Luckily, George Takei is trained to deal with human wind tunnels after a career spent in the presence of William Shatner.

Monday

Undercover Boss: Abroad is basically the standard Undercover Boss formula of “have a boss go undercover, complain that the work is hard, then give the employees prizes so as to not have to do anything about how the work is shitty,” except these are global companies rather than American ones. But don’t expect to see any undercover bosses going to work in overseas sweatshops, because that would run contrary to the principles of Undercover Boss—or lack thereof. (TLC, 9 p.m.)

“Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Greenland?” “You mean, you’ll put down your rock and I’ll put down my sword, and we’ll try and kill each other like civilized people?” “Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.” “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” “Mawwidge, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam.” “It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead.” “Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise at night in eel-infested waters.” “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” “This is true love—you think this happens every day?” If you don’t know The Princess Bride, what the hell is wrong with you? (CHCH, 9 p.m.)

Tuesday

Making a long-overdue triumphant return (or, well, sorta) is Cougar Town, which is apparently sticking with the Cougar Town name for the time being. (Let’s be honest, it should just be called Boozing.) But we love the show no matter what it goes by, because Bill Lawrence has brought along all of the comedic silliness from Scrubs, and also because the show’s unofficial crossovers with Community are wonderful bits of meta-humour. (City, 8:30 p.m.)

New Girl has been steadily improving after a shaky start, partly by downplaying Zooey Deschanel’s quirkiness so that her Jess, rather than just being a set of adjectives, is actually a human being. The gag writing has been steadfast throughout, but a few weeks ago Lizzy Caplan (Party Down) joined the cast on a temporary basis, and—quite apart from the fact that Lizzy Caplan is beautiful and talented and awesome on numerous levels (except for the fact that she is in a relationship with Matthew Perry)—she is a perfect foil for Zooey Deschanel. One can only hope that Team New Girl recognizes this and brings her on full-time. Sadly, we doubt that will happen. (City, 9 p.m.)

Wednesday

Survivor returns for a fresh new season, and the wrinkle this time around is the “One World” gimmick, wherein the two tribes will live together rather than on separate beaches. It’s interesting, because this actually has a lot of potential to alter the standard Survivor gameplay. Now, the capacity for inter-tribal alliances and coordination early in the game exists on a level that has never really been available to Survivor players before. Of course, this will depend on whether the producers have cast actual players rather than the idiot brigade of wannabe-starfuckers they’ve been casting the last couple of seasons. The lack of returning “All-Stars” can only help in that regard. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Thursday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Lard of the Dance,” wherein Homer steals cooking grease from restaurant grease traps for profit. “Marge, if you don’t mind, I’m a little busy right now achieving financial independence.” “With cans of grease?” “No, through savings and wise investment. Of course with grease.” (CJMT, 10:30 p.m.)

Friday

I’m probably horrible at heart, because when I saw that the 43rd NAACP Image Awards were this week, the only thing that came to mind was: “I wonder how long the Whitney Houston memorial/tribute segment of the show will be?” Oh well. (NBC, 8 p.m.)

So, on Twitter last week there was a #FiveFavoriteMovies hashtag game floating around, and on my list was Glory (along with Big Trouble In Little China, Hard Boiled, Three Kings, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, since I know you’re wondering), and someone asked, “Really? Glory?” And I said “yes,” and told them to catch it on some Turner-owned network since it was only a matter of time. And here it is! Glory: Providing quality content to Turner-owned networks since the early 1990s. (Turner Classic, 8 p.m.)

The Weekend

The Amazing Race comes back for its 20th iteration, with a team of former Big Brother contestants (because CBS wants Big Brother to really be an omnipresent thing), a team of Jersey Shore wannabes (because CBS wants to get the almighty Snooki dollar), a team of federal agents, a team of border-patrol agents, a team consisting of an ex–combat pilot and his wife (because CBS is the network of NCIS and as such must pay homage to the mighty American military/police machine), a team of married circus clowns (because CBS cannot ruin The Amazing Race, no matter how they might try), and a team of friends whose names are Mark and Bopper (because one of them is named Bopper!). (CTV, 8 p.m.)

Also returning to the reality world: Celebrity Apprentice, a.k.a. “Donald Trump can’t run for president because he needs the money from his horrible show.” This season’s selection of individuals willing to demean themselves by submitting to the notion that Donald Trump is in any way fit to judge them for charity includes Arsenio Hall, Dee Snider, Lou Ferrigno, Clay Aiken, Penn Jillette, Tia Carrere, and George Takei (who we desperately hope will not take any of Trump’s crap). (NBC, 9 p.m.)

As we see Pan Am come to what is almost certainly its end (no official cancellation announcement has been made, and ABC previously said that despite its awful ratings the show is on the bubble for renewal, but network shows that stop after 14 episodes and have bad ratings generally don’t come back), let us consider what did not work about this show. The stupid espionage subplot? No, that did not work. The attempts to remake Mad Men with a PG rating? Nope, that didn’t work either. Christina Ricci doing light comedy? Definitely didn’t work. The CGI planes? Didn’t work. But the girl who played the French stewardess was definitely good. So there is that. Maybe she’ll get to be in a real show in the future. (CTV, 10 p.m.)

Life’s Too Short is Ricky Gervais’ new sitcom, but really it is Warwick Davis’s (Willow, and so much more) show about being Warwick Davis and also being a famous dwarf. Davis, Gervais, and Stephen Merchant all play fictionalized versions of themselves (à la Curb Your Enthusiasm) and they are all basically pricks. So it’s funny. The “Liam Neeson does comedy” clip that went viral a couple of months ago is from this show, so if you liked that, you should like this show. (HBO Canada, 10:30 p.m.)

Monday

2 Broke Girls is CBS’ new vehicle for Kat Dennings, who is a lovely and talented comic actress. They have, unfortunately, given her a terrible, terrible sitcom: Dennings plays one of the titular waitresses just trying to get by in the big city, with Beth Behrs playing the other one, who is named “Caroline Channing,” which we assume is supposed to be funny. There’s a lot of potential being squandered here, which means it is the perfect show to follow Two and a Half Men. How did Whitney Cummings manage to create this? (City, 9:30 p.m.)

Whitney is the other sitcom by Whitney Cummings which got picked up this year, and unlike 2 Broke Girls this is a pretty funny traditional sitcom, mostly because Whitney Cummings is a really good comic actor and Chris D’Elia, playing her boyfriend, pairs with her supremely well in a George-to-her-Gracie way. Plus, Jane Kaczmarek plays her mother, and Jane Kaczmarek makes everything just a little better. (CTV, 9:30 p.m.)

The Playboy Club is painfully bad, as any show where the 60′s Playboy bachelor lifestyle is portrayed as a safe haven for strong women (who nonetheless all want to get married to rich husbands) would inevitably have to be, but what’s really bad is the murder mystery tacked onto the show in the opening episode. It’s not as bad as, say, the murder which partially derailed the second season of Friday Night Lights. Mostly because that show was very good, and The Playboy Club is schlock of the lowest calibre, trying to be Mad Men so hard it’s kind of pathetic. (City, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: How I Met Your Mother (City, 8 p.m.), Dancing With The Stars (ABC, 8 p.m.), The Sing-Off (NBC, 8 p.m.), Two and A Half Men (CTV, 9 p.m.), Castle (CTV, 10 p.m.), Hawaii Five-O (Global, 10 p.m.)

Tuesday

New Girl is Zooey Deschanel’s new series, and why does Zooey Deschanel need a television series? Isn’t she a successful movie actress? Why does she need to shift gears downward to television? Let us just say that, although we of course love television, we recognize that movies are higher-status and higher-reward for actors, and Ms. Deschanel has only so long before she hits Hollywood’s brick wall of stupid and becomes unemployable except in a sitcom where she is married to her generation’s equivalent of Jim Belushi. Why is she running ahead of her natural cycle as a famous actress? We don’t get it. Oh, the show is fun, incidentally. (City, 9 p.m.)

Body of Proof is where Dana Delany pretends to be Dr. House. Or a woman version of Dr. House, anyway. That’s really all you need to know. If you think we’re not being respectful here, this summary is about 10 times more classy than the show, which is not very good at all. (City, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: Glee (Global, 8 p.m.), Raising Hope (City, 8:30 p.m.).

Wednesday

Hey! Did you want to watch a singing show? I mean, yes, there’s The Sing-Off airing right now, and Canada Covers, and it’s only been a week since America’s Got Talent, and The Voice is barely out of memory, but maybe you have the attention span of a squirrel? Or, possibly, what you think a singing show really needs is the presence of a mean British judge who actually doesn’t have the greatest musical taste but is occasionally witty, or at least mean using different words than you normally hear? In that case, The X-Factor is for you! Also featuring the return of drunk Paula Abdul. (CTV, 8 p.m.)

Revenge is straightforward heavy-soap, wherein Emily Van Camp is a girl who used to live in the Hamptons but then something happened and the people there were responsible for her daddy’s death, so she returns as an adult to seek, well, revenge on them. The show is very, very rich and very, very white—there probably hasn’t been a show this unapologetically wealthy since Dynasty. Our theory is that ABC is hoping that rich people doing bad things to other rich people will make its not-rich audience really happy and watch the show every week. We dunno about that. (CITY, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: Modern Family (City, 9 p.m.), Harry’s Law (Global, 9 p.m.), CSI (CTV, 10 p.m.).

Thursday

Charlie’s Angels is exactly what you think it is, and reviewing it is totally pointless. So instead, let’s talk about the cancellation of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, a show which was a solid hit for CTV and which the network has cancelled, citing excessive cost and lowered audience share. (Of course, their example—that this year’s finale had 30 per cent fewer viewers than last year’s—ignores that firstly this season aired mostly over the summer, when viewership is lower, rather than in fall, and secondly that the finale was on September 11, competing against all the 10th-anniversary-of-9/11 news shows.) Let’s be clear: this is a reality competition show, and therefore less expensive to produce than most scripted programming. It was also a successful show, both critically and popularly. Its cancellation is thus a bold statement from CTV: the network and the rest of Bell Media are making it quite clear that their interest in production is not profitable shows or popular shows or quality shows; their interest is in making shows as cheaply as possible to satisfy their Cancon requirements, and not a thing more. And that is not a good thing at all. (ABC, 8 p.m.)

Person of Interest is one of two offerings from J.J. Abrams this season, and it is more or less a straight-up action series. Michael Emerson plays a very Michael Emersonish character who has built a machine that can predict when people will kill people and/or get killed by people, and he sends Jim Caviezel (going extremely one-note and growly) to go stop bad things from happening with fighting. It’s a gloriously stupid riff on your standard procedural. (City, 9 p.m.)

Global has picked up Happily Divorced, Fran Drescher’s for-cable sitcom about continuing to live with one’s gay ex-husband post-marriage. We unapologetically love Fran Drescher for being awesome, but this show is just not very good. It’s got a great cast, but the writing is… not there, with so many old-school stereotypical gay jokes it’s almost painful. (Global, 9:30 p.m.)

Prime Suspect is the American remake of the classic British TV series that basically made Helen Mirren’s career for her, with Maria Bello in the Mirren role. It’s hard to say whether this will be good. Maria Bello is great, of course, and seeing Kirk Acevedo as her sidekick is pleasantly surprising, but Prime Suspect worked so well because it was short: each series was only four hours long. The first season of the American Prime Suspect, in comparison, will have as many episodes by the end of a first full season (assuming it goes that long) as the first five seasons of the British show did. This sort of thing can get tricky, is all we’re saying. (Global, 10 p.m.)

Returning shows of note:: Community (City, 8 p.m.), The Big Bang Theory (CTV, 8 p.m.), Parks and Recreation (City, 8:30 p.m.), The Office (Global, 9 p.m.), The Mentalist (CTV-Two, 10 p.m.).

Friday

A Gifted Man has a weird premise: a doctor meets his ex-wife by accident one day, then finds out after meeting her that she died two whole weeks before he met her that time (BUM BUM BUM!), and then she starts sending him on missions where he can use his doctoring to save people using his doctorism. So it’s a medical procedural crossed with Ghost Whisperer, kind of. (Global, 8 p.m.)

Returning shows of note: Supernatural (CHCH, 9 p.m.), Fringe (City, 9 p.m.), Nikita (CTV-Two, 8 p.m.).

The Weekend

This season on The Amazing Race, we have: Ethan and Jenna, both of whom have previously won Survivor; a pair of Olympic snowboarders; a team of grandparents; a gay couple; a pair of Vegas showgirls; a father-son team where the son was the first person under 18 to sail around the world solo; and the now-kind-of-standard team of twins. This season also marks the Race‘s first visits to Denmark, Malawi, and Indonesia, because after 19 seasons, this show still has lots of things it hasn’t done yet. (CTV, 8 p.m. Sunday.)

Pan Am, like The Playboy Club, wants to be Mad Men really badly and does so by using a setting (1960s air flight) that was a gratuitously sexist workplace. However, Pan Am is much more tolerable than The Playboy Club is, mostly because it manages the Mad Men trick of playing up the glamorous portions of the period without flinching from the ugly parts. It’s still not as good as Mad Men, though. (CTV, 10 p.m. Sunday.)

Returning shows of note: The Simpsons (Global, 8 p.m. Sunday), Desperate Housewives (CTV, 9 p.m. Sunday), The Good Wife (Global, 10 p.m. Sunday).