming? Hey… sorry, we’ve got to run, need to go pitch Hunting For Alien Hitler Cars to History. Might need to work in a pun about pawn shops, though. We’ll keep workshopping this.
Not much for premieres and finales, so here, have some wrestling
A few months back, we shared that time Shawn Michaels dropped a damn nuke on Montreal. Well, let’s go back to the theme of “all-time great wrestlers torching major Canadian cities” with the Rock’s evisceration of Toronto. We kid because we love, Canada. Except heel Rock. Heel Rock hates you guys for some reason.
Regular coverage
The Mindy Project (Hulu, 3:01 a.m.)
Marvel’s Daredevil (Netflix)
Fresh Off The Boat (ABC, 8 p.m.)
Grandfathered (Fox, 8:30 p.m.)
Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, 9 p.m.)
The Grinder (Fox, 9:30 p.m.)
Streaming pick
“The Trickster,” The Flash (CW Seed): The CW’s streaming service has all of the John Wesley Shipp-starring 1990 version of The Flash, and where better to start (other than the beginning, we guess) than with the episode featuring your pal and ours, Mark Hamill, as the Trickster? It’s a role he’s gone on to play in the animated Justice League Unlimited and on the revived Flash, though there’s a good argument that the latter reprisal was at least as much a live-action version of his iconic Joker performance. Either way, go gawk at the goofy special effects, then realize the What’s On Tonight readers of 2042—this feature will never die!—will someday do likewise with today’s incarnation.