“Boston Legal” (9 p.m., ABC) continues its act of juggling topicality and soap-opera fluff. Denny, Alan and Vanessa travel to New Orleans to defend a doctor against charges that she performed euthanasia on five patients during the grim aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This story echoes that of an actual case.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, the shenanigans involve a cross-dresser’s right to go to an all-female gym as a man and several discussions about the meaning of the term “friends with benefits.”

One could fault “Boston” for mingling the tragic and the trivial, or of being so embarrassed to be handling “heavy” issues that it overcompensates with the ridiculous. But at least “Boston” and its creator, David E. Kelley, are still paying attention to the national disgrace of Katrina and its wake, even in using New Orleans as a backdrop for some of Denny and Alan’s loopy man-to-man powwows.

“Boston” stands in favorable contrast to “Law & Order,” the original ripped-from-the-headlines drama. “Law” has dumbed down its stories with recent references to Britney and Kevin and Anna Nicole Smith. “Law” seems to have deliberately set out to alienate its smart, faithful audience with tabloid trash. And it has succeeded all too well.

¢ On a can’t-miss episode of “House” (8 p.m., Fox), Dr. Gregory House makes a last-ditch effort to avoid jail time and a possible revocation of his medical license. If you missed the episode in which he put himself in this wretched predicament (and where he displayed miserable bedside manner with a dwarf and her daughter), it repeats (7 p.m.) tonight.

Not to give too much away here, but this is the last night of David Morse’s six-episode stint. He plays the angry police officer with a personal grudge against our hero.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Scheduled on “Dateline” (7 p.m., NBC): murder and bigamy.

¢ Hucksters (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis) battle poltergeists and bureaucracy in the 1984 comedy “Ghostbusters” (7 p.m., Family).

¢ Christopher needles Lorelai with a yarn about knitting on “Gilmore Girls” (7 p.m., CW).

¢ “Nova” (7 p.m., PBS, check local listings) presents its magazine-format series “Nova ScienceNow,” a fast-paced and engaging one-hour glance at a half-dozen interesting ideas and developments in science and technology.

¢ Queen Latifah hosts the “33rd Annual People’s Choice Awards” (8 p.m., CBS).

¢ Doris Roberts guest stars as a socialite on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (8 p.m., NBC).

¢ “Undercover History: Hitler’s Bunker” (9 p.m., National Geographic) looks at the decadeslong search for Hitler’s remains. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union was it revealed that Joseph Stalin’s government had kept a handful of his bones and teeth in secret hiding places for four decades.

¢ A custody battle heats up beyond control on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (9 p.m., NBC).