Captain Picard is back. Although Star Trek: Picard has been focused on the further adventures of Jean-Luc Picard since 2020, with the upcoming third and final season of the show coming on Feb. 16, the titular character feels a bit less like the retired Admiral, and more like the starship Captain again. There are even a few moments in the first few episodes where characters call him “Captain” instead of of “Admiral....
Peacemaker Episode 5 Music has obviously played quite a big role for Peacemaker thus far. Along with scoring the brilliant opening credits sequence (which again: cannot be praised enough), Peacemaker’s preferred glam metal has served as a spiritual accompaniment, giving the show a thrashing, playful spirit. It’s in this week’s episode, “Monkey Dory”, however, that the Peacemaker soundtrack goes from tone-setter to plot-driver…with mixed results. In addition to a great taste in music, one thing that Peacemaker showrunner James Gunn excels at is turning the group dynamics of a found family into his own personal storytelling playground....
Strategising is Tommy Shelby’s superpower (that, and making smoking look cooler than a dozen James Deans times a hundred Humphrey Bogarts). Like every superhero/villain though, his powers are subject to one weakness. Tommy’s? His family. Specifically, his family’s will. Whenever Tommy’s orders aren’t followed, there are consequences. Michael and the US investments, John and Esme deciding to weather the mafia threat alone, Arthur and John not killing Mrs Changretta back in series three … This time, he’s being disobeyed by everybody....
Some of the franchise’s Pokédex entries are basically condensed X-Files episodes. Certain subplots, such as a mission where Ditto replaces humans, feel torn from the pages of EC Comis. Oh, and there’s always Lavender Town. That place is just plain creepy. While the franchise is full of scary locations, such as the Old Chateau and Strange House, none have captured gamer imaginations and terrified the Crabrawler out of them quite like Lavender Town....
We caught up with the actors at San Diego Comic Con last summer to chat all things zombies. Most importantly: what the film’s stars would do in the event of a real-life zombie attack. Here’s what they had to say… On crossing zombies and Austen… One of the trickiest thing about adapting the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombiesto the big screen was getting the tone right. It must have all of the things we love about Austen’s stories — the wit, the socioeconomic context, the romance — and zombies....
Cinema is full of stories of righteously angry women who have suffered at the hands of wicked men. Invariably, these stories also see those women reclaim power over their own narratives by brutally punishing the men responsible. In Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, The Bride stands triumphant, holding a katana over the mangled bodies of those who have tried to do her harm. Jennifer Cheek makes the boys of Jennifer’s Body pay for their misogynist behavior with their own blood, literally feasting on their souls....
Dracula wasn’t the first book about vampires, but it was the first time Vlad “the Impaler” Tepes was portrayed as one. Until then, people thought of him as a cruel tyrant who nailed hats onto the heads of monks, and dipped his bread in the blood of vanquished soldiers. That is if they thought of him at all, outside of Romania, which celebrates him with pride as a freedom fighter and national protector, the “son of the dragon” who fought the Islamic Turks as they tried to conquer Transylvania and Wallachia....
Rick and Morty Season 6 Episode 3 In a season that premiered by screaming “LORE!” at us, followed up by an episode that chose to ignore canon almost altogether, it’s great to see an episode that hits a good balance between the two. Though I’m a sucker for episodes that expand upon canonical stuff, I check out a bit when they start talking about Central Finite Curves and such. I like my serialized storytelling to be a little less sci-fi and a bit more grounded....
Rick and Morty Season 6 Episode 8 Coming on the heels of another of those hyper-meta snoozefest episodes, the opening of “Analyze Piss,” with Rick complaining about having to fight too many “nineties-style, goofball supervillains,” was a bit worrying. Morty suggesting that Rick might want to investigate exactly why so many of these goofball supervillains keep coming after him just seemed like a potential setup for another overly self-aware adventure I personally wasn’t down for, even though Rick’s follow-up comment, “I’m not the fucking Tick,” did make me laugh....
Superb Netflix comedy Russian Doll is no stranger to time-bending shenanigans. The first season of the Natasha Lyonne co-created and starring series put mid-30s New Yorker Nadia Vulvokov (Lyonne) through temporal hell. After attempting to celebrate her 36th birthday at her friend’s apartment, Nadia is struck and killed by a taxi only to “loop” right back to the bathroom of said apartment. Every attempt to make it through the night without dying brings her into death’s clutches and right back to the lavatorial starting point....
Black Widow star and longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe actress Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court. The claim alleges that her contract was breached when Disney released Black Widow on Disney+ in addition to its theatrical release. According to Johansson’s representation, her contract guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release for Black Widow, which would be advantageous to the star given that she was set to receive a certain percentage of the film’s theatrical gross....
Shameless Season 8 Episode 7 Gallagher versus Gallagher. Kin versus kin. Plus, Frank launching a hair-brained scheme to make money. Ah, this is more like it. Last week, the impending crash of Fiona and Ian was sidelined for some amusing, if slightly irrelevant, comedic and emotional beats. However, with the title of “Occupy Fiona” alone, it’s clear that Shameless has found its main thread again, and it is perfectly compelling, and not only because it is about Gallagher subplots colliding....
In Thomas Harris’ The Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice Starling “Nothing happened to me […] I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences.” It’s an elegant, invincible line, one that waves away the tricks of their trades as psychiatrist and FBI agent, and paints Lecter as pure evil. Twenty-five years later, Harris scrapped all that to explain in Hannibal Rising that Lecter is what he is because Nazis ate his sister....
My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 10 “They’re just a few dead people who lost to me…” There’s a fascinating phenomenon where recipients of organ transplants sometimes report a change in personality, taste, and even memories, that are an echo of the organ’s donor. My Hero Academia has extrapolated that concept with Quirks as both Izuku Midoriya and Tomura Shigaraki have inherited the traits of the previous bearers of their powers....
At the same time, I’ve always been jealous of the generation who experienced the revolutionary horror films of the 1960s and ‘70s at the theater. This forlorn feeling was instilled in me by my dad and others who lived through that era of horror. While there was something annoying about their unprovoked rants about the good old days – who among us can’t say we haven’t fallen into that particular shameful pit of adulthood?...
The Nevers is a series that often defies description. A Victorian-set fantasy adventure that features a gang of primarily young women who gain supernatural and superhuman abilities, it’s a story about everything from faith and prejudice to hope and change. Its narrative is sprawling and frequently confusing, with no real initial sense of how its disparate pieces connect to one another. (Or don’t.) And it features at least a dozen major characters who run the gamut from heroes to villains – and sometimes both at once....
To be fair, we’ve thought Clay was beyond redemption a couple of times before, particularly in the first couple of series, but he’s always come around. Whilst I always have faith in Kurt Sutter’s broken glass-sharp writing, I can’t help but feel that he’s written himself into a corner with some of the revelations this week, but hey, that’s probably what he wants us to think. Following last week’s events, this week’s episode is very Tara-centric....
For a series with a relatively well-worn premise, Netflix’s Squid Game sure does manage to pack a lot of surprises into its conclusion. It does this in large part by recognizing that the series’ success hinges not so much on who wins the game, but on how they win it and what it all means. Like the show’s beginning, much of Squid Game‘s final hour is set outside the world of the arena—this time, a year following the events of the bulk of the show....
IDW just published “The Light of Kahless,” the first in a four-part Discovery comic book tie-in series set before the events of the series. The story follows the character of T’Kuvma, the Klingon leader set on uniting the houses of the crumbling empire in the TV show’s two-part premiere. Den of Geek chatted with the comic’s authors, Mike Johnson and Kirsten Beyer (who is also a writer on the TV series), about how the prequel story fits into Discovery canon, why T’Kuvma is such an interesting character, and their favorite Star Trek stories ever… Den of Geek: How was the decision made to make this comic about the Klingons and T’Kuvma specifically?...
Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Episode 6 Star Trek: Discovery literally goes where no one has gone before in “Stormy Weather,” journeying into the subspace rift left behind by the DMA to try and suss out more information about what it is and how it works, in the hopes that such information might point them toward who created it. Instead, the Discovery and her crew all end up almost being eaten by some sort of inexplicable dark void that the DMA apparently leaves in its wake, and it’s only through some old-fashioned Earth communication that everyone is saved in the end....
