Television

Vikings is one of the most beloved series, without a doubt. But there was definitely a period that shifted the fan base to their core, prompting many to abandon it for good. Naturally, we have to say SPOILER WARNING for this article, as we will be discussing quite a lot about the history it follows, or the history it creates.

In the beginning, Vikings always seemed like a series actually following real-world history through the eyes of Ragnar Lothbrok. But soon enough we found out that was not the case. In fact, we immediately found out that things were being dramatized from the very first episode.

Kurt Russell is the most unique choices to cast in the role of Santa Claus. He's also one of the best choices, as this Santa is not just a kind and gentle spirit, he's also a man of action.

THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2 is a sequel to the original in the same vein as the sequels to THE SANTA CLAUSE -- slightly lesser, slightly sillier follow-ons that don't quite measure up to the original, despite all the original characters brought back (with new ones). This go-round Russell brings with him Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus (who made a surprise appearance at the end of the first movie), while Darby Camp and Judah Lewis return as Kate and Teddy Pierce, with Kimberly Williams-Paisley as their mom, Claire. New to the franchise is Tyrese Gibson as Bob, Claire's new boyfriend, and Jahzir Bruno as his son Jack.

WESTWORLD releases its third season on Blu-ray, and once again it's a season where I have no idea what is happening from episode to episode, nor do I know how it all tied together. The intelligence of the hosts -- robots built to look and think like human beings -- flit back and forth from the real world to the cyber-built world to the robot-populated theme-park worlds that you never know which reality you're in -- or, indeed, if anywhere at all is real. One of the character even states that it would be the ultimate mind trip if somehow an artificial reality was built with an artificial reality inside it, so they only thought they were in the real world.

Beth Harmon (The New Mutants' Anya Taylor-Joy) is raised in an orphanage until her younger teens. While there, she and the other girls are regularly given "vitamins" which include tranquilizers, to which 9 year old Beth develops an addiction. Because she is proficient in math and gets her work done early, she is rewarded with the job of cleaning erasers in the basement, where she meets the grumpy janitor, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp), who teaches her how to play chess, a game for which she shows an amazing facility.

No matter the genre of film or TV show, some tropes remain universal. One of these is the fortune-teller or the psychic. Such readers are consulted when characters are stuck. Or indeed when the plot itself doesn’t seem to move forwards. But how effective is the fortune teller as a plot device?

THE GREAT is a comedic farce that loosely follows the biography of Catherine the Great. Equal parts BLACK ADDER and CALIGULA, the series goes out of its way to make the profane mundane, with palace life centered completely around copulation and killing.

Elle Fanning plays Catherine, the naive German woman brought to Russia to be a wife to Emperor Peter II (Nicholas Hoult), an overgrown infant with an inferiority complex instilled by his mother and father that he compensates for by doing whatever he pleases. As he is the emperor, who exercises capriciously the right of life over death of any and all of his subjects, nobody dares cross him. Indeed, most of the palace court are too daft to put up anything like an argument. Hoult plays the emperor much like Hugh Laurie's Prince Regent from BLACK ADDER, only with no filter, a leporine libido, and the attention span of a ferret on sugar cubes.

I can't recall the last time two seasons of an ongoing television show have been released back-to-back, but that's what Warner Brothers is doing with their CW superhero show, BLACK LIGHTNING, a series that began outside of the Arrowverse of their other DC Comics-inspired series that later became incorporated, loosely, through the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event -- an event that, while it didn't have an official crossover episode with BLACK LIGHTNING in the proper sense, still made its presence felt.

HBO's six-part series THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA is an adaption of the Philip Roth novel of the same name, chronicling an alternate history of World War II in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt lost his third bid for the presidency to Republican candidate and aviation hero, Charles Lindbergh. In this reshuffling of events, the election of Lindbergh gave way to a populist upheaval in America, which led to a rise of antisemitism and fascism, particularly against Jewish citizens.

Superhero movies are mostly seen as overly expensive special effects flicks that carry a fraction of artistic value. Nevertheless, even through their simplified narrative, superhero movies and tv shows point out the value of friendship, positive attitude, and persistence towards achieving a goal. All these messages are vital for college students because they can provide a guideline for overcoming the challenges of academic life.

We asked students for their opinion, and here is a list of 10 favorite superhero flix among college students.

It's Saturday morning all over again with this collection of the classic SPACE GHOST animated series. Featuring all twenty of the 1966-1968 SPACE GHOST episodes, these cartoon shorts have lost none of their appeal, due in large part to the timeless designs of Alex Toth.

The premise behind PRODIGAL SON is intriguing: an professional profiler, Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), is released from the FBI for taking dangerous risks. Upon his release, he's offered a position as a consultant for the NYPD Major Crimes division, under Gil Arroyo (Lou Diamond Phillips), a man whose been a father figure to him since Malcolm was ten years old. Gil took on that role after Gil arrested Malcolm's father -- Dr. Martin Whitly (Michael Sheen), also known as the notorious serial killer, The Surgeon.

A serial killer hunter raised by a serial killer is just the kind of twisted base that could support a constant fount of intrigue and suspense. And to a large degree, it does. On top of the weekly serial killer of the week structure, PRODIGAL SON provides an ongoing mystery, a repressed memory of Malcolm's that could lead to the discovery of a yet-to-be-discovered victim of The Surgeon.

The best thing to happen to CW superhero shows was obtaining the license to rebroadcast episodes of STARGIRL the day after premiering on the DC Universe streaming services. The show, shepherded by character creator Geoff Johns, became immediately recognized as one of the best translations of comic-to-tube in decades.

While the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS crossover event was a mid-season interruption for most of the CW superhero shows, it was the season opening episode for LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, the action sitcom of the Arrowverse. LEGENDS began as a team of superheroes assembled to go on a time-travel mission to stop Vandal Savage, and selected because they would not be missed by history if they were killed. Since then, it has evolved into a sort of "anything goes" time-travel fix-it series, with very little super-heroing happening -- with John Constantine (Matt Ryan) thrown into the mix.

In the fifth season of the Maid of Might's adventures, Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) and her super friends find themselves going up against Leviathin, an organization bent on putting Earth through its next extinction event, ushered in at the hands of seemingly immortal gods like Rama Khan (Mitch Pileggi) and Gamemnae (Cara Buono).

But it's not as simple as that, as Supergirl's civilian life as Kara Danvers is complicated by new relationships. A new fellow reporter at CATCO, William Dey (Staz Nair), gets nosy about Kara's personal life, and has some pretty shady interactions that arouse Kara's suspicions. But his true motives become revealed later on, when Kara learns he's been undercover investigating a very bad person.

Grizz, Panda, and Ice Bear move beyond the cartoon short form that has been their norm to headline their first Cartoon Network movie.

The bears' rush to the grand opening of food truck selling poutine leaves a trail of chaos in their wake -- and a slew of angry townspeople. Determined to make amends, the bears attempt to become popular by making the greatest viral video ever, by combining elements of every popular meme of the last twenty years. But when this ends in disastrous results, it grabs the attention of the no-nonsense Agent Trout from Fish and Wildlife. He's determined to bring the bears in and relocate them to a bear sanctuary.

And so begins the greatest road trip of all time, as the bears go on the lam in a police van, intent on crossing the border into Canada for freedom, love, and universal health care.

Fans of the soaps GUIDING LIGHT and ONE LIFE TO LIVE are well acquainted with actress Crystal Hunt, who played Lizzie Spaulding and Stacy Morasco on each show, respectively.

But the actress has kept consistenly busy since her time on the daytime dramas, putting in work in films as well as other serial entertainment, suc as HILTON HEAD ISLAND for Pure Flix.

With MOOD SWINGS, Hunt gets to bring the full range of her experience to bear; not only is she acting in the Pure Flix situation comedy, she's also the creator, serving as writer and producer. With an ensemble cast featuring Robin Riker, Cristina DeRosa, Sophia Gasca, and Donna Mills, MOOD SWINGS draws its inspiration from THE GOLDEN GIRLS, and it's not hard to begin to draw the parallels between the characters once you see them.

Jeff Daniels narrates WASHINGTON, a three-part miniseries for The History Channel that mixes re-enactment with seated interview segments that do a deep-dive into the events in the life of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

Nicholas Rowe (YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES) plays the titular founding father in program that strips away the folk history to reveal the man beneath, complete with flaws and failures. From his first military command -- which resulted in an embarrassing attack on a French diplomatic party with Washington signing a confession branding him as an assassin -- to his tactical decisions as the Commander in Chief of his own army in the American Revolution, WASHINGTON is a story of growth and maturiing, of making mistakes and learning from them. Rowe presents a stoic Washington throughout, even when forced to make hard decisions such as hanging deserters or having mutineers execute their leaders in a firing squad.

2020 was meant to be the biggest year ever for CW's THE FLASH. From the very first episode when viewers got teased with that headline from the future, we knew the series was building toward the legendary "Crisis on Infinite Earths" story -- a story which, in comics, rebuilt the entire DC Universe from scratch at the cost of the lives of The Flash and Supergirl. And while it seemed unlikely that the showrunners were going to sacrifice two of their titular characters for the sake of telling the story, expectations among fans were nonetheless high.

From its very preconception, BATWOMAN seemed to be a project destined for failure on the CW. From the inflammatory pre-show trailers to the shoe-horned identity-driven approach to storytelling, the series was determined to trip over itself to be something rather than letting an organically told story do the work for them, ultimately resulting in the lead actress, Ruby Rose, opting to leave the role of Kate Kane -- the titular hero -- after the freshman year.

DC's STARGIRL has been nothing short of stellar throughout its 13-episode freshman season. The latest entry into the Arrowverse (the show was teased at the end of the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover, so we're counting it), the show has been one of the most consistently fun, fresh, optimistic, adventuresome, straight-up superhero shows to have graced the CW network. There's a respect and an adherence to the source material -- not just to the STARGIRL comic book heroine herself but to much of the DC Universe in general. The costumes, the props (there's a green lantern seen more than once that I'm still waiting to see get fired up!) and the name-drops have all been enough to make a comic book fan giddy to his core.