A cause for celebration for many, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (9 p.m., HBO) returns for its eighth season. As we've come to expect from this series and the "Seinfeld" series that "Curb" star Larry David co-created, the comedy here is all about radical selfishness taken to absurd extremes. And if a theme emerges from these brilliantly small, tightly written minuets of pure silliness, it's that selfish pursuits can sometimes result in moments of nobility — no matter how unintended.
In an upcoming episode, Larry and his sidekick manager Jeff Garlin develop a taste for Palestinian chicken sold at a restaurant festooned with posters condemning Israel. Torn between his appetites and his ethnic loyalties, Larry ups the ante and embarks on a wild affair with an anti-Semitic Palestinian waitress.
Not to give too much away, but he ends up torn between his new lover and his gang of friends, who join a noisy mob protesting the right of a Palestinian chicken joint to open up next to the "sacred ground" of a Jewish deli. However slight the story, this clearly echoes recent efforts in New York to keep a mosque from opening near the site of the old World Trade Center. Just as "Seinfeld" could turn issues as thorny as abortion into pure comedy, "Curb" manages to blend the ridiculous and profound in ways that will leave you breathless from laughing and amazed that comedy so petty could also be so audacious. And we expect no less from the mind of Larry David.
• The new series "The Indestructibles" (9 p.m., National Geographic) revisits news footage of horrific accidents and offers theories about how some victims survived. First up: the crash of a local news helicopter on a Brooklyn roof.
Tonight’s other highlights
• Scheduled on "60 Minutes" (6 p.m., CBS): profiting from shale gas extraction; homeless veterans; film footage of vanished San Francisco shot days before the earthquake of 1906.
• Larry King hosts the special "Harry Potter: The Final Chapter" (7 p.m. and 10 p.m., CNN).
• "Masterpiece Mystery" (8 p.m., PBS) presents "Miss Marple VI: The Pale Horse."
• "Primetime" (8 p.m., ABC) offers a Diane Sawyer interview with Jaycee Dugard.
• Bill deals out punishment on "True Blood" (8 p.m., HBO)
• Tyler Florence guest-stars on "Food Network Star" (8 p.m., Food).
• The raid on Bin Laden is recalled on "Secrets of SEAL Team Six" (8 p.m., Discovery).
• Miami is convulsed by chaos on "CSI: Miami" (9 p.m., CBS).
• Hal hatches a rescue mission on "Falling Skies" (9 p.m., TNT).
• Murder in the men's room on "The Glades" (9 p.m., A&E;).
• Celebrities lend their names to restaurants on "Famous Food" (9 p.m., VH1).
Cult choice
TCM continues to invite viewers to its private bomb shelter of Cold War cinematic paranoia with a marathon of nuclear nightmares, concluding with "Seven Days in May" (3:35 a.m., Sunday).
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