The new series “Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings) takes a brave stab at two things television rarely does well, or at all. I’m talking about intelligent conversation – and intelligent conversation about religion, to boot. Too often, TV talk means celebrities repeating well-rehearsed pitches for their new movies. And religious conversation is either nonexistent or relegated to the screaming wake-the-dead dialogue of cable talk shows.

Luckily, Bill Moyers – whose landmark conversations with Joseph Campbell on “The Power of Myth” set a kind of gold standard for intelligent television – is more than up to the task.

His first guest is author Salman Rushdie. His 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” earned him the wrath of Muslim fundamentalists. He lived for years under an official death threat, or fatwa, declared by an Iranian cleric.

You’d think this and his professed atheism would make Rushdie a poor choice to discuss the relationship between man and God. But Rushdie argues that, by definition, atheists do quite a lot of thinking about the subject.

A professional infidel, Rushdie says he has the best time when talking before a religious audience. He cites addresses at an evangelical university and a Jewish yeshiva and says the audiences treated him with respect and with well-prepared questions and arguments. This ongoing conversation, Rushdie argues, is the essence of civilization. It’s the people who claim to have all the answers who give him pause.

Over the next six weeks, Moyers will share insights and questions with authors Mary Gordon, Margaret Atwood, Richard Rodriguez, Martin Amis and David Grossman.

¢ Combining chameleonlike mimicry with some of the comic edge of Dave Chappelle, “The Catherine Tate Show” (9:20 p.m., BBC America) presents a fast-paced sketch-comedy show starring Tate in an amazing array of odd characters.

They include an obnoxious, and to American ears, nearly incomprehensible Cockney teen who begins and ends every sentence with the catch phrase “Am I bovvered?”

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Two teams look for clues to a fortune on “Treasure Hunters” (7 p.m., NBC).

¢ On two episodes of “24” (Fox), the airport hostage crisis deepens (7 p.m.), CTU gets a new boss (Sean Astin) (8 p.m.).

¢ “Greatest Moments” (8 p.m., CMT) looks at the career milestones of the late Johnny Cash.

¢ Scheduled on “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC): myths and lies about body image.