David Fincher breaks it down. The post How that Red Hot Chili Peppers ep of ‘Love, Death & Robots’ was made appeared first on befores & afters.

Back in 2010, when Cartoon Network first announced its plan to reboot the beloved 1985 animated TV series Thundercats, the first thought that went through my mind was, “That’s great! Do Blackstar next!” In 2014, when Boat Rocker Media announced its reboot of 1981’s Danger Mouse, same thing: “Huh, interesting, but do Blackstar next.” 2016’s Disney reveal about its reboot of 1987’s Duck Tales? “Rad. But… Blackstar?” And so it went, year after year, with the announcements about 2018’s Netflix reboot of She-Ra: Princess of Power, 2021’s He-Man reboot Masters of the Universe: Revelation, the CG version of Inspector Gadget, the American Voltron update Voltron: Legendary Defender, half a dozen new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers projects, a little-loved second Thundercats series, and every single Smurfs movie. I get it — the kids of the ’80s are producers and writers and showrunners now, with enough clout to get their childhood memories turned into new shows. But apparently none of them watched Blackstar, easily one of the coolest animated series of the 1980s, built around the coolest sword. There’s a direct genetic line between the success of 1977’s Star Wars and the wave of space-set, fantasy-themed Saturday morning cartoons that closely followed. Star Wars beget ABC’s popular Thundarr the Barbarian, a post-apocalyptic dystopian-future fantasy about a muscular hero who fought oppressive magical villains while wearing a fur skirt, hanging out with a leotard-clad sorceress, and more or less carrying a lightsaber and traveling with a Wookiee. Thundarr helped inspire Blackstar, CBS’ equivalent show, about a muscular hero who fought oppressive magical villains while wearing a fur skirt, hanging out with a leotard-clad sorceress, and carrying his own form of laser sword. (No Wookiee, though — instead, series hero Blackstar got to ride a dragon.) Both shows were on the leading edge of the post-Star Wars dark fantasy wave, leading to movies like Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, and Dragonslayer. But unlike most of those ’80s fantasies — Flash Gordon aside — Thundarr and Blackstar kept a foot in Star Wars’ science fiction roots, hanging onto the idea of worlds where technology and mysticism met and clashed. Thundarr was more popular, but Blackstar was more compelling: a weirder, darker, richer world with a lot more going on, and a much more imaginative sword that wasn’t just a lightly reskinned lightsaber. Though the show only managed a single season and 13 episodes (compared with Thundarr’s two-year, 21-episode stint), Blackstar’s potential still sticks with me decades later. The story in brief: An astronaut from a future Earth, John Blackstar, enters a black hole in his experimental timeship, and winds up trapped on an ancient alien world, full of magic and monsters. (It’s essentially an isekai series, decades before isekai was the hottest trend in anime and manga.) The local Sauron equivalent, the Overlord, dominates the planet Sagar with an artifact called the Powerstar, a huge two-handed crystalline energy sword. Somehow, the Powerstar gets broken into identical halves, producing two badass weapons: the Power Sword, which the Overlord still holds, and the Star Sword, which falls into Blackstar’s hands. Blackstar winds up as the figurehead in a growing rebellion against the Overlord’s. Meanwhile, the Overlord wants not just to squash this budding rebellion, but to reclaim the Star Sword and take up the Powerstar again. In a series of interviews for Blackstar’s 2006 DVD release, the creators and writers cop to some of their influences in writing the show: The protagonist is a little bit John Carter of Mars (the original Edgar Rice Burroughs version, not the 2012 fantasy-movie version) and a little bit Flash Gordon, though he also closely resembles the protagonist of the 1979 live-action series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The Trobbits — tiny comedy-relief people who find and rescue Blackstar after his timeship crashes — take a little inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits, and a lot more from Disney’s seven dwarfs, complete with the “one personality trait apiece” dynamic, and a youngest member who never speaks. (There are also seven of them.)  The Overlord is somewhere between Darth Vader and Ming the Merciless, while Blackstar’s sorceress companion, Mara, is basically just a reskin of Thundarr’s Princess Ariel, with very similar powers, a similar elegant, educated personality and role as party historian, and similar obvious crush on the oblivious hero. Although these characters rarely feel unique, the mythology and setting of Blackstar’s world very much do, and the central plot device of the Powerstar is unique in fantasy animation. The symmetry of the central villain and hero each having half of the world’s most legendary weapon — which is to say, half of the power left in a world struggling to define itself — is a clever riff on the idea that heroes and villains should mirror each other for maximum thematic impact. Their connection through the sundered Powerstar gives the protagonist and antagonist an intimate personal connection, a reason to clash again and again. It also helps define their characters, and what they do with power. It’s no coincidence that in the Overlord’s hands, the Power Sword is all blunt force, used solely to blast or slash, while Blackstar uses the Star Sword as a finesse weapon with flexible magical abilities. (Too flexible, really: Its magic is ill-defined, and the show’s writers invented new Star Sword powers in nearly every episode.) The idea of these two swords as yin and yang, perfect halves that assemble into a greater whole, is unusually elegant for an ’80s cartoon — and one of the series’ many ideas that was never really explored to full advantage. For modern viewers Blackstar is fairly close to unwatchable. Its production company, Filmation, emerged from a series of commercial jobs in the 1960s, but by the 1980s, it specialized in budget-priced television animated entirely in America, rather than in cheaper overseas production houses. That necessitated a lot of cost-saving devices, like recycling the same hand-drawn sequences many times over, often within the same episode, and using a hilariously limited library of sound effects. Blackstar’s sound design is garish and repetitive, with vocal work that sounds like almost everyone is shouting. The scripts are clunky: Blackstar is conceived as a quippy hero who peppers his foes with snarky one-liners, but his jokes are cataclysmically stiff. About the best he can muster is a jaunty “Putting on a little weight, aren’t you, Rocko?” when hefting one rock elemental to toss it onto another during a battle. And the series is designed for the syndication of the era, meaning that episodes might re-air in any order. So there’s no story development, no character arcs, not even an opening episode to establish Blackstar’s origins. Continuity glitches, inconsistent design and storytelling, and budget-saving slow pans across paintings abound. But the world it’s set in is fascinating. There are hints here and there of ancient technologies and centuries-old civilizations buried under what’s become a verdant forest, centered on the magic of the gigantic central Sagar tree, a mystic font of power the Trobbits live in and tend to. Sagar is a world full of weird creatures that seem either like evolutions of familiar animals, or like magical constructs — shark-bats and frog-rabbits and monkey-birds, long before Avatar: The Last Airbender made these kinds of amalgams a running joke. Those slow-pan, cash-saving painting backgrounds are rich, elaborate, and colorful, suggesting a world with the darkness and detail of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal.  While so much of 1980s animation was about the clear line between good and evil, there’s a sense throughout Blackstar that most of the world of Sagar isn’t aspected in such a black-and-white way. It’s just a chaotic ruin, where hungry monsters, prim but weary civilizations, and barbaric enclaves all exist side by side, divided by lethal geography. Every scattered outpost and wandering monster is equally dangerous to Blackstar and the Overlord, but ripe for either of them to exploit for an advantage in their ongoing war. There are even hints at a nuanced system for magic, where the mental power of sorcery and the elemental power of nature magic are different things that work in different ways. After Blackstar’s single season ended, Filmation immediately followed it with the Mattel-backed and far better funded He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, a series based on an existing toy line, but just as clearly based on elements borrowed from Blackstar. Once again, there’s a muscular hero in a fur skirt with a magic sword, battling a sorcerous villain in a chaotic technofantasy world packed with environmental hazards and weird, wildly diverse humanoids. Filmation regular Alan Oppenheimer voiced both Blackstar’s Overlord and He-Man’s Skeletor; similarly, Linda Gary voiced Blackstar’s leading lady Mara and He-Man’s Teela. Filmation staff writer Tom Ruegger developed the series bible for both shows, and it shows, in everything from the similar heroes’ and rogues’ galleries to the sprawling high-and-low-tech world where magic and robots co-exist. One He-Man episode, “The Remedy,” even reused several Blackstar sequences, reintroducing Blackstar’s dragon-horse Warlock as a beast He-Man saves from a giant spider, then rides around. While He-Man had many of the same budgetary and aesthetic limitations as Blackstar — frequently recycled animation, obnoxious sound design, goofy and often ineffectual comedy relief — He-Man was immediately more popular. So popular, in fact that toy maker Galoob tried to nab some of Mattel’s sales success by putting out a weirdly modeled toy line for Blackstar, two full years after the show was canceled. (Those toys did not do well.) Now, we’re in an era where He-Man gets reboot after reboot — an all-ages animated version, a CG version for kids, a new live-action movie scheduled for 2026 — while Blackstar is all but forgotten. And I find that so strange. The bid to reboot and update every hit cartoon of the 1980s seems like a natural enough progression for an era of media fueled by nostalgia, but I’ve never understood why there isn’t more of it for Blackstar, a series that was more imaginative and ambitious than either the predecessor it was trying to outdo or the follower that got all the glory. In the way of so many other ’80s cartoons, my interest in a reboot is much less about re-creating an often janky, limited, cheaply made TV series, and much more about realizing the potential these characters and this world couldn’t take advantage of in the 1980s. A modern version with up-to-date animation could give John Blackstar a proper backstory, and actually make some sense of the biggest hero/villain themes the ’80s version lightly touched on. It could take advantage of the retro-future magic setting and the sprawling original world of Sagar in ways Filmation never dreamed of.  And most importantly, a proper modern update could finally dig into the event that split the Powerstar and turned its two halves into thematic weapons. There are so many story possibilities for that particular cool sword, just waiting to be discovered by a new generation.

Posted on : May 19, 2025 By Tech World Times General  Rate this post Choosing the right trivia team name is important. It can set the mood and bring instant laughs. A good name makes your team stand out. It can also break the ice and boost the fun. In 2025, people want creative and funny team trivia names. Names that make others smile or even giggle out loud. Whether it’s for a pub quiz, office event, or game night, the right name adds charm. Here is a big list of over 100 funny team trivia names you can use this year. Classic and Timeless Funny Team Trivia Names These names are simple, funny, and never go out of style. Cristopher Walken Quiz On My Face Quizzy Rascals Let’s Get Quizzical Smarty Pints Trivianators The Quizzard of Oz Sherlock Homies Tequila Mockingbird I Am Smarticus Clever Wordplay Trivia Team Names These names are punny and smart. Great for teams who love word games. Quiz Khalifa Quiz Me Baby One More Time The Know It Ales Victorious Secret Risky Quizness The Fact Checkers Trivia Newton John Agatha Quiztie Menace to Sobriety Simple Minds Bar and Booze-Themed Trivia Names Perfect for pub quizzes or trivia nights with drinks. Beer Pressure The Booze Clues Whiskey Business Full of Trivia Alcohol You Later Rum Forrest Rum The Drinking Thinkers Mind Over Miller Brews and Brains Nacho Average Team Office and Work-Themed Names Ideal for workplace trivia events or corporate quiz nights. Ctrl Alt Elite Cubicle Crew Slackers United Excel-lent Minds Spreadsheet Superstars The Late Submitters Team No Deadlines Keyboard Warriors Meeting Survivors The PTO Squad Movie & TV Show-Inspired Names Fans of movies and TV shows will love these funny team trivia names. Breaking Badasses The Quizzengers Game of Phones The Office Jokers Stranger Quizzes Marvelous Minds Quizflix and Chill The Walking Answer How I Met Your Answer Friends with Answers Music-Inspired Trivia Names Fun for teams who love music and trivia combined. Bohemian Rhapsodorks The Rolling Clones The Bee Quizz Quizzical Harmony Red Hot Trivia Peppers The Quiztles Stairway to Trivia Quizzin’ In the Wind Answer Me Maybe Quizard and the Lizard Nerdy and Geeky Team Names For trivia lovers who also love tech, comics, or science. The Brainiacs Nerd Immunity Hogwarts Dropouts Trivia Trekkies Live Long and Answer Lord of the Answers May the Facts Be With You Quizzards United The Answer Benders Dumbledorks Pop Culture-Inspired Trivia Names These names are trendy and reflect popular culture in 2025. TikTok Scholars Meme Team Supreme Reels and Deals The Snapple Facts Streaming Geniuses Hashtag Smart AI Know Everything The Viral Minds ChatGPT Champs Influencer Intellects Random and Ridiculous Names These are just silly and super fun. E = MC Hammer The Googling Gurus Siri-ously Smart Low Expectations We Thought This Was Bingo Brain Farts Smells Like Team Spirit 404 Brain Not Found Definitely Maybe Zero Clue Crew Competitive and Confident Names If your team plans to win, these names send the message. Champions of Trivia The Answer Squad Born to Win Full Marks Only The Perfect Score Brainstorm Troopers The Real MVPs First Place or Bust Quiz Masters The Grand Finalists One-Word Funny Team Trivia Names Sometimes, short and punchy is better. Quizzly Smartheads Guessers Witsquad Thinktank Final Thoughts Trivia nights are more fun with a good team name. It builds identity and starts the game with laughter. Whether you love wordplay, pop culture, or just jokes, this list has something for you. Funny team trivia names show off your humor. They also make your team easy to remember. In 2025, don’t settle for boring names. Pick something fun, bold, or just plain weird. If you’re stuck, just combine your favorite movie, food, or quote with a trivia word. Be creative and have fun. FAQs 1. Why is a funny trivia team name important? A funny name sets the mood. It helps your team stand out and adds fun to the game. 2. Can we change our trivia team name for each game? Yes, you can! Many teams use new names every week to keep things fresh. 3. How do I choose the best name? Think of what your team likes. Use jokes, puns, or pop culture for ideas. 4. Do trivia hosts allow funny or weird names? Most hosts love creative names. Just keep it respectful and friendly. 5. Are these trivia names good for virtual games? Yes, all names listed work for online and in-person trivia nights. Tech World TimesTech World Times (TWT), a global collective focusing on the latest tech news and trends in blockchain, Fintech, Development & Testing, AI and Startups. If you are looking for the guest post then contact at techworldtimes@gmail.com

Sizzling burgers, blistered corn on the cob, and sweat dripping from your brow as you man the grill — this is how many mark the start of summer.Fifty-eight percent of Americans plan to barbecue this Memorial Day weekend, according to a new WalletHub report, and the average cost of a cookout is expected to be about $31, a 4% increase from last year.However, while grilling certainly captures the spirit of Memorial Day weekend, slow cookers can make preparing sides and meats much easier, with minimal cleanup and no need to bother with gas or charcoal.Or at the very least, having a couple of set-it-and-forget-it dishes can help you focus on your grill.From mouthwatering barbecue ribs to savory pulled-pork sandwiches, these slow-cooker recipes are perfect for any Memorial Day cookout. For your Memorial Day cookout this year, try making the potato salad using your slow cooker. Potato salad. ziashusha/Shutterstock You might not know that you can parboil potatoes in a slow cooker. To do so, chop and cover the potatoes with water, a little salt, pepper, and butter, and cook them until they're fork-tender, usually about six hours on low.Then, mix the dressing for your potato salad as you normally would, such as mayonnaise, dill, whole grain mustard, and a splash of red wine vinegar. You can also make a German-style potato salad with bacon, light dressing, and baby potatoes. Dips, such as this spinach-and-artichoke dip, are also easily made in a slow cooker. Spinach-and-artichoke dip. Damn Delicious "I love to make spinach-and-artichoke dip in my slow cooker," Chungah Rhee, the author of the blog Damn Delicious, told Business Insider. "You can just free up so much of your time by using a slow cooker and hang out with your guests instead of laboring in the kitchen," Rhee continued. "Especially for side dishes or dips. You put it all together, set the time, and it comes out ready to go." This set-it-and-forget-it corn-and-jalapeño dip is creamy and easy to make. Corn-and-jalapeño dip. Damn Delicious "Another favorite of mine is this corn-and-jalapeño dip," Rhee told Insider. The recipe combines many of the summer's best ingredients, from fresh and vibrant jalapeños to sweet corn. Buffalo-chicken dip is another quick and easy favorite you can make in a slow cooker. Slow cooker Buffalo-chicken dip. Erin McDowell/Insider One of the benefits of making a slow-cooker Buffalo-chicken dip, like this recipe on Rhee's blog — or any other side dish in a slow cooker — is that it can be prepared well ahead of time and reheated when you're ready to eat.Rhee's advice for someone using a slow cooker for the first time for entertaining is actually to start out with a dip or side dish. "If for some reason it doesn't turn out, because we all know that can happen using an appliance for the first time, it's not detrimental to your dinner party being a success," she said. Queso can serve a whole party when made in a slow cooker. Slow cooker queso with red onion, cilantro, and sliced jalapeños. Erin McDowell/Insider This creamy queso dip from Martha Stewart uses ingredients like American cheese and pepper jack cheese, a can of evaporated milk, diced tomatoes with chilies, sliced jalapeños, red onion, and cilantro.  Brisket is perfect for feeding a larger family and can easily be made in a slow cooker. Beef brisket. iStock / Getty Images Plus "Brisket is a natural partner for the slow cooker, as a gentle braise renders it meltingly tender," Kim Laidlaw writes in her cookbook, "Everyday Slow Cooking: Modern Recipes for Delicious Meals."Laidlaw's recipe for slow-cooked braised brisket includes garlic, onion, dry red wine, carrot, and chicken or beef stock, with a chimichurri sauce. Pulled-pork sliders are another great way to use your slow cooker for a cookout. Pulled pork sandwiches with barbecue sauce and coleslaw. Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock One of the best ways to use braised and slow-cooked pork shoulder is to make pulled-pork sliders, like this Damn Delicious recipe, with all that tender meat.To elevate the dish, top the meat with barbecue sauce and slaw before sandwiching it between two fluffy brioche buns or potato rolls. You can also use the carnitas to make tacos. You can also make barbecue ribs in a slow cooker. Barbecue ribs. David P. Smith/Shutterstock Nothing screams an end-of-summer cookout like sauce-covered ribs, like Laidlaw's recipe as shared on Cooking by the Book. After cooking them in the slow cooker, place them on a baking sheet in your oven and broil them until they're slightly crispy. To save space on your grill, you can also make slow-cooked sausages and beer brats in the slow cooker. Bratwurst with sauerkraut and Dijon mustard on a bun. Charles Brutlag/Getty Images Brats with onions, peppers, and garlic simmered in the slow cooker with beer — like this recipe by The Magical Slow Cooker — are one way to use your slow cooker on Memorial Day.Top your brats with a bit of sauerkraut and put them on buns for an easy summer dish. Mac and cheese can also easily be made in a slow cooker. A spoonful of Martha Stewart's slow cooker mac and cheese. Erin McDowell/Insider If you're looking to add some carbs to your menu, look no further than a piping hot pot of mac and cheese. Martha Stewart's recipe for mac and cheese in a slow cooker calls for evaporated milk, three kinds of cheese, and homemade breadcrumbs. Garlic-and-herb mushrooms are a delicious side dish but can also be used as a burger topping. Garlic-and-herb mushrooms. Damn Delicious "The recipe for slow-cooker garlic-herb mushrooms is divine and so easy," Rhee said. "Mushrooms made in a slow cooker are truly the best." Shredded Buffalo chicken goes great on top of salads. Shredded Buffalo chicken. from my point of view/Shutterstock One of the best — and easiest — ways to use your Crock-Pot or slow cooker is by making shredded Buffalo chicken, such as this recipe by The Magical Slow Cooker.Add seasoned chicken breasts to the slow cooker and cover with your preferred Buffalo sauce. Then add a splash of ranch dressing and a cube of butter, toss your chicken breasts in the mixture to coat fully, and cook until the chicken is shreddable. You can use it for Buffalo-chicken sliders, salads, or tacos. You can even make Buffalo or barbecue chicken wings using a slow cooker. Slow cooker Buffalo wings. Erin McDowell/Insider You can make any style of wings in a slow cooker, from Asian-style to barbecue and Buffalo wings. Add your wings to the slow cooker, add in your sauce of choice, toss to combine, and let them cook for a couple of hours on high.To make them crisp up, add a cornstarch and water mixture to your slow cooker. After they're cooked through, broil them for a few minutes in the oven. Meatballs make a great appetizer for guests and don't require cooking over a hot stove. Meatballs and sauce in a slow cooker. anewlifephotostudio/Getty Images Meatballs make the perfect appetizer for parties big and small and are easy to make in a slow cooker. Place your seasoned, raw meatballs into the slow cooker, top with sauce, and let the slow cooker finish them off, says one recipe by Spend With Pennies. Serve them on their own with toothpicks or stuff them inside toasted sub rolls for a meatball sandwich.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.If you’ve finally purchased your first air fryer, let me start by saying how happy I am for you. I've been cooking and crisping with mine for a few years now, and during this time I've put a lot of things in that basket. Not everything has worked out (it's not an appliance for steaming, friends), but many of my experiments have been so delicious and reliably repeatable that they're now staples in my household. Below are 12 of my favorites things to cook in the air fryer that either save me time, money, or both. (If you're still on the fence about whether to get an air fryer and you're reading this as research, allow me to recommend a few of my favorite air fryer models, and tell you why they might be the perfect fit for your kitchen. )A giant crunchy potato Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Potatoes do particularly well in the air fryer. In fact, if you bought an air fryer solely for the purpose of reheating restaurant leftovers or to make freezer fries, no one would blame you. That’s smart. But don’t miss out on this, the king of air fried potatoes. It's a simple method of roughing up a russet potato so the starchy surface get golden and crispy in the air fryer. It is the best potato-crusted potato I've ever had. And it makes a great side dish for less than a dollar.Store-bought doughnutsI don't know exactly what I was thinking that day, but I put Entenmann's doughnuts into the air fryer and what came out was nothing short of a miracle. They changed from dusty and dry to crunchy and caramelized. While I prefer this texture off the bat, I think most folks can enjoy this hack as a way to revive their stale doughnuts after the box has been open for a few days.Gnocchi and meatballsYou can make an entire well-rounded meal in one air frying session. Not to mention that there are even dual basket air fryers made exactly for this purpose. (Here's one of my favorite dual-basket air fryers.) One of my go-to examples is air fryer packaged gnocchi and frozen meatballs. They happen to cook at the same rate so you don't have to be fussy about different temperatures and fan modes. Just throw them into a 385℉ air fryer for about 10 minutes, and toss the tasty morsels in some warm tomato sauce for a lovely meal.  Ninja SL401 DoubleStack XL 2-Basket Air Fryer, DoubleStack Technology Cooks 4 Foods at Once, Compact Design, 10 QT, 6-in-1, Smart Finish & Match Cook, Air Fry, Broil, Bake, Easy Meals, Easy Clean,Grey $249.95 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $249.95 at Amazon Pork tenderloinA weeknight roast usually has “long cook time” written all over it, but the air fryer can make short work out of a bulky cut of meat in no time. Pork tenderloin is one of my favorite roasts to make because it’s an affordable cut, is relatively small (compared to a ham or a chicken), and it takes no time to whip up in that countertop convection oven. Simply marinate it a few hours prior to cooking, drop it into a 350℉ air fryer and roast it for about 20 minutes. A juicy and impressive pork roast is ready in the time it takes you to change from “work clothes” to “chill clothes.”PeppersI adore roasted red peppers. They’re great in dips, tossed in salads, or blended into soups. Sadly, roasting them in the oven for 40 minutes, or blistering them over the flame of my gas stove was all a complete chore. Luckily, the air fryer cooks up tender roasted peppers in a fraction of the time. Throw an entire pepper or two into your air fryer basket, no need to add oil or anything, and air fry it for five to seven minutes. You’ll have perfectly blistered peppers ready to use. Egg rolled leftovers Lasagna egg rolls. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann One of my favorite ways to make leftovers fun again is to roll them up in egg roll wrappers. Almost any type of leftover dish is a delicious egg roll filling and you can get a deep-fried crunch with the air fryer. Just fill and roll the egg rolls and swipe a thin layer of oil onto the outside of the shell. Air fry them at 375℉ for 12 to 15 minutes.Kielbasa and other sausagesI can’t say that hot dogs, kielbasa, and other sausages are difficult to make. The hard part is done for you, so you could boil them or even microwave them, but there's something to be said about air frying them. My partner and I have air fried both fridge-cold and near-frozen hot dogs, and they take about the same amount of time to warm up—roughly three minutes. Three. When making thicker sausages like air fryer kielbasa, I suggest making diagonal slices all around the sides and letting it get really brown and crispy in the air fryer for a solid 10 minutes.Most of the freezer aisleThis is no revelation, but air frying freezer snacks is the biggest time saver when I need it the most. The freezer aisle of any grocery store is packed with premade meal pockets, frozen veggies, breakfasts, and desserts. Many of which are perfectly sized to cook well in a standard oven. Well an air fryer is like a miniature oven on steroids. All those delicious midnight snacks cooks faster in the air fryer—but now I don't have to wait 40 minutes. I can have my air fried fish sticks, mini pizzas, tater tots, jalepeño poppers, mozzarella sticks (honestly, any frozen TGIFridays item), garlic bread, or tiny White Castle burgers promptly at the stroke of 12. Canned mushroomsMy favorite air fryer snack lately is the mushroom chip. They’re full of umami and as crispy as a pork rind. You can make a bowl of this crunchy, salty snack with a simple can of mushrooms. Just drain them and toss with a light coating of oil. Air fry them for a few minutes at 390℉ until crisp and brown. Seafood Credit: Claire Lower Seafood cooks well in the air fryer too, and I don’t just mean breaded shrimp (but of course, breaded shrimp). I can air fry frozen shrimp to tender, seasoned perfection in just a handful of minutes. Air fry a lobster tail in under 10 minutes for a weeknight treat. My Instant Vortex air fryer is a beast when it comes to cooking these sea creatures. It happens so quickly they don’t have time to dry out. But be sure to set the timer and check on them early, because they’ll be finished before you know it. If you're looking for a great, reasonably priced, medium-sized air fryer, the Instant Vortex is one of my favorites. Read my full review here. Instant Vortex 5.7-Quart 4-in-1 Air Fryer (Black) $119.99 at Amazon $139.99 Save $20.00 Shop Now Shop Now $119.99 at Amazon $139.99 Save $20.00 Soggy fried chickenTechnically, yes, soggy fried chicken can fit in the “leftover food” category, but it can also be a special case. If you’ve ever gotten takeaway or delivery from Popeye’s then you know some soggy fried chicken isn’t leftover or cold. It’s simply humid. Luckily the air fryer allows me to revive this nearly defeated chicken. Unwrap any disappointingly soft fried chicken (this includes sandwiches, just take the chicken out of the bun first) and drop it into the air fryer for five to ten minutes at 400℉. Your fried chicken will be better than ever. MeatloafAnother low-cost, satisfying, comfort food main course is a meatloaf, and (surprise!) the air fryer has this on my plate in record time. I make sure to shape the meatloaf into a size that fits within the confines of my basket or oven-style air fryer. Set the air fryer to 375℉ and roast for about 10 minutes (flipping halfway), or until the internal temperature matches the doneness for the meat mixture you used. Say hello to dinner for four, in record time.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.The reality of home gardening is that you rarely have as much space as you’d like. For many people, all they have is one raised 4x8 foot bed. While that doesn’t feel like a lot of space, you can fit a whole lot of plants into 32 square feet. With a smaller space, you just have to find new and inventive ways to get more variety in your beds. Around where I live, we call this "cramscaping. "Take advantage of plant timing and growth patternsEvery vegetable and fruit out there has recommended spacing (for instance, tomatoes should be 18 inches apart), and in an ideal world, you’d accommodate them perfectly. However, you can plant closer if needed, while understanding your plants might not be as productive as they’d be if they had more space to grow to their full potential.  kohnrabi growing underneath beans, which are trellised up. Credit: Amanda Blum To get the most out of limited space, take advantage of space above and below the soil. For instance, radishes and carrots are mostly below ground, while tomatoes are above ground. Thus, they are great to grow next to one another. Grow beets alongside peas and large squash with climbing beans. Also consider that plants mature at different rates. Lettuce will grow quickly, and be ready for harvest in mere weeks, while eggplants take all summer. If you plant them at the same time when they’re both small, you’ll harvest your lettuce in time to free up space for your eggplants to spread out. Trellising is essential  help plants grow upward using trellises, creating horizontal space Credit: Amanda Blum When you don’t have as much horizontal space, you have to take advantage of the vertical space. You’ll need to keep plants from sprawling on the ground, and the primary way to do that is by training them up. Choose indeterminate tomatoes (which are more vine-like) instead of determinate (or "bush" tomatoes) so they continue to grow upwards despite pruning. Then prune everything but a few stems and train them onto a tall trellis. Use an obelisk or netting to provide structure for climbing beans, peas, or cucumbers. IYellow squash and zucchini can also be trained to grow upwards along a trellis, as can pumpkins and melons. Remember, though, that items on trellises have to be within reach: If you plant a trellis of green beans in the dead center of your bed, you’re not going to be able to reach those beans without stepping on other plants. So trellised plants should be located close enough to the edge of the bed to be accessed. Corners and edges make the most sense. For low trellises such as for squash, you can place them closer to the middle, but test your reach before finalizing planting. Start with the largest plants Start with an empty 4x8 bed (I left last year's nasturtiums.) Credit: Amanda Blum Begin by sketching out a grid for your bed, foot by foot, and a list of everything you’d like to plant. Lay in the largest plants first: in this case, tomatoes. Since they’ll be the tallest, place them in the corners or close to the edge of the bed, so they’re not shading anything. Now consider anything that needs a wide trellis, like peas and cucumbers or beans. Those should live at the edge of the bed, but leave space on either side of the trellis so you can reach what’s on the other side. These trellises are good at the short ends of the bed, so they don’t prevent you from reaching in. Now, start working your way down the list of plants in descending size. I placed eggplants and peppers, which will all need a trellis, on either side. For the center, which is hard to reach, I chose plants that don’t need support and won’t get too tall, but are larger: kale, chard, and onions. What’s left to plan for are short crops that will grow quickly like lettuce, radishes, beets, and carrots. Lettuce is a great buffer between nightshades like eggplant and cruciferous plants like chard and kale, so you can add heads of various lettuces. I don’t worry about root vegetables yet. I then add some beneficial flowers like nasturtium, alyssum and marigolds throughout, particularly hanging over the edges of the bed. These flowers will trap aphids, keep pests at bay, and add color. Next, I lay in herbs like basil, dill, parsley, and cilantro. In addition to being great in the kitchen, these all help control pests. These herbs can be sprinkled throughout the bed, but basil and dill do best next to nightshades. Now, in all the spaces left, I backfill with root vegetables: rows of carrots, circles of radishes, and blocks of beets. Plant established seedlings first, then seeds Sketch of the finished garden. Credit: Amanda Blum When it comes time to plant, work from the inside out. Start with the plants in the dead center of the bed, and work towards the outside by putting your seedlings into the ground. Once your starts are planted, go back and work sector by sector, seeding things like beets and radishes. Working in this way allows you to see what you’ve already done, so you don’t accidentally overseed an area you’ve already worked on. Water everything well and then simply pay attention. Prune plants as soon as they need to be pruned. As plants need to be harvested, replace them or allow larger plants to infill the area.  Keep your bed moist, but not wet, watering at the root —and use a fish fertilizer every other week, adding it to your water. Over the season, some plants might do better than others, and you may need to replace them. Because of the tight spacing, eggplants might not get enough sun where they are, or lettuce might get too much. You’ll learn over the season where each plant might succeed, and you should chart it for next year. Each season is another opportunity to learn about your yard, sun profile, and soil, and each season your vegetable garden—no matter how small—will get better.

Gladiatorial combat where naked warriors fight atop dinosaurs, alien octopus invasions, and tyrannical felines are just the tip of the iceberg in the fourth installment of Love, Death + Robots. Netflix’s genre-blending animated anthology series adeptly highlights science fiction’s versatility with stories that embrace horror, comedy, melodrama, and other label-defying tales. It’s a rare example of a project that becomes more confident and ambitious over time.  Love, Death + Robot’s executive producer, Tim Miller, and supervising director, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, open up on the animated anthology series’ electric fourth season, which science fiction story would be their white whale of adaptations, how David Fincher’s ludicrous string puppet music video came together, and which of this volume’s segments were supposed to be directed by Zack Snyder. DEN OF GEEK: How do you figure out the stories that you’re going to tell and how do you approach the source material that you adapt? Is it a case of finding source material that you’re passionate about from the start or are there stories that are being suggested to you? JENNIFER YUH NELSON: Well, pretty much all the shorts done in all the seasons have been based on short stories that Tim’s read throughout his life. And the reason why they stuck with him is because they’re great stories. And so we have hundreds of these stories just piled up. That’s sort of the pile that we go through and say, “That’s a great one. Let’s try that one,” and we just curate a gigantic, different list and try to find stories that can live together in a nice sort of album of narratives, tones, and looks. TIM MILLER: There’s a lot of different stories, but once we get the vibe for the season, there’s a lot of like, “Let’s swap this one in for that one because it’s a little too much like this other one.” We try to curate the perfect mix. So we have a little something for everybody, although we always seem to end up with too many cats. But I can’t explain that. I don’t really notice it until after the fact. Have there been any short stories that you wanted to adapt, but weren’t able to, whether it’s been for rights issues or just not being able to figure out the best way to adapt it? TM: Oh, tons. Tons. Johnny Mnemonic, the original short story. There’s another one by William Gibson called Dogfight that I would love to do. It took me forever to get Drowned Giant, the J.G. Ballard one that I did in the previous season. Vanni Fucci Is Alive and Well and Living in Hell by Dan Simmons. There’s just a lot and sometimes we just can’t get to it. Sometimes the authors don’t want to let their works go for some reason. I don’t know, but I keep trying. Bound for Glory by Lucius Shepard is another one. It’s always so exciting when you watch a season and you do recognize some of the stories, or even if it’s just the author behind it. There is a real rush to that. I love it. TM: We do publish the stories, too! There’s two volumes. There will be a third soon. All the money goes to the authors. We want people to read the stories! Forget about making them into movies. What does the process of finding the right animation style for each story entail? Are the aesthetics and artistic choices your call or that of the animation studio? JYN: Often we choose the director in the animation studio according to their specialty and making sure that it fits for us. If we have two tentpole episodes that look a certain way then we want to make sure that those episodes are going to look vastly different from each other. So you’ll go to a studio that, say, if you have a realistic science fiction one, then you want to go to a studio that might be able to do stop motion for another story instead. Not every studio does all these different things well. You need to find their thing. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! It’s important for us, especially for this series, to make sure that we’re really showcasing the whole breadth of animation. What you can do with it and to see the limits and beyond of what these new innovative styles can be. And sometimes these directors are very much pioneers in what they do and no one else is doing what they do. That’s why we end up working with them. TM: We push it in the initial direction and then the directors come in and do their pitch. They’ll build off of the initial concept. So when it comes to, let’s say, design the characters, we let them take their best shot at doing that and try to give them as much freedom or rope to hang themselves – if you prefer – as we can.  Building off of that, Tim, your “Golgotha” segment is really wonderful, but also has the series explore live action territory. How did live action fall on this segment and is that something that you could see more of in Love, Death + Robots’ future? MILLER: Part of it is me just saying, “Look, we can do anything we want, motherfuckers!” So it’s just planting a stake there, but I’d love to do a whole series of, like a live action version of Love, Death + Robots because I like that format. I love animation, but I also like visual effects and I think you could make a case for doing a story that required some really innovative and cutting-edge visual effects to tell the story. But that one just felt right. You know, a lot of times the story speaks to you in a–not in a mystical way, but just a way that feels right to tell that story. Live action felt like the most grounded, right way to tell “Golgotha.” Jennifer, one of the exciting things about a show that’s now in its fourth batch of episodes is that there’s an opportunity to tell sequels and return to past worlds, like with “Spider Rose.” How did you decide that this specific story was an old idea that you wanted to build upon, rather than another past entry? JYN: Well, “Spider Rose” was batting around for a while on the story wall. We wanted to make it for a while. And with Tim’s episode, “Swarm,” those were always like two sides of the same struggle in Bruce Sterling’s world of the Shapers and the Mechanists. And so Tim’s episode, “Swarm,” had the investor aliens, which are making a reprise in “Spider Rose.” The same aliens show up, but Tim’s story focuses on the side of the Shapers, which are humans sort of manipulating themselves and evolving through biotechnology, whereas the Mechanists on the other side are the ones that are more mechanical. They’re actually cybernetic enhancements. “Spider Rose” is that side of civilization. So it is not a direct sequel, but it’s happening in the same world. It’s such a rich world, but we only have like 14 or 15 minutes. You get this little slice of a view into this world that’s so rich. That was just a fun way of just getting back into something that’s already so well thought out.  TM: But I have to say, Jennifer – if she and I were both kids and you took us to Toys “R” Us, I’m the kid that runs in and goes to the toy he knows he wants exactly. Jennifer is the kid that peruses all the aisles and makes a considered choice about what she wants, looks at every toy she could get, and then chooses the one she really wants, after much consideration, because she can choose anything she wants to put in the show. And she really thinks about it. It’s usually after the lineup comes together that she’s like, “I want that one!” It’s quite different the way our brains work. Yeah. Well, like “Screaming of the Tyrannosaur” feels like a very good example of that. Of just being like, “Who doesn’t love gladiator dinosaurs at the end of the day?” It’s just so much fun. TM: That one was written for Zack Snyder! Zack wanted to do one, but then he didn’t have time. I had written it so, normally, it wouldn’t have been one I picked, but I was invested in it, because I’d written it and I enjoyed it. When I write something, I’m working it out in my head; how I would direct it, really.  JYN: Was it really one you wouldn’t have normally done? Nelson laughs TM: I don’t know. If you look at “Drowned Giant,” which was the one I had done before that, could anything be more different than that? Although that was a weird one for me to do too. I’m not sure. I don’t think I have a style for, better or worse. David Fincher’s “Can’t Stop” is such a fun experiment, but I also really just loved to see him ostensibly returning to his music video roots. Was this an idea that he previously wanted to do in the series? How did this decision on his part come about? TM: He had mentioned a while ago about wanting to do a Chili Peppers music video with puppets. But when I called and said, “Hey, would you do an episode?” And he said, “What do you want me to do?” I said a music video for two reasons. One, because he is essentially the master of masters in that field. And then secondly, because I knew he was limited with his time. Like, he couldn’t make a 20-minute music video. So it built a box around him that I knew he couldn’t get out of. But he immediately said, “Yeah, I want to do the Chili Peppers as puppets.” Directors get fixated on ideas and then they just kick around in the attic until they get a chance to do them. You’ve talked about the rich world that all of these stories create, but sometimes you only spend a very brief time in them. Has there been any consideration for full-length spinoffs – or even a movie – that take one of these ideas or worlds and turn them into their own series?  There are certainly plenty that could sustain it. Does that idea interest you at all? TM: We pitched a “Three Robots” series. Netflix – I’m not gonna say they said no, I’m just gonna say that they haven’t said yes. And then there have been others. But you know, the beauty of the show is that we’d never get some of these ideas made if we were asking to do a feature. If I said, “Yeah, I want to do naked gladiatorial slaves riding dinosaurs in space, they’d go, ‘No.’” But if I say it as part of a short, nobody cares, right? Nobody even questions it as part of the show, which is the greatest thing about the show ever.  And even if you’re not wildly into an idea, you’re still going to do it if it’s only a five-minute buy-in. There’s such a good setup to what you guys are doing. JYN: Sometimes – and I don’t mean this in a bad way – but sometimes that’s all that’s required. You know what I mean? It’s great for five minutes, but you wouldn’t enjoy it If you made it 90. You’ve accomplished so much across the first four volumes of Love, Death + Robots, but what are your aspirations for future volumes? Is there anything that you haven’t done that you’d like to attempt? TM: We’ve got a lot of stories. I have the next season – seasons, actually – picked out. There’ll be wrangling of them if we are fortunate enough to do it, but there’s no lack of great material. And there’s no lack of different types of things. We occasionally go back to something like the tilt-shift of “Night of the Mini Dead” sort of thing or “Three Robots,” which I think is fun. There’s still a lot of room to do new and innovative things that we haven’t done before.  JYN: Absolutely. One thing that I think the show does really well and I hope really continues on  forever is that this is a way to show new ideas and new looks and new innovation by different directors and studios around the world. Rarely do you see such a showcase of animation like this. So I think that sort of beauty, shared with everyone, I hope that continues forever.  Off of that, I am such a huge animation fan. I love the different studios  that you have involved with the show. Animation has just made such huge leaps over the past few years. It’s so exciting to see the kind of stuff that’s getting nominated at the Academy Awards. Has there just been anything over the past few years that’s really excited you guys in particular?  JYN: Do we have time to watch anything, Tim?  TM: Not really, but I will say on our other show, Secret Level, one of the shorts we did was with Unreal Engine. I really think that a large part of the future of animation is going to be real-time and the tools that come with that. I think it opens up the filmmaking process to a lot of people. My studio, Blur, was started at the dawn of the PC desktop age, and it was great because it opened up the business of making animation to people that didn’t have millions of dollars. I started Blur with $24,000, but now things are even better and people can do more really highly polished stuff in their bedroom, in their underwear. I think that’s fantastic, and it’ll open up bigger stories for us to tell.  It’s too soon to say what AI is going to do to the whole industry. I’m terrified, fascinated, and excited, but I think we’re going to see a lot of changes. This means taking on bigger stories, which is what I want. It shouldn’t cost $100 million to tell a story and I hope we can do more with less. Not people, but time. All four volumes of Love, Death + Robots are now streaming on Netflix.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Vegetable plants are expensive. To get the best yield out of them, you need to pay attention to more than just the soil, sun, and watering. You need to get your plants off on the right foot by planting them the right way. Here's what I mean. Choose the right plant at the nursery Credit: Amanda Blum When I first started gardening, I thought the best vegetable starts to buy were the ones that were the biggest, with flowers and fruit already on them. This would give the plant a head start, right? Sadly, no. Plants go through something called "transplant shock" when you move them. You’re disturbing the plant's roots, and moving it to a new environment. To survive, the plant needs to focus all its energy on the plant's roots, and if there's a lot of plant matter like leaves, flowers, and fruit to support, energy is wasted supporting them. Plants with established fruit, in particular, struggle during the transplant process. Choose plants that look healthy, with strong stems and leaves without damage, but that don't yet have flowers or fruit. Prepare your soil Credit: Amanda Blum There are legions of ways to handle your garden from season to season. Some people till the soil, while others employ a no-till method, and still others use something called "chop-and-drop." Regardless of the method, the soil you’re planting into has to be pliable enough that roots can flourish in them. For that reason, ensure that the soil is turned over and broken up—from a shovel to a shovel and a half’s depth. You can use a broadfork for this, if you don’t want to disturb the soil structure, but otherwise, just use a shovel. Breaking up the soil will help you see the texture—so you can add sand if the soil has too much clay in it, or compost if it isn't holding any moisture. You can use this time to add amendments such as vegetable fertilizer and lime. Fertilizer is obvious, but lime is used to turn your soil less acidic, which happens over time through watering and growing. Most vegetables don’t enjoy acidic environments. Turn the amendments into the soil. Choose an overcast dayYour plants will already be stressed by transplanting. Planting them into the blazing sun is even more stress. A stretch of overcast days is the perfect planting time. If that's not an option, plant at twilight to give your plants a night to adjust. Consider giving the plant some shade the next day to help it acclimate.Get the plant out of the pot without damaging the roots Credit: Amanda Blum By the time plants reach the nursery, they’re often root-bound in the plastic pots or six packs you buy them in. Roots are resilient, but you don’t want to disturb them more than necessary. The best way to break a plant free from a plastic pot is to use two fingers and squeeze the bottom of the pot. This should free the plant. Don’t turn the pot over or pound on it with your palm, and definitely don’t try to pull it loose by the plant’s stem.  on the left, the eggplant seedling just out of the pot, and on the right, after the roots have been broken up Credit: Amanda Blum Once the plant is out, you want to break up the roots by using your fingers like a comb on the bottom of the plant, so that roots are freed. That said, these plants do not enjoy their roots being disturbed: cucumbers, beans, pumpkins, luffa, beets, and most root vegetables. For these, I simply dig a hole, remove the plant from the plastic tray, carefully plop the plant in, and walk away.  Separate plants as necessary Credit: Amanda Blum Most pots have more than one seed in each cell. In some cases, like tomatoes, someone usually culls the seedlings so only one is left to flourish. However, in some cases, like herbs and lettuce, nurseries leave the seeds alone and let multiple seeds grow. In other cases like onions and carrots, the cells are purposely overseeded to be filled with lots of seedlings. Strawberries usually come in a pot of five to 10 starts.  If you take a cell of onion seedlings out, you can separate them by diving the block in half over and over again, until you have individual seedlings. Credit: Amanda Blum When there’s more than one seedling, you need to separate them. You shouldn’t try to plant them altogether. For lettuce or herbs, this is simple: Remove one cell, and with your fingers, gently pull the soil pod apart. Start by pulling the pod in half, and then keep dividing until all the seedlings are free. This works on larger plants like squash, and smaller plants like carrots where there can be 20 or more seedlings in a single cell. Once the individual seedlings are free, they can each be planted as if they’re a whole plant. This is how you get a whole row of carrots or onions. This is also a great way to save money, since you usually get far more than six lettuce heads from a six-pack of lettuce. Know the right depth Credit: Amanda Blum Plants need to go in the ground at the right depth, ensuring that the base of the plant is at soil level. In some cases, though, you can (and should) plant the stem deeper.Leeks and onions, for example, can be planted deeply. In particular, leeks can be planted as deeply as possible, with only an inch or two of seedling above the surface of the soil. This will help blanch the leek (keep it white). Tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers can be planted deeply, as they’ll form roots along their entire stem. If your tomato is leggy (tall with little horizontal branching), this is a spectacular way to fix the problem. When in doubt, follow the directions on the plant tag, or simply plant at a standard depth so the roots are covered, but the stem is exposed above the soil. Don’t mulch against your stemsWhile mulch is an important part of insulating your vegetable plants and keeping moisture in the ground, it’s also a way to spread pathogens. You want to ensure plants have a few inches of clearance between them and the mulch. Keep your labels or make new ones Keep those plant tags. Credit: Amanda Blum In the melee of planting, it’s common to lose your plant tags. After all, a tomato is a tomato. However, you’ll be sad at the end of the season when one tomato does spectacularly and another doesn’t, and you don’t know what variety each was. Label your plants! 

“How Zeke Got Religion” In 2019, Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller launched Love, Death & Robots, an animated Netflix anthology series serving as a showcase for Miller’s own Blur Studio, along with other animators. The series has won a Primetime Emmy for each of its three seasons, which feature an eclectic mix of six- to 20-minute shorts spanning horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Miller went on to use the same formula for Prime Video’s Secret Level, where each of the shorts is based on a different video game. But that didn’t stop him from returning to Love, Death & Robots for a new 10-episode season: the series’ longest yet, but also its weakest. An episode of Love, Death & Robots can succeed based on a clever idea or some charming humor. John Scalzi has become a popular writer for the series, penning goofy tales of science and technology gone wrong and he delivers two episodes for volume 4 with varying results. But too much of this season is running on vibes, with episodes that feature cool visuals but not much plot. Others push the very concept too far, ditching any genre ties or even animation. The good thing about an anthology format is that if an individual episode isn’t great it’s over quick and then you can move on to the next one. Unfortunately there are chunks of volume 4 that feature dud after dud.   Love, Death & Robots is at its best when it uses a tight short story to deliver a strange and often disturbing tale. Highlights include Peter F. Hamilton’s brutal spin on Pokémon battles “Sonnie’s Edge” or Neal Asher’s horror at sea tale “Bad Traveling,” which was masterfully directed by David Fincher and featured an icy performance from Troy Baker. Fortunately there is one episode in volume 4 that still fits that mold. Written by J.T. Petty based on a short story by John McNichol, “How Zeke Got Religion” fuses aspects of Masters of the Air and Hellboy. Like last season’s excellent episode “In Vaulted Halls Entombed,” it starts out as a war story and becomes pure horror. In this case, the crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Liberty Belle is antsy that they’ve been treated to chocolate and a John Wayne movie because “when brass is nice to you, you’re about to get fucked.” The best crew the Allies have is being sent on a solo mission to bomb a church in France at the behest of a mysterious new commander. The episode shows off how they work as a team normally, navigating flack, jammed weapons and a vicious dogfight that would be the nastiest part of most missions. But the church is the site of a bloody Nazi ritual to summon a fallen archangel that pursues their plane, leading to an abrupt genre shift and a gore-soaked battle that forces the jaded Zeke to reconsider what he knows about the world. Director Diego Porral, who served as the lead animator for last season’s hyper-violent episode “Kill Team Kill,” and Titmouse, the animation studio behind Scavengers Reign and Pantheon, do a phenomenal job making the fallen very different from the typical horned and bat-winged demon. It’s more like a biblically accurate angel, a cherubic face on a body with far too many eyes that rips soldiers apart with baby hands. When it literally spits out bullets from newly formed screaming mouths, the crew find that faith is their best weapon. If you watch one episode of Love, Death & Robots volume 4, make it “How Zeke Got Religion.” After that, consult this ranked list of the rest of the season’s entries. 10. “Can’t Stop” This is just a Red Hot Chili Peppers music filmed by David Fincher with marionettes standing in for the band and crowd. There’s no love, death or robots which makes it feel like a pretty pointless entry in the series. 9. “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur” MrBeast plays the Grand Master-like emcee of spectacle featuring triceratops, a tyrannosaur, naked gladiators, and way too much voiceover. This episode is extremely predictable and self-serious for something based on how dinosaur fights are cool. 8. “Spider Rose” The series returns to Bruce Sterling’s universe portrayed in the season 3 episode “Swarm” for a much less compelling tale. “Swarm” was a deeply unsettling story about human greed and the nature of sentience and this is a bland revenge story with a weird, cute alien pet. Though the way Blur Studio animates people floating in space continues to be beautiful. 7. “Golgotha” Rhys Darby (What We Do in the Shadows, Our Flag Means Death) brings his signature affable neurosis to playing a vicar who saw a beached dolphin seemingly return to life, attracting the attention of a group of aquatic aliens. Unfortunately there’s not much to the story and it’s a very odd choice to have a live-action short in the mix. 6. “The Other Large Thing” The weaker of this season’s two Scalzi stories features a fluffy cat called Sanchez (Chris Parnell) who sees his chance at world domination when his negligent, lazy owners bring home a robot voiced by John Oliver. AGBO’s grotesque animation of the humans makes it feel like they really have it coming, though the story is very basic and the final joke falls flat. 5. “400 Boys” Robert Valley, who directed the Emmy-winning season 2 episode “Ice,” returns to Love, Death & Robots for a beautifully animated tale starring John Boyega as the leader of one of many warring gangs in post-apocalyptic Britain. It’s such a strange rich world filled with psychics and alien giants that I wish it was developed a bit more beyond the stunning action sequences. 4. “Close Encounters of the Mini Kind” Last season, Robert Bisi and Andy Lyon teamed up to use sped-up miniatures to tell a rapid-fire zombie apocalypse story, and they reunited in volume 4 to do the same thing for an alien invasion. It’s a very funny rush through the genre’s tropes with a pretty low opinion of humans, who create a problem and repeatedly make it worse. 3. “Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners” John Scalzi and director Patrick Osborne teamed up for last season’s “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” and they’re back together for a series of confessionals from smart electronics fed up with the way their owners are using or neglecting them. Aaron Sims Creative provides the claymation-style animation for the anthropomorphic waffle iron, toothbrush, showerhead and more being voiced by a stacked cast of comedians including Ronny Chieng, Amy Sedaris and Kevin Hart. 2. “For He Can Creep” The Locked Tomb author Tamsyn Muir wrote this charming episode based on Siobhan Carroll Nebula-nominated novelette of the same name. Daniel Stevens (Legion, Beauty and the Beast) plays a dapper version of Satan tormenting a poet he believes can aid his dark cause. Luckily the poet has a loyal cat who, while tempted by the Prince of Darkness’ offer of treats, unites his surprisingly powerful feline friends to fight for the poet’s soul. 1. “How Zeke Got Religion” If you skimmed the intro, go back and read about this wonderful short. Love, Death & Robots volume 4 is streaming now on Netflix.

Science fiction has become one of television’s most reliable genres and audiences have no shortage of options when it comes to progressive sci-fi storytelling. Anthology series have also never been more popular as they’ve proven to be an easy, noncommittal way to draw in audiences with unrelated, standalone storytelling. Love, Death + Robots has quietly done dependable, delightful work for three seasons, but it’s not just a sci-fi anthology. It’s a challenging animation showcase that goes to brave, impossible places for an anthology series. Despite the seemingly selective nature of its title, it feels like nothing is off limits in Love, Death + Robots season 4. This season is more playful than ever as it asks the audience to consider technology and eternity through endlessly diverse lenses. This energy is palpable here, with another collection of impressive, intelligent, and unpredictable animated short films. Love, Death + Robots excels with its original stories, but this season also ambitiously expands upon some of its previously built universes. Jennifer Yuh Nelson’s “Spider Rose” is a masterful follow-up to Volume 3’s “Swarm,” which follows a grieving Mechanist who receives a new companion and another shot at vengeance against the assassins who killed her husband. This is a sequel story that doesn’t just repeat the hits or gratuitously give fans what they want. “Spider Rose” instead finds a fresh, justified angle to return to this world. It’s a surprising yarn about unexpected motherhood as a conflicted character reconsiders everything she thought she knew about herself. Stories like “Spider Rose” challenge the audience and prompt them to change and grow. There’s an emotional throughline to this, but the installment is also rich in chaotic aerial dog fights, ultra gory deaths, and creative, indulgent extremes The Love, Death + Robots episodes that lean into hard science fiction are often the season’s most gripping installments and the entries that will stick with the audience long after they’ve finished. That being said, there are plenty of installments from this fourth batch that are just unabashedly silly. These may be seen as frivolous stories to some audiences, but they’re a testament to Love, Death + Robots’ versatility and that the trio of topics in its title are universal ideas that everyone can enjoy. In addition to “Can’t Stop,” ABGO’s “The Other Large Thing” and “Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners” from The Aaron Sims Company are some of the more overt examples of comedy this season. They’re a welcome balance for the more nihilistic and dour stories from this season that often hit with a ton of bricks. The successful tonal and genre balance that’s achieved across these 10 episodes takes the audience on a fascinating journey. There’s a little bit of everything here in this passionate sci-fi celebration, including a rare live-action segment. One of the season’s most entertaining episodes is the truly unhinged Red Hot Chili Pepper-starring “Can’t Stop.” Not only does this episode mark David Fincher’s directorial return to Love, Death + Robots, but through the conduit of his original love: music videos. “Can’t Stop” looks incredible and turns to an effective marionette aesthetic that’s unlike anything that’s previously been in the anthology series. “Can’t Stop” will ultimately find the audience asking not if Fincher could do this, but why he would want to. It’s such a gonzo experiment that simultaneously is the perfect showpiece for why a series like Love, Death + Robots is necessary. You’re not going to get a piece of storytelling like this on Black Mirror. There’s such a ridiculous, nonsensical energy that governs this short, but it’s also undeniably entertaining and such a fun time. The reason that a series like Love, Death + Robots works is that it makes space for “Can’t Stop” in addition to bleak, dramatic showpieces and action spectacles such as “Spider Rose” and “400 Boys.” Nothing is off limits in this series – this season even incorporates dinosaurs – and this freedom results in remarkable storytelling that’s worth the big swings that get taken, even when they don’t work. “Can’t Stop” is just five silly minutes that aren’t afraid to get weird and indulge in vibes. It also doesn’t hurt that David Fincher is behind this installment, but any chaotic mish-mash music video of this nature is still going to stand out in a series that’s more likely to reference J.G. Ballard and Harlan Ellison than MTV. Love, Death + Robots is a satisfying exploration of science fiction, but it’s also a series that prides itself in its groundbreaking visuals. Every season of Love, Death + Robots has been visually sumptuous, with these new episodes being no exception. Love, Death + Robots seems to be the proudest of its lush, photorealistic segments, like the work that Blur Studio does in “Spider Rose.” These segments don’t disappoint, but Love, Death + Robots has the most fun when it’s willing to indulge in more ambitious and stylized imagery “For He Can Creep” from Japan’s Polygon Pictures or Passion Animation Studios’ “400 Boys” are especially gorgeous.  The latter of these adopts a really impressionistic visual style that’s reminiscent of The Big O’s Art Deco quality. This complements the supernaturally heightened story that’s being told in a hyperbolized universe where gang warfare and a strict bushido-like code are the norm. Factions fight with psychic, electric powers in a world that feels ripped out of a Stephen King story. “400 Boys” is visually rich, but the art style also thematically resonates with the story’s deeper message. It goes to town with its exaggerated aesthetic and creates some truly gorgeous visuals and landscapes in this broken world. The post-apocalyptic wasteland that it crafts is like The Warriors meets Mad Max meets Escape From New York. Destruction plays out on such a massive scale that looks like gorgeous splash panels from a comic. There are setpieces in which warriors rollerblade under the legs of giant babies that they proceed to hack to bits that feel like they’re inspired by Attack on Titan’s epic battles. It’s the complete opposite style of no-holds-barred gladiatorial combat that gets treated like entertainment in “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur.” Love, Death + Robots triumphs with its fourth season, the likes of which prove that there’s still plenty of gas in this tank. If anything, Love, Death + Robots is willing to get even weirder and break some of its older rules for the sake of fresh storytelling. There are few misfires in this season of 10 episodes, although some certainly hit harder than others. It’s appreciated to get this many episodes and that Volume 4 is longer than the two previous seasons. However, it seems increasingly less likely to return to the cornucopia of content that was the 18-episode Volume 1. It’s also worth pointing out that, while the visuals this season remain immaculate, there are only two animation studios from outside of the United States. Love, Death + Robots’ aim has never specifically been to spotlight international animation. That being said, Love, Death + Robots is at its best when there’s a truly eclectic style to each of its installments.  Love, Death + Robots has another win with Volume 4 and hopefully there are more surreal science fiction stories to come. The season begins with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis singing “Can’t Stop” and by the end of these 10 episodes you’re left hoping that mantra is also true for Love, Death + Robots. All four volumes of Love, Death + Robots are now streaming on Netflix. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!