Tonight's TV Hot List for Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Tudors
The Tudors
9 pm/ET Showtime
It's the return of the king, as this royal melodrama, one of Showtime's crowning achievements, begins a third season. Serial bride-taker (and killer) Henry VIII (his number of succession, not the total of women he married), is betrothed for the third time. Gentle, genteel and kindly noblewoman Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis) is his choice, and the pressure mounts on her to provide him with a male heir, while Henry deals with a northern uprising over his anti-Catholic Reformation. —Ray Stackhouse
Academy of Country Music Awards
8 pm/ET CBS
Reba McEntire returns as host of the 44th annual shindig in Las Vegas, and she's one of the many hotly anticipated performers on the show as she debuts her latest single, "Strange." The other acts are a nice mixture of yesterday and today, with veterans such as Tim McGraw, Toby Keith and Rascal Flatts taking the stage, as well as newcomers Lady Antebellum, Heidi Newfield and Jamey Johnson. Brad Paisley could be the night's big winner. He leads the pack with six nominations, including Entertainer of the Year. —Tim Holland
In Treatment
9 pm/ET HBO
Dr. Paul Weston (Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne) is back for a second season of therapy, but now he's doing it as a recent divorcé living in Brooklyn. And while it seemed that his personal problems took time to evolve last time around, serious trouble finds him mere minutes into tonight's premiere and coincidentally reunites him with a lawyer and former patient (Hope Davis). Also different is this season's schedule, which features two episodes on Sunday and three on Monday, beginning at 9 pm/ET. —Joe Friedrich
Celebrity Apprentice
9 pm/ET NBC
Eccentric former hoops star Dennis Rodman fouled out when the celebs checked in as hoteliers last week. Rodman ultimately got the Trump bump in an intense boardroom session that bordered on a deeply personal intervention about his drinking habits. Tonight his fellow celebs hold court without him, taking on the challenge of producing a viral video for a laundry detergent. It should get soapy and dirty due to clashing egos, a renegade project manager and Trump's decision to switch up the teams — leaving Joan and Melissa Rivers on opposing sides. —Dean Maurer
MLB Baseball
8 pm/ET ESPN2
Current and former NL East beasts match up in Philly, starting the 2009 Major League season right where 2008 dramatically ended with Charlie Manuel's Phillies winning it all in five games (that took six nights). As for a repeat performance, well that's been done by a National League club only once since 1922 (the '75-76 Reds). Switch-hitting stars and recent U.S. teammates Chipper Jones and Jimmy Rollins spark each lineup, while ESPN adds Steve Phillips to the 20th-year team of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. —Roger Leister
Explorer
9 pm/ET National Geographic
With President Obama vowing to shut down the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year, National Geographic is taking a timely look inside the controversial prison that was built after 9/11 to hold suspected terrorists. For three weeks, film crews were given unprecedented access to Gitmo, capturing a surprisingly intimate portrait of daily life for military personnel and detainees. —Karen Andzejewicz
