This article is sponsored by Hachette Partworks. Doctor Who is one of the most enduring science fiction franchises in modern history, with its main television series alone running (with several notable lapses) since 1963. One under-appreciated side of the franchise, however, is its foray into video games. Doctor Who has been a part of the gaming space since 1983, with the franchise’s first official game, the aptly titled Doctor Who: The First Adventure, published for the BBC Micro, an early personal computer commissioned by the BBC as its name suggests. This gave the British sci-fi franchise another frontier to explore…

For its 35th year, Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights brought 10 haunted houses built on original nightmares, a Prince of Darkness, Pinhead and a horror host who broke out of prison to get back on the air. Here’s how they stack up, from the one I’d skip to the one I’d wait an hour for again.  (And for more opinions on this year’s haunt, and for interviews with the biggest names in horror and paranormal, follow my Talking Strange show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you check out your favorite pods.) Key Takeaways What is the best haunted…

If you’re of a certain age, it is easy to miss the Tom Cruise of yesteryear who defined his career by the daring risks he would take with auteurs as much those safe studio bets. Sure, he still made Maverick clones like Days of Thunder (Top Gun at Daytona) and Cocktail (Top Gun at TGI Fridays), but he also worked with Oliver Stone on Born on the Fourth of July, Paul Thomas Anderson in Magnolia, Neil Jordan via Interview with the Vampire, and of course Stanley Kubrick during the grueling 18-month shoot of Eyes Wide Shut. I think it’s fair…

This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame Encore. Call it a cash-grab, call it hype for Avengers: Doomsday, call it a genuine fan event made for people who love the MCU: Avengers: Endgame Encore has proven to be a hit. The re-release of the 2019 Phase Three capper won the box office this weekend, in part because it contains several new scenes that connect Endgame to this December’s Doomsday. One of those new scenes includes what Joe Russo, who directed Endgame and Doomsday with his brother Anthony, called “the most profound thing that’s ever happened to the MCU.” In this…

Some character quirks feel so deliberate that it is hard to imagine them not being planned from day one. Then you find out the actor was actually fixing a piece of makeup, struggling with a costume, trying not to laugh, or making a weird noise to entertain a co-star. Those little accidents can end up doing more for a character than pages of carefully written direction. Even better, once audiences latch onto them, there is no going back. A random gesture becomes a trademark, an awkward movement becomes body language, and suddenly everyone assumes it was part of the master…

Fame can change incredibly quickly, but some stars never got the chance to see where their careers might have gone next. They were still releasing major work, selling records, appearing in blockbuster movies, or dominating headlines when their lives suddenly ended. In several cases, their most famous project had only just been released or was still being made. Others had already reached a level of popularity that made their deaths feel almost impossible to believe. Their careers may have been brief, but the work they left behind became closely tied to their names, giving these celebrities a lasting place in…

For those who hate nü-Trek, the recent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” must have been a particularly hard watch. Not only does the episode continue the series’ recent trend of jumping genres—this time setting a daytime soap opera on the Enterprise—but it also brings back one of the most hated characters in the franchise: Sybok, Spock’s emotional half-brother. Even though it wasn’t the real Sybok, just a twin manifested to adhere to soap opera tropes, the mere presence of Sybok was enough to irritate fans. Why? Because Sybok has only had one other appearance,…

For more than half a century, the vernacular around crime and cinema has changed. Many of the films and even television series that are responsible for this shift have a method to their madness. Whether it is the majestic gravity of the Corleone family or the shiny shoe slickness of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, these characters inhabit stories designed to reveal the seductive power of the criminal underworld that lures wayward souls to damnation. (Or, in some cases, the filmmakers just think Al Pacino looks really cool rocking a grenade launcher.) Yet in all these years of layering new dimensions…

This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. Find out how you can subscribe to get the full physical copy right here! With long-running manga and anime series, waves of merchandising, and an acclaimed live-action adaptation on Netflix, it’s safe to say that ONE PIECE remains a bona fide global phenomenon. Audiences will get to experience the beloved franchise like never before with the Netflix animated special LEGO ONE PIECE, poised to set sail on the streaming service on September 29. The two-part special boasts the main cast from the live-action Netflix series reprising their fan-favorite roles, with Tom Hyndman…

Square Enix is really going all out for Final Fantasy ahead of the franchise’s 30th anniversary next year and one of its big titles just in time to close out 2026 is Final Fantasy Resonance. An upgraded adaptation of the 2015 mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, the game returns to the series to a classic turn-based RPG adventure, complete with a vibrantly rendered pixelated presentation. Set to launch on virtually all major modern gaming platforms on October 22, we got a chance to play a preview build of the game at Tokyo Game Show 2026 provided directly by Square…

The most famous actors of Hollywood deserve the recognition they get. They do the hard work, and their journey transformed them into a brand more than a celebrity, gaining well deserved praise. There are other actors, however, that may not be as immediately recognizable, but they still deserve some praise for what they do. They don’t always get the big headlines or the major awards, and yet the movies we know and love wouldn’t be the same without them. These are the less celebrated actors that, at least for today, we’ve decided deserve a bit more time in the spotlight.…

This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame Encore A couple of days before Avengers: Endgame Encore’s release, Marvel Comics editor Tom Brennan fired off a post on X that some described as a perfect response to the negativity over extra footage from the film leaking online. Endgame, which once wrapped up the Infinity Saga in a fairly neat bow and closed out Steve Rogers’ story, now just sets up another chapter of it in Avengers: Doomsday. While some loved the new ending, others were disheartened that Marvel changed a beloved MCU movie that set a high watermark for the franchise.…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 7. Fans of cosmic weirdness in Green Lantern stories, rejoice. The penultimate episode of Lanterns finally gets out of Nebraska, and gets off of Earth altogether to go… somewhere. We don’t yet know where John Stewart and the Hal-o-Gram went (my money’s on Qward, within the Anti-Matter Universe), but we do know one thing about it: it’s really, really yellow. And, yet, Hal’s ring keeps the Hal-o-Gram running. That observation means nothing to those only know Green Lantern mythos through Lanterns. Of course the Hal-o-Gram would still be around because we…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 7. When Martin Nodell set out to create Green Lantern with Bill Finger for 1940’s All-American Comics #16, he wasn’t thinking about space cops or test pilots. He was thinking about magic. The Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott formed his ring and lantern from a magic meteor that slammed into the Earth, destroying the train he was on but imbuing him with power. Dressed in a flowing red shirt and a purple cape, Scott—whom Nodell wanted to name Alan Ladd, to more openly riff on Aladdin—used his wishing ring to…

No matter how much Guy Gardner talks up the Justice Gang, there’s really only one team that matters in the DC Universe: the Justice League of America. Not only has the team traditionally included in its membership the seven most important heroes in the DC Universe, but they also have auxiliary teams that cover every part of the world, such as the magic-based Justice League Dark or the massive Justice League Unlimited. But as Guy Gardner also makes abundantly clear, the Justice League isn’t for everyone. Fortunately, the DCU actually has tons of other teams to bring in the stragglers.…

The minds behind acclaimed animated comic book Niko and the Sword of Light, Bobby Chiu and Jim Bryson, are working together again to bring a new interactive comic book, Magrid’s Magic Shoppe, to life. Before Niko and the Sword of Light was an Emmy award-winning series on Prime Video, it was #1 in the Apple App Store in its category as a unique animated medium for comic book lovers. Now with their new project Magrid’s Magic Shoppe, they are looking to bridge the gap between digital and physical media and are launching a month-long Kickstarter for the project to raise…

Some movie roles are memorable for more than just the performance, making you forget there is even an actor underneath all that makeup. Getting those transformations right can take hours before a single scene is filmed, with prosthetics, wigs, contact lenses, body makeup, and layers of carefully applied detail. For the actors, that often means arriving on set long before everyone else and spending a good part of the day sitting still while a team works around them, every day. The results can be almost unrecognizable, especially when the character looks nothing like the person playing them. Here are some…

There are more pop culture facts in existence than you could ever conceivably learn. Some are buried in old interviews, some come from strange moments during filming, and others are just those oddly specific details that stick with you forever. You might already know who played a famous character, but do you know who almost got the role, what was changed at the last minute, or which celebrity had a surprisingly random connection to something you love? These are the kinds of facts that make great conversation starters, settle pointless arguments, and make you sound like you know way more…

Many things that seem completely ordinary can be looked at quite differently once you learn why they existed in the first place. Everyday objects, customs, household products, and familiar traditions often have histories far stranger than their modern forms suggest. People had very different ideas about health and safety, and life was usually considerably harsher. It’s interesting to see how everything developed into the modern world. Wikipedia Alarm Clocks Early alarm clocks were often designed around factory schedules, waking workers before sunrise so they could begin exhausting shifts on time. An Historian About Town Black Mourning Clothes Wearing black after…

This article was first published on Dusty Wright’s TALES & RANTS, the Substack of writer, journalist, singer-songwriter, and content creator Mark “Dusty” Petracca. Click here to subscribe and read more. I was definitely—no maybes—moved by the new must-see documentary, Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, which chronicles their jubilant world reunion stadium tour in 2025. Several times, I was nearly moved to tears. It not only focuses on the Gallaghers—brothers, guitarist/songwriter Noel Gallagher and charismatic, mercurial lead singer Liam Gallagher, who had not spoken to each other in years—but is most often seen through the lens of fans from all over the globe. It…