Last year was the season of the preposterous premise. The main character on “Pushing Daisies” could raise the dead. On “Reaper,” he worked for the devil. And on “Chuck” (7 p.m., NBC), a smart but underemployed electronics-store clerk (Zachary Levi) became the CIA’s most coveted asset and became embroiled in espionage and action-film violence while still running a staff of computer geeks and social misfits.

Levi does a good job of channeling the perky everyman appeal of Thomas Cavanagh (“Ed”) and the slacker aplomb of Jim (John Krasinski) from “The Office.”

But the real question for “Chuck” and “Reaper” and even “Daisies” is, how do you maintain an audience’s interest in the far-fetched?

As “Chuck” enters its second season, it looks like the Agency may have developed a new super-computer and will no longer have a need for Chuck’s services. Will this sudden change of plans force Chuck to take charge of his life and inspire him to express his obvious feelings for spy chaperone Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski)? Or will it turn Chuck and “Chuck” into a new slacker variation on “The Man Who Knew Too Much”?

¢ In her acceptance speech to the Republican Convention last month, VP candidate Sarah Palin snickered that Democrats were less interested in catching terrorists than “reading them their rights.” The line received laughs and applause from an enthusiastic crowd.

Viewers who still consider the rule of law to be a cumbersome joke should seriously consider watching “Taxi to the Dark Side” (8 p.m., HBO). The Academy Award-winning documentary chronicles the systematic efforts by some in the Bush administration to water down and ignore long-established laws against torture and how these efforts at the top quickly trickled down to create the culture of cruelty and confusion that resulted in the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities. The film includes clips of many in the military, and in the government, including Sen. John McCain, who spoke out against torture because it eroded the United State’s moral and legal reputation. This is a powerful time bomb of a film, as gripping and watchable as it is disturbing.

¢ Robert Osbourne hosts a “Private Screenings” (7 p.m., TCM) interview with producer Walter Mirisch, a prolific filmmaker with films such as “Some Like It Hot,” “The Apartment,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “West Side Story,” “The Great Escape,” “The Pink Panther” and “In the Heat of the Night” on his resume.

¢ A killer uses a fleet of trucks to scatter his victims on the second-season premiere of “Life” (10 p.m., NBC), starring Damian Lewis.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ A software glitch scrambles Cameron’s sense of self on “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ Hostage crises and a trip to the past to change the future on “Heroes” (8 p.m., NBC).

¢ A trackside indiscretion proves Mahone’s undoing on “Prison Break” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ The “American Experience” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings) profile of Ronald Reagan concludes.

¢ Gas prices spark a crime wave on “CSI: Miami” (9 p.m., CBS).

¢ Alan takes on the pharmaceutical giants on “Boston Legal” (9 p.m., ABC).

¢ VH1 dedicates a week to counting down the “100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs” (9 p.m., VH1). Tonight, Nos. 100 to 81.