‘Fear’s Final Chapters, Dick Van Dyke on ‘Simpsons,’ Expanded ’60 Minutes,’ Ma Goldberg’s Prison Break Movie
Fear the Walking Dead returns for its six final episodes. TV legend Dick Van Dyke voices a cameo on The Simpsons. Interviews with the FBI’s director and P!nk are on the eclectic menu in an expanded edition of 60 Minutes. Wendi McLendon-Covey pivots from comedy to drama as a prison officer aiding a jailbreak in Lifetime’s Bad Romance: The Vicky White Story.
Fear the Walking Dead
SUNDAY: The first Walking Dead spinoff enters the home stretch with its final six episodes. And before the story returns to Madison (Kim Dickens) and her efforts to make PADRE a safe haven (one can dream), we catch up with the villainous Strand (Colman Domingo), who hasn’t been seen since Season 7. We can only imagine what lies he’s been telling since the show took its seven-year time jump.
The Simpsons
SUNDAY: A true TV legend, Dick Van Dyke, has enjoyed attention recently when appearing, at age 97, on Days of Our Lives as an amnesiac, and earlier this year performing as the Gnome on The Masked Singer. Now he’s joining the Simpsons club in a cameo as himself. Executive producer Al Jean tweeted a cartoon image of the actor in what appears to be an homage to his 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang—but wouldn’t it be great if he was integrated into the weekly couch gag, considering the classic pratfalls in the opening credits of The Dick Van Dyke Show? The bulk of the episode involves Homer (Dan Castellaneta) becoming suspicious of a new neighbor’s kindness and Lisa (Yeardley Smith) neutralizing that bully Nelson (Nancy Cartwright).
60 Minutes
SUNDAY: Once again, 60 Minutes expands to 90 minutes with an extra segment. News stories include Scott Pelley’s interview with FBI Director Christopher Wray and intelligence heads of the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand to assess terror threats in the U.S. and abroad in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan interviews Emad Shargi, one of the five American prisoners freed from Iran last month. In lighter segments, Cecilia Vega interviews music superstar P!nk at her California home and backstage on her tour, and Bill Whitaker heads to the Isle of Man for a double-length report on a perilous motorcycle race on the 30-mile-long island.
Bad Romance: The Vicky White Story
SATURDAY: This prison-break story will be familiar to fans of true-crime TV, but they’ve never seen it quite like this. Wendi McLendon-Covey, who went for big laughs on shows like The Goldbergs and Reno 911!, pulls out the emotional stops in a dramatization as prison corrections officer Vicky White, an unhappy divorcee who becomes infatuated with new inmate Casey White (Rossif Sutherland), no relation. With his transfer to another prison looming, she organizes an audacious escape, leading to an 11-day manhunt.
Where Are You, Christmas?
SATURDAY: We’re still more than a week away from Halloween, but already the new Christmas movies are piling up. A sampling: Hallmark Channel’s Where Are You, Christmas? (Saturday, 8/7c) imagines a black-and-white world where Christmas doesn’t exist, courtesy of a marketing executive (Lyndsy Fonseca) who’s fed up with the year-round holiday and wakes up after a car crash to a not-so-wonderful life. Michael Rady is the nice-guy mechanic who helps restore the holiday spirit. Hallmark also presents Under the Christmas Sky (Sunday, 8/7c), about a grounded astronaut (Jessica Parker Kennedy) who finds love (with channel favorite Ryan Paevey) while working on an exhibit at the local planetarium. Elsewhere, Great American Family’s ’Twas the Text Before Christmas (Saturday, 8/7c) stars Merritt Patterson and Trevor Donovan in a fable about a misdirected text message with unexpected consequences.
INSIDE WEEKEND TV:
- iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina Livestream (Saturday, 8 pm/ET, Hulu): Chayanne performs and receives the iHeartRadio Corazón Latino Award at the annual concert, livestreamed from Miami’s Kaseya Center, with a lineup including Menudo, Luis Figueroa, Ricardo Montaner, Fonseca, GALE and more.
- NFL Icons (Saturday, 10/9c, MGM+): A third season of the biographical docuseries opens with a profile of the late Jim Brown, the Cleveland Browns running back, movie star and civil rights champion who died in May at 87.
- 48 Hours (Saturday, 10/9c, CBS): Not to be confused with The Walking Dead, “Zombie Hunter” Bryan Patrick Miller was a local Phoenix celebrity who portrayed a zombie-killing comic-book hero in parades. He became a prime suspect in a 21-year-old cold case involving the murders of two women in 1992 and 1993.
- Saturday Night Live (Saturday, 11:30/10:30c, 8:30 pm/PT, NBC, streaming on Peacock): Grammy winner Bad Bunny does double duty as first-time guest host and second-time musical guest.
- Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (Sunday, 8/7c, ABC): A 30th-anniversary telecast of the animated classic is followed by a showing of the terrific special Toy Story of TERROR! (9:30/8:30c) from 2013.
- Country Hearts (Sunday, 8/7c, UPtv): Wrestling’s Chris Jericho stars in a movie about the offspring of country music and rock stars who need to choose between their music careers and helping out their dad’s horse-breeding business.
- Sunday Night Football (Sunday, 8:15 pm/ET, NBC): The prime-time matchup pits the Miami Dolphins against this year’s Super Bowl runner-up Philadelphia Eagles.
- AKA Mr. Chow (Sunday, 9/8c, HBO): A tasty documentary profile traces the life of famed restaurateur Michael “Mr. Chow” Chow—now identifying as the artist “M”—from his roots in 1930s Shanghai through his journey as an actor to a trend-setting advocate for Chinese food and culture.
- World on Fire (Sunday, 9/8c, PBS): The WWII Masterpiece drama finds Harry (Jonah Hauer-King) back in uniform, dealing with the sandstorms and dangers of Egypt’s Sahara Desert. Back at home, Lois (Julia Brown) contemplates joining the fight and leaving her baby behind with Harry’s frosty mom Robina (Leslie Manville), who welcomes a charming civil servant (Mark Bonnar) as a new lodger.