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Emmy-winning actress Lynn Whitfield guests on "Strong Medicine" (9 p.m., Lifetime). Whitfield, who was so-o-o good in "The Josephine Baker Story," will play a cardiologist who agrees to take over patients left by the late Dr. Milo Morton.
In the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, 6,000 people died when a hurricane struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900. The new documentary "Isaac's Storm" (8 p.m., History Channel) focuses on government forecaster Isaac Cline, long regarded as a hero for trying to warn people of the storm but who actually may have been "blind to the threat."
Just three months before Election Day, a whole new presidential race has begun. On "American Candidate" (9 p.m., Showtime), a diverse group of 10 Americans -- six men, four women -- are hitting a made-for-TV campaign trail to get their messages across to the public. The prize? To collect $200,000 as the American Candidate who outwits, outplays, outlasts the others through this 10-episode series. It will put rivals through a gauntlet of challenges designed to eliminate a candidate each week, then finally to identify the one among them best qualified to be president of the United States. Created by Emmy-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler ("The War Room," "American High") this show has a clear kinship to such reality fare as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice." But it's more than a game show. It's a serious soap box for big ideas. Montel Williams is host.
It seems that there are more questions about Christopher Columbus than we had imagined. For example, why was he secretive about his birth and childhood? Historians and scientists want to know, and that leads to "Columbus: Secrets From the Grave" (10 p.m., Discovery Channel).