6 A.M. (Animal Planet) WORLD LION DAY In remembrance of Cecil (above), who was illegally killed last month in Zimbabwe, and others, Animal Planet presents some of its most memorable lion programming, starting with “Last Lion of Liuwa,” about the sole survivor of a massacre that destroyed the rest of the pride. The lineup continues with “Big Cat Diary,” which tracks lions, cheetahs and leopards roaming the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, at 7; “Into the Lion’s Den,” which follows Dave Salmoni, a large-predator expert, into lion territory as he tries to prove that the creatures are more likely to accept people than attack them, at 10; “Into the Pride,” in which Mr. Salmoni works to save rogue lions from elimination, at noon; and “A Lion Called Christian,” about the story behind the Internet phenomenon depicting the emotional reunion between two men and their 300-pound captive lion a year after it was released into the wild, at 5 p.m. Nat Geo Wild also commemorates big-cat conservation from noon through 8 p.m.
10:30 A.M. (Sundance) (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (2009) Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an “unapologetic believer in true love, soul mates and other touchstones of greeting card mythology (and romantic comedy ideology),” A. O. Scott wrote in his review of this film in The New York Times. Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel, above, with Mr. Gordon-Levitt), Mr. Scott said, is “skeptical of such notions and refuses to promise commitment or even consistency, but she does seem to want more and more of Tom’s company, and this leads him to believe that her carefully maintained barriers to intimacy are beginning to fall.” That pretty much sums up this movie.
12:10 P.M. (Cinemax) ANNA KARENINA (2012) In Joe Wright’s stagy adaptation of this Tolstoy classic, Keira Knightley stars as Anna, the bored wife of a government official (Jude Law) in mid-19th-century Russia, who travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow to calm a storm in the household of her philandering brother (Matthew Macfadyen). Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Count Vronsky, the man who captures her heart, a military officer with a domineering mother (Olivia Williams) and the eyes of a poet. Alicia Vikander is the lovely Kitty, adored by Levin, the gloomy landowner (Domhnall Gleeson), who is widely understood to be Tolstoy’s alter ego, and whose idea of love is a rebuke to festering urban amorality. “Pious Tolstoyans may knit their brows about the stylistic liberties Mr. Wright and the screenwriter, Tom Stoppard, have taken,” A. O. Scott wrote in The Times, “but surely Tolstoy can withstand (and may indeed benefit from) their playful, passionate rendering of his masterpiece.”
3:30 P.M. (TCM) THE WOMEN (1939) Norma Shearer plays a respectable Park Avenue wife who is dumped for a tawdry perfume-counter clerk, portrayed by Joan Crawford, the subject of Monday’s “Summer Under the Stars” tribute. Rosalind Russell is the original Upper East Side gossip girl in this delicious catfight, directed by George Cukor and adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin from Clare Boothe Luce’s play. The movie’s “tonic effect,” Frank S. Nugent wrote in The Times, “is so marvelous we believe every studio in Hollywood should make at least one thoroughly nasty picture a year.”
9 P.M. (BBC America) TOP GEAR In this “best of” episode, Jeremy Clarkson tests a BMW M4 at the track before driving a BMW i8 up the Yorkshire coast of England. James May, meanwhile, takes a 500-horsepower Mercedes AMG GT for a spin.
9 P.M. (VH1) SHE’S GOT GAME The rapper Jayceon Taylor, better known as the Game, seeks love among 10 women who will accompany him on a national tour — with one sent packing in every city where they stop.
10 P.M. (NBC) RUNNING WILD WITH BEAR GRYLLS Mr. Grylls and Michelle Rodriguez make a free-fall skydive from 10,000 feet, rappel down a peak and climb out of slot canyons in the red deserts of Nevada.
What’s Streaming Now
SENSE8: CREATING THE WORLD This documentary goes behind the scenes with Tuppence Middleton, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Doona Bae and others to show how “Sense8,” the series from Andy and Lana Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski, was filmed in nine cities. (netflix.com) KATHRYN SHATTUCK
