What to watch this week

Steve Coogan returns and why you should care ... two postscripts on former terrorism stories-du-jour ... and why, o why, does Mr. T pity the fool?

All times Central.

Two news specials bring fresh perspective to events that were defined by 9/11. In “The Journalist and the Jihadi,” airing 7 p.m. Tuesday on HBO, we see the roads taken by two highly educated men: Danny Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan, and Omar Shiekh, a radical Islamist who would be implicated in Pearl's brutal slaying in 2002. Narrated by Christiane Amanpour, the film includes endearing home movies that illustrate what a cultured, intelligent man the jihadists beheaded.  

Meanwhile, “Frontline's” Lowell Bergman returns to several stories that electrified the U.S. news media about terrorists operating on the domestic front, and reports … they were all mirages. No sleeper cell in Miami, no conspiracy in Boston, no madrassa in Lodi … just a lot of fear-mongering by nervous law enforcers and their megaphones in the media. 8 p.m. Tuesday on PBS; check local listings, as always.

My favorite question from TV critics' tour this summer came when my colleague Hal Boedeker asked, “Mr. T, why do you pity the fool?” Find out for yourself when the former “A-Team” star headlines his own reality show, “I Pity the Fool,” airing 9 p.m. Wednesday on TV Land. The premise is weird, to say the least: People in what appear to be genuine relational dilemmas agree to have Mr. T come in and mediate. I'm not exactly sure how a car salesman in New York was able to deal better with his father-in-law (who also happened to be his boss) by having a human cartoon yell at him. Then again, maybe the absurdity of it all forced a change of heart. Yeah, that's it.

Steve Coogan returns! The British comic may have cemented his reputation with his lovably loathsome character Alan Partridge, a BBC broadcaster who did everything possible to torpedo his own career. But in his newest series, “Saxondale,” debuting 10 p.m. on BBC America, he conjures up an entirely different role. Here Coogan plays Tommy Saxondale,an ex-roadie with an ex-wife who now kills pests for a living -- perfect work for a bloke with rage issues (in this week's episode, he takes out his anger hilariously on an animal-rights protester). Where Partridge was filled with bright-eyed bombast, Saxondale is shifty-eyed and mumbly. Coogan pulls it off just as satisfyingly.  

Bob Saget returns! OK, hold the fanfare, but if you have an hour to spare on your video recorder, check out “1 vs 100,” the latest game-show idea from the “Deal or No Deal” people. Airing at 7 p.m. on NBC (KSHB-41), its gimmick is that 100 people play a quiz show along with a contestant, who is paid based on how many of the 100 are knocked out by each question. Saget keeps referring to the 100 as “the mob,” though it's more like a wall, 11 “Hollywood Squares” grids stacked together, ranging from Mensa members and “Jeopardy” mascot Ken Jennings to the models from, surprise, “Deal or No Deal.”