Rachel Zoe, a fashion stylist to the stars, finds yet another reason to feel victimized as The Rachel Zoe Project begins a new season (Tuesday, 9 p.m., Bravo). Rachel is shocked to discover that her extravagantly nasty assistant Taylor has acted extravagantly nasty who'd have thought? and screwed over the business. She reacts to this betrayal the way she reacts to everything: like a petulant teenage valley girl. That's pretty embarrassing for a middle-aged woman with high professional standards (at least, Rachel keeps telling us that she has high professional standards).
"I feel, like, I've been knifed in the back so many times," she whines. "Like, knifed over and over. I have, like, wounds."
Is she, like, kidding?
Ultimate Air Jaws
Sunday, 8 pm (Discovery)
Discovery's annual Shark Week begins with "Ultimate Air Jaws," which focuses on a terrifying breed of great white shark that jumps out of the water to eat seals in midair. "To catch the elusive seal," the narrator says, "the great white showed us a speed, power, and even intelligence we didn't know it had."
Photographer Chris Fallows examines these scary creatures as they leave a seal island for shallow water near a South African beach, where people swim and surf. He wants to figure out what they seek there, as juicy humans frolic in the waves. Hmmm, what could it possibly be?
After observing the sharks up close in a kayak, however, Fallows concludes that they are "non-aggressive and pose little threat to humans." I'm sure that's exactly what the sharks wanted him to believe. The narrator is right: These ravenous con artists are even more intelligent than we thought.
12th & Delaware
Monday, 8 pm (HBO)
This documentary focuses on an explosive corner of Fort Pierce, Florida. The abortion clinic A Woman's World sits on one side of the street, the pro-life Pregnancy Care Center on the other. Cameras take us into each place to meet the staffers and overhear counseling sessions with pregnant women. Out front, pro-life protesters harass women going into A Woman's World, commanding them to obey Jesus.
Inside the pro-life operation, it's all about Jesus as well, with talk of the devil and the forces of evil that is, when clients aren't around. The Pregnancy Care Center's official approach to counseling favors subterfuge. Anne, the director, is proud of luring in women who mistakenly think they're at an abortion clinic. She feeds them dubious information and preys on their minds with psychological tricks.
Fooling people for Jesus did I miss a week of Bible class?
Shaq vs.
Tuesday, 8 pm (ABC)
In the first season of Shaq vs., basketball star Shaquille O'Neal competed against champions from other sports: swimming against Michael Phelps, boxing against Oscar De La Hoya, etc. He claimed to be the world's greatest athlete, someone who could - with a reasonable handicap - beat anybody in any arena.
In season two, Shaq makes even more extreme claims of greatness. Now he takes on anybody who does anything, including dancers, magicians and even spelling champs.
I wonder if he can spell d-e-l-u-s-i-o-n-a-l.
Plain Jane
Wednesday, 8 pm (CW)
Plain Jane sounds like the kind of makeover series that gives reality TV a bad name: A fashion guru looks for wallflowers to turn into princesses who can bewitch the guys of their dreams. But in this case, the fashion guru's personality saves the day. Leslie Roe isn't the usual crude, inarticulate American host, but a Brit with a sparkling patrician accent that makes Julie Andrews sound like a guttersnipe. Leslie goes through the usual makeover motions deploring her Plain Janes' dowdy wardrobe, messy room, insecure manner, etc. but she does so wittily. She strikes the perfect playful tone, as if to say, "Yes, this is silly, but isn't it fun, too?"
If all makeover hosts were as good as Leslie, I doubt there'd be a gawky single woman left in the whole damn country.
