Whimsical ‘Door Prize’ Returns, ‘Not Dead Yet’ Finale, Our Changing Planet, So Many ‘Survivor’ Idols

The mysterious Morpho machine is back in Season 2 of the offbeat metaphysical comedy, teasing the residents of the bucolic and slightly bonkers town of Deerfield with a new challenge: “Are you ready for the next stage?” What does that mean? Nobody knows, including local teacher Dusty (the wonderful Chris O’Dowd), who regards Morpho as “not the most explicit magical device I’ve ever met.” But when the machine elaborates, “To achieve your potential, you must discover who you are,” with occasionally disturbing specificity, the soul-searching truly begins, with Dusty and wife Cass (Gabrielle Dennis) deciding to give each other space for a few weeks, among other social experiments among their circle of eccentric acquaintances. The season opens with three episodes.

With back-to-back episodes closing the second season of the supernatural comedy, Nell (Gina Rodriguez) faces a professional challenge when she learns Duncan (Brad Garrett) is planning to sell the SoCal Independent. With her boss and Duncan’s daughter Lexi (Lauren Ash) sitting this battle out, Nell goes to great lengths to try to save the paper and her job. (Stay tuned afterward for The $100,000 Pyramid at 9:30/8:30c, when Ash plays against her former Superstore co-star Nico Santos.)

Earth Day is over, but PBS’s “Earth Month” continues with a special from the Changing Planet franchise, now in the third year of a seven-year project to address the Earth’s most fragile ecosystems. The focus turns to coral reef habitats in the Florida Keys and the Maldives which are under threat from climate change, with warming seas causing the corals to bleach and die—in the Keys’ barrier reef, 98 percent of its coral has been lost. The special explores efforts to reverse the alarming trend, including a $100 million reef restoration in a Florida lab that is breeding millions of corals to be replanted on the reef.

Remember when an immunity idol was a novelty in this game of strategic survival? Now it’s so ingrained into the process that the camp is once again shaken when multiple hidden idols are revealed, thwarting some castaways’ plans leading to the next tribal council. To earn immunity the old-fashioned way, players must keep their balance. Followed by The Amazing Race (9:30/8:30c), now in Montevideo, Uruguay, where the teams choose between playing the drums with street performers or singing a Spanish song with troubadours before moving on.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV: