Actress and former talk-show host Ricki Lake stars in “Matters of Life & Dating” (8 p.m., Lifetime) as Linda Dackman, a single career woman who learns that she has breast cancer and has to undergo a mastectomy and breast-reconstruction surgery.

Based on Dackman’s memoirs, “Matters” takes us through her stages of reaction to the very bad news. She exhibits flippant humor, dark resignation and anger toward everybody, including her best pal, Carla (Rachael Harris), who doesn’t have breast cancer. Major characters turn to the camera, documentary-style, and discuss Linda’s battle. Linda also attends group therapy with other survivors and meets Nicole (Holly Robinson Peete), an old childhood friend.

It’s hard to find fault with a movie trying to help women cope with a life-threatening illness, but Linda’s plight might be more accessible if she weren’t so darned successful and living such a fabulous two-double-latte-a-day existence and having to fend off so many handsome suitors. With cancer and without, Linda finds herself courted by Frenchmen and married men, artists and art buyers, blondes, brunettes and dark handsome types. It’s a little hard to believe that Ricki Lake – Tracy Turnblad from “Hairspray” – has become a stud magnet.

¢ I am a sucker for great titles, and “Does Your Soul Have a Cold?” (8 p.m., IFC) stopped me in my tracks. The 2006 documentary, directed by Mike Mills (“Thumbsucker”), looks at depression in Japan, where society has only recently become vaguely comfortable discussing the subject.

The Japanese word for depression did not gain much currency until 1990, and popular awareness of the mental illness only grew after 2000, when Western pharmaceutical companies began selling drugs like Paxil on television. The film’s title is taken from a TV commercial for one such medicine.

Presented completely without medical experts or authoritative narration, “Cold” follows five young Japanese depressives, whose frank, subtitled articulation of feelings of numbness and invisibility reminded me of characters out of Ingmar Bergman movies. “Cold” may also remind some viewers of “Lost in Translation,” another film that used images of Tokyo’s vibrant urban anonymity to explore Western themes of alienation and loss.

¢ Part three of “The Mysterious Human Heart” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings) looks at atherosclerosis, deposits of plaque in the artery wall that trigger cardiac arrest.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Chuck mulls breaking the rules on “Chuck” (7 p.m., NBC).

¢ Man’s best friend on “Everybody Hates Chris” (7 p.m., CW).

¢ Brits and grits mix on a “Top Gear” (7 p.m., BBC America) trip to the American south.

¢ Leonard (Johnny Galecki) meets a colleague (Sara Gilbert) of the girl persuasion on “The Big Bang Theory” (7:30 p.m., CBS). Galecki and Gilbert starred together on “Roseanne.”

¢ Kristen Bell (“Veronica Mars”) joins the cast of “Heroes” (8 p.m., NBC).

¢ College football can be a killer on “K-Ville” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ A long trip to find an Army ranger on “Journeyman” (9 p.m., NBC).

¢ MTV presents a scripted drama, “Kaya” (9:30 p.m., MTV), about a performer making choices about life and career.

Cult choice

Two 19th-century magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) engage in a deadly rivalry in the 2006 mystery “The Prestige” (8 p.m., Starz).