It’s a haunting visual metaphor for the movie’s thematic preoccupation with memory, and how human beings desperately cling to the memories that comfort them even as time works its slow, steady entropy on our lives and places. Both those recollections and those buildings will eventually vanish one day, leaving behind nothing but the waves. Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) plies his trade in those memories. In this not-too-distant future, where climate change and a war of indeterminate origin have wrecked a large portion of the planet for most of us, a technology has been developed in which people’s memories can be accessed from their brains and recorded....

Rick and Morty Season 3 Episode 7 My deal is that a show can get away with a lot if I’m impressed by the plotting. There have been funnier, more moving, and more devastating episodes than “The Ricklantis Mixup,” but this was an absolute stunner of a storyline. So, yeah, I loved it. A bait and switch, this episode is not actually about Rick and Morty’s Atlantis adventure. They do go on one; we just don’t get to see it....

Riverdale Season 6 Episode 17 “This is who I am Arch, this is what I do.” Traditionally, Riverdale‘s musical episode has been the annual installment when all hell breaks loose. So it was a bit unexpected how different this season’s song-packed offering played out. Instead of carnage, we witnessed an understated character exploration that focused on how conflicted Betty is about the dueling portions of her personality. Having been groomed by her father — aka The Black Hood — since childhood to become a serial killer, she increasingly feels the pull towards embracing her dark passenger....

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 8 “Am I crazy or have you been feeling the same way too?” Since Jughead’s narration opens most episodes with the most obvious observations possible, I’m going to return the favor by stating the following: Riverdale is not a series known for its profundity. Over its five seasons to date it has proven to be a dumb show that is more often or not done smartly. Or maybe its ability to constantly induce narrative whiplash has be semi-concussed and believing that the program is way better than it has any right to be....

Riverdale Season 6 Episode 19 “Welcome to the Sisterhood of Night, ladies.” When Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) returned from The Sweet Hereafter to appear in what was, disappointingly, a glorified cameo earlier in this season of Riverdale, fans were bummed by the lack of screen time that the now-twentysomething witch received. However, this latest episode served not only as a satisfying epilogue to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but it also brought witchcraft to The Town with Pep in a huge way....

Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a young private palliative care nurse looking after a former noted dancer dealing with late-stage cancer. Maud talks directly to God and feels his presence in almost orgasmic ecstasy and when Amanda tells Maud she can feel Him too, Maud believes it’s a sign and her mission is to deliver Amanda from evil. In Maud’s eyes at least – and cinematographer Ben Fordesman’s camera is very much Maud’s point of view – Amanda is the perfect sinner, shown incessantly smoking, drinking, having sex, and throwing lavish parties for her artistic friends....

I’ll include the full list of games featured in the Mini 2 at the bottom of this article for your perusing pleasure. For now, though, it’s enough to know that the retro hardware’s pre-installed lineup is…eclectic. While the console will include the usual number of all-time classics (Phantasy Star II, Streets of Rage 3, Sonic The Hedgehog CD, Herzog Zwei, and others), it also includes quite a few games you’ve probably never heard of....

Shetland. Craggy peaks. Icy winds. Moodily filmed close-ups of pebbles lapped by chill waters, dry-stone walls, sheep wool snagged on barbed wire and poignant puffins. The silhouette of DI Jimmy Perez standing alone on a clifftop, a good man struggling in a harsh world. Murder. BBC One‘s previous visit to Shetland took its toll on Jimmy, who started Series 6 burying his mother and had to accept as it went on that he was losing his father to dementia....

Every year brings us at least one horror sleeper hit that no one saw coming, and in 2022 Smile is probably the top contender for that title. Released on Sept. 30, the debut horror feature from writer/director Parker Finn has earned an astounding $216 million worldwide as of press time, whic his against a budget of just $17 million. This means Paramount Pictures execs have been grinning ear-to-ear about this movie ever since its arrival (the movie is now available to stream on Paramount+ and to purchase on digital, with a physical Blu-ray, Ultra HD, and DVD release coming on Dec....

South Park Season 23 Episode 6 The title of the latest installment of South Park, “Season Finale,” is a misnomer — there are still four episodes left in the season. This clever bit of misdirection to led us to believe our time on Tegridy Farms could be coming to an end, and Randy will have to answer for his crimes—at best destruction of private property and at worst domestic terrorism and homicide—in the season premiere....

Based on Johnny B. Truant’s Fat Vampire novels, Syfy will hold a modern mirror to the less-reflected night creatures sucking high-calorie liquid proteins. The series stars Jacob Batalon—best known for playing Peter Parker aka Spider-Man’s best friend Ned Leeds—as Reginald Baskin, newly turned vampire. “Vampires are vapid, very beautiful, but there’s nothing going on in their minds,” Batalon tells us. “Reginald is a very thoughtful and intelligent person. He toys with these vampires who are clearly not on his intellectual level....

In the 23rd century, Starfleet didn’t have ship counselors. So, when the USS Discovery jumped from 2258 to 3188, suddenly, Dr. Culber was given two jobs instead of one. And in Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery, Culber’s new gig as ship’s counselor in addition to his regular job as a physician, has added a lot of extra stress. It’s one thing to mend those phaser burns, but quite something else to maintain the mental health of the Disco crew....

Of all the episodes in Discovery Season 3, the episode “Su’Kal,” easily had the fewest overt callbacks to the nostalgic past of Trekkie lore. Then again, after you bust-out the Mirror Universe and a reference to the most famous episode in Star Trek history, it’s hard to top that with even deeper cuts. That said, there were some surprising connections to The Wrath of Khan, the history of Starfleet, and even a little wave to Soji’s favorite way of getting around the galaxy....

Following in the footsteps of Season 3, the first batch of episodes in Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 do two things: The overall story of the season-long arc is explored, but, the episode itself presents a standalone story in the classic Star Trek tradition. Last week, Tilly got her “Galileo Seven” moment, but this week, in “The Examples,” DISCO tackles a classic Trek ethical dilemma. As Burnham and Book navigate the morality of saving prisoners on a doomed colony, “The Examples” front-loads the episode with a ton of callbacks and Easter eggs to the rest of the franchise....

As the enemy starships are closing in, and all hope is lost, our heroes in a battered starship look up, and see that: yes, another ship has just warped in. They’re about to be rescued! Everything is going to be OK! In Star Trek, we’ve gotten used to this kind of last-minute starship rescue scene, with the most famous example probably being the Enterprise-E coming to the rescue of Worf and the Defiant in Star Trek: First Contact....

Star Trek: Prodigy has gone from being simply a “kids” version of Star Trek to a Star Wars-like series to now something closer to what some longtime fans expect from the franchise. However, showrunners Dan and Kevin Hageman excitedly tease that the next batch of ten episodes are going to take the show in a whole new direction. “A Moral Star Part 2’ ends with the real Janeway on The Dauntless set to track down the Protostar, determined to find out what happened to Chakotay....

Although The Next Generation isn’t overtly referenced in the sixth episode of Strange New Worlds, the feeling of TNG is keenly felt in this outing for Pike and the crew. In the episode “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach,” the Enterprise encounters a culture that seems perfect, which of course, means there’s some terrible dark secret. If you rewatch the episode, you’ll realize the writing is on the wall pretty early on, we’re just too charmed by Alora and the First Servant to see it at first....

Well, not exactly. While the inspiring and upbeat new teaser trailer for Strange New Worlds certainly feels accessible and back-to-basics, it’s still essentially framed in a relatively recent canon twist that happened in Star Trek: Discovery Season 2. In other words, if you’re wondering why, in this trailer, Captain Pike (Anson Mount) is hanging out by himself and ignoring his communicator, the answer is, Discovery Season 2. The fundamental difference between Captain Pike pre-Discovery and Captain Pike now is simple: This Captain Pike knows he’ll end up on life-support, and totally unable to communicate with anyone....

But what actually makes a great Jedi? They might have a deep connection to the Force or are driven by a moral compass so pure that audiences simply have to root for them. Or they might just be brilliant swordsmen or pilots, facing insurmountable odds to save the day again and again. No matter why viewers relate to these characters, their adventures across the big screen, shows, books, comics, and games have continued to draw fans in for generations....

As wonderful as Diego Luna was as Cassian Andor in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story back in 2016, the feeling of seeing him on screen again in 2022 in Star Wars: Andor can’t be described as nostalgia. Yes, there’s a pleasant sense of familiarity when he walks onto the first scene, but because nearly everything we learn about Cassian on the show is brand-new, and his surroundings are utterly unfamiliar, there’s nothing about the series that’s trying to recreate any feelings we had about Rogue One....