The Magicians Season 3 Episode 2 After such a stellar premiere for The Magicians season 3, it was painful to see the missteps in the latest episode, “Heroes and Morons.” Although the story moved forward and the quest was still enticing, the execution was haphazard and choppy, dramatically different from the tightly written premiere. The search for Mayakovsky’s battery and the first part of Eliot’s quest on After Island were particularly messy, overshadowing some more interesting elements, such as the lamprey’s pursuit or the always fun pop culture references from Eliot and Margo....

Timothy Olyphant makes his Star Wars debut in The Mandalorian season 2 as a very minor character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe that no one ever expected to see in live-action. The character in question is Cobb Vanth, a mysterious figure who was first introduced in the Aftermath series of novels that take place just after Return of the Jedi. Cobb appears in interludes in each of the three books, and they chronicle his adventures as the marshal of a Tatooine settlement called Freetown, although the small mining town is referred to by its original name, Mos Pelgo, in the live-action series....

From the very beginning, Boba Fett has inspired The Mandalorian. Showrunner Jon Favreau’s “toy box” approach pitched protagonist Din Djarin as a Boba Fett-like figure, and although the two are quite different in terms of personality and history, the iconic silhouette of the space western gunslinger is very similar. But now Boba Fett himself is back in The Mandalorian season 2, played by none other than Temuera Morrison in a very brief cameo....

Oh, and we can’t forget the Mandalorian drama between Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) and Din (Pedro Pascal) that was just beginning to simmer before Luke showed up to take down the dark troopers on the Imperial cruiser. Winning the Darksaber from the slimy Moff Gideon, Din unknowingly made himself the ruler of Mandalore at the end of the season, a position Bo-Katan had spent decades fighting to earn. Unfortunately for Din, the Darksaber can only be won in combat, which means that Bo-Katan would have to fight him for it, a tradition the titular Mandalorian doesn’t really understand considering he tried to simply offer it to her after taking it off Gideon....

“Young Anthony Soprano is growing up in one of the most tumultuous eras in Newark’s history, becoming a man just as rival gangsters begin to rise up and challenge the all-powerful DiMeo crime family’s hold over the increasingly race-torn city,” reads the official synopsis. “Caught up in the changing times is the uncle he idolizes, Dickie Moltisanti, who struggles to manage both his professional and personal responsibilities–and whose influence over his nephew will help make the impressionable teenager into the all-powerful mob boss we’ll later come to know: Tony Soprano....

The British true crime drama has fallen into a somewhat formulaic way of being made. The narratives are almost classical; a clear, yet flawed hero, triumphing over an unquestionably evil villain. The focus is either on the lead police officer investigating the case, or the perpetrator of the crimes. Both or one of them is usually white, they are almost always men. If the focus is on the villain, it’s to show that he is irredeemably cruel, and a master manipulator with those closest to him suffering the most....

Described as a “war caper film” by Gunn, the director’s take on DC’s zaniest misfits and outcasts retains much of the gritty tone of David Ayer’s 2016 entry while also introducing the comedic timing that has become a signature of Gunn’s directorial style. The trailers released so far tease an extremely violent movie with plenty of laughs in between. A band of misfits who learn to work together by facing a challenge much bigger than themselves sounds like familiar territory for Gunn, who has already directed two installments of MCU’s own version of a squad of anti-heroes....

Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s The Umbrella Academy, which opens with the spontaneous birth of 43 superpowered babies right at the moment a wrestler elbow drops a giant space squid in the ring, might be unadaptable. Despite its best efforts to capture the delightful weirdness of the comic as well as expand on some of the storylines only hinted at in the book, the new Netflix series is ultimately too grounded and sluggish to really keep us invested....

While things on the show won’t play out exactly like in the comics, AMC has still cast many of the characters who played a pivotal role in that final Commonwealth arc, including Michael James Shaw (Avengers: Endgame) as military commander Mercer and Laila Robins (The Blacklist) as Governor Pamela Milton, the leader of the massive post-apocalyptic settlement. And like in the comics, she won’t be the only Milton in charge on the show....

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 6 Clearly, writer Kevin Dieboldt and the various creative crew behind The Walking Dead are Wes Craven fans. The 1991 Wes Craven film The People Under the Stairs was one of the better movies Craven did, and it remains a lot of fun while also being shocking and still having some great scares. “On the Inside” takes that premise, combines it with Mile Flanagan’s Hush, and the end result is one of the most jaw-clenching, teeth grinding episodes of straight-out horror that The Walking Dead has done....

The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 10 An episode that should have been owned by Rick Grimes after the untimely death of Carl last week is actually made more interesting by a couple of supporting characters who take the lead of “The Lost and the Plunderers.” One of my issues with the midseason premiere is that Rick’s reaction to Carl’s imminent doom seemed a bit tempered. Perhaps it’s everything he’s already lost along the way or maybe it’s the fact that at least he still has Judith, but I’m of the opinion that Carl’s death should have totally pushed the dude over the edge....

It looks like we’ll find out exactly why the relationship deteriorated in Marvel’s upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, though, as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Jane (Natalie Portman) have just been snapped on set during reshoots for the film in what looks to be a flashback scene. The images, which capture the pair sporting Thor: The Dark World-era hair and clothing, seem to feature Thor and Jane very much still in love and chatting outside a jewellery store, where Thor lingers to browse the rings – hinting that at some stage he may have been planning to propose to Jane....

Played by Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly on Titans, the TV DC Universe Hawk and Dove are a veteran pair of crime fighters who are perhaps looking for a way out of the difficult lifestyle that superheroing creates. Ritchson’s world-weary and angry Hawk is a perfect counterpoint to Kelly’s serene and understanding Dove, and the pair are so immediately compelling on screen that the impression is that the characters could carry a series of their own if necessary....

Adelstein is the only American on the crime beat at the paper, and is given an outsider’s help. In the series, he is taken under the wing by Hiroto Katagiri, played by Ken Watanabe, a detective in the organized crime division. He is investigating his own group of outsiders. Adelstein ultimately fled Japan when an article for The Washington Post got him in trouble with the yakuza mob. The yakuza are well known in Japan....

“Maybe it is time to move on,” Holland told GQ in November, ahead of the release of No Way Home and this month’s Uncharted. “Maybe what’s best for Spider-Man is that they do a Miles Morales film… [but] if I’m playing Spider-Man after I’m 30, I’ve done something wrong.” Holland turns 26 in June. Admittedly, these public comments could be perceived as strong-arm tactics intended to persuade Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios into a significant pay rise going forward....

Digitization has revolutionized lives and workplaces, giving you the option to choose an electronic signature. Signing documents using a pen is becoming obsolete. The covid-19 pandemic has added fuel to the fire by boosting remote work where eSignatures seemed to be the only option. That’s why it’s impractical to use traditional signatures for personal and business use, especially when working with people from huge distances. Not to mention, physical signatures require in-person appointments, scanning, printing, mailing, or faxing the document to the concerned personnel....

Summer Sons by Lee Mondelo Type: NovelPublisher: Tordotcom PublishingRelease date: Sept. 28 Den of Geek says: Romance-tinged horror with a strong sense of place brings a unique hook to this fantastical story.Publisher’s summary: Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide....

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim Type: NovelPublisher: Knopf Books for Young ReadersRelease date: July 6 Den of Geek says: A gorgeous cover and a medley of fairy tale influences make this story look magical. Publisher’s summary: Shiori’anma, the only princess of Kiata, has a secret. Forbidden magic runs through her veins. Normally she conceals it well, but on the morning of her betrothal ceremony, Shiori loses control. At first, her mistake seems like a stroke of luck, forestalling the wedding she never wanted....

Amy & Sheldon – The Big Bang Theory When The Big Bang Theory started back in 2007, the idea of a comedy about three clever but awkward ‘nerds’ trying to ‘get’ pretty girls, often through nefarious means somehow didn’t seem as gross. But even back then, Sheldon was a dick. His dickishness is the joke. He’s rude, superior, selfish, lacking in empathy and deeply controlling. He is no doubt neurologically atypical but that doesn’t stop him from being a dick....

The show launched the career of director/auteur J.J. Abrams (and you can feel however you need to feel about that in hindsight), turned star Jennifer Garner into a household name, and gave us some of the best fight sequences in television history. Alias also laid a lot of the groundwork for many of the television trends that would become commonplace in the years following its debut: Dense, confusing internal mythology, highly serialized narratve arcs, and a palpable sense that even its ostensibly one-off episodes somehow connected to a larger whole beyond themselves....