The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episodes 1 and 2 So The Rings of Power has finally arrived! As we mentioned in our spoiler-free review, the series is stunningly beautiful, the set, costume, and visual effects work is impeccable, the acting is great, and it all has the feel of a tale with an epic scope. The only drawback to these first two episodes is that, inevitably, they’re largely devoted to set-up....

The Mandalorian Chapter 13, “The Jedi,” gives us answers to many of the biggest questions surrounding Baby Yoda, the former Jedi youngling whose actual name is Grogu, while also introducing new mysteries about the ancient order. In fact, the episode has just set the stage for what will likely be an explosive conclusion to the second season, as Mando and Grogu set off to find what could be the birthplace of the Jedi....

Mike Flanagan has become Netflix’s go-to spooky season purveyor, dealing out annual horror miniseries that serve somewhat as Trojan horses for deep ruminations on life, death, and faith. After The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass, Flanagan’s house style has crystalized. A Flanagan joint will have flowery monologues, complicated group dynamics, and harrowing backstories for the central characters that inform the scares being served in the main narrative....

Gamers who want to experience everything The Skywalker Saga has to offer will have to unlock over 380 characters. Most of these are key players such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, recurring side characters like C-3PO and R2-D2, and even fan favorites such as Bossk and Boba Fett. Admittedly, a sizable chunk of the game roster consists of variants of the same character (e.g., players can unlock 18 different versions of Luke Skywalker), but The Skywalker Saga also includes quite a few obscure characters....

Dower sets the tone of the times before the documentary leaps into the wild. He intercuts an interview with the stewardess on the legendary flight with period airline advertisements and clips from informational shorts. What a difference the flying experience was in the early ‘70s. The food looks edible, there appears to be ample leg room, and airline stewardesses’ weight was monitored more than boarding passengers. There were no metal detectors or security to speak of....

Say what you will about HBO’s latest fantasy series The Nevers, but one thing cannot be denied: it’s got some great names. While original creator Joss Whedon and his questionable legacy have departed the project, he left behind some truly fascinating characters and character names for the show to work with. The series lead is a tough, competent, and confident leader of misfits. What better name for such a person than the sturdy “Amalia True?...

The Orville: New Horizons Season 3 Episode 4 Good science-fiction should challenge us. It should contain subtext that can teach, subvert, and even make us uncomfortable by shining a light on aspects of our world we don’t want to look at. Whether it is the golden standard of this layered writing style such as The Outer Limits, the legendary The Twilight Zone, or recent forays into the genre like Black Mirror, these tiny vignettes of fiction are loaded with political subtext and important morals....

Adapted from a webtoon called Annarasumanara, Netflix’s latest Korean-language release, The Sound of Magic, is a quick watch at only six episodes—much shorter than most K-drama fare. For that runtime, the drama bites off a bit more than it can chew in terms of storyline, which makes the final episode action-packed with plot points, including reveals concerning magician Ri-eul’s past and the identity of Seo Ha-yoon’s murderer. The ending also must wrap up Ah-yi and Il-deung’s respective stories, which it does with a series-ending time jump in which we see Ah-yi’s life several years after the main events of the story....

The late, great, Bob Hoskins, who actually starred as Mario, was one of them. “It was a fuckin’ nightmare,” Hoskins told The Guardian in 2007. “The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent…! Fuckin’ nightmare. Fuckin’ idiots.” Time is a great healer though and while Hoskins continued to rank the movie as his worst long after he retired, the bold ambition and inventiveness of Super Mario Bros....

Do you want to meet the greatest film director who ever lived? That would be a loaded question in any context, but it has extra weight in Steven Spielberg’s new release, The Fabelmans. With the film being a semi-autobiographical portrait of the legendary filmmaker’s own adolescent years, the picture feels in many ways like a rare window into meeting the real Spielberg—or at least the Spielberg as imagined in the director’s own head....

Fans of the series will recall that, at the end of season 2, the Hargreeves children’s time-meddling came back to bite them once again – this time in a particularly spectacular fashion. When Luther, Diego, Allison, and company arrived back to the “present” from their journey in 1963 Dallas, they discovered that a whole new team crime-fighting team was occupying The Umbrella Academy mansion. Their former father Reginald Hargreeves announced this new team as the Sparrow Academy, and it featured five human silhouettes, one ominous looking cube, and the resurrection of the Umbrellas’ own dearly-departed brother Ben....

While getting to see Lucille is nice, it also begs the question: what about the other Lucille? Negan’s iconic choice of weapon is a simple wooden baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire that he named after his wife. The barbed-bat helped complete the physically imposing persona that eventually installed him as a ruthless leader of The Saviors. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen Lucille “in the flesh” for awhile now. At least not the original version of it....

The end is nigh for The Walking Dead. And we’re not just talking about the news that The Walking Dead season 11 will serve as the final season of the long-running zombie drama. We’re also referring to the fact that the show will soon no longer have any material from the original comic series to draw from. Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead comic lasted for 193 issues and 32 volumes before concluding in July of 2019....

The Watch Episodes 1 and 2 Anyone who has read science fiction and fantasy novels in the last 40 years has at least heard of Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld,” and it’s with some trepidation and cautious optimism that fans of the books have anticipated the new BBC adaptation, The Watch, which focuses on some of the best-loved characters from the 41-book series. What readers should know is that the series is very much an adaptation, and while there are plenty of moments that are true to the originals, and add details from various books, don’t go in expecting something as faithful as Bridgerton....

The eight episodes of The Watch‘s inaugural season will follow recognizable characters such as City Watch Captain Sam Vimes (Richard Dormer), the last scion of nobility Lady Sybil Ramkin (Lara Rossi), the naïve but heroic Carrot (Adam Hugill), the mysterious Angua (Marama Corlett), the ingenious non-binary forensics expert Cheery (Jo Eaton-Kent), the dictatorial Lord Vetinari (Anna Chancellor), and Pratchett’s iconic personification of Death voiced by Wendell Pierce. The Watch is described as a character-drive, punk rock thriller which will follow the City Watch “as they fight to save a ramshackle city of normalized wrongness, from both the past and future in a perilous quest....

Marvel has its own Dracula, its own Frankenstein Monster, its own Mummy, its own werewolf (two actually) and even its own Manphibian (kind of like the Creature from the Black Lagoon…but not). These creepy residents lurked in their own little dark corner of the Marvel Universe, but the takeaway here is that they were IN the Marvel Universe and at times these vampires, lycanthropes, and corpses even met the famous heroes of the MU....

From multiple protagonists, a dozen unique cultures, and a complex philosophical underpinning that involves repeating patterns spread throughout time, there’s a lot to unpack in this universe. But The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins clearly doesn’t mind the challenge of introducing new viewers to the rich world that he himself already loved. “I tried to make sure that we were staying true to the things in the books that ultimately bring people in,” Judkins says....

For this unprecedented fourth solo movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, Hemsworth and Waititi not only reprise their roles as Thor and Korg but they’re joined by a team of Academy Award winners and fan favorites. These remarkable talents will help tell the next chapter in Thor’s story, which finds him looking for his place in the galaxy after dealing with the trauma of failing to stop Thanos and losing his home planet Asgard....

Titans Season 2 Episode 9 Though a weaker installment compared to last week’s “Jericho,” the ninth episode of Titans season 2, “Atonement,” is an enjoyable story — it’s also frustrating for its loose ends and spotlights how underused many of the core characters have been this season. The episode begins with Dick coming clean about what really happened with Jericho. Rather than hugging it out, as it seems Hank is about to do before slugging his friend, the team breaks up — again....

Who is Lana Washington? Yeah, yeah, she defuses bombs, her partner exploded, she gets hot in a heatwave and has a little ponytail, but who is she? After episode one’s series of entertainingly tense set pieces, now’s the time for Trigger Point to deliver on character. Instead, episode two played it coy, adding only ‘does Sudoku’ and ‘has parents’ to the sum total of our knowledge about our lead. Somewhere in the rank depths of the internet, there’s a market for footage of Vicky McClure wordlessly putting on and then taking off a helmet, but prime time ITV1 isn’t it....