The real world may seem increasingly dystopian lately, but that doesn’t seem to have quenched our thirst for dystopian visions. Two current shows—one that reaches into the cinematic past, the other straight into the modern zeitgeist—are leveraging the science fictional furniture of dystopia to powerful, if decidedly different, effect.

The opening credits of Sense8 (2015, streaming on Netflix) effectively convey what sort of show it is. Images from around the world set to calm music that slowly give way to more vibrant scenes of life and love as the music increases in intensity, betraying a hint of darkness. This is the planet Earth and the people who live there, it says as it revels in their beauty.

“Safety Lights are for Dudes!” I had no idea what to expect going into this new Ghostbusters movie. The vitriol over it during the previous year has been exhausting. Never have I wanted so badly for a movie to be good, but had so little sign as to whether it actually would be. I’m happy […]

Let me state up front that I have never played Warcraft the game in any of its incarnations, and so may be in a good position to judge this as a movie and not as an artifact of some other thing. Honestly, the only thing I really know about Warcraft is Leeroy Jenkins. But I have played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons.

I think there’s an argument to be made that media outlets are hungry for content that will attract viewers. And nothing looks better than content with a known track record and pre-existing audience. So now companies like Netflix produce sequels to movies that first played some sixteen years ago. How does a sixteen-year-old movie possibly require a sequel? Answer: It doesn’t. Yet here we are, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.

This month, we take a look at thought-provoking television shows: Amazon’s PKD adaptation,The Man in the High Castle (Season 1), and the Norwegian political thriller Occupied.

Have we reached peak superhero? Are we oversaturated? Might we in fact have too many superhero media adaptations? Given that the four movie posters at the entrance of my local theater right now are for Captain America: Civil War, Batman v. Superman, Suicide Squad, and X-Men: Apocalypse, one can certainly be forgiven for thinking we might just be a wee bit oversaturated. I for one love this state of affairs.

The Syfy channel debuted their new show, THE EXPANSE, at the end of November. The show is based on the space opera series by James S.A. Corey. Here a panel of geeks—Andrew Liptak (who contributes to Lightspeed’s book review column), Justin Landon of Tor.com, and Liz Shannon Miller of Indiewire—share their thoughts on THE EXPANSE.

Editor’s Note: We’re presenting the following movie review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in two parts. The first, immediately below, is spoiler-free. At the end of the spoiler-free review, you’ll find a promotional image from the film, which serves as the divider, and then immediately following the image, you will find the second version, […]