News Shifter Adam Scott and Two Severance Colleagues Are Teaming Up to Develop a New Sci-Fi Series Face … off? By Molly Templeton | Published on July 20, 2026 Image: Apple TV+ Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Apple TV+ While one certainly hopes that it won’t be too long before we see more seasons of Severance, one also understands why the creative folks involved on said show might need some other projects to keep them busy in the downtime between seasons. Now, three of said creative folks—star Adam Scott, writer Ezra Claytan Daniels, and producer Eli Jorné—have teamed up to develop a series based on Koren Shadmi’s graphic novel Shifter. The adaptation is being developed for Hulu. Shifter does not appear to be available in English publication just yet. Last year, author and artist Shadmi posted about its French publication, saying that he hopes the book will also come out in the US. Presumably the adaptation news might hurry that process along. According to Deadline, which broke the news about the adaptation, Shifter “is set in the near-future, where a banned cosmetic procedure lets people change their faces on the fly, creating a new underground industry of Shifters, who can become anyone you want, for any purpose you can imagine, for a fee. Rose is making a name for herself as one of the best, but the more she gives to her gigs, the more she risks losing herself.” Shifter will be written by Daniels and Jorné, and produced by the two writers along with Adam Scott, Naomi Scott, and Kevin Cotter (all of Great Scott Productions). Jorné is a producer on the upcoming third season of Severance, and was previously the creator of The Walking Dead: Dead City, and Daniels is a graphic novelist, writer for the third season of Severance, and writer of the remake of The People Under the Stairs.[end-mark] The post Adam Scott and Two <i>Severance</i> Colleagues Are Teaming Up to Develop a New Sci-Fi Series appeared first on Reactor.

Column Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Objects at Rest” Sheridan and Delenn prepare to leave Babylon 5 for Minbar By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on July 20, 2026 Credit: Warner Bros. Television Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Television “Objects at Rest”Written by J. Michael StraczynskiDirected by John CopelandSeason 5, Episode 21Production episode 522Original air date: November 18, 1998 It was the dawn of the third age… Sheridan is restless, unable to sleep as he prepares to leave with Delenn for the new IA capital in Tuzenor on Minbar. He finds Lochley in CnC, equally restless, and they have a nice moment where she admits the station is growing on her and he thanks her for taking over. He also asks that, when he and Delenn leave, there’s no fanfare. They just want to exit quietly and discreetly. Vir sees Ta’Lon ringing G’Kar’s doorbell, and the Centauri explains that G’Kar left several days earlier, with no plans to return. Ta’Lon is confused, as G’Kar summoned him. He breaks into G’Kar’s cabin, but as soon as he enters, a message for him from G’Kar starts playing. G’Kar wishes Ta’Lon to replace him as Narn’s ambassador to B5. Narn needs someone with equal doses of strength and spirit, and G’Kar’s reputation has made him far too much spirit and left him with little strength. While he’s sure that Ta’Lon doesn’t think he’s ready for the job (and Ta’Lon says as much), G’Kar assures him that G’Kar himself felt that way when he got the gig. He’s confident that Ta’Lon will grow into it as G’Kar did. Franklin meets with Hobbs in the Zocalo to offer her the job as his replacement. When she points out that there are other more experienced doctors (who are such hot shit that they’ve never once been mentioned or seen in five years), Franklin counters that they’re all specialists, and he needs a generalist. (Why he doesn’t mention that Hobbs has already had the job while Franklin was on walkabout in season three is left as an exercise for the viewer.) She accepts. As Delenn is packing, Lennier arrives. He was able to take a working vacation from Ranger training to help Ranger One relocate. At one point, he looks longingly and disapprovingly at a picture of Sheridan and Delenn together. Halloran gives a report that things are generally quiet—just a minor disagreement between the Drazi and Brakiri—so Sheridan and Delenn should be able to transition to Minbar without any problems. Sheridan then explains to Lochley that Halloran will remained stationed on B5 as that’s a better location from which to do her job as the head of covert intelligence. Credit: Warner Bros. Television On Mars, Garibaldi meets with a bunch of Edgars Industries employees. They’re all troublemakers and malcontents and firebrands. They assume they’re being fired, so they’re rather gobsmacked when Garibaldi informs them that they’re the new board of directors. He expects them to be brutally honest with him. On B5, Franklin boards his shuttle for Earth. ISN has picked up that there’s a White Star coming to B5, and speculation is that Sheridan and Delenn will be moving to Minbar. Lennier informs Sheridan and Delenn that their stuff is on the White Star and they can leave any time. While Delenn gives their quarters a final once-over, Sheridan thanks Lennier for coming and offers to have him over to visit any time. Lennier accepts the invitation in a way that makes it clear that he will never ever take him up on it. They head to the docking bay only to find a huge crowd waiting for them. Everyone saw the ISN report. Delenn gives a speech about how there is no Minbari word for “goodbye,” as the Minbar mindset allows for the possibility of meeting again, some day, some way. She won’t say goodbye now, either, but instead, “Until we meet again.” Allan sees them off at the docking bay. Sheridan is grateful that not all of the veteran staff is leaving. On the White Star, there’s no captain on the bridge. Lennier explains that the captain remained on B5 so Sheridan and Delenn can command the flight. Sheridan orders that they match rotation with the station, putting their nose facing the CnC window. They see Lochley, Halloran, Vir, Allan, Ta’Lon, Hobbs, and Corwin in CnC. Lochley salutes Sheridan, who returns it. Then they head to Minbar. En route, Sheridan is restless, so Delenn suggests he go for a walk. As he’s walking, he hears a commotion—there’s a coolant leak. A Ranger is trying to get it under control, and Sheridan rushes to help him. Unfortunately, the area is sealed off to protect the rest of the ship, trapping Sheridan and the Ranger. Lennier comes by and Sheridan urges him to override the controls to let them out. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Instead, Lennier turns and leaves them to die. After a bit, Lennier experiences tremendous remorse and runs back, only to find that Sheridan has used the Ranger’s pike to get the door open. While Sheridan and the Ranger are treated, Lennier buggers off in a fighter, disappearing into hyperspace, promising Delenn that some day he will earn her respect back. Sheridan is pissed, even more so when the report comes in from Minbar that authorities there have read Lennier’s diary as part of what is now a criminal investigation into his behavior. Apparently, his love for Delenn was even deeper than they all realized, and he did not approve of her marriage to Sheridan at all. Sheridan agrees not to speak of it, or the coolant leak. They will say nothing of Lennier and if anyone asks about his cough, he’ll say he caught a cold. Upon arrival on Minbar, they have a guest: Mollari, who has come on an official state visit. He joins them for dinner, explaining that his harsh words on Centauri Prime were in order to fire up his people for the long rebuilding process. He still considers them his friends in private, even if he must excoriate them in public. He also has a gift for their unborn child: an urn, which he says is traditionally given to the heir to the throne when he comes of age, but Mollari has no children, nor any plans to sire any, and he says they’ll likely abolish the office after his death. It should be given to their child at age 16. After Mollari departs, the Drakh inform him, through his Keeper, that he has done well, and they will reward him with an hour’s respite from them. The urn, we soon see, has another Keeper in it, one which is obviously intended for Sheridan and Delenn’s child. That night, Sheridan records a message for his child to hear in the future. He only has two decades of life left, so he wants to give as much to his offspring as he can. Delenn comes in at the end and provides the quote from his father before Sheridan gets the chance to say it: “Never start a fight, but always finish it.” Then they go to bed together. Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan records the first of what one assumes are many many recordings for his kid, since he knows that the most time he’ll have with the child will be two decades. The household god of frustration. Garibaldi’s method of choosing a board of directors is unorthodox to say the least, especially since boards of directors are usually people with a financial stake in the company… If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn moves back home to Minbar permanently, makes a lovely speech to the B5 crew, finds out Lennier is an even bigger shithead than she realized, and senses something wrong with Mollari, but can’t put her finger on what. Never work with your ex. Lochley says that she’s come to like serving on B5. In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari is very much under the thumb of the Drakh, as his trip to Minbar is primarily so that he can set up Sheridan and Delenn’s kid to have a Keeper, and thus put him under Drakh control. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. Ta’Lon is one of the few Narns G’Kar has complete respect for, so it’s not surprising he was tapped to replace G’Kar. We live for the one, we die for the one. While the focus is on Sheridan being trapped in the chamber with the coolant leak, nobody even mentions the Ranger who found the leak and who almost died. Poor bastard… No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Lennier is so in love with Delenn that he’ll commit manslaughter on two people, one of whom is a fellow Ranger. Sure. Looking ahead. Allan muses that he’ll probably still be on B5 when they turn off the lights. The finale, “Sleeping in Light” (which had already been produced a year prior to this), will establish that Allan will, in fact, be on B5 when they turn out the lights. Welcome aboard. It’s a recurring character roundup! Back for their final appearances on the show are Marshall Teague as Ta’Lon (back from “The Ragged Edge”), Jennifer Balgobin as Hobbs (back from “Walkabout”), Simon Billig as a never-named Ranger (back from “The Fall of Centauri Prime”), Joshua Cox as Corwin (back from “Movements of Fire and Shadow”), Marjorie Monaghan as Halloran (back from “Objects in Motion”), and Maggie Egan as Jane the ISN anchor (back from “Rising Star”). Teague will next appear in Crusade’s “The Long Road” as Captain Daniels, Cox will return as Corwin in a couple of the movies, and Egan will return as Jane in three episodes of Crusade. In addition, the crowd scene in the Zocalo that saw Sheridan and Delenn off was populated by members of the crew and actors who appeared out of makeup (such as Peter Jurasik). Trivial matters. This was the last episode of the Babylon 5 TV series to be filmed. “Sleeping in Light” was originally produced to end the fourth season when the fifth season was in jeopardy, then punted forward when the show was picked up by TNT. This is the final appearance on the show of Mollari, G’Kar, Lennier, Lochley, Corwin, Ta’Lon, Halloran, and Hobbs. Lochley and Corwin will next be seen in River of Souls, G’Kar will next be seen in Legend of the Rangers, and the others will all appear in The Road Home, though in the case of Halloran, Ta’Lon, and Hobbs, it’s a very brief cameo re-creating their final appearance in this episode. Both River of Souls and The Road Home pick up shortly after this episode. We saw G’Kar start the recording he made for Ta’Lon in “Objects in Motion.” The ghost of Morden predicted that Lennier would betray everyone in “Day of the Dead.” Mollari made a fire-and-brimstone speech excoriating the IA in “The Fall of Centauri Prime.” Several short stories were published in both Amazing Stories and The Official Babylon 5 Magazine in 1999 and 2000, most of which took place in the two-decade gap between this episode and “Sleeping in Light.” Four of them were written by J. Michael Straczynski: “Shadow of His Thoughts,” which focuses on Mollari shortly after his coronation; “Genius Loci,” which looks in on G’Kar and Alexander on their journey after leaving B5; “Space, Time, and the Incurable Romantic,” which takes place three centuries in the future, and bizarrely follows up on the Ivanova-Cole romance; and “Hidden Agendas,” which takes place in the middle of the fifth season and has Captain Ivanova returning to B5 for the first time as a ship captain. The other two are “True Seeker” by Fiona Avery, which involves the Narn as well as Alisa Beldon from “Legacies”; and “The Nautilus Coil” by J. Gregory Keyes, which focuses on Garibaldi and Alexander and ties into Keyes’ Psi Corps trilogy. The echoes of all of our conversations. “There are moments when we all become someone else, something other than what we are. It only takes a moment, but we spend the rest of our lives looking back at that moment in shame.” —Delenn discussing Lennier Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Home is not a place, it’s wherever your passion takes you.” The endless denouement continues! Seriously, it’s epilogue after epilogue after epilogue, and it’s really getting wearing. This episode at least has some excitement with the coolant leak, but it’s ruined by the continued character assassination of Lennier. Turning him into a toxic man-baby was certainly a choice, and it was annoying enough watching it happen to a character who has been previously defined by quiet dignity. Having it take a turn to attempted murder just makes it worse. It’s nice that they got Marshall Teague and Jennifer Balgobin back to reprise Ta’Lon and Hobbs. Ta’Lon has been a fabulous character since we first met him way back in “All Alone in the Night,” and Hobbs proved herself to be way more competent than the guy she replaced (a low bar to clear, admittedly; for starters, Hobbs isn’t an addict…). I’m still not clear why Hobbs was so confused about being tapped to replace Franklin when she’d already done it before, but whatever. Sheridan and Delenn’s departure for Minbar is nicely done, from the big goodbye to one final Delenn speech to the salute to seeing the new guard, as it were, standing in CnC. It’s especially interesting to see that none of the people we see in CnC at the end was on the station in “The Gathering”—indeed, only Vir and Corwin were there in the first season, but Vir didn’t arrive until “Midnight on the Firing Line,” and we didn’t see Corwin until “Signs and Portents.” While some of the personnel changes were dictated by external circumstances (the departures of both Claudia Christian and Michael O’Hare), the show still does a good job of showing that things are never constant. In a medium (a weekly TV show) that rewards maintaining the status quo, it’s good to see that the regular changes that would be part of a milieu like this space station are being shown. There are some head-scratchers here. Halloran says that everything’s quiet, which is a neat trick given that they just fought a big-ass war against the Centauri. There should be a ton of relief efforts and repairs and such going on, not to mention collection the reparations from the Centauri, which has to be fraught. (That it’s not brought up at all during Mollari’s visit is also annoying.) Lochley says that Delenn came back last night, which doesn’t seem to have left enough time for Sheridan and Delenn to do the ten-mile walk across the station and back that they went off on at the end of last episode. Overall, it’s hard to get too worked up about this episode because it’s yet another epilogue, and it’s just gotten so damn tiresome. Next week: “Sleeping in Light.”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “Objects at Rest” appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary The Sassy Horses of Disney Animation Who needs words when you have attitude? By Judith Tarr | Published on July 20, 2026 Credit: Disney Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Disney I’m taking a sidestep this week, from animals that speak like humans to animals that say everything they need to without uttering a word. It came about after a discussion in the horsegirlsphere, with commenters voicing expert opinions about horses in Disney animated films. The tl:dr comes to: Khan awesome, Samson awesome, Maximus is a dog, dammit. I have thoughts about this. The animated Mulan is one of my favorite Disney films. Sleeping Beauty was a fixture of my early childhood, but I had not seen it in quite a few years. Tangled, the most recent of the lot, I saw when it first came out because everyone, and I mean everyone who knew me and my horses said, “You have to see this. Maximus is your horse.” Disney has produced numerous talking-animal films, but it’s also racked up a substantial collection of films in which the animals communicate without using human words. They make animal noises: whinny, nicker, snort in the case of horses. The bulk of their communication is body language, expression, and above all, attitude. Sleeping Beauty’s Samson doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time, but he makes the most of what he has. He’s Prince Philip’s mount; we first meet him riding through the forest just before the fateful encounter with the long-lost princess. Philip hears her singing away in the woods, and takes it into his head to find the singer. Samson is not in favor. There’s a struggle, with Philip trying to haul him around and Samson resisting. Philip resorts to bribery: “An extra bucket of oats? A few carrots?” Samson’s expressions and body language tell us (and his rider) all we need to know about his opinions. He’s not well or truly bribed, either; during the pursuit of the singer, he scrapes Philip off into a pond. That costs him the carrots, but turns out to be a stroke of fate for Philip and his One True Love. Samson is not too far off reality in horse terms. He has a mind of his own, but he’s always there when he’s needed. His forms of resistance are familiar to many a horse kid. When he neighs, he’s sounding an alarm, which is accurate: Horses are generally silent; they don’t whinny unless they have a clear purpose, usually to express alarm, call out to absent herd members, or sing the song of the stallion to his mares. He is a weird color. Probably a buttermilk buckskin, a sort of cream color with black and mane and tail, though he’s missing the dark points (lower legs, tips of ears). Maybe he’s supposed to be light grey and his mane hasn’t greyed out yet. Khan in Mulan is less realistic and more fantasy-coded. He’s clearly devoted to Mulan; he’s always nearby and strongly resists being separated from her. This makes sense for a war horse, as he’s her father’s retired charger. Horses will and do bond with a single human, and war horses are both trained and naturally inclined to protect their rider. The horsegirlsphere speculates to how old he has to be if he was trained as a war horse, then came home with his rider, and now it’s how many years later and Mulan is taking him to war again. He has to be at least in his late teens and probably older. Which is not impossible—horses often live into their thirties and stay sound well into their twenties—but it says a lot for his quality that he goes through as much as he does and makes it home in perfect condition. He would be a very special breed of horse, the Ferghana or Horse of Heaven. They are creatures of legend, and Khan has the characteristic build and substance, as well as the longevity and stamina. His coloring is, again, on the weird side: he’s what we call true black with chrome (blaze face, white stockings), but he has human-like eyes with whites and blue pupils, and a grey belly and light grey eyebrows. Horses have some movement in the skin and muscles above the eyes, and they can have lovely eyelashes, but eyebrows they do not have. Mostly he’s there as transport, but he has perceptible opinions. These are expressed through the eyebrows, as well as through more general body language. When Mulan dithers over how to approach the military camp, he sprawls like a human, chewing on a grass stem, and manages to look both long-suffering and bored. One truly horselike thing he does is his reaction to the arrival of the tiny dragon Mushu. He tramples Mushu into the dirt. Horses will do exactly that with creatures to whom they take exception. Snakes, scorpions. Noisy and annoying lizardy things. If they’re not dragons and therefore both magical and immortal, they don’t survive the encounter. Maximus in Tangled is a different animal. Samson and Khan are important in their roles, but they are supporting cast. Maximus is a main character. When we meet him, he’s the mount of the captain of the guard, but he quickly graduates from transportation to active participant in the pursuit of the thief, Flynn Rider. He is the most realistic as to color: your classic elite rider’s “white horse,” which usually means he’s a grey. His behavior ranges from fantastical to completely off the wall. Mostly, what he reads as is a dog, complete with tailwagging, occasional random noisemaking (whinnies and the odd nicker), and a propensity to put nose to ground and sniff his way toward his quarry. Now here’s the thing. Horses have an extraordinary sense of smell, well up there in the dog range. They can be used in the same way as scent-tracking dogs, with the advantage that they’re that much larger and that much higher off the ground. They may put their noses down to find a scent, but they’re more likely to track it from higher up, through the air. He does use his hooves as Khan does, to stomp his quarry, and when he uses his teeth, he’s being reasonably horselike. Horses will bite, and will grab hold of handy pieces of clothing or human anatomy. Hurts like hell, too: horses have serious bite power. Maximus has human-level intelligence. He knows exactly what he’s doing and to whom he’s doing it. He’s devoted to his duty as a royal horse. He pursues the thief relentlessly, applies strategy and tactics to the hunt, and he never gives up. He has an extremely expressive face and a ton of attitude. He also succumbs to the allure of the horse girl. When Rapunzel loves on him, he melts. He doesn’t exactly change sides—she is after all the lost princess—but his priorities shift. He stops being the enemy and starts being an ally. All without saying a word. He doesn’t need to. His intentions are clear, and humans in this world are capable of understanding them. They don’t have any delusions of human superiority, either, as we discover at the end, when Maximus takes the place he’s earned in the palace hierarchy. Yes, I had that horse. Gone now and much missed, but he was Maximus. He had a fancy registered name and a royal pedigree, and attitude for days. No, he never wagged his tail, but he could lash it like a cat, and if he loved you he’d die for you, but if he didn’t, you seriously had to watch your back. Every horse kid can tell you stories of Samsons or Khans that they’ve known. Maximus, too: even the fantastical bits.[end-mark] The post The Sassy Horses of Disney Animation appeared first on Reactor.

News Avengers: Doomsday The Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Is Here to Remind You How Many People Are In This Movie It’s gonna take a minute for these Avengers to assemble, no? By Molly Templeton | Published on July 20, 2026 Screenshot: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Marvel Studios Remember the chairs? Remember when Marvel let a video run forever in which they just gradually showed more and more directors’ chairs with actors’ names on them in order to introduce the cast of Avengers: Doomsday? I have not forgotten (or forgiven). What’s more, Marvel seems to be continuing this marketing approach. The first trailer for the next Avengers film is essentially the chairs video, but in costume. Here is a character! Here is a character! Here is a character! The gang’s all here. Well, almost all here. Some of us would like to see Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), thank you. Avengers: Doomsday is a movie about how despite time-traveling or dying, Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans will return to the franchise. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is scared. He intones, very seriously, that they are going to need a miracle. Chris Evans, shaggy and way less blonde, appears. This might have been more meaningful had we not already been informed that Chris Evans, despite all logic and previous films, would return. (Somehow, Loki also returns?) The one thing I want to know about this movie is what all these characters are doing in the same place at the same time. That will not be explained (yet, anyway). It is only important that you know that everyone is here and they must come together to face the man in the iron mask Doctor Doom (Downey Jr.). And by everyone, I mean: Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) Captain America (Anthony Mackie) Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) Loki (Tom Hiddleston) Shuri (Letitia Wright) M’Baku (Winston Duke) Red Guardian (David Harbour) John Walker (Wyatt Russell) Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) Bob/Sentry (Lewis Pullman) Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) Beast (Kelsey Grammer) Gambit (Channing Tatum) Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) Magneto (Ian McKellen) Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) Cyclops (James Marsden) We are really putting the concept of an ensemble cast to the test. Avengers: Doomsday is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo from a screenplay by Stephen McFeely and Michael Waldron. It’s in theaters December 18.[end-mark] The post The <i>Avengers: Doomsday</i> Trailer Is Here to Remind You How Many People Are In This Movie appeared first on Reactor.

News Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode Titles Include an Intriguing Next Generation Reference Whose Enterprise is it anyway? By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 17, 2026 Photo: Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Paramount+ The episode titles for the fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds were just released, and wouldn’t you know that they include an incredibly tantalizing Next Generation Easter egg. For reference, here are the 10 upcoming episode titles in order of release: 1: “Valles Marineris”2: “The Griffin Incident”3: “Human Best Friend”4: “A Case of Chiaroscuro”5: “Level-Five Transporter Accident”6: “Off-Hour”7: “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass”8: “Orders of Magnitude”9: “Once La’An a Time”10: “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” While there are a few notable names on that list (Could “Level-Five Transporter Accident” be the puppet episode? What’s up with “Once La’An a Time?”) the early standout is undoubtedly “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.” On the surface, it is at least a callback to the beloved Season 3 episode of The Next Generation (“Yesterday’s Enterprise“), which showed an alternate timeline and a different version of the Enterprise. Naturally, the similar episode titles have sparked speculation that the Strange New Worlds‘ Season 4 finale could pull off a similar feat of timeline jumping. However, just to throw a reasonable dash of cold water on some of the more optimistic speculation, it’s likely that the episode title is just a cute reference. For that matter, it’s also possible that the wording refers to some kind of event that brings us closer to the events of Star Trek: TOS. We know the series is gradually heading in that direction, and a giant leap forward would certainly make for an appropriate finale that sets up the show’s fifth and final season. Still, one shouldn’t lose hope for another wild timeline manipulation adventure that sees the Strange New Worlds crew just get weird with it ahead of the end of all things (relatively speaking). It is, after all, what they often do best.[end-mark] The post <i>Strange New Worlds</i> Season 4 Episode Titles Include an Intriguing <i>Next Generation</i> Reference appeared first on Reactor.