Best in TV: The Greatest TV Shows of Our Time With Barbara
Walters 9 p.m., Channel 5

I’ve always felt that the title for a TV special should be as long and unwieldy as possible, haven’t you? Tonight, Babs shares the results of an ABC-People magazine poll about TV’s best. Categories include best comedies, dramas, TV moms and dads, and nonhuman characters (go ALF). If “The Twilight Zone” doesn’t make it onto some list, then all hope is surely lost for mankind. Pictured (from left): Tina Fey, Walters, and Lorne Michaels.

Death and the Civil War: American Experience 9 p.m., Channel 2

Filmmaker Ric Burns spent years studying the Civil War as a writer for the documentary series “The Civil War” by his brother, Ken. Now he has adapted Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust’s book “This Republic of Suffering” for “American Experience.” The documentary, which features Faust, looks at how the huge number of casualties in the Civil War changed America forever. If the same percentage of Americans were killed today, the death toll would be over 7 million. (See review, Page 4.)

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The New Normal 9:30 p.m., Channel 7

They had me at “Grey Gardens.”

Late Show With David Letterman 11:35 p.m., Channel 4

Barack Obamer.

So You Think You Can Dance 8 p.m., Channel 25

The season finale. (pli)Yay!