These days a college education doesn't get you as far as it used to, though it comes in handy for solving crimes, apparently. The hero of the two-hour suspense drama "Katei Kyoshi ga Toku" ("Private Tutor Solves the Case"; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.) is a private tutor who attempts to unravel a murder mystery by means of algebra.

Natsumi (Rei Kikukawa) is a poor college graduate working for a temp agency that dispatches private tutors. Her boss, Saeki (Kotaro Koizumi), a former policeman, sends her to tutor Eri (Riko Yoshida), a fifth-grader. Natsumi is intimidated when she goes to the house and discovers that the family is rich and Eri is a popular child model. However, she also thinks there is something strange about the family, a feeling that's borne out when Eri's stepmother is found on the property bleeding from a head wound. Was it murder or an accident?

It's not enough that a science program explain the mysteries of nature: There has to be a gimmick. On the variety show "Jintai no Nazo wo Tokiakase" ("Explain the Riddle of the Human Body"; Nippon TV, Tues., 9 p.m.), a research institute is hidden away in the basement of a cafe, where scientists attempt to answer people's questions about their own bodies. The answers are then dramatized.