Julianna Margulies re-turns to network television in “Canterbury’s Law” (7 p.m., Fox), a drama with a troubled lawyer at its center. Elizabeth Canterbury (Margulies) operates at full throttle. She’s often seen bossing around legal underlings who are hard-pressed to live up to her demanding expectations. Particularly after she’s just fired the receptionist on a whim.

Aidan Quinn plays her doting husband. But he seems to be walking on eggshells in her presence. There’s a void at the center of their marriage that we don’t discover until the end of the first episode. Could that be why she’s carrying on an affair? Or why she takes the hopeless case of a heavily medicated loner accused of killing the son of a prominent family? Or why she bends the rules beyond their breaking point and receives a courtroom retort that is as shocking as it is predictable?

Margulies left “ER” in 2000, a move that was as surprising to fans as David Caruso’s decision to depart “NYPD Blue” in 1994. Now both actors are back in their own series. But while Caruso moved easily (if unconvincingly to some) into the safe “CSI” franchise, Margulies appears to have come late to the role of a “complicated” professional legal woman. After years of watching Helen Mirren in “Prime Suspect,” Kyra Sedgwick in “The Closer” and Holly Hunter in “Saving Grace,” it’s become a rather crowded field.

¢ Four years in the making, “High School Confidential” (9 p.m., WE) follows 12 girls from their freshman year to graduation. “Confidential” consists of first-person interviews with the students as they discuss their feelings about dating, sex, peer pressure and the gamut of high-school conflicts.

While the show’s title promises a scintillating look at girls’ inner lives, the interviews often remind us just how banal teenagers can be, particularly when talking about themselves. If observations like “my boss is mean” or “I don’t like bugs” are your idea of profound, then this is the series for you.

¢ “Celebrity Expose” (7 p.m., MyNetwork) looks at “The Comeback of Whitney Houston.” If the number of Whitney covers on “American Idol” is any indication, she never went away.

¢ If it weren’t for the strike and other complications, we might be watching “24” tonight. We’ll have to settle for “Science of Interrogation” (8 p.m., National Geographic), a look at the outer limits of coercion. The documentary “CIA Secret Experiments” (9 p.m., National Geographic) follows.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ “The Bachelor: Where Are They Now?” (7 p.m., ABC) catches up with past participants.

¢ Ally Sheedy guest stars on “Kyle XY” (7 p.m., Family).

¢ A homeless vet’s murder confession seems fishy on “New Amsterdam” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ Eddie’s former girlfriend returns on the two-hour season finale of “October Road” (8 p.m., ABC).

¢ A real mother-in-law nightmare on “Medium” (9 p.m., NBC).

¢ “REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel” (9 p.m., HBO) profiles college-basketball coach Bruce Pearl.

Cult choice

Brush up your Shakespeare with Orson Welles in the 1948 adaptation of “Macbeth” (7 p.m., TCM), followed by Laurence Olivier’s take on “Hamlet” (9 p.m.) from the same year.

For something more recent, catch Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1996 drama “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet” (6:30 p.m., Fox Movie Channel).