People's Choice Awards (9 p.m., CBS): Sure, an Oscar, Emmy or Grammy might be more alluring pieces

People's Choice Awards (9 p.m., CBS): Sure, an Oscar, Emmy or Grammy might be more alluring pieces of hardware, but no Hollywood celebrity is going to turn down a People's Choice Award. The 32nd annual gala will honor the top performers in movies, television and music as determined by fan balloting. Craig Ferguson hosts.
"The Shield" (10 p.m., FX): Glenn Close may be gone, but Forest Whitaker has signed up to lend his considerable talents to the fifth season of "The Shield." Whitaker plays a hard-nosed internal affairs investigator assigned to probe the Strike Team's many misdeeds. Could it be that Vic Mackey's past crimes are finally going to catch up with him?
"NOVA scienceNOW" (8 p.m., PBS): "NOVA" rings in 2006 with a roundup of some of the past year's ground-breaking discoveries and advances in science. Among the topics covered on this edition of the quarterly PBS magazine: Is there really a 10th planet? Can you make embryonic stem cells without an embryo? Will there be a flu pandemic? Can you make meat in a lab? And does global warming cause more intense hurricanes?
"Beyond the Bull" (9 p.m., TLC): Why would someone voluntarily climb aboard 1,500 pounds of angry beef for a bumpy, one-handed, eight-second ride? This new series attempts to answer that question with a look inside the world of professional bull riders. Three of the sport's top competitors -- J.W. Hart, Brendon Clark and Adriano Moraes -- are shown coping with the personal and professional demands of their physically taxing and dangerous craft.