News Neuromancer Apple TV Shares Mysterious First Teaser for Adaptation of William Gibson’s Sci-Fi Novel Neuromancer The teaser certainly captures the look and feel of the novel By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 6, 2026 Image: Apple TV Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Apple TV Apple TV has just released the first trailer for their upcoming adaptation of William Gibson’s revolutionary 1984 Cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer. The preview is a teaser in the true sense of the word, meaning that it doesn’t really give us much to go off of. It largely consists of a retro monitor that displays the words “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” before cutting to a blurry image of an interior setting that we can’t quite make out. The text is simply the opening line of the Neuromancer novel, and the description for the teaser offers little additional information: 42 years ago, William Gibson introduced the world to Neuromancer. Now, the next chapter is loading. The phrase “the next chapter” is quite interesting as it suggests that the show will, or is prepared to, go beyond the events of the novel. That particular detail has not otherwise been hinted at or confirmed at this time, and the show’s official description (“A hacker and an assassin are thrust into a web of high-stakes crime as they take aim at a corporate dynasty”) seemingly sticks fairly close to the major events of the book. One would assume that the other two novels in the Sprawl trilogy (Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) will eventually be adapted if this first season goes well, though that has also not been confirmed at this time. Beyond that, the only other notable takeaway from the teaser is the apparent confirmation that the show will feature the kind of rough, retro tech that the novel famously utilized. That’s probably a good decision given that the sometimes crude nature of the story’s technology ended up being one of the defining elements of both the narrative and the popular notion of modern cyberpunk worldbuilding that Neuromancer helped to shape and popularize. We previously learned that Graham Roland (Dark Winds) and J.D. Dillard (Sweetheart) will serve as co-creators on Apple TV’s Neuromancer adaptation with Roland operating as the showrunner and Dillard set to direct the series’ pilot. It’s also been confirmed that Gibson is involved with the series as an executive producer and creative consultant. So far, the show’s cast is headline by Callum Turner as Case, Briana Middleton as Molly, Mark Strong as Armitage, and Clémence Poésy as Lady 3Jane. The most prized detail about the series so far is its release date, which this teaser sadly doesn’t even hint at. However, the release of this teaser and reports that the show is currently in post-production all suggest that it may still be on track for its rumored late 2026 debut. Regardless of its eventual premiere date, Neuromancer will almost certainly be one of the year’s most talked-about shows. For quite some time, the Neuromancer novel was considered to be one of the most-requested, yet most-daunting adaptations in the genre canon. Some went so far as to refer to it as an unfilmable novel due to its experimental storytelling style and once-daunting technical requirements. Yet, as Apple TV continues to carve a surprising niche for itself as the destination streaming service for critically acclaimed sci-fi and fantasy series, hope remains that they just might get this right.[end-mark] The post Apple TV Shares Mysterious First Teaser for Adaptation of William Gibson’s Sci-Fi Novel <i>Neuromancer</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV The Vampire Lestat The Vampire Lestat Finds a New Sound in “New York” “I don’t want a job. I want to die.” By Molly Templeton | Published on July 6, 2026 Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Pour one out for book Lestat’s many travels. I had been so looking forward to the flashback version of his quest to find Marius, and while I understand why it’s been cut—a lot of locations, not a lot of plot!—I really was looking forward to watching Sam Reid carve messages in stone walls. But this is a small complaint. “New York” continues Lestat’s linear flashbacks while, in the present, he and the band hunker down in what he calls a 7,000 square foot coffin in order to make a record. It doesn’t go quite as planned. Or maybe it does. Like every episode this season, this one is so tightly woven that it is almost hard to pick apart. You can’t talk about music without talking about Claudia. You can’t talk about Armand without talking about Daniel. You can’t talk about Louis without talking about basically everyone else. There is simply so much. The density of this show, the way every scene is doing 14 different things, is just glorious. I’m already excited about rewatching the first six episodes before the finale and seeing what I missed the first two times. For now, let’s start in the studio, where Lestat is saying “Again.” (Somehow this reminds me of Moira Kelly in The Cutting Edge: “Toe pick!”) The band is not getting it. The band is not playing their instruments like metaphors. Alex, oddly, is eating meat and drinking whiskey. Lestat does not want to answer anyone’s questions. He wants to get it just right. He wants to get it just right so badly that he will fling himself into the alley over and over again in order to sing the word “alive” while literally on the edge of dying. This is a whole different kind of rockstar excess.  Meanwhile, Sofia has taken over the Christine role, Christine and the rest of the gang having been dismissed and paid off in order to support the story that Lestat really died when shot by the man with the unlikely name of Beau Riddley. We will miss you and your terrifying competence, Christine. Lestat stays in the studio, likewise to support the tale of his demise. His impending resurrection as vampire Jesus, onstage for one night only!!!!, will likely have much stronger effect on the world than the fans—mourning the loss of his songs and his hotness in unsanctioned Daniel interviews—expect. The songs are no longer subtle: “Make! More!” the band chants, uncertain what it is they’re insisting that one make more of.  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Across town somewhere, Louis is in deep with his role-playing Claudia stand-in, having now enlisted a faux-Madeleine as well. The wig! The accent! I don’t know how anyone in that scene kept a straight face. Awards for all. But when not-Claudia and not-Madeleine start making out, something changes for Louis. Jacob Anderson’s face is a tangled mystery: unhappy, not angry, but something complicated and messy is going on there, and I can’t quite decide what it is. He is a wonder as an actor.  There are two Louis and not-Claudia scenes, and in the second, Regina asks him to demonstrate his time-freezing powers on her by saying “Make me a stone,” which is a very upsetting phrase coming from the woman who looks exactly like the vampire who wrote “I feel nothing” in her journals. One suspects that experience was too freaky, as the next time we see her she’s back at the diner, faced with another vampire who has questions of his own.  I love that Regina goes back to work when she needs some “real real” as a break from her vampire role-play. But I love so much more than when Louis begins to get lost in it all, the only person he can possibly call is Lestat. (Louis’ ghost walks out of the recording studio; Louis the man requests Lestat’s presence.) Lestat tries so hard to say no—mad at Louis for not calling after he was shot; trying to say he’s busy with recording—but he can’t. Whatever Lestat’s role in the not-a-play that led to her death, Claudia was still his fledgling. The three of them were a family—a fucked-up, murderous, fraught family, but still. There’s no one else whose judgment Louis could borrow when he wants to know if that woman is, somehow, Claudia.  And yet: If you believe Armand, this might not be real at all. If you believe Armand, who says that Louis is “methodically cruel,” then this could be Louis wishing to inflict on Lestat the same confusion and grief he feels. His reaching out could be fully manipulative. I don’t, as a rule, believe Armand about much of anything. But his perspective on the last 50+ years does, maybe, put some of Louis’ behavior in a different light. Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Or does it. Like I said last week, I know that Daniel and Armand are a canon couple in the books. But I still can’t help but watch the gremlin from a skeptical angle. Everything he says, I want to poke at, especially when he possesses some random Great Conversion-obsessed vampire in order to talk to Daniel. (Armand has never been straightforward a day in his life.) Yes, he knows the details of Daniel’s life. He could have gotten those from reading Dan’s mind before his turning. Yes, he loves to be controlling, so it tracks that he might have done all the things he said he did. But I still don’t see love. I don’t emotionally buy the tale of five decades of following Daniel around and then coming home to update Louis on the man’s progress or lack thereof.  On the other hand, I also did not for one second believe Louis when he called Armand the love of his life, so maybe this has been a half-century game they’re playing with one unsuspecting Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.  One thing at the heart of Interview with The Vampire Lestat, all three seasons of it, is the question of how much you can really ever know someone—and the mirror image question: Is the person you think you are the same as the person that your loved ones know? How a person is and how a person seems can be in perpetual conflict, as we see played out over and over again on these densely gorgeous shows. (The shot of Lestat, as dressed by Louis’ memory, in the “previously on”—it’s truly like he’s a different person.) When no one character has to be constantly consistent, they can truly contain multitudes. We get Armand the lover and Armand the murderer within 30 minutes of each other. Louis the desperate and Louis the cruel. Lestat the cocky bastard and Lestat the lonely manchild who wants to die.  And Lestat, face to face with the Claudia who isn’t. Lestat in a plain black hoodie is surprising enough, but this Lestat, almost plain-spoken, straightforward, is like yet another version of himself. He is so clearly rattled, even before he gets back to the studio. It’s classic: He tells Louis it’s not her (to protect him?) and then goes to write the song that will herald the transformation of his band. Parts of “Stained Glass Eyes” are shot like a music video, like the direct opposite of his music-video mockery of Magnus: Here the feelings are real, the vocals raw, the lyrics opaque but also not. “Don’t break that stare.” Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Armand says in season two, narrating the events of the play,  “The last thing she saw on Earth was him.” I would never have guessed that would lead us to this heartbreaking scene, with ghost Claudia staring at Lestat as he records her song. Stripped-down Lestat; stripped down instrumentation; laid-bare feelings. It’s an astonishing sequence, beautifully performed. Louis is trying to make a stranger into Claudia. Lestat makes art of his grief and complicity.  And then there’s Sam, with that look on his face in the recording booth, knowing exactly what the song is about. I keep wondering what Lestat thought was going to happen when he went to Paris. The way he said to Armand, last week, that it wasn’t a play, but a trial. Did Armand tell him it was all just for show? To shame Claudia and Louis and make them suffer a little? Did he think that because he survived, they would, too? Will the flashbacks take us that far? For now, the continuing flashbacks take us, finally, to Lestat’s meeting with Marius, which is in some ways just like the book (Marius digging him up) and in some ways quite different. He isn’t selected to watch over Akasha and Enkil, in the book; he is brought to meet them by Marius, who continues to tend to his vampiric ancestors long after Lestat is gone. But this is a good change, I think, not least because of the wonderfully detailed and cluttered set where the ancient vampires lie (its messy richness is echoed in the cluttered and cozy recording studio). But even better are all the great lines the setup gives Lestat, and the way having a purpose takes him all the way from “I don’t want a job. I want to die” to his enthusiasm about an ice cream scoop. (Scoooooop.)  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Writers Rolin Jones and Hannah Moscovitch are not subtle about the way Lestat replaces his desire to please Gabriella with his desire to please Akasha. He does not bring her nine thousand sticks, but he brings her shiny things, and he educates himself in the process. (Gabriella would never understand this. She saw only her own boredom with his childish play.) His time tending the vampire queen is how he came to be a self-taught musician: She liked music, so he learned to play it. We don’t see all of that, but we see the depressed man shift from “I don’t know how to play” to detailing the musical movements of a symphony—and then flying into a rage when he scratches the record. Lestat does not like mistakes. So naturally he makes a big one. Don’t give her blood, Marius says, and some time later, Lestat ignores the warning, giving her blood lipstick. (Always the show pony!) The entire climactic scene here is painful chaos: Marius telling Lestat he’s unworthy; Lestat spinning in place, caught up by Akasha’s blood; and Akasha herself (an intense Sheila Atim) speaking, speaking, almost chanting, asking question after question like a person possessed.  This Marius (Christopher Heyerdahl) is not a gentleman eager to tell Lestat the story of his own making and history (which is very interesting!) and the backstory of Akasha and Enkil. No, he’s a man who’s been doing a job for a very long time and is tired of it, ready to pass the responsibility to someone else. He has also made a very large mistake on the job, and says that he is the reason why there are so few vampires: Because he drank a drunk guy and didn’t get Those Who Must Be Kept tucked away from the sun in time, and if they burn, all vampires burn. This is an important detail, no? And honestly seems like a bigger mistake than giving Akasha a bit of blood. (Was there anyone around to berate Marius? Who did he take over the job from?) Image Sophie Giraud/AMC The important part of the story, to Lestat, is that his Akasha-tainted blood is dangerous, the source of his temper (despite the fact that he displayed said temper before he drank it!) and his worst impulses. This is what he tells his remaining three bandmates after Larry walks out and they all unite to proclaim they’d rather be vampires than quit. (Magnus did say there was a drummer at Lestat’s table of muses and ghosts.) Do we buy this? I am not sure I buy this. I think he’s trying to avoid more fledgling disasters and/or not wanting to be tied to any more vampire children and/or just preferring to be the only vampire onstage. But it’s exactly what Gabriella wants. Make more, indeed. (There are three vampires in that recording booth, and three supplicants, and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how that all plays out.) At any rate, the band has a new sound, and it is designed for vampire ears. Vampires understand metaphorical instruments, obviously. I would have had a bone to pick with the idea that “Stained Glass Eyes” was that marked a departure from the other songs in any way but its emotional honesty, but this change in sound isn’t just a shift to more piano. It’s something bigger and deeper than that, and I am very curious what it will mean for the show. (New title sequence, maybe?) I don’t know how to end this, because this episode ends with a gasp, and yet there is one lingering ghost in the room I haven’t talked about yet. But first, I think, we put Larry to rest.  The first thing Armand says to Larry is exactly the same thing Alex said to him earlier in the episode: “Terrible goalie, but a total shredder with an axe.” How much of drunk, meat-eating Alex is Armand? (Is it fun for a vampire to puppet a human while they’re eating and drinking? Like an echo of things they can no longer enjoy?) But the next thing he says, he also said to young Daniel Molloy: “Rest.” He did not then mind-fuck Daniel off a subway platform, though.  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Armand does not even look pleased with his decision, after this horror. (That poor woman across the platform!) He looks maybe distracted. Is he just trying to stop the band by killing the guitarist? Is it an attempt to balance the scales, if it happens after (in theory) the rest of the band are turned? He clearly doesn’t believe that Lestat is dead, or he wouldn’t be worried about it. What are you doing, gremlin? And the last last thing for this week:  In his opening narration, Lestat pauses and says, “But I, Amel, digress.” You can read this one of two ways: It is not actually Lestat speaking, but someone called Amel. Lestat is directing his narration to someone called Amel, and just interjecting the name quite oddly. Neither makes a ton of sense at this point in the narration. The name “Amel” does not appear in the book The Vampire Lestat. (Did I buy an ebook just to search this for confirmation? I did.) But at the end, as Akasha rants and chants and asks endless, endless questions, Amel comes up again: “And who arranged it? Did Amel?” she asks. She says “Amel” at least two more times.  This is very teasing. If you would like to know just who or what Amel is, you can look at the Vampire Chronicles Wiki. I think it would be rude and spoilery to say too much, but I did want to point out that weird little phrase at the beginning, because when I didn’t have the captions on, it slid right by me; I assumed it was just a little Lestat-ism that I did not catch.   I don’t even have theories so much as questions, at this point, and they tie back to questions I’ve had since the beginning: When did Lestat record The Failures and why are the album numbers recited by someone else (Canadian director Guy Maddin)? Why does Raglan James, of all people, react so drastically when the second auction lot is revealed? Why is a bottle of Lestat’s blood included? And what has happened to everyone? We are not even halfway through the albums that make up The Failures, which really suggests there has to be a second (or fourth, depending on your counting) season. Can worldwide disaster strike in the next two episodes? I kinda hope not. LITTLE SIPS Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Such an interesting table Lestat set! For a minute I thought it would overlap with Magnus’s description of the people at the table, but I don’t think that included Marie Antoinette or the cabbages.  My wish for the finale to play out like the climax of the novel seems to be coming to delicious fruition. There are such rich parallels this episode; one of my favorites is the shift from Lestat being a dick to Sam about the job (that he presumably isn’t excited about) straight to Marius telling Lestat about the job (that he definitely doesn’t want). Lestat’s job turned out to be life-changing. Perhaps Sam’s will as well.   If Louis’ hotels are actually for vampires, but there aren’t enough of them to fill them, does that mean he’s banking on the Great Conversion? Did Daniel actually get so distracted by Armand promising a walk in the sun that he didn’t register what Armand said about Gabriella, or was he performing that in order to avoid giving Armand the satisfaction of having shocked him? We haven’t seen Daniel do much conniving yet, but I think he has it in him.  Lestat briefly but effectively demonstrating to Gabriella that he has also learned the art of withholding, phew.  When Lestat says “Stop performing,” is he talking to himself, or to Regina? “If you were the first, then who made you? Why do we exist? Why do we endure at all? And why did she leave me? Am I evil? Is my evil sanctioned by nature or divine error? Where is God?” Lestat just running through all the hits while talking to Akasha.  I didn’t entirely understand Nicki yelling random numbers at Lestat while he was trying to record “Big Boss,” but ghost Nicki is clearly not satisfied with anything. Little Lestat is quite present this week, stumbling over his Thomas Aquinas just before “Thomas Pitty He’s a Whore” reaches out. The passage he was reading is curious: “How is it they live in such harmony, the billions of stars, when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds?”[end-mark] The post <i>The Vampire Lestat</i> Finds a New Sound in “New York” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV X-Men 97 X-Men ’97 Kicks Off a New Season With Timey-Wimey Adventures The sophomore season starts with a time-traveling family reunion, a break-out role for X-Force, and an Apocalyptic Big Bad. By Ben Francisco | Published on July 6, 2026 Image: Marvel Studios Animation Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Marvel Studios Animation “Days of Past Future” The second season of X-Men ’97 picks up where last season left off, with the X-Men stranded across time. Bishop (voiced by Isaac Robinson-Smith) and Forge (Gil Birmingham), two of the few X-Men remaining in the 1990s, have tracked down their teammates to two times: ancient Egypt in 3000 B.C.E., when Apocalypse arose as the first mutant, and the 40th century, when he reaches the height of his power. The two split up to retrieve their teammates, with Bishop going to the past and Forge to the future. Arriving in the year 3960, Forge is ambushed by Apocalypse’s Terminator-like robot henchmen. Fortunately, he’s quickly saved by Wolverine (Cal Dodd), who’s now sporting bony claws sans shiny indestructible metal, since Magneto stripped him of his adamantium at the end of last season. After a sweet lovers’ reunion between Forge and Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), they reconvene with Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale). Cyclops and Jean explain that they want to stay in the future a little longer to take advantage of this second chance at parenting young Nathan (Michael Johnston). (Last season, they had to send baby Nathan away to the future to get treated for the techno-organic virus that was killing him, not yet knowing he’d grow up to be the time-traveling soldier known as Cable. But they haven’t told young Nathan any of this, so the poor kid thinks his parents just abandoned him. The X-soap opera is in full effect!) Image: Marvel Studios Animation Meanwhile, it seems even the mighty Apocalypse has to deal with the woes of aging after seven millennia, so he’s searching for a new body—and has decided Nathan Summers is the perfect fit.  Cyclops pleads with the leader of the rebellion, Mother Askani (Gates McFadden), asking if Nathan really is destined to defeat Apocalypse. She affirms the truth of the prophecy and warns Cyclops, “None escape the whims of time.” Ignoring her warnings, Jean and Scott are about to tell Nathan the truth, when Apocalypse’s horsemen attack and overpower the three of them. The other X-Men hatch a plan to save the Summers family, and Mother Askani reveals to Storm that she’s from a different dystopian timeline and is the one who’s flung the X-Men across time, hoping to thwart Apocalypse’s schemes in both the past and the future.  Still in captivity, Scott and Jean finally come out to Nathan as his parents (eliding a few details, such as his mother technically being Jean’s clone, not Jean herself). Inspired by the love of his rediscovered family, Nathan uses his telekinetic powers to take control of the techno-organic virus in his body and disables the collar dampening his mutant powers, allowing them to escape. With Mother Askani’s encouragement, Storm brings her powers to a whole other level, using it to summon a solar storm to power up Apocalypse’s old ship so that they can catch the runaway train holding Cyclops, Jean, and Nathan. With all the X-Men of this time now free and reunited, they handily defeat the four Horsemen, though Apocalypse himself escapes, fleeing to the 1990s to confront the X-Men there. Back in the ’90s, a much older Nathan (now Cable, voiced by Chris Potter), strategizes with Archangel (Christopher Barger) and Psylocke (Naoko Mori) about recruiting more mutants in the fight against Apocalypse, a direct lead-in to…. “A Force to be Reckoned With” Image: Marvel Studios Animation The second episode has an unusual start for this series: instead of the credits, it’s a cold open showing Quentin Quire (Thomas Dekker), Monet (Miatta Ade Lebile), and several other young mutants seeking refuge at the abandoned X-Mansion, only to be captured by the government-sanctioned mutant team X-Factor. Jubilee (Holly Chou) and Sunspot (Gui Agustini) are hiding out in an arcade, bemoaning the sad state of the world with the other X-Men still missing. Then Cable shows up and recruits them to join his black ops team of mutants working to take down Apocalypse. The scene cuts to a new take on the opening credits featuring the title “X-Force” and the team’s current roster, causing the simultaneous gagging of thousands of fans around the world. X-Force tracks down one of Apocalypse’s old Horsemen, War, to Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They telepathically interrogate him and then kill him, disturbing Jubilee with their violent methods. War doesn’t offer much intel, but the psychic blocks in his mind lead them to Emma Frost (Zehra Fazal) in London, England. They find Emma on her way back from her party, interrupting what looks like it would have been a very fun encounter with two gentlemen companions. She admits to helping War and brings the team to Switzerland, where they find an abandoned lab for powering up a new cohort of Horsemen—but with much more powerful technology than Apocalypse has previously used. Then they’re ambushed by X-Factor, revealing that Emma double-crossed them in exchange for amnesty.    A fun fight scene between X-Factor and X-Force ensues. Most delightfully, Emma Frost transforms into diamond form and sits back and watches the whole thing with a distracted yawn. Cable and his team escape—but X-Factor captures Jubilee. Havok (Teddy Sears) and Polaris (Carolina Ravassa) interrogate Jubilee, explaining that X-Factor is “just trying to keep order by easing tensions.” Jubilee rightfully points out that abducting innocent mutants doesn’t exactly seem to be the best way to “ease tensions.” She reminds Polaris of her time in the X-Men and notes that while Cable’s methods are questionable, at least his cause is worthwhile. Havok and Polaris lock up Jubilee with dozens of other mutants, many of them children.  Apparently Polaris was moved by Jubilee’s speech, because she sneaks back to her cell to deactivate her inhibitor collar. With an impressive display of acrobatics and fireworks powers, Jubilee escapes and single-handedly frees the other imprisoned mutants. Cable and the rest of X-Force arrive to pick them up, but their victory comes at a cost. They’re now wanted fugitives.  The episode’s closing jumps back to 2,000 years in the future, where a much younger Cable sends the X-Men back to their own time, separating the Summers family yet again. “Rise of Apocalypse — Part 1” Image: Marvel Studios Animation In the 1990s, Forge reconvenes at the mansion with Storm, Jean, Cyclops, Morph (J.P. Karliak), and Wolverine, bemoaning that Bishop has not returned with the rest of the team—and they have no way of following them into the past. In Egypt in 3000 BCE, the other X-Men have found En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack), history’s first mutant, who will one day become Apocalypse. In this time, En Saban Nur and many others have been enslaved by Rama Tut (John de Lancie), who has an army of robots and other advanced technology at his disposal. En Saban Nur and his comrade Baal (Michael Dorn) are leading the uprising against Rama Tut’s oppressive regime. Magneto (Matthew Waterson) has befriended En Sabah Nur, hoping to convert him to Xavier’s dream of human-mutant harmony instead of his own apocalyptic vision of “survival of the fittest.” Nur successfully raids one of Rama Tut’s strongholds, defeating Tut’s right hand, Logos (Chris Britton). Following Magneto’s counsel, Nur shows mercy to Logos and takes him prisoner, instead of killing him, as Baal urges him to do.   Meanwhile, Rogue (Lenore Zann), Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough), Professor X (Ross Marquand), and Beast (George Buza) are hiding out nearby. Beast is trying to repurpose Rama Tut’s robots and other tech to build a time machine to take them home—but doesn’t have a power source strong enough to fuel it. Nur is happy to have found community in this group of mutants, feeling less alone than he did before, but doesn’t know they’re hiding that they’re from the future. En Sabah Nur and Magneto interrogate Logos, who eventually reveals that Rama-Tut is close to discovering a lost celestial temple that could give him near unlimited power. Professor X scans Logos telepathically, hoping the temple could help them return to their own time, but learns little. Baal shows Nur that the X-Men have been hoarding the pharaoh’s advanced technology, and accuses them of making a weapon for themselves. Hurt by his new friends’ betrayal, Nur kills Logos and orders his army to attack the X-Men. Bishop—who’s been undercover among Nur’s followers—reveals himself to assist his teammates in defending themselves.  Just as the X-Men and En Sabah Nur’s battle climaxes, Rama-Tut locates them and uses a new weapon to raze their base, ending the episode on a cliffhanger. Commentary Image: Marvel Studios Animation Like the first season of X-men ’97, these three episodes are dense, sometimes packing a year’s worth of comics continuity in a single episode. The characters have also proliferated almost as much as in the comics, so it seems wise that they split them up, allowing each of these three episodes to focus on a different core cast. The first episode is a strong opener, allowing Scott and Jean to have a restorative connection with Nathan and giving us some closure to the complicated cross-time Summers family tree. In the comics, that tree also includes Mother Askani, who’s also known as Rachel Summers, Jean and Scott’s daughter from another alternate timeline. It’s probably for the best that they leave that as an Easter egg for fans without delving too deeply into the timeline weeds. The other big moment in episode one is Storm’s summoning of solar flares. On the one hand, it’s always fun to see Storm go Omega. On the other hand, this seems like a power-up that will inevitably have to be forgotten for the sake of future plots. It was also a massive build-up all so that the X-Men could… catch up to a really fast train? If you’re going to have one of your best characters make a play that big, I feel like you should save it for something with a better payoff. But then again, it gives the ever-brilliant Alison Sealy-Smith a chance to show off her amazing voice-acting with an inspiring Storm soliloquy, so in the end I was happy with it. I’m not sure if any actor—whether in voice acting or live action—will ever embody Storm with the iconic gravitas that Sealy-Smith brings to the role. Image: Marvel Studios Animation In general, the voice acting continues to be a strength of the show. In addition to Sealy-Smith, Agustini, Chou, Potter, and Waterson all offer notably strong performances as Sunspot, Jubilee, Cable, and Magneto in these three episodes. There’s also exceptional talent on display among the guest stars, including three actors from Star Trek: The Next Generation (de Lancie, Dorn, and McFadden) whose brilliant voicework offers an extra dollop of nostalgia for the large Venn diagram slice of X-fans who are also Trekkies. The second episode was my favorite of this batch, which is surprising since I’ve never been a huge fan of X-Force or Cable. But I enjoyed the way it set up two clear paths for mutants beyond the typical Xavier-Magneto binary. There’s Cable and X-Force, with its more military orientation, and there’s X-Factor, which is oriented toward government collaboration in this depiction. Jubilee’s resistance to Cable’s take-no-prisoners approach is well done, and very much mirrors the debates between X-Force and the traditional X-Men model. Jubilee’s argument with Polaris is also nicely executed, and I found myself loving her bad-ass prison-breakout-while-playing-the-Walkman moment. The whole episode shows how much she’s grown both as a person and in her power since way back in the first episode of the original series. This X-Factor roster mostly mirrors the team from Peter David’s first run in the comics, but the mutant-hunting angle goes back to the original five X-Men posing as mutant hunters when they first formed X-Factor. But the posing part was pretty essential, and even that carried some heavy moral baggage. In the show, once it’s clear that the X-Factor team is literally caging mutant kids, their cooperation with the government goes from morally questionable to morally reprehensible. (It’s all the more disturbing knowing that, in our own present-day reality, the government is kidnapping, caging, and abusing immigrant children.) I found it hard to believe these characters would sink that low, especially Polaris, and part of me wishes the show had left space for a little more ambiguity, though the core theme at work remains resonant. Image: Marvel Studios Animation I’m always delighted any time Emma Frost gets screentime, though this depiction seems quite a bit more villainous than the one we know in present-day comics—particularly her complicity with rounding up mutants. But I did see moments of the Emma I know and love with her interrupted three-way, her manicuring, and her nonplussed yawning during the big battle. The third episode mostly feels like set-up, but I like what they’re setting up. Magneto being the one with the idealistic hope of converting Apocalypse to the side of the angels is an unexpected dynamic with potential to tread some new territory. Rama Tut—a variant of the time-traveling Kang the Conqueror, at least in the comics—provides an interesting foil for both Apocalypse and the X-Men, especially when voiced with such verve by John de Lancie. These episodes are chock-full of cameos, especially the second one. Like many fans, I was excited to see characters like Quentin Quire, Chamber, the Cuckoo sisters, Artie, Monet, Dust, Synch, and others brought to animated life. For the most part, the show did a good job of letting these characters remain in the background to fill out the story, offering Easter eggs to those who know without overwhelming those whose X-knowledge is less than encyclopedic. Even so, there were a lot of named characters, and there were times I wondered if more casual fans would have trouble keeping track. I was low-key thrilled that we jumped right to Wolverine having the adamantium-free, bony version of his claws, and even enjoyed the slightly wetter sound of the snikt when they came out. I’m looking forward to seeing where they take that plotline, including the awkward reunion when Logan and Magneto are back in the same time. Morph was an unexpected favorite of mine last season, but didn’t have much to do in these. Hopefully we’ll get more of them in the remaining episodes. Image: Marvel Studios Animation The writers are clearly setting up Apocalypse to be the big bad of this season, which has definite potential. I’m completely unclear on how time travel works in this universe but largely felt able to set that aside and enjoy the timey-wimey adventures. Overall this premiere is a promising start, maintaining all the ingredients that made the first season so successful: savoring the nostalgia without letting it hold back the story, drawing smartly on a wealth of source material in the comics, and delving into the complexities of mutant resistance and resilience in difficult times that resonate with our own present-day world.[end-mark] The post <i>X-Men ’97</i> Kicks Off a New Season With Timey-Wimey Adventures appeared first on Reactor.

Column Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “The Wheel of Fire” Alexander is arrested for financing terrorism, Sheridan confronts Garibaldi about his drinking, and G’Kar struggles with his growing mass of worshipers. By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on July 6, 2026 Credit: Warner Bros. Television Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Television “The Wheel of Fire”Written by J. Michael StaczynskiDirected by Janet GreekSeason 5, Episode 19Production episode 520Original air date: November 4, 1998 It was the dawn of the third age… G’Kar arrives on B5, greeted by Lochley. (Why he arrives alone when he left Centauri Prime with Sheridan and Delenn is left as an exercise for the viewer.) G’Kar says that he hopes that his trip to Centauri Prime as the bodyguard of the hated Mollari will have finally dimmed the enthusiasm his fellow Narns have for him, and he won’t be awash in groupies. This is a forlorn hope, as there are dozens of Narns who have been awaiting G’Kar’s return with bated breath and who cheer and kneel at his rather nonplusssed presence. Garibaldi is late for a staff meeting, only even showing up because Franklin called him, and it’s obvious when he tries to give his report that he’s drunk off his ass. Sheridan adjourns the meeting, dismisses everyone but Garibaldi. The two of them have a long talk. Garibaldi expects to be yelled at and fired, and Sheridan surprises him by not doing either. He is, however, suspended until he can get sober again. Sheridan admits that they all suspected he was back on the sauce, as it were, but they weren’t sure and didn’t want to believe it. (Given that his drunkenness was partly responsible for several battles against the Centauri getting out of hand, this should, perhaps, be a bigger deal…) Franklin heads to G’Kar’s quarters, weaving his way around his groupies, one of whom foists a G’Kar action figure on him. G’Kar only lets him in because he’s not a Narn groupie. Franklin informs him that the Kha’Ri has been trying to get through to him, but G’Kar has kept his phone off the hook. (Kids, ask your parents what that reference means.) Apparently, half the planet wants G’Kar back to lead their people, and the other half want his blessing to rule in his name. They talk philosophy for a bit, and G’Kar is at a loss for what to actually do. He doesn’t like either option the Kha’Ri are giving him if he goes home, and if he stays on B5, it’ll be overrun by groupies. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Allan and Lochley speak to an investigator back on Earth, whose current case is the series of attacks on Psi Corps facilities. They’ve traced the money paying for these attacks to B5, and given that all the attacks have had “REMEMBER BYRON” graffiti on them, it all points to Alexander. The investigator instructs Lochley to arrest her—which is easier said than done. Lochley goes to Garibaldi’s quarters. Garibaldi thinks she’s there to gloat over his misfortune, since the two of them have never gotten along. But Lochley surprises Garibaldi with the revelation that her father was an alcoholic. He went into the military, like his family before him, but he really wanted to be a painter. Miserable at not being able to pursue his dreams, he retreated into a bottle. Teenaged Lochley, not knowing the reasons for her father’s awful behavior and assuming, like most teenagers do, that it was all her fault, ran away from home, and became an addict herself. She figures that’s why she and Garibaldi locked horns from jump: they’re too much alike. Lochley then joins Allan for the planned arrest of Alexander, currently sitting in the Zocalo talking to an arms dealer. Sheridan is supposed to be there, too, but he hasn’t shown up and Lochley doesn’t want to wait for him. However, Alexander is able to control the actions of everyone in the bar telepathically, making it clear that she’s through being pushed around. And they can’t stop someone who’s been touched by the Vorlons. Then Sheridan shows up and puts a PPG to her head. He’s also been touched by the Vorlons and therefore can resist her attempts to control him. Lochley then punches her, and she collapses to the deck, unconscious. Garibaldi meets with Lochley to apologize and thank her. She also has a surprise for him: Lise arrives at the station. Lochley summoned her, figuring having someone you love around can only help. Sheridan and Franklin discuss what to do with Alexander. They’ve put her in the most distant cell and are using automated maintenance. They’re interrupted by a pissed-off Delenn, who informs them that the Kha’Ri is threatening to pull out of the IA unless they release G’Kar to them. They assume that G’Kar is staying out of a sense of obligation, and that the IA should order him to go home. In mid-rant, Delenn collapses. They take her to medlab, where Franklin reveals that she’s pregnant. Garibaldi and Lise talk, and he agrees to return to Mars with her to help run Edgars Industries. Garibaldi is worried he’ll fuck that up the way he fucked up his job as head of covert intelligence, but Lise assures him that they’ll deal with any problems together, the way a couple should. Credit: Warner Bros. Television He also gets an idea that will, as he puts it, kill two teeps with one stone. He goes to Alexander, who telekinetically trashes the surveillance camera so they can talk in private. He offers to use his newfound status as co-head of a massive corporation to help her out. He’ll get a senator that was in Edgars’ pocket to drop the charges against her, and he’ll create a shadow account through which she can funnel her campaign secretly. In exchange, she’ll remove the Asimov that Bester put in Garibaldi’s head. Alexander asks how much this offer is really worth… Cut to Garibaldi in Lochley’s office, spelling out the deal: the money Alexander got from the Narns will be put in a trust fund, managed by Edgars Industries, to help telepaths. This will be an open account with full audits and transparency. In exchange, the charges against Alexander will be dropped. The question now is, where does Alexander go? She can’t stay on B5 and she can’t go back to Earth. G’Kar provides an answer. He also can’t stay on B5 and he can’t go home—so they can leave together. G’Kar wishes to travel the galaxy, to get away from the corrupting influence of fame. He doesn’t want to become an action figure. He could use a traveling companion, and Alexander would suit nicely. Garibaldi returns to his quarters and tells Lise that all the deals have been made. Only then do we flash back to the rest of his conversation with Alexander: she proposes that there be two accounts. The public one for show, which he told Lochley about, and a shadow account to use against Psi Corps. If, after two years, Alexander is satisfied that Garibaldi is acting in good faith, she’ll remove the Asimov. Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is smart enough to know that his own relationship with Kosh is enough to protect him from Alexander’s Vorlon-enhanced powers, but dumb enough to not understand why she’s so pissy. (Of course, one of the reasons is the way Sheridan used her and abused her during both the Shadow War and the Earth civil war…) Never work with your ex. Lochley comports herself quite well in this episode, starting with her being nice to G’Kar before he’s bombarded by groupies, offering help and understanding to Garibaldi, and leading the arrest of Alexander. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The household god of frustration. Garibaldi is finally outed as a drunk, and starts the process of trying to get ahold of it. He also sets his revenge against Bester in motion. If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn actually uses a human curse word, referring to the Kha’Ri as “bastards,” right before she faints because she’s pregnant now. In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… The last shot of the episode is of Mollari sitting on his darkened throne, alone, right after Sheridan and Delenn muse that he’s probably having a big party. Yeah…. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. The Narns have all gone completely goofy over G’Kar, who has somehow managed to found a cult without any effort or desire on his part. Having seen what power does to people (most notably Cartagia and Mollari), he wants nothing to do with it, nor does he want to become an idol, so he runs away. The Shadowy Vorlons. The Vorlons specifically created Alexander as a last-ditch telepathic doomsday weapon. Last week, Franklin mentioned the danger of Shadow weapons that were left lying around after they buggered off, but this time we’re reminded that the Vorlons also left a dangerous weapon unsupervised… The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. The attacks on Psi Corps by Byron’s sympathizers have continued unabated. EarthForce was able to trace the money trail, so of course the solution is to hide the money better… No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Apparently, Delenn getting pregnant with her and Sheridan’s child was a 100-to-1 shot, even with her having human DNA mixed in there. Looking ahead. Alexander’s entire storyline in this episode is obviously setting up the Telepath War that we never actually got to see. Welcome aboard. Only two guests in this one. Recurring regular Denise Gentile is back from “Darkness Ascending” to make her penultimate appearance as Lise. She’ll be back next time in “Objects in Motion.” And Monique Edwards plays the never-named EarthForce officer. Trivial matters. When he was seventeen years in the future in “War Without End Part 2,” Sheridan was told by Delenn that they had a son. In addition, there was a mention of their son in the 2362 segment of “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars.” Lochley’s past as an addict, and her sobering up after the death of her best friend, was revealed in “Day of the Dead.” Bester revealed that he placed the Asimov—a block against Garibaldi doing any direct harm to Bester—in “Phoenix Rising.” Alexander did a deal with G’Kar for funding in exchange for telepath DNA in “Darkness Ascending.” The results of Garibaldi and Alexander’s alliance against Bester are seen in the novel Final Reckoning—The Fate of Bester, the third book in the Psi-Corps trilogy by J. Gregory Keyes. The episode title—which is also the title of the season—was at least partly inspired by two different quotes. One is from Shakespeare’s King Lear: “You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave: / Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears / Do scald like molten lead.” The other is from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: “There is no veil between me and the wheel of fire.”In addition, Ixion was bound to a wheel of fire as a punishment for offending Zeus in Greek myth. The echoes of all of our conversations. “What could make her turn like this?” “Well, let’s see: she was adjusted by the Vorlons, dumped by the Vorlons, used as a weapon, quit the Corps, lost the only man she ever loved, and dedicated herself to finishing his work. Pick one or all of the above and, let’s face it, she’s pissed.” —Sheridan asking an incredibly stupid question and Franklin providing the “duh!” answer. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “You’re not the only one that’s been touched by the Vorlons.” Back in 1999, I described season five of B5 to people as “ten hours of exciting television jam-packed into twenty-two episodes.” This and the following two episodes are perfect examples of this, as we get one episode’s worth of denouement stretched out over three episodes because so much of the plot was backloaded into season four. It’s appropriate that this is the episode whose title was used for the whole season, because it’s the whole season in a nutshell: important stuff happens, yes, but almost every scene takes almost twice as long as it needs to. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just one scene, but Sheridan’s talk with Garibaldi, Franklin’s talk with G’Kar, Lochley’s talk with Garbaldi, and Garibaldi’s talks with Alexander all are seriously stretched out. Plus, before Sheridan and Garibaldi’s talk, there’s a lengthy, unheard conversation between Sheridan and Delenn, which is obvious filler, and completely unnecessary. It has the unfortunate effect of diluting what should be much more effective scenes. Many of them are still somewhat effective, mind you. I have not been kind to Tracy Scoggins in this rewatch, with reason, but I will give her credit: while it was one of the scenes that went on too long, she really sold Lochley’s revelatory description of her past to Garibaldi. (Not surprisingly, the prior good performance Scoggins gave was “Day of the Dead,” which also dealt with Lochley’s addiction issues. There may be a lesson in that…) I do love seeing G’Kar deal with his groupies, and his frustration with being made into an idol—complete with the idol existing in physical form with the G’Kar action figures. Andreas Katsulas, of course, sells it magnificently. And the moment when Sheridan sticks the PPG on Alexander’s head and reminds everyone that she’s not the only one touched by Vorlons was beautifully done. Indeed, that entire scene is masterfully constructed, with everyone in the bar tapping their fingers and slamming the table in unison being creepy as all hell. Major kudos to Janet Greek, one of the best of B5’s stable of directors. However, I hate that Sheridan reveals that they suspected Garibaldi’s drunkenness all along, because that points to massive irresponsibility on the IA president’s part, just shy of a war crime. If you suspect that the guy you put in charge of troop movements during a war is a drunk, you don’t put him in charge of troop movements, unless he’s Ulysses S. Grant. It’s also extremely frustrating to see all this setup for the Telepath War and Garibaldi’s revenge on Bester and know that we won’t see the former at all, though at least the latter was dealt with in the final novel in J. Gregory Keyes’ fantastic Psi Corps trilogy. While some of what we see here is end-of-the-story stuff showing people moving on to their next thing—Garibaldi to take over Edgars Industries, G’Kar and Alexander to leave the station—the telepath stuff is legitimate foreshadowing for an upcoming storyline, and that we never got to see it rankles. Overall, though, this feels like an incomplete episode, like we only got the first couple of acts. And for an episode with so provocative a title as “The Wheel of Fire,” it’s remarkably, well, sedate… Next week: “Objects in Motion.”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “The Wheel of Fire” appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays Avatar: The Last Airbender Avatar: The Last Airbender and the State of Modern TV Everything is IP, but IP needs to be shorter and look worse and get retold infinite times. By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on July 6, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share The second season of Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, a live-action remake of the seminal animated series has dropped, and brought with it a slew of… well, mostly discussions about what was changed in service of the show’s seven-episode runtime. My initial inclination was to write a simple review, but as I continued watching, it seemed less and less pressing to offer up any thoughts about how well this season of television worked or didn’t. Instead, I was left with an overwhelming sense of bother over the state of television as a whole. I’ve talked about this problem before in reference to Star Trek, and I’m sure there are plenty of folks who are tired of the argument. Art forms change, of course, and trying to stem that tide toward a different result is rarely as successful as we might like. But there’s a strangeness to the counter-arguments that always seem to run the same way: Not only is change unstoppable—it is good because that’s what change is. It’s oddly binary thinking applied to a specific aspect of artistic process and evolution, and the defense of it has frankly never made sense to me, particularly when so much of the art we enjoy is corporately owned. (And hoo boy, is that ever an aside for another time…) Image: Netflix In many ways, the second live-action season of The Last Airbender fares better than the first. The alterations made are more creative this time around, and many of them seem designed to examine different aspects of character and story that went unexplored in the first telling. The episodes are a full hour, so one could even argue that we’re getting close to the original’s season runtime in terms of overall runtime—animated ATLA episodes were roughly 23 minutes in length. But an episode is still a discrete measure in storytelling, and a season told in seven parts rather than 20 changes the parameters; it demands that you press pieces of a narrative together that were conceived apart from one another. The result gives us episodes that are constantly overworking, especially if they are created from longer, more involved original sources. A way to avoid this pitfall is to work from shorter narratives—one of the reasons the Murderbot series started so strong was the fact that it was pulling from a novella rather than a novel. Less to adapt makes a shorter season run viable and cleaner to pull off. But even that cannot solve the problem of diverted attention, and the assumption that audiences comprehend less than they did a couple decades ago. Not every project is guilty of this, of course: shows like Interview With the Vampire, The Bear, and Widow’s Bay deliberately create environments where characters speak quickly, often over each other, where emotions are left up to viewer interpretation, and the stories move without obvious cues as to the Week’s Lesson, or reminders about What You Missed while checking your phone notifications. Yet for every show feverishly trying to engulf its viewers, there are seemingly a dozen more that stomp about screeching the point at every available opportunity—a trend the live-action Last Airbender is definitely guilty of, even in scenes that hint at a better show. Image: Netflix A perfect example of this comes before the “Zuko Alone” plotline, where the banished prince tells his Uncle Iroh something that he never actually says in the animated series—that he believes Iroh is to blame for everything that went wrong within their family because he could not keep his position as the heir apparent. It’s a shocking (but entirely reasonable) read of the family drama, and frankly crueler than anything Zuko says to Iroh in the original story. It could have been a moment that stood out in the live-action iteration, a more adult conversation from a teenager who is struggling to figure out what sort of man he should become. But Iroh’s response to this accusation is simplistic and oddly blunted—he gapes at Zuko with teary eyes and exclaims: “Lu Ten died.” The live-action series keeps giving up its greatest narrative revelations in moments like these, ones where something subtly given to the audience over time is instead blurted out and robbed of its impact. And that isn’t to say that Iroh’s famous tear-inducing vignette in the “Tales of Ba Sing Se” episode should have been replicated exactingly, but to point out that the goal should be recreating impact in another way while also giving Zuko’s character something deeper to work with.  Different relationship dynamics are getting attention in the live-action version as well (there are more glimmerings of Katara/Zuko for sure, which has been a favored pairing from the show’s inception), which is bound to make some fans delighted, all while simultaneously pointing out another weakness in the IP adaptation rotor that is modern TV—is it really worth rehashing an entire story in a slightly different medium with an eye toward resurrecting ship wars? If those are your primary departure points from the original story aside from crunching the narrative into a smaller box… then you’re basically funding fanfiction at the corporate level. (Important to note, I am not knocking fanfiction or fan works in any way, but rather the corporatization of that mentality and creativity.) Image: Katie Yu/Netflix The only place where these changes truly work show up in Sokka’s difficulty with Yueh’s death from the end of season one, and seeing how it impacts his desire to form a closer connection to Suki. While the animated show breezes through these issues in a manner that is pointedly unrealistic—even by its zanier standards—the chance to linger on Sokka’s grief and confusion is one bright point in the live-action’s favor that isn’t truly replicated elsewhere. There is an attempt to seed Aang’s affection for Katara, and how awkwardly that’s proceeding, but it’s plagued with the modern-day need to over-burden the audience with extended pauses and “signs,” rather than letting Aang simply show this affection through the character’s natural personality. Unfortunately, Aang’s personality is getting bogged down by paranoia over who he can trust this season. It’s a strange veer that doesn’t play with the show’s original plot because there’s no time to build up that tension, but even if there were, it can’t help but read like an attempt to inject contemporary concerns into a narrative that has no need for them. (I get that Ba Sing Se has secret police who are great at brainwashing, but why is Aang, specifically, falling prey to fear about who he can trust when he’s not spending time on the internet, constantly wondering if pictures of cute animals are real or AI generated?) Image: Katie Yu/Netflix Other themes of the story are being altered to more directly reflect the current zeitgeist and the problems we’re experiencing within it—rather than being distractible and kind of dim, the Earth King is simply leaving the job of ruling to Long Feng because politics make him queasy, for example. There’s an eye toward the military industrial complex, too, with new indication that Toph’s parents might be helping the Fire Nation manufacture weapons in the name of good business. But compressing the storyline also eliminates some of the most important themes of the series; with nearly the entire season occurring inside the walls of Ba Sing Se, all of the environmental messaging is cut to shreds. Katara assumes the mantle of the Painted Lady for the sake of protecting people within the city walls rather than handling a fishing village’s poisoned water (which would be equally topical given the data center construction fights happening across the Unites States), and we never meet the swampbenders, or have to contend with the toll of the Fire Nation’s mechanized might on the natural world beyond the first season’s briefest interludes. That last issue also illuminates a common difficulty for television these days: Wildly varying budgets from project to project, and what that money gets spent on. The Mandalorian reportedly cost Disney roughly 15 million dollars an episode. House of the Dragon started out with 30 million dollars per episode in its first season, and petered to under 20 million per episode as time wore on. 3 Body Problem counts on 20 million per episode, the live-action One Piece gets 18 million, The Witcher’s last season got 27 million an episode, and Wednesday reportedly got a hike to 20 million per episode in its second season. Netflix darling Stranger Things counted on an exasperating 50-60 million dollars an episode for its final run. The first season of the live action Last Airbender reportedly clocked in at 120 million for eight episodes, which makes for 15 million dollars per episode, putting it on the lower end of these (frankly absurd) numbers. But while the close-up environment maintains a charming bridge-like quality, sitting aesthetically between real locations/items/clothing and their animated counterparts, it’s the set pieces and scope that miss out every time. The Mandalorian worked within its parameters by building certain complex components and puppetry to help ameliorate these issues. (And it didn’t always work, but it was thrilling when and where it did.) But The Last Airbender looks hokey at a distance, particularly in every place where CGI has to win out over building something physical—which often leads to omitting these segments entirely. The drill made to breach the wall of Ba Sing Se and the tank machine used to relentlessly pursue Team Avatar across the Earth Kingdom while it carves an unending scar across the land, neither of them makes an appearance in this season. Appa gets kidnapped, but it’s hard to care overmuch when we barely see the sky bison—because animating him via CGI is costly and, perhaps more importantly, he looks awful. Image: Katie Yu/Netflix The result of all these choices leaves what should be an epic journey across the world feeling… small. Claustrophobic, even. And it’s a shame because one of the greatest strengths of the original was allowing viewers to experience the whole wide world these kids were trying to save so that we could properly understand what was at stake. The Last Airbender is a story created from a balance of themes and thoughts rather than a singular, narrowed arc of heroism. Its eponymous central character is a testament to this desire, a balancing point between the elements of the world who must still make individual choices, but learns and accomplishes nothing alone. A seven-episode season, bad CGI, truncated arcs, and the re-rendering of “known IP” is far less than it deserves. But this is what a lot of television is like now, whether we enjoy it or not.[end-mark] The post Avatar: The Last Airbender and the State of Modern TV appeared first on Reactor.