Flying Miners, ABC, 8.30pm

A companion piece of sorts to the SBS documentary Dirty Business: How Mining Made Australia, this three-part observational series looks at Australia's thriving mining industry from the first-hand perspectives of the men and women who run it, from the highly paid blue-collar, "fly in, fly out" workers to the anonymous executives running some of the 600 publicly listed resources companies who fly beneath the radar of our so-called mining magnates. Tonight's episode is a thoughtful look at the "FIFO"s, including 24-year-old Shana, who swapped bikini modelling for a salary of more than $100,000 driving monster trucks on brain-numbing, repetitive 12-hour shifts, to gold mine driver Brad, who struggles with the separation from his young children and wife. It presents a sobering view of an industry that is often upheld as Australia's economic panacea. Future episodes look at economic and environmental risks and mining money's impact on indigenous communities.

Please Like Me, ABC2, 9pm

In an early scene of Josh Thomas' criminally neglected show, his unhinged mother (played to perfection by Debra Lawrence) relays her son's theory that Oprah is responsible for people's unhappiness by pushing them to be "better" and "aspirational" instead of just being "satisfied". That equation between self-acceptance and the hallowed values that families, friends and society place on people is a constant theme of this delicate and bitter-sweet narrative comedy, which comes to a very satisfying conclusion tonight. With trademark candour, warmth and empathy, Josh, Arnold, Tom, Rose, Dad, Mae and Hannah find themselves in a rare moment of reckoning. That this gem of a show hasn't found a larger following at home is hard to comprehend.

Scandal, Seven, 9.30pm

She makes and breaks the reputations of powerful people, cleans up "president has an affair with young intern scandals" (yes, we're yet to move past that old chestnut) and, as of tonight, discovers a lugubrious arm of the secret service, which coincides with a rare visit from her estranged father. Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is the modern-day incarnation of Wonder Woman in this glam but dumb political super-soap.

Paul Kalina

PAY TV

72 Dangerous Animals Australia, Nat Geo Wild, 7.30pm

With 72 there are more than the usual suspects - tonight's instalment begins with a young woman recounting a rare but horrific attack by an Australian sea lion, of all things. Other beasties profiled include bats (lyssavirus), stonefish and the Australian tarantula. What sets this Australian-made series apart is not the corny arbitrary rankings the animals are given; it's the breadth and depth of information that biologists and other experts provide about them and their behaviour. Refreshingly educational.

Louis Theroux: LA Stories, BBC Knowledge, 9.30pm

This is the second panel of Louis Theroux's new Los Angeles triptych. The first, which screens on Monday, looks at the lives of coma patients and the terminally ill. The third, which screens tomorrow, looks at the lives of dogs in the city's poor and violent south. Here he's looking at sex offenders and how they live with themselves and each other in a city that's trying to force them out. Theroux's calm, probing interview style produces some disturbing insights into some deeply disturbed people. Among these are a man who sexually abused his own sons out of rage at his wife, and a compulsive flasher who sees self-castration as his only hope.

Brad Newsome

MOVIES

Die Hard 2 (1990), Action Movies (pay TV), 6.20pm

Saying you like Die Hard 2 is like praising the films of Paulie Shore: you are asking for trouble. But let's be fearless.

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is at Dallas International Airport, awaiting the arrival of his airborne wife (Bonnie Bedelia). Ever alert, he notices some suspicious packages being passed across the floor of a crowded café´. In the blink of an eye, McClane is on the trail of a renegade military unit intent on freeing General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero) from custody.

Pitting one individual against a group of bad guys within the confines of a snowbound airport is a fine idea and makes for tense action. But for McClane to maintain his reputation as an outsider, all the other police and soldiers have to be stupid or corrupt. In this case, arrogance and dumb-headedness are personified by the head of airport security, Captain Lorenzo (Dennis Franz), who is willing to risk the lives of thousands to preserve his big-fish-in-a-small-pond status.

When the film finally moves into the snowy outdoors, Harlin effortlessly generates a more epic sense of drama than simple claustrophobic terror.

Released 24 years ago, Die Hard 2 was considered wildly excessive and director Renny Harlin took considerable flack for it. Compared with more recent gore-fests (Drive, The Equalizer), it feels positively restrained.

As for star Bruce Wills, he is at his wisecracking, insouciant best, McClane scurrying like a hyperactive rat through the labyrinthine bowels of the airport and choosing just the right time to light the fire. No one does material like this better than Bruce.

Tabloid (2010), SBS One, 2.45am (Wednesday)

A true-life The Collector (see Wednesday), with a former Miss Wyoming "kidnapping" a Mormon missionary and chaining him to a bed so she can have her way with him. This is a darkly fascinating account from acclaimed American documentary director Errol Morris. The boundary between true love and amour fou, it appears, is perilously thin.

Scott Murray