Ever since Star Trek: Discovery jumped forward in time, we’ve all been wondering exactly how Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Philippa Georgiou was ever going to manage to launch a Section 31 spin-off, if her character was stuck 900 years in the future with the rest of the crew. Many of us likely assumed that the show couldn’t possibly go forward, given the current status quo of Discovery itself. We were apparently all very wrong about that....

Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Episode 5 After several weeks of smaller, character-based stories, Star Trek: Discovery dives right back into the apparent season-spanning question of the mysterious gravitational anomaly that is capable of destroying entire worlds. And, in doing so, it manages to – albeit briefly – wrestle with just the sort of ethical conundrums with no easy answers that Star Trek has always been so uniquely good at exploring....

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4 After some empty-looking landscapes last week, Star Wars is back to thoroughly convincing science fiction hallways in “Part 4” of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The setting certainly helps add tension to an episode that fizzles a bit emotionally in the second half. But overall, Ewan McGregor continues to prove himself essential to the galaxy far, far away as his show reaches the final stretch. Leia has been captured by the Empire and brought to Fortress Inquisitorius, a name at least one person says with a very straight face....

The six-episode Obi-Wan Kenobi picks up 10 years after the Prequels. The Jedi are all but extinct, except for a few fugitives in hiding. Obi-Wan is still on Tatooine, living in exile while the Empire and the Sith reign supreme. But what’s hidden can’t stay hidden for long, as we see in the first trailer, which sees the old hero jumping into the action when an evil faction of Jedi hunters comes to town....

Star Wars: The Bad Batch, a new animated series and spiritual successor to The Clone Wars, bridges the gap between the Prequel and Original Trilogies. Set during the rise of the Empire, the show brings in elements from both eras, and is positioned to explore fan-favorite characters and settings in ways you haven’t seen before. “Aftermath” features a few major cameos, as well as some minor ones. Let’s break down all of the big cameos in the episode as well as what they mean of the characters and the the show....

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 11 The Bad Batch take a back seat in their own show, and it turns out that’s a good thing in “Devil’s Deal,” which was directed by Steward Lee and written by Tamara Becher-Wilkinson. The clones’ brief appearance is full of quality character moments, but this story is really all about the Twi’leks. Once a rebel leader against Separatist invaders, guerrilla fighter Cham Syndulla is now mellowing out under the Empire … but that doesn’t last very long....

Even better, the announcement came with a teaser trailer that hints at the next season’s arc. Although Lucasfilm is not yet making the trailer available online, Den of Geek was in attendance during the panel. Here’s a description of what we saw in the trailer: One of the major plot points in the teaser deals with the fallout from Din’s decision to remove his helmet in the episodes “The Believer” and “The Rescue” from season two....

I couldn’t even start to argue that I’m the biggest Superman fan in the world, but generally speaking, I tend not to be a fan of “evil” or even “dark” portrayals of Superman. I absolutely love stories like Superman: Red Son that find compelling new ways to present that basic concept, but, as we’ve recently argued on this site, there’s just something so wonderful (if sometimes creatively elusive) about the idea that Superman is this shining example of “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow....

Supergirl Season 3 Episode 6 From the start, this episode of Supergirl felt different. The mournful soundtrack, the vintage car on the lonely mountain road, the focus on the Danvers sisters. This is the episode we needed to mark some time and hold some space for the collective pain shared by the Danvers sisters. It’s so much more successful than similar efforts in the first couple of episodes because it allows us to follow along on Alex and Kara’s journey, rather than just hear about it....

Grab some snacks and gather round! It’s game night! No, not tossing some ball around. We’re talking tabletop games! One of our favorite subgenres is the TCG! And eBay has some excellent collectible sets to fill your hand and stocking this season. Den of Geek presents… our 2022 TCG & Tabletop Gaming Holiday Gift Guide. Marvel Heroclix Starter Set Heroclix is a cross between a pen-and-paper tabletop role-playing game and a Warhammer-esque tabletop figure brawler, and while that sounds complicated, playing it is relatively straightforward and a lot of fun....

Not surprisingly, Matt Reeves’ The Batman is moving off that October 1, 2021 date in the wake of Dune’s shift and will now open on March 4, 2022. That spot was originally held by Warner Bros. for a proposed film based on the venerable video game Minecraft, which no longer has a release date. To give The Batman some breathing room, The Matrix 4 now moves up from April 1, 2022 to December 22, 2021....

As first revealed in the trailer released at DC FanDome last summer, The Batman brings a brand-new Riddler to the big screen and he looks unlike any version of the character we’ve ever seen in live-action. With a disguise more closely resembling masked villains like Batman archnemesis Hush or Birthday Boy from the Earth One comics by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, Reeves’ take on the classic DC baddie seems to lean heavily on the serial killer backstory established by Johns’ book, and later used in the Telltale Batman games....

Feeling more bah humbug than fa la la la la? You are not alone. This year has pushed us all to our collective limits, so it is more than acceptable if you feel like sitting out this holiday season. We get it. That said, just remember that there’s hope on the horizon, from promising vaccines to a new administration. You’ve fought so hard this year, so why not immerse yourself into the much-needed escape that losing your minds over Yuletide nonsense can provide?...

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is slightly different to the first two Conjuring films in that the key events in the case happen at the very start of the movie, with the main bulk of the film concerning a background investigation that isn’t based on the real case. The real case is therefore the anchor and the bookends. Talking about the fact and fiction elements, series producer Peter Safran explained that representing the Warrens was always the goal: “We particularly want to make it true to Ed and Lorraine....

There’s a particular buzz around this latest season of this fictional dramatisation of the life of Queen Elizabeth II: not only is there a major cast change for the second time (the royals all switched to new actors after season two, as the timeline moves forward through the decades), it will also be the first time a new series airs since the deaths of Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip....

The Expanse just wrapped up its six-season run, which spanned two networks (or technically one cable channel and one streaming platform) and covered the first six books of the nine-novel source material. While The Expanse left many narrative threads up in the air—most obviously, the mystery of Laconia and its strange dogs, as well as the larger Protomolecule vs. Ring Entities plot—the final, six-episode season did a fantastic job of wrapping up the emotional and political plot beats that have defined so much of this phenomenal series....

The Expanse Season 2 Episode 11 The Expanse had so much going on this week, it’s difficult to decide which element packed the most punch: Bobbie’s defection, Holden’s dangerous discovery, the cryptic spectacle on Venus, or Avasarala’s impending meeting with Jules-Pierre Mao. Because Bobbie requesting UN asylum involved actual punching, that would be the best bet, and certainly the Martian marine’s story has been a highlight of recent episodes. But honestly, there’s never a dull moment in this show, especially when Alex is piloting the Rocinante like the Martian cowboy he is....

The Flash Season 8 Episode 5 Though Barry Allen managed to successfully thwart Eobard Thawne’s attempt to rewrite the timeline in the penultimate installment of The Flash: Armageddon, things aren’t quite back to normal just yet in Central City Not only does Team Flash have to stop Thawne once again in 2021, but they’ve also got to decide what to do with him afterward. The question of whether the monster that did them all so much harm is worthy of their mercy is precisely the sort of moral conundrum that superhero stories are perhaps the best equipped to explore, and The Flash wraps up this five-part event doing just that....

The Flash Season 8 Episode 16 The Flash’s “The Curious Case of Bartholomew Allen” is another of what showrunner Eric Wallace likes to refer to as an “interlude” episode, an hour that isn’t as clearly connected to the larger ongoing arcs of the season (also known as “graphic novels”). As a result, while there are a few small references to season 8’s’ larger stories—Iris is still missing and the episode ends with Barry destroying the mad scientist lab that Caitlin built in her living room after Frost’s death—it generally feels as though it’s a story that could essentially take place at any point in the season....

It’s not an exaggeration to say that The Flash has never done the greatest job explaining what the Speed Force is, how it works or how Barry Allen is meant to relate to it. The show has alternately depicted it as a sentient collective, a wellspring of power, a physical location in which various people – including Barry – could be imprisoned for extended lengths of time, an existential test, and a bond that links all speedsters together....