Throwing an hour of light comedy into the middle of a 10-episode arc with galactic-level stakes could derail an entire season, but Star Trek: Strange New Worlds dances gracefully from week to week between courtroom drama, time-travel romance, and its latest wild swing: a musical episode. In “Subspace Rhapsody,” the...
The Legend of Zelda is everywhere in modern music
Whether it’s sound effects from Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter popping up in Charli XCX and Flying Lotus songs, or hip-hop producers flipping samples from Donkey Kong and Chrono Trigger to make beats for Drake and Wiz Khalifa, the influence of video games on modern music is hard to...
What can modern TCGs learn from the long-dead Dune: Collectible Card Game?
Trading card games aren’t just popular with players. They’re also incredibly popular with executives, as they can be lucrative for publishers and distributors alike. Magic: The Gathering became a $1 billion brand for Hasbro in 2023, which went quite a long way to improving its bottom line, if we’re being...
Why Spaceman’s director cast Adam Sandler in a heavy dramatic role: ‘This is about me, very much’
Watching Netflix’s cosmic philosophy movie Spaceman, the most obvious question is about the plot: Is that giant alien space spider real, or a hallucination? But the second most obvious question might be Why is Adam Sandler starring in this movie? Sandler has taken on a number of increasingly high-profile dramatic...
While D&D reckons with its racist past, this actual play is way ahead of the curve
It’s the final boss fight and everyone at the table is crying — but not because anyone has died. It’s because of how performer Sea Thomas is handling a game-changing moment between their character, a half-drow aasimar bloodhunter named Øka Hyen, and the season’s big bad. “Hitsagutan, after all of...
Looking back at every Nintendo Switch controversy, doubt, and debate
In the seven years since its release, the Nintendo Switch has become a beloved piece of hardware. Not only is it Nintendo’s best-selling console, it’s one of the most popular consoles of all time. It’s also the console that boosted Nintendo’s reputation after the poor reception of Wii U. In...
Paul Reubens and Pee-wee’s Playhouse made it okay for TV to be weird
The world of Pee-wee’s Playhouse was a realm of kinetic fantasies. A home where your imaginary friends might live. Claymation dinosaurs resided in the walls. All the furniture was alive and chatty. There was an in-house band of puppet beatniks. The exterior of the Playhouse, a lush and ornamented brush...
VTubers have reached their inevitable conclusion
Twitch has always allowed for various forms of expression, so it was no surprise when VTubing found a home on the platform, quickly gaining popularity among English-speaking audiences in 2019. Since then, the novelty of avatar-based content may have worn off, but the format has stuck around. And VTubing agencies,...
Even Mario’s creator wasn’t sure a Nintendo theme park could work
Super Nintendo World, which opens Friday at Universal Studios Hollywood, is a wholly unique and unforgettable new addition to the theme park. It brings Nintendo’s colorful worlds to life, allowing visitors to move through the space — speckled with Thwomps, stacks of Goombas, spinning Koopa shells, and other iconic characters...
10 horror directors reveal the scariest movies they ever saw
One of the thrills of the annual Fantastic Fest movie festival in Austin, Texas, is the chance to see back-to-back new and upcoming horror films, with the directors usually on site for Q&As and interviews after screenings. At this year’s Fantastic Fest in September, Polygon spoke to a number of...