Debuting tonight, “The Floor” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) blends the traditional TV game show with a live-action board game.
Like most game shows, “The Floor” includes a traditional panel where contestants are challenged in a game of trivia questions, overseen by host Rob Lowe at his glib best. But “The Floor” also refers to a space in the foreground, an area that appears as large as a basketball court, where 81 players are placed in boxes arranged in a nine-by-nine pattern. Each player claims to have a particular area of trivia expertise, from household appliances to big-screen sidekicks.
The action begins when one player is invited to face off against an adjacent neighbor in his or her area of expertise. Losers go home and winners claim that neighboring territory with the aim to claim more real estate and eventually clear “The Floor” and take home a $250,000 prize.
So, we have a game of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in the background and a giant-sized game of “Risk” in the foreground. That’s a lot for the camera crew to capture. Give “The Floor” points for visual originality.
— “American Masters” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) presents “Hopper: An American Love Story,” a profile of painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Best known for his evocative painting “Nighthawks,” Hopper is associated with figurative efforts that ask as many questions as they answer.
His works often involve a single person seen from a window or gazing out at the horizon. In rare efforts with more than one figure, nobody seems to be making eye contact or conversation. Armchair theorists have long associated his work with feelings of isolation and the sense that even people seen together can be considered utterly alone.
Experts interviewed here offer a psychobiography of the gruff, laconic personality entirely appropriate to his output. After a stint in Paris at the turn of the century that put him in proximity to Picasso and others and a tortured and unrequited affair, he would marry in his early 40s to fellow painter Josephine “Jo” Nivison.
While her gallery connections were essential to Hopper’s career breakthrough, her artistic career faltered as she became best known as his model, muse, caregiver and often-unappreciated all-around helpmate.
They’re both seen in a TV interview toward the end of Hopper’s life, where she describes a world where men seem incapable of gratitude or empathy. Experts chime in with observations that Hopper’s paintings and lifelong reticence might reveal clinical depression.
Other historians cite Hopper’s lack of attention to America’s “diversity,” a statement that says more about 21st-century academia than the painter, already well-described as somebody incapable of interest in even his wife.
The most interesting insights here discuss the influence of movies on Hopper’s work as well as his habit of riding New York’s elevated subway, which offered glimpses through open windows at the fleeting melodramas of distant strangers.
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— On three episodes of “NCIS: Sydney” (CBS, r, TV-14): a viper’s lair (8 p.m.), a sailor’s remains (9 p.m.); a very cold case (10 p.m.).
— Singers Ciara and Alanis Morissette appear on the tenth season premiere of “Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr.” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
— ABC unspools three episodes of “Only Murders in the Building” (9 p.m., TV-14), originally streamed on Hulu.
— Terry Crews hosts “America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League” (9 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG).
— “A Citizen’s Guide to Preserving Democracy” (10 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) offers an old-fashioned civics lesson.
— Marianna loses control as “Good Trouble” (10 p.m., Freeform, TV-14) continues its fifth season.
CULT CHOICE
Molly Ringwald, star of the 1984 comedy “Sixteen Candles” (8 p.m., AMC, TV-14) has been cast as Joanne Carson in the FX on Hulu miniseries “The Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” (Jan. 31).
SERIES NOTES
Dan’s investigation unravels on “Night Court” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG) … “Name That Tune” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Too much information on “Extended Family” (8:30 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Nicki Minaj and Liam Neeson appear on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) … Jimmy Fallon welcomes Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Joel Kinnaman and Mario Carbone on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC, r) … Carey Mulligan, Alan Ritchson and Sleater-Kinney appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (11:35 p.m., ABC, r).
Hilary Duff and Please Don’t Destroy visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC, r) … Howie Mandel, Caroline Rhea, Aries Spears and Harland Williams appear on “Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
