It’s May, and doom is in the air. “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America” (7 p.m., ABC) offers a grim “what if” scenario. How long would it take for a mutated bird flu to kill thousands, even millions, and bring our way of life to a crashing halt?

Not too long, it seems. And while that’s terrible for a hypothetically plague-addled America, it does wonders for the pacing of this film.

Like paranoid thrillers of yore, “Bird Flu” likes to multitask, contemplating several underlying fears at once. Back in the 1950s, monster movies touched on sensitive nerves frayed by fears of atomic attack. But they were also filled with scary juvenile delinquents. The authorities often seemed more concerned with unruly teenagers than monsters or even Communists.

Speaking of Communists, “Bird Flu” begins in China, where an American businessman haggles with Chinese merchants in a grim manufacturing facility. Some of the underpaid workers appear to be sniffling and coughing. Uh-oh.

So we see how trepidations about global trade can be grafted onto a movie about fear of a killer virus. Soon we move to Washington, where words like “FEMA” and “Katrina” are repeated often enough to deliver the unstated message: The government may not be up to the job. Uh-oh.

While relentlessly grim, “Bird Flu” is also ruthlessly efficient. It manages to pack a lot of things to be bummed-out about in its two-hour running time. Panics, civil unrest, government overreach and incompetence, personal greed, suicide, rationing, quarantines, shortages, starvation and a staggering scene of a New York City subway platform used as a hospital triage center all unfold at a fast clip.

“Bird” does manage to slip a few upbeat themes in there, too. Apparently, the flu can’t beat us if we don’t lose our sense of community or humanity. Or maybe it can. I’ll never tell.

¢ Street performers descend on Star Hollow after hearing news of the town busker’s breakout success on “Gilmore Girls” (7 p.m., WB). Musical guests include Sonic Youth, Sam Phillips, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Yo La Tengo, Sparks, Joe Pernice and Dave Gruber Allen. This marks the season finale of “Girls.”

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ The four remaining singers perform two Elvis songs apiece on “American Idol” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ Gibbs is injured by a terrorist’s bomb on part one of a two-part season finale of “NCIS” (7 p.m., CBS).

¢ An African mission goes awry on “The Unit” (8 p.m., CBS). In a second episode, (9 p.m.) a newspaper story threatens to blow an agent’s cover.

¢ A mother and her newborn face a ticking clock on “House” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ After identifying the person behind a bus crash, our Nancy Drew finds herself in grave danger on the season finale of “Veronica Mars” (8 p.m., UPN). This could be it for Ms. Mars.

¢ A woman accuses her husband of molestation on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (9 p.m., NBC).

¢ Parker Posey guest stars as a vicious new lawyer nicknamed “The Squid” on “Boston Legal” (9 p.m., ABC).