A great white shark.
Brandon Cole/Discovery Channel

This shark is only one of many you might see on this week's Discovery Channel event — which, logically enough, goes by the name Shark Week.

Tonight's TV brings a lot of fairly lowbrow reality, plus a couple of new episodes of high-end cable shows, so you may consider it a blend of the sublime and the ridiculous.

Starting off, logically enough, with the threat of bloodshed, the Discovery Channel's Shark Week has become such a pop-culture staple that it inspired a 30 Rock joke (in which Tracy Morgan's character gave the solemn, carpe diem-like advice, "Live every week like it's Shark Week").

But it is, in fact, Shark Week. You can read all about it at Discovery's site, including tonight's shows, Deadly Waters and Day Of The Shark 2. (Based on the description, I don't think you'll be confused if you missed the original Day Of The Shark.) (Discovery, 9:00 p.m.)

What's overexposed, irritating and back from hiatus? Jon & Kate Plus 8, which will undoubtedly be as uncomfortable as ever. I don't point this out so much to tell you to watch it as to warn you that it will undoubtedly start popping up in the news again. So be ready. (TLC, 9:00 p.m.)

In significantly better news, Anthony Bourdain is covering street food of all kinds tonight on No Reservations, and that's almost guaranteed to be interesting. (Travel Channel, 10:00 p.m.)

And believe it or not, when I wrote about the new rash of cake shows on Thursday, I didn't realize that there was yet another cake show coming. Tonight is the premiere of TLC's new Ultimate Cake-Off, in which accomplished cake professionals compete to create "the ultimate cake." (TLC, 10:00 p.m.)

Finally, Showtime has new episodes of Weeds and Nurse Jackie, so all is not lost, scripted television fans! (Showtime, 10:00 p.m./10:30 p.m.)