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.
YouTube/Prime Video
Ella Purnell stars as a young Vault Dweller named Lucy.
YouTube/Prime Video
The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is a mutated gunslinger and bounty hunter.
YouTube/Prime Video
Aaron Moten plays Maximus, a squire with the Brotherhood of Steel.
YouTube/Prime Video
Hey, it’s Michael Emerson of Lost fame, playing an enigmatic wanderer named Wilzig.
YouTube/Prime Video
Kyle MacLachlan plays Lucy’s father, Hank, a Vault Overseer.
YouTube/Prime Video
Sarita Choudhury looking fierce!
YouTube/Prime Video
A glimpse of the Ghoul when he was still Cooper Howard, trying to save his daughter from a nuclear blast.
YouTube/Prime Video
“I’m simply going to harvest your organs.”
YouTube/Prime Video
Look out for Gulpers!
YouTube/Prime Video
“There you are, you little killer.”
YouTube/Prime Video
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.
Netflix’s new sci-fi series 3 Body Problem makes its world premiere tonight at the SXSW Film & Television festival in Austin.
The countdown continues for the hotly anticipated debut of 3 Body Problem, Netflix’s eight-episode sci-fi series adapted from the award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, the first book in his Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. Those attending the SXSW Film & Television Festival in Austin will get to see the series’ world premiere tonight. The rest of us have to wait until later this month, but in the meantime, the streaming platform has released a final trailer.
(Some spoilers for the novel below.)
The 3-Body Problem‘s narrative is told in a nonlinear fashion, jumping between a young astrophysicist, Ye Wenjie, who witnesses her father being beaten to death by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and Ye’s return to Tsinghua University as an established professor many years later. During the earlier timeline, Ye figures out a means of sending an interstellar message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations and receives a response from a planet called Trisolaris. (As its name implies, the planet has three suns, which wreak havoc on Trisolaris via unpredictable “chaotic periods”—hence the novel’s title, which refers to a classic problem in celestial mechanics.) Despite being warned that the aliens intend to invade and conquer Earth, Ye responds to the message and invites them to do so, disillusioned by the state of the world.
The Trisolarians depart on their 450-year journey. Meanwhile, there have been complicated developments on Earth as people learn of the pending arrival of aliens. There is a secret society of scientists, political leaders, and other scholars who share Ye’s sentiment about the state of humanity, which, over time, splits into three competing factions. Some members continue to support the full destruction of humanity; others plan to help the aliens in exchange for the survival of themselves and their descendants; and still others regularly play a VR game called Three-Body and attempt to find a computational solution to the actual three-body problem that plagues Trisolaris. That’s a recipe for tension and conflict, which plays out in various ways throughout the novel.
The Netflix series was created by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss (Game of Thrones), and Alexander Woo (True Blood). Per the official premise:
A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time into the present day. When the laws of nature inexplicably unravel before their eyes, a close-knit group of brilliant scientists join forces with an unorthodox detective to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.
Zine Tseng stars as the young Ye Wenjie, with Rosalind Chao playing the older version. The cast also includes Benedict Wong as Da Shi, an intelligence officer who is investigating the mysterious deaths of scientists; Liam Cunningham as Thomas Wade, the charismatic leader of a global intelligence operation; Saamer Usmani as Raj Varma, a naval officer; and Jonathan Pryce as a wealthy eccentric named Mike Evans who helps set up a secret society. Ben Schnetzer plays the younger version of Mike Evans, while Marlo Kelly plays Tatiana, who was raised in Evans’ organization.
The “Oxford Five” are John Bradley as Jack Rooney; Alex Sharp as Will Downing, a sixth-form physics teacher; Jess Hong as Jin Cheng, a brilliant theoretical physicist whose curiosity is both a strength and a weakness; Jovan Adepo as Saul Durand, another physicist; and Eiza González as Auggie Salazar, a pioneer in nanotechnology (comparable to the character of Wang Miao in the novel). Sea Shimooka plays Sophon, an avatar in the show’s mysterious VR game.
The first teaser was released last June, followed in November by an exclusive clip showing Jack Rooney trying on a mysterious VR headset—only to learn from the avatar Sophon that he wasn’t “invited.” Netflix debuted the official full trailer for 3 Body Problem at CES in Las Vegas in January, and it focused heavily on the central mystery surrounding the deaths of 30 scientists in a single month, as well as people starting to see numbers representing some kind of countdown before their eyes.
This final trailer focuses a bit more on the backstory, namely the detection of the famous WOW! signal in 1977 with a glimpse of Ye Wenjie’s personal tragedy during China’s Cultural Revolution. The older Ye Wenjie tells us that “they are coming,” as others wonder who “they” might be. Of course, it’s aliens, bringing the threat of impending war as Dinah Washington croons “This Bitter Earth” in the background, lending an almost elegiac mood to the trailer. At one point, Ye Wenjie asks Jin how she will be remembered, and Jin replies, “As someone who fought back.”
All eight episodes of 3 Body Problem will hit Netflix on March 21, 2024.
Star Trek: Discovery returns for its fifth and final season after a two-year hiatus.
It’s been two years since we had new episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, which debuted in 2017. Now Paramount+ has dropped the official trailer for the fifth and final season of the spinoff series.
(Spoilers for prior seasons below.)
As previously reported, Sonequa Martin-Green plays Michael Burnham, an orphaned human raised on the planet Vulcan by none other than Sarek (James Frain) and his human wife, Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner)—aka, Spock’s (Ethan Peck) parents. So, she is Spock’s adoptive sister. As I’ve written previously, the S2 season-long arc involved the mysterious appearances of a “Red Angel” and a rogue Starfleet AI called Control that sought to wipe out all sentient life in the universe.
The big reveal was that the Red Angel was actually a time-travel suit worn by Michael’s biological mother. She had accidentally jumped 950 years into a bleak future in which Control had achieved its nefarious goal and had been traveling through time, leaving signals (in the form of the visions), hoping to alter that future. In the S2 finale, Michael donned a copy of her mother’s suit to lead Discovery over 900 years into the future. The crew of the Enterprise told Starfleet that Discovery was destroyed in the battle and was ordered never to speak of the ship or her crew again.
In S3, Michael, Discovery, and her crew arrived in the future and found that Control’s plan had been thwarted: Life still exists. But the galaxy was very different thanks to something called The Burn, a catastrophic event that caused all the dilithium in the Milky Way to explode and destroy much of Starfleet in the process. In the aftermath, with no warp drive possible, all the planets had become disconnected and were no longer governed by the Federation. Michael did, however, manage to locate one sole Federation liaison on a remote space station with the help of a new ally, Book (David Ajala).
The Discovery crew reunited with what was left of Starfleet, figured out what caused The Burn, and managed to defeat a rival syndicate known as the Emerald Chain, inspiring planets to start rejoining the Federation. Burnham finally became captain of Discovery after Saru (Doug Jones) opted to return to his home planet of Kaminar for a spell. And we bid a sorrowful farewell to Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh).
S4 opened with the plucky crew—including Saru as first officer—helping rebuild the Federation and celebrating the reopening of Starfleet Academy. They soon encountered a “gravitational anomaly” five light-years in diameter that destroyed Book’s home planet of Kwejian as it moved through the galaxy. It turned out to be a powerful technology belonging to an alien species with interconnected minds called 10-C, whose language employed mathematical equations. In the S4 finale, the aliens ultimately agreed to turn off their technology, thereby sparing Earth and other Federation planets.
The fifth season was already in development by March 2020, and the plan was to film those episodes back-to-back with S4. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and put those plans on hold. Filming didn’t happen until 2022. While S5 was originally meant to air last year, once Paramount decided to pull the plug and make it the final season, they needed to shoot additional footage in order to wrap up the series properly. Per the official premise:
The fifth and final season will find Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well… dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.
In addition to Martin-Green, Jones, and Ajala, much of the main cast is returning for S5: Anthony Rapp as Stamets; Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Wilson Cruz as Dr. Culber; Blu del Barrio as Adira Tal; and Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner. Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis will reprise their recurring roles as Moll and L’ak, respectively. Returning as notable guest stars in S5: Oded Fehr as Starfleet Commander-in-Chief Charles Vance; Chelah Horsdal as Lair Rillak; Tara Rowling as T’Rina; David Cronenberg as Kovich; and Tig Notaro as Jett Reno.
The first two episodes of the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on Paramount+ on April 4, 2024; the remaining eight episodes will air weekly after that through May 30.
Adam Sandler stars as a lonely astronaut on a solo mission who befriends an alien spider in Spaceman.
Some people were not pleased when Netflix and other streaming platforms began making feature films. But in an industry in which smaller or medium films tend to be squeezed out in favor of big-budget fare, there’s a solid argument to be made that Netflix and others could help fill that niche. That certainly seems to be the case with Netflix’s forthcoming sci-fi film, Spaceman, judging by the official trailer. Adam Sandler stars as an astronaut who is not coping well with the isolation and disintegration of his marriage while on an eight-month solo mission and strikes up a friendship with a friendly alien space spider who wants to help him work through his emotional distress. Honestly, Netflix had us at friendly alien space spider.
(Some spoilers for the 2017 novel below.)
Directed by Johan Renck (Chernobyl, Breaking Bad), the film is based on the 2017 novel, Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfař. Kalfař has said he was inspired to write his novel after a childhood experience of becoming briefly separated from his grandfather while on a nighttime walk through the woods. The “perfect darkness, with nothing but the stars” made a strong impression, as did the silence and sense of loneliness. Spaceman of Bohemia started as a short story about an astronaut stranded in orbit as his wife filed for divorce and eventually became a novel that incorporated not just the theme of loneliness, but also Kalfař’s formative experiences growing up in the Czech Republic.
In the novel, a Czech astrophysicist named Jakub Procházka accepts a solo mission to collect samples from a strange dust cloud called Chopra, believed to have been created by a comet lurking between the Earth and Venus. He hopes the high-profile mission will make him a national hero and redeem the family name following his father’s membership in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. But it means leaving his pregnant wife, Lenka, back on Earth, who feels abandoned and decides to end their marriage. Jakub becomes depressed and starts drinking excessively. His sanity comes into question when he begins hearing voices and then starts seeing a giant talking alien spider around the shuttle. The two gradually bond. But is the spider real or a figment of Jakub’s imagination?
The Netflix adaptation looks like it will follow that basic plot pretty closely. Per the official premise:
Six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut, Jakub (Adam Sandler), realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. Desperate to fix things with his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship. Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano) works with Jakub to make sense of what went wrong before it is too late.
The cast also includes Isabella Rossellini as Jakub’s commanding officer. Kunal Nayyar as a technician named Peter, and Lena Olin as Zdena.
Spaceman drops on Netflix on March 1, 2024. It will make its world premiere a few weeks earlier at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.
