In a move guaranteed to irk “Glee” fans, “American Idol” (7 p.m., Fox) arrives one night early to air a 90-minute helping of the top-10 male contestants. Viewer voting begins tonight, at a time when “Idol” finally gets interesting to some.

For the better part of this century, I’ve been promising myself not to get hooked on “Idol” and waste countless hours waiting for the likes of Crystal Bowersox to be crowned only to see them lose to safer and more predictable talents.

And so far this year I’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding “Idol” entirely. I feel as if I’ve been given hours, if not whole days, of my life back.

It hasn’t been all that hard staying on (or is it off?) the “American Idol” wagon. The prospect of watching Steve Tyler is one incentive. Just why one of the more swaggering figures of the classic-rock era has transformed himself into someone who looks like a dentist’s first wife is a mystery to me.

And a little Jennifer Lopez goes a long way. I tuned in last week only to watch her sob uncontrollably as the burden of eliminations became too, too much. She did a good job of reminding us that before she became a pop star, she earned her living as an actress.

But as of tonight, the competition begins in earnest, and so does the voting. I can feel the gravitational tug of planet “Idol” growing ever stronger. Old habits, particularly bad ones, die hard.

• The grim but fascinating “Independent Lens” (9 p.m., PBS, check local listings) presentation “Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story” offers remarkable access to a teenage prisoner facing life in prison for murder.

The film makes no excuses for Cyntoia’s crime, but rather interviews therapists, foster parents and the prisoner’s biological mother and grandmother to offer a bleak portrait of abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome and prostitution compounded by a legacy of mental illness. In a rather chilling interview, Cyntoia seems less than amazed that she will spend her remaining years in prison. The real tragedy of her life, she calculates with bloodcurdling dispassion, was that she was ever born at all.

Tonight’s other highlights

• Sophie works her spell on Jim and George on “No Ordinary Family” (7 p.m., ABC).

• Motown artists appear on “In Performance at the White House” (8 p.m., PBS, check local listings).

• Sam and Callen undertake a dangerous mission to Yemen on “NCIS: Los Angeles” (8 p.m., CBS).

• Erica assumes command of the resistance on “V” (8 p.m., ABC).

• Burt just doesn’t cut it on “Raising Hope” (8:30 p.m., Fox).

• A man is subject to grim abuse after a social-networking site fails to protect his privacy on “The Good Wife” (9 p.m., CBS).

• Adam and Kristina find Max hard to reach on “Parenthood” (9 p.m., NBC).

• A coed’s murder galvanizes the squad on “Detroit 1-8-7” (9 p.m., ABC).

• Lights finds a new way to train on “Lights Out” (9 p.m., FX).