The year’s smartest new guilty pleasure, “Dirty Sexy Money” (9 p.m., ABC), may be the one breakout show in an unremarkable season.

Like any good champagne soap opera, its characters vacillate between moments of extreme selfishness and romantic longing. We know these deeper sentiments arise from their narcissistic hearts, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real.

In tonight’s fine episode, the thrice-married Karen Darling (Natalie Zea) stands on the precipice of wedding No. 4, but she wants to call it off. Is this because she’s a spoilt brat, or because of her profound love for Nick (Peter Krause), the Darling family lawyer at the center of the show? Nick’s wife, Lisa (Zoe McLellan), certainly thinks it’s the latter.

Patrick Darling (William Baldwin) is willing to risk his political career and marriage for his true love: a woman who was once a man. And Tripp Darling (Donald Sutherland), the family patriarch with the greatest potential for calculating vengeance and avarice, also seems the family’s biggest softy. He spends his daughter’s wedding day in a haze of good feeling, willfully oblivious to Karen’s character and pattern of behavior.

The Rev. Brian Darling (Glenn Fitzgerald) shows the least capacity for human kindness. But even his cruel heart skips a beat when his ex-mistress Andrea (Sheryl Lee) returns and threatens to take Brian Jr. back to Brazil. And it says something about this show’s delicious casting that Andrea is played by the actress who was once Laura Palmer, the corpse wrapped in plastic at the dark center of “Twin Peaks.”

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Death gets the pick of the litter on “Pushing Daisies” (7 p.m., ABC).

¢ A two-hour “Mythbusters” (8 p.m., Discovery) goes super-sized.

¢ A glance back at hard cases on “Ghost Hunters” (8 p.m., Sci Fi).

¢ “Biography” (8 p.m.) profiles Denis Leary.

¢ A gas explosion leaves less than half a victim behind on “Life” (9 p.m., NBC)

¢ Scientists search for a giant squid on “MonsterQuest” (9 p.m., History).

Cult choice

The little tramp (Charlie Chaplin) joins “The Circus” (9:45 p.m., TCM) in the 1928 silent comedy.