Jason Sudeikis returns as Ted Lasso, well-intentioned but clueless American football coach managing a soccer team in England. Lasso’s AFC Richmond squad is mired in an endless streak of tie games. The team is presented with a golden chance to break the winless run as a Richmond striker lines up for a penalty kick. As he boots the ball, Richmond’s greyhound mascot ambles onto the field and unwittingly fouls up the path to a win. 

The striker, Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández), is traumatized by the PK fail. Lasso likens his player to “an expensive tape measure — he snaps back real quick.” Alas, Rojas does not, and the coaching staff wrestles with how best to handle a player in a serious funk.  

Lasso faces another challenge when a former standout player seeks to come back to AFC Richmond after being booted off a cheesy reality TV show. His old teammates do not want him back. 

Hannah Waddingham plays the Richmond owner Rebecca Welton. Brendan Hunt is Coach Beard, Brett Goldstein plays profane star player Roy Kent and Juno Temple plays Roy’s girlfriend, Keeley Jones. Jeremy Swift is Higgins, director of football operations.  

Sudeikis, also an executive producer, has Lasso nailed. As funny as he is, Lasso is best, and most human, when delivering other emotions, such as ruminating on his childhood history with dogs at a post-match press conference, and finding common ground with a despondent former player in a pub. 

Season two, available on Apple TV Plus starting July 23, spells new misadventures for Lasso and his squad. Sudeikis is up for the task, and the myriad of merry mishaps is fun to watch.

Hallmark Channel will mark the second-season premiere of original series When Calls The Heart, with a two-hour event at the end of April.

Based on the Janette Oke novel of the same name, When Calls The Heart comes back on April 25 via a special presentation from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. (ET/PT).

The series, which averaged a 1.5 household rating during its 10-episode rookie run in 2014 that made it one of the top-five performers in its Saturday night timeslot, returns its top-liners Erin Krakow, Daniel Lissing and Lori Loughlin, who also stars in the network's Northpole holiday movie franchise and sister service Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Sugar Cookie Murder entry. Introduced late last season, Jack Wagner is also a key cast member,

The series follows young teacher Elizabeth Thatcher (Krakow) who moves to Coal Valley, an early 20th century coal mining town, for her first classroom assignment. A mine explosion has claimed the lives of most of the community's men, leaving behind their widows—including the kindly Abigail Stanton (Loughlin). The newly widowed women face many challenges as they confront life alone in Coal Valley, including a stint working in the mines to support their families. As Thatcher adapts to the frontier lifestyle, she begins to fall for handsome Mountie Jack Thornton (Lissing). Wagner and James Brolin appeared in the final episodes of the first season, looking to bring justice to the coal mining tragedy.

Vewers embarking to Coal Valley for the sophomore-season debut with fill find Elizabeth and Jack closer than ever after theri first kiss in the installment entitled “Trials of the Heart." However, their budding union is threatened when she receives a distressing telegram from home requesting her return. As Jack gains a new understanding of Elizabeth's high-society family, Abigail remains in Coal Valley, where she nervously awaits the mining disaster trial, and finally confronts investigator Bill Avery (Wagner) about a shocking discovery that could put their own romantic future on hold.

When Calls The Heart’s late April bow continues Hallmark Channel’s original series presence on Saturday night.

The network, on April 18, will wrap up the first season of Good Witch with a two-hour finale, called “True Colors.” Starring Catherine Belle as Cassie Nightingale, the show, developed from the network’s successful telefilm franchise, has been the family-friendly’s most successful with the Nielsens to date, according to executives at the programmer.

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The March 14 premiere conjured a 2.3 household rating and 2.4 million viewers, according to live + 3 data. After three weeks on air, Good Witch has made Hallmark Channel the highest-rated and most-watched cable network in the Saturday 8 p.m. time period and has reached nearly 8.8 million unduplicated viewers.