1) “Better Things” season-opener, 10-11:14 p.m., FX. With subtlety and skill, this has the day-to-day lives of Sam (Pamela Adlon, shown here at right), her three daughters and her mother. Now the girls are back from visiting their dad, with fresh requests. One wants a pet; another wants a quinceanera … which you don’t expect in a Jewish family. Sam persists, while working through her own mid-life crisis and her mom’s late-life crises. As always, the result is an appealing mixture of humor, warmth and dismay.
2) “Devs” debut, any time, Hulu. This is a big week for Hulu. Its terrific Hillary Clinton documentary arrives Friday and its “FX on Hulu” hub has just started. Mostly, the hub gets shows a day after they were on FX or FXX; it adds “Dave” today, “Better Things” and “Cake” on Friday. But here’s an exception – a Hulu-only show that’s compelling. Nick Offerman plays the head of a tech firm with other-worldly ambitions. By the end of the first hour, there’s a creepily intriguing mystery.
3) “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” 8:30 p.m., NBC. The oft-married Hitchcock is going through some extremes, while the still-married Jake and Amy try to conceive. They ponder her chart-filled, hyper-organized approach and his disorganized one. Also, Holt – once the captain, now a beat cop – grumbles. It’s a smart and funny episode – which makes it a surprise that NBC has the clumsy “Indebted” the same night. Tonight’s episode (9:30) required mass stupidity from all characters.
4) “Paths of Glory” (1957) and “Spartacus” (1960), 8 and 9:45 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. Here are two classics – one contained, the other one epic — from the great combination of director Stanley Kubrick and star Kirk Douglas. For “Spartacus,” Douglas pierced the blacklist by putting writer Dalton Trumbo’s name onscreen. This 24-hout tribute to Douglas (who died Feb. 5 at 103) starts at 6 a.m.
5) And more: “Cake,” with lots of short-form humor, starts its second season at 10 and 10:30 p.m. on FXX. On “Tommy” (10 p.m., CBS), the police chief (Edie Falco) has to send others to a hostage crisis, while she tries to navigate the city council. And while Offerman is being dead-serious in “Devs,” his real-life wife, Megan Mullally, has silliness in “Will & Grace,” at 9 p.m. on NBC. Her assistant (Vanessa Bayer) and her friends think her new boyfriend (Joel McHale) wants to kill her.