1) “House of the Dragon” (shown here) season-opener, 9 p.m. Sunday, HBO and HBO Max. Here is epic filming — TV on a mega-movie scale. At one point, the show had expected to close its second season with the Battle of the Gullet. Now, instead, it uses that to give the third season a huge start. Dragons, ships and warriors collide in the water between two kingdoms.
2) “Patience,” 8 p.m., PBS. After last week’s disappointing season-opener, this bounces back. It still has story flaws, but has a clever murder scheme … and, as always, a terrific character — Patience Evans, the autistic crimesolver. That’s followed at 9 by a good “Grantchester,” tracing a college murder.
3) “The Vampire Lestat,” 9 p.m., AMC, rerunning at 10:14. This opens with witty bursts of narration; Lestat is good with words and with humor. Then it turns both gory and painful — especially after he describes a long-ago love affair gone very bad. And stick around for the final mini-moment.
4) Nature-film reruns. National Geographic Channel. At 1:20 p.m. is a gem — an “Underdog” hour showing bad parents. (One simply puts her egg in someone else’s nest, then vanishes.) That’s followed by James Cameron’s superb “Secrets of” series — elephant, 2:17 p.m.; octopus, 5:08; bee, 8.
5) MORE: Fox has saved up a couple new “American Dad” episodes, which it airs at 9 and 9:30 p.m. today, on Fathers Day. And amovie include “The Karate Kid” (1984) at 7 p.m. on CW, “Sister Act” (1992) at 8:33 on ABC and the greast “Lord of the Rings” trilogy at noon and 4 and 8 p.m. on TruTV.