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Star Trek is probably the most successful science fiction franchise of all time spanning six decades of science fiction storytelling. In the series, I will be looking at the highlights of all the past episodes from each season of all five TV shows that went before leading up to the new series Star Trek: Discovery that will be airing in the fall of 2017.

Star Trek: The Original Series – Season One

Original Broadcast: (September 8th 1966 – April 29th 1967)

Development

After a failed attempt at selling Star Trek to NBC with the pilot ‘The Cage’, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, NBC told Gene Roddenberry to film a second pilot with a more “action & adventure” orientated plot – which was unheard of at the time. Roddenberry complied and wrote two story outlines: one being ‘Mudd’s Women’ and the second being ‘The Omega Glory’ both of which were produced later on the series...

It was supposed to be the Coachella of the Bahamas. It was supposed to be a VIP experience. It was supposed to be a long weekend filled with lounging on the beach, occasionally interrupted with A-list run-ins and topline musical acts. Instead it was, as one Twitter user described, "Rich Kids of Instagram" meets Lord of the Flies. Instead it was Millennial Armageddon.  This weekend was the inaugural Fyre Festival, a days-long event created by rapper Ja Rule and tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland, which was billed as a "cultural moment created from a blend of music, art and food." The idea was to gather millennials who like the finer things in life to the Islands of Exumas, where they...

"Hello, Hal. Do you read me?" This is awesome! Editor/filmmaker Luc Bergeron, also known as Zapatou, has released a mashup video featuring scenes from 25 space movies all edited together to tell one 5-minute story. It's actually quite amusing, especially once things get going. The video is titled Space Story: A Bad Day and includes footage from pretty much every great sci-fi/space movie ever made - from Star Wars to The Fifth Element to 2001: A Space Odyssey to Apollo 13 to Moon to Armageddon to Avatar to Guardians of the Galaxy and everything else. This reminds me of the Hell's Club mashup but with space movies. Enjoy! Thanks to Kottke for the tip. Edited by Luc Bergeron, also known as Zapatou. He writes: "Here is my new Mashup. 25 movies in 4 minutes. The action starts at 1.40, but you have to watch the start for understanding story." For more from Zapatou, follow him on Twitter or check out his ...

WWE.com

Professional wrestling is, at its heart, a story of winners and losers. For every groundbreaking, era-defining figure such as Steve Austin or John Cena, there lies a trail of victims in their wake. Most admittedly have had their moment in the sun – but what about the losers that never win?

As some of you might be aware, I’ve made quite a habit of losing challenges on our official YouTube channel (WhatCulture Wrestling). I know exactly what it means to be a jobber – it’s in my Twitter handle for goodness’ sake – so who better to guide you through the murky, depressing world of WWE’s most desperate losers?

Jobbers can take many forms, from the classic Hogan-fodder of the golden era to comedic modern-day superstars, none of whom could ever seem to buy a win. Sometimes unremarkable and generic, sometimes silly to the extreme, these wrestlers are...

WWE.com

The very first TLC (or Tables, Ladders, and Chairs) match took place at SummerSlam 2000, mixing the signature weapons of Edge and Christian, The Hardy Boyz, and The Dudley Boyz to create a uniquely chaotic environment.

In 2009, though, WWE shuffled its pay-per-view lineup in an attempt to boost falling revenues, and as a result the beloved match got its very own show. Out went Armageddon and in came TLC. Like Hell in a Cell, the stipulation would no longer be used as needed and would instead be associated with a time of the year.

Unlike Hell in a Cell, WWE used the first-ever TLC PPV to get creative. Rather than host multiple TLC matches on the same show, the card would feature one TLC bout, one standard ladder match, a tables matches and a ‘chairs match’. Fans were skeptical, but they tuned in to the first show in large numbers,...

Stars: Kane Kosugi, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Rade Serbedzija, Gary Daniels, Kelly Wenham, Paige Lindquist, Charlotte Kirk, Biljana Misic, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Ron Smoorenburg, Eoin O’Brien | Written by Nicole Jones-Dion, Steven Paul | Directed by Wych Kaos

Videogames… They’ve not had the best of luck when it comes to translating themselves from game to movie. Especially when adapted into live-action movies. You end up with films like Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, Doom and 2007′s Hitman. But they’re not all bad… Mortal Kombat kicked plenty of on-screen arse and garnered many a film fan’s love thanks to a plot that didn’t mes around with the source material or with inconsequential new storylines and characters. The Resident Evil franchise has at least managed to find a fanbase and continuing budgets to keep going even in the face of derision from non-gamers and gamers alike. And the...

★★☆☆☆ The disaster movie is the hallmark mainstay of the summer blockbuster. From its high point in the late 1990s with hits such as Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998), nothing has traditionally drawn crowds more than the sight of familiar vistas being reduced to rubble. World events and the rise of superhero movies have meant they are less common these days, but one new entry in the genre is San Andreas (2015). Popular action star Dwayne Johnson takes the lead as Ray, a helicopter rescue pilot desperately trying to save his daughter (Alexandra Daddario), caught on the streets of San Francisco as it is ravaged by the worst earthquake in history.

The world will continue to teeter on The Brink for a while longer – HBO has handed out a second season order to the freshman political comedy, which was created by Roberto and Kim Benabib.

Jack Black, Tim Robbins and Pablo Schreiber topline the show, about how a geopolitical crisis affects three different men – a lowly Foreign Service officer (Black), the U.S. Secretary of State (Robbins) and a loose-cannon fighter pilot (Schreiber). Maribeth Monroe, Carla Gugino, Esai Morales, Geoff Pierson, Aasif Mandvi and Eric Ladin all co-star.

In its first season, The Brink was an imperfect but nonetheless watchable comedy that seemed to fall a little short of its potential, focusing on broad raunchy humor as opposed to legitimately toothy political satire. I wrote in my three-star review:

That the threat of nuclear Armageddon only accelerates the volume of dick jokes in The Brink’s war room is at one...

Chicago – When the story is as weak as the film’s fault lines and the character development never develops, the problem with blowing $100 million mostly on special effects is all you’re left with is unintelligent disaster porn.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Aside from the visual spectacle, “San Andreas” fails fantastically to be anything remotely smart. It’s not even a show piece for Dwayne Johnson’s attempt at rebranding himself into a legitimate, dramatic actor. And very little about it is surprising, new or anything most of us couldn’t write in our sleep.

While “San Andreas” is trying to engage our sense of survival, it doesn’t play to an everyday fear that most of us ever experience. At least “Deep Impact,” “Armageddon” and the like had stories that I can actually remember. This one will soon be forgotten.

I actually started to count the amount of cheesy one-liners that caused...

With Furious 7 a box office behemoth and his disaster epic San Andreas positioned as one of Warner Bros.’ biggest tentpoles in the summer season, Dwayne Johnson has never been bigger, and that’s not about to change anytime soon. The actor has signed on to star in a DreamWorks’ sci-fi action comedy titled Alpha Squad Seven, which will send The Rock into the one territory he has yet to conquer: space.

Described as a “four-quadrant action-comedy adventure set in space,” Alpha Squad Seven has been likened to Independence Day, Armageddon and, most tellingly, Guardians of the Galaxy, with Johnson taking on the role of a “handsome, charming, ass kicking, flawed and slightly cranky [sic] of a hero leading the one and only Alpha Squad into space,” according to the actor’s Instagram post confirming the pic. Though Johnson is a far cry from a goofy underdog like Chris Pratt, perhaps...

The San Andreas team is getting back together for the sci-fi action comedy Alpha Squad Seven, with Dwayne Johnson to star in and produce alongside Beau Flynn. They are taking the project to DreamWorks after a heated bidding war. Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer are responsible for the pitch that sold the movie idea, and they will write the script.

At this time, no plot details have been released. The movie is described as a 'four-quadrant action-comedy adventure set in space'. Called a cross between Independence Day, Guardians of the Galaxy and Armageddon, the hope is to launch a new franchise for The Rock to headline.

Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer came up with the concept over dinner just two weeks ago, pitching it to Beau Flynn and his executive Wendy Jacobson as just a one-line idea. The four later approached and his production company 7 Bucks. From their, they fast-tracked the idea.

DreamWorks has won a bidding war for Alpha Squad Seven, a sci-fi action comedy pitch that has Dwayne Johnson attached to star. Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer are behind the pitch which has Beau Flynn producing via his FlynnPictureCo. banner along with Johnson, who will produce through his 7 Bucks Productions. The plot details are being kept on the dark side of the moon but the project is described as four-quadrant action-comedy adventure set in space. Independence Day, Armageddon and Guardians of the Galaxy are some of the watchwords. The project is meant to act as a

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Scp faces yet more changes in the latest, excellent episode of Mad Men, Time & Life...

This review contains spoilers.

7.11 Time & Life

His ex-lover. His marriage. His apartment. And now his firm. These concluding instalments of Mad Men are stripping Don Draper like a postulant. He’s being prepped to go, unshod and shorn, towards some kind of reckoning.

There was an inescapable sense of the endtimes to Time & Life—a suitably momentous title for an episode that blasted Mad Men’s central premise to pieces. Without Scp, this workplace drama no longer has a workplace. Don’s not the only one being dismantled in time for the ultimate episode, “everything must go”, as Roger drily observed.

Having the countdown in our minds (is it really three more episodes? Only three?) turns Mad Men’s audience into members of our own Armageddon cult. We’ve had a peek ahead at the...

Syfy forgot to add any science or characters to character-driven science-fiction show Ascension, a space drama that failed to launch...

This review contains spoilers.

If you’ve spent the sort of money that Ascension cost to make, and employed some of the actors in it, you’d think that would go hand-in-hand with a plan of sorts. But having seen Ascension there appeared to be no plan other than to come up with a unbelievable, nay preposterous idea and then hope that somewhere in production something magical might happen. It didn’t.

And Syfy knew that a while ago. Which is why they suddenly switched broadcast from a planned six single episode weeks, to double episodes on successive nights. They also moved the start date, which is a shame because the original one is still referenced in the trailer. I can only conclude that having seen this abysmal show, they...

This is it, y’all. We made it to the mid-season finale! After tonight it will be farewell until after the first of the year. So let’s squeeze ever last insane drop out of “The Akeda,” like a giant shake’n’bake of mythology and history. Abbie and Ichabod have the sword of Methuselah, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse have Moloch. Who will triumph? ************ Thunder and lightning greet the audience to let us know things are about to Get Real™. Ichabod and Abbie are headed straight to Fredrick’s Manor with the sword, because time is of the essence. Henry has blown the horn to signal the rise of Moloch. I kind of wonder what the range on that thing is? All across the tri-state area, the top news story tonight is about the strange trumpeting sound being reported by hundreds of people. More at 11. Ichabod is giving directions the old-fashioned way,...

Andrew time travels 35 years back to revisit the theatrical release of the Buck Rogers In The 25th Century film...

Once synonymous with science fiction, the phrase ‘That Buck Rogers Stuff’ once called to mind everything the average person thought about Science Fiction - ray guns, rocket ships and robots. Certainly in the 1928, when the then-christened Anthony Rogers made his debut, he was something pretty unique in Sci-Fi - the space adventurer as swash-buckler. Given the nickname ‘Buck’ by John F. Dille, the novel, Armageddon, was adapted into the comic strips in 1929 and then in 1932, Buck Rogers became the first major Science Fiction radio drama. 1939 saw Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe take on the role for a 12-part serial. All of this is to say that Buck Rogers was around for quite a while before many people of my generation discovered him.

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century arrived on UK shores via the medium of cinema.

Strictly Come Dancing might have said goodbye to Gregg Wallace, but there are still 14 celebrities hoping to show their stuff in Movie Week on Saturday (October 11).

Will Jake continue his impressive streak, or will he begin to falter? Can Jennifer bounce back from being in the dance off last week? It remains to be seen, but why not try to guess from the Movie Week songs and dances - we have all the details below...

Alison Hammond & Aljaz Skorjanec

Dance: Jive

Song: 'Footloose' from, erm, Footloose

Caroline Flack & Pasha Kovalev

Dance: Rumba

Song: 'I Don't Want To Miss A Thing' from Armageddon

Frankie Bridge & Kevin Clifton

Dance: Paso Doble

Song: 'America' from West Side Story

Jake Wood & Janette Manrara

Dance: Waltz

Song: 'The Godfather Waltz' from, you guessed it, The Godfather

Jennifer Gibney & Tristan MacManus

Dance: Foxtrot

Song: 'Mamma Mia' from, yep, Mamma Mia

Judy Murray and Anton du Beke...

Do you like zombies and hate cancer? If so, then Zombie Apocalypse II “Cancer fears the D!” is an event you’d likely dig. Taking place in Detroit at the Tangent Gallery/Hastings Street Ballroom on June 28th, this event benefits the American Cancer Society via The Walking Hope. In addition to an abundance of entertainment for a good cause, fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead should be really excited by one of the items up for auction at the fundraiser.

While enjoyers of the The Walking Dead have been able to get autographs from a good amount of the cast over the past year or so at conventions, even the most die-hard fans would be hard-pressed to get an item signed by 25 people affiliated with the hit AMC show. Perhaps the most prized possession at the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse II, The Walking Hope hoodie features the signatures of...

This Sunday is the biggest day on the calendar year for those of us who still prefer this Steve Austin over the one from The Six Million Dollar Man and who still get the urge to patriotically tear off our shirts whenever this terrible Rick Derringer song kicks in. It’s WrestleMania XXX (that’s XXX as in “30,” not in porn terms), and it’s airing live from New Orleans on Sunday night.

I’m particularly excited for this iteration of the show thanks to the development that has completely re-aligned the way I watch and think about the WWE’s theatrical grappling arts.

Exiting A month ago, director Marc Webb revealed that he would be returning to helm the third movie in Sony's rebooted Spider-Man franchise, which came as a surprise to many considering he very nearly backed out of directing The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Apparently, Webb draws the line at a trilogy, however, as he revealed to TheDailyBeast that he's vacating the director's chair after the threequel, despite the fact that a fourth movie is already in early stages of development.

"I’d like to be involved as a consultant, and I’ve already talked to these guys about it, but in terms of directing it, that will close out my tenure. I’ve had so much fun doing it, but after the third movie, it’ll be the time to find something else."

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Jurassic World French actor Omar Sy was a virtual...

On the new CW drama series The 100, a nuclear Armageddon decimated planet Earth, destroying civilization, and the only survivors were the 400 inhabitants of 12 international space stations that were in orbit, at the time. Ninety seven years later, the survivors now number 4,000 and resources are running out on their dying Ark. To protect the survival of the human race, the leaders take ruthless steps to ensure their future, including secretly sending a group of 100 juvenile prisoners to the Earth’s surface to test whether it’s habitable again. The series stars Paige Turco, Isaiah Washington, Henry Ian Cusick, Kelly Hu, Eliza Taylor, Thomas McDonell, Bob Morley, Eli Goree, Marie Avgeropoulos, Christopher Larkin and Devon Bostick. During this exclusive interview with Collider, actor Henry Ian Cusick (who plays Ark resident Kane) talked about how much fun it is to play a confused misanthrope, why he likes working in TV, what makes this show different,...

Copyright: WWE Omg! The Top 50 Incidents In WWE History

The use of blood in pro wrestling has been a part of the business for many years. While it’s hard to track down when it first started being used in matches or who was the first to do it, the fact is that it’s been a tool to tell stories within a match for several decades now.

In today’s WWE, you won’t see matches with blood. A guy may get a cut above an eye because of a punch or going into some object, but there’s no more intentional blood. The PG era restarted again in 2008, so there won’t be anything on here that came after that. From the mid 90s until 2008 there were plenty of bloody moments, though.

A popular term that announcers would use to talk about blood in match is “crimson mask.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks the wrestling world has been buzzing over the news that WWE will be launching their on-demand streaming network at the end of February, this year (2014). The idea of a network has been rumoured for a while but nobody knew the details until WWE provided them, in detail, a couple of weeks ago at a press conference featuring the McMahon family and an array of big WWE names.

The service will launch on February 24th 2014 and will, like Netflix streaming, feature on demand content galore, but will also feature live shows on a weekly schedule as well as all twelve annual WWE pay per view events, all in glorious HD. The fact that all the PPV’s are included is the biggest surprise here, considering that buying each show separately would cost more than a monthly payment for the network will. Oh yeah,...

Amir here to kick off We Can’t Wait!, a week-long series by Team Experience on our most anticipated films of 2014. The title is pretty much self-explanatory. We voted as a group and, starting tomorrow, each of us will cover one of the films that ended up on our top ten 14 list. Before that, however, let’s take a quick look at some of the films that were placed highly on our individual ballots but failed to make the final list. You may remember that I posted my own personal list of most anticipated films in this space previously. Let’s hear from the rest of the Team…

Untitled Public School Project (dir. Baumbach)

Noah Baumbach’s upcoming Untitled Public School Project, starring and co-written with his diligent muse and recurring collaborator Greta Gerwig, sounded to me like Greta-and-Noah’s Up the Down Staircase, a little-remembered 1968 drama in which Sandy Dennis stars as a fresh-faced,...

Teens in Dystopia seems to be quite the recurrent theme over the past couple of years, and there’s no sign of it slowing. Most of the treatments, however, have been in book and movie form. The CW is representing TV’s take on the depressing future with its upcoming series The 100, and now we have a new trailer to shed more light on what we’ll be seeing.

It’s a little more teen-ish and angsty that the longer, original trailer, so I’ve included that below, to balance out the coverage a bit, along with the synopsis:

Trailer: The 100 – #2

Trailer: The 100

The 100 — Ninety-seven years ago, nuclear Armageddon decimated planet Earth, destroying civilization. The only survivors were the 400 inhabitants of 12 international space stations that were in orbit at the time. Three generations have been born in space, the survivors now number 4,000, and resources are running...

The CW is heading to the future with its newest drama ... and the future isn't looking bright at all.

"The 100" is a dystopian futuristic drama set half in space and half on a nuclear war-ravaged Earth. The space storyline is set on the Ark, the spaceship housing the only human survivors left after a nuclear Armageddon wiped out the planet 97 years ago. Unfortunately the Ark is failing, so the government sends 100 juvenile delinquents to Earth to find out if humans can once again survive on the ground.

"The 100's" executive producer Jason Rothenberg says to think of the new series like "Lord of the Flies" set in the future, with a "love octagon" at the center. " [The similarities] are deliberate. We're telling that story for the first run of episodes," Rothenberg said during "The 100" Winter Press Tour panel on Wednesday (Jan. 15). "On the ground, what the kids are doing to each other,...

There is so much written about awards every year, especially the Oscars. But the fact of the matter is… movies are meant to be seen. Movies are meant to make money. Movies are meant to entertain around the world.

All that press on who is going to win Best Picture… and yet not enough is written about what is the biggest movie of the year. The one movie that makes more money around the world than any other. The one movie that sells more tickets than any other.

In 2013, that movie was Iron Man 3.

No matter what happens at the Golden Globes or the Oscars, the most successful movie of the year – when it comes to cash – was Marvel and Disney’s third Iron Man movie. Period. If you look at ticket buying around the world, it was basically seen as a sequel to last years biggest global hit,...

The CW announced its mid-season schedule today, including the premiere of new dramas "The 100" and "Star-Crossed" and a move for "The Tomorrow People" to Mondays.

The new series have a sci-fi tinge, but "The 100" especially, with its post-apocalyptic setting and the presence of Henry Ian Cusick (“Lost,” “Scandal”), has our attention. And while "Star-Crossed" definitely seems to appeal to the more romantic types among us, it has a lot of familiar faces and could be worth watching for one or two episodes at least.

For more info visit "The 100" and "Star-Crossed" on Cwtv.com, and follow "The 100" (@cwthe100) and "Star-Crossed" (@CWStarCrossed) on Twitter.

From the Press Release:

In February, the futuristic story of an alien/human romance begins with the premiere of "Star-crossed" on Monday, February 17 (8:00-9:00pm Et). Then, In March, the human race returns to planet Earth in the post-apocalyptic adventure drama,...

We love The CW here at SciFi Mafia. Other than Syfy, Chiller, and Fear, who have a directed advantage, The CW shows far more of Our Kind of Shows than any other network. Currently on the roster they have Supernatural, Arrow, The Tomorrow People, Beauty and the Beast, and Nikita, which is sadly currently in its final, excellent, season.

Happily they’re replacing that with not one but two more of Our Kind of Shows – and with luck, Flash will also be on its way to us, though that wouldn’t be until fall. Today they’ve announced premiere dates for the two new shows, and a schedule shift for two current shows:

In February, the futuristic story of an alien/human romance begins with the premiere of Star-crossed on Monday, February 17 (8:00-9:00pm Et), leading into another epic romance, Beauty And The Beast.

In March, the human...

This happens every couple of years, two movies are released which share pretty much the same story. We've had Armageddon and Deep Impact before, and most recently Olympus has Fallen and White House Down. Now it's the legend of Hercules' turn with The Rock flexing his considerable muscles in the role for Hercules (sometimes known to have the subtitle The Thracian Wars) in the summer of 2014, and this film, Hercules: The Legend Continues, which beats it by six months, coming out in January (in the U.S., august on this side of the pond). Kellan Lutz (Twilight) plays the demi-god who must reunite with his true love after being sold into slavery. Director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea) is definitely going for a 300/Gladiator vibe, but it'll be interesting to see how this fares against a charismatic, giant box office guarantee like Dwayne Johnson. Seriously, even if the movies aren't that good,...

Bad Grandpa does just what it's supposed to, But you've watched The Counselor's glittery stars in far better material. People's critic weighs in on what to see and what to skip this weekend at the movies. See This Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa All you can do is embrace the shame. Bad Grandpa, in which Johnny Knoxville resurrects his 86-year-old Irving Zisman character, is puerile, gross, sexist and borderline racist. It's also pretty damned funny. Rather than just a single sketch, this time Irving gets the whole movie to himself - well, himself and his grandson, Billy (Jackson Nicholl), a...

WWE Superstar Collection: John Cena

It isn’t exactly uncommon to come across wrestling fans that don’t enjoy John Cena matches, and I would go under that description also for the most-part, but I still find a lot of interesting things about the matches that the guy has. He’s the face of WWE and the biggest wrestling star of the last decade, so suffice to say he has had some hot, high-profile feuds with some of the best in the business in the last ten years.

This new release features a collection of John Cena matches. The match choices are seemingly random and would be a perfect introduction to a new fan of the WWE product and John Cena on the whole, while also being a nice little compilation to add to the wrestling DVD collector’s library of releases.

The match quality on the DVD differs from...

(Warning: Spoilers are in here. Beware!)

Religion is a strange beast; it has the power to unite us, yet also has the power to destroy and segregate. It was originally created as a way to help humanity overcome its greatest fear, the fear of the unknown, and it served that purpose well and remained the unquestioned truth for about a millennia. Then along came science and reason, which offered their own explanations for the universe that resulted from observable data and had the added bonus of proof on its side. Now a growing number of people are leaving religion behind and turning to science for the answers to their pressing questions and moving towards a more secular world. Yet, when shit goes down people are willing and desperate enough to believe in anything that promises them salvation. The Mist (directed and adapted from a classic Stephen King novella by Frank Darabont...

The apocalypse has been given the Hollywood treatment perhaps more than any other scenario, with literally hundreds of films showing the events leading up to it, or life going on after it.

This year has been a big year for the end of the world. Oblivion showed a sci-fi vision of what life might be like on an all but deserted Earth, as did After Earth. This Is The End showed what the final hours of life on Earth what might be like for celebrities, and out today Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright team up for the final instalment in the Cornetto Trilogy, The World’s End.

The dictionary definition of ‘Apocalypse’ is 1. The complete final destruction of the world, and 2. An event involving destruction or damage on a catastrophic scale. These are obviously two quite different things, and the existence of the post-apocalyptic genre suggests that...

"Pacific Rim" is director Guillermo del Toro's latest sci-fi action epic, and the result is an entertaining battle between huge "Godzilla"-like creatures (called the Kaiju) and ginormous man-made weapon-ized robots (called Jaeger -- "hunter" in German) piloted by human soldiers. As per usual in these movies, the extinction of humanity is a very real possibility if the small circle of brave Jaeger pilots doesn't succeed. There's humor (courtesy of Charlie Day, who plays a Kaiju researcher, and Ron Perlman, who's a fabulously outfitted black-market dealer), romance, and staggeringly massive action sequences, so be prepared to take your tweens and teens to see "Pacific Rim."

But first, here are five questions to consider before taking the kids to see "Pacific Rim."

1. Is your kid freaked out by monsters? If there's one thing director Guillermo del Toro is known for, it's his big, scary creatures ("Pan's Labyrinth" "Hellboy," "Hellboy II'). In "Pacific Rim,...

The CW is holding both "Star-Crossed" and "The 100" in reserve for mid-season duty, but during the recent TV Upfronts they released a few photos from each show's pilot, and we have a look at them all right here.

Both series have a sci-fi tinge, but "The 100" especially, with its post-apocalyptic setting and the presence of Henry Ian Cusick (“Lost,” “Scandal”), has our attention for sure. And while "Star-Crossed" definitely seems to appeal to the more romantic types among us, it has a lot of familiar faces and could be worth watching for one or two episodes at least.

So while you're here, check out the photos below (top row from "The 100" and bottom from "Star-Crossed"). For more info visit "The 100" and "Star-Crossed" on Cwtv.com, and follow "The 100" (@cwthe100) and "Star-Crossed" (@CWStarCrossed) on Twitter.

“Star-crossed”

When Emery was 6 years old, an alien spacecraft crash-landed in her small town.

The CW has long been one of the best supporters of Our Kind of Shows, and at this year’s Upfronts they put even more money where our hearts are. Of the six new shows announced for the fall and winter schedule, four are for us: The Originals, The Tomorrow People, The 100, and Star-Crossed. Now of course more than one has that trademark The CW soap opera-ish spin on it, but hey, not Every show is for every one of us.

Here to assist in our prejudging are synopses for all, via Deadline, and maybe even better, clips and/or TV spots. There’s not really anything new for The Originals, but fans will want to see it all again anyway. The Tomorrow People features the wonderful Mark Pellegrino so it’s my favorite of the four.

The 100 (pronounced “the hundred”, not “the one hundred”) has an encouraging clip,...

The CW announced its fall 2013-14 slate earlier today, adding five new dramas including a drama about Mary, Queen of Scots called Reign, as well as the highly anticipated Vampire Diaries spinoff titled The Originals, and The Tomorrow People, starring Robbie Amell, brother of Arrow’s Stephen Amell. The network has also released trailers which you can watch below. Let us know which shows you are interested in watching.

The Originals – Family is power. The Original Vampire family swore it to each other a thousand years ago. They pledged to remain together, always and forever. Now, centuries have passed and the bonds of family are broken. Time, tragedy and hunger for power have torn the Original Family apart. When Klaus Mikaelson, the original vampire-werewolf hybrid, receives a mysterious tip that a plot is brewing against him in the supernatural melting pot that is the French Quarter of New Orleans, he...

The Fall TV Season presentations for all the new network shows take place this week with the fifth and final one announced today. Here's a full breakdown of which concepts have made the final list over on The CW.

After targeting teen girls for so long, The CW has widened their demographic focus and in the process have improved their fortunes with three of their five new shows from last year returning. One in particular, "Arrow," has been a big hit for them. As a result this year's line-up sticks heavily with genre fare - sci-fi, supernatural, and even a period piece.

The network's troubled "Nikita" has scored a six episode third season order to wrap up its story lines, no word on when those episodes will air just yet. In fact, specific premiere dates for all their shows have yet to be set.

Several other pilots didn't make the...

The CW presented its 2013-14 broadcast schedule today, and we have all the details of who's paired with whom and on which nights we'll be able to see our favorites as well as some clips and previews.

Excerpts from the Press Release:

“We had a terrific season last year, growing our audience on-air, digitally, and socially. Now we are building on that success by continuing to add more original programming all year long and by adding high-concept, exciting shows to our schedule that will help us continue our mission of broadening out our 18-to-34-year old audience,” said Mark Pedowitz, President, The CW. “‘Arrow’ was one of the breakout hits of this season, and we’re using that show and ‘The Vampire Diaries,’ our two highest-rated series, to launch our new dramas ‘The Tomorrow People’ and ‘Reign,’ on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah, the original family of vampires,...

Hollywood often produces two films on one subject, but the six movies based on the Battle of Çanakkale are a sign of a healthy domestic market for Turkish products

Maybe one sign of a fully matured film industry is when it's capable of spewing out an Olympus Has Fallen and a White House Down at the same time – coinciding films with identical subjects. One of those little zeitgeist clots that suggest creative minds running in parallel, in a highly evolved community driven by the relentless background hum of close competition – and also, all those scripts passing between studios, with ample opportunities for intellectual-property theft. Mostly, these weird convergences seem to come in pairs: Deep Impact and Armageddon, A Bug's Life and Antz, and so on.

So what does it say about the emerging Turkish industry that it has six movies on the same subject either recently on release or imminent?...

For years, there have been signs that the WWE puts less importance on tradition and more on “what’s best for business.” Year after year, traditions have been sacrificed to sell out t-shirts and get better PPV buyrates. But traditions are the things that mean most to hardcore and faithful wrestling fans.

Here are just four – of many – instances that show that the WWE is losing sight of the traditions that have built up the company – and its fan base – for decades.

1. Pay-per-view name changes and drops

Lots of WWE pay-per-views that have been ongoing for nearly a decade have been dropped in favor of “themed” pay-per-views. Pay-per-views such as Backlash, Armageddon and No Mercy have been discontinued to make room for Hell in a Cell, Elimination Chamber and TLC ppvs. I guess letting ppv buyers know what kind of matches they’re in for should mean better buys, but...

The following is a list of all comic books, graphic novels and specialty items that will be available this week and shipped to comic book stores who have placed orders for them.

Abrams Comicarts

Good Riddance A Graphic Memoir Of Divorce Gn, $17.95

Legends Of The Blues Hc, $19.95

Raven Girl Gn, $19.95

AC Comics

Men Of Mystery #89, $29.95

Amulet Books

Will And Whit Gn, $12.95

Ape Entertainment

Drew Hayes’ Poison Elves #1 (2nd Printing Variant Cover), $2.99

Archaia Entertainment

Mumbai Confidential Volume 1 Good Cop Bad Cop Hc, $24.95

Archie Comic Publications

Jugheads Double Digest #192, $3.99

Life With Archie #29 (Fernando Ruiz Regular Cover), $3.99

Life With Archie #29 (Jon Gray Variant Cover), $3.99

Mega Man #25 (Matt Herms Evil Friends Forever Variant Cover), $2.99

Mega Man #25 (Patrick Spaziante Gatefold Regular Cover), $2.99

Sonic Super Special Magazine #7, $9.99

Aspen Comics

Executive Assistant Assassins #10 (Cover A Jorden Gunderson), $3.99

Executive Assistant Assassins #10 (Cover B Ryan Odagawa), $3.99

Fathom Volume 4 #9 (Cover A Alex Konat), $3.50

Fathom Volume 4 #9 (Cover B Giuseppe Cafaro), $3.50

Fathom...

Next year will serve up two big-screen interpretations of Hercules, with Renny Harlin’s Hercules 3D going toe-to-toe with Brett Ratner’s Hercules, which will star Dwayne Johnson. The former, however, is a Nu Image/Millennium production, which recently enlisted Spartacus: War of the Damned’s Liam McIntyre to play a trusted companion to the titular demi-god.

Speaking about his new cast member, here’s what Harlin had to say about McIntyre:

“He’s infinitely entertaining to watch. I am lucky to have him play military commander, Sotiris, Hercules’ best friend. Their relationship begins antagonistic and develops into a close bond, forged in battle.”

The Australian actor will join Kellan Lutz – best known for his role in the Twilight series – in the sword and sandals epic, who signed onto to play the Greek warrior earlier this month. While plot details remain under wraps at this point in time, the overarching...

Oliver Stone got so sick of always reading the sanitised version of Us history that he decided to write his own. He talks about the real reason America dropped the atom bomb, how Kennedy is a hero and why he can't stand Hillary Clinton

Oliver Stone has just agreed to take part in the Us version of Jamie's Dream School, the TV show that explored the interesting notion that famous people might educate kids better than teachers. "It was much criticised in Britain but I still think it's a good idea," says Stone over coffee and bagels in a Soho hotel. He'll be the American equivalent of Jamie's history teacher David Starkey. Only, you'd suspect, more radical.

Stone's TV history class might well be named Us Heresies 101. "We're going to take these texts from regular history and compare them to what we think happened." He will teach that the bombing...

Pain & Gain is a relatively small movie for Michael "Kabloom!" Bay, costing around about $25 million to make, which is peanuts compared to, say, Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, which clocked in at $195 million. Don't worry though: this doesn't mean Pain & Gain doesn't have balls of flame and suchlike, as these new stills prove.We've got guns, girls, glamour, money, swimming pools, biceps, triceps, quads, abs, string vests, The Rock, a dog, graffiti, fast cars and cool people walking away from explosions. This is pretty much everything anyone could want from a film, aside from all the other stuff you might want from a movie.Originally based on a Miami New Times newspaper article - unlike, say, Armageddon - the story sees gym buddies Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie and Mark Wahlberg conspire to extort a motza from a wealthy businessman who works out at their spot. Things, as you can imagine,...

Sony has announced that this week’s North American PlayStation Plus update will give Vita-owning RPG fans plenty to smile about as Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention joins the free Instant Game Collection.

An upgraded version of the previously released Disgaea: Absence of Justice for the PlayStation 3, Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention centers around Mao, a Netherworld Evil Academy student. The game’s dark humor story line has Mao plotting to take revenge on his demon overlord father for destroying his video game system — which will have the added benefit of putting him on the demonic throne. Absence of Detention features several improvements over the original game, including; improved graphics, additional characters and close-up shots, extra chapters, and all of the Dlc released for the PS3 version.

If RPGs are not your style (or you are one of the many gamers who apparently don’t own a Ps Vita) today...

Watching the WWE’s The Attitude Era release made me realise three things about what many (myself included) still consider to be the finest period in the company's long and (mostly) illustrious history.

The first was that its raw, gritty and at times envelope pushing content was a world away from the sanitised, family friendly fare that the WWE delivers today. Bad language, bad behaviour, (blurred) nudity, borderline sexism and homophobia, and pure unadulterated rebellion were the order of the day in the dying years of the twentieth century, though to be fair the WWE (or WWF as it still was back then) made no attempt to disguise the fact that they were pursuing the male college demographic, even giving their shows a suitable TV-14 rating and warning viewers about the potential content.

The second thing that stood out was that the Superstars of the era were genuinely larger than life personalities,...

Thq (or what's left of it) has announced their intention to sell of the remainder of their intellectual property in an April auction. The sale would include the rights to Vigil's "Darksiders," tactical shooter "Full Spectrum Warrior," and "Destroy All Humans" across six lots that include original and licensed IP.

Thq is requiring interested parties to submit their bids by April 1, with final bids to be submitted by the 15th. Thq will, of course, vet the bidders (making sure they have the money and resources to back the transaction and in some cases handle any outstanding financial obligations for those licenses) before consulting with their own creditors to get the go-ahead for the sale.

Hit the jump to see the full list of IP going on sale in April (list via Joystiq).

It's worth remembering in the initial $100 million fire sale for Thq's assets that studios and IP were sold...

While the bankruptcy auction for Thq‘s assets resulted in the bulk of their more popular intellectual properties finding new homes, there were still plenty of brands that were left in limbo as bidders ignored them outright. It was understandable why some of these IPs were left untouched (did anyone really think that there was going to be a huge bidding war over uDraw?), but several others like Red Faction, and Darksiders were a bit harder to comprehend. At the time Thq noted that there would be a separate process to sell off those remaining assets, and today they have finally announced the details for the second auction.

Thq’s final auction for their remaining property rights starts on April 1, 2013, with interested bidders required to submit their final bids on April 15th. Once the bidding has ended Thq will meet with their various creditors to determine the the highest and best bid for each lot,...