News The Witcher The Witcher Season 4 Clip Shows Liam Hemsworth as Geralt (If You Can See Him) Liam Hemsworth makes his white-wigged debut next month. By Molly Templeton | Published on September 15, 2025 Media: Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Media: Netflix The Witcher is a dark show—and I don’t just mean thematically. A new look at the upcoming fourth season, the first that swaps Liam Hemsworth in as Geralt of Rivia (the role previously played by Henry Cavill) kinda requires you to push your screen’s brightness to the max. One thing glows in all the gloom: Geralt’s white hair. The actor may change, but that wig belongs to only one role. It’s been more than two years since the end of the third season of The Witcher, which saw its central trio separated and fighting their way through the Continent. The synopsis for season four remains brief and vague: After the Continent-altering events of Season 3, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies. As their paths diverge and their goals sharpen, they encounter unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good… Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has previously said that she hopes viewers will go look for breadcrumbs and hints in the stories of Emhyr and Vilgefortz. A new post at Tudum highlights Laurence Fishburne’s look as Regis, the barber-surgeon regularly described as a fan favorite. Other new characters include the bounty hunter Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley), the spy Skellen (James Purefoy), and Zoltan (Danny Woodburn), who Netflix describes only as “the fan-favorite dwarf from the books and games.” The fourth season was filmed back-to-back with the fifth and final season; between them, the show’s last seasons will cover three Witcher novels, Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and Lady of the Lake. (A new novel, Crossroads of Ravens, arrives September 30th; the show won’t get into that one.) Along with Hemsworth, The Witcher stars Freya Allan as Ciri and Anya Chalotra as Yennefer. Season four arrives on Netflix on October 30th.[end-mark] The post <i>The Witcher</i> Season 4 Clip Shows Liam Hemsworth as Geralt (If You Can See Him) appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary It Was Like a Dance of Light: The Abyss (1989) James Cameron’s ambitious film finds something weird and wonderful in the ocean depths… By Judith Tarr | Published on September 15, 2025 Credit: 20th Century Fox Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: 20th Century Fox Prolific filmmaker James Cameron wrote and directed the 1989 release, Abyss, in among all the Terminators and the Rambos. It’s beautifully filmed, with real submersibles and actual underwater sequences filmed “in a water-filled cooling tower of an abandoned nuclear reactor construction site”. That must have been quite the experience for the cast and crew. The plot revolves around a set of tropes. A U.S. nuclear submarine “chasing Reds” in the waters near Cuba (presumably around the Cayman Trench) is attacked by a mysterious force. An oil company’s drilling operation nearby is tapped for the rescue: a company ship, the Explorer, on the surface and a deep-water rig below. The people up top are various forms of company hacks; the crew in Deep Core 2 is a gang of rough-and-ready types, all hair and dirty t-shirts, led by ruggedly handsome Bud Brigman (Ed Harris). They’re assisted and/or obstructed by a handful of SEALs and “the queen bitch of the universe,” Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), who just so happens to have designed the rig, and who also happens to be married (but on the brink of divorce) to Bud. Much drama ensues. A hurricane separates Deep Core from the Explorer, and nearly flattens the rig when the crane breaks off and plunges below. The SEALs have a hidden agenda which involves one of the sub’s nuclear warheads. Their commander turns out to be one of a percentage of humans who can’t handle the pressure of the water even in the pressurized rig (which rests on a shelf at 1700 feet/500 meters). We’re reminded early and often of the symptoms of pressure-induced psychosis: tremors and paranoia. Lieutenant Coffey is a Stiff Government Robot type. He’s convinced that the sub was destroyed by Russians. Once it becomes clear that Russians had nothing to do with it, he’s all about arming the warhead and nuking whatever is down below in the trench. Don’t know what it is? Don’t understand it? Nuke it. Bud and Lindsey, meanwhile, spar over everything from the state of their marriage to the predicament they’re in, between the hurricane, the damage to the rig (with only twelve hours of oxygen left before they’re all dead), the downed sub, and the thing that took the sub down. Their situation becomes ever more dire, and the humans in the rig split into two hostile camps, SEALs and rig crew (with Lindsey in the latter). Just when it seems as if we’re never going to find out what really happened to the sub, Lindsey suits up and heads outside to try to extend the oxygen limit by accessing the auxiliary tanks. Lindsey may be a proud corporate bitch, but she’s a hands-on engineer and she knows every inch of Deep Core 2. While she’s out there, the power glitches (because of course it does) and she loses contact with the rig. And there, at last, we see something weird and wonderful. It’s a translucent, wormlike, vaguely squidlike creature that shines with its own light. Lindsey is so enthralled she almost forgets to film it. And then the main event surges up from below. It’s huge, gorgeous, and made of light. She’s completely captivated and utterly unafraid. She even touches it. When she makes it back into the rig, she’s all aglow with what she’s seen. Engineer she might be, but with this she’s all about her feelings. She just knows it’s nonhuman, but intelligent: an NTI, a Non-Terrestrial Intelligence. It’s beautiful. It’s not a “clunky steel can” like what humans build; it’s a machine, but alive, “like a dance of light.” Of course nobody believes her. Her film doesn’t show anything definitive, just blurry bits of light. She’s the Hysterical Female trope, the Woman Burbling About Impossible Things. In between fits of bickering, collapsing systems, and hostile SEALs, Lindsey and tech guy Hippy rig a camera to send below. Coffey hijacks it and hooks it up to the nuke. Amid this part of the drama, a pseudopod of water emerges from one of the flooded bays. We get the alien POV, exploring the rig and eventually finding Lindsey holed up with the rest of the crew. The pseudopod proceeds to surround the nuke and carry it off—until Coffey slams a hatch shut and slices it in two, with the warhead still on the humans’ side. That convinces everyone that something not-human is definitely out there. Something they’ve never met before, that can control water “at a molecular level.” Lindsey is sure it’s benevolent. The others aren’t so sure. Coffey is more determined than ever to blow it up. Further drama follows. Coffey drops off the cliff into the abyss, taking the warhead, and the camera, with him. Somebody has to retrieve it before it blows. We know it has to be Bud, because Steely-Jawed Hero. The couple of SEALs who have kept their heads and decided to cooperate with the Deep Core crew suit him up in their special high-tech suit, which is basically a spacesuit, and their even more special breathable liquid oxygen, which lets him breathe for a limited period at extreme depth. The danger of pressure psychosis is very much there, but we just have to hope it doesn’t incapacitate him before he can disarm the warhead. He expects to die down there. It takes him too long to go down, and there’s too little oxygen left after he complete his mission. But we have a pretty good idea what has to happen next, because we know how the tropes work. And so they do. There’s a whole huge city/installation/mother ship down there. And there are beings. Aliens? Beings who evolved in the deepest part of the sea? They look like a cross between a butterfly, a fairy, a classic big-eyed UFO alien, and a stingray. They’re beautiful and eerie and gently inquisitive, eyeing the human quizzically and, of course, saving him. The end is soaring and beautiful and inspiring. There is much smiling and laughing and wonder and all those good things. We never find out if these are space aliens—true extraterrestrials—or natives of this planet. Are they non-terrestrial in the sense that they’re from another planet, or non-terrestrial as in not land animals? All we know is that they’re benevolent. They don’t want to destroy the humans. They want to help them. They want to communicate; to understand. They’re lovely and they bear some resemblance to actual deep-sea creatures, but they show up the big hole in the film’s worldbuilding. There is no actual marine life. No fish, no cephalopods, no cetaceans. Nothing. Not even a sea bird. The ocean is empty. All that’s there is the alien and the humans. I’m sure that’s a budget decision as much a creative one—to narrow the focus and avoid cluttering the already very busy plot. But it turns the ocean into a huge, empty tank. The real ocean is full of life, all the way down. Even, in places, to the bottom. That’s next week’s expedition. We won’t find any aliens, but what we will see are creatures who are as strange as anything in science fiction. There’s a whole world down there, full of wonderful things. We’re just beginning to explore it.[end-mark] The post It Was Like a Dance of Light: The Abyss (1989) appeared first on Reactor.

Some people cannot be replaced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while discussing the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.   “Charlie was 31 years old,” Netanyahu said Monday, adding that his own brother was only 30 when he was killed while serving in the Israel military. “And you know, some of these people come once in a century, but it’s their legacy that has to live on.” Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. The lead suspect in Kirk’s assassination is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday that Robinson was living with a partner who identifies as transgender.   Transgenderism was just one of the many issues Kirk was vocal about, arguing the harms gender ideology has caused children. Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was a strong advocate for traditional American values and Constitutional freedoms.   Kirk “believed in having free discourse, and he was, I think, a great American patriot, a believer in the freedom [and] liberties that America gave to the world, and a believer in the common foundation of our civilization,” Netanyahu said.   Kirk was a “tremendous friend of Israel,” according to Netanyahu, adding that he and Kirk had discussed “how to defend Israel [and] how to defend Western civilization.”   Kirk’s death has triggered prayer vigils and gatherings not only in America, but around the world as supporters of free speech have been galvanized following the conservative leader’s assassination.   Netanyahu made the remarks about Kirk at a Monday press conference in Jerusalem following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Netanyahu and Rubio’s meeting comes almost one week after Israel carried out a strike in Doha, Qatar, targeting Hamas officials.   President Donald Trump chose his words carefully after the bombing, condemning Hamas but noting that the bombing inside Qatar, which is a U.S. ally, “does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” Reports of frustration in the Trump administration over Israel’s actions added to the critical nature of Rubio and Netanyahu’s meeting in Jerusalem.   Rubio and Netanyahu appeared largely united in their comments Monday, discussing the need for Hamas to be eliminated and the return of the nearly 50 hostages still in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.   Rubio further stressed the threat of a nuclear Iran, arguing Iranian nuclear weapons would not only threaten Israel, but Europe.   “In fact, some of the missiles they’re trying to develop now can already range countries in Europe,” Rubio said.   The U.S., on Trump’s order, carried out strikes on three of Iran’s key nuclear sites in June after Israel launched a strategic attack on Iran’s nuclear targets  A nuclear Iran that is “governed by a radical Shia cleric, that possesses not just nuclear weapons, potentially, but the missiles that could deliver those weapons far away is an unacceptable risk,” Rubio said, adding, “That’s why we, the president continues with our campaign of maximum pressure that will continue to be maximum economic pressure on Iran until they change course.”   The post ‘Once in a Century’ Man: Netanyahu Responds to Charlie Kirk Assassination   appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Let's Applaud Tyler Robinson's Family and His 'Partner' For Standing Up When It Counted

WaPo Editor: I Got Fired Over Charlie Kirk

Our ancestors were making cooking pots before they were even growing things to cook.

Turning seawater into gold sounds like an alchemist's dream, but it is possible. Kinda.

In a public forum, a left-wing activist is shot while advocating for the right of men who identify as women to compete in women's sports. The suspected shooter has a conservative ideology, and is in a romantic relationship with a woman who is an activist working to prevent men from competing against women. Think Morning Joe would argue that the shooter's motives don't really matter, and that we should focus instead on other issues? Rhetorical question. But when the tables are turned . . . Utah Governor Spencer Cox, someone Morning Joe has praised, has stated that Tyler Robinson has a "leftist ideology," and was in a romantic relationship with a male transitioning to female. And at the moment Robinson allegedly shot him, Charlie Kirk was discussing shootings by trans people. So, shouldn't we delve deeply into Robinson's motives, and consider their cultural and political implications? Nope, says MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire. On today's Morning Joe, MSNBC's Lemire argued that Tyler Robinson's motives "almost shouldn't matter." Isn't Lemire a "news" reporter? Facts don't matter?   Employing the James Carville deflection technique of "look ovah heah, a squirrel!," Lemire argued that rather than considering Robinson's motives, "we should be focusing" on the fact that the country is "awash in guns," and on the harmful influence of social media. Lemire also employed some linguistic sleight of hand. After noting that "it's simply not the case" that Democratic politicians are reveling in Kirk's death, he claimed that "people" have been responsible. See what he did there? Lemire used the fact that Democrat politicians have not been so self-destructive as to celebrate Kirk's death to claim that "people" on the left in general have not done so. That's patently false. In fact, we're "awash" in leftists celebrating Charlie's death in the most ghoulish manner possible. And it began right there at MSNBC, where host Katy Tur teed up Matthew Dowd to suggest that karma caught up with Kirk, and to speculate that he was killed by a supporter "shooting their gun off in celebration."  Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 9/15/25 6:15 am EDT JONATHAN LEMIRE: There's been an effort here to sort of cast about from the right, sort of pointing fingers at the left to sort of claim that Democratic politicians are reveling in Charlie Kirk's death. That's simply not been the case. People have been responsible. Even mournful. This is an American tragedy. It's not just a Republican tragedy. It's not a Democratic tragedy. It's an American tragedy.  But there is this sort of sense of this could be a pretense for some sort of crackdown. And that would be, just make things worse. It would fan the flames. There's so little we know yet about this shooter and his motives. And again, they almost shouldn't matter because what happened here, it's a culture, a society where we've had this rise in political violence. We are awash in guns. It's clear.  One thing we do know about this individual, a lot of time online, that the worries of the dangers of social media become more and more clear each and every day. That's what we should be focusing on.

The following is a partial reprint of a column originally published by the Daily Caller on Sept. 14. When President Donald Trump announced Charlie Kirk’s death, he vowed to find those responsible for political violence, as well as the “organizations that fund it and support it.” He need look no further than his predecessor and those in the Biden administration. Their attacks on legitimate political speech went far beyond a misuse of funds. They were criminal. The Media Research Center (MRC) has long warned about the reckless rhetoric coming from federal agencies aimed at destroying conservative leaders and movements, including Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA. Two years ago, the MRC released bombshell documents exposing how the Biden administration exploited tax dollars to smear Christians, conservatives and Republicans via the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP). Under a program supposedly aimed at combating “extremism,” the DHS funneled funds to the University of Dayton that promoted a “pyramid of far-right radicalization." That pyramid outrageously lumped in Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, and other mainstream conservative groups with neo-Nazis and other extremists. The message is unmistakable: the federal government legitimized the idea that mainstream conservative groups paved the way for domestic terrorists. Continue reading on the Daily Caller.

The album remains one of the band's most memorable efforts, and confirmation that they were decidedly in the game. The post Good ‘Sports’: How Huey Lewis and the News Hit a Home Run appeared first on Best Classic Bands.