In The History Channel's Life After People (Tuesdays at 10pm Eastern), it's not looking at the world after a nuclear explosion, a war or any other disaster that wipes out humanity. It's far simpler than that. Humanity simply vanishes without a trace. And what's left is an exploration of our legacy, our buildings, everything we would leave behind, and how Mother Earth would reclaim what was once hers before we started carving it up.

The series is a spin-off of the documentary of the same name that became The History Channel's most watched program ever with 5.4 million viewers. While the sixth of ten episodes premieres tonight, as with many cable channels, the prior five are being shown pretty regularly. I just stumbled on it this week and have already caught each of them. Every episode focuses on a different thing we've left behind and moves us forward decades and even centuries, as we see how time and nature will slowly destroy everything we've built.

'Rescue Me'
(10PM, FX)
Only Tommy Gavin could hatch a plan as bizarre – and bizarrely effective – as this.

When he finds out Colleen and Bart (aka "Black Shawn") plan to get married, he decides the best way to break them up is to complicate their relationship by encouraging his daughter to have sex.

Elsewhere in what is proving to be one of the show's funniest, best seasons, Franco and Mike butt heads over their differing viewpoints on 9/11, Mike – who seems oddly smarter, for the most part, this season – gets a new idea for a theme bar, Tommy meets Sheila's new therapist and Sean meets up with the creepiest back doctor ever.