Murphy Brown (Pearl, 6.50 pm) continues to make cancer the subject of comedy and to do so without offence or cheap laughs.
This evening, if TVB screen the episode I have been told it will screen, and not another, as has happened before, Murphy's chemotherapy treatment begins to have its most visible effects as she is forced to wear a wig to cover her resulting baldness.
Her colleagues have been supportive from the beginning, in a remarkable display of selflessness and team spirit. Tonight this same spirit forces them to pretend there is nothing unusual about Murphy's hair.
Murphy has got to survive this cancer, and most of the time we are distracted from thinking too much about the possibility that she might not. It is one thing to deal with a serious issue such as illness in a sitcom, another to have the title character succumb to it. And because we all know this, however well-written the scenes are where Murphy confronts her own mortality, the dramatic tension is slightly diminished.
It doesn't help that, we are a season behind the first broadcast of this series to American audiences, and the word there is that even if Murphy can beat this thing, actress Candice Bergen wants to move on to other things anyway.
Pascali's Island (Pearl, 11.45 pm) could hardly be described as predictable, there are too many plot turns and devious schemers in the story for that, but it does somewhat waste the talents of three top British actors by allowing them to turn out standard performances.
