The interesting thing about console launches is that you never know what unexpected treasures will emerge from the first batch of games. Who could have foretold that the hero of the PlayStation launch would be a fireworks simulation (Fantavision), or that the most joyous title in the initial GameCube lineup would involve simians racing each other in giant transparent globes (Super Monkey Ball)?The latest example could well be Konami’s Survival Kids, the only new third-party game in the Switch 2 opening wave. It’s the latest in the publisher’s cult series of tropical island survival sims, which began on the Game Boy Color and, despite never really attracting vast global success, continued on to the Nintendo DS under a new name, Lost in Blue. Now it’s back as a familyfriendly co-op survival adventure, in which groups of up to four players are shipwrecked on a mysterious archipelago, and must survive by gathering resources, crafting tools, finding food and exploring a series of lush, cartoonish environments. Four people can play online, but the game also supports Switch 2’s game sharing, which lets one person who owns the game connect wirelessly with other consoles to play together.Lush, cartoonish environments … a still from Survival Kids. Photograph: Konami Digital EntertainmentAndrew Dennison, who heads the game’s developer Unity, sees this as one of the Switch 2’s key features. “With splitscreen you have one machine rendering two different versions of the game,” he says. “With GameShare, we can compress one of those views and stream it … we render everything three times and push that out to two other consoles. As much as you can deep dive into tech specs, the benefits of GameShare are delightful. Other players in the same room as you don’t have to own the game, they don’t have to download anything … they can just turn on their Switch or Switch 2, push a button and they’re playing a game.”Unlike survival titles such as Don’t Starve or Project Zomboid (or indeed Lost in Blue), there’s no mortal peril in Survival Kids. Running out of food hampers your progress, but you can’t actually starve; if you die, you just – respawn nearby. “We wanted to make sure the game was enjoyable for people at every skill level,” says Dennison. “It’s a balancing act – we don’t want to bore experienced gamers – but you can streamline gameplay challenge without simplifying to the point of making it irrelevant.” Due to the strict NDAs around the Switch 2 hardware, the developer couldn’t bring in many external testers to fine-tune the difficulty – so Dennison ended up testing the game on his nieces, and on the finance department.All about co-operation … Survival Kids Photograph: Konami Digital EntertainmentBuilding tools is key – combine a vine and a stick and you get a fishing rod with which to lasso useful objects. Construct an umbrella and you can glide across wide canyons. There are no cumbersome item-inventory screens: when you need to build a tool or contraption, you can take what you need and drop it all into a bucket that magically spits it out. Tools are all stored at base camp, not in a menu, so that you can easily take a path home to pick up what you need.As with Overcooked, Survival Kids is all about streamlined cooperation and carefully divvied-out tasks. Chopping wood and breaking rocks is faster with two people, so you need a physical labour team; meanwhile food provides the energy needed to climb cliff faces and carry heavy relics, so you’ll need a chef to gather plants and make dinner. “We really wanted people to go back and eat at the base camp together,” says Richard Jones, creative director for Konami Digital Entertainment. “This way, the base camp becomes a place to return to – a sort of communal kitchen.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionUnlike most modern survival sims, it’s not totally open-ended: your aim is to discover more and more of the islands, which brings a sort of escape room feel to things. It’s also possible to go back and re-try levels to get a quicker time. Despite the family look and feel, there are some interesting and quite demanding physics-based challenges with multiple solutions. There’s a nice humour and lightness to the game as well, perhaps an inevitability considering that Dennison and many of the development team at Unity’s Stratford-upon-Avon office came from Codemasters and Rare.Will Konami bring more of its classic titles to Switch 2? “We know there are other Konami teams who are interested in this platform – we’ll be able to help them,” says Jones. “So yeah, fingers-crossed we’ll see some more Switch 2 projects from Konami.” For now Survival kids feels like a great test case for the new console’s family oriented game sharing.

Following the breakout success of ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’, which stars Jon Hamm and wrapped its first season last week, Apple has extended its deal with showrunner Jonathan Tropper, Deadline reports. Three-time Apple signee Apple TV+ first partnered with Tropper back in 2019, when he served as executive producer and showrunner for See, one of the platform’s launch titles. Since then he’s quietly become one of the most prolific creators on Apple TV+, with two active series and two high-profile films currently in the pipeline. Under the terms of this latest multi-year extension, he’ll continue developing and producing original content for Apple through his production company, Tropper Ink. Here’s Tropper: “Working with the entire team at Apple continues to be the single most creatively fulfilling collaboration of my career, and I’m looking forward to bringing Lucky and other new projects to the platform, while making more seasons of Your Friends & Neighbors” Breakout success According to Nielsen sampling data, Your Friends and Neighbors is the most-watched new Apple drama series of the year, based on first-month viewership across U.S. households. It’s also on track to break into the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 for the first time, a rare feat for a newer Apple TV+ original. Notably, Apple had already seen the breakout coming: the show was renewed for a second season back in November, months before it even premiered. Season 2 is currently in production. Up next Coming up next from Tropper: Lucky, a limited series starring Anya Taylor-Joy (The Gorge, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) and based on Marissa Stapley’s bestselling novel, is expected to debut later this year. On the film side, Tropper is writing and producing The Corsair Code, a sci-fi mystery adventure starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Ragnarok), and Matchbox, an action-comedy based on the iconic toy brand, featuring John Cena (Peacemaker), Jessica Biel (The Illusionist), and Sam Richardson (Veep). Outside of Apple, Tropper is also writing an upcoming Star Wars film for director Shawn Levy. Not bad. Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 per month and features hit TV shows and movies like Ted Lasso, Severance, The Studio, The Morning Show, Shrinking and Silo. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Acheminer des colis jusqu'au paillasson des clients, sans recourir à un livreur pour les derniers mètres : c'est le pari de la start-up Rivr...

Giant Sloths the Size of Elephants Once Walked Along the Ground. Here’s How the Massive Animals Evolved and Declined Researchers analyzed fossils and DNA to get a big-picture view of sloth evolution and determine what drove their immense size variation Researchers revealed that differences in sloth habitats drove the wide variation in size seen in extinct species. Diego Barletta Today, sloths are slow-moving, tree-dwelling creatures that live in Central and South America and can grow up to 2.5 feet long. Thousands of years ago, however, some sloths walked along the ground, weighed around 8,000 pounds and were as big as Asian elephants. Some of these now-extinct species were “like grizzly bears, but five times larger,” as Rachel Narducci, collection manager of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, says in a statement. In a study published last week in the journal Science, Narducci and her colleagues studied ancient and modern sloth DNA along with more than 400 sloth fossils to shed light on the shocking differences in their ancient sizes—from the elephant-sized Megatherium ground sloth to its 14-pound relatives living in trees. While it’s clear that tree-dwelling lifestyles necessitate small bodies, scientists weren’t sure why ground sloths specifically demonstrated such vast size diversity. To investigate this, the team used their genetic and fossil analyses to reconstruct a sloth tree of life that reaches back to the animals’ emergence more than 35 million years ago. They integrated data on sloths’ habitats, diets and mobility that had been gathered in previous research. With a computer model, they processed this information, which ultimately indicated that sloths’ size diversity was mostly driven by their habitats and climates. “When we look at what comes out in the literature, a lot of it is description of individual finds, or new taxa,” Greg McDonald, a retired regional paleontologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management who was not involved with the study, tells Science News’ Carolyn Gramling. The new work is “more holistic in terms of looking at a long-term pattern. Often, we don’t get a chance to step back and get the big picture of what’s going on.” The big picture suggests that since the emergence of the oldest known sloths—ground animals around the size of a Great Dane—the creatures evolved into and out of tree living a number of times. Around 14 million to 16 million years ago, however, a time of global warming called the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum pushed sloths to become smaller, which is a known way for animals to respond to heat stress. Warmer temperatures might have also seen more rain, which would have created more forest habitats ideal for tree-dwelling sloths. Around a million years later, however, ground sloths grew bigger as the planet’s temperature cooled. “Gigantism is more closely associated with cold and dry climates,” Daniel Casali, a co-author of the paper and a researcher of mammalian evolution at the University of São Paulo, tells New Scientist’s Jake Buehler. A larger body mass would have helped the animals traverse environments with few resources more efficiently, Narducci says in the statement. In fact, these large ground sloths spread out across diverse habitats and thrived in different regions. The aquatic sloth Thalassocnus even evolved marine adaptations similar to manatees. Ground sloths achieved their greatest size during the last ice age—right before starting to disappear around 15,000 years ago. Given that humans arrived in North America around the same time (though recent research indicates they may have arrived as far back as 20,000 years ago), some scientists say humans are the obvious cause of the sloths’ demise. While tree-dwelling sloths were out of reach to our ancestors, the large and slow ground animals would have made easy targets. Even still, two species of tree sloths in the Caribbean disappeared around 4,500 years ago—also shortly after humans first arrived in the region, according to the statement. While the study joins a host of research indicating that humans drove various large Ice Age animals to extinction, “in science, we need several lines of evidence to reinforce our hypotheses, especially in unresolved and highly debated issues such as the extinction of megafauna,” says Thaís Rabito Pansani, a paleontologist from the University of New Mexico who did not participate in the study, to New Scientist. The International Union for Conservation of Nature currently recognizes seven—following a recent species discovery—and three are endangered. As such, “one take-home message is that we need to act now to avoid a total extinction of the group,” says lead author Alberto Boscaini, a vertebrate paleontologist from the University of Buenos Aires, to the BBC’s Helen Briggs. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

By TREVOR HOGG Images courtesy of Netflix. Unlike North America where episodes tend to be no longer than an hour, it is not uncommon in Britain to have feature-length episodes, which explains why the seasons are shorter. Season 7 of Black Mirror has six episodes with the first sequel for the Netflix anthology series that explores the dark side of technology having a run time of 90 minutes. “USS Callister: Into Infinity” comes eight years after “USS Callister” went on to win four Emmys as part of Season 4 and expands the tale where illegally constructed digital clones from human DNA struggle to survive in a multiplayer online video game environment. Returning creative talent includes filmmaker Toby Hayness, writers Charlie Brooker and William Bridges, and cast members Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, Osy Ikhile, Milanka Brooks, Paul Raymond and Jesse Plemons. Stepping into the Star Trek-meets-The Twilight Zone proceedings for the first time is VFX Supervisor James MacLachlan, who previously handled the digital augmentation for Ted Lasso. “[For the planet where the digital clone of James Walton is found]… We got on a train and went to the middle of Anglesey [island in Wales] to a copper mine. The copper mine was absolutely stunning. … You’re a good 50 meters down, and there were little tunnels and caves where over the years things have been mined and stopped. … It was shot there, and we augmented some of it to help sell the fact that it wasn’t Earth. We put in these big beautiful arches of rock, Saturn-like planets up in the sky, a couple of moons, and clean-up of giveaways.” —James MacLachlan, Visual Effects Supervisor Taking advantage of the reflective quality of the bridge set was the LED wall utilized for the main viewscreen. Dealing with a sequel to a critically-acclaimed episode was not a daunting task. “It’s almost like I have a cheat code for what we need to do, which I quite like because there’s a language from the previous show, so we have a certain number of outlines and guidelines,” MacLachlan states. “But because this was set beyond where the previous one was. it’s a different kind of aesthetic. I didn’t feel the pressure.” No assets were reused. “We were lucky that the company that previously did the USS Callister ship packaged it out neatly for us, and we were able to take that model; however, it doesn’t fit in pipelines anymore in the same way with the layering and materials. It was different visual effects vendors as well. Union VFX was smashing out all our new ships, planets and the Heart of Infinity. There was a significant number of resources put into new content.” Old props were helpful. “The Metallica ship that shows up in this episode is actually the Valdack ship turned backwards, upside down, re-textured and re-modeled off a prop I happened to wander past and saw in Charlie Brooker’s and Jessica Rhoades’ office.” MacLachlan notes. Greenscreens were placed outside of the set windows for the USS Callister. “USS Callister: Into Infinity” required 669 visual effects shots while the other five episodes totaled 912. “Josie Henwood, the Visual Effects Producer, sat down with a calculator and did an amazing job of making sure that the budget distribution was well-weighted for each of the scripts,’ MacLachlan remarks. “We shot this one third and posted it all the way to the end, so it overlapped a lot with some of the others. It was almost an advantage because we could work out where we were at with the major numbers and balance things out. It was a huge benefit that Toby had directed ‘USS Callister’. We had conversations about how we could approach the visual effects and make sure they sat within the budget and timeframe.” Working across the series were Crafty Apes, Jam VFX, Jellyfish Pictures, Magic Lab, One of Us, Stargate Studios, Terraform Studios, Union VFX, and Bigtooth Studios.  “We had a spectrum of vendors that were brilliant and weighted so Union VFX took the heavy load on ‘USS Callister: Into Infinity,’ One of Us on ‘Eulogy’ and Jam VFX on ‘Hotel Riverie’ while the other vendors were used for all the shows.” “[W]e had a matte painter at Territory Studio create some generic space looks like exteriors of planets in pre-production. We gave those to Union VFX who animated them so the stars gently drifted and the planets would slowly rotate. Everything in that set was chrome, so no matter where the camera was pointing, when we went to hyperspace, outside planets or in space, there were all of these beautiful reflections all over the surfaces of the USS Callister. What I did not anticipate is when the actors came onto the set not knowing it was going to be a LED wall. Their reaction was enough to say that we had made the right choice.” —James MacLachlan, Visual Effects Supervisor Miranda Jones looked after the production design and constructed a number of practical sets for the different sections of the USS Callister. A clever visual effect was deployed when a digital clone of Robert Daly (Jesse Plemmons) is in his garage crafting a new world for Infinity, which transforms from a horizontal landscape into a spherical planetary form. “A lot of it was based off current UI when you use your phone and scroll,” MacLachlan remarks. “It is weighted and slows down through an exponential curve, so we tried to do that with the rotational values. We also looked at people using HoloLenses and Minority Report with those gestural moments. It has a language that a number of people are comfortable with, and we have gotten there with AR.” Union VFX spent a lot of time working on the transition. “They had three levels of detail for each of the moments. We had the mountain range and talked about the Himalayas. Union VFX had these moments where they animated between the different sizes and scales of each of these models. The final one is a wrap and reveal to the sphere, so it’s like you’re scaling down and out of the moment, then it folds out from itself. It was really nice.” For safety reasons, weapons were digitally thrown. “We had a 3D prop printed for the shuriken and were able to get that out in front of the camera onstage,” MacLachlan explains. “Then we decided to have it stand out more, so as [the Infinity Player] throws it, it intentionally lights up. On set we couldn’t throw anything at Cristin, so some tracking markers were put on her top where it needed to land. Then we did that in CGI. When she is pulling it off her chest with her hand, the shuriken is all CGI. Because of the shape of the shuriken, we were able to have it poke through the fingers and was visible, so it worked well. Cristin did a convincing job of yanking the shuriken out. We added some blood and increased the size of the wound on her top, which we had to do for a couple of other scenes because blood goes dark when its dry, so it needed to be made redder.” Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) throws a ceremonial knife that hits Robert Daly directly in the head. “That was a crazy one. We had the full prop on the shelf in the beginning that she picks up and throws. The art department made a second one with a cutout section that was mounted to his head. Lucy Cain [Makeup & Hair Designer] and I constructed a cage of hair clips and wire to hold it onto his head. Beyond that, we put tracking markers on his forehead, and we were able to add all of the blood. What we didn’t want to do was have too much blood and then have to remove it later. The decision was made to do the blood in post because you don’t want to be redressing it if you’re doing two or three takes; that can take a lot of time out of production.” “USS Callister: Into Infinity” required 669 visual effects shots. A digital clone of Robert Daly placed inside the game engine is responsible for creating the vast worlds found inside of Infinity. “We had a 3D prop printed for the shuriken [hidden hand weapon]… Then we decided to have it stand out more, so as [the Infinity Player] throws it, it intentionally lights up. On set we couldn’t throw anything at Cristin, so some tracking markers were put on her top where it needed to land. Then we did that in CGI. When she is pulling it off her chest with her hand, the shuriken is all CGI. Because of the shape of the shuriken, we were able to have it poke through the fingers and was visible… Cristin did a convincing job of yanking the shuriken out.” —James MacLachlan, Visual Effects Supervisor A cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Cast Away is the otherworldly planet where the digital clone of James Walton (Jimmi Simpson) is found. “We got on a train and went to the middle of Anglesey [island in Wales] to a copper mine,” MacLachlan recounts. “The copper mine was absolutely stunning. It’s not as saturated. You’re a good 50 meters down, and there were little tunnels and caves where over the years things have been mined and stopped. We found moments that worked for the different areas. It was shot there, and we augmented some of it to help sell the fact that it wasn’t Earth. We put in these big beautiful arches of rock, Saturn-like planets up in the sky, a couple of moons, and clean-up of giveaways.” The blue teleportation ring was practically built and digitally enhanced. Set pieces were LiDAR scanned. “What was interesting about the ice planet [was that] the art department built these amazing structures in the foreground and beyond that we had white drapes the whole way around, which fell off into darkness beautifully and naturally because of where the light was pulled by Stephan Pehrsson [Cinematographer],” MacLachlan states. “On top of that, there was the special effects department, which was wafting in a lot of atmospherics. Some of the atmospherics were in-camera and others were augmented to even it out and boost it in places to help the situation. We did add foreground snow. There is a big crane shot in the beginning where Unreal Engine assisted in generating some material. Then we did matte painting and set extensions beyond that to create a larger scale and cool rock shapes that were on an angle.” The jungle setting was an actual location. “That’s Black Park [in England], and because of the time of year, there are a lot of protected plants. We had a couple of moments where we weren’t allowed to walk in certain places. There is one big stunt where Nanette steps on a mine, and it explodes her back against a tree. That was a protected tree, so the whole thing was wrapped in this giant stunt mat while the stunt woman got thrown across it. Areas would be filled in with dressed plants to help the foreground, but we got most of the background in-camera. There were bits of clean-up where we spotted crew or trucks.” Large-scale and distinct rock shapes were placed at an angle to give the ice planet more of an alien quality. An exterior space shot of the USS Callister that is entirely CG. Twin versions of Nanette Cole and James Walton appear within the same frame. “Literally, we used every trick in the book the whole way through. Stephan and I went to see a motion control company that had a motion control camera on a TechnoDolly. Stephan could put it on his shoulder and record a move on a 20-foot crane. Once Stephan had done that first take, he would step away, then the motion control guys would do the same move again. You get this handheld feel through motion control rather than plotting two points and having it mechanical. You get a wide of a scene of clone Nanette in a chair and real Nanette standing in white, and you’ll notice the two Waltons in the background interacting with one another. Those shots were done on this motion control rig. We had motion control where we could plot points to make it feel like a tracking dolly. Then we also had our cameraman doing handheld moves pushing in and repeating himself. We had a wonderful double for Cristin who was excellent at mirroring what she was achieving, and they would switch and swap. You would have a shoulder or hair in the foreground in front of you, but then we would also stitch plates together that were handheld.” The USS Callister approaches the game engine situated at the Heart of Infinity. A homage to the fighter cockpit shots featured in the Star Wars franchise. USS Callister flies into the game engine while pursued by other Infinity players. A major story point is that the game engine is made to look complex but is in fact a façade. A copper mine served as the location for the planet where the digital clone of James Walton (Jimmi Simpson) is found. Principal photography for the jungle planet took place at Black Park in England. The blue skin of Elena Tulaska (Milanka Brooks) was achieved with practical makeup. Assisting the lighting were some cool tools such as the teleportation ring. “We had this beautiful two-meter blue ring that we were able to put on the ground and light up as people step into it,” MacLachlan remarks. “You get these lovely reflections on their visors, helmets and kits. Then we augmented the blue ring in visual effects where it was replaced with more refined edging and lighting effects that stream up from it, which assisted with the integration with the teleportation effect because of their blue cyan tones.” Virtual production was utilized for the main viewscreen located on the bridge of the USS Callister. “In terms of reflections, the biggest boon for us in visual effects was the LED wall. The last time they did the big screen in the USS Callister was a greenscreen. We got a small version of a LED screen when the set was being built and did some tests. Then we had a matte painter at Territory Studio create some generic space looks like exteriors of planets in pre-production. We gave those to Union VFX who animated them so the stars gently drifted and the planets would slowly rotate. Everything in that set was chrome, so no matter where the camera was pointing, when we went to hyperspace or outside planets or in space, there were all of these beautiful reflections all over the surfaces of the USS Callister. What I did not anticipate is when the actors came onto the set not knowing it was going to be a LED wall. Their reaction was enough to say that we had made the right choice.”

After a looooong stretch of speculation, Apple officially confirmed earlier this year that Ted Lasso is returning for a fourth season. Now, actress Hannah Waddingham is sharing new details about the production timeline, as reported by Deadline. In an interview with Capital FM, Waddingham, who plays AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton, praised the show’s writing team: “Our writers are literally Jedi Knights. And we’ve got like a full room of real feminist men… You really see it in the scripts.” She added that the new season starts shooting in July, and echoed co-star Brett Goldstein’s recent statements about the return of the show: “We thought we’d mourned the loss, and now it’s rising from the dead!” Waddingham is one of several original cast members confirmed to return, alongside Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldstein, Juno Temple, and Jeremy Swift. New season, new focus Although Ted Lasso was originally pitched as a three-season arc, Apple renewed the series for a fourth season last year. The new run of episodes is expected to follow Ted as he takes on a new challenge: coaching a women’s soccer team. In a recent press release about the show’s return, Jason Sudeikis said: “As we all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to ‘look before we leap,’ in season four, the folks at AFC Richmond learn to LEAP BEFORE THEY LOOK, discovering that wherever they land, it’s exactly where they’re meant to be.” The new season has no premiere date yet, but you can catch up on Seasons 1 through 3 on Apple TV+. Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 per month and features hit TV shows and movies like Severance, The Studio, The Morning Show, Shrinking and Silo. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

The summer is upon us, or at least the season will officially be here by the end of the month. With the days getting longer, you might be spending more time outside being active and enjoying the extra sun. It also means you’ll want to sit back and kick your feet up after an even longer day. There’s no better way than to check out a hot new show. Here, we have selected five great TV shows you need to watch in June 2025. All but one are new series. The exception is the third and final season of one of the most-watched foreign shows on Netflix. Recommended Videos Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new shows to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, the best shows on Hulu, the best shows on Amazon Prime Video, the best shows on Max, and the best shows on Disney+.  Stick (June 4) Apple TV+ Owen Wilson stars in this sports comedy that sounds like a mix of Ted Lasso and Happy Gilmore. He’s Pryce Cahill in Stick, a former professional golfer whose career ended decades ago, long before he was ready to throw in the proverbial clubs. With his life in shambles, Pryce gains a reignited flame for the sport and puts all his golf balls into the basket of a rising young player named Santi (Peter Dager), who he believes he can turn into a star. Marc Maron and Judy Greer are among its main cast, with Timothy Olyphant in a guest role. Wilson serves as executive producer. Stick consists of 10 episodes, with the first three premiering at once before a weekly release schedule. Whether or not this comedy ranks among the best shows on Apple TV+ remains to be seen, but the cast and the premise, albeit one that’s been done time and time again, could be a winning formula.  Stream Stick on Apple TV+.  Ironheart (June 24) Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (image from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) The foray of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) into television continues with Ironheart, the 14th series produced by Marvel Studios and the latest in the overall canon that links them all together. Following the events in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dominique Thorne reprises her role as Riri Williams. Now an MIT student, Riri returns home and deals with conflicts in technology and magic. As fans will recall, in the 2022 movie, Riri created her own Iron Man-like suit of armor, proving that she’s a downright genius. With just six episodes in the short series, Ironheart will complete Phase Five of the MCU. Anthony Ramos, Lyric Ross, and Alden Ehrenreich also star, while several others, including Sacha Baron Cohen, have undisclosed roles.  Stream Ironheart on Disney+. Countdown (June 25) Elizabeth Morris / Amazon Prime Video If you’ve been missing Jensen Ackles since Supernatural ended and you’re waiting for his return as Soldier Boy in The Boys universe, Countdown will satisfy your fix. Ackles stars in this crime drama as Mark Meachum, an LAPD detective tasked with working alongside a covert task force looking to solve the murder of a Homeland Security officer. As Mark and the team investigate, they uncover an even bigger conspiracy brewing that puts everyone in the city in danger. If you love shows like The Night Agent, Countdown could be Amazon Prime Video’s answer to that smash hit Netflix show. Jessica Camacho (All Rise), Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy), and Violett Beane (Death and Other Details) also star. Stream Countdown on Amazon Prime Video. Squid Game season 3 (June 27) Noh Ju-han / Netflix Cue the ominous music as Squid Game is back for its third and final season. While it was a long wait between seasons 1 and 2, it has only been six months since season 2 premiered, which ended with a devastating cliffhanger. The South Korean dystopian survival thriller centers around a sick and twisted game that pits desperate people against one another in deadly versions of classic children’s games to win a huge cash prize. Serving as social commentary on capitalism and class disparity, Squid Game runs deeper than the violence. Season 2 left off with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) rallying players to fight back. But unbeknownst to him, his new friend Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun) is the Front Man, the mastermind who runs the entire operation. It will be an exciting conclusion to the story that was only intended to be a single season long. But the incredible reception led to these two final seasons that will bring justice, heartache, or likely both. Stream Squid Game on Netflix.  Smoke (June 27) Apple TV+ Inspired by the podcast Firebug, Smoke stars Taron Egerton as Dave Gudsen, a detective who works with Detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett), a talented arson investigator, to try and stop two serial arsonists from burning down all of the Pacific Northwest. The crime drama is inspired by supposed real events — the story of a fictional serial artist that many believe might actually have been a confession. Created by the same team behind Black Bird, which also starred Egerton and was produced by Apple Studios, Smoke also features John Leguizamo, Greg Kinnear, and Anna Chlumsky among its cast.  Stream Smoke on Apple TV+. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook has gotten his wish: filming will begin in July for a fourth season of the hit Apple TV+ series "Ted Lasso," according to co-star Hannah Waddingham.Star Jason Sudeikis and the full cast will return in the near future — image credit: Apple TV+Industry rumblings of a return for the series have been floating around since shortly after the original series ended in 2022. A new report from industry site Deadline quotes Waddingham, saying the writing staff has been re-assembled."Our writers are literally Jedi Knights. They're just incredible," she said. "And we've got like a full room of real feminist men. So we've got all the fabulous women there, and the men that are in there, and I think you really see it in the scripts ... it's just so beautifully drawn." Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums