Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Monday, May 27. All times are Eastern.
TOP PICK
Longmire (A&E, 10 p.m.): In its first year on the TV Club force, A&E’s Wyoming lawmen drama committed its fair share of infractions: its storytelling never moved much beyond its superficial crime procedural trappings to explore the show’s deeper themes, it totally wasted Katee Sackhoff as the deputy, and, worst of all, it never attracted much of an audience around these parts. As such, the head of TV Club Internal Affairs—or, as he’s known in civilian life, Zack Handlen—is placing the show on indefinite suspension, but his own sense of duty demands he check in on tonight’s second season premiere to file one last performance evaluation on an okay cop show that could have been so much more.
REGULAR COVERAGE
Adventure Time (Cartoon Network, 7:30 p.m.): The Ice King has finally had enough after his latest failed romantic overture, but his attempt to get away from it all leaves him shipwrecked on a mysterious island. If Oliver Sava remembers The Odyssey correctly, mysterious islands are actually a great place to find love, as long as the Ice King is fine with fighting the occasional cyclops and possibly Gunter getting turned into a pig.
Regular Show (Cartoon Network, 8 p.m.): Muscle Man might lose his trailer after it fails a health inspection. Alasdair Wilkins never imagined old Mitch Sorenstein could be so catastrophically untidy, although he’d totally believe it if we were talking about that notorious slob, Hi-Five Ghost.
Revolution (NBC, 10 p.m.): It’s a busy night for everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic, self-appointed dictator, as Monroe first battles Rachel “with more than wits,” and the guy then battles Miles once again, although “this time even more lethally.” Les Chappell suspects Monroe’s post-apocalyptic calendar of events just has the word “BATTLING” written over and over again in angry red letters.
WHAT ELSE IS ON
The Bachelorette (ABC, 8 p.m.): The Bachelor’s distaff counterpart is back for its ninth season, as 25 men try to prove their romantic mettle by baring their souls and also taking off their shirts. Plus, one of the suitors this year is an honest-to-goodness magician, which is all Katherine Miller needed to know before she volunteered to cover tonight’s 2-hour premiere.
River Monsters (Animal Planet, 8 p.m.): It’s taken host Jeremy Wade five seasons and 36 episodes to work up the gumption to take on the most famous freshwater beast of them all, as this 2-hour finale follows him in search of the one, the only Loch Ness Monster. Also, this quest somehow involves a visit to Icelandic volcanoes, so apparently Nessie has become quite the daring international traveler in its old age.
Ring Of Fire (Lifetime, 9 p.m.): If you ever wondered which single-named, yodeling-prone singer-songwriter would be the perfect person to play June Carter Cash in a Lifetime retelling of the singer’s career and romance with Johnny Cash, then this movie is happy to inform you that it’s Jewel, obviously. Phil Dyess-Nugent always kind of suspected, although he just realized Ke$ha also would have fit that description, and now he really wants to see that movie.
Hit The Floor (VH1, 9 p.m.): This new drama is theoretically about the dancers for the fictional Los Angeles Devils basketball team and all their sexy, treacherous, intriguing, and once again sexy adventures. But the show also promises Dean Cain—‘90s Superman himself!—as a Devils coach who is “walking intimidation, fried by life, with a low tolerance for annoyance” and who openly hates having to judge dancing girl tryouts. Molly Eichel checks out tonight’s series premiere fully prepared to start up the Dean Cain Emmy campaign.
The Longest Day (AMC, 1 p.m.): In honor of Memorial Day, AMC is airing a bunch of war movies, and they don’t get much more epic—or, at least, more star-studded—than this one, in which (deep breath) John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Rod Steiger, Kenneth More, Peter Lawford, and even Paul Anka all storm the beaches of Normandy.
Toy Story 3 (Disney, 7:30 p.m.): Later in the day, Disney is airing what is pretty much the Pixar-animated, toy-centric equivalent of D-Day, as Woody, Buzz, and the gang confront the possibility of fiery oblivion and the often unbearable emotional anguish of growing older and moving on. Now, if you don’t mind too much, your What’s On Tonight correspondent has to go weep quietly in a corner for a while.
Stanley Cup Playoff: Game 6: Blackhawks at Red Wings (NBC Sports, 8 p.m.): After finally winning a game and staving off elimination, the once-invincible Blackhawks head back to Detroit in hopes of tying their series with the upstart Red Wings. It’s times like this that Jonathan Toews and company must really wish they could somehow transfer over some of that ungodly amount of points they racked up in the first half of the season, but the Stanley Cup cares little for regular season dominance.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Smash (Sunday): The show’s series finale was silly, emotionally empty, and totally unaware of even the most basic details of Tony Awards broadcast guidelines. But Todd VanDerWerff (and his old pal Frank Fisticuffs) kind of respects the sheer lunatic audacity of ending the show with one last, shamelessly self-referential musical number dedicated solely to the glory that is Smash. It’s hard to imagine a more perfectly stupid way for the show to take its final bow.