FX’s ‘English Teacher,’ Pigging Out with ‘Unfinished Beef’ on Netflix, Cara Delevingne Visits ‘Futurama,’ Houston’s ‘Chicano Squad’

English Teacher

The high-school classroom is a minefield in a smart, biting comedy created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez (the Will & Grace reboot) as Evan Marquez, an embattled yet idealistic teacher in a suburb of Austin, Texas. He’s openly gay — but “not that proud,” he quips — and frequently challenged by a meek and conflict-averse principal (a very funny Enrico Colantoni), hypercritical parents and easily triggered students. When a member of his extracurricular book club, which feels more like a support group, asks Evan, “Why would you want to stay at a job if they’re treating you like this?” he insists he still thinks he can make a difference. A triumphant second episode (10:30/9:30c) bears him out, when he recruits a drag queen (Trixie Mattel) to prep the football team for the popular gender-switching powder-puff game, which is in danger of being canceled. No such worries for English Teacher, which passes with flying colors. (Read the full review.)

Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef

Grab your Pepto and watch it all go down — and hopefully not come back up — when Netflix presents its latest live event, a competitive-eating showdown between world-record holder Joey Chestnut (76 hot dogs in 10 minutes) and his groundbreaking predecessor, Takeru Kobayashi. (Chestnut, you may recall, was barred from the annual July 4 Nathan’s competition in Coney Island after endorsing a vegan rival.) Rob Riggle and Nikki Garcia host the event from the HyperX Arena in Las Vegas at the Luxor, with Cari Champion and Chris Rose calling the match, in which the champs square off for 10 minutes, eating as many hot dogs with buns as possible. In case of a tiebreaker, they’ll keep going for a three-minute overtime — and if a second overtime is needed, whoever swallows five more hot dogs and buns first will be declared the winner. There’s even an undercard, with competitive eater Matt Stonie taking on three Olympians (swimmers Ryan Lochte and Ryan Murphy and water polo Bronze Medalist Max Irving) in a chicken-wing showdown, and competitive eater Leah Shutkever attempts a Guinness World Record in eating the most watermelon ever in a three-minute span. Pardon me while I fast.

Futurama

The Professor goes full Frankenstein in an episode of the animated sci-fi comedy that morphs into a cautionary satire of disposable fashion. Model/actress Cara Delevingne is the featured guest voice, when her preserved head agrees to be attached to his stitched-together recycled human body. But when the dress she’s wearing gets more attention that the prof’s scientific breakthrough, he decides to “bring the sexy back to science” and reinvent himself as the head of the House of Professor fashion line. As often befalls mad scientists, when he overreaches to create a line of disposable fast fashion, the results are environmentally catastrophic.

The Chicano Squad

A two-night docuseries (concluding Tuesday) profiles a pioneering homicide unit within the Houston Police Department, dubbed “The Chicano Squad” by local media when in 1979, officer Jim Montero formed an all-Latin squad to tackle unsolved homicides in the city’s underserved Latin neighborhoods. He and five bilingual Mexican American rookies had 90 days to prove they could make a difference solving crimes affecting the Spanish-speaking population. Now, 45 years later, this is their story.

INSIDE MONDAY TV:

• Family Guy (10 am/9c, Comedy Central): Seth MacFarlane’s irreverent animated comedy joins the lineup with an all-day marathon before assuming its regular prime-time slot on Tuesday at 7 pm/6c.
• All American: Homecoming (8/7c, The CW): While Simone (Geffri Maya) fights for her spot on the tennis team, JR (Sylvester Powell) and Lando (Martin Bobb-Semple) hope to convince the board to restore baseball to Bringston. Followed by 61^st Street (9/8c), where Franklin (Courtney B. Vance) flips the script on the Chicago PD, putting them on the stand with a secret piece of evidence.
• Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior (9/8c, Investigation Discovery): Michael Bay is executive producer of a five-part docuseries (airing over three nights) profiling serial killer Hadden Clark, featuring interviews with his former cellmate Jack Truitt, who Clark confided in, believing him to be his personal savior.