Through 2011’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (directed by Rupert Wyatt) to 2014’s Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (with Matt Reeves taking over directing duties), we’ve seen how humans have succumbed to an outbreak of a deadly virus, and how an uneasy truce between our species and the apes disintegrated thanks to Caesar’s vengeful second-in-command, Koba (Toby Kebbell). Thanks to Koba, an army led by Colonel McCullough (Woody Harrelson) seeks to exterminate the apes – and with a battle at the apes’ secret woodland hideout leaving Caesar’s tribe exposed and vulnerable, the leader heads off on a personal mission to take McCullough and divert his forces away from the fleeing apes....

Standing alongside him, hunched over into an uncomfortable looking position to better fit into the frame, is the chiselled Alexander Skarsgard as Terry, a wild-eyed, hard-drinking bruiser who specialises in knocking bad guys out with one punch. War On Everyone opens with Bob and Terry careening along in the latter’s classic muscle car in hot pursuit of a perp who happens to be a mime artist. This allows Bob to deliver the first of many wry quips: “If a mime gets hit by a car, does he make a sound?...

This train of thought has been lingering for a few days, backed up this weekend when I was flicking through obscure Sky channels and came across something called D-MAX. It seems to show nothing but Airwolf, Hulk and Knight Rider repeats, and after watching for a few hours (it was a slow Saturday…) I began to come around to my friends’ way of thinking. TV in the 80s was, in all honesty, actually pretty rubbish....

The movie brings sabacc to the forefront of its story and promotional materials, but the game has a much longer history than Solo, though. In fact, the rules for sabacc in the film are not quite the same as those established for the Expanded Universe, but the basic mechanic of subtracting and adding numbered cards is the same. Here’s a history of sabacc and how it has been played throughout the years....

In came Ron Howard to take over the film. Howard reportedly reshot much of what Lord and Miller had done. And in an interview with EW, Howard chatted about taking the job. The director explained that getting the call to direct a Star Wars film was a bit of a surprise, especially since he hadn’t planned to direct anything in 2017. “But when I learned that this change was happening, it just came in a moment where I was working on lots of new projects for Imagine, and I had not planned to direct anything last year....

1.2 Entirely Beloved After last week’s episode of Wolf Hall featured disappointingly few actual wolves, this week made up for it with a veritable menagerie. Animals featured were as follows. Horses (several), kittens (1), greyhounds (4), rabbits (2 – 1 real, 1 human in bunny ears), monkeys (1) and wasps (1 – my mistake, that was Mark Gatiss relishing every poisonous sting the script gave to antagonist Stephen Gardiner). In Wolf Hall’s second handsome hour, animals and omens were both in fine supply, the latter used to show Cromwell’s honed powers of manipulation....

After last week’s brilliant series opener introduced us to so many complex ideas while simultaneously being an incredibly entertaining hour of television, it would be fair to say the follow-up episode couldn’t come soon enough. Not to see whether it could ever top the first, as that kind of isn’t the point, but because Cox had, unbelievably, left us eager to learn more. Not that he needed this particular hook to reel in the viewers, but if Cox proved anything last week it was that conveying his themes in terms that relate directly to us makes them all the more salient, despite both the grand scales and bafflingly minute processes he describes....

You can always spot the worst of the fans. They continually bleat on about how they don’t like cars but the programme is so hilarious and why don’t you just watch it? Most seem unable to grasp that it’s possible to have seen the programme and just not like it. I don’t care about motoring; I also don’t give two hoots about cooking and will happily watch Gordon Ramsay. Here’s the real problem with Top Gear – there are certain aspects of the show that it not only does well, but seems to do better than any other show on telly....

After a one week absence for the Thanksgiving holiday, Jack jets with Liz to her hometown of White Haven, Pennsylvania where he’ll drop her off to attend her high school reunion and he’ll continue on to Miami. He has big plans to party in the Florida sun to ease the pain of Don Geiss finally emerging from his coma, only to decide he’ll remain as CEO of GE until death....

Sophia (Catherine Walker) drafts in occult ritualist Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) to help her conduct rituals that will allow her to contact a dead relative. If they want the process to work, and to avoid potentially dark consequences, they’ll have to stay within the confines of the over-bearing isolated country house Sophia has rented for them to stay in. But the rituals are gruelling and, as Sophia struggles to bear the torment, the danger of what they’re doing imposes itself on their psychological wellbeing....

I’m curious; what draws a young boy living in the UK to the world of crocodiles over in Australia? So where did you first encounter crocodiles? Through the screen, the zoo? Yeah, I visited the zoo many times when I was young, so I got to see crocs, and I always found them fascinating. I just thought that they were a little bit like living dinosaurs. So I thought why bother studying dusty bones, when you’ve got a living dinosaurs in front of you....

The first part of Agents of SHIELD season one has been about building loyalty. Coulson’s team has learned to rely on and trust each other and have become a force for good because they have learned to work together despite their own baggage. Every challenge, every threat has been about testing the loyalty Coulson has worked so hard to build in his sometimes volatile group. Meanwhile, the shadowy organization led by the hidden Clairvoyant has been doing everything possible to tear the team apart....

2.11 If Memory Serves The highlights were undoubtedly the character interactions, and the low points were some of the storytelling with respect to the Kat/Cameron subplot. But what I’d really like to talk about were two great scenes that both showed how the show has developed confidence about its characters. The first of those related to Gary and his mother, and demonstrated a sensitivity that we rarely find on US TV....

Concentrating on a current crop of animal activists going to extreme measures, Gene, Alex and the rest of the team are at first confronted with a doctor whose daughter is given probably the worst birthday in history. It starts with a box containing a present that would make John Doe from Seven proud, and ends in third degree burns courtesy of a motorbike drive-by wielding a Molotov cocktail. And to think I was disappointed getting the wrong He-Man figure when I was a kid....

In the comics, both Drax and Gamora were major players in the tale of Adam Warlock, and while they’ve since become household names, Adam Warlock remains relatively obscure outside of the comic reading community. The character that would become Adam Warlock first appeared in Fantastic Four #66-67 (1967), which was plotted and drawn by Jack Kirby with a script by Stan Lee. Think about this now, in less than 20 issues, Kirby created Galactus, Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, Black Panther, and the Inhumans....

Bates Motel: Season 4 Episode 2. “You need to destroy her Norman, before she destroys you” Norman and Norma have always been the lynchpin of this series. Bates Motel has never tried to hide that fact. If you happen to have even any knowledge about the movie, Psycho, you’re bound to understand why this relationship is a crucial piece of this show. However, while a lot of Bates Motel’s story beats regarding Norman and Norma have been things that you could reasonably infer from the blanks that Psycho left unanswered, this episode does much to complicate their relationship in a wholly new way....

2.14 Redemption I mean for heaven’s sake, we had to sit through Gabe’s funeral this episode which was, admittedly, hilarious. Not that I would laugh if something actually happened to Gabe because his pretty face and good heart has wormed under my skin but the set-up was glorious. Tess was again our Goddess of Good Sense (all hail!) and TJ was right there reminding us “he’s not actually dead” and trying not to get what many a comedian including her gingerness Kathy Griffin have dubbed the Church Giggles....

Beowulf is a comparatively short Old English poem in which the hero of the Scyldingas (Shieldlings), Beowulf, fights three monsters; the mysterious demon Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. The poem also features Hrothgar, king of Heorot, and various other warriors. This first episode suggests that the series will be an interesting mix of the innovative and the traditional. I was briefly hopeful that Beowulf’s friend Breca might be his love interest, but within minutes of arrival at the village he was making eyes at a pretty (female) doctor, so I guess we’ll have to wait for someone to adapt The Epic Of Gilgamesh for a chance at an LGBTQ heroic lead....

Whatever you think of Alejandro G Iñárritu’s Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance), it’s destined to be one of the year’s most talked things. Arriving in UK cinemas on New Year’s day, it could have played merry hell with most critics’ end-of-year lists if it had been released even a few hours earlier, but it’s bound to linger in the memory for the next 12 months. The production, which he has funded himself with the last of his superhero savings, is plagued by bad creative decisions, a world-beating run of terrible previews and the battling egos of Riggan himself and Mike Shiner, (Edward Norton) an impetuous method actor who’s been parachuted in....