Best bets for April 18: Vacation falls to pieces

1) “Life in Pieces” season-opener, 8:31 and 9:30 p.m. CBS. John (James Brolin) chose the site for the family vacation. which is short on a few luxuries — toilets and water, for instance — but long on bugs, bats and snakes. That’s in the first episode. which skips the usual, four-story format and focuses on the vacation, with hilarious results. The second has Joey King (who’s brilliant in Hulu’s “The Act”) as a pregnant teen. Colleen and Matt want to adopt her baby, but must compete with a rich couple. Read more…

1) “Life in Pieces” season-opener, 8:31 and 9:30 p.m. CBS. John (James Brolin) chose the site for the family vacation. which is short on a few luxuries — toilets and water, for instance — but long on bugs, bats and snakes. That’s in the first episode. which skips the usual, four-story format and focuses on the vacation, with hilarious results. The second has Joey King (who’s brilliant in Hulu’s “The Act”) as a pregnant teen. Colleen and Matt want to adopt her baby, but must compete with a rich couple.

2) “The Big Bang Theory,” 8 p.m., CBS. Of the 904 Nobel Prize-winners, only 51 were female and only 20 of those were in the sciences. Now Amy ponders the pressure that would follow if she won.

3) “Better Things,” 10 p.m., FX. There’s a depth to this show that makes anything possible. Tonight, Pamela Adlon – the creator, director and star – steps aside, spreading the focus. This comedy-drama is light on comedy tonight, but has some amazing bursts of drama – one with the fictional Pam’s brother (Kevin Pollak) and daughter, the other with her eccentric mother (Celia Imrie) and a stranger.

4) “Gotham,” 8 p.m., Fox. A week from its series finale, “Gotham” has its usual overkill (and overmaim and more). It also has villains who can’t resist talking too much, delaying their victory. Now the army – with a general who’s controlled by a chip implant — marches on City Hall, ready to annihilate. As usual, this is beautifully filmed, but relentlessly nasty.

5) “In the Dark,” 9 p.m., CW. After a solid opener, this show’s quality has crumbled quickly. This third episode, like the second, throws in lots of body-parts humor, little of it clever. A school-assembly scene is quite lame. In another scene, Murphy says she doesn’t know what she looks like; it would be poignant … except for the fact that she was 14 before going blind.

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