News Dark Matter Dark Matter Ventures Into Uncharted Dimensions in Season 2 Trailer Let this be your reminder to watch the other Dark Matter (the one that was on Syfy) By Molly Templeton | Published on July 27, 2026 Image: Apple TV Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Apple TV Where they’re going, they don’t need source material. Apple TV’s Dark Matter is headed into its second season, which will venture beyond the 2016 Blake Crouch novel on which the show is based. But as Crouch is the showrunner and creator of the series, he probably has a good idea what’s next for the several Jason Dessens (all played by Joel Edgerton) running around the show’s multiverse. According to Apple TV, Dark Matter “is a story about the road not taken.” That road appears via a box that allows people to visit alternate worlds. There’s just one big catch: there are other versions of each person in those other worlds. Here’s the synopsis for season two: In season one, the series followed Jason Dessen (Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who — one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago — is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could have lived. Season two picks up with the Dessens as they settle into a quiet life in a world that finally seems safe, until the unimaginable forces them to run once again. As Jason’s obsession with the Box deepens, Daniela’s (Connelly) growing paranoia pushes her to the brink, and their son Charlie (Oakes Fegley) starves for a sense of stability as their family is threatened. Elsewhere, Amanda (Alice Braga) and Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) join forces in a desperate attempt to find their way home. With Blair (Amanda Brugel) determined to stop him, Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi) relentlessly chases his grand vision of creating a perfect world. As seems to be the case for every show nowadays, Dark Matter will now be accompanied by Dark Matter: The Official Podcast, for which creator Crouch and executive producer Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry will chat “with a robust roster of cast members, key creatives and industry experts” about “the show’s biggest moments, the science behind the multiverse, the creative process and how the series expands beyond Crouch’s original novel.” The podcast’s first episode will be a handy-dandy recap, in case you forgot all of season one’s highlights. Dark Matter returns to Apple TV on August 28, with weekly episodes through the October 30 season finale.[end-mark] The post <i>Dark Matter</i> Ventures Into Uncharted Dimensions in Season 2 Trailer appeared first on Reactor.

News Carrie High School Remains Hell in the Teaser for Mike Flanagan’s Carrie Familiar images seemingly hide a re-imagined story By Molly Templeton | Published on July 27, 2026 Image: Prime Video Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Prime Video Carrie is coming, and she’s pissed. Well, in the first teaser for Carrie, the titular teen seems less angry than just deeply disappointed. All the dialogue here is Carrie (Summer H. Howell) speaking, presumably to the classmate who has wronged her (or one of them, anyway): “I want to know why. All I ever wanted was to go to school. I never did anything to you.” One assumes that all the chaos in the trailer comes after she fails to get a satisfactory response. This new version of Stephen King’s Carrie comes from Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass), who serves as showrunner, creator, and, for four episodes, director. It seems as if it will be somewhat different than the iconic 1976 film; for one thing, he’s more sympathetic to Carrie’s mother (Samantha Sloyan) than you might expect. “I went into this determined not to hate Margaret White,” Flanagan told Entertainment Weekly. “I wanted to understand her. And part of the importance of that is Margaret’s not entirely wrong. There’s a lot she has to say in the show that I agree with, and that makes it even more complicated.” This concept is snagging the Carrie fans in the Reactor office. Here’s how Prime Video describes the new series: Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.Told over eight propulsive episodes, the series expands King’s cultural landmark — deepening its characters and tensions, and following the small, everyday choices that build toward a single, shattering night, in a gripping, deeply human story about kindness versus cruelty, and whether we’re witnessing the making of a hero, a monster, or something far more complicated. Whatever quirks the show may have, it also has a typical standout Flanagan cast that includes Siena Agudong (Resident Evil) as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton (Fire Country) as Chris Hargensen, Joel Oulette (My Life with the Walter Boys) as Tommy Ross, Josie Totah (The Buccaneers) as Tina, Arthur Conti (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) as Billy, Thalia Dudek (The Running Man) as Emaline, Amber Midthunder (Prey) as Miss Desjardin, and Matthew Lillard (Scream) as Principal Grayle. The list of guest stars is possibly even more exciting. It includes Flanagan regulars Crystal Balint (Midnight Mass, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Midnight Club); Danielle Klaudt (The Fall of the House of Usher); Katee Sackhoff (Oculus); Kate Siegel (most Flanagan projects); Michael Trucco (Midnight Mass, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Life of Chuck); and Rahul Kohli (Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Fall of the House of Usher) and Flanagan newcomers Tim Bagley (Somebody Somewhere), Rowan Danielle, Heather Graham (Boogie Nights), Delainey Hayles (Interview with the Vampire), Mapuana Makia (Doogie Kamealoha M.D.), Cassandra Naud (See), Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica), and Naika Toussaint (Under the Bridge). The 10-episode first season of Carrie begins on Prime Video on October 7.[end-mark] The post High School Remains Hell in the Teaser for Mike Flanagan’s <i>Carrie</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays Star Trek Star Trek’s Christopher Pike Is a Horse Girl We keep equating cowboy archetypes with machismo, when the image an “equestrian” evokes these days looks far different… By Sylas K Barrett | Published on July 27, 2026 Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+ I keep seeing comments floating around the internet in which people claim that Captain Pike of Strange New Worlds is a throwback—a rugged, conservative-type cowboy of a man. And I have to say, I find the assertions baffling. Of course, there is nostalgia for the 1960s (and the genres popular during that era) built into the show, since it takes place during the years leading up to the events of the Original Series. But other than the beard and gruff attitude Pike briefly adopts while struggling with the horror of having seen his own dark future, the Enterprise’s first captain doesn’t really embody much of what we in the 21st century would call “traditional masculinity.” I mean sure, sure, he loves horses, but it’s not really in a Wild West, all-American cowboy sort of way. It’s more in a horse girl sort of way. Though there have been some ups and downs with the quality of the episodes and their messaging over the course of the show, Captain Pike’s character has remained consistent. He is shown to be gentle and kind, and to possess an unwavering dedication to the community-minded ideals of Starfleet. He prefers diplomacy over confrontation, and works hard to understand other beings, including those who seem strange to him. Throughout the course of the show we see him using every available avenue to find ways to use words and empathy to bridge gaps and solve disputes. We also see him resist to the last moment each time he must resort to a show of force, in direct opposition to what manosphere influencers recommend on today’s internet. When it comes to life on the ship, Pike is a good listener, always encouraging his officers and crew to come to him when they are struggling, so that he can offer guidance and comfort. And he is even willing to talk about and share his own feelings in return—his communication issues with Captain Batel notwithstanding. Pike also loves to feed people, exploring cooking (another thing that in our society is generally considered the purview of women right up until it is a career) not as an occupation but as a hobby, using his passion to promote social connection on his ship and to make sure his people are nourished in body and in soul. Credit: Paramount+ Christopher Pike is a caretaker, first and foremost. Of course, none of these attributes make him less of a man, but they are traits that are more often associated with femininity in our modern society, over 230 years in the past for Pike. It is certainly true that the vibe of Star Trek have that all-American-cowboy aesthetic built into its bones, with its “final frontier,” and settlers constantly terraforming and building farming communities on distant worlds. Plus there’s the pool of actors who were working in the 1960s during the Original Series; Wild West media was quite popular, meaning a great deal of the actors on Trek were already known for western roles. We see a lot of cowboy TV sets re-used by Star Trek throughout the course of the series, too, and the show often finds ways to do “western” episodes, even though it is set in a space-traveling future: There’s “Spectre of the Gun,” the season three episode in which Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov end up trapped in an alien recreation of the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Or “The Paradise Syndrome,” in which an amnesiac Kirk ends up living on a planet populated by the descendants of Mohican, Navaho and Delaware tribes, whose ancestors were brought there by aliens. And the tradition of using western settings and themes continued on throughout the many following Star Trek series, right up to and including Strange New Worlds. And then there’s the very first version of Captain Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter in “The Cage,” the original pilot for Star Trek, as well as in “The Menagerie” which re-used portions of footage from the rejected pilot as flashbacks. In “The Cage,” psychic aliens try to manipulate Hunter’s Captain Pike into a romantic relationship with a female human they also have trapped in their menagerie. Using their mind powers, the aliens make Pike and Vina hallucinate that they are on a picnic date in Pike’s home state of California. They have ridden on horseback to their picnic spot, and Pike is wearing denim from head to toe. In this scene, we first learn that Pike loves horses and riding, and even the names of two of his horses, Mary Lou and Tango. Credit: CBS But although Pike’s history has the set-dressing of a cowboy persona, even the Hunter version isn’t particularly full of machismo—we see him struggle with indecision and identity issues, confide in others even to the point of being accused of whining, and admire the beauty of flora on an unfamiliar planet. In Strange New Worlds, Anson Mount takes Pike’s sensitivity, emotional struggles, and love of beauty, and elevates them over the course of the three seasons that he has (so far) had to explore the character. And as an avid equestrian, Mount (ironic last name there) also takes Pike’s history with horses to another level, as we get to see Pike out for a snowy winter’s gallop in the pilot episode, and then again, riding along with M’Benga and La’an, having the time of his life while undercover on some kind of Wild West planet in the opening of season four. When it comes to humans and horses, especially in American pop culture, one of course will think of cowboys and ranchers and rodeos—of rugged working men and their trusted companions, the horses that make their livelihood possible. But in our modern world, much of the work that would have been done using or riding horses in the past is now accomplished with trucks, mechanized farming equipment, and other machines. And today, modern machismo culture revolves primarily around cars and motorcycles, much more so than horses or any other kind of animal that you’re supposed to bond with… which feels pointed, to say the least. A horse is a living being with emotions and needs of its own; a mechanized vehicle is not. When I think about what horses mean to the culture I grew up in, I think primarily of rainbow ponies, of the princess and maidens that folklore tells us unicorns are drawn to. Of my mom, who wanted a horse so badly when she was a little girl that she promised my youngest sister she could have one when she turned 16—and even followed through with the promise ten years later. I think of all the horse girls I knew growing up, and the many, many toys they all had, both realistic and fantastically colored, and the games I played on the playground with my female friends where we imagined having stables full of beautiful horses and ran around imitating trotting and cantering. Horses are a lot of work. They are not only expensive to feed, stable, and care for, they are also remarkably fragile creatures that can injure or sicken easily, and which need a lot of regular training and exercising. They need companionship, both from other horses and from their owners/trainers. Riding well requires building a strong bond of trust between horse and rider, and especially a good sense of each other’s bodies and movement. In our culture (speaking as a citizen of the U.S., specifically), putting this kind of effort, gentle care, and shared body awareness is more often encouraged in women than in men. What used to be framed as a purely masculine pursuit would now be perceived as feminine to many, including fans of cowboy archetypes. That is a cultural generalization, of course. There are plenty of boys, and men, who love horses and all that comes with owning and riding them. And there are areas of U.S. life that still revolve around horses, such as rodeo riding and ranch work. The arena of professional sports riding is also still dominated by men, despite the preponderance of women on the so-called amateur end of that field. As a generalization, however, I think the above evidence renders my point: Remember when The Two Towers came out, and everyone was talking about how the majority of the ​​Rohirrim were not played by men? When Peter Jackson was looking for extras with excellent riding skills—particularly extras with excellent riding skills and their own horses—most of the New Zealanders he found with those qualifications were women. Women with enough disposable income and free time to devote to a beautiful, but very expensive hobby. You know… grown up horse girls. Credit: Paramount+ That cost isn’t a problem for Pike, of course, as he lives in a technologically advanced, post-scarcity future. Horses may still be best suited for some jobs in our current era, especially in less mechanized countries, but in Pike’s time there are robots and flying shuttles and transporters, all of which are available to everyone in the populace. And while the lives of every person on Earth are ostensibly provided for more or less equally, one can argue that being the captain of Starfleet’s flagship is about as close an equivalent to being a rich person as a world without money can offer. So. Pike is a sensitive, kind, “wealthy” person, who lives in a beautiful home in Montana that he goes to when he’s not out among the stars. His hobbies are cooking elaborate meals and being an equestrian. We don’t actually see him interacting with horses very much, just a brief glimpse of him riding that beautiful black horse in the pilot episode (it’s Tango, by the way) and a saddle that he keeps on his starship, but we can be sure that his gentle, nurturing nature suits his equine companions just as well as it does his friends and his crew.  What I’m saying here is that Spock’s surrogate dad, Captain Christopher Pike, is basically living Tina Belcher’s dream. He may insist on one more ride on that Wild West planet in the opening of “Valles Marineris,” even though the mission is already completed, but he doesn’t love that moment because he’s a rough and tumble cowboy man. He loves it because he is a horse girl.[end-mark] The post <i>Star Trek</i>’s Christopher Pike Is a Horse Girl appeared first on Reactor.

News Queen of the Damned The Vampire Lestat Becomes The Queen of the Damned for Season 4 She is really not the answer!! But you’ll find that out soon enough. I hope By Molly Templeton | Published on July 27, 2026 Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC All hail the Queen! Or maybe … don’t? “She is the answer,” proclaimed the graffiti on the street at the end of The Vampire Lestat. “She” refers to Akasha, the vampire queen Lestat had been mentioning all season long. We met her for one episode, as Lestat was awakened from a long sleep and brought to watch over her eternal rest. He, foolish boy, gave her some blood; in return she woke up and drank from him, and then he drank from her, and then everything went apeshit for several days. So, logically, if she wakes up for longer, things will go more apeshit. And indeed they do in Anne Rice’s The Queen of the Damned, the third of her Vampire Chronicles novels—an adaptation of which will be coming to AMC. It was announced at SDCC that the show previously known as Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat has been renewed for a fourth season, with both a name and a showrunner change: As it becomes Queen of the Damned, Hannah Moscovitch steps into the showrunner seat previously held by Rolin Jones. (Jones may be quite busy with his Grapes of Wrath adaptation, also for AMC.) Moscovitch was a writer on the first season and both writer and executive producer on Lestat, so this is not new ground for her. Except that it’s kind of new ground for the whole show. Where Interview with the Vampire was Louis’ story and The Vampire Lestat the brat prince’s biography (reshaped for TV, of course), Queen of the Damned does something different. The narrative leaps from character to character, some folks getting long sections that are almost novellas, some just short chapters. The entire thing is narrated, at a remove, by Lestat, who writes the novel at the end of the book, and who explains that he got the stories from the other characters, either via conversation or mind-reading or some combination thereof. But his influence on the story feels very different in this book than it did in The Vampire Lestat, the series, where Lestat’s unreliability is front and center. Queen of the Damned introduces Jesse Reeves, a young woman whose mental powers lead her to work for the Talamasca, and her mysterious aunt Maharet, whose secrets are obvious to the reader, if not to Jesse. It also features Baby Jenks, though in a somewhat different form, and young vampire Daniel Molloy, who is somewhat less angry than his television counterpart. (This is not a criticism of Eric Bogosian, who is a genius.) Running throughout is the legend of the twins, two redheads who meet a terrible fate at the hands of a young queen. And, of course, it gives us much more of Akasha, who has been sleeping—but listening to the world—for centuries. As hinted at on The Vampire Lestat, she is awoken and she is wrathful. And she has a beef with men. Some patient Redditor transcribed her entire speech from the fifth episode of The Vampire Lestat, which is enter-at-your-own-risk semi-spoiler territory. It’s also beautiful and powerful, and Sheila Atim, as Akasha, delivered it incredibly. Akasha is a bit more direct in the teaser AMC released with the renewal news: “Women, get up! Out of the ditches where they have thrown you! And come with me now to where the men are gathered, and do what you have long-longed to do. Kill. Them. All.” We know not when Queen of the Damned will come to AMC, but let us cross all fingers and toes that it doesn’t take two years.[end-mark] The post <i>The Vampire Lestat</i> Becomes <i>The Queen of the Damned</i> for Season 4 appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary The Summer of Jimothy Let’s talk about the latest celebrity animal sensation By Judith Tarr | Published on July 27, 2026 Photo: Dmitriy Ishimskiy via Storyful Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Dmitriy Ishimskiy via Storyful And now for something completely different. By popular demand: JIMOTHY! As incredible as it seems, the latest phenomenon that’s taken over the internet is barely two weeks old. Seattle-area Instagrammer Kiana Hall filmed a strange little creature on the night of July 13th and posted the video the next day. It immediately went viral. At first she thought the fluffy grey animal—“an orb with legs” as she described it—might be a cat. Then it turned and she saw the face and realized it was a raccoon. Experts leaped in to diagnose Jimothy, as Hall named them, with a congenital deformity called short spine syndrome. The spine is shortened, the vertebrae reduced in number or compressed. The body is very compact, almost square or spherical. There’s no tail and the animal may look as if it has no neck. That’s Jimothy. The internet loves them. They have their own song. They’ve been immortalized in art, in games, as a bobblehead. They have an honorary degree from the University of Washington and a proclamation from the Seattle City Council, complete with festival and Jimothy-themed art contest. If ever a crowd has gone wild, it’s done it for Jimothy. They press all the Cute buttons: little, round, fuzzy. They belong to a familiar species often regarded as a rampant nuisance, but they’re unique. They look like a cryptid but they’re incontestably real. And reeled: once Hall’s video hit the big time, others in the area started posting their own footage. In June and July of 2025, Ben Trammell recorded what he called a “raccoon-colored koosh ball,” a tiny spherical baby clambering around his back yard. The little animal had a mom and two siblings, all of whom were normal raccoons. They were tiny, less than a third the size of their littermates, and yet there they were, doing raccoon things with their raccoon family. The trees in which the raccoons lived were cut down and Trammell didn’t see them again that year, but this spring, the little round critter showed up again, solo now, weaned and on its own—and apparently thriving. Trammell saw them as a testimony to resilience. Animal experts agree. Jimothy looks healthy and seems quite able to look after themself. Viral animal sensations are pretty common. Does everybody remember Fiona? There’s another and much less fuzzy and cute celebrity in Tasmania, the infamous Neil the Elephant Seal, whose size, strength, and capacity for destruction have been causing havoc. Fortunately for Jimothy, they’re small as well as cute. The amount of damage they can do is relatively minimal, and because they’re Jimothy, they’re forgiven rather than called out as a raving nuisance. They’re a point of pride in Seattle—civic pride and, coincidentally, disability pride in a month dedicated to the concept. It’s kind of a perfect storm. People love cute animals. They love cryptids, and Jimothy looks like a cryptid. What’s even more striking, Jimothy is doing it on their own. They’re not in a zoo or a sanctuary. Humans have not raised or cared for or protected them. They were born and raised in the wild and they’re making a go of it without human help. That’s a grand thing and a great story, but humans being what they are, it comes with a warning. Public health officials in Seattle have called on the public to keep its distance. However famous and beloved Jimothy is, they are a wild animal. They are not tame; they’re not safe. Raccoons can carry diseases. People should not try to feed, interact with, or handle them. This is not a remote possibility. Consider the fact that rangers in national parks have to constantly urge visitors not to get close to the animals. Do Not Pet The Fluffy Cows. And then there’s the issue of late-stage capitalism. Within hours of Jimothy’s debut, enterprising humans were figuring out ways to make money off them. The Sarvey Wildlife Care Center posted a statement on its own and Jimothy’s behalf, thanking supporters for wanting to help them and Jimothy by selling Jimothy-branded merchandise (and presumably “rescuing” Jimothy and caring for them in the sanctuary), but pointing out that Jimothy is a wild animal, and should remain so. “Loving wildlife,” they want to remind us all, “means allowing it to remain wild.” In film and story, when the unusual animal or the cute alien (ET, anyone?) shows up in human spaces, the biggest threat is Evil Government Scientists who want to study (i.e. dissect or weaponize) the subject. A few intrepid humans spend most of the film eluding the evil scientists and trying to save the animal—either to find a safe place for them to live or to return them to their home. Jimothy shows us how it is in real life. The threat isn’t Evil Science; in fact scientists and wildlife experts are ringing the warning bells. The profit motive, which is another trope, is definitely there. But there’s also the problem of humans who want to be a part of the viral sensation. They want to track down the celebrity, see it for themselves, film it, interact with it. Evil Scientists and Steely-Jawed Military aren’t coming for Jimothy. Paparazzi, on the other hand… I hope the people of Ballard take good care of their fuzzy superstar. Keep them safe. Stay out of their way. Let them live their life. Be glad they’re in the world, being their unique and beloved self. I have a couple of sidebars to add to this story. It happens that I have a sort of connection to Jimothy’s anatomy: one of my cats is the daughter of a cat with a variation on the spinal defect. Her spine is normal in length but stops with the last vertebra. She has no tail, not even a stub. Two of her four kittens have the same trait. It’s genetic, and there are appears to be no deficit of any kind. Jimothy diverges dramatically from normal raccoon conformation, but is agile and highly functional. Like Mama Willow, they’re doing just fine as they are. The other thing I want to add is a rabbit hole I went down while researching Jimothy. Animal communicator Lori Cowen professes to have had a long conversation with them. I am skeptical about that part, but the message Cowen wants to convey is worth pondering, whether it comes from Jimothy or the communicator’s own mind and beliefs. Jimothy, she says, does not consider themself disabled. This is the body they were born in. It’s normal for them. They know how it works, and they’re comfortable with it. It doesn’t bother Jimothy that they don’t look like other raccoons. Worrying about looks, says Cowen, is a human thing. Animals are what they are. They take themselves as they come. It’s a good philosophy—for humans as well as animals.[end-mark] The post The Summer of Jimothy appeared first on Reactor.