Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 8 One of the downsides of our current era of Peak Prestige TV is the assumption that, in order to be good, something must also be deadly serious. This seems to be doubly true if we’re talking about a genre property, which these days tend to be peppered with bleak, grimdark depictions of authoritarian military regimes, insidious robot overlords, or widespread climate disasters. Even Star Trek hasn’t been immune to this trend in recent years—both Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard have certainly shown us futures that don’t always entirely feel compatible with the more lighthearted optimism of Gene Roddenberry’s original vision for the franchise....

“It’s the number-one most covered topic not connected to World War II, apart from maybe the Civil War,” says Brian Volk-Weiss, director of the documentary, The Center Seat: Celebrating 55 Years of Star Trek, which launches this week in the UK on IMDb TV. But even after all this time there are still surprising new facts to discover, as Volk-Weiss himself found out during the making of the series. “I’m a lifelong Trekkie....

The Mandalorian is back for a second season featuring more adventures for Mando and the Child, better known as our beloved Baby Yoda. Ever since the Force-sensitive Child was introduced in the first episode as a helpless bounty sought after by Imperial agents, this little character has stolen the show, giving us a new twist on the well-established concept of Jedi Master Yoda. Not that the character is related to his famous movie predecessor....

“The Siege” evokes A New Hope in its star fighter battles and brings back some season one characters to The Mandalorian. The episode is heavy on the Original Trilogy overall, with some shots taken directly from iconic scenes. Mando returns to Nevarro for some repairs to his ship but ends up mopping up the last Imperial holdout there. But the Imperial base isn’t all that it seems on the outside, and the gang now has another clue as to what Baby Yoda actually is and what Moff Gideon is planning....

While the legend of the potential casting of the iconic Kurosawa katana wielder is known and hardly breaking news, it seems that we now know why it never came to fruition. At an event in Tokyo announcing the very first Tokyo Comic Con, the legacy of Mifune was well represented by way of the late screen legend’s daughter, Mika. Joined onstage by Star Wars onscreen alumni like Ian McDiarmid and Ray Park, Mika reportedly revealed the reasoning behind his fateful rejection of the Obi-Wan role....

While PC players have been enjoying Stardew‘s new split-screen co-op update for a few months now, the update’s recent release on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch means that everyone can get in on the fun and finally share a farm (and a couch) with their friends. So how do you actually unlock this new feature so that you can force your friends to water plants and gather materials while you romance the townsfolk all day?...

At the center of season 4 is a deep dive into Eleven’s past as well as her life post-Hawkins; Hopper’s quest to escape his Soviet captors; Max trying to cope with Billy’s death in season 3; a new string of teen murders perpetrated by the show’s most horrific villain yet, the gruesome Vecna; and the heavy metal-loving dungeon master Eddie Munson, a new character played by Joseph Quinn, trying to prove he didn’t commit the aforementioned killings....

That is the penultimate sentence uttered in the final trailer for Stranger Things season 4 (before the ominous addendum “You have lost”). Rarely have truer words ever been spoken. It is indeed time for more Stranger Things. Netflix’s retro sci-fi horror hit hasn’t produced new episodes since season 3 signed off on July 4, 2019. Now the show is finally set to return on May 27, 2022, and based on this action-packed new trailer from Netflix, it has spent those three years hard at work at making the grandest season yet....

This is of course happy news since many of the big screen events of this year have been 12 months or more in the offing. A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open two Marches ago, and In the Heights is opening almost an exact year to the day from its original release. They’re here now, as is an impressive assortment of new films. There are genre fans’ long lost superhero spectacles, with Black Widow and The Suicide Squad leading the pack (and Shang-Chi closing out the season unusually late in time for Labor Day weekend), and there are also horror movies like The Conjuring 3 and M....

Kick no more, Channel 4. Taskmaster is once again yours. After airing nine series and a champion-of-champions special on Dave, Alex Horne’s inventive entertainment format is now back in the C4 fold with a six series deal. And by the looks of this first official trailer, Channel 4 is leaning into its past mistake and, to use the common parlance, owning it. Taskmaster series 10 is “coming soon” to Channel 4 (they’re being coy but October’s long been the word on the street)....

As a whole though, McG returns to behind the camera for his first feature in three years with a confirmation that any of the vitality and playfulness imbued in his first Charlie’s Angels film has rushed out of him like the red geysers exploding from the many stock stereotypes present here. In the place of any semblance of life is a cynical and empty husk of a horror movie that’s animated by hackneyed humor, teen titillation, and an entirely rote series of set-pieces only freshened up when the special effects guys get to blow up somebody’s head....

But if you want to watch the scene anyway, you’re in luck. WB released the deleted scene ahead of the movie’s drop on HBO Max, giving us a deeper look into this Batman‘s relationship with the Clown Prince of Crime. While the scene that was kept in the movie shows us that Reeves’ Gotham does indeed feature a Joker, it’s this deleted scene that finally reveals that this clown has already had a run-in with the Bat....

On one end of collectibles scale, you have incredibly detailed miniatures with every scar, scuff, and strain of hair. On the other end, is the minimalist Funko POP! with their easily recognizable stares and enlarged craniums. Funko is always up to date with the latest pop culture trends, and you’ll find no other brand that covers such a vast swath of IPs. Plus, they’re often quite affordable! Just in time for the holidays, we selected some of the best POP!...

For over two minutes, Jack Black hams it up as the evil Bowser, who fries up some penguins in the trailer, while our titular plumber (Chris Pratt) tries to get his footing in the Mushroom Kingdom with the help of Toad (Keegan-Michael Key). Mario seems far from the platforming king we know him to be at the start of the trailer, which may just come down to balancing issues caused by his lack of ass....

The Expanse Season 6 Episode 5 No matter how explosive the coming finale might be, The Expanse season 6 will best be known as the most well written set of episodes where not much happened. There is no argument that “Why We Fight” is thematically very rich and filled with amazing dialogue, but aside from satisfying our need to have Drummer front and center for the final battle, this penultimate episode doesn’t scratch many itches....

The Flash Season 5 Episode 2 First, a confession. I should have given last week’s episode of The Flash five stars. I don’t know why I knocked off that half. Maybe I was just tired or something. I just needed to get that off my chest. I can lie to myself about any number of things, but I cannot lie to you, the readers. Ahem…anyway… “Blocked” got immediate points out of the gate for that atmospheric, eerie opening that completes the Cicada introduction from the ending of “Nora....

M Night Shyamalan’s eco-horror was released in 2008 after his declining run of hits, which began with The Sixth Sense (absolute masterpiece, nominated for 6 Oscars), Unbreakable (well liked, now part of a trilogy), Signs (pretty well liked), The Village (opinion is divided) and The Lady in the Water (bad). Perhaps because of Night’s rise and fall, taking the piss out of The Happening became an extreme sport, with the movie bagging worst film noms rather than oscars and being treated as a movie making pariah....

This The Last Kingdom review contains spoilers. The Last Kingdom Season 3 Episode 4 Ragnar Ragnarsson was right about one thing – that was the last extra-marital field he’d ever plough. Ragnar’s promise to Brida was made woefully true by the cowardly Aelswold and the manipulative Cnut, a typo in a ginger beard. It wasn’t a glorious death. Like his father before him, Ragnar was betrayed by a snake in the grass....

That man is Mark Watney (Matt Damon), the botanist on board a manned mission to Mars who is accidentally left for dead and stranded when the crew has to take off suddenly from the planet’s surface during a destructive storm. By the time Watney recovers and secures himself inside the crew’s habitat, the spaceship Hermes and its commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) have already embarked on their long journey back to Earth....

It should be said there’s nothing wrong with realism, but the focus on this style by many has severely restrained what animation can do. Disney can pour millions into making the CGI of The Lion King look so real it can be called “live-action,” but the great thing about animation is that it can be anything. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a fantastic example of what animation can do with its stylized look, pushing what animation is capable of....