Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Sunday, March 27. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
Elementary (CBS, 10 p.m.): The debut of The Passion last week kept us from recognizing Elementary’s migration to a new time slot, a move we’re happy to remedy tonight as we properly welcome one of our favorite procedurals to the fold. (A fold it’ll hopefully be part of for some time to come, as it just got picked up for a fifth season on Friday.) Tonight, the game’s afoot as a survivalist doctor may have gone all the way off the grid, and “Sherlock exhibits odd behavior when his romantic relationship with Fiona hits a rough patch.” Isn’t Sherlock’s behavior odd by default? How much odder would it have to get, Genevieve Valentine asks? Did he place Clyde in charge of all his finances?
Also noted
The Walking Dead (AMC, 9 p.m.): For a show that kills off its characters with reckless abandon, The Walking Dead is doing a poor job of managing those deaths. There was that whole kerfuffle last year over Schrödinger’s Glenn, and now the death of Denise is adding fuel to the fire The 100 started over lesbian characters getting culled from their shows. Be careful, Zack Handlen, all this mismanagement means you could be next.
Shameless (Showtime, 9 p.m.): Last week, Myles McNutt declared that Shameless reached “Peak Gallagher” as Debbie gave birth on the family’s kitchen table. Conditions appear set to remain at Peak Gallagher levels this week as Frank embarks on a series of scams to pay for Fiona’s wedding reception, and then gets into a brawl with her fiancee.
Vinyl (HBO, 9 p.m.): The parade of real-world rock stars continues on Vinyl as Richie and Zak head to Las Vegas trying to sign no less of a legend than Elvis Presley. That’s a bad city for Richie to head to, given the amount of drugs coursing through his system. He’ll be right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo—and someone’s giving booze to these goddamned things! Please, Dan Caffrey, order us some golf shoes! Otherwise we’ll never get out of this place alive.
Girls (HBO, 10 p.m.): “Marnie goes for a walk to blow off steam after a major quarrel with Desi and has a surprise encounter with an old acquaintance.” That acquaintance? None other than Captain Hook! Okay, fine, that’s probably not going to happen. But if Christopher Walken were to appear on this show it would just make Joshua Alston’s day.
Togetherness (HBO, 10:30 p.m.): HBO announced the cancellation of Togetherness on Friday, sending it to the same two-seasons-and-out comedy farm that it’s previously shipped Looking, Enlightened, and Flight Of The Conchords. Gwen Ihnat is placing the network as far down on her power rankings as it’ll go for this.
Regular coverage
Once Upon A Time (ABC, 8 p.m.)
The Carmichael Show (NBC, 9 p.m.)
The Family (ABC, 9 p.m.)
The Good Wife (CBS, 9 p.m.)
Billions (Showtime, 10 p.m.)
Tomorrow in TV Club
***FINAL NOTICE: We’ve been giving you a heads up over the last couple of days, but it’s official: tomorrow marks the start of a new format for What’s On Tonight. We apologize for any inconvenience as we settle in, and hope that your Jeopardy! recaps, cancellation league updates, network ratings roundups, late night roll calls, “most popular person” birthday research, and all other recurring threads that thrive in WOT comment threads continue to find a home here. Self-indulgent jokes aside, we do this for you.***
What else is on?
Grease: Live (Fox, 7:00 p.m.): Technically, this should be called Grease: Repeat, but evidently Fox’s marketing team decided that wasn’t going to bring in the viewers. But Caroline Siede liked this one quite a bit, so if you missed it the first time why not give it a spin?
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO, 11:00 p.m.): In our previous installment someone in the comments pointed out that all we seem to do is summarize the previous week of Last Week Tonight, which is due to the fact that we never know what John Oliver is going to talk about on any given week. However, we consider it a public service to inform you of what he talked about. So in our latest installment of “Tonight’s Last Week on Last Week Tonight,” here’s Oliver tearing down this wall:
Madam Secretary (CBS, 8 p.m.): Elizabeth’s efforts to broker a deal between India and Pakistan are complicated by a “mysterious plane crash.” The complication is probably because India was in one half of the plane, Pakistan was in the other, and they’re each on different halves of the island. Elizabeth will unfortunately have no answers to give about the polar bear.
Crowded (NBC, 9:30 p.m.): No episode description was available, but we were very surprised to learn that this show’s executive producers are also executive producers from Hot In Cleveland and Grimm. Seems like a match made in… something.
Quantico (ABC, 10 p.m.): “Miranda and Liam pay a deadly price when a terror cell tries to infiltrate Quantico.” Even more terrifying, the cell features Jennifer Lopez.
Talking Dead (AMC, 10 p.m.): Fan favorite guest Yvette Nicole Brown returns to discuss events with Sonequa Martin-Green and co-executive producer Denise Huth.
Mr. Selfridge (PBS, 10 p.m.): A period piece starring Entourage’s Jeremy Piven as a department store owner made it to a fourth season? We’re as surprised by this as you are.
Comic Book Men (AMC, 12 a.m.): Jay himself, Jason Mewes, appears at the store and brings his baby daughter for her first visit. Snoogans.
Grantchester (PBS, 9 p.m.): If you can think of a more appropriate title for a Masterpiece Theater show than this, we want to hear it.
Karen Kingsbury’s The Bridge Part 2 (Hallmark, 7 p.m.): When the first installment of this premiered, your What’s On Tonight correspondent said that the fact that one of the protagonists was from Portland was enough to get him to watch it. That turned out to be false. Jury’s still out as to whether or not he’ll watch tonight.
Double Daddy (Lifetime, 7 p.m.): “A high schooler impregnates two girls and tries his best to be there for both teen moms.” Lifetime movie, or FreeForm original series pitch? You decide.
Little Big Shots (NBC, 8 p.m.): Tonight’s competitors include “identical-twin tap dancers.” That sounds terrifying.
Hoarders (A&E, 8 p.m.): Hoarders gonna hoard.
Guy’s Grocery Games (Food Network, 8 p.m.): It’s three rounds of bacon cooking. All the bacon you have. You can’t escape the baconing.
Intervention: Codependent (A&E, 9 p.m.): An aspiring model and a father who made six figures were brought down by their toxic relationship. Even more toxic? All the drugs.
I Am Cait (E!, 9 p.m.): So, is anyone going to tell Caitlyn about what her new best friend Ted Cruz has been up to lately? #CruzSexScandal
The Incredibles (Disney, 7 p.m.): Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice smashed into theaters this weekend, underwhelming critics like our own A.A. Dowd who said “To enjoy Batman V Superman, a blockbuster somehow more boring than it is strange, is to cling for dear life to brief flashes of levity and lunacy.” Thankfully the best superhero movie of our generation was already made by Pixar more than a decade ago.
Vacation (HBO, 7:15 p.m.): Ed Helms continues his disappointing career trajectory of replacing previously beloved lead actors, going from Steve Carell surrogate on The Office to Chevy Chase surrogate in the National Lampoon’s Vacation reboot nobody asked for.
Frozen (FreeForm, 7:30 p.m.): Just in case there were any parents still out there whose brains haven’t been melted into goo by listening to “Let It Go” umpteen times.
Man Of Steel (FX, 8 p.m.): Speaking of Batman V Superman: Just Kiss Already (please refer back to A.A. Dowd’s review and try to think of a better caption for that header photo), Man Of Steel reminds us of how we were set on this excessively dark and gritty path. Superman snaps necks and levels cities in a manner that only Zack Snyder believes is totally okay for a hero to do.
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (TNT, 8 p.m.): At the time, Nathan Rabin said of this third Mummy installment that he hoped for a fourth, if only “to watch the filmmakers try to outdo this dizzy spectacle in the arena of sheer ridiculousness.“ Now that we’re in a post-Gods Of Egypt world, this sort of spectacle now seems hopelessly quaint—and coherent—by comparison.
Jaws (IFC, 8 p.m.): An antidote to the previous two films we mentioned, and a charming callback to when blockbusters knew how to use subtlety over spectacle.
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe (Syfy, 9 p.m.): Remember when this was supposed to be the next big fantasy novel adaptation franchise? Well, it’s ten years later and we’ve only seen three of seven books on the big screen. Yet curiously no one seems very heartbroken about that.
Sportsball!
NCAA Basketball Tournament, Regional Final (TBS, 6 p.m.)
NCAA Basketball Tournament, Regional Final (TBS, 8:30 p.m.)
NCAA Hockey Tournament, NCAA Regionals (ESPNU, 7:30 p.m.)
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, Regional Final (ESPN, 8:30 p.m.)
NHL Hockey, Penguins at Rangers (NBC Sports, 7:30 p.m.)
In case you missed it
Second Chance: This is a show that was on television and is not likely to be on television any more after last night’s finale. If only it had steered into the skid of its wacky premise the way Lucifer did, we might feel sadder about that, but as it stands this one was pretty boring.