The niche is the thing on cable television – and the smaller the niche the better.

How better to explain “Twister Sisters” (9 p.m., WE), the first documentary-style series to explore the female-bonding aspects of tornado chasing?

Peggy Willenberg and Melanie Metz share a passion for extreme weather and a budget that includes radar and other expensive gear that allows them to drive hastily through Midwestern states in the hopes of finding and watching a tornado. In each one-hour episode, the “Sisters” will encounter others who share their singular interest in very bad weather.

¢ Documented female bonding of another sort takes place on “The Real Housewives of Orange County” (9 p.m. Bravo), or, as we say in our house, the Real Housewives with the Fake Boobs of Orange County.

This show documents the lives of silicone-injected and self-absorbed women who seem to share an unnatural pallor. They’re not quite yellow like the characters on “The Simpsons,” but their faces are not exactly as nature intended them.

A new creature named Quinn Fry joins the fray. She’s 50-ish with two kids and has been divorced for 14 years. She likes us to know that she’s dating a man in his 40s and another in his 20s. In her words, that makes her a “cougar.” The other gals in her botoxed bevy appear shocked when her latest prey, Jared, shows up and he’s only 26. Rrolwww!

It’s hard to get too agitated about the “Housewives.” After all, the folks at Bravo know exactly what they are doing, and they fully expect a vast portion of the audience to find the “Housewives” as dreadful as I do. Of course, others may envy them. And that’s just plain sad.

But the documentary “reality show” nature of the series really changes our relationship with these “characters.” There’s nothing wrong with rooting for a soap-opera villain to get her just deserts. That’s half the fun of the genre. The prime-time soap “Dynasty” pulled out all of the stops in May 1985 with a season ender in which the entire cast was machine-gunned by Moldavian terrorists, leaving us to ponder just who would survive the summer. And, by extension, it asked us to wonder about those we wished to return and those we wanted eliminated.

It would be wicked for my thoughts about “real” “Housewives” to wander in a similar direction. But I have to admit, when I see these folks gabbing about shopping, sharing plastic-surgery tips or complaining about their million-dollar homes, I do wonder, “Just where are those darned Moldavians now that we need them?”

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ A Cold War case puts the team in Christmas quarantine on “Bones” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ The holidays go green on the animated special “Shrek the Halls” (7 p.m., ABC).

¢ A detective finds himself transported to 1973 in the smart series “Life on Mars” (7 p.m., BBC America), making its second-season debut with a two-hour episode.

¢ “Divine Dresses with the Knot” (7:30 p.m., Style) celebrates expensive gowns and their designers and acquisitive brides who think of their weddings as “their Oscars.”

¢ The holiday forecast is blustery on “Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too!” (7:30 p.m., ABC).

¢ A little patient is long on problems on “House” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ “The Suze Orman Show: Your Money. Your Life” (8 p.m., CNBC) offers financial advice.

¢ On two episodes of “Cane” (CBS), Alex puts the “Cane” in hurricane (8 p.m.), nuptials interrupted (9 p.m.).