Critic's corner
The 51 contestants gather in Las Vegas for this beauty smackdown, the 57th annual. But here’s the real excitement: Donny and Marie Osmond are cohosting! Time to turn the brightness on your TV set down. And there’s more: Celebrity judges will include Heather Mills,Joey Fatone, and Rob Schneider. Why, it’s all just too good to be true.
A blogger threatens Melinda. That's (cough, go blogger, cough) terrible.
Don't forget the giant dipping sauce.
A four-hour festival. A timeless bad pun.
9 p.m., Channel 25
Fox moved this legal drama from Mondays to Friday-night nowheresville because it has not attracted a big viewership. Too bad. The cases aren't great, but Julianna Margulies (inset) has been dynamite as an iron-fisted Providence lawyer. It's hard to believe she's the same actress who played the more fragile Carol Hathaway on "ER."
Escobar by Escobar, not Chase.
An antisocial pup. Suggested name: House.
Helen Mirren (above) gives a tour-de-force performance as Queen Elizabeth II, wondering why her people are so terribly upset over Princess Di's death. Writer Peter Morgan and director Stephen Frears have fashioned a subtle, funny, ultimately touching tragedy of royal manners; the guilty pleasures of behind-palace-doors drama are balanced by empathy and insight. With Michael Sheen as Tony Blair. (PG-13; runs through April 24) - Ty Burr 