May The Shiniest Man Win

The season finales of The New Adventures of Elaine Benes and Jay Mohr Does Stuff air on CBS tonight, but you and America will be watching Idol. After eight years of playing the same AI final drinking game (take a sip every time someone says american, idol, dawg or a wildcard word like rhubarb or Leachman), we might enjoy this one sober. Wait. That's a lie. Pop culture should never be ingested on an empty liver.

American Idol [8 PM, Fox]

It's two hours, it's the Super Bowl of non-sports entertainment and it's what you're going to be talking about with that cousin or uncle that you really have nothing else to say to at the Memorial Day BBQ. As we mentioned yesterday, Lambert and Allen are ready for their shining moment and Fox has already - hopefully - cashed those advertiser checks for a full season of Glee.

Steak Paradise: A Second Helping [9 PM, Travel]

If you've had enough of the singing and the dancing and the eyeliner of Idol, consult your channel menu and find the Travel Channel. Usually, the Travel Channel is only slightly more edifying than an inflight magazine, but their restaurant travelogues are as strong as anything on the Food Network and without all that annoying "personality." Note to Guy Fieri: It's a roadside diner, not an open mic night.

Locked Up Abroad [10 PM, National Geographic]

It's not like we really want to go to Bolivia or Bulgaria, but this show assures us that the only thing we are missing by not vacationing to those far-flung locales is a month spent in a detention facility for a crime we did not commit. But sometimes the tourist actually committed a crime, as in tonight's new episode where a teen is locked up in Mexico after attempting to smuggle 33 pounds of marijuana into the U.S.

Along Came Polly [11 PM, USA]

It's easy to say that you love this movie because of Philip Seymour Hoffman's zany performance as a former child star trying to recapture his fame, but this is also some of Ben Stiller's best (and most underplayed) comedic work. As Reuben Feffer, an uptight risk analyst, Stiller navigates the choppy waters of love as he pursues the beautiful but flighty Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston). The ferret jokes are unnecessary, but even Hank Azaria's bare ass fits into place in the world John Hamburg creates.