TV tonight: 'Quest,' 'Biggest Loser,' 'Bones'
The Quest/The Biggest Loser | ABC/NBC, 8 ET/PT
Out with the old, in with the — well, old. As ABC wraps up its ambitious (if low-rated) reality show The Quest, NBC brings back its less ambitious, more successful reality show The Biggest Loser. If there's a message in there for broadcast programmers, pray it doesn't spread. Though to judge from much of the new fall schedule, it already has.
Thursday Night Football | CBS, 8:30 ET/5:30 PT
CBS' Thursday NFL package — a deal that matters to non-football fans because it exiles The Big Bang Theory to a temporary Monday home — kicks off with the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Baltimore Ravens. The game will most likely draw a large audience because prime-time network football games generally do. And while the domestic-violence storm swirling around the Ravens and the NFL will almost certainly be discussed, the announcers will most likely dispose of the issue as quickly as possible and move on — because that's what they generally do. Here's hoping they prove me wrong.
Bones | Fox, 9 ET/PT
Not interested in football? Turn to this repeat of the season finale of Bones, one of TV's most dependable performers. Star David Boreanaz directed this well-done outing, in which the search for the murderer of a conspiracy theorist is complicated by a conspiracy that threatens to end Booth's career.