1984 was a golden year for the creation of genuine pop culture phenomena. While Ghostbusters, Gremlins and The Karate Kid debuted in cinemas, on television, Knight Rider and The A-Team were at the height of popularity. Following a successful launch for the helicopter-themed Airwolf early that year, networks jostled for the next big thing, and had everything had gone to plan, Street Hawk would have broadcast in the fall of ’84....
A lot of fans were hoping that Supernatural would end the way its penultimate episode ended, with Sam and Dean literally driving off into the sunset in the Impala, to new and unknown adventures. When it comes time to re-watch the series (a hefty undertaking, considering there are 15 seasons of it!) no doubt many will choose to stop there; the episode even has a series finale-style montage of moments from across its 15 years to go with that classic conclusion....
Along with humanoid superhero Swamp Thing, and his human counterpart Alec Holland, Abby Arcane was created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson for DC Comics. While her comic origins have her as a Romanian empath who becomes a nurse, the live-action Abby portrayed by Reed has a different backstory. In this version, produced by James Wan, Abby is a CDC doctor who returns to her Louisiana hometown after a long absence when a swamp-borne virus breaks out....
When a black and white comic book series titled The Walking Dead premiered among Image Comics’ monthly offerings in 2003, few would have guessed that it would spawn the multimedia franchise we know it as today. As one among many works that capitalized in a cultural resurgence in the zombie subgenre in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, The Walking Dead might have been a flash in the pan were it not for its world-building and revolving ensemble cast, which allowed for it to go mainstream with AMC’s 2010 TV adaptation....
It’s been a wild ride in a post-Thanos world, and in the aftermath of the Blip, it’s a very different Marvel Cinematic Universe. We can’t believe it’s been three years since Avengers: Endgame dusted the Mad Titan, but since then we’ve had everything from multiple Spider-Men to the Multiverse, a black Captain America to a female Thor, Egyptian gods to Celestials, and everything in between. Without a typical Avengers movie to tie everything together, critics feel Phase 4 of the MCU missed the mark on some levels....
The biggest revelation in Enola Holmes 2 isn’t just all about the post-credits scene connecting the old-school Holmes canon to Nancy Springer’s books. Yes, there is a surprising cameo at the end, one which will make all sorts of Sherlockian fans happy. But before that happens, in the movie’s big denouement, we get another very famous Sherlock Holmes character. But this time, this specific person is disguised as another character entirely....
But there must be some grotesque alchemy behind this lifespan. Many horror TV series have never quite achieved the liftoff and cultural imprint that AHS has. In 2011, when the first season premiered, the only horror-themed TV show on a major network was The Walking Dead. While there is a rich and under-explored tradition of anthology horror shows (Masters of Horror, The Twilight Zone) which fall into the tradition of the standalone TV movie, often anchored by a horror host, AHS was aiming for something that sat between prestige television and Grand Guignol....
The Expanse Season 5 Episode 4 Ever since it began, The Expanse has known how to build action, which isn’t remarkable in itself for a sci-fi show. What makes this series different is that with very little exposition, it can create a sense that, as unsettled as things seem now, they’re about to get a lot messier. That’s a tricky balance to achieve since early episodes must also take the opportunity to create emotional beats before all hell breaks loose, and “Gaugamela” does just that....
Going into an episode of The Flash with a name like “The People v. Killer Frost,” you know there are certain things, you, as a viewer, are just going to have to accept. The CWs’ Arrowverse, writ large, has next to zero understanding of the American legal system and The Flash is one of the franchise’s worst offenders when it comes to creating believable courtroom drama. Remember when Barry went on trial for a murder he didn’t commit but also just strolled out of the courtroom when he got a text message?...
The Flash Season 7 Episode 17 Look, as much as it hurts my heart to admit it, The Flash Season 7 has frequently been a bumpy ride. Its storylines have run the gamut from the truly dreadful (anything involving the Forces of Nature) to the nonsensical (the inexplicable Joe West and Kristen Kramer team-up), with a few dollops of brilliance (splitting Frost and Caitlin, the brief return of Sue Dearbon) sprinkled throughout....
Not only that, their most recent crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths was literally SO big that topping it in any capacity was going to be almost impossible. It’s one of the most recognizable and beloved stories in all of DC Comics history, and the TV version managed to encompass much of the scope of DC TV and movies. It was a massive storytelling accomplishment, and the various Arrowverse showrunners had already said that their next crossovers would be smaller in scale, even before COVID hit....
The Flash season 8 premiere will be unlike any you’ve watched before. This year, the show is opening with a five-part crossover event called “Armageddon,” the type of CW superhero extravaganza that is usually reserved for the holidays. This massive superhero team-up will bring several Arrowverse favorites back to Central City to fight a mysterious alien threat. The cast of heroes includes Javicia Leslie as Batwoman, Brandon Routh as The Atom, Cress Williams as Black Lightning, Chyler Leigh as Sentinel, Kat McNamara as Mia Queen, and Osric Chau as Ryan Choi....
In the following years, Cornwell published another, and then another and another. Lavelle read them all, delighting in their inclusion of real historical events and use of a central character whose divided loyalties allowed a perspective into the very different worlds of Saxon and Dane. “There were certain things in the novels, details that made me think ‘this isn’t quite right’, but I was impressed with Cornwell’s engagement with historical records and places,” he tells Den of Geek over Zoom, pointing out his editions of the Saxon Stories on the bookshelves behind him....
So as you can imagine, there’s a bit of pressure on HBO to get its live-action adaptation of The Last of Us right. Fortunately, the show has amazing talent behind it. With the help of executive producer Craig Mazin and The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann, who is also writing all of the episodes and directing one, Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) will be the actors charged with bringing Joel and Ellie to life....
It’s been held up as a shining example of Cold War paranoia, reflecting American fear of communist infiltration. On the flipside, it was also seen as a cautionary tale about creeping totalitarianism in the wake of the McCarthy Era. It was read as an indictment of the suburban conformity of the Eisenhower years and, more generally, as a protest against the loss of emotion, imagination, and individual identity in a mechanized age....
The Rings of Power is set to begin “thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings” novels, during a time of relative peace for the realm. The series is not based on its own novel, but rather on the Appendices found in Tolkien’s work, giving showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay more freedom to expand this world while still staying true to the source material....
A few well-known characters from other parts of the Star Wars saga have already appeared in The Mandalorian season 2, including infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett and Timothy Olyphant’s Tatooine marshal Cobb Vanth. Next up is Bo-Katan Kryze, the character voiced by Battlestar Galactica star Katee Sackhoff in The Clone Wars and Rebels, who reveals in the episode “The Heiress” that she’s on a mission to take back Mandalore from what’s left of the Empire....
The film opens on a jarring and unexpected note, which is reminiscent of the classic film Sunset Boulevard: It is narrated by a dead person. The character is a beloved figure in the series, his voice is unmistakable, and he will be born during the course of the film. Christopher Moltisanti, voiced by Michael Imperiole, is the last in a series of voices emanating from gravestones in a cemetery. David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos and co-author of the screenplay, revels in this kind of surrealistic twist....
Then there’s Lambert Wilson’s elusive Merovingian, the grimy information broker and crime boss who was obsessed with cause and effect in The Matrix Reloaded and threw a hell of a bondage party in Revolutions. Warner Bros. has kept the villain’s return very close to the chest, but a new teaser announcing the advance ticket sales date finally lifts the curtain on a Merovingian who’s 20 years older and has clearly seen better days....
The Northman takes much the same direction, only in the most epic scale that Eggers has worked with yet. Set in 10th-century Scandinavia and Iceland, the film is truly breathtaking in its scope, its detail, and, again, its completely immersive quality. You don’t doubt for a second that you are anywhere but the time and place in which the film is set. And like its predecessors, The Northman also suggests that any barrier between the real world and the realms beyond was much more porous back then....
