TOP PICK
Tyrant (FX, 10 p.m.): The pre-air buzz for this new FX drama is pretty toxic—then again, when have dictatorships ever been popular? (Also, when have they been afraid of toxic materials? Haha, we kid you, homicidal despots of the world!) Todd VanDerWerff’s review of the first four episodes paints a building-sized mural of a show that doesn’t realize how boring it is, and Dennis Perkins is stepping up to take that boredom on episode by episode. He might as well, because without Fargo, Tuesdays just got pretty boring themselves.
TV CLUB CLASSIC
The Shield (Classic) (11 a.m.): Brandon Nowalk covers “Hurt,” but not in the way Johnny Cash covered “Hurt”—because Cash’s “Hurt” is a rendition of a Nine Inch Nails song, not an episode of The Shield in which Mackey and Rawlings bust the heads of a Russian mobster and some social-care workers, respectively (and mostly metaphorically).
ELSEWHERE IN TV CLUB
You might not know who’s moving on to the World Cup’s knockout round, but by the end of the day you will know one of the finalists for the Tournament of Episodes: Sonia Saraiya will come to judge the quick, the dead, and anything that’s related to a matchup between The Good Wife episode in which shit is “Hitting The Fan” and that Hannibal with the human beehives. Unpleasant imagery, any way you slice it.
WHAT ELSE
Abby’s Studio Rescue (Lifetime, 9 p.m.): Sensing a vacuum in the “reality TV personality shouts your failing business out of the red” market, Abby Lee Miller and Abby Lee Miller’s lung capacity are the only thing between these dance studios and absolute failure.
Botched (E!, 9 p.m.): E! boldly ventures into programming about re-reconstructive surgery, in which patients ask one of the doctors from The Swan to fix what other doctors messed up. (But can they do any work on removing that Swan blemish from TV’s past?)
Motor City Masters (TruTV, 10 p.m.): This search for America’s undiscovered auto-design talent begins in Los Angeles before heading to the Midwest—which is the opposite of how these things usually go.
Alive (Flix, 8 p.m.): Don’t think about athletes traveling through South America in the real world. Don’t think about athletes traveling through South America in the real world. Don’t think about athletes traveling through South America in the real world…
Pitch Perfect (Cinemax, 9 p.m.): Aca-brush up on your ac-annoying aca-wordplay while the aca-sequeal is in aca-production.
2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil: Japan vs. Colombia (ESPN, 3:30 p.m.): The crushing reality of yesterday’s Google Doodle comes into play once more as working stiffs in the Western Hemisphere must once more avoid their own mustachioed Bs while watching the fate of Group C hangs in the balance.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO
The third and final season of Upright Citizen Brigade’s eponymous sketch series is now available via on-demand DVD-R from Amazon, fulfilling the wishes of Pro Thunderball fans everywhere. Just watch out for that roaming car!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Teen Wolf: TV Club isn’t covering all of the fourth season of Teen Wolf, because we’re fickle—like teens! But maybe we’ll change our mind, because in addition to being fickle, we’re hungry for content—like wolves! LaToya Ferguson has not made any similar declarations, one way or the other.