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Hulu’s latest sleeper hit, Paradise, belongs to the mystery box category of TV shows, a genre that explores the puzzling causality of events in the story, building its exclusive mythos set in a controlled environment—occasionally isolated from the rest of the world. A key motif of the genre, reflected in shows like From, Silo, and Lost too, is the way the makers try to use the background score and soundtrack to enhance the narrative treatment—by creating an enigmatic effect or hinting at what’s to come and motivations of the characters. This is most prominently reflected in David Lynch’s masterpiece, Twin Peaks, both the movies and series, where Angelo Badalamenti composed themes and scores that did justice to Lynch’s surreal vision. The importance of music as a suggestive narrative device is also realized in Paradise, as composer Siddhartha Khosla’s usage of background scores and tracks suggests.

There isn’t a more infamous moment in the galaxy far, far away than the release of The Star Wars Holiday Specialin 1978 on ABC, which was met with such historically awful reviews that it was never aired again, and has never been released by Lucasfilm in any official capacity. The two-hour television event featured brief appearances by Star Warscast members such as Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Anthony Daniels, but the story was mostly centered around how Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and his family prepared for the Wookiee holiday of “Life Day” on their home planet of Kashyyyk. Much of the special felt only tangentially related to the Star Wars universe, as it featured appearances by ‘70s stars like Art Carney, Jefferson Starship, Bea Arthur, and Harvey Corman. Although it has still been the subject of ridicule, the creation of The Star Wars Holiday Special is unpacked in the...

When comedy writer Bruce Vilanch got the four-word pitch from his agent in 1978 — Star Wars Holiday Special — it seemed like a very bad idea. “But I ignored that,” he writes in his upcoming book, It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At the Time: The Worst TV Shows In History and Other Things I Wrote. “Actually, it was no worse than any other bad idea that was being floated around for a pre-Thanksgiving holiday show.”

The Star Wars Holiday Special, however, was a notoriously bad idea. Vilanch takes his fair share of the blame. After all, "it was 1978. There were a lot of chemical additives circulating.” But he also points to George Lucas as a reason the special turned out to be outrageously terrible. Lucas had written outlines for several Star Wars tales, most of which he’d planned to make into movies. A few stories were committed to other media,...

There is perhaps no bigger calamity in the Star Wars franchise than the infamous 1978 airing of The Star Wars Holiday Special on ABC. Aimed at being a “variety show” that celebrated the Wookiee holiday of “Life Day,” The Star Wars Holiday Special featured original cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Peter Mayhew alongside a series of guest stars that included Jefferson Starship, Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harbey Korman. The special was met with such toxic responses that it was never aired again, and Lucasfilm has been unwilling to make it available (with the exception of an animated segment featuring Boba Fett that aired on Disney+). Although Lucasfilm couldn’t be blamed for wanting to skip the holiday season, a unique Star Wars holiday special was released only months after The Empire Strikes Back had become a record-breaking success.

Eric Gardner, Chairman and CEO of Panacea Entertainment who began his career coordinating tours for Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead before pivoting to talent management for such clients as Paul Shaffer, Donny Osmond, The Sex Pistols, as well as members of The Rolling Stones, The E Street Band and The Who, died at his home in Camarillo, California, July 19 from complications of pneumonia. He was 74.

His death was announced by Janis Gardner, his wife and Panacea Entertainment co-owner.

Born Eric Winslow Gardner on November 20, 1949, Garner’s long and notable career as a talent manager, film, television, and Las Vegas residency show producer began in 1970 when he started coordinating tours for the bands Jefferson Airplane, Kiss, and the Grateful Dead. By 1973 his company Panacea Entertainment Corp. was coordinating tours for major bands in 23 countries around the world.

In 1974 Panacea’s emphasis shifted to talent management and over the year’s...

John Barbata, who played on the final Jefferson Airplane album and was successor band Jefferson Starship original drummer and also made hit records with The Turtles and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, has died. He was 79.

He died May 8 in Oklahoma. Barbata’s death was confirmed on the official Facebook pages of the Starship and Airplane, but neither provided details.

“We are saddened to hear of the passing of the great John Barbata, Jefferson Starship’s original drummer,” reads the Starship post. “Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and fans. Rock in peace, Johnny!”

Barbata played on the final Jefferson Airplane studio album, 1972’s Long John Silver, and them toured with the group. He is heard on the 1973 live disc Thirty Seconds over Winterland. When the Airplane rebranded as Jefferson Starship soon after, he was among the originals along with Airplane alums Grace Slick, Paul Kantner and others.

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John Barbata, the drummer who played on classic recordings by the Turtles, Jefferson Starship, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, has died, Rolling Stone has confirmed. He was 79.

Jefferson Starship paid tribute to Barbata on social media, writing, “We are saddened to hear of the passing of the great John Barbata, Jefferson Starship’s original drummer. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and fans. Rock in peace, Johnny!”

The news of Barbata’s death on May 8 was first reported by Best Classic Bands. A cause of death was not immediately available.

The story of the bizarre Star Wars Holiday Special remains more riveting than the actual product. Now, the documentary A Disturbance in the Force explores one of the most controversial and peculiar moments in fandom, and what led to this variety special being made in the first place. Directors Steve Kozak and Jeremy Coon leave no stone unturned, as they provide an informative and entertaining platform to hear the thoughts of fans, public figures, and the actual people who worked on this oddball project.

Whisper Star Wars to anyone, and it's likely to ignite debate and arguments about which is the worst film, who destroyed the franchise, and so forth. After all, there's a reason people say, "No one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans." However, the original sin -- the piece of media that offended the fandom for the first time -- was CBS' Star Wars Holiday Special,...

Ever since the fall of the WCW some 20 years ago, the WWE has maintained such a stranglehold on pro wrestling in the Western mainstream that they’re synonymous with the very idea of it. It’s not like other federations didn’t exist in the 21st century, but none have been creatively and/or financially able to make a product even approaching what Vince McMahon’s megalith was capable of. The same story applies to the realm of video games, where the WWE has enjoyed 15 years of near-total dominance as far as wrestling games go in the West.

Enter All Elite Wrestling, the first high-profile alternative to the WWE since Tna, the first to truly feel creatively superior in multiple areas, and the first to try their hand at a Aaa video game since Tna Impact! WWE’s formula is predicated on years-long, cross-marketed blockbuster soap operas with four-quadrant appeal...

Alec Guinness, George Lucas in The Making of Star Wars Image: Screenshot/YouTube Every Star Wars fan has a favorite Disney+ TV series, including titles like Andor and The Mandalorian, and nearly every fan has a “least favorite” to show hate-watch (we’re looking at you The Book Of Boba Fett...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was Star Wars… and only Star Wars. Oh, you could buy a novelization of George Lucas’ cosmic saga of good and evil, as well as a Marvel Comics’ adaptation of the film that kept the post-Death Star story going in… some very singular ways. (Pour one out for the giant green space-rabbit Jaxxon T. Tumperakki.) Eventually, there were toys — so, so many toys — as well as soundtrack albums, coffee-table books of concept art, and loads of other merchandise. But...

Depeche Mode, the pioneering ‘80s U.K. technopop band, has long had a strong following in Los Angeles — thanks to their exposure on local alternative stalwart Kroq — and now they’re proving a favorite of film and TV creative executives.

The group, consisting of co-founders Martin Gore and vocalist Dave Gahan after the death of keyboardist Andrew Fletcher in May 2022, is on a roll following its 2020 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where they were introduced by Charlize Theron, who called them “the soundtrack of my life.”

Depeche Mode’s new Mute/Columbia Records album, “Memento Mori,” comes out March 24, their first since 2017’s “Spirit” and 15th overall, which will be followed by a year-long tour that launches March 23 in Sacramento and includes a show at L.A.’s Kia Forum on March 28 and four concluding area shows in December, two apiece at Kia and Crypto.com Arena.

Warning! This post contains Spoilers for The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday SpecialDespite taking significant inspiration from the Star Wars Holiday Special, the McU's The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special succeeds where the 1978 television event infamously failed. Produced with limited involvement from George Lucas and Lucasfilm between the releases of the first Star Wars movie and The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Wars Holiday Special was essentially a variety show loosely connected to its overarching plot of Han Solo trying to get Chewbacca home for Wookiee Life Day. The TV special was terribly received and is widely considered to be one of the worst pieces of Star Wars media of all time.

Nevertheless, the mostly disregarded Star Wars Holiday Special has been acknowledged as a crucial piece of inspiration for the MCU program. Writer-director James Gunn said the desire was to recreate the same idea with a special featuring...

This article contains minor spoilers for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

It takes a whopping 44 minutes, including credits and post-credits, for James Gunn to tell his Christmas tale with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. That’s 11 minutes shorter than Marvel’s Halloween special from earlier this year, the masterful Werewolf by Night. But while Werewolf by Night, despite its TV special format, was an homage to some very specific eras of horror filmmaking, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special‘s runtime is in keeping with its desire to very much be a piece of television, rather than abbreviated movie. And a very specific flavor of television, at that.

You see, once upon a time, holiday and Christmas specials were a regular fixture on broadcast network television. Often they were just standard episodes of your favorite show that took on seasonal themes, sometimes they were...

(from left) Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) in Kevin Smith’s Clerks III. Photo: Lionsgate There’s a watchable 90-minute movie hidden in the almost two-hour runtime of Clerks III. It’s too bad writer-director Kevin Smith doesn’t possess the clarity of vision he once had to...

The amazing thing about the “Star Wars” franchise is that even when it’s awful it’s still somehow legendary. Take the 1978 “Star Wars Holiday Special.” This is a classic example of exploiting a franchise to the degree that the exploiters might actually be damaging it. Carrie Fisher sings the “Star Wars” theme, now set to lyrics; Bea Arthur sings a completely different song because who didn’t want to see the star of “Maude” in that galaxy far, far away? Art Carney, Harvey Corman, Diahann Carroll, and Jefferson Starship also show up because why not.

George Lucas was so embarrassed by “The Star Wars Holiday Special” that he prevented anyone from seeing it for decades. But here’s the thing: the two-hour special also introduced Boba Fett to fans, in a stirring cartoon that foretold the saga’s expansive future in animation (and introduced Mando’s pronged weapon on...

One of the most infamous events in “Star Wars” history is getting resurrected on Disney Plus, through a lens made of Lego.

“The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special” will debut on the streaming service on Nov. 17. Set after the events of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” the special continues the partnership between Lucasfilm and Lego of making playful, tongue-in-cheek animated versions of “Star Wars” stories using Lego figures and blocks.

The 45-minute special will follow Rey as her further investigation of the Force launches her and Bb-8 across the history of the Skywalker Saga — as Finn, Poe, Rose, and Chewbacca prepare for the “Star Wars” holiday Life Day on Chewie’s home planet of Kashyyyk.

A rep for Lucasfilm tells Variety that a few “Star Wars” actors will reprise their roles for the special, but it’s still unclear whether Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, or Kelly Marie Tran are returning.

Much loved and presumably still embarrassing to many people, the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is famous for its bizarre creative decisions, Bea Arthur, Lumpy and much more. Despite its reputation, it’s produced a surprising number of Star Wars tie-ins and in-jokes, including a reference to Life Day in the first episode of The Mandalorian. And now, Mark Hamill apparently wants justice for the special and has called on Donald Trump to deliver one of his (very casual) pardons to the variety show.

Hamill, who’s not above pulling many long-running pranks and fake feuds on Twitter, saw an opportunity in Trump’s apparently limitless legal powers and posted as so:

Hey "Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the Country"…

Pardon This: pic.twitter.com/gBYSWqKObj

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) February 19, 2020

Lucasfilm Drops More Than A Dozen Bts Star Wars Pics From The Last Jedi, Rogue One And Solo 1 of 15

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Bob Dylan and Neil Young just announced that they’re going to headline an enormous concert in London’s Hyde Park on July 12th of next year. They haven’t appeared on the same bill since Desert Trip in 2016, though they played on different days of that festival. They haven’t actually performed a song together since October 20th, 1994, when Dylan played the Roseland Ballroom and Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen came out at the end for “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and “Highway 61 Revisited.”

Bob Dylan was one of Neil Young...

Author: Zehra Phelan

CBS has boldly gone and dropped the first look trailer and cast image for their upcoming installment of Star Trek saga, Star Trek Discovery, during the network’s upfront presentation. It revealed the fact that it’s hitting all the correct diversity buttons by placing a black female at the forefront of the trailer with Commander Burnham.

Related: Star Trek Discovery News

Returning fifty years after it first premiered, yet set ten years before Captain Kirk, Spock and The Enterprise emerged as our space heroes, the 15 episode series features a new ship, new characters and new missions. It does, however, embrace the same ideology and hope for the future that inspired a generation of dreamers and doers.

The show’s cast includes James Frain as Spock’s famed Vulcan Father Sarek, Jason Isaac is Captain Lorca, Sonequa Martin as Commander Burham, Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou, Shazad Latif...

Pete Dillon-Trenchard Apr 29, 2017

Spoilers! We dig into Doctor Who series 10's Thin Ice, to see what else we can find...

This article contains spoilers. Lots of them.

See related Justice League: the brand new poster Future DC films will be "hopeful and optimistic" DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar The Crow reboot to finally shoot in January

The Doctor and Bill have saved the day again and something’s knocking in the vault - but it’s only knocking three times, so it doesn’t constitute a reference. Instead, here’s our weekly list of references, callbacks, tenuous spots and generally interesting waffle from this week’s episode. You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve missed anything - I’m at my sister’s wedding as this episode goes out, and they’ve refused to turn the music off for an hour so we can watch it.

The former lead guitarist of Jefferson Starship is furious at other members for jacking the name and tarnishing the rock band's legacy ... according to a new suit. Craig Chaquico claims 2 of this former bandmates and several other musicians are using the Jefferson Starship name, without permission, to land gigs and sell merch. Chaquico says the founding Js members all agreed to retire the name in 1985 ... and move on simply as Starship. But according to docs...

Pete Dillon-Trenchard Apr 22, 2017

Doctor Who series 10 remains in fine form with Smile - and we've been hunting for nerdy Easter eggs and spots in the episode. Spoilers!

This article contains lots of spoilers.

See related Better Call Saul season 3 episode 2 review: Witness Better Call Saul season 3 episode 1 review: Mabel The subtle rise of good prequels

Smile, folks - it’s that time of the week again where we take tonight’s episode of Doctor Who and shake it repeatedly until all of its hidden secrets fall out of its pockets - as well as callbacks and generally interesting observations. And if you think we’ve missed something, let us know in the comments below!

Happiness Will Prevail

If you’re reading this, you’re likely to fit into one of two categories – those of you who love and understand emojis and those of you (myself included) who have resigned...

Wet Hot American Summer is a cult classic comedy (and TV series) from The State alums. American Honey is a gritty, lyrical 160-minute art film from filmmaker Andrea Arnold. Tonally and artistically, they have nothing in common. What they have in common, however, are young, attractive people partying in warm weather. And, sometimes, that’s all it takes to give us a killer mashup. That’s what YouTube user Johnny 2 Cellos has given us with Wet Hot American Honey.

Set against the crusty, propulsive keyboard plinks of Jefferson Starship’s “Jane” (which opens both Wet Hot American Summer and its accompanying series), the trailer overrides American Honey’s diegetic soundtrack to give it the low-stakes look of a suggestive teen sex comedy (replete with comedic freeze frames and vintage title cards) rather than the sobering exploration of class and youthful recklessness it is.

Chris Cummins Jan 24, 2017

A look-back at the previous attempts to bring Archie to TV before they got it right with Riverdale...

When Riverdale premieres on the CW on January 26th, it will mark a milestone for Archie Comics - the first time in the company's 75-year history that its characters will truly shine on television. A mix of gleefully ridiculous kitsch with standout performances and some truly smart writing, the series is poised to be 2017's breakout TV hit.

See related Shane Black: a career retrospective Zack Snyder interview: Batman V Superman

That said, it took a while for Archie to get to this point. There have been many attempts to bring Archie and his friends to TV before, but these all suffered for either being shoddily animated (the various 1960s cartoons), misguided (1990's Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again), or just plain, um, weird (the X-Files cash-in Archie's Weird Mysteries...

TV characters have fantasies, too. Or, maybe just nightmares. Or, maybe they just need to be shown the reality of the "what if..." question they just asked.

What if dogs ruled the earth? What if Superman never existed?

While we don't have the luxury of living in an alternate reality (even though sometimes we might want to), our favorite TV characters can and have.

Check out our list of times TV has taken us to an alternate reality.  

Which is your favorite? What trip did we forget to include? What alternate reality would you like to visit? Let us know in the comments below!

 

 

1. Shadowhunters - "This World Inverted" During their hunt for Valentine, Clary and Jace get a tip from Meliorn about an alternate dimension. Clary dives right in and finds herself in a world where Valentine is a super duper kind of guy and Izzy and Simon are adorably nerdy.

Batman is a crime-fighting superhero and beloved figure in the new trailer for The Lego Batman Movie. But he longs for deeper satisfaction through human connection. "Your greatest fear is being a part of a family again," Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) tells the Caped Crusader (the gravelly-voiced Will Arnett). "Sir, you need to take responsibility for your life."

The clip opens with a lonely Bruce Wayne lounging around a tricked-out Batcave, humorously struggling to adjust the Input settings for his massive theater screen. When Alfred reminds him about Robin (Michael Cera), "the young orphan [he] adopted,...

Netflix's Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp is the best prequel I've ever seen, enriching and recontextualizing the original movie while also being a laugh-out-loud comedy all on its own. So I'm pretty damn excited about the news that Netflix is going back to camp with creators Michael Showalter and David Wain yet again for a new batch of episodes entitled Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later.

THR reports that the eight episode season will premiere sometime in 2017, with Showalter and Wain writing and Wain set to direct. No word yet on whether the original cast will return, but considering they all found time in their busy schedules for First Day of Camp, it seems promising that they'll be back once again. (If you aren't aware, the original movie featured appearances by a bunch of then-up-and-coming actors who have since become big stars, including Bradley Cooper,...

Lady Gaga gave a powerful performance of "Til It Happens to You" from the documentary on campus rape, The Hunting Ground. Gaga and songwriter Diane Warren are nominated for Best Original Song.

Gaga appeared from behind a frame and sitting at a piano. She dramatically delivered the ballad that built up as a string orchestra joined in. The performance climactically ended with a group of sexual assault survivors surrounding Gaga at the piano with the words "Not Your Fault" written on their arms. Both Gaga and Warren are survivors of sexual assault.

Guitarist and founding member of Jefferson Airplane Paul Kantner has died at the age of 74, according to multiple reports. Kantner's publicist confirmed the news to the San Francisco Chronicle that said he died Thursday of multiple organ failure. He is survived by the remaining founding members of the band Jack Casady, Grace Slick, Marty Balin and Jorma Kaukonen. Kantner was also a founding member of the band's spin-off project Jefferson Starship. Forming the band in 1965 with Balin, the pair had met in the Drinking Ground, a folk bar in San Francisco. The band - known for their hits "White Rabbit...

For the people who think that the Star Wars prequels were the low point in the franchise history, you’re wrong. There was something worse. Cinelinx looks back at the project George Lucas wishes he’d never approved of…The Star Wars Holiday Special!

When watching the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, the first thing that comes to mind is “Huh? What did I just watch?” This 90 minute special has achieved a status of infamy in its sheer terribleness. It was such an awful piece of junk that it’s never been re-aired even once in 37 years. It was voted as one of the Most Embarrassing Moments in Television History. It was about this project that George Lucas—the guy who defends The Phantom Menace—made the comment “If I had the time and a sledge hammer, I’d go around destroying every copy!” To sum up…It’s bad!

To be totally fair,...

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Reality takes a holiday along with the Star Wars cast. But is the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special that bad?

You know what go well together? Pop sci-fi, variety shows and Christmas.

Wait, no they don’t, that’s a terrible idea. The Christmas variety show is fine, but attaching a famously secular fantasy to it? Really? Still, this was the late 70s, where variety shows were the king of Christmas telly, and Star Wars was the king of everything else. So obviously some genius decided to put the two things together. The result? Something so bad that it was never shown again. Carrie Fisher reportedly uses it to get people to leave her house. George Lucas actually threatened to go on a rampage with a sledgehammer. Words have not been invented to describe how bad it is.

The story, which reportedly was included at Lucas’ request...

George Lucas' Star Wars Holiday Special is one of the greatest worst things that was ever created. Now you can briefly relive the awkward magic with this silly trailer for it that was recut in the style of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The video was created by Diane Bullock and Mike Schuster for Vulture, and it came with the following note:

The Holiday Special featured such off-brand spectacles as a performance by Jefferson Starship and a bit where Bea Arthur talks to a giant space-rat. But guess what, folks: Lucas isn’t in charge of Star Wars anymore. So, in honor of The Force Awakens’s new direction for the Star Wars franchise — and in honor of the impending holiday season — we proudly present our imagining of Star Wars: The Holiday Special Awakens.

Has there ever been a more glorious blemish on a franchise than 1978's Star Wars Holiday Special? While the world was still in the grips of Star Wars mania, CBS aired a legendarily insane 90-minute tie-in show — one so completely bonkers that George Lucas spent decades doing everything in his power to make sure it never saw an official home-video release. His fear was understandable: The Holiday Special featured such off-brand spectacles as a performance by Jefferson Starship and a bit where Bea Arthur talks to a giant space-rat. But guess what, folks: Lucas isn't in charge of Star Wars anymore. So, in honor of The Force Awakens's new direction for the Star Wars franchise — and in honor of the impending holiday season — we proudly present our imagining of Star Wars: The Holiday Special Awakens. Oh, and hey, you should watch our other Vulture Remixes, like the one where...

25 years ago today, audiences first saw the beloved Christmas comedy movie “Home Alone.” Here’s to a quarter century of kids collecting clever tips on how to outwit would-be burglars, getting spooked by evil furnaces, quoting fictional gangster movies, and (maybe) learning that family is the best gift of all. Directed by Chris Columbus — who would go on to helm the first two “Harry Potter” films — and produced by John Hughes, “Home Alone” became the highest-grossing live action comedy in the U.S. and worldwide after its release in 1990, and it held that record until it was overtaken by “The Hangover: Part II” in 2011. A favorite holiday movie of many, “Home Alone” has secured its place in pop culture with plenty of parodies, with this frightening personalized holiday card, a reference on “Family Guy,” four (mostly ill-advised) sequels, and a John Williams-penned song that’s become a staple of school Christmas concerts.

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Toby Whithouse's Before The Flood tips its top hat to several references from Doctor Who and elsewhere. Here are our spots...

This article contains lots and lots of spoilers for Before The Flood.

The Doctor and his friends may have gone back to before the flood in this episode, but even the 1980s aren’t safe from echoes of the past; if anything, there’s more of them there, on account of it being the past. So here are our geeky viewing notes for this week’s episode...

Before The Revival

The Doctor seemingly opens the episode by addressing the audience. There have been a handful of occasions in the past on which the Doctor speaks straight into the camera and could possibly be talking to the viewers - Tom Baker’s glib “Even the sonic screwdriver won’t get me out of this one” in The Invasion Of Time,...

When Rock Band 4 takes the stage again this fall, you’ll be jamming to a few more tunes if you own an Xbox One. Developer Harmonix has announced that gamers in the Americas will enjoy twelve additional tracks for free on launch day if they pre-order the Xbox One version of the game through Xbox Live –specifically Xbox One, and not Xbox 360. These pre-order bonuses join a collection of over 2,000 songs in Rock Band 4, including ones from Heart, Rush, and Fallout Boy.

The twelve tracks for Xbox One are as follows:

• All That Remains – “What If I Was Nothing”

• Babymetal – “Gimme Chocolate!!”

• Earth, Wind & Fire – “September”

• Interpol – “All The Rage Back Home”

• Jefferson Starship – “Jane”

• Linkin Park ft. Daron Malakian – “Rebellion”

• Marilyn Manson – “The Mephistopheles Of Los Angeles”

• Mastodon – “High Road”

• My Morning Jacket – “One Big Holiday”

• Pierce The Veil ft. Kellin Quinn – “King For A Day”

• “Weird Al” Yankovic...

Did you know that Sir Patrick Stewart, star of stages and screens large and small had returned to television this season No, I didn't think so. In Blunt Talk on the Starz network, the Shakespearean legend turned Starship captain turned mutant teacher plays debilitatingly self-destructive newsman Walter Blunt. The black comedy, produced by Seth McFarland, is what would happen if you threwHBO's The Newsroom, Showtime's Episodes, and Fox's Family Guy in a blender and turned it into a half-hour TV show. It's not Waiting For Godot level quality, but seeing the normally earnest actor play such a delightfully silly character is incredibly entertaining, and for some reason cathartic.

Every day, small-screen addicts have the chance to check out dozens upon dozens of offerings: network police procedurals, basic-cable sketch shows, late-night hosts gaming with their guests, streaming sitcoms, Britcoms and rebooted series, premium-channel prestige dramas, off-brand reality TV and those unclassifiable oddities that reside left of the virtual dial. But here at Rolling Stone's new column, we're zeroing in on and counting down the five best moments of the viewing week — from the scenes everyone's been talking/recapping/tweeting about to the underseen, undersung performances and undeservedly neglected episodes you might have missed.

Welcome to Camp Firewood! Or is it welcome back to Camp Firewood? Uh, welcome back to Camp Firewood, again, for the first time. It’s 10:47 p.m., 11 hours before the campers show up, and the gang’s all here, gathered around the campfire, jamming to “Jane” by Jefferson Starship. You might recognize this title sequence from Wet Hot American Summer: The Film, with the same general revelry, same title font, and same cut to the Guitar Guy as soon as the solo starts. Everyone’s having fun. Unfortunately, that fun has to end. The next day starts with orientation, led by camp director Mitch (H. Jon Benjamin), Greg, the boys' head counselor (Jason Schwartzman), and Beth. Beth! “Beeeetthhhh!” Thank god Beth and her jokes are here. “It’s a dry wit, it’s very funny,” McKinley explains. “Some of you were campers here last year, but now, you’re all 16 or 17 years old.

From ampersands to The Apprentice, from dinner ladies to Dirty Den, here's a selection of nerdy in-jokes from Doctor Who series 2...

Last month we took a look at Doctor Who Series One as it celebrated its 10th Anniversary. Specifically, we delved deep into the murky world of in-jokes and sweet nerdy references.

Let’s take another trip back in time and have a look at the more notable and interesting references and in-jokes from Doctor Who Series Two, starring David Tennant and Billie Piper, where the credit of “Doctor Who” had been changed back to “The Doctor”. Pfft, party poopers.

New Earth

Old-skool fans would have been forgiven for being excited at the prospect, given that “New Earth” was a planet mentioned in the 1974 classic Invasion Of The Dinosaurs (though it didn’t actually exist in that story, it was a fake world). But all fans could get excited at...

To end a week celebrating New Who's 10th birthday, here's a bumper list of Doctor Who titbits from Russell T Davies' The Writer's Tale...

We’ve touched on why The Writer’s Tale, the 2008 (expanded in 2010) compendium of correspondence between Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies and journalist Benjamin Cook, deserves a space on your bookshelf here.

In short, The Writer’s Tale is both a screenwriting masterclass and an unparalleled look behind the scenes of new Doctor Who. As well as following the production triumphs and emergencies as the show lurches “from one crisis to another”, it lets you witness story ideas being created in the wild. See pivotal Doctor Who moments tottering unsurely out of Davies’ mind like new-born giraffes and watch them transform into sleek, galloping beasts of majesty! Think of it like a classy David Attenborough doc on storytelling, with bonus David Tennant photos and chat about Tony from Skins.

‘Tis the season for awards, and while voters are busy weighing the merits of top Oscar contenders, the industry’s intangibles have fallen by the wayside. The year in film is comprised of so many movie moments and overlooked details that go unrecognized by Hollywood, so here’s a list of superlatives and unconventional awards that serve as an alternative to the prim-and-proper Oscars. There’s even more ground to cover than last year, so let’s get started …

Movies

Best Animal Title: Gold: “Birdman” Silver: “The Dog” Bronze: “Foxcatcher” Honorable Mention: “Big Bad Wolves”

Best Movie Set Primarily in One Location: “Locke,...

Making a beloved Christmas special can be a daunting task. But the basics for a decent holiday special are simple: a happy moral lesson, some winter cheer, and absolutely no death, kidnapping, or insanity.

Really, during the holidays, all people want to do is relax, sit down with their families, and watch wholesome entertainment that won't leave anyone psychologically scarred or emotionally confused for years to come. That is why it is absolutely inexplicable that these totally bonkers holiday specials ever made it onto TV.

1. Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)

ABC

This depressing Christmas special takes place during the days of the Roman Empire, and tells the story of a donkey with freakishly long ears that is disliked and made fun of by all the other animals in the stable.

News: All of Santa's Reindeer, Ranked From Best to Worst

Essentially, the story is just a weird version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, only with a...

“We are stardust, we are golden”, sang Joni Mitchell of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, held August 15-18th 1969, at a dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York. The irony was, she wasn’t even there.

A further irony follows in that whilst a myriad of psychedelic colours are synonymous with the Woodstock nation, one of the most revered choices of dress, clearly shown in the documentary Woodstock (1970) is a simple white leather fringed lace-up tunic-style vest and bell bottom trousers. It is worn by one of the first female rock stars, the lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick.

Grace performing with Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock, 1969.

As the biggest rock-folk fusion band to come from the 1960s San Francisco counterculture, Jefferson Airplane were the festival headliners on the Saturday. At the height of their fame in 1969, they...

In a movie packed to the gills with mission statement moments, the scene that best encapsulates The Skeleton Twins is one of its more ridiculous ones. Suburban New Yorker Maggie, in the midst of the worst day of her life, discovers that the new goldfish she’s just bought have gone belly-up. She throws the guppies into an aquarium with two inches of water, and tries to resuscitate them with desperate swirling and whacks of a wooden spoon. A teary-eyed, manic, and wasted effort, Maggie’s attempt to save a dead fish too closely parallels the viewer’s feeling of watching good people do all they can to save the terminal project that is The Skeleton Twins.

Kristen Wiig stars as Maggie, a married dental hygienist introduced in her bathroom, a cellphone in one hand, and a prescription’s worth of sleeping pills in the other. At the same time,...

(Cbr) - Until now, we've only gotten hints of the musical tastes of the icons of the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- AC/DC on Tony Stark's in-armor playlist, the Falcon turning Captain America on to Marvin Gaye -- but in "Guardians of the Galaxy," audiences get a complete sense of Star-Lord's '60s and '70s-era power-pop leanings -- and, as James Gunn, Chris Pratt and Vin Diesel attest, it's as appropriately awesome a mix tape as the cassette label suggests. The lineup of songs is epic, in terms of pop touchstones from their era: Swedish rockers Blue Swede's 1974 smash hit cover of "Hooked On a Feeling;" "Go All the Way," the 1972 breakthrough hit for songwriter/lead singer Eric Carmen's early band The Raspberries; "Moonage Daydream," David Bowie's 1971 glam rock ode to an alien messiah; blues rocker Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," from...

(Cbr) A few years from now, in this very galaxy, there will be a new director of the flagship "Star Wars" series. Following J.J. Abrams’ work on "Star Wars: Episode VII," director Rian Johnson will step in to steer the franchise forward with "Episode VIII," and possibly even "Episode IX." The "Looper" filmmaker made his first public comments on inheriting the "Star Wars" franchise during an appearance at Comic-Con International, describing the job as a dream come true. “The thought of it made me so completely joyfully happy,” he said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “I wanted to play in this world, of literally the first movie my dad put me in the car to see.” Johnson described the current process of working on "Episode VIII" as “kind of like summer camp,” with he and his team preparing by watching movies every night. The director even weighed in on other "Star Wars" topics,...

During press rounds at Comic Con, actor Benedict Cumberbatch let slip a comment that didn't confirm but did seem to suggest that rumors of actor Simon Pegg making a small appearance in "Star Wars: Episode VII" are true.

Speaking with Vulture, Pegg was asked about this and said he won't be seen on screen. He uses his wording very carefully though, in such a way that it now has people thinking he'll have a voice role:

"Well, J.J. uses me in different roles, and we're good friends. I feel like my face in Star Wars would pop people out of the movie. Look, I love Star Wars, and I don't want people to watch and go, 'Oh, there's Simon Pegg's face.' The film is cleverly cast with these amazing, unknown actors."

When asked outright if he wasn't in the film, he smiled and said:

"Of course I visited the set.

"Star Wars: Episode VII" still feels light years away from its December 2015 release, but that doesn't mean that Rian Johnson, just picked to write and direct its sequel, "Episode VIII," isn't already conducting research for his film.

In an interview taped for the Filmspotting podcast, Johnson chatted about his childhood love of the "Star Wars" movies, revealed the cinematic influences he plans on including in the flick, and discussed his unlikely selection as the newest member of the "Star Wars" filmmakers club.

"The thought of it made me so completely joyfully happy," Johnson said of agreeing to the offer to direct "Episode VIII." "I wanted to to play in this world, of literally the first movie my dad put me in the car to see."

The "Looper" director also joked that with his less-well-known pedigree, it must have been "a clerical error" that saw him land the gig, adding, "There's...