Facing a fall television schedule unlike any we’ve seen, it’s comforting to note that “The Simpsons” (8 p.m., Sunday, Fox, TV-14) is back. For its 35th season, no less.
In the season premiere, “Homer’s Crossing,” the doughnut-scarfing nuclear safety manager faces a midlife crisis. He discovers that his co-workers have turned off his work console to save the plant from his incompetence. His failure to satisfy Marge in bed underscores his feelings of age and inadequacy.
By chance, Homer inadvertently volunteers to become a school crossing guard. They are in special need since all the children are forced to walk to school after the disappearance of Otto, the perpetually stoned bus driver.
Homer stumbles through his new job, earning the disrespect of children, until he impulsively saves dimwit Ralph Wiggum from a distracted driver. In the logic of a “Simpsons” episode, his bravery earns him local celebrity status and media adulation. The Kennedy soundalike Mayor Quimby takes time out from his louche lifestyle and baroque corruption to lavish the crossing guard with money from the town’s budget.
This allows Homer to buy his squad all kinds of high-tech gadgetry, and he quickly turns his modest team into a dangerous paramilitary force.
It’s nice to see “The Simpsons” still on its game. While deliriously silly, the episode contends with such hot-button issues as the Defund the Police movement and the under-discussed Freudian links between male sexual inadequacy and impotence and the need to amass a gun collection.
While any show that’s been around for 35 years is an institution in itself, “The Simpsons” still manages to trade in bad taste. The show has seen the death of fictional characters (Maude Flanders and Bleeding Gums Murphy) as well as the real-life departures of notable voices (Phil Hartman and Marcia Wallace). But it still exhumes characters seemingly based on dead celebrities. One of Homer’s fellow crossing guards is series regular Gil Gunderson, a shattered and nervous middle-aged man clearly based on Jack Lemmon’s character Shelley Levene from the drama “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Lemmon died in 2001.
In tonight’s episode, Mayor Quimby is invited to an orgy by a character who is the spitting image of James Lipton, host of “Inside the Actors Studio.” Lipton once appeared on the show, playing himself, hosting a botched interview with series regular and Schwarzenegger soundalike Rainier Wolfcastle. Lipton died in 2020.
May “The Simpsons” live forever!
— Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt star in the 2021 adventure comedy “Jungle Cruise” (8 p.m. Sunday, ABC, TV-14). While it would be nice to call this a mashup of “Romancing the Stone” and “The African Queen,” it’s actually based on the Disney theme park ride.
That worked for “Pirates of the Caribbean”, but not, apparently for this. It’s considered one of The Rock’s more notable bombs.
Some believe its modest box office was the result of the COVID closure of movie theaters. A sequel is in the works.
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— College football action includes LSU at Ole Miss (6 p.m., ESPN); Michigan State at Iowa (7:30 p.m., NBC/Peacock); Notre Dame at Duke (7:30 p.m., ABC) and West Virginia at TCU (8 p.m., ESPN2).
— Check local listings for regional coverage of MLB action (7 p.m., Fox).
— A love triangle results in a murder plot in the 2023 shocker “Amish Stud: The Eli Weaver Story” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— Deep-sea explorers run into a prehistoric creature in the 2023 shocker “Meg 2: The Trench” (8 p.m., HBO). If this movie wasn’t produced as a symbol of everything terrible about the botched merger of HBO and Discovery, it should have been!
— With a business deal on the back burner, a fetching woman takes a cooking course in Italy the 2023 romance “A Very Venice Romance” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— Robert Klane, the screenwriter behind “Weekend at Bernie’s” (9:45 p.m. Saturday, Sundance, TV-14), died on Aug. 29. His other notable scripts include the 1970 Ruth Gordon-George Segal comedy “Where’s Poppa?”, the disco musical “Thank God It’s Friday” and, regrettably, “Weekend at Bernie’s II.”
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— “60 Minutes” (7 p.m., CBS).
— A caretaker with a posh patient is accused of murder on “Professor T” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
— The eternally snake-bitten New York Jets host Super Bowl champs the Kansas City Chiefs in NFL Football (8:15 p.m., NBC).
— A trip upstate reveals a new political player on “Billions” (8 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
— A personal do-over on “Unforgotten” on Masterpiece” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
— A secret club hides the last hints of Parisian culture on “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” (9 p.m., AMC, TV-MA).
— The 2023 documentary “The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring” (9 p.m., HBO, TV-MA) profiles Rachel Lee, the leader of a group of young burglars who targeted the Hollywood homes of the rich and famous.
— A criminal mastermind facing prison decides to take one last job in the 2023 thriller “Heist 88” (9 p.m., Showtime), also streaming on Paramount+.
— A mystical rite goes wrong on “Van der Valk” on “Masterpiece” (10 p.m., PBS, TV-14, check local listings).
CULT CHOICE
“Oklahoma!” stars Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones (“The Partridge Family”) star in the 1956 adaptation of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical “Carousel” (8 p.m. Sunday, TCM, TV-G). Based on an obscure Hungarian play and featuring a peculiar plot, “Carousel” showcased notable songs including “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” “If I Loved You” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Rodgers (“Oklahoma!,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I,” “The Sound of Music”) considered “Carousel” his favorite.
SATURDAY SERIES
A rogue Army Ranger kidnaps Commander Chase on “NCIS: Hawai’i” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … Two episodes of “48 Hours” (9 p.m. and 10 p.m., CBS).
SUNDAY SERIES
On two episodes of “Yellowstone” (CBS, TV-MA): John’s secret emerges (8 p.m.); a squeeze from tribal police (9 p.m.) … Prances with wolves on “Krapopolis” (8:30 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
A battle over chores on “Bob’s Burgers” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Meg becomes a surrogate mother on “Family Guy” (9:30 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Big Brother” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
