Some series take a few episodes to catch their stride, and tonight Nurse Jackie does exactly that. The acquired taste of the tale of a sarcastic super nurse has matured, populated by fully-formed characters whose predictability can now be exploited. (Prepare for curveballs.) If it sounds like a lot of intelligent thinking and scheming, that's why it's on Showtime.
Nurse Jackie [10:30 PM, Showtime]
There's no rest for the world-weary as Jackie (Edie Falco) violates hospital protocol again when she discovers that a patient suffering from lupus depends on her 10 year-old daughter as her primary caregiver. Meanwhile, Dr. O'Hara (Eve Best) takes newbie Zoey (Merritt Wever) to a fancy restaurant after her first night shift.
Fat Camp [7 PM, MTV]
At this point, given the affluence-sploitation of My Super Sweet 16 and the poignant reporting of 16 and Pregnant, we're just going to take everything MTV does at face value and only judge entertainment level, not intent. In that rubric, Fat Camp falls at the more journalistic end of the spectrum as five teens are profiled during their stays at fat camp. It's not funny -- sort of sad, really -- but obesity is a hot-button issue.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent [9 PM, NBC]
NBC re-airs an episode that premiered on USA Network several weeks ago. Jeff Goldblum breathes fresh air into this stale series again when his Detective Nichols works with Wheeler (Julianne Nicholson) to investigate the death of a con man's partner.
Manhattan [8 PM, TCM]
The tension that everyone seems to see in the films of Woody Allen relates to questions of how personal each film is to the writer-director. That would make Manhattan something of a May-December suspense classic, as Allen's character dates a very young naif played by Mariel Hemingway (based on an actual event in his life). Even if you don't love letterboxing, Gershwin or character actor Michael Murphy, this is still important cinema, not just for Allen fanatics.