6.1 Fair Game With its freshman effort, Homeland provided a gripping and incredibly smart reflection on why the intelligence community, and the U.S. as a whole, could not let go of the shadows of the War on Terror. So here was Carrie Mathison to bear the cross of our apprehensions for us. Yet strangely, as the relatively cynical worldview of Homeland proved justified following the collapse of Syria and the rise of ISIL, the Showtime series still became increasingly removed from its early verisimilitude, shrinking last season into a storyline that didn’t feel that far removed from 24, another espionage series largely influenced by executive producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon....

In a new digital-exclusive Avengers: Infinity War special feature, The Directors’ Roundtable, Waititi has once again been chatting about the Kurt Russell movie, which was all but buried by some rankled studio execs back in the ’80s, only to become a cult classic further down the road as the home market embraced the story of a man with John Wayne’s bravado who becomes almost a cartoon next to his much-more-capable supporting characters....

2.11 Kill Bob Episode 11 opens with a guy in a car very luckily surviving an assassination attempt. Bob (Todd Grinnell) visits the team for help and then has no idea why Chance decides to send him back to his life. But the team fills in around it, waiting for someone to try and kill him again. So what happens? Well, Bob and his wife, Angie, (Lauren German) visit a market with the team following....

The idea of bringing Earth back into the show was something executive producers Lauren Montgomery and Jaoquim Dos Sanots had always planned for but they weren’t sure exactly how they’d do it. Eventually the team settled on the idea of the Galra invading Earth, which meant they’d have to set up exactly what had been happening on the planet in Voltron’s absence. While this excited the producers, they weren’t even sure they’d be able to do it....

It’s not the most remarkable opening, but it’ll do. And that same sentiment could sum up the film that follows. Jungle is another survival film about a young man who’s way out of his depth. Straight of the gate, it’s got a fair bit to prove if it wants to stand out from the pack. Justin Monjo (writer of 14 Farscape episodes) adapted Ghinsberg’s Jungle autobiography into a screenplay, meaning that much of the true story remains in tact....

5.7 Raw Deal Now onto the two characters who actually had their stories advance in this episode. Clearly the distance between Ava and Boyd continues to grow deeper as Boyd does not show up for visiting hours at the prison. Of course, Boyd is off to Mexico to try to get his heroin directly from the Mexican Cartel he is now doing business with. Ava whose life is in danger from the neo-Nazis who hate her for being involved with a ‘race traitor’ is desperate to seek protection....

5.13 Restitution It was also a great storytelling move to bring back the song You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive by Ruby Friedman for this scene as it not only references its use in past episodes but lyrically it also lets us know that there is a good chance that Ava, Boyd and Raylan may all not walk out of Harlan alive. Additionally, one can argue that Raylan, thanks to his abusive upbringing, has always been afraid of getting killed in Harlan County and in many ways his return there has always been shrouded in death....

Korra’s meeting with President Raiko doesn’t get very far. He believes it’s not the Republic’s place to interfere with internal Water Tribe matters and refuses to send troops down the Southern Water Tribe. After a bizarre brainstorming session that involves hot peppers and gravity boots (bless you, Varrick), Team Avatar decides to approach General Iroh directly about leading some troops down to the Southern Water Tribe, which actually works until Raiko gives him express orders not to help them....

1.16: Legendary The finale episode carried on in this vein, with another huge-but-not-very-well-executed sci-fi concept being lobbed at this mostly likeable band of characters. We’ve spent all season building up to a showdown in 2166, only to find out now that Savage doesn’t actually want to rule the future at all. He wants to destroy it, and reset the universe to ancient Egyptian times (whatever that means…). To do this, naturally, he needs three alien meteorites and three different versions of himself....

Ever since Desmond was revealed as the man in the hatch in Lost‘s first ever season-opening brain-twist, we’ve come to expect big things from his episodes, and this one exceeded those expectations, revisiting Desmond’s tendency to come unstuck in time in a new way. This time, he wasn’t slipping just into flashback, but into the sideways-verse. Personally, the part of the episode I was most interested in was Eloise’s assertion that Desmond had gotten “what he always wanted”....

If Lost has taught me anything this week, it’s that I definitely shouldn’t consider becoming a bookmaker. Well, we all know how that worked out. Let it never be said that I’m above admitting when I’m wrong. And, in fairness, I was pretty accurate on the matter of Sayid, whose last second decision to save his friends allowed him to both kick against and permanently escape the thrall of whatever agency made him evil....

This bit of continuity in a show that usually throws continuity to the wind implies Jasmine Forsyth may actually become a credible threat to our characters. “Elevator” didn’t dip into surreality much until Part four showed up, but now I’m starting to become a bit worried that this sweet and simple story about Louie dating a girl who has to return to Hungary is going to be climactically upended by her getting blown off the face of the earth or something....

But those reviews? They really weren’t kind. The film’s Rotten Tomato score currently sits at 8%, easily one of the lowest aggregated totals of the year, and more and more people seem to be openly wondering whether the days of M Night Shyamalan as a director to watch out for are long gone. When Shyamalan asked if “are you saying in general that they didn’t dig it?”, Vulture put the following to him: “In general, no....

5.13 The Phantom We’ve come to expect a couple of things from a Weiner-directed Mad Men finale (the only episodes the showrunner steps behind the camera for): fantastically stylish shots, and unanswered thematic questions. On neither count did the last episode of season five let us down. First, the style. That silhouetted tableau of Don, Joan, Roger, Burt and Pete gathered on SCDP’s second floor office (no longer just a fiction) doing what Mad Men characters do best – staring meaningfully out of a window – felt gloriously like something from a superhero movie....

The unusual logline for Max appears to be ‘American Sniper meets Lassie‘, but it’s not without charm. With staggering earnestness, it plays out the tale of a Belgian Malinois called Max, (played by Carlos) whose US Marine handler Kyle (Robbie Amell) is killed in action while apprehending a suicide bomber during Operation Enduring Freedom. But the human coming-of-age aspect is really the B-plot of the movie and, as the title suggests, the lead character is really the character on a lead....

Microsoft has belatedly followed suit, unveiling the ‘Game Room’. In a classic case of ‘does what it says on the tin’ titling, the Game Room will be a room full of – you guessed it – games. Thankfully, the games in question will not be blighted by the sort of dross that regularly finds its way onto Live Arcade, but bonafide retro classics. As far as payment is concerned, there will be a two-tier method enforced, meaning that you either pop 40 MS points into the virtual slot for a quick play, or cough up 240-400 MS points to keep the machine in your personal Arcade....

With series five confirmed for next year, this series finale of Misfits ends with suggestion and promise rather than the emotional climax we were handed last year. There’s madness, death, romance and – finally – powers, and it all adds up to become an episode that is more ‘Misfits’ than anything else we’ve seen this year. The writers haven’t been shy about changing things, and many fans have become disillusioned, but there’s a comforting sense that we’re now settled in for next year’s action....

1.8 eps1.7_wh1ter0se.m4v Perhaps we should have seen it coming. With their bee-stung pouts, Rami Malek and Carly Chaikin share an if-you-tilt-your-head-and-squint physical resemblance. It also explains Darlene’s seeming over-familiarity with Elliot, breaking into his apartment, showering there and borrowing his clothes as if she had a right to. The sibling relationship makes sense of earlier events in the episode, too. Why else would Darlene have pushed a stolen gun into Elliot’s hands, reminding him of the need to protect the two of them and not just fSociety?...

Cuba Gooding Jr stars as Ray, a seasoned fixer who botches a job and finds himself playing both sides in an organised crime turf war. Then one crime family (it doesn’t really matter which one, they’re fairly interchangeable) decides to bring in Dolph Lundgren and his collection of Hawaiian shirts to take out the other family and possibly Cuba Gooding Jr. That’s not where the Bourne comparisons end, either; the film adopts the same sombre attitude for any scene that doesn’t involve Dolph Lundgren, but without the talent to pull it off....