Be warned: spoilers below for Halloween (1978) and Halloween (2018)

William Shatner is one of the most iconic faces in horror. Surprisingly, we're not talking about his turn in 1997’s Kingdom Of The Spiders, or in 1973’s Horror At 37,000 Feet. In fact, his most influential appearance in a horror film didn't even feature Shatner himself.

We are, of course, referring to John Carpenter's genre-redefining Halloween, in which deranged slasher Michael Myers dons a white-painted Shatner mask to hunt down his victims, made all the more terrifying by Shatner’s blank, remorseless visage. Myers has become an enduring lodestone of the horror genre, inspiring nine other sequels (of varying degrees of quality) and generations of horror film-makers.

This year, Michael is coming home once more, and the man tasked with bringing him back to Haddonfield is Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green. Green is spearheading the 2018 Halloween, a revisionist sequel that erases every previous Halloween film bar the original. In this re-imagined continuity, Michael was caught the same night as the events of the film, after being shot by Dr. Loomis.

Sacred ground

Green is well aware of the enormity of the task of resurrecting Myers, and the weight of expectation that comes with it. “In film school, it was sacred ground,” he says. “We'd seen all the Halloween movies, but the first one was beloved.”

Green’s love for the film is understandable. He first saw Halloween aged 11, he tells DoG, when he watched it at a friend’s sleepover. “Sure enough, as soon as the parents went to bed, we're watching Revenge Of The Nerds and having a blast, and then we watch Halloween and I'm scared out of my skin. I'm so scared and affected by the movie that I got sick and called my parents to come get me and take me home!”

“It was a movie that was a big part of my diet, and if you said 'what's your favourite horror movie' I would say 'Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.”

For his fellow fans, Green has added plenty of subtle nods to the original franchise. Most people will likely spot the obvious homages, like the recreation of the ‘disappearing body’ scene from the end of the first film or the masks from Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (of which Green is a defender), but there’s one easter egg that even hardcore ‘Halloweenies’ may not spot. During Michael’s escape from prison, a man and his son arrive on the scene in a truck; listen closely to the truck’s radio, and you’ll hear the same song that Laurie sang to herself during one of the first Halloween’s early scenes.

“She made up these lyrics with John Carpenter, because they couldn't afford the rights to a song,” Green explains. “So she sings 'I wish I had you all alone, just the two of us', and she has a little tune that's she's singing under her breath as she's walking down the sidewalk.”

“We had a band pretend that they were making that song in 1978 and continue it and put a complete melody and tune behind it. If you listen closely to the radio that the man dials in, it's a song familiar to the beloved fans of the first film.”

“A storm in his brain”

However, while the new film may be returning to Halloween’s roots, this probably isn't the Michael Myers that you're familiar with. This Michael is a whole lot more brutal than Carpenter’s original proto-slasher, and he racks up a bigger body-count within the first 30 minutes or so of Halloween (2018) than in the whole of the 1978 version put together.

“He's had 40 years to put his imagination to work, and now he's excited to be back in business,” Green explains; “For all clinical purposes, he seems to have gone dormant - but truly in his mind, it's the opposite. So when he has an opportunity to exit the facility and begin his rampage, it's done with 40 years of anticipation.”

“There's a storm in his brain, and it's brewing. He's a predator, so when it has the opportunity to express itself is when he feels complete.”

Of course, a predator is nothing without its prey, but this time the prey is biting back. Jamie Lee Curtis is back reprising her role as Laurie Strode, the only surviving member of Michael’s original victims. Like Michael, however, Laurie has evolved. She’s not the innocent, frightened teen that we first met in 1978, but a haunted, damaged woman that has lived with the mental scars of her experience for forty years.

This kind of trauma is something that Green has some experience with, having previously directed Stronger, the Jake Gyllenhaal film about the Boston marathon bombings. “For many months, I was in rehab facilities with people dealing with PTSD and physical trauma, and... the results of someone dealing with random violence in their lives and traumatic attacks,” he says. “It was very much a part of my psyche choosing to go into the popcorn hollywood movie version of such an event.”

Force of nature

Not only has her ordeal left Laurie with alcohol issues and PTSD, it’s also driven a rift between her and her family, cutting her off from her daughter and granddaughter (played by Judy Greer and Andi Matichak). Part of the reason for this estrangement is the fact that Laurie has been preparing for Michael’s return for the last four decades. She’s turned her house into a fortress, rigging it to the hilt with traps and stocking it with a veritable smorgasbord of firearms.

“I feel like Laurie has considered her home the ultimate trap,” Green says. “That's the place that she's in control of her environment…. I just thought it would be fun that she's got it on lockdown, and one room at a time, she's simplifying this trap, and the possibilities for where he could be caged.”

“The trick was, how do you make it Home Alone, but not Home Alone? Avoid some of the paint cans and pratfalls and fun that you could have if you're Macaulay Culkin at 12 years old, and give it to an obsessed, driven, empowered woman.”

Female empowerment isn’t necessarily something you’d expect from a horror movie, much less one written by three male film school buddies, but it’s one of the new Halloween’s most pivotal themes. When Green wrote the original screenplay with collaborators Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride (yes, that Danny McBride), they were writing what Green described as “the Halloween movie that we wanted to see”, but he credits the final product’s girl-power undertones to Matichak, Greer and Curtis, who he calls a “creative force of nature”.

“To have three incredible actresses.... just to have three strong voices that weren't 'scream queens' or 'final girls' or 'damsels in distress' but three smart, tough, cool females representing three generations of Strodes - it became something beyond what Danny and Jeff and I had imagined on the page, and we're smart enough to back up and let it be organically what it was - because we were excited about it.”

A world of possibilities

As for what the future may hold for the Halloween franchise, Green is keeping his options open, telling DoG that he wants to wait and see how audiences react to the film and then build on that. “Let's sit back, see what happens with this movie; if it works, why does it work? Where should it go?”

“The biggest danger is you don't want to know more about Michael. Even though we're intrigued by Michael and we love him as a character, we don't actually want to know more, because then he's going to be less scary.”

“I also feel like there's a world of a lot of characters that Carpenter established in the original film,” Green continues, “and there's other avenues as well. So there's infinite directions we could go - many of which we've talked about and laughed about, and others that we scratch our heads and think seriously about.”

‘But Michael dies at the end of the film,’ you may be thinking, ‘so surely there can’t be a sequel!’ Well, it turns out that Green may have snuck a sneaky clue into one of Halloween’s final shots, hinting that “you have to look very closely at the ending”.

“There's a shot of him standing there and a medium shot with flames all around him, and then when you cut wide, you may or may not see him in the shot of the basement as it's burning and it's engulfed in flames. So you've got to look close and see what you see in that image that we hold for just a frustrating amount of time."

Halloween is in cinemas now.

This review contains spoilers.

11.3 Rosa

When it was revealed that the third episode of this year’s Doctor Who run would feature the story of Rosa Parks, you could hear the collective clenching from the other side of the internet. After all, there were so many ways in which this could go horribly, horribly wrong. More than any historical figure the Doctor has met on their travels, Parks is such an important figure to so many people, and her fight such an emotive one.

In tackling events and subjects such as these, there are two major pitfalls that need to be avoided: First, the history needs to be handled with appropriate respect and reverence, and Parks not robbed of her agency. It’s all too easy to imagine a story written with the best of intentions which culminates in the Doctor having a hearts-to-heart with Rosa which inspires her to take a stand, and to do so would rob Parks’ actions of their meaning. The second pitfall is that it needs to do all of that while still working as a Doctor Who story.

The good news is that ‘Rosa’ absolutely does justice to the events that took place on that evening in 1955. To set the scene, we get a prologue of sorts as we witness Parks’ first encounter with James Blake in 1943, and it quickly becomes apparent that there’s very little sugarcoating for kids here - racial slurs are bandied around, and Blake’s actions are shockingly violent and aggressive from the outset. It’s uncomfortable viewing, and deliberately so - which should perhaps come as no surprise given that the episode was co-written by former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman, whose Noughts And Crosses series of novels is set in a dystopian future fuelled by racism.

Rosa is played by Vinette Robinson, who manages to embody Parks with apparent ease. Though her accent is a little inconsistent at times, Robinson exudes both a quiet strength and a weariness at the continued injustices thrown her way. There’s a fire in her when she meets the TARDIS team, as she tells them in no uncertain terms to leave Montgomery or face the consequences.

Alarm bells may ring when the Doctor detects artron energy surrounding Parks - the notion of Rosa Parks having travelled in time is one that would rightly make this episode the subject of much scorn and derision - but for the most part the Doctor and her friends don’t have any direct influence on Rosa. They’re running around in the background, undoing the meddling and making sure that history runs its course. It’s a fine line to walk, having the Doctor and friends going to great pains to engineer the situation on the bus, but Blackman and Chris Chibnall make sure that the time travellers are silent observers to the pivotal events.

Which brings us to the one scene everyone will remember this episode by in years to come. I recently rewatched David Tennant’s swansong ‘The End Of Time’, and the most heartbreaking moment isn’t the Doctor whining a teary farewell in the TARDIS - it’s the four knocks from Wilf, trapped in the radiation chamber. In that moment we see the inevitable tragedy that’s about to happen, our characters trapped in events that they - and we - are powerless to stop.

It’s the same here; the Doctor realising they have to stay on the bus and be present for Parks’ protest and arrest hits the team - and the audience - square in the stomach. Bradley Walsh has been somewhat inconsistent as Graham, but when he’s good he’s fantastic - and his protestations that “I don’t want to be a part of this!” are gut-wrenching. It’s then down to Vinette Robinson to deliver the killer blow, which she does - and it’s every bit as powerful as it needs to be, set to the strains of Andra Day’s ‘Rise Up’. As the episode ends, it is unlikely that there is anyone watching who will forget the story of Rosa Parks.

So, how does ‘Rosa’ fare as a Doctor Who story? It’s at this point that we need to talk about the nature of Doctor Who as a series. A key part of the show’s original 1963 remit was that it would be as educational as it was fantastical; and as such the Doctor and his friends would regularly encounter real-life historical figures and situations with no concession towards science fiction other than the TARDIS itself.

Of the eight stories that comprised the first season (as they were referred to by the production team of the time) of Doctor Who, three were pure historicals - focusing on Marco Polo, the Aztecs and the French Revolution. Indeed, three of the four episodes that made up the very first serial revolved around cavemen and the discovery of fire. This idea continued through the first few years of the show, until it was phased out in favour of the heavier sci-fi and monster-led installments. Between early 1967 and today, there’s been exactly one ‘pure historical’ story - 1982’s ‘Black Orchid’.

However, Chris Chibnall has spoken repeatedly about his desire to return the educational focus to Doctor Who, and while ‘Rosa’ isn’t quite devoid of sci-fi elements, it’s arguably the closest the post-2005 series has come to the old historical format by a comfortable margin. For all the nerves around the episode’s subject matter, it’s here that the episode is most likely to prove divisive; in deviating so far from the style that we’re used to, viewers tuning in specifically for a slice of sci-fi adventure are going to be left sorely disappointed.

Simply put, the plot involving Krasko (Joshua Bowman) is almost insultingly flimsy. Tooled up with a vortex manipulator like a cut-price Captain Jack, Krasko’s meddling is so low-key and mundane that, rather than being a menace, he never rises above the level of minor nuisance, subjecting the TARDIS crew to minor inconvenience at every turn. With his technology taken away and it established that he can’t harm or kill anyone, no amount of dialogue from the regulars telling us how clever Krasko is can stop him from being one of the most impotent villains the series has produced.

All of which wouldn’t be so bad if the character had any discernible personality or charisma to add to proceedings. Flimsy motivations are papered over with a fan-pleasing continuity reference (The Stormcage being the prison where River Song was locked up), and Joshua Bowman’s lines are so workmanlike that it’s little wonder the Doctor is apathetic enough to let him walk free after their last confrontation. The fact that he’s dispatched with such ease by Ryan ends up being annoying not because it’s an anti-climax but because the manner of his departure suggests we may end up having to see him again.

Ultimately, the Krasko storyline feels like an afterthought. It’s as though the Rosa Parks story was written with great care and attention as a purely historical tale, and then at the last minute someone got cold feet and threw in a bit of sci-fi. Perhaps a better tack to take would have been to have the Doctor’s arrival and initial interaction with Parks threatening history, Back To The Future-style. That way the Doctor and friends would still have needed to set things back on the right course, but in a way that focused on the core team rather than needing to shoehorn in a ‘baddy’.

Because really, these events didn’t need outside assistance to contain a sense of menace. ‘Rosa’ is unflinching in its depiction of the casual - and not-so-casual - racism prevalent in 1950s America. With one or two notable exceptions, Doctor Who’s handling of racism has, until now, been largely allegorical - see the xenophobia of the Daleks, or the slavery inflicted upon the Ood. But here it’s starkly painted. Violence is inflicted upon characters for the colour of their skin, authority figures are the enemy and we hear words that would have no place in pretty much any other Doctor Who episode.

For many, this will seem jarring and uncomfortable - and it’s supposed to be. Because for many others, the events and behaviours in this story will be upsettingly familiar - you only need to look at the footage captured this week of a passenger hurling racial abuse at a woman in her 70s aboard a plane to realise how much progress there is still to be made, and how important it is that we don’t shy away from tackling these issues.

It should be said that, for all of the discomfort and real-world evil in this episode, it’s not a complete gloomfest. The four regulars all possess real comic chops, and there’s some real laughs to be found in the darkness - the Doctor hinting at being Banksy and Ryan repeatedly calling Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King by their full names being two of the best examples of this. Put simply, the characters bring the lightness with them - there’s even a hint at a potential romance between Ryan and Yas.

‘Rosa’ is not a typical Doctor Who episode. The subject matter is heavy, the pace is slower than usual - presumably to allow the full horror of the setting to sink in - and the sci-fi elements are sorely lacking. But as a one-off it’s a powerful piece of drama, and one which is sure to have families talking to one another about it long after the end credits have rolled.

Read Pete's spoiler-filled review of the previous episode, The Ghost Monument, here.

Escape Room is coming to blend Saw, The Cube and one of those team building experiences on your local high street for a new horror thriller. Six strangers find themselves locked in a game room, and have to work out how to get out before they get burned, crushed or drowned to death. 

Except judging by the film’s first trailer, they don’t find themselves anywhere – they deliberately answer a mysterious invite sent to their homes in a creepy box, offering them the chance to win $1 million if they can beat the toughest puzzles in the world. Why have they been chosen? Exactly. Clearly, there’s some kind of evil Jigsaw-esque mastermind behind it all, and the six idiots who turn up deserve to get squashed for not having a better spam filter.  

Escape Room is directed by Adam Robitel (Insidious: The Last Key) and stars Logan Miller, Taylor Russell, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis and Nik Dodani. Dutch actor Yorick van Wageningen (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, 47 Ronin) is also listed on the cast, but he’s not shown in the trailer. Since he’s not one of the six captives of the room, (and he’s the only one over the age of 35), there’s a good chance that he’s the mysterious baddie here, but we’ll have to wait until 1^stof February next year to find out for sure.

Interestingly, this isn't the first film called Escape Room to tell the same story. Last year saw two movies with the same name released - Escape Room starring Evan Williams and Escape Room starring Skeet Ulrich. Will this new Escape Room escape the curse of the film's called Escape Room? 

Check out the disturbing first poster below too.

This review contains spoilers

9.3 Warning Signs

Rick is determined to push the survivors into some sort of Utopian new world, in which everyone works together for the greater good, everyone cooperates, and everybody puts all their dead friends and family members in the past. To Rick, letting go of the past is the best way to honour the dead. As Justin the long-haired Savior's walker sits up after being mauled by a group of walkers, the telltale weapon wound in the middle of his chest—which bled out prior to his death, not before—suggests that other people have a different idea of how to honour the dead. Rick says let it go and make a world their lost friends would be proud of; someone else clearly believes that the best way to remember the dead is by getting revenge for them.

The Saviors are being targeted. Despite having the advantage in numbers, they're relatively unarmed—they have axes and hatchets, everyone else has guns and spears and bows. Despite their protests, and the knowledge that they're being targeted for murder, everyone seems to agree that giving the Saviors guns is a bad idea, so it's up to Rick and company to track down the person or people hunting down and killing the Saviors while keeping the disappearances quiet to avoid a full-scale job walk-off. For Rick, helping the Saviors is a matter of conscience. For Maggie, Daryl, and pretty much everyone else, helping the Saviors is needed to keep the peace and get the bridge finished before the stormy season rolls in.

“Warning Signs” operates on something like the buddy system, literally and figuratively. The literal use of the word comes into play when Rick tells his team to break up into pairs with people they trust and go looking for the missing Arat (and all the other Saviors). They have to use small groups and keep it quiet, because just a few moments before the Savior workforce gathered together to protest the disappearances, and their lack of protection by their armed guards. Pushing and shoving happened, Daryl and Anne/Jadis were accused of being the secret killers, threats were used, and just when it seems as if the complaining would become violence, Rick rides up on horseback and gives out a lot of assurances. He's got the best people, and the Savior crew will be kept safe.

The search mission helps the big cast spread out. The pairs that go out—Rick and Carol, Daryl and Maggie—reflect the divide in the characters Angela Kang has been fostering since the beginning of the ninth season. Corey Reed doesn't belabor the point in his script. Rick and Carol discuss the whys of Rick's decisions, and how well they work, while Daryl and Maggie do the real detective work and track down the people who have been eliminating Saviors. As it might turn out, the killers are kindred spirits with the revenge-minded Daryl and Maggie, as established by the discussions Daryl and Maggie have regarding capital punishment, revenge killings, and local politics.

In other hands, revenge killing could easily become something kind of silly. It's the basis for thousands of movies of dubious quality, but there's something about the concept of getting back at people who have hurt you and your family that is appealing. The scene in which Arat begs for help from Maggie and Daryl (along with her work keeping the Saviors in line) establishes that she has changed, at least for the moment, but the details of her former life are chilling, and merit punishment of some kind. That punishment was inspired by Maggie having Gregory hanged in front of the people of Hilltop; as the leader of the assassination crew says, Maggie is proof that Rick's way isn't the only way. Oceanside cooperated, says Cyndie, because they wanted to fight the Saviors. Now, they just want to make sure that the people who ruined their idyllic life are punished to the fullest extend of what passes for the law in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

One or two set pieces aside, it's not a plot that lends itself to any flashy action sequences. Warning Signs leans more heavily on ambiance, aside from a couple of people put into walker peril due to their own silly behavior. There's still a problem with that on The Walking Dead, even if the resulting scenes of Cyndie in peril are fun. Dan Liu mostly works with tension here, with shots of actors creeping through the woods and the occasional scene of walkers shambling a little too close for comfort. The square-off between Maggie and Kal with the Saviors hunting for their missing friend is well crafted; Maggie might have a gun, but they have numbers and they were able to come out of the woods without being detected, so their threat feels real. The Saviors clearly have a larger group at the camp, and they're all armed with melee weapons, while only a few of the other bridge employees have guns and the rest are similarly armed. Until Rick shows up, that pushing match could go either way, and could easily spill over into violence.

There have been some fun action sequences this season, but the biggest change from season 8 seems to be a renewed emphasis on characters having relatively logical reasons for doing the things that they do. The discord between the groups is one of the most reasonable things that The Walking Dead has put forward since All Out War began. It doesn't matter how long you work alongside someone, when groups keep separate—as these groups seem to have done—and as long as there are hard feelings from all the murders carried out by The Saviors, there will always be that risk for sudden, vengeful violence. The people who are used to being in charge are now just working alongside the very groups they used to terrorise.

Rick has quite literally reshaped their known world with a waved gun and a cavalry charge, and no matter how long the time jump has taken, a years-long campaign of terror isn't something people will forget easily. The Saviors are still a separate community. They work alongside the others, and they cooperate under the leadership of Eugene and Daryl, but they're not part of the greater community in any real sense. All the Saviors are is a food burden on Hilltop and a reminder for Oceanside, Alexandria, and The Kingdom how much has been lost.

It's hard to build a new world when the remains of the old refuse to be buried.

Read Ron's review of the previous episode, The Bridge, here.

The Walking Dead headed into season 9 as a pop culture juggernaut that lost some steam and eroded hard-earned goodwill amongst segments of its audience. Indeed, while the show’s depicted 'All Out War' may finally be over, the patience-testing storyline yielded a pyrrhic victory for both our characters and the show’s ratings, which have declined steadily.

Season 9 is now underway and, as always, we've got a preview of the next episode for you. Here's the trailer...

And here's a sneak peek, too...

We'll bring you more news as it arrives, of course.

The Walking Dead season 9 air date

Season 9 debuted on 7th October in the US. UK viewers got it on Monday October 8th on FOX UK.

Flip over to page 2 now, if you like, where we've been collecting everything we know so far about season 9...

The Walking Dead season 9 cast

A minimal flurry of intrigue had been created over the fact that actor Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie Rhee on The Walking Dead, had not yet officially announced her return for season nine of the show. 

Flurry over. Cohan will indeed return as the Hilltop leader, and judging by her mwahahaha moment in the season eight finale in which she, Jesus and Daryl plotted revenge against Rick for refusing to kill Negan, also as a potential antagonist in season nine.

"I'm going back," Cohan told Entertainment Weekly, "there's a lot more Maggie story to tell."

Radical changes in season 9 will see main cast members Andrew Lincoln and Cohan leave the series. While Lincoln’s impending exit as Rick Grimes seems to be motivated by burnout, Cohan’s departure was marked after offers of new opportunities, notably a major role in Mark Wahlberg actioner, Mile 22, and a co-starring role on the upcoming crime series, Whiskey Cavalier.

As the October premiere of The Walking Dead season 9 approaches, the reality of severing a seven-year, 8-season run is obviously becoming clearer for Lauren Cohan, who has played the role of Maggie Rhee (née Greene,) since the 2011-launched season 2. Surprisingly, the actress dishes some details about the upcoming role-wrap-up in an interview with Gamespot. While cynical-minded speculation might lead one to believe that quitting this show obligates one’s character to a gruesome death, ripped apart, eviscerated and consumed by the dead, Cohan goes far enough to reveal that Maggie’s fate will be left open-ended, explaining:

"It feels like the greatest way to honour it is to keep it open-ended because whether it's about me going back as Maggie or whether it's about me just taking in, absorbing, and honouring everything I've learned there.” Enthusiastically adding, “It never leaves me. It will never, ever leave me. And that is I think the greatest compliment you can give to anything and to any group of people because we all came together to make something that we didn't know was going to have this success that it did."

Consequently, Cohan’s Maggie, who has evolved from the tragedy of Negan’s brutal killing of her husband, Glenn, into becoming a leader of the Hilltop community and – as the season 9 trailer implies – a mother to the child she conceived with her late husband, should, in the very least, reach a satisfying trajectory. Moreover, when asked if the open-ended nature of Maggie’s mysterious fate leaves the door open for a prospective return, Cohan implies that – while it’s not guaranteed – it is still a possibility.

However, Cohan is clearly not thinking about a return, and the idea of turning the page on The Walking Dead – the most significant TV run of her career – seems to be at the forefront of her thoughts these days. As Cohan reminisces with preemptive elegiac wistfulness:

"I had a lot of time to think about it before I came back to Walking Dead this season. And what the show means to me, what my family there means to me, what my time there has meant, and how this role has impacted my life which is immeasurable."

While Cohan was hardly a newcomer when she joined The Walking Dead, having banked high-profile runs on shows like Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries and Chuck, she explains how the years on Dead transformed her in immutable ways:

“It taught me to trust in such an important, creative way. I don't think I can ever shake that. Once you have an experience like that, it really dictates the measure of how you want to connect with people going forward in my work."

It will be interesting to see how Cohan’s Maggie makes her exit from The Walking Dead in season 9, especially considering how deeply embedded the character currently is in the storylines of the series. However, new showrunner Angela Kang is onboard to shake things up for the popular-but-ratings-hemorrhaging series.

Jon Bernthal will reprise his role of Shane Walsh for The Walking Dead season nine, according to TV Line. The actor is set to appear in one episode of the upcoming season. Since Shane died in the show's second season, we assume the character will show up in a flashback or as some sort of vision.

Bernthal's return to the show would be surprising under any other circumstance, but it actually makes sense considering series star Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) may be exiting The Walking Dead in season nine. Shane may very well appear to Rick as he takes his dying breaths. After all, the character has appeared as a hallucination once before.

In season three, Rick saw Shane in Woodbury after his wife, Lori, died in the Prison. Now, with Rick reportedly on the chopping block, the Sheriff could hallucinate Shane once again. Whether it'll be the specter of his former friend or the man who betrayed him after the zombie apocalypse remains to be seen.

Neither Bernthal or AMC have confirmed the news, although rumours have been making the rounds on the internet since last weekend after a fan spotted the actor hanging out with Lincoln and Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon) by the show's Georgia set.

The show is definitely getting a bit too long in the tooth for some of its main cast members. Series star Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) will exit the show in season nine, as now confirmed by creator Robert Kirkman.

The news was officially revealed by Kirkman in a special SDCC interview with filmmaker Kevin Smith for IMDB, which you can watch below:

"It does make the differences between the comic and the show more pronounced," Kirkman explained. "But at the end of the day, it's all about Andrew Lincoln. This is a human being. This is someone I have known for almost a decade, somebody that I love. He's been sweating in Georgia, away from his family, for so long."

As far as how Lincoln will make his exit, Kirkman is not ready to say (and there'd be spoiler warnings slapped all over this piece, if he had - let's face it, Lincoln could potentially end up returning to the series later, if his character makes it out alive). He does think fans will find it a very special way to say goodbye to the beloved character, though.

"He cares about the fans," Kirkman said about Lincoln. "He cares about the show deeply. He wants to do something special on the way out. We have something amazing planned. I wouldn't want to spoil anything, but anybody who has been a fan of his journey, who loves Rick Grimes, who loves the world of The Walking Dead, you're going to want to see what we do."

All of these cast changes come as Angela Kang takes over as The Walking Dead's new showrunner, ushering in a new era for the series.

Do you hear the whispers? They're on the way. That's right, at the Walking Dead San Diego Comic-Con panel, it was confirmed that Samantha Morton has been cast to play The Walking Dead season 9 villain Alpha. That means Alpha's crew, the Whisperers, will also be season 9's central villains.

Rick Grimes and company just spent the better part of two seasons dispatching Negan and the Saviors and in season 9 after a brief time jump, there is just going to be another round of villains waiting for them? Yep. It's a rough world. At least the Whisperers are interesting in concept if not always execution, being a group of individuals who have chosen to survive the zombie apocalypse by becoming the dead. They remove the flesh and viscera of corpses and wrap it around themselves as gruesome coats and masks. This is the strategy of masking one's scent from the walking dead that Rick and the other characters sometimes use. The Whisperers, however, take it to the absolute extreme - living most of their lives within those undead "costumes."

The Whisperers will offer a fascinating new dynamic for the show. Their "society" is somewhat bestial and completely amoral, similar to the TV show's "The Wolves." They eschew names altogether. Their leader, a middle-aged woman, is named "Alpha." And her second-in-command, a hulking seven-foot tall man, is called "Beta."

The casting of Alpha, the leader of the Whisperers is spot on. Samantha Morton is not only an excellent actress that carries a lot of gravity. But we also know she can pull off a shaved head thanks to Minority Report.

We've now learned that Alpha's second in command, Beta, will be played by Sons Of Anarchy star Ryan Hurst in season 9 (via The Wrap).

Sons fans will remember the actor as the lovable Opie in the popular FX series. You'll be seeing a lot more of him in the next year, too, as he's also joined the fifth season of Amazon's cult favourite show Bosch.

The Walking Dead season 9 story

At an impromptu presser before The Walking Dead aftershow Talking Dead, Gimple, along with property creator and show executive producer, Robert Kirkman, discussed the future of the series as it eyes season 9. With the season 8 finale, 'Wrath,' having concluded the (two-year-running) 'All Out War' storyline, with the victory of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his united communities over Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his apocalypse plunderers the Saviors, the series is destined for a major storyline departure. As Gimple states (via THR):

"The show will evolve in a huge way [in season 9]. They'll be dealing with things we haven't seen them deal with before and dealing with each other in ways that we haven't seen before. What [the writers] have planned ... it just feels new. It feels like an evolved show. [The past eight seasons] very much lived in the world that Rick began with. It was so informed by the pilot. It just takes this quantum leap forward in the stories we're telling."

Readers of Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic book series – whose knowledge of the source material once equaled clairvoyance until the show started making major plot deviations – know that 'All Out War' was followed by a two-year time jump, which began with Rick and company living a relatively peaceful and fruitful existence through reciprocity with neighbouring communities, including former foes the Saviors. Consequently, Gimple’s choice of words in “quantum leap forward” might be interpreted as confirmation that the series will make a similar time jump. He even concedes that his comments can be qualified as "a time jump tease."

A much-needed refresh is approaching, headed by new showrunner Angela Kang, who is providing some new details about the changes (including a time-jump,) set for season 9.

“There’s a fun Western vibe that has emerged,” says new boss Angela Kang in an interview with EW, in which she sheds light on the tone of The Walking Dead in season 9. Indeed, major tonal and aesthetic alterations lie ahead under Kang’s new stewardship, perhaps more than we had previously thought. The predominant theme here – in an era of the show’s timeline that will be set a few years after the events of season 8 – is focused on the idea that nature is finally reclaiming the apocalypse-affected remnants of the old civilisation.

Driving this 'Western vibe' idea home, the first photo of The Walking Dead season 9 was provided in the EW piece (pictured above), prominently showing Danai Gurira’s Michonne on horseback, followed by members of ally communities who, using horse-drawn carriages, are so close the Oregon Trail experience, they’re probably in danger of dying from dysentery. As Kang explains of the show’s new/old aesthetic:

“We’ll explore what happened as man-made objects and structures break down. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are changing and crumbling. And we’ll also explore what happens as resources are getting low.”

While the zombie show (that never uses the 'z-word,') was always about how humanity itself had defaulted to primal rules, all the leftover luxury bells and whistles of the old world – notably cars – are starting to become moot concepts as all the gasoline has been used up and industrially manufactured parts are no longer available. Thus, society is turning its transportation needs back to beasts of burden, namely horses, which lends the series a quasi-historical atmosphere. As Kang further describes:

“We are going into a period where a lot of the things that we’ve seen in previous seasons have broken down, so they’ve got these horses and carriages that are being drawn around instead of cars. Things are lit with oil lamps. People are using different kinds of weaponry. There’s a real grittiness to it that I think will be fun and fresh for the viewers.”

Of course, all of this will take place after a significant time-jump from season 8’s climactic All Out War armistice, which resulted in its primary instigator, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Moran), sustaining a near-fatal injury (after Rick cut his throat,) and subsequently imprisoned in a cell in Alexandria, where the intent is to have him witness the fruits of a new era of peace and reciprocity amongst the neighboring communities. As Kang hints of the time-jump in a concurrent interview with Variety:

“I really love the section of story that we’re telling. We’re playing with time. We’re playing with the style of the show a little bit. I think fans will enjoy the new look and feel that we have. Obviously, the show has an established feel that we want to keep. We love these stories about survivors and how they’re making their way through the world. That said, we want to keep things fresh, so I’ve had these great conversations with out DPs and our directors about amping up the look of the show. We’re doing some interesting things with sound this season too.”

Pertinent to the notion of keeping things interesting, The Walking Dead is still a television drama about a zombie apocalypse, not a feel-good romp about post-apocalyptic farmers. Thus, the aforementioned peace and reciprocity experienced by Rick and company will inevitably be intruded upon by an antagonistic force; a role that readers of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic book series strongly speculate will be filled by a savage group of survivors who wear skin masks and weaponise large herds of the dead, known as The Whisperers.

Consequently, there’s a lot to be optimistic about regarding The Walking Dead’s new direction under Angela Kang, even in the wake of the shocking development that star Andrew Lincoln is bound for a series exit. Moreover, the new showrunner is hardly new to the series itself, having been onboard as a writer since season 2. While Kang replaces outgoing showrunner Scott M. Gimple, the collaboration between the two is still active, since Gimple has been elevated to the role of Chief Content Officer of The Walking Dead and spinoff series Fear The Walking Dead. As Kang tells Variety about working with Gimple in his new capacity:

“Scott and I started on the show at the same time. We’ve worked together as colleagues in the writers’ room, then he was my boss, and now he’s chief content officer. We have a great relationship. He and I are in contact, but he doesn’t handle the day-to-day of the show at all, so I have the leeway to make decisions. I come to him regularly and bounce things off of him. He’s been a great friend and mentor. We work in the same office building, so we see each other and talk to each other.”

The Walking Dead season 9 behind the scenes changes

AMC is restructuring the top crew of season 9. Scott Gimple, the executive producer and showrunner since season 4 of the show, will not be around for season 9. Instead, he'll be elevated to 'Chief Content Officer,' which sounds like it could just mean 'Emperor of The Walking Dead Extended Universe.'

In a press release, AMC described Gimple's new role as "overseeing the entire “Dead” television universe, including The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, and potential brand extensions on a variety of platforms." That's likely a smart move as The Walking Dead has become as much a global media brand for AMC as it is a television show.

"The Walking Dead is a special show which started in an entirely different era of TV, and continues, in this new era, to confidently take chances to tell compelling stories that excite audiences and make them deeply connect with its characters, adapting Robert Kirkman’s brilliant comic book,” Gimple said via press release. “As the show closes in on its tenth year, I’m honoured to keep working with the talented, dedicated people behind and in front of the camera to make it all it can be, while expanding the world of The Walking Dead with new narratives like Fear The Walking Dead and a whole host of truly cool stories ahead."

Longtime writer for the show Angela Kang will take over as showrunner, making her the fourth showrunner in Walking Dead history, following Frank Darabont, Glen Mazzara, and Gimple.

Kang will have a tall task in The Walking Dead season 9. She seems up for the challenge, though.

“I am beyond thrilled to be stepping into this new role with The Walking Dead," she said. "Working on this series and having the opportunity to adapt Robert Kirkman’s amazing comic has been a fangirl dream come true for me. I’m excited to continue working with Scott and the wonderfully supportive folks at AMC, and can’t wait to share the next chapter of the story with our fans next fall.”

Jodie Whittaker's first series as the Thirteenth Doctor has now begun in earnest, and if you want a taste of things to come, we'll have all sort of preview bits and bobs for you here at Den Of Geek UK in the coming weeks.

“Something’s happening with the spiders in this city.”

Here's a look ahead at episode 4, 'Arachnids In The UK'...

And here's the synopsis of the episode...

The Doctor, Yaz, Graham and Ryan find their way back to Yorkshire – and Yaz’s family – only to find something is stirring amidst the eight-legged arachnid population of Sheffield. Guest starring Chris Noth and Shobna Gulati. Written by Chris Chibnall. Directed by Sallie Aprahamian.

Synopses for the next couple episodes have also been released by the Beeb. Let's get our readers on:

Episode Five: The Tsuranga Conundrum

“Risk to life: absolute.”

Injured and stranded in the wilds of a far-flung galaxy, The Doctor, Yaz, Graham and Ryan must band together with a group of strangers to survive against one of the universe’s most deadly -- and unusual -- creatures.

Guest starring Suzanne Packer, Ben Bailey Smith, Brett Goldstein and Lois Chimimba. Written by Chris Chibnall. Directed by Jennifer Perrott.

Episode Six: Demons Of The Punjab

“What’s the point of having a mate with a time machine, if you can’t nip back and see your gran when she was younger?”

India, 1947. The Doctor and her friends arrive in the Punjab, as the country is being torn apart. While Yaz attempts to discover her grandmother’s hidden history, the Doctor discovers demons haunting the land. Who are they and what do they want?

Guest starring Shane Zaza, Amita Suman and Hamza Jeetooa. Written by Vinay Patel. Directed by Jamie Childs.

You can also check out some preview images from the next four episodes in our gallery above. Just click on the main picture up there to flick through them!

At the end of episode one, we also got a preview of series 11's forthcoming guest stars. If you missed that, you can see it below...

Here's that list in full - Ben Bailey Smith, Phyllis Logan, Alan Cumming, Chris Noth, Mark Addy, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Shane Zaza, Shobna Gulati, Shaun Dooley, Vinette Robinson, Art Malik, Brett Goldstein, Josh Bowman, Siobhan Finneran, Lee Mack, Lois Chimimba, Susan Lynch, Hamza Jeetoa, Suzanne Packer and Amita Suman.

More as we get it.

Doctor Who series 11 release date

More proof, if any were needed, that Doctor Who was regenerating for series 11 came with confirmation of a new slot in the schedules. The new series is now airing on Sundays instead of Saturdays.

The first of the new ten-episode run starring Jodie Whittaker in the TARDIS started on Sunday the 7th of October on BBC One.

You'll find all the series 11 news that's fit to print on page 2 and 3 of this article...

Doctor Who series 11 companions

Joining Jodie Whittaker in the TARDIS are three new companions.

Bradley Walsh is Graham, Tosin Cole is Ryan, and Mandip Gill is Yasmin in the new run of the show. 

Doctor Who series 11 Jodie Whittaker

Here's the first official shot of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor...

This promo video confirmed the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor.

Some viewers reacted negatively to the video's unveiling of the first female Doctor, leading the BBC to share this official defence of Whittaker's casting...

Since the first Doctor regenerated back in 1966, the concept of the Doctor as a constantly evolving being has been central to the programme. The continual input of fresh ideas and new voices across the cast and the writing and production teams has been key to the longevity of the series.

The Doctor is an alien from the planet Gallifrey and it has been established in the show that Time Lords can switch gender.

As the Controller of BBC Drama has said, Jodie is not just a talented actor but she has a bold and brilliant vision for her Doctor. She aced it in her audition both technically and with the powerful female life force she brings to the role. She is destined to be an utterly iconic Doctor.

We hope viewers will enjoy what we have in store for the continuation of the story.

Doctor Who series 11 crew

Chris Chibnall - whose previous Who scripts include 42, The Hungry Earth and Dinosaurs On A Spaceship (he also penned the seminal Torchwood episode Cyberwoman) - has revealed a little about his first talks with the BBC.

"What the BBC was after was risk and boldness", Chibnall explained to Television magazine (which CultBox reported online). He also mentioned that he has a "daring conceit" up his sleeve, which could well fit that brief.

"I had ideas about what I wanted to do with it," Chibnall teased. "When I went to them and said, 'This is what I would do', I actually expected them to say, 'Ooh, let’s talk about that', but they said: 'Great!'"

Chibnall's appointment wasn't all plain sailing, though. "I resisted it for a very long time, and [the BBC] really had to woo me", The Chib recounted in the interview.

There are two other new faces who have joined Doctor Who, too.

Firstly, Chris Chibnall added Sam Hoyle to his executive producer team for the new series. Hoyle, who produced Broadchurch with Chibnall, is working alongside Matt Stevens on the show.

Then we got news of the first director for the new series. Jamie Child has a CV that includes episodes of Poldark, Stan Lee’s Lucky Man and Next Of Kin. He’s directed the first block of episodes for the new series of Doctor Who, as revealed here. 

A clutch of writers brand new to the main BBC show were announced: Malorie Blackman, Ed Hime, Vinay Patel, Pete McTighe and Joy Wilkinson.

Acclaimed childrens and YA author Malorie Blackman, former Children's Laureate, is the author of the Noughts And Crosses series. Ed Hime has previously written for Skins. Vinay Patel wrote the excellent BBC drama Murdered By My Father. Pete McTighe was head writer on Australian prison drama Wentworth. Joy Wilkinson wrote celebrated 2012 BBC drama The Life And Adventures Of Nick Nickleby.

The series 11 directors are Sally Aprahamian (The Lakes, Teachers, and This Life), Jamie Childs (Vera, Stan Lee's Lucky Man, Next Of Kin), Jennifer Perrott (forthcoming BBC drama Gentleman Jack) and Mark Tonderai (Gotham, Lucifer, Black Lightning). 

Chris Chibnall had this to say about the announcements: “We have a team of writers who’ve been working quietly and secretly for a long time now, crafting characters, worlds and stories to excite and move you. A set of directors who stood those scripts up on their feet, bringing those ideas, visuals and emotions into existence with bravura and fun.

“Hailing from a range of backgrounds, tastes and styles, here’s what unites them: they are awesome people as well as brilliant at their job. (It matters!) They love Doctor Who. And they’ve all worked above and beyond the call of duty in an effort to bring audiences something special, later this year.”

WRITERS

Former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman has written over 60 books for children and young adults including the Noughts and Crosses series of novels, and her book Pig-Heart Boy, which was adapted into a BAFTA-winning, six-part TV serial.

Malorie says: “I’ve always loved Doctor Who. Getting the chance to write for this series has definitely been a dream come true.”

Ed Hime was nominated for a Craft BAFTA for his first episode of Skins, and won the Prix Italia for his radio play The Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body.

Ed says: “Writing for this series comes down to the adventure really, and telling emotionally engaging stories to bring everyone along with you.”

Playwright and screenwriter Vinay Patel’s television debut, Murdered By My Father, won the 2016 Royal Television Society Award for Best Single Drama and was nominated for three BAFTAs.

Vinay says: “I grew up watching shows like Star Trek and Quantum Leap on the edge of my dad’s bed, and I loved how they managed to capture the imagination of a kid like me as well as acting as a moral compass. I never imagined that I’d get to write for Doctor Who – I was pretty thrilled.”

Pete McTighe  is the originating writer of Wentworth, the female prison drama that has sold to over 150 countries. He’s written over a hundred hours of TV drama and been nominated for five Writers Guild Awards.

Pete says: My entire television career has quite literally been an elaborate plan to get to write Doctor Who – and no one is more shocked than me that it paid off. I've been having the time of my life working with Chris, and writing for Jodie and the new team, and can't wait for everyone to see what we've been up to."

Joy Wilkinson has been selected as a Screen International Star of Tomorrow and has had two screenplays featured on the Brit List. Her TV scripts include the critically-acclaimed BBC five-parter The Life and Adventures ofNick Nickleby, while her theatre work has won prizes including the Verity Bargate Award.

Joy says: “I loved the show and felt like it might be a good fit for me, but I knew it was really hard to get onto. So quite frankly I’m still pinching myself to be here!”

DIRECTORS

Sallie Aprahamian has been directing television for over two decades with critically acclaimed shows including: Extremely Dangerous, The Sins, Real Men, The Lakes, Teachers and This Life.

Sallie’s memories of Doctor Who go right back to the 1960s, when William Hartnell created the role. She says: “I watched the First Doctor from behind the sofa through my fingers, frightened and exhilarated. I was really delighted, as a fan and as a director, to be invited to work on the first female Doctor’s series. What a brilliant time to be on the show!”

Jamie Childs, who directed Jodie Whittaker’s reveal as the Thirteenth Doctor, returns for the opening episode of the new series.

Jamie says Doctor Who represents an important part of our television landscape. “We tend to avoid making many shows in Britain that really allow the audience to properly escape, and Doctor Who has been doing this for decades. So yes, sign me up – I’ve always wanted to be part of that! There really aren’t many shows made over here that allow the viewer to travel to another universe.”

Jennifer Perrott wrote, directed, produced and executive produced her award-winning 35mm short film The Ravens. Since finishing Doctor Who she has been directing Gentleman Jack, a forthcoming BBC One/HBO historical drama series created by Sally Wainwright.

Jennifersays: “Doctor Who is an iconic show and one I’d loved as a child, especially when Tom Baker was the Doctor. Space travel has become more a part of modern life and this has opened the door for more human stories to be told amidst the escapist fantasy of saving the world from alien invasion. The aliens are now as emotionally complex as the humans, and I was really excited by that.”

Mark Tonderai went to school in Zimbabwe and architecture school in Kingston, before landing a job at the BBC as a trainee presenter. Mark has directed the full season of The Five, Impulse, Lucifer, Gotham, Black Lightning, George RR Martin’s Nightflyers and Jennifer Lawrence thriller House at the End of the Street.

Mark says: “What was really crucial in my decision to direct the show was Chris Chibnall. I’m a huge fan of his and I like the way he sees the world. He has this ability to entertain and also deliver truths – questions, too – about who we are. And he does it all with a hint of a smile.”

Doctor Who series 11 artwork and images

The BBC also revealed a fresh logo for series 11 a while back....

Aye, that looks dead good. Here's a wee insignia, too...

Now let's see the new logo in video form, because why not...

BBC Worldwide commissioned creative agency Little Hawk to create the new Doctor Who designs for them, and the team worked closely with new showrunner Chris Chibnall and executive producer Matt Strevens. 

More eye snacks arrived in the form of two brand new images - one from the Beeb, and one from EW.

Here they are...

There might be a good reason for keeping TARDIS developments under wraps, however, as series 11 concept artist Darren Fereday has been teasing a major overhaul for the iconic police box, tagging production designer Arwel Wyn Jones in a series of tweets about the new design:

Just when you think the intrigue has plateaued...

Doctor Who series 11 guest stars

Some casting news has reached us via the always-lovable Cultbox - Alan Cumming has confirmed that he has a role in a new episode of the long-running series, and he even dished up a few details about the character he'll be playing.

"I’m about to do an episode of Doctor Who. I’m so excited," the beloved actor gushed on the Homo Sapiens podcast. "I’m James the First".

The Good Wife and Instinct star later added that "they said he might come back" and described his Who character as "a nice baddie…a sort of dandy, foppy character who becomes alright in the end."

Ah, vintage Cumming, then!

Doctor Who series 11 composer

Murray Gold, who has done stellar work creating original music for Doctor Who since 2005, won't be returning to score series 11, and that means a fresh face has cooked up something quite new for us - composer Segun Akinola.

Rising star Akinola (Black and British: A Forgotten History, A Moving Image) provided "an exciting and emotional score beckoning in a new era for the show, including a fresh take on the legendary theme tune", according to the BBC.

Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall had this to say about the new appointment:

“Welcome to the Doctor Who family, Segun Akinola! We’re over the moon Segun's agreed to join us, to provide the score for the next phase of the Doctor Who adventure. From our very first conversations, it was obvious Segun was a passionate, collaborative and delightful human being as well as a fantastic and bold composer. We’re looking forward to introducing the world to his exciting and emotional soundtracks for the Thirteenth Doctor.”

Akinola added “Doctor Who is woven into the fabric of British culture and recognised globally. I am absolutely thrilled to be given the privilege of working on such a beloved series and to bring my musical voice to it.”

Doctor Who series 11 enemies

Now Whittaker, along with new showrunner Chris Chibnall, has given The Times a mammoth new interview about series 11, and of course we've picked through it and scooped up all the essential bits for you.

The Broadchurch actress seemed in good spirits chatting about the series, and started by addressing the question she's probably fielded the most since her casting was announced.

"I am asked an awful lot about girls looking up to me as the first female Doctor, but just as important is boys looking up to women," she explained, before adding “It’s one of them jobs, isn’t it? You have to enjoy every moment of it or you’re in the wrong field. I mean, it’ll be nice when being the first woman doing something like this isn’t such a moment, but it is also exciting to know that it won’t have the same impact in the future. I’m just another actor playing the Doctor and the Doctor is an alien, so I’m as qualified as anyone else to play that role – which is woefully unqualified."

Initially thinking she was just catching up with Chibnall for a cuppa in a cafe when the ball started rolling on the Doctor's next regeneration, Whittaker had no idea what she was in for when she started joking around about having a part in series 11.

"'Can I come? Can I be an alien? Can I play a baddie?'" she recalled asking. "And he was like, 'It’s funny you bring it up, because actually I wanted to talk to you about whether you would consider auditioning for the Doctor.'"

Whittaker admitted she burst into tears when she found out, post-audition, that she'd landed the part, but Chibnall says that her naturally emotional character won't be reflected in the Thirteenth. “There are no tears from my Doctor, no. That would be a huge statement.”

The star backed Chibnall up, remarking of the regeneration experience for most Doctors "I think there are moments of anguish, but I feel that the way I enter into the role is with my eyes open and the lights on. You’re five years old and you’re in a dark cave and the light goes on and you see every colour, texture, shape. How exciting that would be! I wanted it to be like a lightbulb going on when the Doctor is regenerated and comes back, blown away by the beauty of everything and seeing it in things where it isn’t always obvious; and knowing when to be scared, but using that fear to push yourself, not restrict yourself."

"Each Doctor needs to have their own journey," Chibnall went on to muse. "I think Peter’s Doctor came into the world asking, 'Am I a good man?' and questioning his self-identity. Jodie’s Doctor is definitely more outward-looking."

Any potential romances in series 11 were ruled out during the interview, too. "We are a friendship group in this season," Whittaker stated, sweeping away the notion of anyone getting 'the feels', "But we all love each other.”

The paper also established that there will be "no Daleks, no Cybermen [and] no Weeping Angels" in series 11, with every episode featuring a brand new enemy for the Doctor to face.

“I want this to be a recruiting year for Doctor Who to bring in that next generation of audiences,” Chibnall confirmed, but said the Beeb has put no pressure on him to achieve good ratings with his version of Doctor Who, only to make a good show.

This Supergirl review contains spoilers.

4.2 Fallout

Supergirl started off this week’s episode with a great image that encapsulates the show’s ethos: Supergirl grabbing the flagpole before it can hurt anyone and plowing it into the sidewalk between opposing protest groups as they start to violently clash. The image is the kind that would be on the front page of every newspaper on Earth 35, an attractive, human-passing alien hero literally using the American flag to keep the peace outside the White House after the president is revealed to be an alien.

The image also sets the tone for the episode: Supergirl wants to be a unifier, even as her country descends into dangerously cruel chaos. Political themes are front and center here, as indicated by the season premier, but allegory and metaphor are more prominent than straight ahead irl slogans, though there are more of those this week than last. We also get some much-needed progress on Supergirl and Kara’s separate but entwined relationships with Lena Luthor, a stronger sense of James as an editor in chief and character outside of his relationships with Kara and Lena, and our first real glimpse at Brainy as a fallible (and therefore more interesting) character, one who is affected by emotions. Plus: Nia’s first acts of heroism, and one helluva meet-cute where she rescues damsel in distress Brainy.

James represented the case for lack of editorialising well, which makes for a stronger episode than a straw man argument. Bringing in his legal issues with Guardian was a smart move, and makes him look more favourable than if he just claims money/readership. The setup also gave Nia the opportunity to share with him why she feels so passionately about making a statement, and directly linking her struggles as a trans woman to anti-alien sentiment like harassment, discrimination and violence was a smart move that rings true.

I’ve been wondering with some trepidation how Supergirl would handle “the reveal” that Nia is trans. Making too much of it can add to the stigma, but ignoring it is out of step with the lived reality of trans people. A straightforward conversation with someone she trusts (even if that trust was built quickly) was probably the best-case scenario. I hope in the future there’s an opportunity to discuss what a huge leap of faith it was for her to disclose to her boss’s boss, considering it’s still legal in the US to fire someone for being trans.

I appreciate that Supergirl made a point of having characters at both CatCo and the DEO say and do hateful things. It’s easy to code all good characters as respectful and all bad characters as bigots, but we know that the reality is more nuanced than that, and prejudice is largely more insidious than the Earth First hatred Agent Liberty spews – it more often looks like a coffee cup full of wood chips. One issue with that particular move, though, is that it would have carried more weight if we knew the name of that alien race and what they ate before this scene. It’s hard for a slur to have emotional heft if we don’t know it’s a slur until after we hear it.

One sticking point for this season so far is Agent Liberty. Luckily he has now been named and has spoken his ideology at length, but the mask is a misstep. I was a fan of Sam Witwer’s work on Being Human and Battlestar Galactica, and we can hear the passion in his voice, but this mask is killing the performance. Every time we cut back to Liberty’s visage, all the life goes out of what is an otherwise-intense, panic-inducing scene.

J’onn commends Alex’s leadership of the DEO, but what would he say if he saw her interrogation of Otis Graves? I can’t help but think that Alex herself would be upset by her own actions, and I hope to see some evidence of that emotional struggle in future episodes. If the idea is that she is radicalising in response to the Earth First movement, so be it. Her sister, surrogate father, and some of her closest friends are aliens, so it makes sense. But we need to be let in on that thought process, and it should take a bit more time and at least some reflection on the part of the otherwise-level-headed Director Danvers. Failing that, there’s security footage and someone internally should have a word with her, like Winn or J’onn would if they still worked there.

This was the perfect time to crack into Brainy’s steely, logic-based exterior. While have a walking, talking deus ex machina is convenient, it’s hard to feel too much warmth for him, in spite of Jess Rath’s best efforts. It’s even harder when he’s filming Jeremy Jordan’s cardigan. Seeing genuine emotion on his face – real fear, shock, and sadness at Massimo and later confusion, frustration and terror when he couldn’t help Supergirl – open him up to the audience in a meaningful way. Here’s hoping he opens up more to Alex and Nia as the season goes on.

Things are certainly going to be different in Harlem after the conclusion of that awesome latest season, aren't they? Well, at least that's what we thought was going to happen, and then Netflix went ahead and announced that Luke Cage season 3 isn't happening, cancelling the series after its second (and best) season.

“Unfortunately, Marvel’s Luke Cage will not return for a third season," Netflix and Marvel TV said in a joint statement (via Variety). "Everyone at Marvel Television and Netflix is grateful to the dedicated showrunner, writers, cast and crew who brought Harlem’s Hero to life for the past two seasons, and to all the fans who have supported the series,”

This is a shock and a shame. The previous season of Luke Cage was terrific, and perhaps one of the best seasons of Marvel Netflix programming. There had been some early reports that a Luke Cage season 3 writers' room has been convened a few months back, but if it was, it didn't make any difference.

So let's have a look at the body count, shall we? The Defenders season 2 doesn't appear to be happening, and last week saw the cancellation of Iron Fist, another shame considering its greatly improved second season. On the bright side, The Punisher season 2 has already wrapped filming and will likely arrive in early 2019. Jessica Jones season 3 will follow, as that is currently filming. There's still no word on Daredevil season 4, but after its spectacular third season, hopefully there won't be any additional shenanigans there.

And while there is plenty of speculation out there that this all has to do with the imminent launch of Disney's own streaming service, and that Netflix and Disney are essentially looking to kneecap each other in the leadup to this, just a few days ago Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos seemed to throw cold water on that idea. "Those shows are for us to cancel,” Sarandos said (via Inverse), “and we’re super happy with their performance so far.”

And then there was the matter of the cryptic part of the statement that came with the Iron Fist cancellation, indicating that "the immortal Iron Fist will live on." Cancelling Luke Cage and Iron Fist within a week of each other sure will make fans think that maybe Marvel and Netflix are instead looking to ready a Heroes For Hire series. After all, the two shows have shared their supporting characters, and of course Danny Rand and Luke Cage were best known as co-headliners in the Power Man and Iron Fist comics of the '70s and '80s. Throw them together along with Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing and Simone Missick's Misty Knight and you've got yourself quite a team up show, and one without the baggage and expectations that came with The Defenders.

We'll see if it happens, but hopefully the streaming wars aren't affecting everyone's Marvel diet.

The line of succession for Designated Survivor leads to Netflix. ABC cancelled the Kiefer Sutherland vehicle after two seasons earlier in the year, but the studio behind the series, eOne, had been locked in talks with Netflix about picking up season 3 for well over a month, and a deal was finally agreed.

It's a mixed bag of news, as the third season will be much, much shorter than seasons 1 and 2 - Netflix has agreed to throw money behind just 10 episodes to start with.

THR reports that ER and Miracle Mile star Anthony Edwards has signed up for a role in season 3. He'll play Chief of Staff Mars Harper, “likable and folksy in his manner, and uses that gentility to impose his will. Savvy, experienced, and professional, Harper has served many administrations in many capacities. He is respected by all, regardless of party or ideological orientation. He’s come to impart discipline and organisation to a West Wing that, from his perch, has lacked focus. He will clash with other staff when he sees that the President’s (Sutherland) needs are not made number one, which will at times put him at odds with the new Campaign Manager (White) who might have her own agenda.”

The 'White' in question is Julie White (Shia The Beef's mum in Transformers). Her campaign manager is called Lorraine Zimmer, "a force of nature who takes no prisoners with her strongly held views, backed by years of professional experience running successful campaigns. Previously, she ran a PR firm and is noted for disrupting established businesses. She is embroiled in a nasty divorce, for which she’s expected to pay the alimony. At first, Zimmer is wary of working with President Kirkman (Sutherland), who’s never run in an election. But she’s keenly savvy and notes that he’s blazing a new trail as the nation’s first incumbent president running as an Independent. Zimmer loves the challenge of shaping the campaign, noting that she’ll go down in history if she helps Kirkman pull a win. That zest to win may drive her to engage in dirty tricks and ultimately more nefarious backroom deals.”

We’ll keep you posted on Designated Survivor season 3.

Designated Survivor season 3 story

President Kirkman will be up for re-election in season 3, and this time he has to earn it for real. Here's a brief synopsis of what lies ahead for you:

“President Kirkman will face a political reality… campaigning. What does it take to make a leader? What price will he be willing to pay? This season will explore today’s world of campaigning, smear tactics, debates, campaign finance, and ‘fake news.’ Democracy, as we know it, will hang in the balance.”

Designated Survivor season 3 revival

Star Kiefer Sutherland will be returning to the central role of President Kirkman, and he had this to say about the revival news:

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to play President Kirkman for season 3 of Designated Survivor with Netflix, eOne, and Neal Baer. I believe this format will allow us to continue to delve deeply into storylines and issues concerning the American electorate that were not previously possible.”

Designated Survivor was originally given a straight-to-series order by ABC and premiered in 2016 to strong ratings. While they declined in the second season, the delayed viewing numbers were promising, which bodes well for the streaming service.

The production of the show has been, shall we say, "turbulent", with four showrunners in two seasons, and a fifth signing on for the third season.

A Star Wars live-action TV show is coming to Disney's upcoming streaming service!

True to Lucasfilm's hot streak of matching great talent to its projects, the studio has chosen original MCU puppet master Jon Favreau as writer, producer, and showrunner for the series, and he recently confirmed a Madalore-based setting for it with the title The Mandalorian.

None other than George Lucas visited the set of The Mandalorian over the weekend, which Favreau described as a "birthday surprise"...

Dave Filoni got in the middle of a lovely Star Wars man sandwich (manwich?) for another pic...

A list of season 1 directors was recently released, and that $10 million-per-episode price tag definitely seems to be worth its weight in gold. Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) is directing the pilot episode, with Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) helming the rest of the season 1 instalments.

These pictures are bittersweet in a way, as many many years ago, Lucas had planned out his own Star Wars series, hiring Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) and Chris Chibnall (Doctor Who) amongst others to write two whole seasons of the new show for him. With all the scripts complete, the writers sat back and waited for filming to kick off over in Australia, but months and months went by with no news. The next thing they knew, Lucas had sold off Lucasfilm to Disney and they all sighed a collective "welp". The scripts still remain under lock and key (probably in that big Raiders warehouse).

We'll always wonder what that Star Wars series would have been like, but it seems George is backing this new venture anyway. Water under the bridge and that.

More as we get it.

The Mandalorian release date

We'll update this with more information when it becomes available, but the earliest we'll see this mysterious Star Wars TV series will be 2020.

Flip over to page 2 now for more cast, crew, story and behind the scenes stuff...

The Mandalorian cast

Following on from an exclusive story over at Making Star Wars earlier this week (see below) the site is now hearing that Game Of Thrones alum Pedro Pascal is up for the lead role in the expensive new series, which is said to be about the rebuilding of Mandalore after it fell during the Clone Wars.

There's been no official confirmation of Pascal's casting yet, but his three-season run on Netflix's Narcos is now over and done with, so linking him with another big budget show doesn't seem entirely out of the question.

For now, we're treating this as just a rumour, but if any more on this comes to light, we'll update you asap.

The Mandalorian images

We've now got a first image from the series, which features some new armour out in the wild, but is it Game Of Thrones star Pedro Pascal under that helmet? Hmm...

The Mandalorian behind the scenes

The Iron Man director's recognisable form can be seen on set in a bunch of new images posted by Making Star Wars. The site has it on good authority that the huge series is due to start filming this week in an undisclosed location.

You can head on over to Making Star Wars to examine the rest of the pictures for yourself if you like. See if you can spot any nerdy details that may give you a few clues about what we can expect from the new show! The site has also claimed that the production will soon be moving to a "coastal location" for futher shooting, so there could be more images online in the next few weeks.

Certainly don't expect this new Star Wars adventure to be a small affair just because it's on TV, though. The New York Times reports that the show will "cost roughly $100 million for 10 episodes." That's a staggering $10 million per episode! We need to have a little lie down just thinking about that, but it's not as though Disney doesn't have the cash to splash on anything it damn well pleases these days.

Favreau clearly has no plans to stop dishing out little teases of the upcoming series over on Instagram. He recently posted a picture of a familiar-looking weapon...

It took a while to sink in, but yes, Boba Fett's Amban phase-pulse blaster from the much-maligned animated 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special has seemingly become a reality in The Mandalorian. Hey, what happens in Mandalore, stays in Mandalore.

The Mandalorian story

At the world premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story a while back, Favreau revealed to Nerdist that the series will take place seven years after the events of Return Of The Jedi, effectively setting up the series as a bridge between the Original and Sequel Trilogies. The series will feature all-new characters, as well.

This is good news, as the post-ROTJ timeline remains largely unexplored since the new canon was established. There's little reason to continue to mine the era between the Clone Wars and the Original Trilogy, which has now been covered so well by two animated series and a film, and the saga of the Skywalkers is no longer the centre of the Star Wars universe. The blank slate quality of the era between ROTJ and The Force Awakens will allow Favreau to really dig into something new and fresh.

“I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform,” says Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy in a statement about the new series a while back. “Jon brings the perfect mix of producing and writing talent, combined with a fluency in the Star Wars universe. This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base.”

“If you told me at 11 years old that I would be getting to tell stories in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn’t have believed you," Favreau added. "I can’t wait to embark upon this exciting adventure.”

Here's a synopsis from Favreau...

"AFTER THE STORIES OF JANGO AND BOBA FETT, ANOTHER WARRIOR EMERGES IN THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE. THE MANDALORIAN IS SET AFTER THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE AND BEFORE THE EMERGENCE OF THE FIRST ORDER. WE FOLLOW THE TRAVAILS OF A LONE GUNFIGHTER IN THE OUTER REACHES OF THE GALAXY FAR FROM THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW REPUBLIC.”

HBO will not be foisting Larry David on any other network, as it's officially bringing us a 10th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm - just not as soon as we thought.

Larry David tends to like to make the people wait. The gap between season 8 and season 9 was six full years. This time around, however, the Curb crew was set to get back to work right after the season 9 finale in December 2017...

...that did not end up happening, as you can gather. But The Wrap has now confirmed that season 10 did finally go before cameras on 19th October. There were no further details released.

Season 9 started off a bit roughly, but eventually reached creative highs thanks to its ongoing Fatwa! musical plotline and a two-episode guest appearance from Lin-Manuel Miranda.

If the show is able to continually attract guest stars of that caliber and keep up with modern trends just enough so that a cranky David may find the annoyances in them, there's certainly no reason to stop now. Season 9 ended with the kind of tongue-in-cheek cliffhanger that the show rarely follows up on so while it's funny to imagine Larry running away from the Ayatollah for eternity, there are still many more exasperated adventures to be found in sunny L.A.

"We are thrilled that Larry will be back with his uniquely acerbic wit and comedic sensibility,” HBO programming president Casey Bloys said in a statement at the time of season 10's announcement.

We'll get there eventually!

More as it arrives.

Daredevil is back in his third season, and as usual we’re going to be reviewing every episode of the series – one per day – providing analysis, Easter egg spots and speculation for those who aren’t planning to binge it all in one go. All discussion is welcome but please don’t spoil future episodes in the comments.

3.3. No Good Deed

The series is well on its way now, with Fisk being delivered to his safehouse hotel. Now that he’s out of jail, I think we have absolutely zero belief that this is exactly what he wanted – the question is what will he do next?

Giving Matt hallucinations of Fisk as he tries to answer the same question is a good way of putting these characters in the same space without the usual Netflix problem of mortal enemies confronting one another multiple times a season but then failing to deliver the necessary killing blow (metaphorically speaking). Fisk’s reappearance awakens the debate in Matt over whether he should play god and just kill his foe to save many more. Clearly, if nothing else, prison won’t work.

The best scene in this episode, though? Matt confronting Foggy in the bar. Not only did it give us a surprisingly low-key way for Matt to reveal his survival to Foggy, it also showed us how Matt has changed. There’s no warmth, no sentimentality to their interactions, and it turned out he was only doing it to steal Foggy’s wallet – so really, if he hadn’t wanted to get that he might not even have done it at all.

Foggy, of course, reacted exactly as you’d expect. It’s hard not to see Matt as the worst person ever and he certainly doesn’t deserve his friends. It contrasts well that you have Matt off making bad decisions and feeling like he can’t be helped while Marcy and Foggy and Karen and Mitch are all collaborating to support and protect one another. People often complain about the supporting cast, but here their presence and dynamics show us what Matt’s missing out on.

Fisk, meanwhile, is trying to worm his way into Dex’s head and I think we all know it’s only a matter of time. That said, he seemed relatively genuine up until he turned out to be a crazy stalker, and I think we all saw something like that coming as soon as he hesitated during his psych evaluation.

Of course, Fisk also knows that Daredevil is back, and we have to wonder whether his suspicions from Season 2 have been followed up on. You can count on Fisk not to disregard them, that’s for sure, so in a way Matt’s plan to detach himself from everyone is coming too late. Of course, Fisk himself isn’t exactly bullet-proof – he’s doing all this because of Vanessa, and while he’s trying to keep her safe it’s not as if people don’t know she’s his weak spot. I don’t predict good things happening to any of these characters, to be honest.

Reference-wise the show seems interested in keeping the comics at arm’s length, which is why I haven’t spoken about them too much lately, but Kingpin in a white suit is (of course) his classic look. It first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967).

Read James' review of the previous episode, Please, here.

Despite it being a good few years since both franchises came to an end, Twilight and The Hunger Games remain the obligatory point of reference for every new YA adaptation. A film like The Hate U Give, searing, intense and one that commands your attention, puts the escapades of Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen in perspective – because for all the hardship those girls suffered, their pain barely scratches the surface of what Starr Carter has to endure.

Adapted from Angie Thomas’ acclaimed bestseller – a watershed moment for diversity in the YA books industry - and justly so, Thomas writes with a scalpel – The Hate U Give follows Starr, a girl born and raised in Garden Heights, a predominantly black neighbourhood in a hazily-defined part of suburban America.

By the time the movie checks in with Starr she’s successfully compartmentalised her life, splitting herself into two different versions. There’s the girl who’s authentically herself, who embraces her black identity, and the girl who’s approachable, innocuous and palatable for her majority white classmates at Williamson Prep, an upscale academy where most kids drive their own Range Rovers.

She separates her social circles, balancing her doting family with her not very woke friends and well-meaning but doltish boyfriend, Chris. Worlds collide when Starr is the sole witness to the murder of her friend Khalil by a white police officer, and it galvanises the activist within her.

Amandla Stenberg’s performance here is nothing short of sensational – it’s an impassioned, layered calling card for an actor whose talents deserve to better utilised. As Starr, the rage within her grows until it reaches boiling point; Stenberg lets us see every moment of anguish, of sorrow. Frankly, it’s Oscar-worthy, and it’s a pity that the historic aversion to YA films will likely discount her exceptional work.

Stenberg is not the only star who makes the material sing. Director George Tillman Jr. has assembled an enviable cluster of actors to bring Thomas’ characters to life. As Starr’s parents, Regina Hall and Russell Hornsby have arguably some of the biggest heavy-lifting here and they soar. Hornsby in particular radiates the charm and authority a patriarch and pillar of the community like his character needs to possess.

Likewise, Anthony Mackie plays solidly against type as a local kingpin, his charisma as Falcon replaced with a slippery malice; Riverdale’s KJ Apa, Christopher Plummered into the film at the last minute, effortlessly sells Chris’ dorky ignorance.

There are some moments that do detract from the power of the material, unfortunately. Tillman Jr.’s direction is too clumsy for The Hate U Give to achieve greatness, his way of commemorating Khalil verging on mawkish when the film should be at its strongest.

Similarly, stylistic choices like casting scenes set at and around Williamson in a terminally icy-blue, clinical filter to clash with the warm honey glow of Garden Heights feel heavy-handed, and one particular scene during the climax is very out of keeping with the rest of the film, to the point where it disrupts the flow at such a crucial moment.

That being said, The Hate U Give gets so close to perfection; it’s a YA adaptation so packed to the gunwales with feeling and emotion and real, wonderful people you fall for that it makes up for every anaemic Hunger Games knock-off. Hats off to everyone involved as Angie Thomas’ novel has translated into a gripping piece of filmmaking – this is the kind of stuff that should be mandatory viewing in schools.

The Hate U Give is in UK cinemas now.

This review contains spoilers.

12.5 The Planetaruim Collision

Of all the various relationships present on The Big Bang Theory twelve years in, there’s one that’s been there from the beginning and never really faltered. Howard and Raj have had their differences, but their friendship has managed to endure right up until the end.

Their disagreement in The Planetarium Collision is a familiar one, but its resolution shows how far the two of them have come. When it’s suggested that Howard be a key part of Raj’s lecture at the planetarium both of their insecurities flair up. Raj is worried that Howard will take over the talk and thus steal one of the things Raj has secured for himself, and Howard doesn’t want Raj’s jealousy to dampen his understandable (of often mentioned) pride from being an astronaut.

The continuity of this storyline is half of what makes it, with Raj’s job at the planetarium thankfully not a forgotten relic of last season. The gig is significant for the character in that it was a key part of his newfound confidence (and better hairstyle), and it makes total sense that he would want to keep it to himself.

Raj’s career has been the least defined on the four lads over the years, but in the end it’s nice to see him and Howard learn to share their grown-up toys. I have no idea what the rest of the lecture audience thought of their love fest, but it sure did stoke Leonard’s sentimental streak.

Over in Shamy land, the couple have had their first proper marital spat. It doesn’t feel nearly as contrived as the one in the season premiere, which simply picked from the grab bag of potential conflicts for the couple, but instead puts a real obstacle in their way that doesn’t really get resolved by the end.

When Amy tells Sheldon that she can’t work on their joint project as much as he’d like because she has her actual job to go to, he takes it upon himself to ask for a sabbatical on her behalf. She’s granted the break, but is furious when she finds a stranger standing in her lab and reading through her notes. This is a project she’s invested years in, she tells Sheldon, and she’s not willing to give it up.

The idea of Sheldon being selfish and oblivious is played out at this point, but the writers manage to draw as many laughs out of the concept as they can - even lampshading his propensity to mansplain. We know it’s going to blow up in his face, but he genuinely doesn’t know Amy will be upset. Most satisfying is her reaction, as she tells her husband that she doesn’t want to sacrifice her individuality for the relationship.

Interestingly for those on Leonard/Penny divorce watch, they don’t get a full storyline this week but they still manage to fit in some quality bickering. Just business as usual or a sign of things to come? Time will tell.

The Planetarium Collision felt like another wrap-up episode of the show, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the last significant storyline between Raj and Howard that we get. Something about their exchange felt like taking stock of The Big Bang Theory’s most enduring partnership, and I’m glad their bond got its time in the spotlight.

Read Caroline's review of the previous episode, The Tam Turbulance, here.

Daredevil is back in his third season, and as usual we’re going to be reviewing every episode of the series – one per day – providing analysis, Easter egg spots and speculation for those who aren’t planning to binge it all in one go. All discussion is welcome but please don’t spoil future episodes in the comments.

3.4 Blindsided

It’s the obligatory Netflix Impressive Fight Scene, as pioneered by the original series of Daredevil. In this case, however, it’s attached to perhaps one of the most tense and engaging stories yet as Matt infiltrates a prison only to find it overrun with the Kingpin’s men, then has to survive long enough to get out.

Driving Matt’s determination is his desire to see what Fisk is up to, and it seems like he dramatically underestimated the extent of his foe’s power. A scene where Matt is taken, seemingly benevolently, into a Doctor’s office only ramps the tension up from “Will anyone realise I’m using Foggy Nelson’s fake ID?” to “Will I get out of this alive?” with a masterful turn. We’re so busy worrying about one thing that we don’t notice the other creeping up around us.

Of course, the 10-minute one-take sequence is breathtaking on a technical level, but what makes it work is that we care whether Matt succeeds, and know what’s at stake if he doesn’t. It’s exciting and chaotic and completely successful on every level, and it’s the sort of thing that these Netflix shows benefit from: the ability to be a little more ambitious than your standard network show. If you’ve ever caught the Cambodian martial arts dramaJailbreak on Netflix, it reminded me of that.

After this extended sequence the episode sort of trails off a bit. This should either have been the whole episode, or at least the very end of it. Matt spending time passed out in a cab for the back half does lead into a decent cliffhanger, but the intervening scenes come off a little piecemeal.

Now, I admit that Foggy trying to convince the cops to support him in a run for DA might be a good moment for him, but it isn’t QUITE the height of the first section. Likewise, Karen pulling a gun on some catcallers does illustrate that she’s extremely frayed and subtly remind us that she’s got a pro-Punisher agenda with a history of murdering supporting characters. You don’t have to be a genius to see that we’ll probably get the resolution to Karen’s murder of Wesley and her long-teased backstory this season.

Speaking of Karen, I do find Mitch’s position quite defensible here. He’s trying to run a newspaper with journalistic standards and Karen’s trying to muscle in with her extremely compromised view of Fisk. Admittedly, as the audience we know she’s correct but having an impartial journalist on the case can only make Fisk look guiltier. I feel for the guy.

Nadeem, though? His life is coming apart at the seams as his wife and son move out, understandably terrified of him being murdered by Fisk or someone trying to get to him. Likewise, Fisk covers for Dex so that he isn’t investigated for his extremely accurate murdering. Whatever happens next, it’s clear that the FBI is vulnerable to manipulation. And if Captain America: The Winter Soldier taught us anything, it’s that costumed vigilantes are a preferable alternative to easily-corrupted institutions.

Comics wise, the only real reference here is Matt being sent into the river in a taxi, which is a scene you’ll find in the classic Daredevil story, Born Again, on which much of this season is based –although Foggy running for DA has also happened in the comics a couple of times (unsuccessfully). Unlike Foggy, Matt has been an assistant to the DA but I don’t think he’s ever run himself.

Read James' review of the previous episode, No Good Deed, here.

Guillermo del Toro has been trying to make an animated musical version of Pinocchio for years, but the project seems to have been permanently stuck in limbo. Now that he’s able to put a Best Picture Oscar on the deal table after The Shape of Water, del Toro has finally got his green light from Netflix – with Pinocchio expected to start production within the next few months.

Made in collaboration with the Jim Henson company, the film will be a stop-motion musical - marking del Toro's animated feature directorial debut.

“No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” said del Toro in a statement. “In our story, Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world. I’ve wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember.”

Telling everyone that the film definitely wasn’t happening for years, del Toro was quite happy to let us all know what we were missing, revealing his ideas for a 30’s set stop-motion musical. 

“The idea was to do Pinocchio during the ascension of fascism in Italy, with Mussolini,” he told IGN last year. “It was a good time to discuss the idea of being a puppet or being a human”.

“We wanted to make it different in the sense that it is not just a fairy tale but a fairy tale that actually moves you and emotionally affects you. It deals with ideas that are relevant to everyone, to all mankind in a way,” he added to Entertainment Weekly, comparing his take on the story to Frankenstein.   

Thankfully, the project has now found a home at Netflix, with Melissa Cobb, Vice President of Kids and Family, announcing the decision with the following statement: 

“Throughout his distinguished career, Guillermo has exhibited mastery in inspiring people through his magical worlds filled with unforgettable and magnificent characters, from the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth to the aquatic beast in The Shape of Water. We are incredibly excited to expand our relationship with Guillermo and we know that his deeply touching vision for bringing Pinocchio to life on Netflix will be embraced by audiences the world over.”

The film will be made in collaboration with the Jim Henson Company, and del Toro will co-direct with Mark Gustafson, who worked on Fantastic Mr Fox, using puppets built by the team who designed The Corpse Bride.

The late director Tobe Hooper – a man who also had The Texas Chainsaw Massacre amongst his impressive list of credits – faced a whole host of challenges when he decided to embark upon the now-classic 1982 horror, Poltergeist. Notwithstanding, as we’ll explore a little in the video below, the ongoing questions he faced over authorship of the movie, there was the small matter of realising something so complex on screen, and making it look anything but. All in an era where a computer couldn’t do the heavy lifting for you.

Hooper actually got involved in Poltergeist in the first instance back in the mid-1970s, when The Exorcist director William Friedkin was his mentor of sorts, and Hooper earned a studio development contract. He landed in the former office of Robert Wise – whose directorial career spun West Side Story through to Star Trek: The Motion Picture– and discovered, as the story goes, the novel of Poltergeist there. For the best part of a decade, he’d develop the film, eventually working with Steven Spielberg to bring it to the screen.

One thing that made Poltergeist stand out from other horror tales is when it took place. Lots of spooky films take place at night, for fairly obvious reasons. With Poltergeist, though – and the recent IT movie would tap into this, too – a lot of the narrative building was done during the day, and the light. Bright lights, rather than dark shadows, are often harder to build tension in.
Here are a few more nerdy Poltergeist facts to wrap your brain around…

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When it came to actually making the film, Hooper firstly heavily storyboarded the key moments in the movie. He had the advantage of the bulk of the movie being set in a domestic home (save for two weeks of location shooting), and thus the bulk of the effects-driven moments could be filmed at a contained environment. That work was done at MGM’s studios, and one of the biggest investments was on a gimbal.

A gimbal is a device that rotates an object, or in this case, a set. Christopher Nolan used a rotating set to optimum effect in 2010’s Inception. In the case of Poltergeist, Hooper got there nearly three decades before. Multiple sets of the children’s bedroom were made, one of those was mounted on the gimbal (and the parents’ bedroom would use it too). And what makes so many of the key moments in Poltergeist work is that they’re very clearly in-camera, relying on filming ingenuity.

It’d be remiss to say that there was an absence of off-set effects work in Poltergeist. It was a project that was worked on by the-then-in-its-relative-infancy Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). But still: pretty much every key spooky moment you see in the movie was grounded on a movie set. Something a subset of modern big budget horrors could learn something from.

Believe it or not, it took over a month after Wonder Woman came out for the sequel to be confirmed. As if Warner Bros. and DC weren't going to want a follow up to their most successful (and arguably best) superhero film to date...

Since then, we know that Gal Gadot is back in front of the camera, Patty Jenkins is back behind it, and the film is going to jump the story forward to the mid 80s. 

The DCEU seems to be going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, with Superman (maybe) leaving, Batman (maybe) not coming back and about 17 planned Joker/Harley Quinn movies that almost certainly won't all get made if the first one flops. But whatever else is going on in the background, at least we've still got Diana Prince.

We'll keep this page up to date with more news as we get it, but here's everything you need to know about Wonder Woman 1984...

Wonder Woman 1984 trailer

There's no trailer yet, but we do have the low-down on the footage that was screened at SDCC. 

"Wonder Woman is in a mall, a little girl sees her and says 'Oh my God.' Then Wonder Woman picks her up and throws her out of the way into the arms of a big stuffed animal. She then turns and fights two guys with guns, disarms them, then lassos them and jumps from one level of the mall to the other. Quick cut to the WW84 logo, then a shot of WW running at top speed down a city street through stalled cars and people."

Wonder Woman 1984 plot

Here's the official synopsis...as sparse as it may be.

Fast forward to the 1980s as Wonder Woman’s next big screen adventure finds her facing an all-new foe: The Cheetah. 

Like something ripped from today's headlines, Diana might be taking on the Soviet Union in Wonder Woman 2. ScreenRant were the first to report (and this was confirmed by The Wrap) that plans are taking shape for Wonder Woman 2 to take place in the 1980s, with a focus on Diana's efforts at the end of the Cold War. 

In an interview with EW, Jenkins said that Wonder Woman 1984 “will take place in the US, which I think is right. She’s Wonder Woman. She’s got to come to America. It’s time.” Since it's unlikely that the movie will play up the Russians as straight villains (much like how they handled the Germans in the first film's World War I setting), this could turn out be a matter of Diana averting an unintended nuclear armageddon. In any case, don't expect this to be a situation like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace where the hero tries to rid the world of all nuclear weapons or anything like that.

Although it also sounds like Patty Jenkins is at least a little excited to tell a more modern Diana story. “The most exciting thing," she told ET Online, "is literally seeing her loose in the world now, living those classic stories," added Jenkins. "Here’s Wonder Woman, and what can she do? It should be a totally different movie, but a grand and now full-blown Wonder Woman in the world."

“I want to make a whole new movie that’s as pure and unique in its right as the first one was” adds Jenkins to the ComicCon crowd, hinting that the film will follow more of a loose comic-book continuity (which might explain how Steve comes back to life after 67 years...). “The bar is high,” says Gadot, “but our aspirations are even higher.”

“There’s lots of things set in the ’80s now, but this has a very different look and feel,” says Jenkins. “But the ’80s were also grand and wonderful with a lot of elegant and beautiful things too… and there was great music.”

That means we're getting a cool soundtrack. 

Wonder Woman 1984 cast

Gal Gadot will obviously return in the title role, but the bigger surprise is that Chris Pine is (somehow) back as Steve Trevor. “Why is he back?” asks Jenkins at the ComicCon panel, “that’s something I’m super excited for everyone to find out. But it’s a very important part of our movie”. In other words, she's not telling. 

Narcos (and former Game Of Thrones) star Pedro Pascal has joined the cast in what is being described (via Variety) as a "key role." No other details are currently available. It's not clear if he'll be playing a hero or a villain. But one thing we do know...

...he sure looks like he might be playing a jerk in the movie.

The rest of the cast also includes Natasha Rothwell (Insecure), Ravi Patel, and Gabriella Wilde according to Deadline. Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright are also back as Diana's aunt and mum, which either suggests that we're going to get a flashback, or that Wonder Woman is actually going to head back to Themyscira. 

We also know that Kristen Wiig is playing the baddie...

Wonder Woman 1984 villain

The very first image of Wiig’s Wonder Woman 1984 villain, Barbara Minerva, a.k.a. Cheetah, has officially arrived, courtesy of Patty Jenkins.

What we’re seeing here seems to align with the comic version of Cheetah (the third out of four,) who starts out as Barbara Ann Minerva, an archaeologist whose fascination with an African tribe’s female cheetah guardian leads her to a Faustian bargain with ancient plant god Urzkartaga. The supernatural act yields her immortality and the physical abilities – and physical attributes – of a cheetah.

The image of Wiig's unassuming Barbara (who's appropriately gazing at an exhibit of African wildlife,) seems to resemble the pre-Catwoman state of Michelle’s Pfeiffer’s mousy office assistant version of Selina Kyle in 1992’s Batman Returns - described in the comics as "severely neurotic".  

Wonder Woman 1984 crew

Patty Jenkins did a wonderful job with the first movie, so it makes a lot of sense to bring her back to direct the sequel. 

The film is being written by David Callaham (The Expendables, Godzilla) and long-time DC writer Geoff Johns, who actually co-wrote the first film with Jenkins, uncredited. 

We also know who is composing the score: as Hans Zimmer is returning to the fold as the Wonder Woman 1984 composer after previously seeming to swear off superhero movies. Indeed, Film Music Reporter broke the news that Zimmer would be stepping into the saga's musical department, taking over the reins from Rupert Gregson-Williams. This marks Zimmer's second scheduled return to the genre in 2019, as he also was lured back to compose the score for Simon Kinberg's X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Of course this is a lovely homecoming for the Wonder Woman saga since Zimmer composed the "Wonder Woman Theme," which along with Gal Gadot's Diana was considered the highlight of Batman v Superman. While Gregson-Williams did solid work, we cannot deny that this is good news, and hopefully a sign that the DC film universe continues its upswing after the 2017 film.

Wonder Woman 1984 filming

Filming is currently underway in Almería, Spain, with the production scheduled to wrap in December. Filming has also taken place in Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, Northern Virginia in the United States, London, Tenerife and Fuerteventura.

So far, very little seems to have trickled out from the set - apart from this video of the crew cheering Gal (presumably because she's wearing Crocs with her Wonder Woman outift?).

Wonder Woman 1984 release date

Wonder Woman 1984 was originally due to be released on November 1st, 2019, but the date was recently bumped back a hefty seven months, to June 5th, 2020. Gadot revealed the news herself, via a repost on the official Wonder Woman 1984 Instagram account: 

Gadot's confusing caption that the film has "gone back to its rightful home" is a reference to the first film's release on the first weekend of June (back in 2017). As to the "changing landscape" that caused it, that seems to be down to a number of release reshuffles at Disney and DC that have been trying to avoid clashes and gaps over the next few years. So far, the filming is still expected to wrap in December, so it doesn't sound like the delay is down to anything other than strategic box-office planning.

Either way, we've now got longer to wait... 

The Inside No. 9 Halloween live special will be its twenty-fifth episode. That’s some achievement -  twenty-five entirely new scenarios, characters, casts and locations. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith aren’t stopping there though. A brand new series is also on its way to BBC Two, due to air in 2019.

Series five is currently still in the writing stage, a process Pemberton describes to assembled press at a mid-October photoshoot as very sociable. “We always like to be in the same room, which a lot of writing partners don’t. We live very close to each other so we have a little office and go to the same places for our lunch and we spitball a lot of ideas for a long time.”

Shearsmith agrees. “There is a lot of talking before we begin, so we make sure where we are going and that there is no fat on anything before we start writing. That’s really helped us over the years. We really know what we want to get out of a story before we write it.”

Having dipped into multiple genres already in the anthology series, there are still styles the pair want to try out. “We’ve got a few of them in series five,” says Shearsmith. “There are some things in that that are going to be very challenging. 

Is it getting tougher to come up with new and innovative ideas for episodes?

“I think what is harder,” says Pemberton, “is that when you have pulled a number of surprises, and really have genuinely shocked people, it is hard to continually do that. We don’t want to feel the pressure that we always have to do that, but then when we don’t, people go ‘it’s a shame it didn’t have a surprise at the end’.”

“It does keep us on our toes and we have to work very hard to make sure that this doesn’t become an ordinary half-hour. Our aim for the series as a whole is for people to think ‘my God I have never seen anything like that.’”

“It is a lifetime of material,” adds Shearsmith. “One of them, I always think ‘God, that could be a whole series’ rather than just one half-hour. But that’s why we can reach the heights in the stories that we’re able to, because it is concluded that week. You couldn’t do the same thing if you had to reset for next week and start again with the same thing. It’s the curse and the pleasure of it that you can reach very extraordinary conclusions.”

Pemberton continues, “It’s good for the audience as well, because you don’t know when you’re watching it who’s going to live and who’s going to die. Anything could happen and that puts the audience on edge.”

Five series in, Shearsmith describes the show’s relationship with its audience as “adversarial”. “They’re sat there like ‘right then, I’m going to get this [twist]!’ and you mustn’t do that because sometimes we don’t do that. It’s not all about the last thirty seconds, it’s the journey getting there and thinking of a good story that hooks you in.”

Dead Line, the Inside No. 9 live Halloween special, airs on Sunday the 28^th of October at 10pm.

On one unseasonably warm October afternoon, a strange sight will have befallen the dog walkers of Stoke Newington. Two men in black, standing among the headstones of Abney Park Cemetery, holding a lighted pumpkin engraved with a number nine.

If the photoshoot for Inside No. 9’s live Halloween special takes place somewhere suitably atmospheric, the venue for the press meet and greet afterwards is much more in the way of a Portakabin. With a door that shrieks upon opening as if being operated by a lab assistant named Igor, this particular Portakabin, on the cemetery grounds, has risen to meet the challenge of its surroundings. As four series of Inside No. 9 prove, Portakabin or train carriage, wardrobe or art gallery, there’s nowhere Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith can’t lend a chill. 

Halloween special Dead Line involves a churchyard, hence the choice of interview venue. Even if it didn’t, the foremost London cemetery for dissenters practising their religion outside the establishment feels like a fitting place to talk about Inside No. 9. Not just because its creators have an affinity with the macabre (“Doing a photoshoot in a graveyard with a pumpkin, I’ve died and gone to heaven!” says a delighted Shearsmith), but because they’re dissenters too. From League Of Gentlemen to Psychoville to Inside No. 9, Pemberton and Shearsmith’s work falls outside of the establishment. Comedy-horror-drama, or drama-horror-comedy, it’s hard to categorise. Its sole constant is surprise. You never know what you’re going to get.

We know very little about what we’re going to get with Dead Line. Mid-October, rehearsals have yet to start, costumes have yet to be fitted and the studio is yet to be finalised. As a live episode, it won’t be filmed on location. “It’ll be a multi-camera set-up,” explains Pemberton. “But it won’t be like The Devil Of Christmas!”

“Hopefully it won’t be like [2016 festive special] The Devil Of Christmas,” agrees Shearsmith, “we’re not doing an ironical take on something being filmed badly. Dead Line is a contemporary-set episode. “It should just be a good episode of Inside No. 9 that happens to be live as well, we’ve tried to make it as detailed as any other episode.”

In the episode, which goes out on Sunday the 28^th of October at 10pm on BBC Two, Pemberton plays Arthur Flitwick, a man who finds a mobile phone in a churchyard and endeavours to trace its owner. Shearsmith will play local vicar Reverend Neil, and the pair will be joined by their only guest star this time around, Stephanie Cole, playing parish member Moira. 

Writing on the episode began in the summer, before the pair went on the road with comedy collaborators Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson for the League Of Gentlemen Live tour. “It’s just slowly coming together now,” says Shearsmith.

No strangers to the Halloween special, having made one for Psychoville in 2010, the idea of performing a live Inside No. 9 came from the BBC. 

“When someone puts that challenge down it is really impossible to ignore,” says Pemberton. “Especially as we have done other things like a whole silent episode, a musical episode and one set entirely in a wardrobe.”

Shearsmith explains, “It harks back to the ethos of No. 9 which is Play for Today and Armchair Thriller, which feel like they were filmed live, obviously they weren’t, but that sort of telly-making suits the storytelling.”

“It’s an unusual prospect for us,” says Pemberton. “We’ve never done anything like this before. It’s much more like how they used to do it in the old days - a lot of prep, a lot of build-up and one chance to get it right on the night.”

The need to get it right on the night is familiar to both from their time in the theatre. As is the experience of ‘drying’ on stage. Pemberton describes the first night of She Stoops To Conquer at The National Theatre and having to pour a glass of wine on stage while his hand was shaking uncontrollably. “It’s not necessarily nerves though, it is adrenaline,” he says. 

“I did The Producers for a year and about ten months in, I suddenly thought ‘I don’t know the first line of this thing, what am I doing!?’” says Shearsmith. 

“You just get this look in your eyes of ‘I don’t know what to say next’” laughs Pemberton. “I remember when we did Art, Mark [Gatiss] helped me out a couple of times when I’d completely forgotten my train of thought!” 

“We’ll just have to watch each other’s backs,” says Shearsmith, “and try to muddle through.” After forty-seven dates on the League Of Gentlemen tour, he’s not that nervous. “As long as we rehearse it well enough we will be alright. We’re confident about it.” It’s only a half-hour, adds Pemberton. “It’s not like a two-hour play, so we should be okay.”

Anyway, Pemberton laughs. The commotions of a live episode, such as the mishaps during 2005’s The Quatermass Experiment—one of Dead Line’s rare predecessors as modern live TV drama—are “what people want to see!”

People also want, especially with an Inside No. 9 episode, to be scared. They can expect that from Dead Line. “With it being a Halloween episode it is quite a spooky story,” promises Shearsmith. “And funny as well, so a bit of both. It’s not a comedy romp in the way that some of the others are a bit more farcical. This one is definitely in the horror genre.”

“We wanted to draw on the lovely Halloween special creepiness of EC Comics and Tales From the Darkside.”

Shearsmith loves Halloween. If he could, he says he’d have it every day of the year. For a birthday present, Pemberton once took him to a haunted house event. “You go and you spend six or seven hours all through the night and they do table tipping or scrying. We found a face in a mirror, didn’t we? But then it turned out to be a bit of wax that hadn’t been rubbed in properly.” 

Neither has had any actual supernatural experiences in real-life. A few years ago for BBC Radio 4, they held a ghost vigil in a reputedly haunted house called The Ram Inn in Bristol. “There were some spooky goings-on,” says Shearsmith, “but it was all in our minds.”

“It was Mark [Gatiss]!” says Pemberton. “We did a séance and there were some tappings under the table and at the end Mark said ‘yeah, that was me’!” he laughs. “I was all set to believe it and then he confessed it was him all along.”

As part of the spooky celebrations, Shearsmith often goes to Jonathan Ross’ famous Halloween party. His costume of choice? “I try and think of things that are a bit leftfield. One year I went to Jonathan’s with my son. I played Anthony Hopkins and my son was dressed as the dummy ‘Fats’ from the film Magic. I walked around carrying my son all night, but he weighed a tonne!”

Pemberton prefers to stay in for Mischief Night, taking the kids out trick or treating. He’s had to rethink putting out one particular decoration though. “I had a Pumpkin made of my head in the Psychoville Halloween special, so I sometimes put that out, but it is genuinely terrifying,” he laughs. “The whole face is cut up and the eyes are cut out so you don’t really want to have that outside your house so a load of eight-year-olds see it…”

Psychoville provided a valuable experience to help preparations for this seasonal special. One episode filmed in a single long take meant that the effects all had to happen in camera, “so we’re used to doing that,” says Pemberton. In that episode “we had to hang a body on the back of a door and the door had to open and the body had to be stabbed, and it all had to happen in real time with no stopping, so there’s always ways and little tricks and theatrical tricks you can use.” 

Prior to rehearsals starting, Dead Line has been planned to the last detail. “Until we get in and get in that rehearsal room with all the equipment and with all the crew and everybody who has to work with us—it’s  like a ballet between us and the crew, as they’re moving around and you’re moving around into different positions—it’s going to be a really exciting evening,” says Pemberton. “Let’s hope it is scary in the right way!”

A couple of elements in the live episode promise to be technically challenging. “Until we get in the sets and physically do it, you can’t know,” says Pemberton. “But we’ve gone through it in our heads and we think it’s going to work well, but we shall see. It’ll be alright on the night!”

Dead Line airs on Sunday the 28^thof October at 10pm on BBC Two. Be there and be scared.