After hurrying his grandkids off to bed, an elderly man puts the finishing touches on his Christmas Eve presentation. He bounces around the tree, bubbling over with the Christmas spirit until a rustling outside his door causes him to pause. Could that noise be Santa Claus himself? Just as the grandfather allows himself to believe the impossible, a grotesque creature bursts through the door, leading with his extended claws. The grandfather wastes no time, training a pistol on the invader and sneering, “Die, you son of a…” Unable to say the curse word, the actor playing the grandfather calls cut and the actors reset....

Evil Season 3 Episode 10 Evil season 3 ends at a crossroads with only one destination. According to The Pop-Up Book of Contemporary Demons, the chapter is both “The Demon of End” and “The Angel of Beginning.” This, however, is a subversion of the dark and light designations. The upcoming birth of a child is being celebrated. It appears to be the product of an inception so immaculate one might call it sterile....

There is one exception to that tragic consequence of emotional evolution. It’s possible to feel that old sense of pure horror from a piece of entertainment if said entertainment is able to convince you that it will not scare you. If it is able to invite you into its world and then pull the rug out from under you by slowly revealing itself as a harbinger of terror, then you just might find yourself being scared once again....

It’s understandable if your mind goes to a negative place when you hear the word “cliché.” The word is most frequently used in a derogatory fashion (sometimes rightfully so), but when you’re talking about a series as old and celebrated as Final Fantasy, thoseclichés become more like traditions. They’re these little plot beats we dance to every time they come up because they make us feel like we’re home again....

The show doesn’t cover the entirety of the book and also makes some major diversions from the plot, adding in and taking out various characters. There’s also a sequel to the novel called Fly Away, so there’s heaps of material should Netflix decide to renew for a second series, and that’s even assuming the showrunner Maggie Friedman opts to follow the story of the books. Either way, should a Firefly Lane season 2 be commissioned there are several big questions that require answers....

In this guide, we’ll outline routes through this underrated sci-fi series focusing on particular characters, story arcs, or episode types. Since part of this article is meant to encourage new viewers, spoilers will be kept to a minimum. However, be aware that due to the nature of the piece, certain elements of world-building, bad guy-revelation, late character arrivals, etc. will be spoiled, and looking at the details of one suggested “route” may spoil another....

Case in point, game developer JOYCITY is teaming up with Hasbro to bring characters from the legendary multimedia titan G.I. JOE to the popular mobile game Gunship Battle: Total Warfare. The game tells the story of a naval captain (i.e., the player) trying to stop the terrorist group known as the New World Armada from obtaining nuclear weapons and kickstarting World War III. What better allies could gamers ask for than a crack team of soldiers with anti-terrorist experience like G....

“Hey flattop!” It’s a line we haven’t heard Bill Murray utter for nearly 40 years. Nevertheless, you could physically sense the waves of nostalgia it triggered throughout the audience of the Ghostbusters: Afterlife premiere earlier this week when those words were shouted again. Moments before it looked like Gozer—the Destructor Herself (or Himself. Gozer is whatever Gozer wants to be!)—had won. She’d returned from a parallel dimension and had totally defeated the plan of young Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) to capture her essence in the giant ghost trap that Old Man Egon Spengler built beneath his farm....

The Ghosts Christmas special contains a scene so utterly lovely that BBC One should show it every weeknight straight after the News at Ten. We could all watch it, have a little cry, then clean our teeth and go to bed, ready to wake up the next morning as better, happier people. It might be odd to hear Christmas carol ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ in summer, but nobody would mind....

We’re always on the lookout for new and original fantasy series, and Mordew fits the bill. The book, which is out today from Tor Books, is the start of a new trilogy from British author and academic Alex Pheby, and it has all the makings of a classic. We’re giving away five copies of the book to interested readers. Read on to find out more about the book, and how you could win a copy of your own… Set in a bleak yet fantastical city that has literally been built over the dead body of God, Mordew‘s magic is in its settings as much as it is its characters....

The good news is that most Ragnarok players will be able to find a steady stream of armor upgrades as they progress through the game. However, those looking for the absolute best armor sets in Ragnarok will need to go a little further out of their way. In most cases, I can assure you that your efforts will be worth it. Please note that players are still discovering some of Ragnarok‘s biggest secrets, and we’ll be updating this article if and when players find previously undiscovered armor sets worth talking about....

Gotham Season 3, Episode 14 Death. Violence. Murder. These actions don’t mean the same thing on television as they do in real life. They are melodramatic catalysts for the emotions they produce. They aren’t the point; the reactions they cause are. They’re ciphers, simple stand-ins for the much more complicated language of living. This is even more true in the world of Gotham,where death, violence, and murder are used as lightly and liberally as other shows use more casual forms of betrayal: gossip, lies, and infidelity....

Gotham Season 4 Episode 17 Super villain brunch is now my new favorite thing. Can you imagine Sinestro, Doomsday, and Reverse Flash all chowing down on Cobb salads? Just awesome. But evil brunch is just one of the many chaotically messy moments in another overloaded episode of Gotham. While “Mandatory Brunch Meeting” takes a couple of detours (one intriguing, one not so much), really, this week is all about Jerome. In the latest installment of Gotham, we learn a great deal about Jerome’s past, and what should be hacky adds a level of interest to the is he or isn’t he the Joker conundrum....

This proposal (House Bill 3531) is actually an amendment to a 2012 law that prohibits the sale of certain video games to minors. Under the new bill, restrictions would be expanded to prevent all sales of what the documents refer to as “violent video games.” In the bill, a violent video game is described as a game that “allows a user or player to control a character within the video game that is encouraged to perpetuate human-on-human violence in which the player kills or otherwise causes serious physical or psychological harm to another human or an animal....

Take this weekend’s Halloween Ends for example. For two movies now, director David Gordon Green and his team of co-writers, which includes Danny McBride, have attempted to graph a rationalization for the absolute absence of light onto John Carpenter’s Boogeyman made flesh. Which is to say, they’ve attempted to explain Michael Myers. Literally credited as “the Shape” in the original Halloween masterpiece of 1978, Michael was always intended to be the absence of light, of color, and of anything else that could be construed as a scrap of humanity....

The shift does not mean Halloween Kills has been delayed again. In fact, it is now certain to open in theaters on Oct. 15. However, it will also be available for streaming (and presumably online piracy) on the exact same date. This development caught many industry watchers off-guard, particularly after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings beat all expectations over the long Labor Day weekend by earning $94....

Harley Quinn Episode 3 If you’ve always longed to know how the criminal underworld of Gotham has worked then the third episode of DC Universe’s hilarious Harley Quinn will likely make you very, very happy. After crashing a Bar Mitzvah last episode, Harley has returned with a plan to become a true supervillain–which in her mind means getting a solid selection of henchies to back her up. The silliness of Harley Quinn shines here as we get into what the show does best as it gets into mundane nature of just how the baddies of Batman actually function on a day to day basis....

Harley Quinn Episode 5 There’s something special about episode five of Harley Quinn. The adult animation from DC Universe is as irreverent as ever, filled with curse words, deep cut comic characters, meta sight gags, and stellar voice work. But it also tries to delve into a bigger question: who exactly is the woman known as Harley Quinn and who is she without the Joker? Taking a solid recurring trope from its streamer-sibling Doom Patrol, this episode takes place predominantly in Harley’s brain as her friends dig around her subconscious–which even looks like the white room set from Doom Patrol–attempting to fix our protagonist after she has a severe physical and mental breakdown whilst trying to find the perfect lair for the motley crew....

Hawkeye Episode 5 It’s Yelena Belova’s world, we just live in it. Or maybe it’s Wilson Fisk’s. Either way, the two characters everybody’s gonna be talking about after Hawkeye episode 5, “Ronin” for once, aren’t Clint Barton or Kate Bishop. It’s a “light on Easter eggs” kind of episode, but there’s still some cool connections to be made. And as always, we’d love to hear from you about anything we might have missed!...

His Dark Materials Episode 7 “We thought book one could not be adapted in fewer than eight episodes,” said His Dark Materials producer Jane Tranter at October’s launch event, “and I didn’t want to push my luck asking for more than eight.” Absolutely, quite right. No complaints here. Except, if Tranter had pushed her luck to the tune of an extra five minutes for this week’s episode, a few things things might have been better explained....