The comic book adventure “Flash Gordon” (8 p.m., Sci Fi) has inspired movie serials and now receives an update for 21st-century television. The question remains: Can you stage a revival of an entertainment franchise few viewers remember?

Eric Johnson stars in the title role. He’s a handsome track star and marathon champion whose love life and career seem stuck in neutral. Still wounded by the mysterious death of his scientist father, he’s chastened to meet Dale (Gina Holden), an old flame who has become a local media hotshot and has announced her engagement.

Flash’s personal problems serve as mere prelude to the intergalactic struggles to come. We soon learn that Flash’s father did not die in a fire, or even die at all. His research seems to have opened a rift between Earth and some distant galaxy. Holy Stargate, Batman!

Former lovers Flash and Dale soon find themselves in the court of the merciless Ming (John Ralston), dictator of a far-off planet. Will they survive and return to Earth? Is the engagement off?

This new “Flash” plays up the campy, over-the-top quality of serialized cliffhangers. Acting and credibility take a back seat to action and story advancement. But you can’t help feeling that a real comic book or young-adult novel would have things move at a brisker pace than this “Hardy Boys in Space” fantasy.

¢ “Survivorman” (8 p.m., Discovery) enters its second season with host Les Stroud battling the 140 F heat of the Kalahari Desert. Over the course of season two, he will also venture into the Amazon jungle, and battle the unpredictable weather of Labrador, the wild beasts of the African plain, the rain forests of Alaska and the sun-bleached shores of a deserted Pacific Ocean island.

¢ “Going Tribal” (9 p.m., Discovery) enters a new season with Bruce Parry ingratiating himself among the Matia tribe, in a remote area of Brazil. If the Matia appear reluctant to host Parry, they have good reason. They first made contact with modern man in the 1970s, and this interaction brought diseases that nearly eradicated the tribe. Parry eventually wins them over and spends time learning Matia hunting rites and rituals.

¢ “Meerkat Manor” (7:30 p.m., Animal Planet) returns for another 13-episode season of mob rivalries, family tensions and matriarchal melodrama.

¢ Charles Gibson anchors a “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC) special profiling popular evangelist Billy Graham and his relationship with presidents from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.

¢ Once and former bold-faced names, including Vanilla Ice, Leif Garrett and Stephen Baldwin, climb in a dangerous saddle on “Ty Murray’s Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge” (8 p.m., CMT).

Tonight’s other highlights

Note: Listings may vary due to local sports coverage.

• Our hero is stuck to a ticking clock in the movie-length cartoon “Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix” (6 p.m., Cartoon Network).
• New Orleans hosts Buffalo in preseason NFL action (7 p.m., CBS).
• A slacker (Jack Black) inspires prep-school students in the 2003 comedy “School of Rock” (7 p.m., Fox).
• A Maori girl (Keisha Castle-Hughes) challenges tradition in the 2002 drama “Whale Rider” (7 p.m., My Network).
• Scheduled on “NOW” (7:30 p.m., PBS): America’s growing income divide.
• A rare wine’s sour bouquet on “Las Vegas” (8 p.m., NBC).
• The birds and the bees on “Monk” (8 p.m., USA).
• “Doctor Who” (7 p.m., Sci Fi) turns back the clock.
• Murder rounds the corner on “Psych” (9 p.m., USA).