The Crime of the Century (HBO, 9:00pm) — Alex Gibney’s recent successes include skewering the botched pandemic response (which continues to disastrously reverberate) as well as Elizabeth Holmes and the Church of Scientology. He’s now taking aim at Big Pharma for a two-part HBO documentary called Crime of the Century. Tonight, Part 1 dives into how Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed OxyContin to get the highly profitable pill pushed through the FDA approvals for wide use without sufficient studies and evidence. The project also argues that this OxyContin-paved crisis made it much easier for even more dangerous prescription drugs to achieve the same results.
Running Wild With Bear Grylls (Nat Geo, 9:00pm) — Model and actress Cara Delevingne joins Bear to do the daredevil-in-nature thing.
9-1-1 (Fox, 8:00pm) — The gang just respond to sheer chaos after a mystery writer dies, and the entire city goes on the hunt for the author’s buried treasure.
9-1-1: Lone Star (Fox, 9:00pm) — Owen’s suddenly the prime suspect in the serial arsonist case while a fiery situation also plagues T.K. and Carlos.
Debris (NBC, 10:00pm) — Bryan’s past comes to light due to knowledge held by a woman affected by the Debris, which leads to Bryan working to confront his trauma.
Breeders (FX, 10:00pm) — Martin Freeman’s starring turn in this comedy enters the sophomore season with new parenting challenges. This week, a power outage strikes at As Jim and Jackie’s golden wedding anniversary party.
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Jake Tapper, Billie Eilish
Jimmy Kimmel Live — Ewan McGregor, George Wallace, LuckyDaye Ft. Yebba
The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Leslie Jones, X González, Weezer
Late Night With Seth Meyers — Tracee Ellis Ross, Paula Pell
The Late Late Show With James Corden — David Oyelowo, Maisie Peters
In case you missed these streaming picks:
Mythic Quest: Season 2 (Apple TV+ series) — Two pandemic specials sustained viewers between seasons of Rob McElhenney’s workplace comedy, which shall see plenty of awkward maneuvering while the crew comes back to the office after you-know-what happened. In short, sometimes the bigger battle than the work itself is learning (and in this case, relearning) how to achieve harmony with one’s coworkers, but here’s great news: Snoop Dogg stops by this season to spread his feel-good… vibes.
Jupiter’s Legacy (Netflix series) — Kick-Ass and Kingsman creator Mark Millar is to thank for this epic superhero series, starring a heavily bearded Josh Duhamel as The Utopian. He’s the head of a superhero family that’s hoping to pass the torch to a new generation, but (no real surprise) things aren’t going well. Yes, this description does evoke shades of Robert Kirkman’s Invincible (on Amazon), but the vibe is less R-rated and also entertaining on its own merits. No spoilers here, but there are twists involved with this family’s ethics as heroes, and the show answers a lot of questions left open by Marvel Studios’ The Avengers with all of its collateral damage.
