TONIGHT'S MUST SEES

"SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE,”7 P.M., FOX

This show is in hurry-up mode, preparing for its quick shift to a fall season. As a result, the summer crop of dancers – easily the best in the show's history – is being trimmed quickly.
Tonight, the final six do duets and solo pieces; on Wednesday, two more will be dropped. Then the final four compete Aug. 5-6, for the rather abrupt championship.

“THE ASCENT OF MONEY” CONCLUSION, 9 P.M., PBS

The notion of universal home ownership is quite new, Niall Ferguson says here. Even in the prosperous 1920s, only 40 per cent of American homes were owner-occupied.
Then the government began guaranteeing savings-and-loan institutions in the 1930s and loosened regulations in the '80s. This brought a boom in ownership … and in what Ferguson calls the “fina ncial cowboys” who took risks because of government guarantees.
Ferguson walks us through disturbing times, when Detroit developers literally built a wall separating neighborhoods the government would and wouldn't insure. One was white, the other black.
He visits Dallas, where a developer wildly overbuilt; 500 savings-and-loan spots collapsed. And Argentina, where inflation soared. And what he now calls “Chimerica”: Americans borrow from frugal Chinese – despite outearning them per-person, 20 to 1.

For more TV tips, check out critic Mike Hughes column and blog at mikehughes.tv.