Tonight's TV Hot List: Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Dark Blue
10 pm/ET TNT
It's the pros against the cons in this visceral crime drama that tracks the shadowy derring-do of an undercover task force. In the premiere, brooding team leader Carter Shaw (Dylan McDermott) tries to take down a suave gang leader responsible for torturing an FBI agent and leaving him for dead. But the case turns messy when one of Carter's own embedded men (Logan Marshall-Green) seemingly flips loyalties. Executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the show features intriguing characters, bullet-blazing violence and a gritty edge, making it a fine counterpart to the lighter caper series Leverage, which precedes it on Wednesdays. — Dean Maurer
Michael & Michael Have Issues
10:30 pm/ET Comedy Central
Comedic collaborators since Stella, The State and their days at NYU, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter team up again for this seven-episode series that draws on years of a finely tuned partnership. Essentially a show-within-a-show, MMHI focuses on the sophomoric rivalry and petty jealousies between Black and Showalter while working as a TV sketch-comedy duo. In tonight's premiere, their goofy game of one-upmanship comes to a head while vying for the attention of the show's intern. — Joe Friedrich
Top Chef Masters
10 pm/ET Bravo
Tonight's chief chefs will flip out, especially when they discover real-world real-estate stars Jeff Lewis and Jenni Pulos, both of Bravo's Flipping Out, are guest stars. The competing gastronomes are Michael Chiarello, Rick Moonen, Nils Noren and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, and they're in a junk funk when they must reinvent junk-food classics. Later, less is more when they loom large over mini-meals. — Dean Maurer
The Philanthropist
10 pm/ET NBC
Bad things happen to good people all the time, as Teddy Rist's newly opened eyes now show him. Even so, he is blindsided by the collateral damage that results from his good works when his friend, Dr. Chima Balo, is kidnapped by a rebel leader in retaliation for opening a commerce-generating oil refinery in a Nigerian village. Apparently, this guy doesn't know the lengths Teddy will go to for his friends, but for those of us who do, Teddy's vow to get Chima back is proof positive that a philanthropist's work is never done. — Rhoda Charles
Criminal Minds
9 pm/ET CBS
Here's a chance for Alex O'Loughlin fans to see the former Moonlight star before his new CBS series, Three Rivers, starts in the fall. In this repeat from April, O'Loughlin plays a serial killer who sends a video documenting one of his crimes to the BAU team, but it's not to taunt them — or even part of his twisted MO. The agents learn that the man is sending them a message to help him stop his murderous spree. — Bill Ecklund