Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Monday, May 14. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8 p.m.): Questions will be answered! Mysteries will be solved! Babies will be born! It’s the one-hour season finale of How I Met Your Mother, the event the whole season has been building toward. At this rate, after having covered five seasons of the show, Donna Bowman is pretty sure she’s an honorary cast member, so we’re hoping that tonight, the show has some sort of celebration in her name. We’re not asking for much. Just some sort of banner that falls from the sky saying, “Great work, Donna!” and then some dancing bears. Oh, and maybe she could be cast as the mother? That might be fun, too!
REGULAR COVERAGE
Adventure Time (Cartoon Network, 7:30 p.m.): “Finn goes through a transformation after an encounter with a hug wolf.” Man, ain’t that always the way? You’re just walking along, minding your own business, when you get ambushed by a vicious hug wolf. Oliver Sava once met a cartoon reviewer wolf.
House (Fox, 9 p.m.): Olivia Wilde is back as Thirteen, and the episode description says “Foreman tries a different approach with House.” Zack Handlen is willing to bet that here, with only two episodes to go, that new approach will work perfectly, and Foreman will wonder why he didn’t try years before.
Lost Girl (Syfy, 10 p.m.): Tonight’s episode involves a “stolen Mongolian death worm,” which is the sort of thing you only see on the finest of television shows, like this one and, of course, Mad Men, which worked a stolen Mongolian death worm into season two, episode five, Kevin McFarland’s favorite.
Smash (NBC, 10 p.m.): How is it possible that we’ve made it 15 episodes into this show, through a whole season of television, and we’re still wondering who’s going to play Marilyn? Noel Murray is grateful for the sweet release of the season finale, and he hopes you’ll tune in for his reading of Smash: The Novel.
TV CLUB CLASSIC
Batman: The Animated Series (1 p.m.): It’s time for “Riddler’s Reform,” and we’re hoping that means several appearances by one of our favorite AVC gimmick commenters: The Riddler himself. We’d ask you some riddles, but Oliver Sava said all of our riddles were dumb, then knocked our book out of our hands.
WHAT ELSE IS ON
America’s Got Talent (NBC, 8 p.m.): The summer’s biggest show gets a jump on its newest season by debuting several days before the TV season officially ends. Will Howard Stern be the new great reality TV judge? Or will it just feel weird having him on the show? Tune in and find out! Because we won’t!
Weight Of The Nation (HBO, 8 p.m.): Ryan McGee checks out a new documentary that attempts to figure out what’s up with America’s obesity epidemic. We’d make some joke about how it’s just because we’re all eating too much, but we watched just 30 minutes of this, and we ended up terrified by it.
American Masters: Johnny Carson: King Of Late Night (PBS, 9 p.m.): PBS’ venerable cultural biography series sets its sights on the longtime host of The Tonight Show, and our own Kyle Ryan sees what it has to say about a guy who was, even at his worst, at least a little bit better than that Jay Leno guy.
Hart Of Dixie (The CW, 9 p.m.): Carrie Raisler told us that this show got a lot better over the course of its first season, and after we got done having a lengthy discussion about the various moods and styles of Rachel Bilson, we decided that she should check out the first season finale. See you this fall, Rach!
Outlaw Empire (Discovery, 10 p.m.): A new reality series from Sons Of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter takes a look at criminal organizations, beginning with the Crips. Ryan McGee applies his copious amounts of knowledge about criminal enterprises to his review of the show. We’re sure we’ll all learn something.
The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson (CBS, 12:35 a.m.): Craig and his merry band of sidekicks travel overseas to his native land of Scotland. If it’s even half as entertaining as his trip to Paris from last year, then this will be some of the best TV you see all year. We’ll have a review of the event at week’s end.
Lovely & Amazing (Sundance, 8 p.m.): You have several movie options tonight, but why not try out this sweetly winning little movie from Nicole Holofcener? Catherine Keener’s great in the central role, and just watching something from Holofcener will probably make you feel better about yourself.
Teen Wolf (Encore, 8 p.m.): Or, y’know, you could just watch this movie, because some nights, you want to watch thoughtful American independent films, and some nights, you want to watch movies about basketball-playing werewolves played by Michael J. Fox. We love you at TV Club. We don’t judge.
MLB Baseball: Cubs at Cardinals (ESPN, 7 p.m.): The defending World Series champions sit atop the NL Central with a record of 20-14, while their hated rivals the Cubs sit at the bottom of the division with a 14-20 record. So… if the Cardinals look in the mirror, they see the Cubs? That sounds horrifying!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Desperate Housewives (Sunday): A show that resurrected an entire network and made TV safe for primetime soaps again goes off the air after an eight-season run, and nobody really paid any attention to it. Well, except for Joshua Alston, who checked out the two-hour finale for us. Read his review.