The ninth installment in the “Resident Evil” video game franchise, titled “Resident Evil Requiem,” is set to release in February 2026. The new game was announced during Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles on Friday, complete with a trailer drop, which came as a surprise after developer Capcom teased the “Resident Evil” franchise’s upcoming 30th anniversary and a ninth game earlier in the presentation — but didn’t include any new footage or release date. Related Stories “Thanks to all of you, ‘Resident Evil’ is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary this coming March,” Capcom game director Jun Takeuchi said in a video message. “We truly appreciate your continued support. Now, about the latest ‘Resident Evil’ game you’ve all been waiting for, bear with us a little longer, just a blink of an eye more, and it’ll be ready. We’re incredibly grateful for your ongoing support of the ‘Resident Evil’ series.” Popular on Variety About 20 minutes later, the “Resident Evil Requiem” trailer and release date was the final piece of news revealed before the SGF 2025 show ended. The survival horror game will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and Steam on Feb. 27, 2026. The last “Resident Evil” game, “Resident Evil Village,” launched in 2021 as the eighth installment in the franchise. The original “Resident Evil” was created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara for PlayStation and debuted in 1996. In addition to spawning multiple followup games, “Resident Evil” has been adapted for TV and film franchises. Watch the trailer for “Resident Evil Requiem” in the video below.

Since its announcement in January, anticipation has been building for the Nintendo Switch 2 – the followup to the gaming titan’s most successful home console, the 150m-selling Nintendo Switch. Major console launches are rarer than they used to be; this is the first since 2020, when Sony’s PlayStation 5 hit shelves. Whether you’re weighing up a purchase or just wondering what all the fuss is about, here’s everything you need to know.The basicsThe Switch 2 is out today, 5 June, priced at £395.99 (US$449.99/A$699/€469.99) or at £429.99 (US$499.99/A$766/€509,99) bundled with its flagship game, Mario Kart World. Like its predecessor, it’s a portable games machine with a built-in screen – you can use as a handheld mini-console when you’re out and about, or slide it into the dedicated dock device and plug it into your TV via an HDMI cable for a big-screen experience at home. A little bigger than the original Switch, with a crisp, clear 7.9in LCD touch screen, as opposed to the old 6.2in display, it comes with two Joy-Con controllers, which are chunkier than the previous versions. These now attach magnetically to each side of the screen with a pleasing clunk, replacing the fiddly sliding mechanism that most Switch owners disliked. They’ve also got bigger L and R buttons on the top, which sounds like a minor detail but is a huge deal for anyone trying to perfect their Mario Kart power-slides.The specBig tech advances … Nintendo Switch 2. Photograph: NintendoThe tech inside the Switch 2 is a lot more advanced than the previous console, featuring a custom nVidia processor, and a screen capable of displaying at 4K resolution (when plugged into a compatible TV) or 1920x1080 resolution in portable mode. It’s also got 5.1 surround sound, and supports high-dynamic range lighting (HDR) graphical effects at frame rates of up to 120hz. This brings the Switch 2 almost up to scratch with other modern consoles: most experts are placing its tech specs somewhere between the PS4 and PS5, or between Xbox One and Xbox Series X.In the boxThe Nintendo Switch 2 comes with the console itself, two Joy-Con controllers, a power adaptor and USB-C charging cable, a dock, a Joy-Con grip (which allows you to connect the two Joy-Cons together to create a traditional-looking games controller), and two Joy-Con wrist straps to stop them flying out of your hands.Out of the boxNintendo is going big on the social features of the console. Its GameShare function will allow you to play compatible games with other people who don’t own a copy – they just need their own Switch or a Switch 2, and can play along in the room with you or connect online. This is particularly important for families sharing one copy of a game. Meanwhile, GameChat is kind of like Zoom, but for games: you can invite a bunch of pals into a group video chat session where you can talk to each other while playing the same game, playing different games, or just hanging out. If you all buy the Nintendo Switch 2 Camera you’ll be able to see little video windows of each other on the screen, too. GameChat requires a paid subscription to Nintendo’s online gaming service, which costs £17.99 (US$19.99/€19.99/A$29.95)The gamesBig news … Mario Kart World game. Photograph: NintendoThe console is launching with around 25 games, though many of these are enhanced versions of older Switch titles. The big newcomers are Mario Kart World, an open-world take on the classic karting game; the introductory game Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour; the co-op survival challenge Survival Kids and anti-gravity racer, Fast Fusion. Some favourites making it across are Fortnite, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. Most games will retail for between £45–£70 and will be available to buy and download online, or as physical boxed copies. You can also still play almost all your old Switch games on the new console, and there’s a huge back catalogue of retro NES, Nintendo 64, SNES and GameCube classics from the 1980s, 90s and 00s available to play with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.The accessoriesAdd-ons … Nintendo Switch 2 Pro controller and camera. Photograph: NintendoThere are three things you may want to buy alongside the console. The Nintendo Switch 2 Pro controller is a traditional console joypad intended for serious play. Then you have the Nintendo Switch 2 camera, basically a webcam compatible with the GameChat service, but also with any games that might use camera features. You may also want a microSD Express card to provide additional storage for your games.Where can I buy one?If you haven’t pre-ordered, you may have to be patient and shop around. Some of the larger retailers including Amazon, Argos, Currys and John Lewis are saying they may have a few in stock today and it’s worth trying Nintendo’s online store. Be extremely wary of buying from private sellers on eBay or similar sites – there will be a lot of con artists out there. Remember when people found their PlayStation 5 deliveries were instead full of bags of rice?

President Donald Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz has already been ousted for using a bottom-shelf Signal clone for official messaging — but the fallout from that debacle is still getting worse and worse.As Reuters reports, a hacker who accessed information from TeleMessage, an Israeli messaging app that was sold to the government to archive messages from Signal and other services, obtained data from way more Trump officials than previously thought.It's been an especially tough year for Waltz. After being caught accidentally adding Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, to a Signal group chat about Yemeni bombing plans, the Trump adviser was photographed using TeleMessage's Signal clone during a Cabinet meeting just before news broke that it had been hacked. Though Waltz was ultimately fired , the hits have continued in his absence.With the help of the nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which publishes hacked information of interest to the public, Reuters found more than 60 government officials whose information had been accessed from TeleMessage.Those officials range from staffers with the State Department and the White House to disaster responders and Secret Service members, and although the messages the British wire reviewed were often fragmentary, its reporters were still able to see those federal employees' phone numbers.Outsiders are also corroborating. People outside the government, whose numbers were in the breached message cache, including one person who'd been applying for disaster aid and another from a financial service company, confirmed to Reuters that they had indeed been messaging with Trump administration officials.The White House, to its end, said in a statement that it was "aware of the cyber security incident" but didn't offer any additional details.As Wired reported when the TeleMessage photo was first published, it appears that the app's archiving capabilities essentially nullified any security promises from the app, which was recently purchased by an Oregon-based company called Smarsh.The person who hacked the government's Telemessage server told Wired in a followup story that breaching the app "wasn't much effort at all," and that it only took them about "15 or 20 minutes."As that hacker explained, an issue with the the app's "hashing," which is supposed to obfuscate passwords, accidentally made it easy to figure them out.Once they were in, the hacker was presented with a file literally titled "heapdump" that included the login credentials of people who used the app — and because is archiving effectively un-encrypted the messages sent, they partially accessed those too.Though the extent of this breach and other details about the scandal remain unclear, it's abundantly obvious that the Trump administration has a security problem so bad that it makes Hillary Clinton's private email server look like Fort Knox.More on Telemessage: Trump’s Deportation Airline Just Got Hacked by AnonymousShare This Article

The Marketing Assistant will help keep our sales pipeline healthy and organize, produce, and implement content based on our established direction and ideas. This is a part time contract position that has potential to become a full time salaried position if revenue increases due to our marketing efforts.A Day in the LifeThe Marketing Assistant will work remotely for about ten to twenty hours a week. You will work closely with Arianne, Aeolidia’s founder, to implement the marketing strategy and free her time to work on the business rather than in it. You will check in with potential clients over email daily, to move them through our sales funnel. You will organize and implement our post-project flow, to get feedback from clients and perhaps help them move on to retainer work.You will help book Arianne’s schedule with online and in-person events, coordinating topics and sending details to organizers. Our Team Assistant will help you with scheduling tasks and travel details.You will maintain and improve our marketing funnel, assisting with the newsletter, blog, and collaborations with networking partners.We have a backlog of nearly endless ideas for content, and you will be responsible for organizing, scheduling, and getting in touch with collaborators to turn this into blog posts, portfolio case studies, and social media posts.Tasks may include:Sales funnelReviewing all new leads and nurturing them over email to schedule initial sales callsFollowing up with clients over email post-project to get feedback, testimonials, and retainer calls scheduledRefining, organizing, and creating SOPs for sales & marketing workNetworking & EventsOrganizing our networking list and continuing outreachReaching out to networking colleagues with co-marketing ideasCoordinating with networking partners to pitch and manage eventsManaging Arianne’s events & appearances calendarResearching new events, companies, and ideas as requestedGathering exhibitor and buyer info for trade shows and conferencesAdmin tasks to set up webinars and other eventsCreating and adjusting slides for webinarsContent MarketingPreparing and scheduling newslettersCleaning our mailing listPulling lists of clients from our CRM and email provider to send email campaigns toOrganizing content ideas and creating an editorial calendarOverseeing content calendar and enlisting our team to write & publish blog postsRepurposing existing content across channelsImplementing identified SEO improvementsAdding new portfolio posts, tools, resources, and webinars to our siteLight social media posting and followupsChecking marketing stats for trendsPreparing images and copy for posts and adsCreating clips from videos to use in marketingManaging and creating new content upgrades: forms, landing pages, tags, email deliveryManaging paid adsApply NowLet's start your dream job Apply now Meet JobCopilot: Your Personal AI Job HunterAutomatically Apply to Remote Sales and Marketing JobsJust set your preferences and Job Copilot will do the rest-finding, filtering, and applying while you focus on what matters. Activate JobCopilot

This list contains spoilers for the Mission: Impossible franchise.A new Mission: Impossible film is hitting theaters this month – the final one in the franchise, if we’re to believe Tom Cruise and the suits at Paramount – and if you’re like us, you’re probably knee deep in a series rewatch right now.The focus of the films, spectacular action set pieces aside, has been Cruise’s lead spy, Ethan Hunt. Fellow team agents have often come and gone, and supposedly impossible missions have varied time after time, but Ethan has remained. The only other constant has been a steady supply of villains – men and women with big plans fueled by greed and/or malice, who think they’ll be the one to outwit, outsmart, and outrun Hunt. Fools.It might seem counterintuitive ranking the Mission: Impossible villains under the banner of “best,” but every great hero needs an equally great villain. Numerous elements come into play when determining the best villain, but we’re zeroing in on the scale of their threat, the weight of the violence (both physical and emotional) they commit against Hunt and his team, and the palpable degree of villainous charisma they exhibit.So cue up that classic Lalo Schifrin theme, here are the 10 Best Mission: Impossible Villains, Ranked!Top 10 Mission Impossible Villains10. A.I. The Entity (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One)Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Writer: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen | Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson | Release Date: July 12, 2023 | Runtime: 163 mins“A self-aware, self-learning, truth-eating digital parasite infesting all of cyberspace” sounds like a pretty cool threat in any other high-octane thriller, but in the Mission: Impossible franchise it’s only good enough to land at number ten. It underwhelms compared to its human counterparts, because let’s be real – zeroes and ones ain’t got shit and madness and guns – but its power and immense reach are undeniable. The Entity began “life” as a digital weapon designed by the U.S. government before going rogue and hopping through cyberspace with the giddiness of a puppy experiencing its first snowfall.Most villainous act of villainy: While toying with and killing a submarine filled with Russian sailors is an act of murderous cruelty, it’s the Entity’s bigger, broader acts of deception that mark it as a true villain. Its early days of online manipulation saw it shifting public opinion and behavior through social media, and it’s a brutal reminder of events in the real world. We live in a present where people with nefarious agendas are influencing easily shaped minds, and with the increased use of A.I. in our online dealings, it’s not hard to imagine something like the Entity stepping in and really turning our daily lives into a nightmare.Where to WatchPowered by9. John Musgrave (Mission: Impossible III)Director: J.J. Abrams | Writer: Alex Kurtzman, Robert Orci, and J.J. Abrams | Stars: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan | Release Date: May 5, 2006 | Runtime: 126 minsNot every villain has direct blood on his hands, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less dangerous. Musgrave is Hunt’s Operations Manager at the IMF, and it’s suggested they may even be minor friends – understandable as he’s played by Billy Crudup, and who wouldn’t want to be friends with Billy Crudup. He brings Hunt in on a mission to rescue one of his proteges, Lindsey Farris, and when that goes wrong and Hunt is blamed for the fallout, it’s Musgrave who helps the agent escape to pursue justice. See? A friend.Surprise! It’s all a ruse, and Musgrave is actually a traitor working with a man named Owen Davian on some elaborate plan to retrieve a piece of tech nicknamed “the rabbit’s foot.” Musgrave’s a hero in his own mind, though, as he’s hoping to use this as motivation for first strikes against enemy forces. He wants the U.S. and the IMF to play a more aggressive role in the fight against terrorism, and if that means supporting terrorists along the way, well, he’s all for it.Most villainous act of villainy: Musgrave might think his heart is in the right place here, but in addition to enabling a murderous terrorist in Davian, he crosses an equally big line by pulling Ethan’s wife, Julia, into danger. Worse, he lets Davian shoot Julia in the head right in front of Hunt. Sure, she’s revealed to have been a minor henchwoman in a mask, but the emotional damage is real.Mission: Impossible IIIParamount PicturesMay 5, 2006PG-13Where to WatchPowered by8. Kurt Hendricks (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)Director: Brad Bird | Writer: Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec | Stars: Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Michael Nyqvist | Release Date: December 21, 2011 | Runtime: 132 minsWhile some villains act out of greed and others cause misery simply for the fun of it, Kurt Hendricks is a man who only wants the best for humanity. What is the best, you ask? Well, in Hendricks’ mind, our species would benefit from something of a cleanse. From the great biblical flood to the atomic bombing of Japanese cities during World War II, immense disasters lead to rebuilding, recovery, and real improvement… apparently.Sounds logical, so Hendricks sets out to trigger just such a global debacle starting with a massive attack on the Kremlin in Moscow and leading to the acquisition of nuclear codes. He proves himself to be one of the greatest threats Ethan Hunt has faced to that point.Except, and this is where casting comes into serious play, the film wants us to see him as a physical threat to Hunt – but that’s nearly impossible. Michael Nyqvist was a fantastic actor, and he makes for a compelling villain through dialogue and intent. But a serious contender in a fight with Cruise? It’s difficult to buy, but that doesn’t stop director Brad Bird from letting him go toe to toe with the film’s star for a weirdly long fight. (To be fair, Chad Stahelski started it by letting Nyqvist seemingly hold his own for a bit with Keanu Reeves in John Wick.) So, while Hendricks is a grand threat on the world stage, he tumbles some in the ranking here as an unserious brawler against the highly trained and in far better shape Hunt. Most villainous act of villainy: Like Musgrave above, Hendricks seriously thinks he’s doing the world a favor by causing harm. His final act results in a nuclear missile being fired towards San Francisco, something that would have killed tens of thousands of people immediately before triggering the death of millions more. That’s no small thing, and he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling IMF agents.Where to WatchPowered by7. August Walker (Mission: Impossible - Fallout)Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Writer: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen | Stars: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson | Release Date: July 27, 2018 | Runtime: 147 minsHunt and his IMF team have been betrayed by double agents and traitors on numerous occasions, but most of them are greedy middle-aged men in suits who don’t pose an immediate physical threat to our intrepid hero. August Walker is something different entirely. He towers over Hunt and is jacked from his mustache on down. Henry Cavill’s portrayal ensures that he’s already menacing even while pretending to be on Hunt’s side, but once the truth comes out, the gloves come off.Walker is revealed to be working in cahoots with the brilliant Solomon Lane, and together they frame Hunt and once again pull the love of his life, Julia, into harm’s way. His motivation for it all is a bit over the top and dramatic – he wants the old world to implode and give rise to something better – but what else would you expect from a man who seems to cock his arms like guns during fist fights.Most villainous act of villainy: Walker and Lane are planning to detonate nuclear bombs, and while the latter stays behind to die in his greatest act of terror, Walker is on a chopper heading to safety. Hunt, of course, catches up to him in pursuit of the detonator that’s needed to stop the countdown. While Walker could have easily escaped by giving up the detonator, his desire to cause suffering – especially Hunt’s suffering if Julia were to die – leads him to a one-on-one fight to the death with the agent. It’s a decision built on rage and self-righteous justification, and it rightfully ends in his painful demise.Mission: Impossible - FalloutParamount PicturesJul 27, 2018Where to WatchPowered by6. Paris (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One)Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Writer: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen | Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson | Release Date: July 12, 2023 | Runtime: 163 minsWhen it comes to villains in the Mission: Impossible universe, few can touch Pom Klementieff’s Paris on style and charisma points. A henchwoman to Gabriel, she lets her gleefully murderous skillset do most of her talking, and it’s a refreshing change of pace from baddies who seem compelled to share their life stories before pulling a trigger.Her costume and face makeup see her stand apart from the crowd, but don’t let her doll-like appearance fool you. Paris is a merciless fighter who refuses to quit despite the odds, as evidenced by a shootout and car chase in Rome that sees her literally plowing through obstacles both human and otherwise in her pursuit of Hunt. Most villainous act of villainy: While Paris makes mincemeat out of numerous threats, she ultimately succumbs to Hunt during an alleyway brawl. He spares her life, though, and after being punished by Gabriel – he basically tries to kill her – she chooses to betray both him and her villainous tendencies by saving Hunt’s life. Maybe I’m stretching the definition here, but it takes a real badass to turn your back on villainy with the discovery of unexpected morals and a change of heart.Where to WatchPowered by5. Gabriel (Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning)Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Writer: Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen | Stars: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson | Release Date: July 12, 2023 & May 23, 2025 | Runtime: 163 mins & 169 minsThe mysterious Gabriel arrives in the penultimate entry of the franchise, and he’s a man with deadly skills and an alliance with the Entity. He also comes with a backstory suggesting an integral role in Ethan Hunt’s life. It seems Gabriel killed a woman named Marie thirty years ago, someone Hunt was apparently fond of, and it’s that murder that landed Hunt at the IMF – where he went on to save thousands of lives. Hundreds of thousands, even. So maybe Gabriel is a hero? I kid, I kid.He’s obviously a villain, and he may even be something of a seer (?), but while his late-to-the-party franchise arrival unavoidably undercuts his dramatic weight, the character’s casting lifts Gabriel right back up again. Esai Morales brings real charm and a calm menace to the character, and it’s immediately made clear that he’s not someone to be trifled with. You believe both his physical abilities and deadly intentions, and Morales’ added dramatic weight makes him a real threat to Hunt. He also earns a bump in the rankings by gifting viewers with the best, most unforgettable villain death in the entire franchise.Most villainous act of villainy: Gabriel’s killed a lot of people, and he even destroyed a rolling Agatha Christie landmark, so it’s clear he’s a bad guy. His most vicious act, though, comes as a bookend to having “fridged” Marie three decades earlier. Gabriel threatens to do it again by killing either Ilsa or Grace – Hunt’s current love interest or the woman who just landed in his lap mere hours ago – and while the film wants to trick viewers into thinking it’s going to be the latter, it’s Ilsa who dies by Gabriel’s blade instead. McQuarrie and Cruise are obviously the real villains here for introducing this tired trope of a woman’s death being responsible for a man’s life, but it’s ultimately Gabriel who thrusts the knife into Ilsa’s gut. It could have been Grace who died. Hell, it should have been Benji. Instead, Gabriel extinguishes the franchise’s brightest flame this side of Hunt himself. J’accuse!Where to WatchPowered byNot yet available for streaming.4. Jim Phelps (Mission: Impossible)Director: Brian De Palma | Writer: David KoeppSteven Zaillian, and Robert Towne | Stars: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno | Release Date: May 22, 1996 | Runtime: 110 minsJim Phelps wasn’t the only friend/fellow agent to betray Hunt over the years, but he was the first – and arguably the most shocking. The character, as played by Peter Graves, was the IMF’s lead agent for the bulk of the television series’ seven-season run from 1966 to 1973. He was unquestionably a good guy, so there was no reason to suspect that his presence in the first Mission: Impossible film would be anything different – well, Jon Voight in the role was probably a clue.Audiences expected Phelps to essentially hand the reins over to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, but while he did just that, he did so with a major act of betrayal. As he tells Hunt once his ruse is discovered, the end of the Cold War threatens to end the need for the IMF – this is as naive a statement as ever uttered in the entirety of the franchise – and he was worried about becoming a relic barely scraping by on sixty-two thousand dollars a year.Most villainous act of villainy: The betrayal itself is already brutal as Phelps turns his back on friends and agents who’ve risked their lives together over the years, but it’s the specifics of his traitorous act that hits hardest. In his effort to frame someone else for his crime, Phelps kills off three members of his team during an operation and then fakes his own death. What could have been a simple theft, instead becomes an act of cruelty making his betrayal sting even more.Where to WatchPowered by3. Sean Ambrose (Mission: Impossible II)Director: John Woo | Writer: Robert Towne | Stars: Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandiwe Newton, Ving Rhames | Release Date: May 24, 2000 | Runtime: 123 mins“That was always the hardest part of having to portray you,” says ex-IMF agent Sean Ambrose to a beaten and angered Ethan Hunt, “grinning like an idiot every fifteen minutes.” That line alone makes Ambrose a top villain as it’s a terrific zing at both Hunt and Cruise himself. He’s equally dismissive of women as evidenced by his comment that they’re like monkeys when it comes to the men in their lives, that they “won’t let go of one branch until they get a grip on the next.” Say what you will about his greedy desires, but Ambrose (Dougray Scott) understands the assignment when it comes to being a charismatic villain.That greed has led him to steal a deadly plague with plans to unleash it on whole populations if his demands aren’t met. While cash money is his primary motivator, though, Ambrose also seems fueled by a splash of jealousy towards Hunt. That makes their faceoffs all the more entertaining whether they’re jousting on motorcycles or sharing beatdowns in the sand as only the great John Woo can capture it.Most villainous act of villainy: The film opens with Ambrose masquerading as Hunt in order to acquire the Chimera plague, but rather than just kill one man, Ambrose and his team crash an entire passenger jet filled with innocent civilians. Acts of terror would claim higher body counts in later films, but this puts faces to the dead in a far more direct way making it more personal and affecting.Mission: Impossible IIParamount PicturesMay 24, 2000PG-13Where to WatchPowered by2. Solomon Lane (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation)Director: Christopher McQuarrie | Writer: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris | Release Date: July 31, 2015 & July 27, 2018 | Runtime: 131 mins & 147 minsWhether due to low pay or poor benefits, the world is seemingly overflowing with ex-government employees ready and willing to betray their nations and jump on the train to villain town. Solomon Lane is one such agent, but he goes a step or three further by helping create an organization called The Syndicate that’s built entirely on those bitter, trigger happy ex-agents. They want to sow chaos and reap financial rewards, and they’ve been doing it for years.Lane is introduced killing a young, unarmed female agent right in front of Hunt, and it’s soon revealed that he’s responsible for thousands of deaths over the years through events made to look like accidents or the work of wholly unrelated perpetrators. Lane’s history of manipulating trust and the world’s various systems makes him one of the most dangerous villains in the franchise. He’s ahead of Hunt at every step, and his mantra – “The greater the suffering, the greater the peace.” – marks him as a man willing to do anything to accomplish his goals.While many actors go big playing villains, Sean Harris takes the opposite approach and makes Lane a weasel of a man who you just want to see get beaten senseless. It’s an unusually bold choice that leaves him without a darkly appealing persona or personality – he’s just a very bad man who couldn’t care less about you or your loved ones.Most villainous act of villainy: As the rare villain to be an active threat across more than one film, Lane inflicts plenty of pain, suffering, and stress on Hunt and his team. The bulk of his evil acts were committed before Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation even begins, but his cruelest and most personal action unfolds during the followup, Fallout. Along with August Walker, Lane manages to activate two nuclear bombs threatening not only the water supply for billions of people, but also the life of Hunt’s greatest love, Julia. Seeing her in harm’s way is the kind of gut punch that Hunt felt only once before, and it’s clear just how sorry he is that his choices have once again brought her so close to dying.Where to WatchPowered by1. Owen Davian (Mission: Impossible III)Director: J.J. Abrams | Writer: Alex Kurtzman, Robert Orci, and J.J. Abrams | Stars: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan | Release Date: May 5, 2006 | Runtime: 126 minsThere’s a lot of competition when it comes to selecting the best villain in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but there was never any doubt who’d land at the top of the heap. Davian doesn’t care about much beyond his own wants and needs, and the film reflects that by never revealing exactly what his end goal is – we know he wants the so-called rabbit’s foot, but what it is and what it does are never made clear. We just know that Davian will cut through anyone and anything to get it, and that makes him an exceptionally dangerous man.J.J. Abrams’ Mission: Impossible III is unfairly maligned, but even those underwhelmed by the film itself can’t help but applaud Philip Seymour Hall’s frighteningly effective and highly entertaining portrayal of Davian. His blistering stares, his lightning quick shifts from dead silence to raging outbursts, and his deceptively calm way of threatening everything that Hunt holds dear all work to make him a villain who commands the screen and even steals every scene from Cruise himself.There may not be a big, global threat at play here, but Davian is the man who arguably gets closer than any other villain to actually killing Hunt. He injects the agent’s head with an explosive device that gets within seconds of churning Hunt’s brain tissue into ground beef, and he even gets some serious licks in while brawling. You wouldn’t think a Cruise versus Hoffman fight would convince, but the latter’s pure ferocity paired with Hunt’s incapacitation due to the pain in his head makes for a viciously compelling bout.Most villainous act of villainy: Davian is a mean bastard who, while still in restraints, coldly threatens to murder Hunt’s fiance Julia. “I’m gonna make her bleed and cry and call out your name”, he says, and it’s one of the few times where Hunt’s legendary control tips into real fear and emotion. Davian later comes close to doing just that after abducting Julia, tying her up, and appearing to shoot her in the head. Hunt’s pain is palpable, and it’s enough to damage his heart to the point that he’d go on to never let someone that close again. Davian has literally halted Hunt’s ability to connect with someone on a deeply personal level, and it’s the kind of attack that bullets and bombs just can’t compete with.Mission: Impossible IIIParamount PicturesMay 5, 2006PG-13Where to WatchPowered by

Future AI accelerators for China will not use the Hopper architecture, as Jensen Huang hints at a potential switch to Blackwell.

NetherRealm Studios’ brand is bloody fighting games, though in 2013, it toned down the violence a tad for Injustice: Gods Among Us. Based on the title, it may not have been even totally clear to Mortal Kombat fans that it was a fighting game starring DC Comics heroes and villains, like Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Joker. But Injustice was a hit for the studio, and spawned a sequel in 2017 that expanded the weird and wild world while offering the same knuckle-busting gameplay.Unfortunately, outside of a tie-in comic and an animated film adaptation, the series has been dormant ever since. Despite the series’ strong sales and high review scores, NetherRealm hasn’t delivered a sequel, instead focusing on its Mortal Kombat franchise. While we can certainly hope the studio’s next game is Injustice 3, and there are murmurs that it might be, NetherRealm hasn’t given any indication as to what it’s developing next.If an Injustice 3 were to be announced, there are some key changes and additions, in my humble opinion, that NetherRealm could make to elevate the franchise.​​​​​​​ For your (and NetherRealm’s) consideration:Make sure Injustice 3’s DLC characters aren’t one-offsNetherRealm Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentThe first two Injustice games had expansive rosters, but there are plenty more heroes and villains from the DC universe NetherRealm could bring in for a potential threequel. First, however, some of the DLC fighters need to be brought back — and be used for storytelling purposes. Characters like Batgirl, Martian Manhunter, and Zatanna were great additions in the first game, but were nowhere to be found in the second. Similarly, Black Manta, Starfire, and Enchantress offered great character variety in the second game, and we can only hope they return if the series continues.Injustice: Gods Among Us had two dozen characters for its base roster while Injustice 2 had 28, and the DLC additions pushed its roster to almost 40. NetherRealm has demonstrated time and again it can deliver plenty of unique heroes for each of its games, so I have no doubt that if Injustice 3’s base roster were to include 30-plus heroes, they’d all feel unique and justified. Personally, I’m hoping for more Teen Titans.“Add these characters to Injustice 3” lightning roundBatman Beyond Batman: Because a little nostalgia for ’00s cartoons never hurts.Batwoman: Just about everyone else in the Batfamily has made it. Why not Kate Kane?Beast Boy: Fans have long wanted Beast Boy in the series, and for good reason — his shape-shifting powers have the potential for the most unique move set of any fighter.John Constantine: Plays a huge role in the original Injustice comics, but has yet to be playable in the games.Kilowog: The more Green Lanterns, the better.King Shark: Scene stealer in everything he appears in, whether we’re talking The Suicide Squad or Harley Quinn.Mister Miracle: Everyone’s favorite depressed hero before Bob from Thunderbolts came along.Naomi: Probably Brian Michael Bendis’ best addition to the DC universe, it’s time Naomi got to kick some butt in a game.Ra’s al Ghul: Batman’s father-in-law deserves to duel his son-in-law shirtless, just like in the animated show.Peacemaker: He’s already in Mortal Kombat 1, so just bring his peace-loving ass over.Static: How did Static join the mobile game before the real game???Terra: One of the most influential Teen Titans can be Injustice’s version of Mortal Kombat’s Tremor.Go back to comic-accurate suitsInjustice 2 swapped out alternate costumes for gear. Instead of adorning Batman in his Red Son costume or Nightwing in his New 52 digs, you’d instead equip various pieces of gear to each character. You could also add different shaders, giving each character wildly different color schemes than they were traditionally known for, like a purple Superman or gold Green Lantern. Each character ultimately ended up with a similar, armored-up aesthetic. Gone were the unique, comic-accurate skins.Personally, I wasn’t a fan of Injustice 2’s gear system. Even aside from the aesthetics, it introduced a tedious item-management system to the game, full of stats, transmog options, and, of course, microtransactions. Instead, I’d prefer Injustice 3 to go back to a focus on alternate costumes inspired by comics, movies, and everything else. There have been plenty of new costumes for each hero introduced since the games dropped, meaning the possibilities for alternate skins in a new game would be quite substantial.Add premium skins for more character varietyImage: NetherRealm Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentPremium skins from both games need to return, and I’d love for even more to be included. Premium skins would change the appearance and voice of a character while retaining its move set. For example, equipping the Reverse-Flash costume for Flash would turn the character into his archnemesis but play the same as the hero you know and love. Characters like the Flash and Green Lantern are ripe for premium skins so players could fight as Wally West or Simon Baz without entirely new characters needing to be made. And could you imagine playing as 2022’s The Batman’s version of the character with voice work by Robert Pattinson or as David Corenswet’s Superman? Let’s speak it into existence.Take advantage of DC Comics’ multiversal characters and storiesThe first Injustice game was a light multiverse story. It had heroes from only two worlds interacting, but most of the plot concerned heroes from the main DC universe fighting evil, alternate versions in a parallel universe where Superman broke bad. Injustice 2 stuck to the parallel world and explored how it developed in the years after the first game, telling a story of how its heroes and villains had to unite to stop Brainiac.In the years since, multiverse stories, especially with superheroes, have exploded in popularity — and characters. I’m not asking NetherRealm to create hundreds of versions of its characters, but it would be fun to see the studio create even more new takes on the existing heroes.Image: DC ComicsThe story could take inspiration from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Dark Knights: Metal event, where DC’s heroes contend with twisted versions of Batman. Or it could go with a classic trope of villains meeting variants of each other; perhaps Darkseid could team up with his multiversal counterparts in an attempt to rule the multiverse.I know this one’s a longshot, but maybe there’s crossover potential with bringing Watchmen characters into the multiverse shenanigans. DC has been open to doing new things with the characters in recent years, like in the Doomsday Clock miniseries and HBO show. I’d love to see how NetherRealm interprets Rorschach, Ozymandias, and Doctor Manhattan, both from a gameplay and a storytelling perspective.DC’s newest comic initiative would work well in a game, tooImage: DC ComicsOne particular universe that Injustice 3 could draw inspiration from is DC’s Absolute comics line. One of the core tenants of the Absolute Universe is stripping DC’s heroes of key characteristics while keeping the core idea of who they are intact. For example, Absolute Superman grew up on Krypton and arrived on Earth as an adult, removing his Kansas family ties. Absolute Wonder Woman was raised in Hell, giving her a new outlook on the world — and new powers.Absolute Batman is perhaps the most altered of DC’s heroes. Gone is the rich playboy and in comes a bulked-up engineer. Batman’s appearance is dramatically different; he’s taller and his muscled frame rivals that of Bane’s. The Bat symbol on his chest can be detached and used as an axehead, meaning an Absolute version would play extremely differently in Injustice 3 than the Batman we’re used to.Or maybe just Mortal Kombat vs. Injustice?Back in 2008, Midway Games released an ambitious crossover fighting game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It found the heroes and enemies of both franchises at odds with one another before coming together to fight Dark Khan, a fusion of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, and save their universes. It was a fun crossover that would influence storytelling in fighting games, but unfortunately it was one of Midway’s last titles. The studio eventually shuttered and from it was born NetherRealm, which hit the ground running with a Mortal Kombat reboot and then the first Injustice game.If an Injustice 3 isn’t going to happen, maybe DC fans could be appeased in a different way — a followup to Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The title is sitting right there: Mortal Kombat vs. Injustice. It could pick up threads from the ending of Injustice 2 and pit its evil Superman and Wonder Woman against Mortal Kombat stalwarts Liu Kang, Scorpion, and Raiden. A crossover could serve fans of both franchises while exploring the characters in new ways, both in terms of story and gameplay.Is there hope for an Injustice 3 release?Between 2011 and 2019, NetherRealm released a game every two years, alternating between Mortal Kombat games and the Injustice series. Since then it’s only released Mortal Kombat 1 in 2023 and hasn’t yet divulged what its next game will be. It could be a new Mortal Kombat, something new entirely, or, ideally for DC fans, a third Injustice game. Injustice director Ed Boon gave fans some hope in 2024, telling The Direct, “[W]e love the Injustice games. You know, I would be surprised if we never did one again.”James Gunn and Peter Safran became the architects of their DC Universe in 2022, looking to usher in new films and build a cohesive storytelling universe across films, TV series, and games. Earlier in 2025, they met with the heads of NetherRealm and Rocksteady, the makers of the Batman: Arkham games. “It’s really the first time it’s ever been this way at Warner Bros.,” Safran said (via EuroGamer). “We sit with [the studio heads] and we talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”Gunn detailed how the film plan may influence the games, saying, “We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages. We talk about those, we talk about what the story might be and we’ll say ‘Well, maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character.’” Gunn and Safran meeting with NetherRealm Studios can be looked at positively. To assume it means NetherRealm has something DC cooking would be too much of a stretch, but it at least gives Injustice fans hope that a third entry isn’t dead in the water.See More:

We may earn a commission from links on this page.A surprisingly endearing sitcom about an American football coach moving to the U.K. to coach the other kind of football, Ted Lasso was Apple TV+'s first breakout hit, but it's long over by this point. While few of their other shows have commanded even a fraction of the zeitgeist, over the past few years Apple's streaming service has built a small but solid library of other original series that are at least interesting or pretty good, and occasionally more. Apple's offerings still can’t quite compare to what you’ll find on Netflix or Hulu, at least in terms of volume, but there’s enough money in the tech company's bank account that they’ve shown a willingness to experiment, particularly when it comes to high-cost genres like science fiction, and that’s not a bad thing. Here are 40 of Apple’s best original shows so far. I'm highlighting the ones you may not have binged yet, so Ted Lasso isn’t on the list—but consider him mentioned here. Apple TV+ $9.99 Per Month at AppleTV+ Learn More Learn More $9.99 Per Month at AppleTV+ Dark Matter (2024 – , renewed for a second season) Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, and Alice Braga star in this high-concept sci-fi thriller from the novel by Blake Crouch (he's also the showrunner). Edgerton plays Jason Dessen, a former physicist living a fairly decent life with his wife, Daniela (Connelly) in Chicago when he's drugged and kidnapped before waking up in a Chicago where he'd never married Daniela. It seems that a version of himself invented a device allowing for travel between infinite alternate universes—and that version of Jason wants the life that our Jason has, and who's now on a quest to make his way home. You can stream Dark Matter here. Foundation (2021 —, renewed for a third season) Foundation frequently misses the point of its source material (a series of influential Isaac Asimov novels), but that doesn’t make it any less of an impressively realized science-fiction epic on its own terms. Lou Llobel and Lee Pace lead the centuries-spanning series that sees a group of scholars and rebels working to bring down a galactic empire in order to save it (in the very, very long run). The first season was pretty great, the second season was even better, and ads for the third season look promising. You can stream Foundation here. Dope Thief (2025, miniseries) Ray and Manny (Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura) are a couple of childhood friends from Philly who've been supporting themselves by impersonating DEA agents and robbing low-level stash houses in the inner city. Manny's looking to move on while Ray's eccentric mother, Theresa (Kate Mulgrew, clearly having a great time) needs a lot of money fast. And so, as you've probably guessed, we're about to enter "one last big score" plot territory, which, in this case, involves robbing a meth lab that is, it turns out, part of a large-scale operation that the real DEA has in its sights. The setup is nothing new, but everyone here is at the top of their game. You can stream Dope Thief here.Slow Horses (2022 – , renewed for fifth and sixth seasons) With nods to the great spy dramas of John le Carré, Slow Horses updates the setting without losing either the thrills or the style of a time-honored genre. The “Slow Horses” of the title is a group of has-been MI5 agents—they’ve all made messes of significant jobs, but are still seen as having some use, if only in dull administrative tasks. Naturally, the group (lead by Gary Oldman and Jack Lowden, with their spymaster played by Kristin Scott Thomas) finds themselves in deeper waters than anyone had expected of them. The show has a sly sense of humor, and balances a cynical tone with a conviction that redemption is more than possible (it's also probably my personal favorite Apple TV+ show). You can stream Slow Horses here.Sugar (2024 – , renewed for a second season) Sugar doesn't try to obscure or downplay its reliance on old-school Hollywood noir tropes: Its characters are driven to emulate the style of antiheroes of old, and clips from old movies even play alongside the action as a means of driving the point home. The central mystery sees detective John Sugar (Colin Farrell) summoned to the mansion of a rich movie producer (James Cromwell), whose granddaughter has gone missing. The first few episodes are intriguing, and  the premise is unique in that Sugar is kind of an anti-anti-hero—he's an actual nice guy in a world where he's expected to play the tough guy. The sixth episode, though, drops an absolutely wild, love-it-or-hate it plot twist that drives the remaining episode and, presumably, the forthcoming second season. The series comes from writer Mark Protosevich (The Cell, I Am Legend) and smartly directed by City of God's Fernando Meirelles, so it has style to spare. You can stream Sugar here. Pachinko (2022 – , third season renewal pending) Pachinko is technically an American production, but its largely South Korean cast and crew place it in very much in the wheelhouse of the K-dramas that have found success in the U.S. in recent years. The multigenerational saga follows one woman (Youn Yuh-jung and Kim Min-ha) and her family from the Japanese occupation of Korea through the decades of the Korean diaspora. It’s as personal as it is epic, with better location cinematography than most movies—and it’s got an all-time great opening credits sequence. You can stream Pachinko here.Palm Royale (2024 – , renewed for a second season) Kristen Wiig stars here as Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons, an endlessly inventive social climber in 1969 Palm Beach, Florida who sets out on a road to the top of the local hierarchy when she manages to nab herself a membership in the exclusive private club of the title. It's soapy and silly and occasionally over the top—which all just means that it's thoroughly entertaining and relatively stress-free. The cast here is among the best that streaming money can buy: Alongside Wiig, we get Laura Dern as a helpful hippie, Allison Janney as a demanding matriarch, Carol Burnett as mysterious (and initially comatose) local royalty, and Ricky Martin as the sexy bartender (with Bruce Dern, Julia Duffy, and Mindy Cohn among the recurring cast). You can stream Palm Royale here. Bad Sisters (2022 – , third season renewal pending) The comedy/murder mystery genre is having a moment, with Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, Apple’s own The Afterparty (to which I’ll return later in this list), and the Knives Out movies all doing brisk business. Bad Sisters is in that same category, but set apart in interesting (and significant) ways. The Dublin setting and the dark comedy stand out, and the show is as much about solving the core murder as it is about rooting for the killer, whomever they may be. Among the title sisters, one has a particularly odious husband. When he turns up dead, each of the sisters (one played by Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan, who co-created) is revealed to have had good reason for doing the job. You can stream Bad Sisters here. Severance (2022 – , renewed for a third season) Late-stage capitalism encourages “work-life balance” while simultaneously making it impossible, and then makes us feel guilty about it. In Severance, biotechnology giant Lumon Industries has a solution: They split your consciousness between your life at work and your life outside of it. For our lead characters (played by Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, and more) the work- and home-based consciousnesses grow apart to the point that they become entirely different people. The show blends the conventions of office-based dark comedies with movies like Brazil and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and dives into the dangers of modern American-style totalitarian capitalism while providing a reminder that technology often promises to improve our lives while only making them worse. You can stream Severance here.The Buccaneers (2023 – , renewed for a second season) The sassy, revisionist period drama (think Bridgerton) is having a heyday and, with the success of HBO's The Gilded Age (itself an Edith Wharton pastiche), it's only natural that things have come back around to the source—in this case, an unfinished Wharton novel telling the story of five American nouveau riche daughters being shuffled off to Europe to unite (in marriage) their family's ready cash with old European titles and lands. It's a fun, women-led show that splits the difference between The Gilded Age's relative faithfulness to history and Bridgerton's joyful anachronisms. You can stream The Buccaneers here. Hijack (2023 – , renewed for a second season) This solid action thriller stars Idris Elba as a business negotiator who finds himself among the passengers on a flight from London to Dubai that's been, well, hijacked. He's the only one onboard with a shot at saving himself and the other passengers, but will have to use his experience, brains, and brawn to do it. The show takes place in real time, more or less, adding to the suspense, and also making the second-season pickup slightly confusing. I'm not sure how a followup series will work, but if 24 could run for nine seasons, I'm sure that Elba's Sam Nelson can sustain at least a couple more. You can stream Hijack here. For All Mankind (2019 — , renewed for fifth season) I love a high concept—but execution is what counts, and For All Mankind makes good on its premise, thanks in large part to the involvement of writer/co-creator Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica). The show runs with a tantalizing "what if?": What if Soviet space pioneer Sergei Korolev hadn’t died prematurely in 1966 and instead helped bring his country’s space program to full flower, extending the space race indefinitely? If we’d been forced to continue and expand upon the space program, our past (and present) would look quite different, and this show dramatically imagines how that might go, jumping across decades to reveal our alternate past (and future). A spin-off involving a Soviet space program, Star City, is in the works. You can stream For All Mankind here. Dickinson (2019 – 2021, two seasons) Dickinson is so scrupulously weird that it gets points just for being unexpected. The most surprising thing about it, though, is that it's not merely idiosyncratic—it’s good. The show imagines the life of 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson, with the conceit that she didn’t fit especially well in her own time, a fact the show reflects through the casual use of anachronisms and more modern sensibilities. Think Netflix’s Bridgerton or Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette for similar vibes—but neither of those is about a person nearly as haunting or mysterious as Dickinson. Bonus: It’s also beautifully filmed and acted. You can stream Dickinson here.Visible: Out on Television (2020, miniseries) An effective update to The Celluloid Closet that takes us up to date for the Peak TV age, Visible brings that sweet Apple money to bear in gathering an impressive assortment of talking heads. Going back to the earliest days of television, when queer characters and themes were either ignored, heavily coded, or mocked, the docuseries traces the ups and downs of queer representation on TV right up until the present moment. It entertainingly documents how far we’ve come, and makes clear there’s still work to do. You can stream Visible here. Manhunt (2024, miniseries) Based on James L. Swanson’s book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, Manhunt reenacts (in detail) not just the night of Abraham Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle), but the hours, months, and years that followed, examining the political and cultural fallout at the dawn of Reconstruction. The surprising star here is Tobias Menzies' Edwin Stanton, the war secretary who fought to preserve Lincoln's legacy, with mixed results. The show also offers strong parallels, intentional or not, between Booth—violently racist, bombastic, and vainglorious while also somehow a perpetual victim—and modern-day political figures with whom you might be familiar. You can stream Manhunt here. The Last Thing He Told Me (2023 – , renewed for a second season) Critics and audiences are divided over The Last Thing He Told Me, the crime drama earning only mixed reviews while also ranking as the streamer's most watched limited series ever. Based on the bestseller by Laura Dave, the popularity of the book might have something to do with that, as might Jennifer Garner's sensitive performance. While it scored those impressive numbers as a limited series, the series has subsequently been renewed for a new season, to be based on a forthcoming sequel novel, currently scheduled for release in 2025. Co-starring Angourie Rice, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and David Morse, the series finds Garner's character trying to forge a bond with her stepdaughter in order to help solve the mystery of her missing husband. You can stream The Last Thing He Told Me here.Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023 – , renewed for a second season) Monarch does a surprisingly effective job of telling its own story within the universe of all those American Godzilla movies of the past decade or so, bringing those big stories back down to Earth while building out an entire monster-verse mythology in the process. Anna Sawai stars as a young teacher searching for her father, missing since Godzilla's attack on San Francisco (depicted in the 2014 film), and finds herself drawn into the past and present of a secret government agency. Wyatt and Kurt Russell play the past and present incarnations of the Army colonel who helped set the whole thing in motion. You can stream Monarch here.See (2019 — 2022, three seasons) The pitch meeting for this must’ve been a hoot. “We’ll do ‘The Country of the Blind’—but, you know, in the future!” Just as in that H.G. Wells story, we learn here that being one of the only sighted people among the blind doesn’t necessarily grant you any special privileges. A few centuries from now, humans have lost their senses of sight, and the few born sighted are hunted and despised. As high concepts go, it’s a little goofy (and the reviews have been a little rough), but the beautifully produced and entertaining show blends Game of Thrones vibes with dystopian sci-fi, and boasts Jason Momoa and the always brilliant Alfre Woodard. You can stream See here.Central Park (2020 — 2022, three seasons) Central Park, from creators Loren Bouchard, Josh Gad, and Nora Smith, retains much of the look and feel of Bouchard’s beloved (and long-running) Bob’s Burgers, which is probably enough of a recommendation to get many adult-leaning cartoon fans onboard. It differs, though, in its ambition: Unlike Bob’s, this show invests more heavily in serialization to tell the story of a park manager fighting to save the titular Central Park from greedy developers. It’s also a true musical, incorporating big numbers into each and every episode. (The more sporadic musical numbers in Bob’s Burgers are always the best part, so upping that quotient here is all to the good.) You can stream Central Park here.Silo (2023 —, renewed for third and fourth seasons) The casts of many of these shows are pretty extraordinary, but this one is at least a small step above: Rebecca Ferguson, Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo, Common, and Tim Robbins are all included in the main cast. The science fiction series, based on High Howey’s self-published sensation Wool, is set in a post-apocalyptic future; the show’s characters live in the 144-story silo of the title, a sealed environment sustaining (and imprisoning?) the last dregs of humanity. Societal politics blend with elements of mystery (nothing in the silo is quite what it seems) in an impressively conceived dystopia; the series is set to conclude, but not before two further seasons are produced. You can stream Silo here. Schmigadoon! (2021 — 2023) There’s a big theater-kid vibe to Schmigadoon, no question, with references and in-jokes not everyone is going to get. I’m not sure it matters. When Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) set out on a camping trip to strengthen their relationship, they instead stumble into the title town, where everyone sings their feelings, just like characters in a... you get it. The only way out? True love—which Melissa and Josh thought they already shared, but maybe not so much. It’s both a tribute to classic musicals and a satire of the common tropes and the more problematic aspects of those old productions. The second season switches location and eras to “Schmicago,” taking on the darker-tinged musicals of the 1970s. You can stream Schmigadoon here. The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin (2024, one season) The Great British Bake Off's Noel Fielding stars in this wildly ahistorical British import involving the real-life highwayman of the title, who lived in the mid-1700s. Truth and legend are impossible to sort out when it comes to Turpin, so the show defers to the legend, adding a bunch of inspired silliness to the mix. It's not quite Our Flag Means Death, but it takes a similarly loose and fun approach to history. The well-received show shut down for good during production of a second season, under slightly mysterious circumstances, but the existing season is still worth a run. You can stream Dick Turpin here.Masters of the Air (2024, miniseries) A spiritual successor and companion to earlier WWII minis Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), Masters of the Air focuses on the “Bloody Hundredth,” the 100th Bomb Group—pilots tasked with bombing targets inside German-occupied Europe. Austin Butler (Elvis), Barry Keoghan (Saltburn), and Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who) are part of the impressive ensemble. You can stream Masters of the Air here.Constellation (2024 – ) Severance, Foundation, For All Mankind, and Silo have established Apple TV+ as a home for high-concept, big-ish budget science fiction. Which is cool, given that even the SyFy channel is't filling that niche anymore. This one finds astronaut Noomi Rapace returning to Earth after an accident, and discovering that the reality she's returned to isn't quite the same as the one she left behind. You can stream Constellation here.Criminal Record ( 2024 – , renewed for a second season) The apparently IRL-delightful Peter Capaldi is one of our most effortlessly menacing actors, imbuing even The Doctor with an unpredictable inscrutability, so it's no surprise that he excels at playing a hardened police detective with a checkered past. He's joined here by Cush Jumbo's June Lenker, a by-the-book and far more idealistic detective who's as suspicious of Capaldi's DCI Hegarty as she is of the facts involving the cold case the pair are investigating. Think of them like a twisted version of Mulder and Scully (minus the aliens, of course). You can stream Criminal Record here.The Morning Show (2019 — , renewed for a fourth season) Less high-concept than some of Apple’s other originals, The Morning Show still serves as a solid drama led by an out-of-character performance from Jennifer Aniston. She plays Alex Levy, co-host of a major network morning show. “Co-host,” that is, until Mitch (Steve Carrell), with whom she’s worked for 15 years, is fired due to sexual misconduct shortly before the show goes on the air one morning (a la Matt Lauer), leaving Alex to explain the situation. The resulting shake-ups and power grabs (including by an up-and-comer played by Reese Witherspoon; the star power in this thing!) were inspired by Brian Stelter’s real-life book Top of the Morning, about the (perhaps) surprisingly dramatic and cutthroat world of morning television, so with the TV-ready drama comes an air of verisimilitude. You can stream The Morning Show here. The Me That You Can’t See (2021, miniseries) An Oprah Winfrey/Prince Harry co-production might inspire understandable cynicism, but the effort here is worthwhile: Approaching both stars and non-celebrities, the miniseries explores issues related to mental health, particularly the stigma and difficulties in finding care. The celebs are all impressively frank, and the less-famous individuals come from a wide array of backgrounds and face a diverse set of issues. Naturally, the presentation is highly polished, but the mere fact that the streamer is putting its money into expanding conversations about mental illness make it worth checking out. You can stream The Me That You Can't See here.Truth Be Told (2019 — 2023, three seasons) Honestly, they had me at Octavia Spencer. It’s not just her, though: The cast here is uniformly first-rate (Lizzy Caplan, Aaron Paul, Mekhi Phifer, and Kate Hudson also star). The premise is also solid, and timely: Spencer plays a true-crime podcaster who condemned a now-convicted killer with her reporting, but who now learns that she might have gotten some crucial details wrong. The execution stumbles a bit in the first season, but picks up in the second and into its concluding third. You can stream Truth Be Told here.The Afterparty (2022 — 2023, two seasons) At a high school reunion afterparty, a murder occurs that, naturally, sets the series in motion—a scenario rife with possibilities, given the dramas that swirl around any real-life reunion. The spin here on the comedy murder mystery is its Rashomon-like structure: Each episode explores the night from the POV of one of the participants, shifting genre styles to suit the character in question. Tiffany Haddish and Sam Richardson are great as the leads. You can stream The Afterparty here.Little America (2020 — 2022, two seasons) With a sense of humor, the anthology Little America dramatizes a series of Epic Magazine pieces telling the stories of immigrants in America. Each 30-minute episode plays like a movie in miniature, and each is packed with emotion—sometimes heartbreak, often joy. Seriously, they cram a lot of heart into these little episodes. Each one ends with a tag about the real people on which it is based, which serves to ground the emotion in reality. You can stream Little America here.Home Before Dark (2020 — 2021, two seasons) I love, love, love that this one’s based on a true story. Home Before Dark dramatizes the story of Hilde Lysiak, award-winning crime reporter and the youngest member of the Society of Professional Journalists, who began her career at age nine (she’s now a whopping 14). Here she’s fictionalized as Hilde Lisko (Brooklynn Prince), who moves with her mother to a Twin Peaks-esque coastal town where she slowly, doggedly, uncovers the truth behind a long-forgotten cold case. You can stream Home Before Dark here.Servant (2019 — 2023, four seasons) Creepy nanny meets creepy doll in this utterly strange psychological thriller, co-executive-produced by the occasionally brilliant but notoriously inconsistent M. Night Shyamalan (the show was created by Tony Basgallop). The horror here isn’t really overt, but the show plays some interesting and disturbing games centered on the relationship of the lead couple, played by Lauren Ambrose and Toby Kebbell. Following the death of their 13-week-old son, the pair acquires a lifelike doll as a therapeutic tool. Naturally, something’s not quite right with the doll (or Dorothy’s attachment to it), and something’s definitely not right about the young live-in nanny who they hire (rich people, amirite?) to take care of fake baby Jericho. You can stream Servant here.Ghostwriter (2019 — 2022, three seasons) This new, updated Ghostwriter goes in a different direction than the ‘90s-era original, focusing a little bit less on the mystery elements of the stories and more on reading fundamentals. Operating out of a bookstore belonging to the grandfather of two of the main characters, four kids are brought together by a ghost who brings characters from classic and modern literature to life, with CGI that’s sometimes great —and sometimes less so. Where the show really shines is in its depiction of kids who are believably smart and savvy, unlike an awful lot of shows that can’t seem to tell the difference between a 12-year-old and a fivr-year-old. It’s definitely for kids, but that’s to its credit. You can stream Ghostwriter here.Defending Jacob (2020, miniseries) Based on the book by William Landay, this one’s premise is clever, and harrowing: In an upper-class Massachusetts suburb, Andy (Chris Evans) and Laurie (Michelle Dockery) learn that a classmate of their 14-year-old son has been murdered in a local park. What happens next is even more shocking: their son is arrested for the murder. The show sometimes leans unnecessarily into melodrama, but the performances are solid and the central mystery is so compelling, it’s hard not to get drawn in. You can stream Defending Jacob here.Black Bird (2022, miniseries) Novelist Dennis Lehane (Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River) developed the based-on-a-true-story miniseries, and his touch is evident if you’re familiar with his books, or with the movies they’ve inspired. Taron Egerton plays Jimmy Keene, a former football star given a 10-year prison sentence for drug dealing. Before long, he’s given another shot: His sentence will be erased if he transfers to a much higher security prison for the criminally insane and gathers evidence against a suspected serial killer incarcerated there. That’s a killer premise, and Egerton is great here. You can stream Black Bird here.Trying (2020 — , renewed for fifth season) After having difficulty conceiving a child, Nikki and Jason begin the adoption process, and find themselves in a bind. Were they able to conceive, there’d be no other qualifications necessary to have a baby. Adoption, on the other hand, is long process full of screenings, classes, paperwork, home visits, and money. This is one of those rare comedies that’s both genuinely funny and gentle—the show even revisits all of its characters at the end of each episode so that we know how everyone has made out. You can stream Trying here. Mythic Quest (2020 — 2025, four seasons) It might sound a little (or a lot) niche, but we’ve seen enough headlines about the working conditions at many video game production houses to understand why a workplace comedy set against such a backdrop would make for effectively dark and juicy comedy. Charlotte Nicdao and Rob McElhenney are the leads here, as a brilliant and driven workaholic and an unsociable egomaniac respectively, and the chemistry between their two characters give the show more than enough spark. There's also a four episode spin-off: Side Quest. You can stream Mythic Quest here. Acapulco (2021 – , renewed for a fourth season) Inspired by the 2017 film How to Be a Latin Lover, the ambitious English/Spanish-language comedy spans generations in telling the story of Maximo Gallardo Ramos (Eugenio Derbez), a Malibu mogul who began life as a pool boy at a fancy resort hotel. The sweet, sun-drenched show has a gorgeously retro visual style. You can stream Acapulco here. Disclaimer (2024, miniseries) Created, written, and directed by four-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón, Disclaimer has as impressive a pedigree as you could hope for on streaming TV: It stars Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline (both, incidentally, Oscar winners), alongside Sacha Baron Cohen and Leila George. Blanchett plays Catherine Ravenscroft, an award-winning journalist who receives a mysterious manuscript—it's a novel in which she, herself, appears to be the main character, and which reveals secrets of her past that she thought were long buried. Cuarón moves deliberately through a story that takes its time, even as each episode shifts through points of view and timelines to offer up consistent and impressive surprises. You can stream Disclaimer here. The Studio (2025 – , renewed for a second season) Industry exec Matt Remick (Seth Rogen) loves movies, and when he signs on for a high-profile role at the fictional Continental Studios, he's feeling like his time has come, like he can make a real difference in fixing an increasingly IP-driven movie industry. That is, until about a minute into his new job when the CEO (Bryan Cranston) lets him know that his first job will be marketing Kool-Aid Man, a thin attempt to rip off the success of Barbie. Hollywood satires of yore have focused on the industry as one that eats people up and spits them out, but the spin here is that Remick yearns for those days. This very funny, often intentionally cringe, comedy finds Hollywood in a state of decline and focuses on a man who'd love nothing more than to rebuild the movie industry of old. Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies), and Kathryn Hahn also star, and the show boasts a seemingly endless list of celebrity cameos. You can stream The Studio here.

By Passant Rabie Published May 13, 2025 | Comments (1) | An illustration of a decaying neutron star. Daniëlle Futselaar/artsource.nl Around 13.8 billion years ago, a tiny but dense fireball gave birth to the vast cosmos that holds trillions of galaxies, including the Milky Way. But our universe is dying, and it’s happening at a much faster rate than scientists previously estimated, according to new research. The last stellar remnants of the universe will cease to exist in 10 to the power of 78 years (that’s a one with 78 zeros), according to a new estimate from a group of scientists at Radboud University in the Netherlands. That’s still a long way off from when the universe powers down for good—but it’s a far earlier fade-to-black moment than the previous 10 to the power of 1,100 years estimate. The new paper, published Monday in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, is a follow-up to a previous study by the same group of researchers. In their 2023 study, black hole expert Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak, and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom suggested that other objects, like neutron stars, could evaporate in much the same way as black holes. The original theory, developed by Stephen Hawking in 1974, proposed that radiation escaping near a black hole’s event horizon would gradually erode its mass over time. The phenomenon, known as Hawking radiation, remains one of the most surprising ideas about black holes to this day. Building on the theory of Hawking radiation, the researchers behind the new paper suggest that the process of erosion depends on the density of the object. They found that neutron stars and stellar black holes take roughly the same amount of time to decay, an estimated 10 to the power of 67 years. Although black holes have a stronger gravitational field that should cause them to evaporate faster, they also have no surface so they end up reabsorbing some of their own radiation, “which inhibits the process,” Wondrak said in a statement. The researchers then calculated how long various celestial bodies would take to evaporate via Hawking-like radiation, leading them to the abbreviated cosmic expiration date. “So the ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time,” Falcke said. The study also estimates that it would take the Moon around 10 to the power of 90 years to evaporate based on Hawking radiation. “By asking these kinds of questions and looking at extreme cases, we want to better understand the theory, and perhaps one day, we unravel the mystery of Hawking radiation,” van Suijlekom said. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Isaac Schultz Published May 11, 2025 By Passant Rabie Published March 20, 2025 By Passant Rabie Published February 10, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published February 2, 2025 By Margherita Bassi Published February 1, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published January 28, 2025