By Christopher Bird

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Monday

A&E kicks off a two-night, four-hour miniseries adaptation of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, one of the decent early novels he wrote back before he went crazy and started claiming global warming was a hoax invented by scientists desperate for grant money. Having already seen it, Televisualist can say that it’s been pumped up to steroid-like levels to be more exciting and adds whole new levels of TV Science (wormholes! Buckyballs! and so forth) to try and make the occasionally dry subject matter more exciting. Everybody sleepwalks through their performances and the special effects range from mediocre to weak. So, yeah—maybe if you’re really bored for two nights in a row. (9 p.m.)
Mythbusters repeats the episode dedicated to confirming and busting myths about the many uses of vodka. CONFIRMED: it gets you shitfaced. (Discovery, 8 p.m.)
Fox airs the first of three two-hour episodes of So You Think You Can Dance this week; they’re cramming all the audition episodes as close together as possible, apparently. Hey, if we get past the boring “bad dancer is funny” audition segments faster, we’re all for it. (8 p.m.)

Tuesday

Season finale of Boston Legal, featuring James Spader representing a town that wants to secede from the United States. Ah, Boston Legal, you never stop seeking the ultimate height of legally-inspired silliness, and this is why you are fun. (Global, 10 p.m.)
Bugsy was the second film in Warren Beatty’s big 1990s acting comeback (the first being Dick Tracy, which was a lot better in many ways—man, why aren’t they showing Dick Tracy tonight?), and notable for instigating the Beatty/Annette Bening relationship that continues to this day. As a movie, it’s kind of meh—except for Bening, who is fantastic. (AMC, 8 p.m.)

Wednesday

The Simpsons re-run of the week: “King-Sized Homer,” wherein Homer eats his way to 300 pounds so he can claim disability benefits. “It’s your window to weight gain!” (CFMT, 10 p.m.)
Barbara Kingsolver is tonight’s guest on The Hour. You know what would be awesome? If when she came on, George Stroumboulopoulos was all, “Solve this, Kingsolver!” And then they would have a kung fu fight. And then George Stephanopolous would show up and say, “There can only be one George with a long Greek last name in North American media!” And then our George would fight their George, and our George would rip their George’s heart right out of his chest and hold it before him while it was still beating. And then Kim Mitchell would show up for some reason. (CBC, 9 p.m.)

Thursday

Lost finishes off its absolutely dynamite fourth season with a two-hour season finale tonight. Things will probably explode, and Sawyer and Jack will run around in the jungle with guns, and Hurley will say something funny. Oh, and this is juuuuuust a hunch, but we bet there’s a cliffhanger at the end! (CTV, 9 p.m.; alternately, ABC is airing the previous episode at 8 p.m. as a prequel of sorts)
Last Comic Standing debuted last week, and we have to say—Richard Belzer is a judge on it now? What, was Law and Order not making him enough money? I mean, don’t get me wrong. Richard Belzer is awesome. We’re just surprised he’s getting more work. (NBC, 8:30 p.m.)

Friday

Must-see: the final rounds of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee! Look, if you’re going to get drunk and/or stoned tonight, believe me, there is nothing better than a bunch of kids spelling insanely crazy-hard words to really make your altered experience all the more surreal. Also, you will feel really, really stupid in comparison, and we all need to be humbled every now and then. Well, at least you do. Yes, you there. In the back. (ABC, 8 p.m.)
Bravo airs Guy Maddin’s really, really weird movie (okay, most Guy Maddin movies are really, really weird, so we weren’t very descriptive there) The Saddest Music In The World tonight. Hey, it’s Canadian content! And did we mention it being weird? Because man. It is weird. (8 p.m.)