TV Guru

In “Harry’s Law” (Monday, 9 p.m., NBC), Harriet Korn (Kathy Bates) is a hotshot patent lawyer who can’t face another boring day on the job. “I’d sooner look into the mirror and watch my teeth rot,” she says. Then a man (Aml Ameen) jumps off a building to commit suicide and happens to fall on her. Next, a fellow lawyer (Nate Corddry) happens to run into her with his car. Wouldn’t you know it: The lawyer comes to work for her at the criminal law firm she opens to stave off boredom and the would-be suicide becomes her first client.…

As a kid, I loved watching deadly-earnest superhero shows and then fighting criminals in a bath-towel cape. Back then, I would have loved “The Cape” (Sunday, 8 p.m., NBC), with its serious approach to masks and secret identities. To be honest, I love it now. It’s nice to see a superhero production that isn’t ultra-ironic or ultra-violent, but just a straightforward story of a square-jawed dude with an odd fashion sense saving his city from ugly French and British baddies. The square-jawed dude is incorruptible cop Vince Faraday (David Lyons), who’s framed to look like a supervillain and then killed…

Three years ago, Brad Womack made one of the most sensible moves in reality-TV history: He rejected both women in “The Bachelor” finale. “I can’t look you in the eye and tell you that I love you,” he said with admirable clear-headedness. The alternative, of course, was going through with the charade of “proposing” to some random, unappealing stranger from a group chosen by ABC producers. You’d think Brad would have become a hero, inspiring Americans to finally see through a genre that peddles a creepy view of romantic relationships. Instead, he became a villain, universally reviled for his failure…

Classical pianist Glenn Gould was a genius and an eccentric, and “American Masters” (Monday, 8 p.m. PBS) spends two hours trying to penetrate the mysteries of his life. In the early 1950s, Gould burst onto the international classical scene out of nowhere (i.e., Toronto), shaking up the established ways of doing things. He had James Dean looks, astonishing technique and a highly personal way of playing canonical music. Plus, his quirks made great copy. He sat at the piano on a tiny chair, and he sang along with himself in a sort of trance, hair flopping into his eyes. He…

I love comedian Ricky Gervais’ TV shows (“The Office,” “Extras”), but his standup act is more problematic. In HBO’s “Ricky Gervais: Out of England 2 – The Stand-Up Special” (Saturday, 9 p.m.), he picks on fat people, heroin addicts, sexually molested little girls and other beleaguered types. His tone is mean-spirited as he adopts the persona of the smug celebrity who can’t be bothered with lesser mortals. Yes, it’s a comic stance, but it’s not one that makes me laugh very much. Why? That’s a tricky question. I can laugh at other mean-spirited comedians – for example, Joan Rivers, whose live…

Like most people, I developed a crush on Carrie Fisher after seeing her as Princess Leia in Star Wars. My crush faded over the years as Fisher made headlines for bad marriages, drug addiction and mental-health problems. Eventually, I stopped reading the headlines. In the one-woman show “Wishful Drinking” (Sunday, 8 p.m., HBO), Fisher tell us what happened to her and why. Most celebrities would deliver such confessions somberly on an episode of “E! True Hollywood Story,” but Fisher takes a better approach: She turns her pain into cathartic comedy. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Fisher has a…

What if “American Idol” had been around in the 1950s and Elvis Presley entered the competition? Would the judges have simply crowned him the winner after one episode? The new season of “The Sing-Off” (Monday, 7 p.m., NBC) faces a similar situation. The a cappella competition features more of the usual flavorless ensembles, harmonizing with intense but pointless energy. Then comes Jerry Lawson & Talk of the Town. As the former lead singer, arranger and resident genius of the Persuasions, Lawson is to a cappella music what Elvis was to rock ‘n’ roll: the king, with the power to break…

Bob Saget inspires a surprising amount of hostility. For years, he’s been a punchline for viewers and snarky TV critics because of his stint as a goody-goody dad on the sitcom “Full House.” I always considered this unfair, given the comic skill with which he played the role. Saget must consider it unfair, too, since he’s tried so hard to run away from his squeaky-clean image in the years since. The latest attempt is “Strange Days with Bob Saget” (Tuesday, 9 p.m., A&E), a reality series that submerges him in unconventional and even dangerous subcultures. In the premiere, Saget spends…

“Masterpiece Contemporary Lennon Naked” (Sunday, 8 p.m., PBS) is one of the best Beatle dramatizations ever. The need to sort through the sheer number of epochal events in John Lennon’s life from 1964 to 1971 would sink most biopics, but this one handles the exposition elegantly. Beatlemania, the Maharishi debacle, the tumultuous affair with Yoko Ono, the band’s breakup and other key incidents pass across the screen, but they don’t interfere with the primary drama: Lennon’s internal struggle as a man and an artist. The film presents a John Lennon who is at once insanely famous and completely alone, stewing…

Executive produced by James Gandolfini, “Wartorn: 1861-2010” (Sunday, 2:30 p.m., HBO) examines the scourge of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. soldiers, from the Civil War to today. It begins by charting a Civil War soldier’s decline through his letters home. He insists that he would never shame his family by committing suicide, as some of his fellow soldiers have done. After two years immersed in the horrors of war, however, he…shames his family. In our own time, post-traumatic stress disorder is no less devastating, even though it’s better understood. A woman laments her son’s suicide after two tours of Iraq:…