Bill Henrickson isn’t living the simple life. Nor are his three wives.

That was the message of “Big Love”, HBO’s polygamy drama, during its first season.

Now it’s back, and this family affair is no less complicated. A fascinating curiosity last year, the series returns on Monday at 10 p.m., full of new assurance and plot twists.

As always, the saga centres on Bill, who has a family he’s proud of (seven offspring between his trio of mates in their adjoining three homes in a Salt Lake City subdivision), as well as a prospering business: He owns a pair of hardware superstores.

But even as they live the American dream, the Henricksons remain vulnerable to someone exposing their marital arrangement — verboten even in Salt Lake City, where the large Mormon population officially banned plural marriage more than a century ago.

At the end of last season, rumours became public that were timed to a ceremony honouring Bill’s first wife, Barb, at the governor’s mansion. Who is trying to ruin the family? Could it be Bill’s nemesis (and a father-in-law), Roman Grant, a messianic would-be prophet who lords over a fundamentalist compound? Bill means to find out.

Starring Bill Paxton, “Big Love” also features Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin and Harry Dean Stanton.

Other shows this week to look out for:

[bul] Sadly overlooked last season, “The Loop” is a very funny comedy with a very lame title now returning on Fox for a second and presumably final season. Set in Chicago, “The Loop” focuses on Sam (Bret Harrison), who is the youngest executive at the headquarters of a major airline, and the first of his friends to get a real, grown-up job. With one foot in the adult world, Sam strives to meet the unrelenting demands of Russ, his gruff, kookie boss (Philip Baker Hall) and dodge the none-too-subtle advances of his chronically randy colleague, Meryl (Mimi Rogers). Then, back at the apartment, his roommates can be counted on to keep the party going. Can Sam shuttle between work and his busy social life without hitting turbulence?

Sunday at 9.30 p.m., Russ wants to secure a new route for TransAlliance Airlines to the hot party destination of Reykjavik, Iceland, and puts Sam on the case. Then at 9.30 p.m., Russ totals Sam’s car in the company parking garage and rushes to redeem himself by lending Sam his motorcycle — which ends up getting destroyed, too.

[bul] On a hot summer day in August 1976, ten-year-old Andy Puglisi was playing with dozens of other kids at a public swimming pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Then he disappeared. In 1998, his childhood friend, filmmaker Melanie Perkins, began looking for answers to this still-unsolved case. The film that grew out of her investigation — “Have You Seen Andy?” — is a personal account of the friendship that abruptly ended in the tragic abduction, as well as the search she embarked on in adulthood. Perkins interviews other friends of Andy’s, members of his family, law enforcement officials and newly contacted forensic experts. And in the process, she uncovers fresh leads that force police to reopen what, after two decades, had become a cold case. The film airs on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Cinemax.

[bul] Ever been stranded in the Everglades and didn’t know what to do? Explorer and TV host Bear Grylls has just the thing. For his new series “Man vs. Wild,” he immerses himself in remote survival scenarios, armed with only the basics (a knife, a water bottle and a flint), with the goal of finding his way back to civilisation — and giving you tips on how to do the same. A seasoned adventurer and former British Special Air Service soldier, Grylls demonstrates basic survival techniques for specific locations — eating sheep eyeballs in Iceland or scorpions in Mexico, or, to combat dehydration in the severe heat of the Australian outback, drinking your own urine. (Don’t worry: It’s sterile when fresh.) In the premiere, Grylls loses himself in the swamps of the Florida Everglades, where each year at least 60 tourists need to be rescued. How to keep those alligators at arm’s length? Find out when “Man vs. Wild” premieres on Friday at 10 p.m. on Discovery Channel.Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoor>[AT]ap.org