May 6th Prime Video premieres the second season of the highly-anticipated young adult series The Wilds. Season one centers around a group of teenage girls stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash, however, it is revealed early on that it was not a real crash but rather part of an experiment perpetrated by Gretchen Klein (Rachel Griffiths), out to prove that women can band together and survive without the problems associated with a male-dominated society. She called the girls group the Dawn of Eve.

The season follows the girls as they struggle to find ways to endure and come to terms with their predicament, interspersed with flashbacks of the hardships they faced before the island and flashforwards of after they are “rescued” and held at a bunker by Gretchen and her men, still being lied to.

While on the island, one girl, Leah (Sarah Pidgeon), starts to suspect that the crash is not all it seems and that one of the girls, Nora (Helena Howard), is in fact in on the ruse and communicating with someone outside the island. Of course she is right, but no one believes her.

***The following recap and review contains spoilers for 13.06. Please watch it before reading.***

On tonight’s episode of Doctor Who, the Doctor takes off her conversion plate to avoid Swarm disintegrating her, but ends up splitting herself in three: one stays outside the universe, one joins Karvanista and Bel on the Lupari ship, and the other reunites with Dan, Yaz, and Jericho in the tunnels.

Through the course of the episode they discover that the Sontarans, having used Claire to find the time and location of the final Flux event, have sent out a broadcast trying to broker peace with the Daleks and the Cybermen, but it’s a ruse. They know that to stop the Flux, which is made of antimatter, they need to hit it with matter, and they plan to use their enemies to do it and the ships of the Lupari who they massacred to shield them, taking control of the entire universe.

Eventually the Doctor and her friends stop and exile the Grand Serpent, who was working with the Sontarans, and gain control of the Lupari fleet to shield them from the Flux. They disperse the rest of the Flux energy into Passenger, at the suggestion of none other than Diane, who along with Vinder was able to escape the prison and call for the Doctor. Unfortunately, Jericho can not transmat away from the Sontarans and is pulled into the Flux with them.

***The following review and recap contains heavy spoilers for 13.05, so please watching before reading.***

This week on Doctor Who, while the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) finds herself outside of the universe at Division, Yaz (Mandip Gill), Dan (John Bishop), and Jericho (Kevin McNally) are stuck in 1901. The trio spends the next three years searching for clues about how and when the universe will be coming to an end. Meanwhile, the Doctor finally gets some answers, as the woman she met previously in her memories, who turns out to be Tecteun, reveals that the Division, originally created on Gallifrey, created the Flux to hide their existence and get rid of the Doctor in one fell swoop to move on to the next universe, destroying hers in their wake.

Overall, there were some positives and some negatives about the episode this week, in my opinion. The episode was fairly linear again and easy enough to understand, but I’m not sure the story that was told was as revealing or exciting as it was meant to be.

First of all, although the last episode’s final scenes were so crazy, it was resolved right off the bat with a rather unsatisfactory conclusion that apparently the Doctor was turned into a Weeping Angel all for the sake of transporting her to Tecteun. It didn’t really explain why that was necessary.

***The following review and contains spoilers for 13.04 as well as the "next time" trailer for 13.05, so please watching them before reading.***

I was impressed with tonight’s episode of Doctor Who, titled “Village of the Angels.” Weeping Angels are one of my favorite villains/creatures of the series, but I was afraid that the episode would be ruined by having everything else jammed in it like last week. I was happy to be wrong.

Unlike the first three episodes, especially last week’s, the story was much more linear (as linear as it can be in a time travel show). There was one main story thread that was split by the characters being split up, and then there was the side story with Bel (Thaddea Graham). Whereas I would have preferred the action not stop to make room for Bel and Vinder (Jacob Anderson), it didn’t feel squashed in like last time. The episode was much more cohesive as a whole, and aside from Azure (Rochenda Sandall), there weren’t other alien creatures, and it didn’t feel like random things were happening.

The main storyline with the Angels and our characters trying to escape felt like a classic (new series) episode. I loved how they brought in the idea of an image of an Angel being an Angel, because we’ve seen that before, and they took the idea to the extreme as Claire (Annabel Scholey) was seen transforming partially in moments. I also think the writers did a really good job of explaining what Angels were to any potential new viewers, and it gave everyone else a quick reminder of the basics, without making the episode feel like there was too much exposition.

The Art of AMC's The Walking Dead Universe was recently released everywhere books are sold. The 240-page hardcover, which comes from AMC Networks, Skybound Entertainment, and Image Comics, covers all three series in The Walking Dead Universe. The book gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the three series through concept sketches and other art and illustrations, storyboards, photographs, and more. It includes an introduction by Chief Content Officer of TWD Universe Scott M. Gimple as well as other fun facts.

The book is full of so much to look at and presented beautifully. Each part also provides some interesting insight into the making of the series in general or whatever that specific page is about. It’s full of tons of content that fans of the series will love.

The book is full of positives. I only really found there to be two negatives to the book. The first is that I wish the book were divided up in a different way, preferably by series. All three shows are together, and I couldn’t really find a rhyme or reason to how they were ordered.

***Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free blu-ray copy to review. Opinions are my own.***

Based on the graphic novel series and film from Bong Joon Ho, Snowpiercer is set in the not-so-distant future after the world has been frozen over. What’s left of humanity is aboard the perpetually moving train that is over ten miles long and, originally, over one thousand cars.

At the end of the first season of the series, the train passengers became aware that the train was not being led by Mr. Wilford (Sean Bean) as they had thought, but rather by Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly), pretending to give orders as the man. There was a revolt, and the Tailies took over with Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs) emerging as the leader of the merged classes.

However, when a rival train called Big Alice appears and attaches to the tail of Snowpiercer and it’s revealed that Mr. Wilford is, in fact, alive, Melanie risks going outside the train in the deadly weather to stop him from taking Snowpiercer. It’s also revealed to those on the train that Melanie’s daughter, Alex (Rowan Blanchard), who she thought dead, is Wilford’s protege.

Season two hits the ground running, as Melanie remains outside, unaware that her daughter is alive. Meanwhile, Wilford threatens to uncouple from Snowpiercer and leave everyone to die if his demands are not met. Now, essentially one train, with Big Alice having parts Snowpiercer needs, and Snowpiercer having fresh food needed by Big Alice’s crew, both sides will have to work together to stay alive, but neither Wilford nor Layton is willing to bend.

***The following review contains spoilers for 13.03, so please watching it before reading***

When we last left the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and company, Swarm (Sam Spruell) had replaced the faulty Mouri with Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Vinder (Jacob Anderson) to fix the time stream, but as humans they wouldn’t have survived time flowing through them. The Doctor, thinking fast, replaces another Mouri with herself, so she can absorb most of the time stream. She can’t contain it all, but she is at least, for the most part, able to hide Yaz and Vinder (and Dan [John Bishop]) within their own time streams. However, as the universe keeps shifting around them, they keep moving and some of their memories become corrupted. The Doctor must not only fix time and save her friends but try to attain her missing memories and figure out who created the Flux.

Tonight’s episode of Doctor Who, “Once, Upon Time,” had a lot of action and it never slowed down, however, it was to the detriment of the story. Like the premiere episode, so many different things were shoved into it that a lot of the episode did not make a lot of sense, and I still can’t break it all apart without a rewatch.

***Following the review is a detailed recap of the episode. Note that there are many spoilers for episode 13.02 in both the review and recap, so please don't read any further until you've watched it.***

On tonight's episode of Doctor Who, written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone, the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), Yaz (Mandip Gill), and Dan (John Bishop) end up on the battlefield of the Crimean War where they meet Nurse Mary Seacole (Sara Powell) and Lieutenant General Logan (Gerald Kyd). Only the British aren’t fighting the Russians, but the Sontarans - on horseback! Things continue to go wrong, however, when Dan and Yaz fall through time and the Doctor is stuck alone in 1855.

The Doctor must race against time to not only stop the Sontarans from turning the Earth into their outpost, but to save a captured Yaz and Vinder (Jacob Anderson) from Swarm (Sam Spruell) and Azure (Rochenda Sandall) and stop time itself from breaking apart completely and taking her friends with it.

This week’s episode of the series I felt was much more cohesive than the last. While there were some unnecessary complications that probably would have kept it more linear (such as a short scene where Yaz meets Williamson [Steve Oram]), it flowed together well. The episode was quick-paced and the pieces fell into place. I think the idea of time itself coming apart and it affecting the TARDIS is really interesting. We are so used to the TARDIS being a place of safety, and it’s a huge added danger when it’s not.

In the film Old, which SciFi Vision was provided on 4K for review, Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca Cappa (Vicky Krieps) are about to get a divorce but decide to take one last family vacation before breaking it to their two children, 11-year-old Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and 6-year-old Trent (Nolan River). Prisca is elated to find such a great deal for a resort online, and when they get there, they are offered access to a secluded too-good-to-be-true beach. They are not completely alone, however, as another family, including surgeon Charles (Rufus Sewell), his wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee), their 6-year-old daughter Kara, and his elderly mother, Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant) are offered the same access. Things get a little odd when the driver taking them to the beach (Shyamalan) gives them way too much packed food and sends them the rest of the way on foot. They soon discover that this paradise is even less exclusive and that it’s already occupied by rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre), and later another couple, nurse Jarin (Ken Leung) and Patricia Carmichael (Nikki Amuka-Bird).

Everything is fine until a body washes up on shore and accusations start flying. Things go from bad to worse when the adults notice that the children have aged by about five years. They also quickly discover that they are unable to leave, as they black out and end up back on the beach. Time continues to pass, and they realize that if they can’t get off the island, they may die of old age in the space of a day.

As with other films by Shyamalan, who both wrote and directed the movie, it can be quite dark and chilling at times. As much of it takes place in an open area on a beach, the seclusion and using the rocks and cliffs the way they did gives it that foreboding claustrophobia. The director found ways to make the alluring also feel sinister.

***Following the review is a recap, and both contain spoilers for tonight's episode, so be sure you watch it first if you don't want to be spoiled.***

Today, Doctor Who premiered a special Halloween episode, “The Halloween Apocalypse,” written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone, that stands as part one of six of a season long story arc. The episode was fast-paced, but with a lot of different storylines intermingled it left me a bit confused about what the flux was actually happening.

I loved that the episode takes place during Halloween. The series is known for doing fun holiday episodes and the departure was nice. It also made for some great dialog between Dan (John Bishop) and Karvanista (Craige Els) when he thought he was simply someone dressed as a dog.

I really was pleased with Dan as the new companion; he brought some new energy to the group in the absence of Graham (Bradley Walsh) and Ryan (Tosin Cole). He seems to have a good sense of humor and will likely bring some of the comic relief that would be missing without Graham. I also think the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), Dan, and Yaz (Mandip Gill) fit fairly well together as a team thus far.