The Simpsons: Season 27 Episode 17. Burns is no good at being noble so when Smithers sticks his neck out to save him, it isn’t surprising it doesn’t add up to a hill of beans to the old gent. Less, apparently, than the piece of popcorn that was stuck in his teeth, which Smithers dutifully removed and saved for his scrapbook. Smithers has always put his boss’s needs in front of his own, he greased the wheels of the industry the powerful energy scion of Springfield split from mere anti-matter and kept his eye-ducts lubricated....

For those of us waiting for something as good or better from the studio, its latest effort, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water may leave you wanting. Then again, if you’re a fan of the series on which it’s based, it’s perfectly in keeping with the surrealism we’ve come to expect. During one of Plankton’s elaborate attempts to steal the Krusty Krab’s famous Krabby Patty, the secret formula vanishes completely....

Susanna Fogel’s The Spy Who Dumped Me is yet another entry in a long line of Hollywood spy films, sure, but all of its best moments come in the far less frequently represented female friendship at its core. Kunis plays Audrey, a 30-year-old Trader Joe’s employee who has just been dumped via text by Drew (Justin Theroux). She’s heartbroken and embarrassed, but far from broken. She has other people in her life—namely, her supportive, eccentric actress best friend Morgan (McKinnon)....

4.2 Memorial Stefan is convinced that by starting Elena off on animal blood he’ll avoid the inevitable murder spree, but her body apparently disagrees. Everything she drinks comes up in an increasingly gross manner, from warm deer, to hospital blood bags and Damon’s eager wrist, and she slowly starts to starve to death. Damon’s argument is, predictably, if you’re going to be a vampire you may as well commit, but I can’t help but side with Stefan on this one....

4.14 The Grove I think that the Lizzie storyline has been one of the most obvious in the show’s long time line of obviousness. We all knew along the line that Lizzie was going to be the person responsible for feeding the zombies rats, making rat artwork in the tombs, and generally behaving like a little monster in the making. In fact, I thought they were pushing that plot so heavily that they’d twist it around and give us some sort of sleeper agent for the Governor or some other reason behind the walker feeding, but it’s been Lizzie this whole time, and strangely, I’m not unhappy with that decision, because it pays off so well during this week’s episode....

What a pity it is for The White Queen to have hit its stride only this late in the game. The penultimate episode, with its shadowy plots, simmering guilt and double crosses, was such smashing telly that our one remaining visit to the fifteenth century on a Sunday night doesn’t seem enough. Who’s for joining me in whipping up a frock from the dining room curtains and staging a saints’ knees flash mob outside Media City until the BBC promises to return next year with The White Queen 2: Lancastrian Boogaloo?...

Now 14 years later, The X-Files undeniably has a place in the post-Snowden world. Government mistrust is as high as ever and outsiders like Fox Mulder are getting harder to silence. Yet even if the right sentiment is there, the premiere hour of The X-Files’ 6-episode revival will turn some believers into skeptics. Related Article: Everything We Know About The X-Files Revival Therein lies the problem for the appropriately titled “My Struggle....

1.4 Winter The final shot of this episode, and so of the whole series, was Milky lowering his head in regret and shame. That revealed the show’s ultimate lesson: in the words of Woody, forgiveness is underrated. Milky’s torment at the wedding showed that the reverse is also true: if mercy is a virtue, then revenge is a weight around your neck. The injustice of Combo’s death was searing. If you don’t feel the same, try rewatching his induction to the community centre in the knowledge of what was to come....

Timeless Season 1, Episode 11 Honestly, the chosen setting could have included any number of famous figures and did bring in quite a few references, which shows what a remarkable time of innovation the so-called Gilded Age was. Even small mentions such as Cracker Jacks, Hershey’s chocolate, the Ferris wheel, and Pabst Blue Ribbon provided both context and comic relief. There were even visitors to the fair like Helen Keller and Alexander Graham Bell that could only receive a token mention, so rich was the tapestry that served as this episode’s backdrop....

It’s only natural. We know a side to Laurie that the Americans don’t (most of them probably don’t even know he’s English – Bryan Singer allegedly didn’t when he hired him), and there’s no doubt this has helped him establish himself as a TV star over there. And since he made it okay for a Brit to play a Yank, others have followed. Congratulations to the Full Monty star for his success, but I’ll be honest – he’s only on here because so few Brits even know he “made it” in the US....

With each subsequent series of Torchwood, as we were reminded prior to the screening of the opening episode of Miracle Day, things have escalated. The show started on BBC Three, then moved to BBC Two, and for the acclaimed Children Of Earth, it jumped to BBC One. Now? Miracle Day sees Torchwood on a global platform, courtesy of a co-production between the BBC in the UK, and the Starz network in the US....

It’s a welcome return to the Torchwood typewriter for Jane Espenson this week, whose earlier episode for the series, Dead Of Night, has been the highlight of the first four episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day. For episode five, we get The Categories Of Life, and it’s a nice mix of slow development and barnstorming big moments. Why, though, are the overflow camps in existence in the first place, and who actually wants them to exist in the first place?...

That high was driven by the wonderful return of Captain John, which like his last appearance, has ironically resulted in one of the rare occasions when the programme isn’t derived by Buffy. Although did anyone else notice that James Marsters at one point ended a scene with what was, without a shadow of a doubt, the ‘in peril’ music they used to use at the of Buffy episodes? Watch it again....

Despite being in a jail cell, and possibly a serial killer, man-whore Jason Stackhouse is more popular than ever. After issuing instructions and giving away his worldly possessions – to Rene – through the bars of his cell like some kind of Mafia don, Sookie finally gets wind of his imprisonment. Breathlessly trying to convince him that she knows who the real killer is, in front of the real killer, leaves Jason nonplussed, so convinced is he of his guilt....

Uncanny has been in development since 2012, and features three characters in one location, one of whom happens to be an AI, and touches on aspects of the Turing Test, technological singularities, and portrays an unsettling example of the male gaze. However, while there are obvious similarities between the two films they are different and complementary enough to make for a great Creepy AI double-bill event, something to remember wistfully when the robots ultimately take over in thirty years’ time....

Van Helsing Episode 6 Give Brendan credit. He was right about one thing; there is a killer on the loose within Seattle Valley General Hospital. Unfortunately for him and his group, that’s about the only thing he was right about. He messed with the wrong guy and seriously underestimated a United States Marine in “Nothing Matters,” tonight’s moment-of-truth episode of SyFy’s Van Helsing. But while Brendan’s hubris forces his people to return to the horror that is the outside world, the season’s sixth episode leaves the previous week’s exposition behind in favor of some much needed action that propels the story forward....

Voltron Season 7 Episode 13 Let’s recap for a moment. Voltron, a giant robot made up of five lion bots, gets owned by an Evangelion looking mecha, which then gets PUNCHED FROM SPACE by a giant SDF-1 style battle fortress. And that’s only a FEW MINUTES of the episode. That fight scene was… have they invented a word to describe that knock down brawl? Stunning? Incredible? Riveting? Awe-inspiring? ALL OF THOSE WORK....

Max Joseph does the same here. Just as Hackers showed its characters living almost as their own avatars because that was when they felt at their most ‘real’, the dizzy heights of We Are Your Friends are like an idealised version of clubbing that kicks in when the characters are at their most whole. People might not talk or act like this in reality but then, surely, that’s the magic of cinema right there....

“The Fable story hinted at a dramatic time before Fable 1 when the Guild was founded, this would be a perfect setting for Fable 4,” said Molyneux in an interview with IGN. “The land of Albion would be much more primitive, the magic much more attuned to nature, the combat much more brutal.” If that new Fable game does come to pass, though, then Molyneux has some other ideas about what it should feature....

Why Him? is a Christmas film in the sense that its events take place around Christmas for no real reason, but hey, let’s invite it in on a technicality and offer it an eggnog. And why not: it’s the season of goodwill and it comes bearing gifts. Cranston! Mullally! Franco! A director who co-wrote Zoolander and Meet The Parents! It can’t be all bad. It’s Franco who should be riffing the most and he has a good go, but you can’t shake the feeling his heart’s not in it....