Demetri Martin

The Mentalist 10 p.m., Channel 4 This repeat of the first-season finale finds the writers diving into the Red John mythology big-time. The guy - or gal? - killed Patrick Jane’s wife and daughter, and now he or she is trying to lure Jane back into his or her web. Don’t expect to find out Red John’s identity in the near future. Creator Bruno Heller told the Globe he won’t solve the Red John mystery until the end of the series, and “The Mentalist’’ is a ratings hit that will probably have a long life.

All summer, we’ve been subjected to big thinking about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock - personal essays, florid reminiscences, and roving explorations that ask, “What Did It All Mean?’’ Until we get the inevitable HBO miniseries (Laura Linney as Grace Slick?) we have Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,’’ or what I’ve come to think of as “The Muppets Take Yasgur’s Farm.’’ Lee has gone for shaggy comedy. Some of it is funny. Some of it just sits there. Nothing so specific as sex happens, just a lot of writhing, fumbling, and waking up beside a stranger the next morning.

Despite his boyish mop-top haircut, circa the Beatles' "Revolver," Demetri Martin is quite intense. This guy is really far into his comic trip, his digressive journey into everyday absurdity and hyper-literal thinking. If you follow in Martin's tracks, and I recommend that you do, you'll find yourself standing in some mind-bending and even erudite places. He'll have you playing little games with the universe. His new show, "Important Things With Demetri Martin," which premieres tonight at 10:30, is not what it professes to be, exactly.

The Mentalist 10 p.m., Channel 4 This repeat of the first-season finale finds the writers diving into the Red John mythology big-time. The guy - or gal? - killed Patrick Jane’s wife and daughter, and now he or she is trying to lure Jane back into his or her web. Don’t expect to find out Red John’s identity in the near future. Creator Bruno Heller told the Globe he won’t solve the Red John mystery until the end of the series, and “The Mentalist’’ is a ratings hit that will probably have a long life.

NEW YORK - No one would dispute the importance of things like power, safety, or chairs. But to build a half-hour of comedy around any of them - that's a whole other thing. All the more reason for Demetri Martin to do it. As he proves in "Important Things With Demetri Martin," this comic has a gift for the shrewd but daydreamy. His material tingles with random micro-truths, each observation a dotty shared discovery with his audience. At the launch of Martin's seven-week Comedy Central series, Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. starting tomorrow, his chosen important thing is timing.

All summer, we’ve been subjected to big thinking about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock - personal essays, florid reminiscences, and roving explorations that ask, “What Did It All Mean?’’ Until we get the inevitable HBO miniseries (Laura Linney as Grace Slick?) we have Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,’’ or what I’ve come to think of as “The Muppets Take Yasgur’s Farm.’’ Lee has gone for shaggy comedy. Some of it is funny. Some of it just sits there. Nothing so specific as sex happens, just a lot of writhing, fumbling, and waking up beside a stranger the next...

*** CONTAGION Directed by: Steven Soderbergh Written by: Scott Z. Burns Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, and Gwyneth Paltrow At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs, Jordan's IMAX in Reading Running time: 108 minutes R (some language, widespread panic, and disturbing images, including the surgical removing of an Oscar winner's scalp) Steven Soderbergh has said that he's a movie or two away from retirement.

Do you remember Julia Allison? I doubt you do. Allison was one of the first people to become "Internet famous," a complicated epithet that meant 1) she was very well known among people who spent most of their day staring into a Web browser and 2) she was not going to be famous for very long. "It's hard to describe exactly what she's famous for," Wired magazine theorized in a 2008 cover story on Allison, who, unlike, say, Paris Hilton, hadn't starred in a viral porn video to become an Internet celebrity.

Despite his boyish mop-top haircut, circa the Beatles' "Revolver," Demetri Martin is quite intense. This guy is really far into his comic trip, his digressive journey into everyday absurdity and hyper-literal thinking. If you follow in Martin's tracks, and I recommend that you do, you'll find yourself standing in some mind-bending and even erudite places. He'll have you playing little games with the universe. His new show, "Important Things With Demetri Martin," which premieres tonight at 10:30, is not what it professes to be, exactly.

NEW YORK - No one would dispute the importance of things like power, safety, or chairs. But to build a half-hour of comedy around any of them - that's a whole other thing. All the more reason for Demetri Martin to do it. As he proves in "Important Things With Demetri Martin," this comic has a gift for the shrewd but daydreamy. His material tingles with random micro-truths, each observation a dotty shared discovery with his audience. At the launch of Martin's seven-week Comedy Central series, Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. starting tomorrow, his chosen important thing is...