‘Miracle’ will tug at heartstrings

ABC doesn’t know meaning of the word ‘Miracle’

The new series “Miracle Workers” (10 p.m., ABC) enters the “Extreme Makeover” sweepstakes, with plenty of stories to tug the heartstrings with the use of cutting-edge medical procedures.

Tonight’s drama involves Todd, 34, a nice-guy father of three who has been blind since childhood due to an allergic reaction to penicillin. Vanessa, a formerly active 47-year-old woman, has been confined to a wheelchair by a degenerative bone-and-joint disease.

“Miracle Workers” presents extensive interviews with Todd and Vanessa, as well as their family and friends, and then sets about explaining the extensive medical procedures that could change their lives for the better.

While it’s hard to quibble with such feel-good fare, it’s odd that a show dedicated to promulgating the latest and greatest in medicine should use the word “miracle” in its title. Why confuse medicine with generic spirituality? When a shaman shakes a stick and makes a blind man see, that’s a “miracle.” An extensive series of cornea transplants and stem-cell insertions falls into the realm of something called science. There’s a difference.

Jesse James restores a 1969 motorcycle to its former glory in the two-hour special “History of the Chopper” (8 p.m., Discovery).

As if Jack didn’t have enough problems, Audrey helps him reconnect with his daughter, Kim (Elisha Cuthbert). Audrey’s dad (William Devane) re-enters the picture, too, on a two-hour helping of “24” (8 p.m., Fox).

Tonight’s other highlights

A Wiccan high priestess takes a hausfrau’s apron strings for a test drive on “Wife Swap” (8 p.m., ABC).

Lasers and 3-D technology take the latest measure of a burial ground associated with the pharoah Ramses on “Tomb Builders: Secrets of the Valley of the Kings” (9 p.m., Science).

Cult choice

Meredith Baxter, Swoosie Kurtz and Clare Carey star in the 1995 potboiler “Betrayed: A Story of Three Women” (8 p.m., Lifetime Movie Network).