Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3 Episode 3 The alliteratively titled “Mining the Mind’s Mines” taps into the “lone space outpost on a forgotten planet” as one of the influences directing this week’s episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks. It also recalls the helpless and mind-numbingly boring outpost scientists that the Enterprise and other vessels throughout Star Trek lore have had to either rescue, protect, or otherwise frustratingly work with to accomplish a mutual goal....

In the first season of The Rings of Power, Adar was introduced as the leader of the Orcs operating in the Southlands, and is responsible for the death and destruction that force humans out of the Southlands, as well as the eventual creation of Mordor. We also learn Adar was one of the first Elves to be corrupted by Morgoth, and that he actually attempted to kill Sauron in the First Age....

The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 17 Lisa almost learns a lesson on The Simpsons’ “The Sound of Bleeding Gums.” When the Springfield lottery uses a song from local saxophone legend Bleeding Gums Murphy in their commercials, Lisa decides to help her musical idol’s son Monk, played by John Autry II, by any means possible. Once again, the writers are talking about the show, and how The Simpsons are cited for social justice warrior product placements at the expense of laughs....

The Simpsons Season 34 Episode 2 The Simpsons are looking pretty good after 34 seasons, some of them stuck in ruts, others doing wheelies over their competition. Sometimes all they need is a little encouragement and a steep incline. The season opener mocked a turtle, episode 2 features a mock jury. “One Angry Lisa” has the feel of the earlier seasons, it is a sillier entry, based on Evergreen Terrace’s perennial theme of missed marital bliss, and throws no judgements....

The Strain Season 4 Episode 7 As there are only a few episodes of The Strain left, it is certain that fans are going to be forced to say goodbye to some beloved characters. Yes, when a series, particularly a series that is immersed in hardcore TV horror, comes to a close, death is inevitable. This week, the Grim Reaper visits The Strain in a big bad way and we are forced to say farewell to some Strain mainstays....

Over Cena’s 18 years in the WWE, the charismatic sports entertainer has collected 16 World Titles and served as the face of the company and moralistic brand ambassador. Cena reigned at the top of the WWE pecking order longer than past favorites like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and did so with a smile, whether the WWE Universe was behind him or not. Like most of the company’s top stars, Cena inevitably found his way to Hollywood and, after some half-hearted initial forays, has found himself to be an adept and engaging screen presence....

Those same CCTV cameras and the screens they broadcast to are ever-present throughout the show’s six episodes, which tell the story of U.K. Special Forces Lance Corporal Shaun Emery (Callum Turner) who was failed by video surveillance technology once before and may be on the verge of being failed by it once again. The Capture wrapped up its compelling run in October of last year on BBC One. Now it’s set to thrill American audiences when it is included with new NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock at launch....

This suggests that the zombie plague may be extraterrestrial in origin. Like most subversions of the zombie apocalypse genre (although Army of the Dead promises a much smaller and more contained “apocalypse” so that all that cash they steal is still worth something) this is actually a plot twist you can trace back to the earliest roots of the genre. In Night of the Living Dead, the zombie apocalypse (although again, by the end of the film the “ghouls” seem to have been mostly mopped up) is the result of strange radiation emerging from a probe that has returned from Venus....

The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episode 4 A lot of people are critical of The Walking Dead: World Beyond for what the show is. It’s a teen-centric supernatural drama set in a zombie universe, like MTV’s Teen Wolf but not sexy due to the unspoken body odor surrounding every character. That’s not to everyone’s taste, which is understandable. The Walking Dead isn’t to everyone’s tastes, either. As such, a Walking Dead fan’s tolerance or interest in World Beyond is based heavily on just how much they enjoy watching melodramas meant for teenagers....

The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episodes 9 and 10 Huck (Annet Mahendru) is a woman with a mission, and it’s not to make sure everyone gets to the Civic Republic Militia research facility safely. From the very opening of The Walking Dead: World Beyond‘s ninth episode, “The Deepest Cut,” as Huck stares into the darkness while everyone sleeps, it’s clear she’s facing a choice between the people that she has come to know and love as friends in Felix and the kids, and her loyalty to the CRM, her mother, and the CRM’s idea of the greater good....

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 15 Everyone in the world of The Walking Dead is keeping an impressive amount of heavy secrets. As Ezekiel (Khary Payton) says in “Trust,” darkness is heavy, and some people can carry more of it than others. For Ezekiel, his dark secret is also his way to spread a little light into a world sorely needing it. For someone like Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton), it seem as if it’s just darkness all the way down....

The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 6 The Walking Dead is a show that seems to be stuck in behavior loops. Like the hosts on Westworld, the characters on The Walking Dead are caught in patterns not of their own making. The same issues come up time and time again, with slightly different results. Take, for example, the decision to trust (or not trust) a group of survivors you’ve just stumbled across....

The White Lotus Season 2 Episode 5 One of the tough things about starting a new show for the first time is having to constantly answer this question: what do these characters stand for? When it comes to The White Lotus, this is an even more arduous quest for knowledge. The anthology style gives us only a select few weeks to live in the skin of these fictional people, and the writers and actors bringing the story to life have to quickly, but purposefully fulfill their roles to create a show worth remembering....

While The Witcher: Blood Origin did what it set out to do – show what caused the Conjunction of the Spheres – this four episode miniseries ultimately left us with more questions than answers. Between Jaskier’s (Joey Batey) involvement in the Elves’ fight, the origin of the Wild Hunt, and the start of Ciri’s Elder bloodline, there are plenty of things that we hope season 3 of The Witcher will address when the series returns next summer....

UK fans may recognize a few faces among the cast, including comedian and children’s television cult star Lenny Henry who will play Balor, Dylan Moran (Black Books) who will play the humorously named Uthrok One-Nut, and Huw Novelli (The Capture), playing Callan “Brother Death.” But there are also several stage actors such as Zach Wyatt who will play the role of Syndril and Amy Murray who will portray Fenrik, as well as at least one actor, Lizzie Annis in the role of Zacaré, who is making her professional debut....

So now we have The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, which begs the question: what has happened to the Hammer renaissance? The historic horror studio seemed to have found new life with Let Me In, the first Woman in Black and Wake Wood (we’ll ignore the cheap-looking The Resident), but has stumbled twice in a row with 2014’s The Quiet Ones and now this largely pointless and deadly dull affair, which employs so many overused and clichéd horror devices that you start to get the feeling the filmmakers simply never cared about the material at all....

The series operates like a highly atypical animated anthology program and its compelling art design combined with the fact that it’s only four episodes long may leave many curious to check out the odd series. However, it’s understandable that some may be intimidated to give Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan a chance if they’re not familiar with the anime that it’s spun off from. To help make the exciting new OVA series as accessible as possible, here’s a helpful primer on the basics of what a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure neophyte should know before diving into Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan....

Sure, it would have been easy to throw a couple of legendary video game songs into the ceremony’s soundtrack and call it a day, but the event’s organizers went one step further and found some surprising deep-dive tracks from the history of video game music. They’re all great tunes, but what’s more impressive are the ways that they so perfectly fit the energy and spirit of the Olympics. Here’s a look (and a listen) at every video game song that was featured during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony:...

Remember early on in the promotional process for Marvel’s WandaVision we were promised that it would set up elements of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? We knew that Elizabeth Olsen would also appear in that film, and it seemed logical that Benedict Cumberbatch would return the favor and appear as Stephen Strange in WandaVision. And then remember how we were promised mind-bending cameos that ultimately ended up being cool but not exactly Sorcerer Supreme level?...

Wells’ big Spidey run is coming up this April and it comes with a big question: “What did Spider-Man do?” While John Romita, Jr. is one of the Spider-Man artists, Zeb Wells also has had a big hand in the wallcrawler’s history. He wrote for the underrated Avenging Spider-Man series, gave us one of the best Lizard comics ever in the “Shed” storyline, brought back Carnage from being torn in half by the Sentry in space, had Spider-Man team up with Barack Obama, as well as many other stories....