The news over the weekend that former Bachelor frontman Andrew Firestone has gotten married, and not to the woman he saw him pledge his heart to, throws into further relief the failure of the show to produce lasting love, the ostensible reason it exists in the first place. Still, we refuse to give up on it for the same reason we don't give up on love itself--because without the hope of a better future, we have nothing. That's right, The Bachelor is the key to our humanity. Now, don't you feel better about not watching The American Experience on Mondays?

And of course, this is the place where we acknowledge that The Bachelorette does have that one happy family to its credit. Trista's and Ryan's claim to fame is looking more durable with each season of love in flames that passes. Tonight (ABC, 8 PM) marks the end of DeAnna's own search, as she will pick either Jesse or Jason as her own prospective Ryan. I'm done with making predictions here, though I agree with the emerging consensus that Jesse doesn't seem like the marriageable type for any woman, much less someone like DeAnna. At 10 PM, we'll meet DeAnna and Mr. X as a happy couple for the first time, which could very well mark the high point of their relationship. But I wish them well.

Emeril Live (Fine Living, 7 PM): BAM! You're off the Food Network! Emeril Lagasse has packed up his knives and decamped to Fine Living, where he will team with Martha Stewart at 8 to give the still-obscure channel something of an identity, even if that identity is as the home of people who weren't making it any more on larger channels. Tonight's debut deals with Emeril's new fish restaurant in the Las Vegas MGM Grand. One of the recipes is "crab and wasabi sliders with potato chips." I like crab, and boy do I like potato chips. But only the genius of Emeril would have thought to combine the two.

Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence (TCM, 8 PM): The veteran critic now has an interview show, which is getting some attention because the first guest is Sydney Pollack, who died at the end of May (an airing of Pollack's Tootsie follows at 8:30). Even if he wasn't considered a true auteur, Pollack was always a good talker, so it figures to be an entertaining if bittersweet half hour.

Jon & Kate Plus 8 (TLC, 9 PM): The sextuplets take a field trip to decorate cupcakes for their impending fourth birthdays. Our moppets are growing up! If this were a traditional sitcom, where the show was premised on the sextuplets as preschoolers, this is where Kate would be getting pregnant again with the birth scheduled for the February 2009 sweeps. And who knows, maybe she would be up for it. The Gosselins seem to like the attention.

Nashville Star (NBC, 9 PM): The show is doing a couple of things tonight that qualify as welcome changes. First, it has been reduced to one hour. Last week's effort to fill the extra hour, forcing singers to sing 30 or 40 seconds of a second song, didn't work for viewers and was unfair to the performers. And secondly, two acts will be eliminated this evening, one at the start of the hour and one at the end. There's no shortage of contenders to leave, but one has to assume Laura and Sophie and their Little Miss Sunshine act aren't long for national television.

The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale (HBO, 9 PM): This week's documentary deals with a painter who took the term "artistic temperament" a little too far. It's a character study of Connelly, an apparent superstar in the making in the 1980s who gradually fell out of favor due to terminal jerkiness, apparently inspired by his belief that the commercial side of the art world is corrupt. Alcohol abuse played a role as well, as it always seems to when we're talking about prodigies gone bad. Director Jeff Stimmel spent six years following Connelly.

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (Travel, 10 PM): Bourdain visits Laos, where hopefully he won't find the cuisine to be Laos-y. He tours the remote jungles and discovers local meats and soups, as well as a homebrew helpfully called lao-lao. Even during the Vietnam War, we never heard much about Laos which was right next door, so this represents novel scenery even by this show's standards.

Weeds (Showtime, 10 PM): They're slowly getting the old gang back together, or at least part of it. Tonight, Doug (Kevin Nealon) meets up with Nancy by the shore, where the Botwins are sitting Shiva for the late Bubbie. Celia continues in her effort to convince the authorities that the misdeeds pinned on her are actually the fault of Nancy. And it appears that Albert Brooks's sojourn in Potland may be nearing an end, as Lenny expresses a desire to sell the house with his mother now deceased.

Secret Diary of a Call Girl (Showtime, 10:30 PM): Belle discovers that Ben has gotten engaged, which bothers her because it is a secret he has been keeping from her, and she's used to being the one with the secrets. Also, Belle's accountant/client lets her in on a secret of his own: he wants her to start gettin' rough. This shouldn't come as a surprise. In order to play it that straitlaced from 9 to 5, you have to be a freak the rest of the day.

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