Enlarge / Dr. Ann Burgess helps the FBI catch serial killers in Hulu’s Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer.
YouTube/Hulu
Fans of the Netflix series Mindhunter might recall the character of Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), a psychologist who joins forces with FBI criminal profilers to study the unique psychology of serial killers in hopes of more effectively catching them. But they might not know about the inspiration for the character: Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, whose long distinguished career finally gets the attention it deserves in a new documentary from Hulu, Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer.
Burgess herself thought it was “fun” to see a fictional character based on her but noted that Hollywood did take some liberties. “They got it wrong,” she told Ars. “They made me a psychologist. I’m a nurse”—specifically, a forensic and psychiatric nurse who pioneered research on sex crimes, victimology, and criminal psychology.
Mastermind should go a long way toward setting things right. Hulu brought on Abby Fuller to direct, best known for her work on the Chef’s Table series for Netflix. Fuller might seem like a surprising choice for making a true crime documentary, but the streamer thought she would bring a fresh take to a well-worn genre. “I love the true crime aspects, but I thought we could do something more elevated and cinematic and really make this a character-driven piece about [Ann], with true crime elements,” Fuller told Ars.
There’s no doubt that the public has a rather morbid fascination with serial killers, and Burgess certainly has had concerns about the way media coverage and Hollywood films have turned murderers into celebrities. “Despite how obviously horrible these killers were, despite their utter brutality and the pain they inflicted upon their victims, they’d somehow become romanticized,” Burgess wrote in her memoir, A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind. “All the inconvenient details that interfered with this narrative—the loss of life, issues of mental health, and the victims themselves—were simply ignored.”
Enlarge/ A re-creation of Dr. Ann Burgess listening to taped interviews of serial killers in Mastermind.
YouTube/Hulu
That said, it’s not like anyone who finds the twisted psychology of serial killers, or true crime in general, fascinating is a sociopath or murderer in the making. “I think we all grapple with light and dark and how we see it in the world,” said Fuller. “There’s an inherent fascination with what makes someone who they are, with human behavior. And if you’re interested in human behavior, a serial killer exhibits some of the more fascinating behavior that exists. Trying to grasp the darkest of the dark and understand it is a way to ensure we never become it.”
“I think it’s a human factor,” Burgess said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. There is a fascination to try to understand why people commit these horrifying crimes. How can people do these things? But I also think people like to play detective a little bit. I think that’s normal. You don’t want to be fooled; you don’t want to become a victim. So what can you learn to avoid it?”
For Burgess, it has always been about the victims. She co-founded one of the first crisis counseling programs at Boston City Hospital in the 1970s with Boston College sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom. The duo conducted research on the emotional and traumatic effects of sexual violence, interviewing nearly 150 rape victims in the process. They were the first to realize that rape was about power and control rather than sex, and coined the term “rape trauma syndrome” to describe the psychological after-effects.
(WARNING: Some graphic details about violent crimes below.)
Enlarge/ Dr. Ann Burgess research helped legitimize the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit.
Hulu
Their work caught the attention of Roy Hazelwood of the FBI, who invited Burgess to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to give lectures to agents in the fledgling Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) on victimology and violent sex crimes. Thus began a decades-long collaboration that established criminal profiling as a legitimate practice in law enforcement.
Kathryn Hahn reprises her WandaVision role as Agatha Harkness in the spinoff series Agatha All Along.
The true identity of nosy next-door neighbor Agatha—played to perfection by Kathryn Hahn—was the big reveal of 2021’s WandaVision, even inspiring a meta-jingle that went viral. Now Hahn is bringing the character back for her own standalone adventure with Agatha All Along. Based on the first trailer, it looks like a lot of dark, spooky fun, just in time for the Halloween season. The nine-episode series is one of the TV series in the MCU’s Phase Five, coming on the heels of Secret Invasion, Loki S2, What If…? S2, and Echo.
WandaVision was set immediately after the events of Avengers: Endgame (but before Spider-Man: Far From Home), with newlyweds Wanda and Vision starting their married life in the town of Westview, New Jersey. Wacky hijinks ensued as the couple tried to lead a normal life while hiding their superpowers from their neighbors—especially Hahn’s nosy Agnes. Each episode was shot in the style of a particular era of sitcom television, from the 1950s through the 2000s. The couple noticed more and more jarring elements—a full-color drone, a voice calling out to Wanda over the radio, neighbors briefly breaking character—hinting that this seemingly idyllic suburban existence might not be what it seemed.
We learned that a grief-stricken Wanda had inadvertently locked the entire town in a reality-warping Hex, with the residents forced to play their sitcom “roles” and adhere to Wanda’s “script,” creating the happily ever after ending she never got with Vision. But the hijinks weren’t all due to Wanda’s powers. Agnes turned out to be a powerful witch named Agatha Harkness, who had studied magic for centuries and was just dying to learn the source of Wanda’s incredible power. Wanda’s natural abilities were magnified by the Mind Stone, but Agatha realized that Wanda was a wielder of “chaos magic.” She was, in fact, the Scarlet Witch. In the finale, Wanda trapped Agatha in her nosy neighbor persona while releasing the rest of the town.
Agatha All Along has been in the works since 2021, officially announced in November of that year. There were numerous title changes, culminating this May with my personal goofy favorite: Agatha: The Lying Witch with Great Wardrobe (a nod to C.S. Lewis). It briefly appeared on the Marvel Twitter account before being taken down, and Disney soon revealed that the various name changes were “orchestrated by [Harkness] as a way of messing with Marvel fans.” Head writer Jac Schaeffer (who also created WandaVision) has said that the series would follow Agatha as she forms her own coven with “a disparate mixed bag of witches… defined by deception, treachery, villainy, and selfishness” who must learn to work together. And apparently we can expect a few more catchy tunes.
Enlarge/ Ncuti Gatwa wrapped his first full season as the Fifteenth Doctor and proved more than up to the challenge.
YouTube/BBC
Doctor Who is now in its 61st year featuring a host of gifted British actors each taking on the iconic role in turn. So Ncuti Gatwa had some very big shoes to fill when he took on playing the Fifteenth Doctor. Now the season has concluded and the verdict is in: Gatwa is more than up to the challenge, bringing sparkling energy, charisma, and a superb sense of style to the role. He sings and dances, too, as does winsome new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson). They have terrific onscreen chemistry and Davies is in top storytelling form. In short, the new season mostly feels as fresh and energetic as ever and I’m already looking forward to more.
(Spoilers below.)
Here’s a brief summation for the benefit of those who may not have kept up with the more recent seasons. This is Russell T. Davies’ second stint as showrunner, having revived the series in 2005. He lost no time introducing a few new twists after signing back on as show runner. When it came time for Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor to regenerate, fans had expected Gatwa to be introduced. Instead, the new Fourteenth Doctor was played by former Tenth Doctor David Tennant, reuniting with former companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) for three specials.
The third special was called “The Giggle.” During the climactic battle, the Doctor was shot. But instead of the usual regeneration, the Fourteenth Doctor “bigenerated” instead, resulting in both a Fourteenth Doctor and Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor, a separate physical entity. Tennant’s incarnation settled into a comfy retirement with Donna and her family, while Gatwa’s newly regenerated Doctor headed off for a fresh set of adventures.
In the Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” Gatwa’s Doctor picked up a new companion: Ruby Sunday, a young woman abandoned at a church on Christmas Eve and raised by her foster mother. Goblins kidnapped the new foster baby, Lulubelle, to feed her to the Goblin King in a ritual sacrifice involving a rather silly goblin song. Ruby and the Doctor joined forces to save her. Naturally Ruby decided to join him for a few more adventures in the TARDIS. (You can read our interview with Davies, Gatwa, and Gibson here.)
The Doctor and Ruby kicked things off by rescuing a group of talking “space babies’ on an abandoned baby farm space station who were being terrorized by a monstrous Bogeyman (made, as it turns out, from actual “bogies” aka snot). It’s a clever standalone concept that never quite gels, despite the charm of seeing babies in motorized strollers operating Rube-Goldberg-like systems to perform basic tasks on board the ship. But it works well as an appetizer for what’s to come.
By contrast, “The Devil’s Chord” is a classic Whovian adventure, in which the Doctor and Ruby must save the world from a powerful being called Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), child of the Toymaker (arch-villain of “The Giggle”). Unwittingly summoned by a piano teacher playing the “devil’s chord” in 1925, Maestro has been robbing the universe of music, intent on leaving nothing but Aeolian tones. So when the Doctor and Ruby crash a Beatles recording session in 1963, they are dismayed to hear the Fab Four play a decidedly uninspired tune about Paul McCartney’s dog rather than one of their future hits. Everything works in this episode, from Monsoon’s maniacal cackle to the fabulous outfits and sly visual callback to the Abbey Road album cover (not to mention the famous keyboard scene in Big). Bonus points for the big musical number at the end, taking advantage of Gatwa’s and Gibson’s natural talents.
Enlarge/ Jinkx Monsoon as Maestro, who is robbing the universe of all music.
BBC/Disney+
The Bridgerton references run wild in the delightful “Rogue,” as the Doctor and Ruby travel to Regency England and discover a group of “cosplaying” shapeshifter aliens have crashed the same gathering. (The Chuldurs kill whomever they want to “play” and take over their identities.) They are aided by a futuristic bounty hunter named Rogue (Jonathan Groff), with whom the Doctor enjoys a romantic interlude—only for Rogue to sacrifice himself to save Ruby, banished to an unknown alternate dimension with the Chuldurs.
“Boom” takes the duo to a war-torn planet in which the casualties are strictly controlled by a corporate algorithm, while in “Dot and Bubble,” the Doctor and Ruby try to save an off-planet community of rich young white people from carnivorous slugs—which the youngsters don’t notice because they live their lives literally shrouded in an online bubble. Is the metaphor a bit heavy-handed? Yes it is, but it’s amusing to watch Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke) try to navigate the outside world without the aid of a helpful virtual arrow telling her where to step.
(WARNING: Major spoilers for “73 Yards” and the final two episodes below. )
Enlarge/ Sparks fly between the Doctor and a futuristic bounty hunter named Rogue in Regency England.
BBC/Disney+
Gatwa’s Doctor Who debut overlapped a bit with shooting the final season of Sex Education, so two of the episodes constitute what Davies calls “Doctor-Lite” because Gatwa has much less screen time: “Dot and Bubble” and the Ruby-centric “73 Yards”—actually the first episode Gatwa filmed, and among the most inventive Doctor Who episodes in recent years. Davies drew on Welsh folk horror for this haunting ghost story, bringing a smidgen of fantasy to the sci-fi series. The Doctor and Ruby arrive on the Welsh coast, where he accidentally steps on a fairy circle and mysteriously vanishes, just as Ruby notices a mysterious old woman standing on a distant bluff, gesticulating and saying something that Ruby cannot hear.
The apparition follows a confused Ruby into town, always staying 73 yards away. Others can see the woman but whenever Ruby asks them to go talk to her to find out what’s going on, we see their faces change, they look at Rudy, then run away in horror, insisting they never want anything to do with Ruby again. This goes on for decades. The TARDIS remains abandoned on that Welsh cliff with no sign of the Doctor. Ruby lives out her entire life with this apparition haunting her, estranging her from anyone she asks for help (including her own foster mother and UNIT). She does figure out how to use the apparition to avert nuclear catastrophe, however. On her deathbed, the ghostly woman finally appears right in front to Ruby—at which point Ruby is transported back to that first day on the Welsh clifftop and sees her younger self with the Doctor. This time, Young Ruby is able to warn the Doctor and stop him from breaking the fairy circle, and everything returns to normal.
Enlarge/ A mysterious woman in the distance haunts Ruby in “73 Yards”
BBC/Disney+
To say that some fans were flummoxed and unsettled by this episode would be an understatement. Davies is content to leave all the major questions unanswered. Who is the woman? What is she saying? We never find out for sure, although I interpreted the ghostly apparition to be Old Ruby traveling back through time at the end of her life to warn her younger self and the Doctor not to disturb the fairy circle, thereby setting things right. But it’s left deliberately ambiguous (Old Ruby and the apparition are played by different actresses) and that’s part of this episode’s lasting power.
All Davies has said is that “something profane” occurred when the Doctor disturbed the circle and Ruby “had to spend a life of penitence” and do something good in order to bring everything full circle. He said he would never reveal what the woman was saying, since this was the source of the horror. “It’s kind of up to you to sit there and think, ‘Well, what could someone say that make a mother run away from her daughter forever?'” he said. “Once you start to do that, you enter the real horror story, the dreadful things that are being said there.” As for the 73 yards, that’s the distance where a figure in the distance appears as “a blur but not a blur.” It’s also the distance of the perception filter around the TARDIS.
We do get an answer to the mystery of Ruby’s parentage, however, in the final two episodes, as well as a trip down Whovian memory lane. Throughout the season, strange phenomena have been manifesting around Ruby—usually it starts snowing, like it was the night she was abandoned as a baby, and sometimes we hear “Carol of the Bells” playing. The Doctor turns to UNIT for help analyzing the grainy VHS security footage of that night. This leads to the emergence of The One Who Waits (mentioned in “The Giggle”), aka Sutekh, the God of Death. Sutekh was the arch-villain defeated by the Fourth Doctor in 1975’s Pyramids of Mars storyline.
Enlarge/ The Doctor reunites with former companion Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford) in the season finale.
BBC/Disney+
In “Empire of Death,” we learn that Sutekh actually attached himself to the TARDIS and his been tagging along on the Doctor’s travels through time ever since, through every incarnation. He releases his dust of death to kill everyone all through time, sparing only the Doctor, Ruby, and (initially) former companion Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford), who traveled with the Sixth and Seventh Doctors—mostly because Sutekh wants to know Ruby’s parentage too, convinced that her birth mother held the key to defeating him.
The joke’s on Sutekh (and on us), because Ruby turns out to the spawn of perfectly normal teenaged parents; Sutekh’s assumption that she was important is what made her significant, giving rise to all the mysterious phenomena. (Davies made that decision because he was frustrated with the Star Wars bait-and-switch concerning Rey’s parentage in the sequel trilogy—supposedly insignificant in The Last Jedi but revealed as Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter in Rise of Skywalker.) The Doctor defeats Sutekh once again and everyone who turned to dust is magically restored. Ruby meets her birth mother and decides to search for her biological father while the Doctor continues on without her.
It’s a perfectly good Whovian finale to an excellent season that mostly sticks the landing. What’s next for Gatwa’s Doctor? We’ll have to wait to and see, but Gibson is expected to return next season—Davies has said her story is not yet finished—although we’ll also get a new companion, played by Varada Sethu. One might expect to see more of the Toymaker’s offspring going forward. And Ruby’s quirky neighbor, Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson), is clearly not what she seems, breaking the fourth wall at finale’s end to tell us the Doctor’s story will end in “absolute terror.” So, business as usual then. We’re here for that.
All episodes of Doctor Who‘s fourteenth season are now streaming on Disney+.
Enlarge/ Ncuti Gatwa is the Fifteenth Doctor, and Millie Gibson is his new companion, Ruby Sunday, in new season of Doctor Who.
Disney+
A new season of Doctor Who is almost upon us, featuring Ncuti Gatwa’s first full run as the 15th Doctor, with a shiny new companion. It’s also the first time Doctor Who will stream on Disney+, after the platform acquired the international broadcasting rights. That could translate into a whole new generation of fans for this beloved British sci-fi series.
(Spoilers for “The Power of the Doctor,” “The Giggle,” and “The Church on Ruby Road” below.)
Here’s a brief summation for the benefit of those who may not have kept up with the more recent seasons. Russell T. Davies—who revived the series in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor—has returned as showrunner. Davies lost no time introducing a few new twists. When it came time for Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor to regenerate, fans had expected Gatwa to be introduced. Instead, the new Fourteenth Doctor was played by former Tenth Doctor David Tennant, reuniting with former companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) for three specials.
The third special was called “The Giggle.” During the climactic battle, the Doctor was shot. But instead of the usual regeneration, the Fourteenth Doctor “bigenerated” instead, resulting in both a Fourteenth Doctor and Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor, a separate physical entity. Tennant’s incarnation settled into a comfy retirement with Donna and her family, while Gatwa’s newly regenerated Doctor headed off for a fresh set of adventures. In the Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” he picked up a new companion: Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson. The eight-episode new season kicks off this weekend with the Davies-penned “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord.” Davies wrote six out of the eight episodes, in fact, closing out with “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” and the finale, “Empire of Death.”
Doctor Who is now in its 61st year, and this is Davies’ second stint as showrunner. Yet the new season feels as fresh and energetic as ever in terms of its storytelling. Davies attributes this to the format. “Because it is an anthology show, every week it’s a different show, a different script,” Davies told Ars. “Often it’s a different writer. He lands at a different place, a different time, a different planet. And very often he lands in a different genre. That demand means I can’t sit back. The audience wants a new punch. You want that cold open where you’re surprised and shocked and taken aback and thrilled and delighted to be going to meet The Beatles, or to find yourself under an alien dome, or to be racing through the streets of London in a thriller. All I have to do is meet the ambition of the show and keep running with it. That’s my job.”
Enlarge/ Davies: “All I have to do is meet the ambition of the show and keep running with it.”
Disney+
Furthermore, the sheer scope of the show pretty much guarantees a vast wellspring of new ideas. “You literally have the whole of time and space and within that you can tell so many different stories,” said Davies. “World War II is often a very evocative setting for Doctor Who. The Victorian era is very evocative. Somehow, it matches that wooden TARDIS in ineffable ways, so it’s been to certain locations more than once. But that’s so rich. You can think of a thousand World War II stories. You can think of a thousand Dickensian stories. And equally, Doctor Who can be completely unafraid of reinventing its own history. It’s actually seen the destruction of Atlantis three times. So, the territory always remains fertile.”
Gatwa had some very big shoes to fill when he took on this iconic character, and he pulls it off with great charisma and style. He credits the writers and production staff, as well as Gibson, with helping him craft his unique take on the Doctor. Gatwa told Ars that his greatest challenge was portraying the character’s wisdom. “I’ve always had a baby face,” he said—so much so that he was often told at drama school that he just couldn’t portray more mature characters. He found the answer in the Doctor’s regenerations. “He’s reborn each time,” said Gatwa. “He’s seeing things with new eyes, like [picking up a bowl of berries], ‘This is the best bowl of berries I’ve ever had!’ That youthful energy ended up being really helpful in terms of accessing other traits, like his wisdom.”
The elements Gatwa brings to the role also drive much of the writing, per Davies. “His skill and talent, it makes me run faster because all you ever want in life is a limitless actor and also a fearless actor,” he said. “There is nothing he can’t do. Milly, too; she has a kind of bounce and energy. It’s not just the depth of their emotions, it’s their technical comic skills. It’s my job to showcase that.” Davies also tried to make sure he challenged Gatwa and Gibson in some way on a daily basis by having them do something they’d never done before, whether it be a new stunt, an exciting confrontation with a villain, or a heartbreaking personal scene.
The long-awaited fourth season of the Prime Video series, The Boys, premieres on June 13, 2024
Last summer’s Hollywood strikes delayed a number of releases, among them the fourth season of Prime Video’s The Boys. We’re longtime fans of this incredibly violent, darkly funny anti-homage to superheroes, and thus are thrilled to see there’s finally an official trailer for S4. It’s filled with the bloody mayhem we’ve come to expect from the show, as well as a tantalizing glimpse of the chief villain, Homelander (Antony Starr), performing in what appears to be an ice skating extravaganza.
(Spoilers for prior seasons below, especially S3.)
As I’ve written previously, the show is based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. The Boysis set in a fictional universe where superheroes are real but are corrupted by corporate interests and a toxic celebrity-obsessed culture. The most elite superhero group is called the Seven, operated by the Vought Corporation, which created the supes with a substance called Compound V. The Seven is headed up by Homelander, a violent and unstable psychopath disguised as the All-American hero. Homelander’s counterpart as the head of the titular “Boys” is Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), a self-appointed vigilante intent on checking the bad behavior of the Seven—especially Homelander, who brutally raped Butcher’s wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten), unknowingly fathering a son, Ryan, in the process..
Having discovered he had a son, Homelander turned Ryan against Butcher in S2, which ended with a bloody showdown that saw the demise of Becca as well as the mutilation of Homelander’s supe squeeze, Stormfront (Aya Cash), who turned out to be a Nazi disguised as a “patriot.” (She committed suicide in S3.) Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and Starlight (Annie Moriarty) successfully blackmailed Homelander into loosening his bullying stranglehold on the Seven. Meanwhile, the government cleared the Boys of all wrongdoing after they were publicly smeared as terrorists. A disillusioned Hughie (Jack Quaid) decided to try to fight the Seven through politics rather than violence and went to work for Congressperson Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit)—but he didn’t know she’s actually a super-powered assassin with her own murderous agenda.
The third season introduced us to “Payback,” the name of an earlier Vought group of superheroes, loosely based on Marvel’s Avengers. Payback members include Eagle the Archer (Langston Kerman), who appeared in S2 of The Boys . He’s the one who recruited the Deep (Chace Crawford) and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) to the Church of the Collective before the cult turned against him. By S3 he’d quit the superhero gig and was trying to become a rapper. We also met Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) and Crimson Countess (Laurie Holden), and an entire episode was devoted to one of the comic’s most shocking storylines: Herogasm, in which the Boys infiltrated Vought’s annual superhero party, which turned out to be just one long weekend of kinky sex and drug use on a secluded island.
The third season ended with Homelander killing one of Starlight’s supporters who attacked Ryan during a rally—and rather than being roundly condemned, the crowd cheered wildly, and Homelander realized just how few constraints there were on his psychopathic behavior. Soldier Boy (who turned out to be Homelander’s biological father) ended up in government custody, Maeve was presumed dead but actually just lost her powers, and Annie/Starlight left the Seven to join forces with The Boys. As for Butcher, he had been juicing with V24, a version of Compound V that temporarily gave humans super powers—at a price. By season’s end, Butcher realized he was dying.
That brings us to the fourth season. Per the official premise:
The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power. Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son and his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late.
The trailer opens with a presumably doomed Butcher doing some soul-searching about how he’s lived his life. “All I see are the messes I’ve made,” he says while we’re shown the scene where Ryan leaves with a smirking Homelander. “And I ain’t got time to fix it.” He figures he has a chance to do one thing right but he needs The Boys’ help to succeed.
Meanwhile, Homelander is flaunting his power, insisting that the country “is corrupt beyond repair.” His plans for the country’s “salvation” naturally involve violence: doing terrible things “for the greater good.” So the Seven must now stop being beloved celebrities and instead become “wrathful gods.” Not everyone is on board with Homelander’s strategy, notably A-Train and Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), but there’s not much they can do to stop the Supes from rounding up any recalcitrant humans and putting them in camps—or declaring “hunting season on Starlighters.”
Humanity’s only hope appears to rest in Butcher’s discovery of a virus that can kill Supes, first introduced in the spinoff series, Gen V. But first they’ll have to fight off violent superpowered chickens and livestock that have been injected with Compound V—and somehow avoid turning into the very evil they’re trying to defeat.
The first three episodes of The Boys S4 premieres on June 13, 2024, on Prime Video, with subsequent episodes airing each week until the finale on July 18, 2024.
“No one is safe from the truth” in new trailer for The Acolyte.
It’s Star Wars Day, and to mark the occasion, Disney+ has dropped a new trailer for Star Wars: The Acolyte. As previously reported, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the Galactic Republic and its Jedi masters symbolized the epitome of enlightenment and peace. Then came the inevitable downfall and outbreak of war as the Sith, who embraced the Dark Side of the Force, came to power. Star Wars: The Acolyte will explore those final days of the Republic as the seeds of its destruction were sown.
The eight-episode series was created by Leslye Headland. It’s set at the end of the High Republic Era, about a century before the events of The Phantom Menace. Apparently Headland rather cheekily pitched The Acolyte as “Frozen meets Kill Bill.” She drew on wuxia martial arts films for inspiration, much like George Lucas was originally inspired by Westerns and the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. Per the official premise:
In Star Wars: The Acolyte, an investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Amandla Stenberg). As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems…
In addition to Lee (best known from Squid Game) and Stenberg (Rue in The Hunger Games), the cast includes Manny Jacinto (Jason on The Good Place) as a former smuggler named Qimir; Dafne Keen (Logan, His Dark Materials) as a young Jedi named Jecki Lon; Carrie-Ann Moss (Trinity in The Matrix trilogy) as a Jedi master named Indara; Jodie Turner-Smith (After Yang) as Mother Aniseya, who leads a coven of witches; Rebecca Henderson (Russian Doll) as a Jedi knight named Vernestra Rwoh; and Charlie Bennet (Russian Doll) as a Jedi named Yord Fandar.
In addition, Abigail Thorn plays Ensign Eurus, while Joonas Suotamo plays a Wookiee Jedi master named Kelnacca. Suotamo portrayed Chewbacca in the sequel trilogy of films (Episodes VII-IX) and in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Also appearing in as-yet-undisclosed roles are Dean-Charles Chapman, Amy Tsang, and Margarita Levieva.
The first trailer dropped in March, in which we saw young padawans in training; Indara battling a mysterious masked figure; learned that somebody is out there killing Jedi; and were told that there is a growing sense of darkness. This latest trailer reinforces those themes. The assassin, Mae (Stenberg), once trained with Master Sol (Lee), and he thinks he should be the one to bring her in—although Master Vernestra correctly suspects Mae’s killings are a small part a larger plan, i.e, the eventual return of the Sith.
Qimir doesn’t seem to be a Jedi fan, claiming that their “peace is a lie.” Meanwhile, Mae receives encouragement from Mother Aniseya and her coven of witches, who look like they are draining the life of a young Padawan at one point. “Destiny is not decided for you by an anonymous force,” Mother Aniseya tells Mae. “If you want to pull the thread and change everything, then pull it.”
The first two episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte debut on Disney+ on June 4, 2024.
Enlarge/ Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri) are the Dead Boy Detectives, ghosts who solve paranormal mysteries.
Netflix
For those eagerly anticipating the second season of Netflix’s stellar adaption of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels, Dead Boy Detectives—the streaming plaform’s new supernatural horror detective series—is a welcome return to that weird magical world. Co-showrunner Steve Yockey (Supernatural), who created the series, aptly describes it as “the Hardy Boys on acid.” You’ve got vengeful witches, demons, psychic mediums, cursed masks, foul-mouthed parasitic sprites, talking cats—and, of course, the titular ghostly detectives, intent on spending their afterlife cracking all manner of mysterious paranormal cases.
(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)
Sandman fans first encountered the Dead Boys in the “Seasons of Mist” storyline, in which the ghost Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland meet for the first time in 1990. Edwin had been murdered at his boarding school in 1916 and spent decades in Hell. When Lucifer abandoned his domain, Hell was emptied, and Edwin was among the souls who returned to that boarding school. Charles was a living student whom Edwin tried to protect. Charles ultimately died and chose to join Edwin in his afterlife adventures. The characters reappeared in the Children’s Crusade crossover series, in which they decided to become detectives.
“As far as I was concerned, this was obviously the ultimate, the finest, most commercial idea I had ever had: two dead boys and a detective agency, you’re there,” said Gaiman during a virtual media event. “Nobody else saw it. It was just this mad conviction that sooner or later, there would be somebody out there in the world who would pick up one of these comics, read it, and see the same thing. Little did I know that baby Steve Yockey was out there waiting to be infected.”
Yockey championed the project from the start. “I fell in love with the comic when I was very young and I was going through a personal loss, and I found it weirdly comforting in a psychedelic way,” he said. It’s thanks to Yockey that the Dead Boys popped up in a S3 episode of Doom Patrol when he was a writer on that series. The characters proved so popular that HBO Max ordered a pilot for a Dead Boy Detectives series in 2021. The project subsequently moved to Netflix. Per the official premise:
Meet Edwin Paine (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), “the brains” and “the brawn” behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends, ghosts… who solve mysteries. They will do anything to stick together—including escaping evil witches, Hell and Death herself. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson) and her friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), they are able to crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.
“I knew the things I wanted to hang onto in the adaptation were the relationship between the boys and Death, because that drives our action, and also this sense of, don’t wait until you’re looking death in the face to start living,” said Yockey. For his co-showrunner, Beth Schwartz, it was the close friendship between Edwin and Charles, forged out of their painful pasts, that cemented her love for the series. “It’s this horrible tragedy when you really think about it,” she said. “It’s these two boys who didn’t get to live past their teenage years. But because of that tragedy they created this amazing friendship.”
The Dead Boys came out of the Sandman canon, but that series was at Netflix, while Yockey was initially developing Dead Boy Detectives for HBO Max, So Gaiman and Yockey essentially “filed off the Sandman serial numbers” for their early scripts, per Gaiman. When the series moved to Netflix, the streaming platform’s only request was to set the story back in the Sandman universe. Charles and Edwin are evading Death to solve mysteries in their afterlife, so naturally, Kirby Howell-Baptiste makes a cameo in a pilot scene penned by Gaiman, reprising her role as Death. One other Endless makes an appearance late in the season, and eagle-eyed fans might spot nods to the original Sandman artwork in the set design.
Enlarge/ A Day octopus (Octopus cyanea) named Scarlet parachutes her web over a coral head while Dr. Alex Schnell observes.
National Geographic/Disney/Craig Parry
With Earth Day fast approaching once again, it’s time for another new documentary from National Geographic and Disney+: Secrets of the Octopus. It’s the third in what has become a series, starting with the remarkable 2021 documentary Secrets of the Whales (narrated by Sigourney Weaver) and 2023’s Secrets of the Elephants (Natalie Portman as narrator). James Cameron served as producer on all three.
Secrets of the Octopus is narrated by Paul Rudd. Per the official synopsis:
Octopuses are like aliens on Earth: three hearts, blue blood and the ability to squeeze through a space the size of their eyeballs. But there is so much more to these weird and wonderful animals. Intelligent enough to use tools or transform their bodies to mimic other animals and even communicate with different species, the secrets of the octopus are more extraordinary than we ever imagined.
Each of the three episodes focuses on a specific unique feature of these fascinating creatures: “Shapeshifters,” “Masterminds,” and “Social Networks.” The animals were filmed in their natural habitats over 200 days and all that stunning footage is accompanied by thoughtful commentary by featured scientists. One of those scientists is Dr. Alex Schnell, a native Australian and self described storytelling who has worked at Macquarie University, the University of Cambridge, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, among other institutions. Her research focuses on the intelligence of marine animals, particularly cuttlefish and octopuses.
Ars caught up with Schnell to learn more.
Ars Technica: How did you become interested in studying octopuses?
Alex Schnell: I had this pivotal moment when I was young. I had the luxury of actually growing up on the beaches of Sydney so I would spend a lot of time in the water, in rock pools, looking at all the critters. When I was about five years old, I met my first octopus. It was such a monumental moment that opened up a completely different world for me. That’s the day I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist.
Alex Schnell prepares for a dive on the Great Barrier Reef
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry
Alex Schnell SCUBA dives over a coral garden on the Great Barrier Reef, while an Australian research vessel floats on the surface above.
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry
A Day octopus perched on corals on the Great Barrier Reef.
National Geographic/Disney/Richard Woodgett
Director and DOP Adam Geiger operates a jib arm with Producer / Camera operator, Rory McGuinness, and Camera Assistant, Woody Spark.
National Geographic for Disney/Annabel Robinson
Woody Spark preparing cameras and underwater housings with cinematographer Rory McGuinness.
National Geographic for Disney/Harriet Spark
Alex Schnell observes a Mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) while on a dive with wildlife photographer and local dive guide, Benhur Sarinda
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry
A Mimic octopus, with striped skin patterning, stretches out all eight arms across black volcanic sand.
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry
A Blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena maculosa) displays bright blue rings, a warning that the venom in her bite is deadly.
National Geographic
Ars Technica: What is the focus of your research?
Alex Schnell: I’m a marine biologist that turned into a comparative psychologist—just a fancy word for studying the different minds of animals. What I’m really interested is how intelligence evolved, where and when. The octopus is the perfect candidate to answer some of these questions because they diverge from our own lineage over 550 million years ago. We share an ancestor that looked like a flat worm. So if the octopus shows glimmers of intelligence that we see in ourselves or in animals that are closely related to us, it reveals a lot about the patterns of evolution and how it evolved throughout the animal kingdom.
When you meet an octopus, you really get the sense that there is another being looking out at you. A few years ago, I worked with a team at London School of Economics to write a report reviewing the evidence of sentience in animals. Does the animal have the capacity to feel emotions? We found really strong evidence in octopuses and it ended up changing UK law. Now under UK law, we have to treat octopuses ethically and with compassion.
Ars Technica: One behavioral aspect the series explores is tool use by octopuses. I was struck by the scene where a little coconut octopus uses her clamshell both for shelter and as a shield. I’ve never seen that before.
Alex Schnell: Neither had I. Before we traveled to Indonesia on that shoot, I had read about that particular defensive tool use by the coconut octopus. This species will often be seen carrying around two halves of a coconut, like a mobile den or an RV home. And they use it as protection because they live in a very barren sandy landscape. So I was really excited to see that behavior unfold.
We got more than we bargained for, because in the clip that you mentioned, our coconut octopus was being threatened by this angry mantis shrimp. They pack a really powerful punch that’s been known to break through aquarium glass. And here we have this defenseless little octopus with no bones or anything. In that moment we witnessed her have this idea. She walked over to the shell and picked it up and dragged it back to her original spot and literally used it like a shield to fend off this angry mantis shrimp. She had imagined herself a shield. I saw her get an idea, she imagined it, and she walked over it and used it. I was so blown away that I was screaming with excitement underwater.
Rory McGuinnes, operating an underwater jib arm to film a colorful coral reef on the Lembeh Strait.
National Geographic for Disney/Adam Geiger
Woody Spark tests the controls for the underwater camera-and-slider system
National Geographic for Disney/Adam Geiger
Local dive guides Reifani and Benhur Sarinda observe a Coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) sheltering between two clam shells.
National Geographic for Disney/Adam Geiger
Woody Spark uses the underwater camera-and-slider system to film a Coconut octopus sheltering between clam shells.
National Geographic for Disney/Adam Geiger
An 8-foot Giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) rests on the arms of tech diver and octopus enthusiast, Krystal Janicki, on a dive in the shallow waters off Vancouver Island.
National Geographic for Disney/Maxwel Hohn
A Giant Pacific octopus crawls over the sandy seafloor in shallow waters
National Geographic for Disney/Maxwel Hohn
Dr. C.E. O’Brien observes a resting Island octopus (Octopus insularis) on a dive in Turks and Caicos.
National Geographic for Disney/Adam Geiger
Ars Technica: At one point in the series you celebrate having a “conversation” with an octopus. How do octopuses communicate?
Alex Schnell: Octopuses generally communicate with changes to their skin. They can change the color and the texture of their skin in the blink of an eye, and they can also change their posture. What we’ve found with one particular species is that they have cross-species communication, so they collaboratively hunt with some reef fish. Again, I had only read about this behavior until I had a chance to see it in person.
I had this kind of playful idea while I was down there with a Day octopus named Scarlet, who was allowing me to follow her on a lot of her hunts. Because I was so close to her, I noticed she was missing little crabs here and there. Normally her fish hunting partner will do a head stand to point to where the missed food is. I thought, I wonder what’s going to happen if I just point at it, not expecting anything. To my astonishment, she responded and swum right over and looked where I had pointed.
So that’s what I mean by having a conversation with an octopus. I can’t change color sadly, but it’s as if she was responding to my pointing, my “referential signaling,” which is incredible because this is kind of what we see in humans and chimpanzees: this development of communication before language develops. Here we have this octopus responding to a human pointing.
Ars Technica: Scarlet actually reached out her little tentacle to you on multiple occasions; she seemed to recognize you and accept you.
Alex Schnell: I had had those moments before, the ET moment where you get to meet an octopus, and I’ve spoken to other avid divers and people who have a love for octopuses that have had similar experiences. The really special thing with this relationship that I had with Scarlet is that we were able to develop it over weeks and months. Every time I would return to her, she would appear to recognize me quickly and let me back into her world.
What continues to blow me away is that Scarlet grew to trust me really quickly. She reached out and shook my hand after 30 minutes of me watching her, and she let me swim alongside her as she hunted. This is a creature with no skeleton, no shell, no teeth, no claws to protect itself. And despite that extreme vulnerability, she quickly let her guard down. It’s like she was driven by curiosity and this need to reach out and connect, even with an alien creature like me.
Ars Technica: I was surprised to learn that octopuses have such short lifespans.
Alex Schnell: A lot people ask me if they lived longer, would they take over the world? Maybe. It’s life in the fast lane. They are essentially born as orphans because they don’t have any parents or siblings to guide them. They just drift off. They’re loners for most of their lives and they teach themselves. Everything is driven by this intense curiosity to learn. I think that’s why a lot of people have had these incredible moments with octopuses because even the fear or the vulnerability that they might feel is outweighed by a curiosity to interact.
Alex Schnell on the surface in full SCUBA gear.
National Geographic/Harriet Spark
A Coconut octopus pokes an eye out from between partially buried clam shells. Her powerful suckers hold the two shells together for protection from passing predators.
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry
Alex Schnell and Benhur Sarinda observe a Coconut octopus walking across the seafloor with clam shells held underneath her web.
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry)
A tiny Coconut octopus reaches out to touch Alex Schnell’s hand.
National Geographic for Disney/Craig Parry
An Algae octopus (Abdopus aculeatus) foraging amongst the algae and seagrass in Bunaken Marine Park.
National Geographic/Annabel Robinson
Alex Schnell observing a Southern keeled octopus (Octopus berrima) on a night dive in Port Phillip Bay
National Geographic
A Dorado octopus mother group with eggs
Schmidt Ocean Institute
Ars Technica: Do you find yourself having to be on guard about anthropomorphizing these amazing creatures a bit too much?
Alex Schnell: I think there’s a fine balance. As a trained comparative psychologist, we are taught to be really careful not to anthropomorphize and attribute human traits onto the animals that we see or that we work with. At the same time, I think that we’ve moved too far into a situation that Frans de Waal called “anthro-denialism.” Traits didn’t just sprout up in the human species. They have an evolutionary history, and while they might not be exactly the same in other animals, there are similarities. So sometimes we need to call it what it is. One of der Waal’s examples was researchers who described chimpanzees kissing as “mouth-to-mouth contact” because they didn’t want to anthropomorphize it. Come on guys, they’re kissing.
We do strive to see human traits in other animals. We watched cartoons growing up, we had pets around us, so it’s really hard not to. Our job is as comparative psychologists is to find really strong evidence for the similarities and the differences between the different minds of the animals that we share our planet with.
Ars Technica: What were some of the highlights for you, filming this documentary series?
Alex Schnell: It was challenging in the sense that when the production team first approached me, I was 38 weeks pregnant. So I went out into the field with a five-month-old baby. I was sleep-deprived, trying to go diving and also be on camera. I had worked on natural history films before, but always on the other side of the camera. So it was a steep learning curve.
But it was such a rewarding experience to be able to have the luxury of time to be out with these animals. I had no project because I was on maternity leave. Sometimes when you’re part of a project, you can get tunnel vision. “I’m going to see this particular behavior and that’s what I’m focusing on.” But I could be completely mindful in the moment with my time with octopuses and get to see how they interact in their natural environment. It opens up this incredible secret world that they have. I was seeing things that, yes, I’d read about some of them, but some I’d never heard of before. I think each episode in this series reveals secrets that will take your breath away.
Ars Technica: What is next for you?
Alex Schnell: I’m working on a project called One World, Many Minds. What this project strives to do is accentuate that, yes, we are one world, but there are many minds that make up our collective existence. I really want to showcase the minds of animals like the octopus or the cuttlefish or a big grouper, and show that we have traits that we can recognize, that we can connect with. That will help remove a barrier of otherness, and highlight our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with animals.
Secrets of the Octopus premieres on Disney+ and Hulu on April 22, 2024.
Enlarge / A young prodigal tomboy returns home from war and finds herself framed for murder in Renegade Nell.
Disney+
Award-winning British TV writer Sally Wainwright is best known for the dramatic series Happy Valley (2014–2023) and Gentleman Jack (2019–2022), the latter produced jointly by BBC and HBO. Wainwright partnered with Disney+ for her latest series, the resolutely PG-13 Renegade Nell, which is a different beast altogether: a good old-fashioned, swashbuckling comic adventure with a supernatural twist, featuring a sassy cross-dressing heroine forced to turn to highway robbery to survive.
(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)
Set in 1705 during the reign of Queen Anne (Jodi May, Gentleman Jack), the series stars Louisa Harland (Derry Girls) as Nell Jackson. Nell is a headstrong young woman with tomboy flair and a taste for adventure who returns home to her village of Tottenham after running off five years before to marry one Captain Jackson against her father’s wishes. She’s now widowed and possessed of occasional supernatural skills whenever someone threatens her, courtesy of a fairy sprite named Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed, aka Nathan from Ted Lasso), who has been tasked to protect Nell. Nell’s family thought she’d been killed on the battlefield alongside her husband, so her homecoming is a bit of a shock.
Alas, Nell soon runs afoul of one Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn), the louche, drunken offspring of the town’s landlord, Lord Blancheford (Pip Torrens, Preacher). Let’s just say things escalate, and Nell soon finds herself on the run and framed for murder, along with her two sisters, Roxy (Bo Bragason) and George (Florence Keen), and the Blanchefords’ former groomsman, Rasselas (Enyi Okoronkwo, The Lazarus Project). The group gets further assistance from a charming aristocratic dandy/secret highwayman named Charles Devereaux (Frank Dillane, The Essex Serpent).
Nell just wants to evade capture long enough to find an honest magistrate to clear her name. In the process, she finds herself battling the formidable black magic of the Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester, Euphoria) and his acolyte, Thomas’ sister, Lady Sofia (Alice Kremelberg, The Sinner), and stumbles upon a sinister plot to dethrone the queen.
Louisa Harland stars as Nelly Jackson, who finds herself framed for murder.
Disney+
Nick Mohammed plays a sprite named Billy Blind, charged with protecting Nell.
Disney+
Charles Devereaux (Frank Dillane) is an impoverished aristocrat who does highway robberies on the side.
Disney+
Nell returns home to her family: father Sam Trotter and sisters George and Roxy.
Disney+
Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn) is a drunken louche who torments the villagers.
Disney+
The Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester) dabbles in black magic and has sinister plans afoot.
Disney+
Lady Sofia Wilmot (Alice Kremelberg) chafes at the limitations imposed upon her by society.
Disney+
Nell and her sisters end up on the run.
Disney+
The Blanchefords’ former groom, Rasselas (Enyi Okoronkwo), helps the sisters.
Disney+
Rebellious young socialite Polly Honeycombe (Ashna Rabheru) is rather thrilled to be robbed by a dashing highwayman.
Disney+
The writing, pacing, and production values are top-notch, and the cast is terrific across the board. Lester brings a ruthless authority to Poynton’s spooky supernatural machinations, while Kremelberg is all seething bitter resentment and steely resolve as Lady Sofia, a brilliant, ambitious noblewoman (also widowed) who is far more qualified to run the family estate than her worthless brother, yet prohibited from inheriting by the laws of the time. Dillane’s Devereaux provides much of the witty repartee and comic relief, as does Joely Richardson’s (The Sandman) newspaper magnate, Lady Eularia Moggerhanger. And Ashna Rabheru (Red Rose) is delightful as a spoiled young aristocrat, Polly Honeycombe, with a lively romantic imagination who longs for something more in life than an arranged marriage.
But it’s Harland’s sensational portrayal of Nell that anchors it all. This is a role that requires her to be a tough rebellious tomboy in one scene and sport a posh accent and fancy dress in another; to balance action comedy with moments of genuine fear and heartbreaking tragedy. It’s also a highly physical role: Harland underwent several months of stunt training prior to filming. She does it all with refreshingly unpretentious aplomb.
Renegade Nell keeps the action flowing and wisely never takes itself too seriously. Sure, there is injustice, class warfare, and strong intelligent women chafing within the strict confines of traditional binary gender roles—and Polly Honeycombe definitely qualifies as bicurious. But Wainwright never lets the story get bogged down in heavy-handed symbolism or didacticism. Even Nell’s cross-dressing is handled with the lightest touch. Asked to comment on her character’s gender politics, Harland told the Guardian that there was no ulterior motive or agenda: “Why does she dress as a man? To pass as a man.” Simple as that.
Will we see more of feisty Nell and her delightfully eccentric compatriots? That’s up to Disney. There are plenty of questions left unanswered and definitely more stories to tell, both past and present. Series director Ben Taylor told Radio Times just after the premiere that a second season was currently being written and that it would likely involve some kind of time jump (given that some of the younger actors will visibly age), picking up with the various surviving characters from where they left off in the first season. But Disney has yet to confirm this. Here’s hoping this series finds the broader audience it so richly deserves. We’re rooting for you, Nelly… err, Nell.
This short teaser for S2 of HBO’s House of the Dragon lets you choose between two full trailers.
It’s been a long wait for the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon, in which House Targaryen descends into civil war over the heir to the Iron Throne. It’s set to premiere in June, and HBO is ramping up its marketing with a rather clever twist: not one official trailer, but two, each presenting the perspective of one side in the bloody conflict. And we get to choose which trailer we’d like to view—although if you’re like us, you’ll elect to watch both.
(Spoilers for the first season below.)
As I’ve written previously, HBO’s House of the Dragon debuted in 2022 with a solid, promising pilot episode, and the remainder of the season lived up to that initial promise. The series is set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen’s reign. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin. As book readers know, those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons—at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along.
The first season spanned many years and made some pretty significant time jumps, which in turn required replacing the younger actors as their characters aged. The S1 finale brought Westeros to the brink of civil war. King Viserys (Paddy Considine) died, and his second wife, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), conspired with her father, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), to crown her eldest son, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), as king instead of Viserys’ declared heir apparent, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy).
This kicked off a lot of political maneuvering as both sides tried to shore up support for their chosen heir in preparation for the inevitable fight. Even though she was technically the rightful heir, Rhaenyra actually seemed to be considering House Hightower’s conditions for concession—until the arrogant Prince Aemon (Ewan Mitchell), Alicent’s younger son, went after Rhaenyra’s young son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault). Both dragonriders failed to control their dragons, and Aemon’s much bigger dragon, Vhagar, gobbled up poor Lucerys and his little dragon, Arrax, in mid-air. The season closed with Rhaenyra and her husband/uncle Daemon (Matt Smith) receiving the devastating news, effectively dashing any hope of a peaceful resolution.
Most of the S1 main cast members are returning for S2 (those whose characters survived). And we have some new faces in the mix: Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull; Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers; Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower; Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong; Clinton Liberty as Addam of Hull; Jamie Kenna as Ser Alfred Broome; Kieran Bew as Hugh; Tom Bennett as Ulf; Tom Taylor as Lord Cregan Stark; and Vincent Regan as Ser Rickard Thorne.
The first teaser for S2 dropped in December during CCXP23 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We got the expected footage of dragons and dragonriders, a beheading, troops gathering and getting wiped out by dragon fire, and Rhaenyra and Aemon facing off with their dragons. And we also had a brief glimpse of a particularly brutal plot point in the source material that we already know closes out S2 (i.e., the “Blood and Cheese” incident, well-known to book readers).
As for the two new trailers, if your loyalties are with the claimed “rightful heir” Rhaenyra and the Blacks, this is the trailer for you:
Official Black trailer.
But perhaps you’d prefer to side with Greens, i.e., Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower and her odious offspring, Aegon Targaryen, who has laid claim to the Iron Throne as King Aegon II:
Official Green trailer.
The second season of House of the Dragon premiers on HBO on June 16, 2024.
Amandla Stenberg stars as a former padawan turned dangerous warrior in Star Wars: The Acolyte.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the Galactic Republic and its Jedi masters symbolized the epitome of enlightenment and peace. Then came the inevitable downfall and outbreak of war as the Sith, who embraced the Dark Side of the Force, came to power. Star Wars: The Acolyte is a forthcoming new series on Disney+ that will explore those final days of the Republic as the seeds of its destruction were sown—and the streaming platform just dropped the first trailer.
The eight-episode series was created by Leslye Headland, who co-created Russian Doll with Natasha Lyonne and Amy Poehler. It’s set at the end of the High Republic Era, about a century before the events of The Phantom Menace. Apparently Headland rather cheekily pitched The Acolyte as “Frozen meets Kill Bill,” which is an intriguing combination. She drew on wuxia martial arts films for inspiration, much like George Lucas was originally inspired by Westerns and the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa.
(Some spoilers for the prequel trilogy below.)
Star Wars fans already know that the evil mastermind behind the demise of the Republic was Sheev Palpatine, but The Acolyte focuses on other Sith who came before him during the Republic’s golden age of peace. Headland will be introducing new characters to add to the existing canon but is also cognizant that some fans might not be open to the new series. (For the record, she’s okay with that, given the diverse breadth of Star Wars stories out there.)
She specifically wanted to address a common fan complaint about certain plot elements of the films (especially Episodes I-III), namely how Yoda wouldn’t sense Darth Sidious’ rise to power or how Palpatine managed to infiltrate the Galactic Senate without a single Jedi noticing. In keeping with the visual style of the prequel trilogy, The Acolyte will sport a sleek-looking, advanced civilization look, before the inevitable decay in the wake of the Republic’s collapse and establishment of the Empire.
School is in session for all the young padawans.
YouTube/Disney+
Carrie-Ann Moss plays Indara, a Jedi master.
YouTube/Disney+
An unexpected adversary.
YouTube/Disney+
Amandla Stenberg plays a former padawan turned warrior named Mae.
Lucasfilm
Sol (Lee Jung-jae) is a respected Jedi master.
YouTube/Disney+
Manny Jacinto plays a former smuggler named Qimir.
YouTube/Disney+
Joonas Suotamo plays Kelnacca, a Wookiee Jedi master.
YouTube/Disney+
Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) heads a coven of witches.
YouTube/Disney+
Lightsabers at the ready! Dafne Keen (right) plays a young Jedi named Jecki Lon.
YouTube/Disney+
Per the official premise:
In Star Wars: The Acolyte, an investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Amandla Stenberg). As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems…
In addition to Jung-jae (best known from Squid Game) and Stenberg (Rue in The Hunger Games), the cast includes Manny Jacinto (Jason on The Good Place) as a former smuggler named Qimir; Dafne Keen (Logan, His Dark Materials) as a young Jedi named Jecki Lon; Carrie-Ann Moss (Trinity in The Matrix trilogy) as a Jedi master named Indara; Jodie Turner-Smith (After Yang) as Mother Aniseya, who leads a coven of witches; Rebecca Henderson (Russian Doll) as a Jedi knight named Vernestra Rwoh; and Charlie Bennet (Russian Doll) as a Jedi named Yord Fandar.
In addition, Joonas Suotamo plays a Wookiee Jedi master named Kelnacca. Suotamo portrayed Chewbacca in the sequel trilogy of films (Episodes VII-IX) and in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Also appearing in as-yet-undisclosed roles are Abigail Thorn, Dean-Charles Chapman, Amy Tsang, and Margarita Levieva.
The trailer opens on an appropriately ominous note, with Sol instructing his young padawans to close their eyes because “your eyes can deceive you. We must not trust them.” They meditate on life and balance, but one young padawan sees fire. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure in a long purple cloak strides purposefully through city streets—none other than Indara, who soon finds herself battling a mysterious masked figure.
It seems that somebody is out there killing Jedi, and there is a growing sense of darkness. “This isn’t about good or bad,” Mother Aniseya says. “This is about power and who is allowed to use it.” Naturally the trailer ends with a group of Jedis brandishing their lightsabers against a foe wielding one that is glowing red.
Star Wars: The Acolyte debuts on Disney+ on June 4, 2024.
A Vault Dweller navigates a post-apocalyptic wasteland in Fallout, based on the bestselling gaming franchise.
Amazon Prime Video has dropped the full official trailer for Fallout, the streaming platform’s forthcoming post-apocalyptic sci-fi series. It’s based on the bestselling role-playing gaming franchise set in a satirical, 1950s-style future post-nuclear apocalypse. There’s plenty for gaming fans to be pleased about, judging by the trailer, but casting national treasure Walton Goggins (Justified) as a gunslinging Ghoul was quite simply a stroke of genius.
The first Fallout RPG was released in 1997, followed by several sequels and spinoffs. According to the game’s lore, modern civilization is destroyed in 2077 by a global nuclear war between the US and China. Survivors live in various underground vaults (fallout shelters). Each iteration of the game takes place somewhere across a post-apocalyptic US metro area and features a Vault Dweller—someone born and raised underground—as the protagonist. The first game takes place in 2161 and features a Vault Dweller from Vault 13, deep in the mountains of Southern California. The Vault Dweller must complete various missions to save the residents of Vault 13, which takes said protagonist to in-world places like Junktown; a merchant city called the Hub; and Necropolis, filled with Ghouls, i.e., humans badly mutated by exposure to nuclear radiation.
The series was announced in July 2020, with Westworld writers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy serving as executive producers. In January 2022, it was revealed that Nolan would direct the first three episodes but that two other writers—Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner—would be the showrunners. Todd Howard, who directed several games in the franchise, is also an executive producer and has said the series is not an adaptation of any particular game, but it is set within the same continuity. Per the official premise:
Based on one of the greatest video game series of all time, Fallout is the story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there’s almost nothing left to have. Two hundred years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind—and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird and highly violent universe waiting for them.
In addition to Goggins, Ella Purnell stars as a young Vault Dweller named Lucy, who must venture out into the wasteland on a mission to save her community in Vault 33. Aaron Moten plays a squire of the Brotherhood of Steel named Maximus; Kyle MacLachlan plays Lucy’s father, Hank, who is a Vault Overseer; Mike Doyle plays Mr. Spencer; Moises Arias plays Lucy’s brother, Norm; Michael Emerson plays an enigmatic wanderer named Wilzig; Johnny Pemberton plays Thaddeus; Cherien Dabis plays Birdie; Dale Dickey plays Ma June; Matty Cardarople plays Huey; Dave Register plays Chet; Rodrigo Luzzi plays Reg; and Annabel O’Hagan plays Steph. Sarita Choudhury and Leslie Uggams also appear in the series.
Nuclear weapons have devastated Los Angeles.
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Ella Purnell stars as a young Vault Dweller named Lucy.
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The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is a mutated gunslinger and bounty hunter.
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Aaron Moten plays Maximus, a squire with the Brotherhood of Steel.
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Hey, it’s Michael Emerson of Lost fame, playing an enigmatic wanderer named Wilzig.
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Kyle MacLachlan plays Lucy’s father, Hank, a Vault Overseer.
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Sarita Choudhury looking fierce!
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A glimpse of the Ghoul when he was still Cooper Howard, trying to save his daughter from a nuclear blast.
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“I’m simply going to harvest your organs.”
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Look out for Gulpers!
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“There you are, you little killer.”
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A teaser dropped in January, chock-full of details instantly recognizable to longtime fans of the games. The new trailer opens with a pre-apocalypse Goggins in a snazzy suit, pitching “a veritable Camelot of the nuclear age”: underground vaults housing residential communities, “because if the worst should happen tomorrow, the world is gonna need you to build a better day after.” The worst does happen, of course, and we catch glimpses of a devastated Los Angeles in the wake of a nuclear war, including a ruined Santa Monica Pier and Griffith Observatory. Then we see Lucy preparing to leave her Vault, despite warnings that “it isn’t like the Vault out there; it’s big.”
Lucy first encounters a hardened Ma June, who laughs derisively when Lucy naively asks what’s happened in the last 200 years. (Frankly, she thought all the Vault Dwellers were dead.) Lucy also has several run-ins with the Ghoul formerly known as Cooper Howard. Pretty much everyone she meets seems to want her dead, although the robot Mr. Handy helpfully informs her it just wants to harvest her organs. Maximus gets his share of screen time, both in and out of full Brotherhood of Steel armor, and we get a glimpse of the Brotherhood’s airships, as well as a mutant monster called a Gulper. It’s a violent, chaotic wasteland, but apparently, “there’s always somebody behind the wheel.”
All episodes of Fallout will premiere on Prime Video on April 11, 2024.
