It’s followed by 1940’s “The Long Voyage Home” (TCM, 10 p.m.), Jane Russell in Howard Hughes’ 1943 “The Outlaw” (midnight), John Ford’s great 1940 “The Grapes of Wrath” (TCM, 2 a.m.) and the film many think was the best ever made, Orson Welles’ iconic “Citizen Kane” (TCM, 4:15 a.m.).

Just about the only new scripted show on broadcast TV tonight is “The Firm” (NBC, 9 p.m.), the series that’s being burned off.

Last year’s “X-Men: First Class” (HBO, 8 p.m.) plays premium cable. Also on tonight iare two other films from 2011: “Scream 4” (Showtime, 8 p.m.) and the remake of “Straw Dogs” (Starz, 9 p.m.).

Not to be confused with the new action picture in theaters, the new TV movie “American Battleship” (Syfy, 9 p.m.) is about the USS Iowa vs. hostile alien ships.

Another new TV movie on tonight is “Murder on the 13^th Floor” (Lifetime, 8 p.m.) about a wife who gets jealous of a nanny and kills her.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly team up for “Step Brothers” (FX, 8 p.m.) and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” (Comedy Central, 8:30 p.m.).

Interleague play invades your local ballpark and a primetime network game can pick between them. One might be Orioles at Nationals (Fox, 7 p.m.).

It ain’t the Derby, but it’s in Baltimore: The Preakness Stakes (NBC, 4:30 p.m.).

NBA playoffs include Spurs at Clippers (ABC, 3:30 p.m.) in game 3 and Thunder at Lakers (TNT, 10:30 p.m.) in game 4.

In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it’s Rangers at Devils (NBC, 1 p.m.) in game 3.

The Avett Brothers play a replay of “Austin City Limits” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings).

Mick Jagger hosts “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 11:30 p.m.) to show off his comedy skills. But the musical guests are out of control, with Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters and Jeff Beck all on the bill. It’s unclear whether they’ll all perform in one aggregation or separately.

That’s the case with “The Enchanted Island” a world premiere opera tonight on “Great Performances at the Met” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) that combines Baroque music with new English language libretto and features characters from two Shakespearian plays, “The Tempest” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Placido Domingo, Danielle de Niese, Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels and Laura Pisaroni are featured in the work, which of course is in HD.

Give it up for the brothers on “Supernatural” (The CW, 9 p.m.). Not only are they fighting Leviathan leader Dick Roman on their seventh season finale, but they are also returning in the fall season off of the deathly night of Fridays, where shows go to die, and on the much more higher profile Wednesday night.

“Nikita” (The CW, 8 p.m.) will continue to hold down the fort Fridays, alongside its new neighbor “America’s next Top Model.”

On the season finale of “Shark Tank” (ABC, 8 p.m.) a man from Orlando has a house key that is incorporated into a mobile phone.

Dan Rather, Bill Bradley, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Jeremy Scahill and Joel Stein are guests on a new “Real Time with Bill Maher” (HBO, 10 p.m.).

Chef Paula Deen has to wonder: “Who Do You Think You Are?” (NBC, 8 p.m.).

A two hour rerun of “Kitchen Nightmares” (Fox, 8 p.m.) tries to fix eateries in the Georgia.

Two hours of “Whale Wars: Viking Shores” (Animal Planet, 9 p.m.), however, are all new.

Anyone in the mood for a John Travolta movie? There’s “Swordfish” (AMC, 8 p.m.) or “Look Who’s Talking” (TV Guide Network, 8 p.m.).

Just because its creator continues to be the butt of jokes on “30 Rock,” “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” (TBS, 9 and 9:30 p.m.).

The winner this week of “Fashion Star” (E!, 8 p.m.) might immediately be arrested by “Fashion Police” (E!, 10 p.m.).

With the continued decline of commercial radio – WFNX in Boston is the latest to be sold to Clear Channel, turning it into talk next month – one might wonder what the magic was in radio disc jockeys. They are celebrated tonight, as somewhat relics of the past in movies on Turner Classic Movies, George Lucas’ “American Graffiti” (8 p.m.), which celebrated the 50s, and “Rock Around the Clock” (10 p.m.), with Bill Haley and the Comets, which was released in the 50s. It’s followed by Alan Freed in “Go, Johnny Go” (11:30 p.m.) that features performances from Ritchie Valens, Eddie Cochran and Jackie Wilson, and “Jamboree” (1 a.m.) that features Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Buddy Knox.

NBA Playoffs tonight include Celtics at 76ers (ESPN, 8 p.m.) and Thunder at Lakers (ESPN, 10:30 p.m.).

No Stanley Cup playoff games tonight.

Daytime Talk

Kelly Ripa: Tom Selleck, Krysten Ritter, Reggie Bush. The View: Judy Sheindlin, Robin & Lucimarian Roberts, Dina & Francesca Eastwood, Michael Corbett, Jaleel White. The Talk: Tom Selleck, Sara Leibowitz.

Late Talk

David Letterman: Sacha Baron Cohen, Julie Chen, Beach House. Jay Leno: Sherri Shepherd, Julianne Hough, Tenacious D. Jimmy Kimmel: Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, Jason Mantzoukas, the Cult. Jimmy Fallon: Tom Selleck, Krysten Ritter, Garbage. Craig Ferguson: David Sedaris, Ariel Tweto, the Imagineers. Tavis Smiley: Garry Marshall. Carson Daly: Thom Beers, Joel Sartore, Jay Rock (rerun). Chelsea Handler: Adam Lambert, Chris Franjola, Loni Love, Greg Fitzsimmons (rerun).

But more than that, Donna Summer, who died Thursday at age 63, was an artist. Her electronic experiments with Georgio Moroder were nothing less than art rock – but that rare kind that also sold a lot, and helped create electronic dance music at the same time.

She was the rare dance floor queen who also produced art – her “Bad Girls” album is a tour de force meant to be taken as seriously musically as “Fulfillingness. First Finale.”

She perservered to be a mainstay in the MTV era of the 80s. “She Works Hard for Her Money” you might say. But she is also one  of the few singers of era whose voice stayed strong over the years – almost surprisingly so.

I last saw her perform only last year – performing briefly with David Foster in a hotel ballroom at the TV Critics Association winter press tour in January 2011, where she kicked up that show a notch, looking great as you can see from this picture, and sounding great as well.

When I interviewed her in 1995, she had an idea why her music had endured.

“It’s happy music, to tell you the truth. There was a joy about that period,” Summer told me. “I think that joy has been kind of lost because it’s another time now. But people want to have a sense of that joy.”

That she kept having young fans was a matter of handing down the sounds.

“My take on the whole picture is that, back in the ’70s, when parents were going out dancing, kids were old enough to experience what was going on; those seeds were planted in their memory banks,” she said. “So when they go out now and someone plays a Donna Summer record, or a Chic record, it brings back a whole wave of . . . positive memories.”

Born Donna Gaines in Boston on New Year’s Eve 1948, she sang in churches while growing up there and made her debut at a psychedelic club in 1967. She earned a role in a production of “Hair” in Germany, where she married an Austrian actor named Helmut Sommer. After they were divorced, she kept his name but changed the spelling. Staying in Europe to record, she met producer Moroder, who would be instrumental in her career, not only with “Love To Love You Baby,” which hit No. 2 for two weeks 20 years ago, but the electro-beat of “I Feel Love” and a cover of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.” But it was the “Bad Girls” album in 1979 that was not only her best-selling album but also her biggest critical success.

She gained further pop credibility with her 1979 duet with Barbra Streisand, “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” but her hits sputtered except for the splashy 1983 hit “She Works Hard for Her Money” and 1989′s “This Time I Know It’s for Real.”

Summer continued to play concerts, but she told me “there hadn’t been that great a demand for me to tour. And I haven’t really wanted to. I wasn’t up to it physically. I was going through a lot of challenges, and I needed time to recuperate and re-evaluate myself and what I did. Then I realized: This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Never was she kept back because of the Disco Queen label.

“As long as it doesn’t hold me back, they can call me anything they like,” she said. “I don’t worry about that stuff.

“It shouldn’t be a bad thing that you did something in life that stuck in the minds of people,” Summer said. “The only thing it shouldn’t become is something to hold you back from all you can accomplish.”

With a strong, gospel-fueled soul voice, only Joshua Ledet escaped criticism, getting kudos all around.

So it may have been a shock that he was the one eliminated Thursday.

He got the least amount of votes of the three, leaving teenaged Jessica Sanchez and mellow dude Phillip Phillips to go to the finals next week — where Phillips will undoubtedly win. He might have been in the bottom three previously, but Sanchez was eliminated completely, only to be the first female contestants to be saved by judges. From the screams in the live audience, it’s clear that young female fans who are likely the most active “Idol” voters are enamored with him the way they were with other bland, unthreatening, fuzzy-chinned singers from past seasons, from David Cook to Kris Allen to Lee DeWyze, who have gone on to careers of utter obscurity.

But that’s next week.

This week, Ledet took his unjust ouster and channeled it into perhaps the greatest kiss-off performance in “Idol” history – a version of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” so powerful it shook the audience, the shocked judges and engineers who kept the show going another minute or two over time to capture it.

Of the winners of “American Idol” to date, there’s been one African-American male, two African-American females, two white women and four consecutive white male winners.

With talent like Ledet’s walking out the door, it might make you think this is a white man’s man’s man’s world.

The additional shows require a little shuffling with that they’re returning, with “90210” moving to Mondays and “America’s Next Top Model” shifting to Fridays.

Next season will also be the final season for “Gossip Girl,” with the anticipated “Sex and the City” prequel “Carrie,” pictured right, taking its slot midseason.

New shows this fall includes “Emily Owens, M.D.” with Meryl Streep’s daughter Mamie gummer in the title role, playing alongside the other female doctor on the returning “Hart of Dixie” Tuesdays.

“Arrow” is an adaptation of the DC Comics hero Green Arrow, starring Stephen Amell. The Greg Berlanti co-production plays alongside the returning “Supernatural,” shifting to Wednesdays for its eighth season.

“Beauty and the Beast” is a police adaptation of the fairy tale starring Kristin Kreuk, that will follow the return of “The Vampire Diaries” on Thursdays.

In the midseason, AnnaSophia Robb plays the young Carrie Bradshaw in “The Carrie Diaries.”

And “Cult” looks at the interplay of a TV show with obsessive fans, that begins to affect what happens in the world. It stars Matt Davis and comes in part from Josh Schwartz.

Also returning to the schedule is “Nikita,” alongside “Top Model” on Fridays.

Not coming back are “Ringer” and “The Secret Circle” and “One Tree Hill,” which recently wrapped up its final season. Another show on its currens season’s schedule, “H8R,” was pulled after only a few episodes.

Still, in a state where it was becoming legal to detain people based on racial profiling, the program didn’t have a future from conservatives on the board of ed who were not so much bigoted as completely clueless at what was going on in the classroom.

“Precious Knowledge,” by Ari Luis Palos and Eren Isabel McGinnis on “Independent Lens” (PBS, 10 p.m., check local listings), makes a strong case for the program’s success and the shameful way it was taken down by the state two years ago. While it ceased to exist, it managed to inspire programs in several other states. It’s definitely worth a watch.

“Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC, 9 p.m.) has been the place for some particularly egregious, gratuitously bloody finales in past years and seeks to etend that tonight with the big small plane crash episode that scatters the doctors. It may make you relieved that the show’s going away for a while.

It’s also the finale of a Shonda  Rhimes show I like even less, “Scandal” (ABC, 10 p.m.) which, unbelievably, is also coming back.

Tonight’s the last you’ll see of “Missing” (ABC, 8 p.m.) the Ashley Judd vehicle that itself will go missing next year after just one half-season. Hope she finds her son tonight, then.

Likewise, “Awake” (NBC, 10 p.m.) was not renewed for a second season. Tonight’s he first half of the season finale; it exits next week.

The network has packed in three episodes of “Community” (NBC, 8, 9 and 9:30 p.m.) to make an event of its finale. It’s the end of the season too for “30 Rock” (NBC, 8:30 p.m.) with Jack and Avery renewing vows. It will be back next season for its final 13 episode season.

“Rules of Engagement” (CBS, 8:30 p.m.) reaches its season finale and though it wasn’t included in CBS’s plans for next season at the upfronts Wednesday, is isn’t necessarily over; the series has been kept around to stick into programming holes for several seasons now.

It’s not just the season finale for “The Mentalist” (CBS, 10 p.m.); it’s the last time it’ll be on Thursdays. When it returns in the fall, it will run on Sunday nights. “Conflict of Interest” (CBS, 9 p.m.) also wraps its first season and will return in the fall.

To prepare for next week’s finale, the final two are unveiled at the end of “American Idol” (Fox, 8 p.m.) and Adam Lambert returns to sing and share grooming ideas.

They announce their fall schedule today, but tonight they employ a dude with pink hair to do their entertainment interview on “Perez Hilton All Access: Katy Perry” (The CW, 8 p.m.).

Miley Cyrus pulls a prank on her boyfriend on a new “Punk’d” (MTV, 10 p.m.).

The true crime films on Turner Classic Movies are “Boomerang” (8 p.m.), “Call Northside 777” (10 p.m.), “The Wrong Man” (midnight), “Anatomy of a Murder” (2 a.m.) and “Dr. Crippen” (4:45 a.m.).

NBA playoff games include game 3 of Heat at Pacers (ESPN, 7 p.m.) and game 2 of Clippers at Spurs (ESPN, 9:30 p.m.). In the Stanley Cup playoffs, it’s  game 3 of Coyotes at Kings (NBC Sports, 9 p.m.).

Daytime Talk

Kelly Ripa: Christina Hendricks, Maria Menounos, Derek Hough, Chris Harrison. The View: Betty White, Susan Lucci, cast of “Once.” The Talk: Howard Stern, Beth Ostrosky Stern, Mary Alice Stephenson. Ellen DeGeneres: Russell Brand.

Late Talk

David Letterman: Conan O’Brien, Regina Spektor, John Mayer. Jay Leno: Hugh Laurie, Robert Griffin III. Jimmy Kimmel: Matthew Morrison, Beth Ostrosky Stern, Delta Spirit. Jimmy Fallon: Arsenio Hall, Maggie Q, Paul Weller. Craig Ferguson: Mila Kunis, the Imagineers. Tavis Smiley: David Talbot, Bonnie St. John. Carson Daly: Peter Berg, “Ballplayer: Pelotero,” Young the Giant. Jon Stewart: Dr. John R. Hall (rerun). Stephen Colbert: Michelle Alexander (rerun). Conan O’Brien: Wanda Sykes, Brooklyn Decker, Rufus Wainwright. Chelsea Handler: Giada De Laurentiis, Natasha Leggero, April Richardson, Ross Mathews.

A spinoff of the New York series will move to the land of Al Capone in “Mob Wives Chicago,” premiering June 10.

Then there’s “Big Ang,” which is not an abbreviated version of “The Big Bang Theory,” but a showcase for Angela Raiola, pictured right, better known as Big Ang on “Mob Wives.” She’s the niece of Salvatore “Sally Dogs” Lombardi, a dead former captain of the Genovese crime family. But under all that plastic surgery, she rather resembles a Milton Berle creation. The show that bears her name, premiering July 8, follows her as she hangs out with family and friends, at home and at her Staten Island bar, the Drunken Monkey.

Other new VH1 shows this summer include “Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta” June 18, “Hollywood Exes” June 27, and  “Mama Drama,” about mothers and daughters, starting Jul 18.

Also back this summer: “Pop Up Video” Aug. 6.

It’s keeping 19 of its shows, but moving some around – “2 Broke Girls” to Mondays at 9 p.m., “Two and a Half Men” to Thursdays. “CSI: Miami” goes but “CSI: New York” moves to Fridays; “The Mentalist” moves to Sundays.

The new comedy “Partners” involves pals and business partners David Krumhotz and Michael Urie. It’s from David Kohan and Max Mutchnick and also stars Sophia Bush and Brandon Routh.

Of the new dramas, “Elementary,” pictured, is a modern day Sherlock Holmes series starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as “Dr. Joan Watson.” Also in the cast: Aidan Quinn.

“Vegas” stars Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis, about a sheriff trying to bring order to the Nevada gambling town in the 1960s.

“Made in Jersey” is about a working class woman in a New York law firm, with Janet Montgomery and Kyle MaLachlan.

In the midseason, they bring one new drama, one comedy and a new reality show.

“Golden Boy” stars Theo James as the youngest police commissioner in New York history. The series, from Greg Berlanti, features Chi McBride and Kevin Alejandro.

The comedy “Friend Me” is about another pair of friends who move from the Midwest to L.A. With Nicholas Braun and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, it could be called “2 Broke Dudes.”

Mark Burnett brings “The Job” in which people compete for their dream jobs through quizzes and challenges.

Returning shows include “How I Met Your Mother,” “2 Broke Girls,” “Mike & Molly,” “Hawaii Five-0” (all on Monday), “NCIS” and “NCIS: Los Angeles” on Tuesday, “Survivor,” “Criminal Minds” and “CSI” on Wednesdays, “The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Person of Interest” Thursday; “CSI: NY” and “Blue Bloods” Friday and “60 Minutes,” “The Amazing Race,” “The Good Wife” and “The Mentalist” Sundays.

Not returning are “CSI: Miami,” “Unforgettable,” “A Gifted Man,” “NYC 22,” “Rob” and “How to Be a Gentleman.”

With all the males going after the females, it can get awfully noisy. The researchers who are “Cracking the Koala Code” as the title of this special on “Nature” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings) puts it, track movements and find something else  spreading in the koala community: chlamydia.

Especially big mayhem, usually involving explosions and harm to “one of their own” figures into way too many crime show finales this season and it happens again in the two hour seventh season finale of “Criminal Minds” (CBS, 9 p.m.) involving a hostage situation at a federal bank.

Mother’s Day is celebrated on the first season finale of “Suburgatory” (ABC, 8:30 p.m.) which was just renewed for a second season this week.

Also renewed this week: “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers” (NBC, 8 p.m.), “The Middle” (ABC, 8 p.m.) and “Don’t Trust the B.. in Apt. 23” (ABC, 9:30 p.m.). After the cancellation of “GCB” it’s the last “B” show left on the network.

“Revenge” (ABC, 10 p.m.), which presents its big first season cliffhanger tonight, also returns in the fall, but on Sundays.

The final three on “American Idol” (Fox, 8 p.m.) all get to go home and be feted locally — Phillip Phillips to Leesburg, Ga.; Joshua Ledet to Westlake, La., and Jessica Sanchez to San Diego. They’ll also have to sing three songs: one chosen by Jimmy Iovine, one by the judges, and one of their own choice.

The reason there are so many comedies being introduced this week for the fall network schedules is the singular success of “Modern Family” (ABC, 9 p.m.). Because it is such a one of a kind, none of the newcomers seem to come close.

The go-sees in Hong Kong on “America’s Next Top Model” (The CW, 9 p.m.) would be mostly vertical, I would assume. The next stop on “Around the World in 80 Plates” (Bravo, 10 p.m.) is Paris.

It’s not easy doing those late night stakeouts year after year. So tonight, founding co-member Grant Wilson takes his final investigation on “Ghost Hunters” (Syfy, 9 p.m.).

His ghost appeared on the finale of “Desperate Housewives” Sunday; now James Denton appears in the flesh as guest star on “Hot in Cleveland” (TV Land, 10 p.m.).

More than a million viwers tuned into the premiere last week of “Tanisha Gets Married” (Oxygen, 10 p.m.), the first episode of which precedes the new one at 9.

A Marvel double feature in reverse order features “The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” (Fox Movie Channel, 7:30 p.m.) and “The Fantastic Four” (Fox Movie Channel, 9:30 p.m.).

The monthlong Wednesday night retrospective of Joel McCrea on Turner Classic Movies continues with “Dead End” (8 p.m.), “The Great Man’s Lady” (9:45 p.m.), “Rockabye” (11:30 p.m.), “Stars in My Crown” (12:45 a.m.), “These Three” (2:30 a.m.) and “Come and Get It” (4:15 a.m.).

In the Stanley Cup playoffs it’s game 2 of Devils at Rangers (NBC Sports, 8 p.m.).

NBA playoff games have Celtics at 76ers (TNT, 7 p.m.) and Lakers at Thunder (TNT, 9:30 p.m.).

Baseball includes Red Sox at Rays (ESPN, 7 p.m.).

Daytime Talk

Kelly Ripa: Billy Bob Thornton, Eli Manning, Chris Harrison. The View: Arsenio Hall, Capt. Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger. The Talk: Rachael Ray, Gayle King, Justin Silver. Ellen DeGeneres: Steve Carell, Brooklyn Decker, Bobby Brown.

Late Talk

David Letterman: Betty White, Moses Maddow, Best Coast. Jay Leno: Joel McHale, Jarod Miller, Bobby Brown. Jimmy Kimmel: Rita Wilson. Jimmy Fallon: Taylor Kitsch, Tony Hale, Pat Martino. Craig Ferguson: Michael Clarke Duncan, the Imagineers. Tavis Smiley: Michael Emerson. Carson Daly: Judah Friedlander, “The Imposter,” Dr. Dog. Jon Stewart: Ambassador Ivo Daalder (rerun). Stephen Colbert: Andy Cohen (rerun). Conan O’Brien: Liam Neeson, Marc Maron, Brody Stevens. Chelsea Handler: Brooklyn Decker, Dan Levy, Fortune Feimster, T.J. Miller.

But the “Extra” host didn’t earn quite as many votes from viewers, which meant she was cut just before next week’s finals.

The show’s mirror ball trophy will go to either NFL star Donald Driver, telenovela heartthrob William Levy or British opera singer Katherine Jenkins next week.

Scores for all four finalists this week were within three points of one another – Menounos’ combined score of 59 was immediately followed by Levy’s 58, Driver’s 57 and 56 from Jenkins, who has had the highest scores all season, but who stumbled with a back injury for her second dance Monday.

Average scores for the season have put Levy second, and Driver fourth; Menounos’ average score had been third for the season, having posted the first perfect 30 score of the season.

Her ouster Monday may have put into question whether audiences approve when they are a little too physical with their dance partners, as she has for Derek Hough.

They kissed during a performance in April.

Memounos has also suffered for her act; she broke two ribs while rehearsing for the show in March but kept going.