What’s Worth Watching: ‘Fear the Walking Dead’, ‘Elementary’, ‘House of Lies’ and more for Sunday, April 10
Fear the Walking Dead (9/8c, AMC): If you can’t beat ’em, try sailing away from ’em: That’s the premise as Season 2 of The Walking Dead‘s slower-burning prequel/spinoff opens with the desperate yet colorless heroes flee the burning mainland to escape on the high seas aboard a yacht owned by the mysterious Strand (Colman Domingo, suddenly the show’s most interesting character). As the characters debate self-preservation at the possible cost of their souls, Strand insists, “I’ve filled my mercy quota” at a time when “the whole world is ‘I don’t know’ right now.” Naturally, life at sea quickly proves as treacherous as on solid ground. For one things, hungry zombies float.
The 2016 MTV Movie Awards (8/7c, MTV; also on BET, CMT, Comedy Central, Logo, MTV2, TV Land, VH1, VH1 Classic): Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart co-host one of the year’s less self-important movie awards shows, this year from the Warner Bros. studio backlot. How different is this from the Oscars? Not only did Straight Outta Compton get a “Movie of the Year” nod, so did Creed. (Where’s Chris Rock to appreciate the diversity?) They’re up against Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Deadpool and Jurassic World. (This year’s Oscar champ, Spotlight, didn’t even make the cut for the “True Story” category.) Special awards go to Will Smith (the “Generation” Award) and Melissa McCarthy (“Comedic Genius”).
Elementary (9/8c, CBS): Back-to-back episodes—sorry, Good Wife fans, you’ll have to wait another week—put the spotlight on Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), who may have good reason to suspect their latest client (Samantha Quan), who claims to have known Sherlock’s brother Mycroft intimately, isn’t on the up-and-up. The first case involves a robbery at an illegal high-stakes poker game with international implications; the second (10/9c) is a murder involving an artwork that harks back to a long-ago crime.
Inside Sunday TV: Following a daylong marathon of the first season starting at 9 am/8c, Showtime wraps Billions (10/9c) until next year, while welcoming back the ribald House of Lies (9/8c) for a fifth season, and introducing the quasi-autobiographical comedy Dice (9:30/8:30c), starring Andrew Dice Clay. … Alison Pill (The Newsroom) takes center stage as troubled daughter Willa in a revealing episode of ABC’s mystery series The Family, as we see her perspective of how Adam (Liam James), the possibly phony prodigal son, returned to the family fold. It’s all very twisted. … Having wowed us with the recent And Then There Were None miniseries, Lifetime devotes the next three Sundays to another British import: the BAFTA-nominated Doctor Foster: A Woman Scorned (9/8c), a dark psychological drama starring Suranne Jones as the title character, who goes off the deep end when she suspects her husband (Bertie Carvel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) is cheating on her.
