“The Walking Dead” (AMC, 10 p.m.) gets a healthy start for its fourth season because its colony of flesh and blood survivors is doing well. Absorbing an influx of newcomers from the governor’s failed colony, it seems to be thriving, with Rick having renounced violence and revenge, concentrating on his garden and feeding those inside. His relationship with Carl seems to have been healed; even Michonne, when she drops in, smiles (possibly for the first time).
Sure those cadaverous zombies still line the fence of the prison they took over, and people pop them in the head to thin the herd just as you’d weed your yard. But everywhere, things could go wrong: A weird woman Rick meets in the woods, a crumbling department store that where zombies seem to be raining. The main problem of “The Walking Dead” over the seasons has been pacing with the frantic pulse of season one giving way to a slow seasons at a farm and then a prison before the rival colony emerged. With yet a new showrunner, the show seems to have found just the right pace, with the right sprinkling of new faces and dangers in the mix.
Its welcome return, then, is accompanied by a new season of discussion on “Talking Dead” (AMC, 11 p.m.) as well as a new season of “Comic Book Men” (AMC, midnight), whose stock in trade seems to get a shout out in the”Walking Dead” premiere.
The vapid “Access Hollywood” host is the last guy you’d suspect of being interested in saving one-horned rhinos from poachers, but there he is in Nepal in the special “Chasing Rhinos with Billy Bush” (National Geographic, 9 p.m.), amid a conservationist army on elephant-back, learning a lot.
Major cast members not seen for a while resurface on two of the best Sunday night shows: Damian Lewis’ fugitive Nicholas Brody on “Homeland” (Showtime, 9 p.m.) and, gone for much longer, Kelly Macdonald’s Margaret Schroeder, stopping in to meet with Nucky in Penn Station, when he’s on the way back to Florida.
The experiments at the brothel are on and off on “Masters of Sex” (Showtime, 10 p.m.), as Masters also learns of homosexuality.
The timing of communication is key in a particularly good episode of “Hello Ladies” (HBO, 10:30 p.m.).
Reaction to homosexuality in the family threatens the elderly relationship at the core of “Last Tango in Halifax” (PBS, 8 p.m., check local listings) the series that is already having its season finale tonight (a second season is coming).
Meanwhile the retail saga of “Paradise” continues on “Masterpiece Classic” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings).
Sunday Night Football, with Washington at Dallas (NBC, 8:20 p.m.), has some prime time sports competition: Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, which couldn’t have started off better Saturday, with Detroit at Boston (Fox, 8 p.m.).
Earlier NFL action has Green Bay at Baltimore (Fox, 1 p.m.), Pittsburgh at Jets (CBS, 1 p.m.) and New Orleans at New England (Fox, 4:25 p.m.).
Miss “Game of Thrones”? Well, the teams on “The Amazing Race” (CBS, 8 p.m.) do one challenge in medieval gear while in Portugal.
Even a family trip to a water park is cause for debauchery for Kenny on “Eastbound & Down” (HBO, 10 p.m.).
Hook tries to get Peter Pan by first snaring Tinker Bell on “Once Upon a Time” (ABC, 8 p.m.). He’s tried that ploy before.
“Halloween Wars” (Food, 8 p.m.) is actually a reality competition.
A quartet of vampire movies kick off with the classic silent movie “Nosferatu” (TCM, midnight). The others are the 1932 “Vampyr” (TCM, 2 a.m.), 1933’s “The Vampire Bat” (TCM, 3:15 a.m.) and “The Vampire” (“TCM, 4:30 a.m.) from 1957.
Earlier, it’s gentlemen thieves in “The Thomas Crown Affair” (TCM, 8 p.m.) and “Raffles” (TCM, 10 p.m.).
Sunday Talk
CBS: Sens. John McCain, Chuck Schumer and Kelly Ayotte, Newt Gingrich. NBC: International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, Sens. Dick Durbin and Rob Portman, Leon Panetta. CNN: Sen. Rand Paul, Gingrich, former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Fox News: Sens. Bob Corker, Joe Manchin, Senate Chaplain Barry Black.