The ever-industrious Luc Besson has a new science fiction project on the go, and it's one that he's just recruited Scarlett Johansson to the lead role of. The film is by the name of Lucy, and it's going to be a mix of science fiction and action.

The basic premise? It's about a young woman who is forced to work as a drug mule, but then gains super powers when said drugs react with her system in unpredictable ways. Very unpredictable ways. Besson is writing and directing the new movie, although that's all we know about it thus far.

Given the fact that Luc Besson doesn't tend to mess around though, the man being something of a one-man film production studio once you factor in his writing and producing projects, we'd expect Lucy to get moving this year. Don't be surprised to see it in cinemas in 2014.

The Hollywood Reporter.

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This review contains spoilers.

2.2 Where Silence Has Lease

The Enterprise is in the Morgana Quadrant doing some charting (ah, charting. The stuff explorers dream of) when they encounter a weird spacehole. It's like a hole in space. Clearly, this is the first interesting thing they've found in weeks because they fly towards it and start shooting probes into it. Unfortunately, said probes just disappear without trace. Naturally, this intrigues Picard so he inches the ship ever-closer to it.

Suddenly it engulfs the Enterprise! Oh no! Wait, we all pretty much expected that to happen, right?

Inside the spacehole, the crew performs various scans and recover no interesting information. At one point Dr. Pulaski turns up and starts having a go at Data for being unable to work his console (no wonder I never warmed to her. She's insulting the one crew member everyone else loves. She's a robophobe!) but eventually they decide there's nothing to learn and try to leave. Except they can't! The Enterprise is stuck!

Attempting to escape, they drop a beacon and fly away from it. Suddenly, it's in front of them! Oh no! Non-Euclidian space! (Well, more Non-Euclidian than usual.) Deciding that they're sick of going in circles (literally) Picard orders a stop. Suddenly, a Romulan Warbird appears out of nowhere and fires. Everyone freaks the hell out, until it blows up after a single shot. "There's no debris", says Data. "That's because instead of blowing up models, we simply overlay explosions on top of model shots to save money" says the visual effects director.

They've barely started to figure out that things have gone a bit crazy when the USS Yamato – another Galaxy Class starship – appears. There are no lifesigns. It's a ghost ship! Things are obviously tense and confusing, so Picard sends an away team consisting of his most expendable men: Riker and Worf. On board, everything's confusing. Rooms are in the wrong place, and Worf gets into a fight with a door because he finds it leads to the room he's already in. No-one let him play a game of Portal.

Picard recovers Worf and Riker as the Yamato disappears, but meanwhile a gap has opened up in the anomaly showing a possible exit. Picard asks Ensign Haskell, everyone's favourite crew member, to move the ship towards it. But every time they try, the gap moves or closes. Eventually they give up. Pulaski points out that they're being experimented on, and Troi suddenly chimes in saying that now Pulaski mentions it, she can sense a vast malevolent intelligence at work. Thanks for the timely update. Picard decides the best course of action is to do nothing.

Suddenly, a giant floating face appears on the viewscreen, introducing itself as Nagilum. After checking everyone out, it determines that Data is a robot, Pulaski is a woman, and everyone else is uninteresting. In an effort the understand the life cycle of humans, Nagilum uses his limitless psychic power to kill Ensign Haskell. OH NO! He then nonchalantly mentions that he plans to kill another 30-50% of the crew too. Uh-oh.

Picard calls a meeting and decides to initiate the self-destruct as a way of preventing Nagilum from getting what he wants (wait, WHAT?). He and Riker decide on twenty minutes as a nice round amount of time to prepare for death (come on, not an even half hour?!) and retire to their quarters to wait for the inevitable. Nagilum comes to Picard in the forms of Troi and Data, but the ruse is spotted when they both accidentally use his first name (the swines). Angered by this over-familiarity, Picard has a quick rant at Nagilum and suddenly the Enterprise is back in normal space.

Picard isn't so easily fooled, though, and he takes the self-destruct sequence right down to the wire before cancelling it. Literally the last ten seconds. Presumably everyone on the lower decks was weeping and screaming and then confused about how they managed to stay alive, but luckily we only care about the bridge crew. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, and Picard heads into his ready room where Nagilum appears on a laptop and has a chat about how hostile and militant humans are, unlike the giant floaty-faced race to which he belongs. Unable to argue with this nigh-omnipotent being any longer, Picard gives him the brush off and returns to the bridge, ordering the Enterprise back on course and to avoid any holes.

TNG WTF: You don't get more WTF than the episode's main antagonist being a giant floating face. In that way, Nagilum is classic Star Trek. By which I mean, he could've come from classic Star Trek. A ridiculous low-budget effect hovering in space, issuing vague philosophical gibberish and passing judgement on the crew. This episode couldn't be more like TOS if it tried. Apparently it was the first script specifically written for Season 2 of TNG, but this is as Kirk-esque as Picard has ever acted. Maybe that was intentional.

TNG LOL: Ad-break peril! At the end of the first act, Picard asks all stations for a report and gets no response. There's a dramatic music cue! It fades to black. When it comes back. Picard immediately announces in voiceover that "After a brief disruption, our ship's communications have returned to normal." Okay then!

There are a couple of genuine laughs, though. Picard cutting off Data shortly before he launches into an extended infodump is never not funny, and Riker confirming the self-destruct deactivation one of TNG's most memorable moments:

Riker: "Yes, absolutely, I do indeed concur wholeheartedly."
Picard: "A simple yes would've sufficed, Number One."
Riker: "I didn't want there to be any chance of misunderstanding."

There's also an unintentionally funny Riker line, when he describes being inside the weird spacehole as "like looking into infinity." Er, which is basically what you spend your day doing anyway, isn't it?

Who's that Face?: Nagilum is mostly face, but strangely you might recognise the actor – Earl Boen – as the voice of the Zombie Pirate LeChuck from Monkey Island. He's also Dr. Silberman in the first three Terminator films (the guy whose neck Sarah Conner sticks a syringe into in Terminator 2.)

Time Until Meeting: 34:52. A late one! Presumably because they've spent almost the entire episode on the bridge and fancy a change of scenery.

Captain's Log: There's a fair amount of dumb stuff in this episode – primarily the length of time it takes them to figure out that they're stuck and then that there's an intelligence behind what's happening – but in general, it's pretty good. The tension is nicely built, defused, and then built up again. The characters approach their situation methodically and logically (you know, like you'd expect a science and exploration vessel to do.) The weirdness is genuinely unnerving, but even then the character moments are fun and subtle. It's not a particularly great episode, but it's actually showing signs of becoming as good as we remember.

Of course, on the downside it's an episode that takes place almost entirely on the bridge area. There's an opening scene in the holodeck for no apparent reason, and a scene in Picard's quarters, but for the most part it's all bridge, meeting room and ready room. Not very dynamic.

Still, for many people, this is what Star Trek should be. Seeking out new life and boldly going into situations that are so far beyond normal experience that they can barely be articulated. When the bulk of an episode's action takes place in a spacehole with no dimensions, no energy and no mass, while a giant face performs experiments on the crew, it's fair to say it's not taking the easy way out.

Watch or Skip? Watch. Not just because it's a very Star Trek-y episode of Star Trek, but because it's full of fun character moments and interesting direction.

Read James' look-back at the previous episode, The Child, here.

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This review contains spoilers.

6.21 The Closure Alternative

In this week's episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon and Amy deal with his need for closure, Penny tries to get excited about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Raj tries to butch it up. In other words, this is an episode about people trying to change something deeply ingrained into who they are and failing absolutely spectacularly.

First we have Sheldon, who finds out that Alphas has been canceled, and what's more, it ended on a cliffhanger. We've all been there, I'm sure, but the problem is worse for Sheldon who can't even stand to not complete his door-knocking, much less not know what happens after the disastrous scenario in which Alphas ended. (And can I just say... obscure!)

Amy decides to try to help him out by conditioning him to accept life without resolution and hands up, who here over-related to him just not being able to handle it? Particularly at the end, when he gets his closure and all but passes out with relief. My hand is in the air and I'm guessing a few of yours are as well. 

Meanwhile, Raj decides to butch it up after stalking his girlfriend online and finding that she had referred to him as feminine. His solution to this seems to involve wearing a hockey jersey and serving frozen burritos for dinner, and I laughed a truly ridiculous amount because I completely believe that that is what Raj thinks masculinity comprises. Naturally, it also fails, but luckily she doesn't mind his lack of traditional masculinity, and in fact it's one of the things she really likes about him. I think I'm slowly coming around to liking her. 

Elsewhere, Leonard shows up at Penny's apartment at six in the morning trying to get her to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and...well, we've all been there, am I right? And I have to tell you, I was a little surprised that Penny didn't love it because if there were anything in the geeky world I'd have guessed she could get into, it would be Buffy. It's a show about a girl who kicks ass while trying to have a dating life and quipping, "If the apocalypse comes, beep me." I mean, come on, what's not to love about that, regardless of geek status? 

Sadly, Penny is unable to get into it. Although to be fair, it's less the show's fault and more Penny realizing that she's not passionate about anything. She and Bernadette talk it over and Penny realizes that her passion is her life and the people in it. It's a little sappy but after all Leonard and Penny have been through and how far back she's stood from their relationship, it's nice to see her being the invested one for a change. Now if only I could reach through the screen and chastise Leonard for starting her with season one. Bad idea! Everyone knows you entice a newbie with the musical and then start them at the beginning! (I kid, I kid...mostly.) 

So Sheldon doesn't overcome his need for closure, Raj doesn't succeed in his plan to be hyper-masculine, and Leonard fails in getting Penny into Buffy. And that's fine, because we love Sheldon's inability to leave things unfinished, and Raj's passion for skincare, and even Penny's dispassionate voice of reason. This is definitely one of the funnier (not to mention geekier) episodes of the season and I really enjoyed it.

Read Kaci's review of the previous episode, The Tenure Turbulence, here.

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With little more than a few screenshots and rumours about the next Grand Theft Auto over the last few weeks, the time has come to properly meet and greet the trio of protagonists of GTA V.

In a typically brief release, Rockstar has announced that April 30 will see the arrival of trailers for each main character, that's Michael, Franklin and Trevor.

So, that's that. Expect to see the trailers here next week, in the meantime, you may want to download the older and more recently released new GTA V wallpapers and adorn your desktop with the very same characters.

GTA V Wallpapers

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With the Sony DualShock controller being such a well-loved and iconic piece of hardware, it was always going to cause concern for gamers when any announcement was made regarding changes to it. So, when that announcement did come, some clutched their existing units in fear of losing what is considered by many to be the ultimate game pad.

However, there may not be all that much to worry about, as the new DualShock 4 is looking very tasty, actually. It's not all that dissimilar to the old DuslShock, bearing the same basic shape and control layout, but it now boasts some impressive new features.

Chief amongst the new additions is the Vita-style touch pad, which will offer touchscreen functionality without impacting on the core gamepad control. This is a great move, and as long as the touch pad works comfortably (and not with apparent analog stick-bumping as seen in the trailer), it could be perfect for hardcore gamers who also want the option of touch screen abilities.

The light bar mounted on the top of the unit will be used to track who has which controller in the room. This may sound odd, but as suggested in the trailer, this could be used to, for example, automatically switch split-screen orientation if you have to swap seats. A nice idea.

A mounted speaker will allow the console to send specific audio cues to the controller, adding a more personal touch. This is interesting, but has already been seen on the Wii, with middling results. Hopefully, Sony can make better use of the idea.

Finally, the other main addition is the Share button. This will allow gamers to instantly record and upload video clips and screenshots of their games to the online community. With today's social network-dominated world, this is an option that will appeal greatly to many users.

Alongside the glaring new additions are tweaked core controls, such as more sensitive analog sticks (which now have an indent, which is much more comfortable) and improved face buttons. The triggers are also improved.

You can see the whole video below, and as a big DualShock fan myself, I can say I’m actually looking forward to giving the new controller a good workout.

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At the UK Sky Living launch of his superb new NBC drama, Hannibal, Bryan Fuller told us he's no closer to getting his Star Trek series moving, with J.J. Abrams apparently in charge of where the franchise goes next. Here's what he told us...

What's the status of your Star Trek TV series idea? Bryan Singer had one concept, you had another…

That’s basically wishful thinking. We both would love to do a Star Trek series, and I think Star Trek is in J.J. Abrams’ purview as it should be, because I loved Star Trek, the movie, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Once again, I would love to revisit that world because I found it so creatively fulfilling but I think that’s under his guard, and if it ever came up I would jump on the opportunity.

You wouldn’t set it on the Enterprise though?

Yeah, I think let that be the movies and let that be their story. I would love to do something on the Reliant. I want Angela Lansbury…Not Lansbury! I want Angela Bassett to be the captain, that’s who I would love to have, you know Captain Angela Bassett and First Officer Rosario Dawson. I would love to do that version of the show and but that’s in the future to be told.

We'll have the full interview for you next week...

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Coming from the same team that brought us BioShock 2, 2K's upcoming XCOM third-person tactical shooter has been reworked since it's initial reveal in 2011, and now the veil has been lifted, thanks to the below reveal trailer.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will be set in 1962 and will focus on a top secret organisation that exists to protect Earth from outside threats, namely extra terrestrials. This group is known as The Bureau, and along with stopping any threats, they're also tasked with keeping any incidents secret, hidden from the public.

The game is designed to be an origin story for XCOM, and charts the beginnings of the group seen in previous games, this time during the cold war. It'll feature heavy tactical decision making, and also permanent deaths for squad mates should they fall in battle.

Pre-orders will get a special bonus mission called 'Codebreakers', which involves investigating a communication station that's mysteriously gone dark.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will be released on August 20 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

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This review contains spoilers.

1.20 Home Invasion

It feels as if Arrow has been away from our screens for far too long, but now we have a direct line to the finale over three consecutive weeks. This return from the show served to push characters in the directions they were already edging towards, isolate Oliver even more, and set up Roy Harper’s transition into Red Arrow: Superhero Apprentice.

The big news for geeks in Home Invasion is the J. August Richards (Angel) guest spot as villain of the week, Mr Blank. He does a good job as the creepy assassin after Laurel and the little boy in her care and, frankly, it’s just nice to see him again. Oliver’s case of the week is the first to truly combine his two lives, mainly due to Tommy’s awareness of what he’s really getting up on his ‘business meetings’ (“I just need to swing by the club and pick up my best suit”), but this causes renewed friction between him and Diggle when he fails to come through on a promise.

In truth, his two worlds are characterised by Laurel and Diggle, and he finally decides which side of himself means more to him this week. It’s not the outcome the fans are likely to approve of – I certainly don’t – and it causes Diggle to walk away from life at Oliver’s side. It’s simply a continuation of their argument last week but, by not showing up to a promising and meticulously-planned set-up for Deadshot, he finally showed where his loyalties lie. Neither target was someone on his list, and the decision came down to whom he values the most. Even superheroes think with their downstairs brain sometimes.

To get to this point, the love triangle has to come to the forefront again. It’s all very Smallville, especially when we’re spending so much time in the Queen/Luther mansion towards the end of the episode, and I really could care less with whom Laurel ends up. Tommy astutely deduces that Laurel would choose Oliver without a second thought should she learn of his secret identity as The Hood, and I have to say that this hypothetical situation would be the only thing that could liven up this tired storyline. I know some people are coming to the show for the relationship drama, but I’d guess a large portion of us just aren’t interested.

It’s also annoying to see yet another episode that has Laurel targeted and attacked in her home. She stands up for herself just enough to be called feminist, but ultimately fails so that Oliver can literally swoop in and save her. Either let her take care of herself – we’re meant to assume she’ll one day become Black Canary, after all – or stop putting a target on her. She’s even maternally protecting a child here and, added to the fact that two men are childishly fighting over her, she’s becoming too much like a damsel for my liking. Hopefully Tommy’s callous break-up speech will shake her into tapping into some of that kick-ass potential.

Meanwhile, Roy was pursuing his fascination with The Hood by stealing a police radio and following any leads he thought might lead him to his idol. Quentin put him down by, after leading him down a blind alley, showing him the twnety-six bodies that have come to the morgue as a result of Oliver’s night-time antics. It’s a high enough number to make him back off, but I suspect his belief that most of them deserved it will lead him to Ollie’s door before the season is out. Will Thea be with him when he decides to suit up? That would be awesome, but it’s likely that the show will tease it out a little longer than that.

Next week we’ll see the return of Malcolm, presumably with a darker Tommy in tow, and Felicity gets involved in Oliver’s mission. I’ll see you there!

Read Caroline's review of the previous episode, Unfinished Business, here.

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This review contains spoilers.

8.20 Pac-Man Fever

I absolutely adored this episode of Supernatural. That’s something you haven’t read much from my reviews this season, eh? Well I did, and it’s because this is exactly what I want the show to be – I want Dean and Sam to stay in the Bat-Cave forever and ever; I want Charlie to become a Woman of Letters full-time, and I want the sense of fun that this episode brought back to stick around. Yes, Sam is on death's door and Charlie ended up pulling the plug on her brain-dead mother, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a depressing sob-fest.

So, as you will have guessed by now, I love Charlie and everything she brings to the show. It pleases me no end that this episode was doing its best to integrate her into the main clan and, god knows, Supernatural needs some faces to look at other than the Winchesters'. As pretty as they are, a show entering into its ninth season should really have more supporting characters to call upon. The fact that Charlie is a woman and a geek just makes her all the more awesome and, although I realise that plenty of Supernatural fans hate her with a fiery passion, I’m certainly in the opposite camp.

The episode itself focused on a very by-the-numbers plot following a demon which liquified its victims while trapping them in their own repetitive nightmare world. Getting to the end-point proved far more entertaining than usual however, as, with Sam out of commission due to the last trial almost finishing him off, Charlie went with Dean on the familiar FBI impersonating fact-finding missions. Her newness to the situation was refreshing in itself, since we’re long past caring how the brothers get their information, and it provided comedy in an otherwise dramatic episode.

Supernatural usually lies in one realm – comedy or drama – but this week’s episode actually straddled them both with admirable ease. Why can’t they do this more often? Does it have to be whimsically silly or depressingly serious – can we not have both from time to time? Felicia Day-phobes will have been dreading this episode mainly because of its geek-baiting title, Pac-Man Fever, but there’s actually very little gaming here. It’s used as a logical dream-world for Charlie to retreat into, but the episode itself deals very much in the real world. That’s kind of the point actually.

We’ve come to expect that Charlie will come with comedy attached, as with the LARPing episode a little while ago, but here is was demonstrated how she could fit into the show full-time. She has a connection to both brothers for very different reasons and now has mommy-issues to match as well. The bottom line is that it’s really nice to have a female character hanging around. They tried it with Jo on and off between seasons two-five, but she ultimately just became a love interest for Dean. The difference with Charlie is that she’s already been identified as a lesbian, and thus can’t be used in this way.

Could she really become a Woman of Letters as Sam calls her at the end? It’s seemed that the writers have been testing the waters with the character since she was introduced late last year, and her popularity hasn’t dipped for those taken with her the first time around. She’s now even been given her own tragic origin story, and her past as an orphan on the run from the law is strikingly similar to that of Sam and Dean. She’s also a hunter now, having read up on all of the lore and, crucially, has read all of the Supernatural novels.

She’s a fan of the show-within-the-show and, if your brain stops hurting for long enough to comprehend that, it’s a really neat idea. All of the ‘meta madness’ talk would get annoying but, on a practical level, it just means that Charlie has taken a shortcut to the point all of the show’s fans are at. She understands the different mystical rules of various demons etc, but also has a good idea of what makes the brothers’ themselves tick. She knows what they’ve been through and can identify with them via her own history.

So you know where I stand but, how about you? Do you want Charlie to stick around for more than one episode at a time? Nevertheless, we’re back to the A-plot next week and Crowley seems to have gotten to Kevin. Oh, and Sam’s not looking too hot.

Read Caroline's review of the previous episode, Taxi Driver, here.

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This review contains spoilers. Our spoiler-free review is here.

Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS

"Salvage of a lifetime?"
"I feel pretty confident I can deliver on that"

We were promised, back at the launch for the second half of Doctor Who series 7, that Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS would deliver on its title. That it would take us deep into the throes of the Doctor's vessel, and wouldn't cheat us by quickly building some stuff in a warehouse and passing it off as the TARDIS. You'd be hard pushed to say, on that count at least, that we'd been let down.

Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS, after all, gave us the best tour of the craft that we've arguably ever had in Doctor Who. Sure, we've seen the Eye Of Harmony before (particularly in the McGann TV movie, although not quite so CG driven!), and we've taken in parts of the TARDIS across a range of adventures. Here, though, we went round the library, saw the heard-of-but-previously-never-seen swimming pool, and toured the endless corridors (lots of them), that at one stage turned into a Raiders Of The Lost Ark-esque obstacle course. In fact, the 'outside' sequence near the end even had echoes of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. No chilled monkey brains in the TARDIS kitchen, though.

If all concerned didn't love making this one, particularly on the production design side, then we'd be genuinely surprised.

For an episode that's set to take its place in Doctor Who lore, though, the whole thing actually started with more of a nod to the Alien franchise instead. Thus, we got a three-man crew, one of whom apparently being an android, targeting the TARDIS as a possible salvage job. Said crew is then stuck on a seemingly empty space vessel, with a creature prowling its corridors who you wouldn't want to meet. You can't help but wonder if John Hurt got the call for this one first, before he was signed up to the 50th anniversary special.

This three man crew, as we learn later on, had a bit more to it than first appeared, as the android turned out to be literally part of the family. This is all nicely done, but it'd be remiss to say it was close to the most interesting part of the episode. Instead, it was the guided tour of the TARDIS, and the continual development of Clara (who we had a 'fake' version of again as well, for the second week running), that took precedence.

The bulk of Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS, then, was taken up with recreating a family friendly version of Alien on the TARDIS. For director Mat King, the job was clear: using the control room and a corridor set or two, along with a pick and mix of lighting options, to take on the age-old Doctor Who challenge of shooting sets from as many different angles as possible, to make it look like a labyrinth on the inside. Job done, to be fair. Some may have found the endless traipsing around TARDIS corridors a little bit wearing, but not us: we could explore the thing all day. This felt like the Doctor Who some of us grew up on (not for the first time in this run of episodes, either).

Furthermore, the episode showed as a few of the things at the end of said corridors. The architectural reconfiguration system was the most impressive, and it's when we see rooms like this that it all adds colour to the constant reminders that the TARDIS is a ship with a personality and characteristics of her own.

Clara in particular discovered a few things of interest. Some nick-nacks of Doctor Who past for starters, before she landed in the TARDIS library, and found a book that may have some ramifications towards the end of the series. After all, having explored The History Of The Time War book - Dorling Kindersley is probably bidding for the rights right now - Clara now knows the Doctor's name. She's bloody good at opening big books at appropriate pages, too. We bet she breezed her GCSEs.

It's little secret that the show has been building up to the revelation of the name of the Doctor, to the point where it's basically become the title of a future episode. But will it be that straightforward? Do people actually want to know the Doctor's name, or is there something more significant at play here? Clara knows, the Doctor knows, the people who have worked on the series finale know. We, of course, don't. Bah.

There were constant references to the characterisation of the TARDIS throughout the episode, although nothing on the level of Neil Gaiman's inevitable double bill companion piece, The Doctor's Wife. But writer Steve Thompson still left us enough to nerd out over, and made sure too that the episode left ample room for us to walk through attractively framed corridors.

The creatures, though, were intriguing. Wisely kept in the dark for the early stages of the episode, these foes gradually got more dangerous, before building up to a bit of a revelation. The zombie-like growlers, the latest example of practical work that seems to be on the up in this current run of Who, had a link to Clara.

This served two purposes. One, it meant that current Clara is now aware of what's gone before (as well as holding some juicy information on the Doctor). And secondly, it's added yet more mystery to the character herself.

Why are these two creatures stalking the TARDIS? Is that why the TARDIS doesn't like her? Is she a figment of the TARDIS, a relative of it, made of some kind of the same material? Is she Billie Piper? Can she sing and dance? Does she have a Time Lord link? Is there a Great Intelligence plot at work here?

As long as she doesn't turn out to be an iteration of River Song or something, we're enjoying the speculation. As the Doctor said, "I look at you every single day and don't understand a thing about you". Why is that?

Still, while Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS may at times have relied a bit too heavily on its central treats, at the expense of a particularly strong individual narrative, we enjoyed it a lot. The story trade off proved to be one that we were more than comfortable with here. TARDIS episodes don't come along very often after all, and Who fans of any vintage are likely to have found things to like here. Lots of things to like.

There was a pet hate of ours used (and we really, really hate it), which we can't avoid talking about, namely the reset switch. But in its very slight defence, it wasn't a 100% reset at least, as we saw from the crew of three at the end of the episode that things had slightly changed. It didn't feel quite like a full-on Last Of The Time Lords moment, but it sailed rather close to it. Endings are not a strong point of Doctor Who episodes of late. We wonder whether the TARDIS is now fatally damaged though, or if that got put back together as the big button was hit. If it is broken, and basically dying - and the Doctor did say "there's no way I can save her now" - then that may point towards significant ramifications ahead. Also, did Clara really forget everything? Time will tellt here. One more TARDIS thing, too: the key the Doctor uses says Smiths on it. A hint for the future?

There's lot to mull over here, and we enjoyed Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS an awful lot, accepting it had one or two niggles. After all, we described it last week as nerd-bait, and we saw nothing in the 45 minutes of the episode to readdress that view. We pretty much wanted to watch it again the second it'd finished.

Next week? Strax, Vastra and Jenny return (surely someone, somewhere, has had a chat about a spin-off show for them by now) in Mark Gatiss'The Crimson Horror. And there's the small matter of Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, too. More nerd gold might just be seven days away. Hope so...

[One quick note. There's been a slight update to this review since it first went live, as pointed out by some of the commenters below. The reason was a misread of something in the episode, that I caught on the live broadcast and didn't update in time! Apologies for that, but it seemed fairer to point out myself that I'm an idiot, rather than quietly delete it and hope you all wouldn't notice! - Simon]

Our review of the last episode, Hide, is here.

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Note: this article contains detailed spoilers for Iron Man 3, and is intended for those who've already seen the film. Our spoiler-free review is here.

“Ever since the guy with the hammer fell out of the sky, subtlety kind of went out of the window,” one character notes in Iron Man 3 - a great line which could easily sum up the unsubtle nature of the film itself.

With Shane Black at the helm as director and co-writer (with Drew Pearce), Iron Man 3 feels like a kinetic, riotously entertaining compendium of every superhero movie idea to date, all packed into an explosive and extremely funny two-or-so hours.

Following on from the events of The Avengers, Iron Man 3 sees Tony Stark suffer from a debilitating case of post-traumatic stress. The arrival of hammer-wielding gods and aliens from another realm, it seems, has left him in an existential funk. “I’m just a man in a can,” he sighs, as he tinkers with his luxury basement full of robo-toys.

Meanwhile, some old acquaintances from the past, including scientists Mia (Rebecca Hall) and nerdy Killian (Guy Pearce) have been working on some sort of miracle genetic serum which helps to restore body parts and provide super-strength, yet has the occasional side-effect of turning people into walking incendiary devices. On the side of evil, there’s the dreaded Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley), who looks like a mixture of Osama Bin Laden and a wizard from The Hobbit, and plots a media-led campaign of destruction. 

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Well, that’s the gist of the plot, at least; while the lights are down, Iron Man 3 is a churning, set-piece-heavy film that lurches from one catastrophe to the next, as Tony Stark’s mixture of self-doubt and cockiness (an oil-and-water set of neuroses, surely) brings him on a collision course with the bad guys.

Although the Iron Man films have been shepherded by Jon Favreau up until now (and he appears again here, entertainingly, as TV-loving security guy Happy Hogan), Shane Black commendably places his own mark on this third film. Tony Stark’s always been a man of quips and banter, but Black’s brand of acid-tongued pith and sarcasm is evident in many of the film's one-liners (“I’ll show you my research, but I won’t show you my home town,” Mia says to Stark). Then there are other Black-isms, such as the yuletide setting, the bickering henchmen and some absurd, detective-fiction-inspired situations which could have come straight from the fantastic Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

There’s an irreverent sense of humour to the film’s turns of events, too, which might irk some comic book readers (more on these later), but provide Iron Man 3 with its most hearty laughter, at the screening I attended at least. As one particular plot twist hoves into view, it’s difficult not to wonder: is Iron Man 3 intended as a parody of Bush-era foreign politics? Certainly, The Mandarin's resemblance to Bin Laden, and William Sadler's President's vaguely George W-style side-parting, appears to lend weight to the theory. 

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Then there’s Don Cheadle’s Colonel Rhodes, who looks resplendent in his colourful Iron Patriot suit, but ends up crashing around the Middle East and not doing much at all for a large part of the film. In fact, his suit becomes a sort of prison for both himself and, later, the kidnapped President (another Shane Black staple, is kidnapping), and there’s a certain gleeful sense of anarchy in the bit where we see him strung up, spread-eagled, and looking faintly absurd in the Iron Patriot’s now useless battle armour.

"We create our own demons" is the lingering, introspective message the movie has to give us, and this, along with the repeated references to the War on Terror and allusions to recent campaigns in the Middle East, makes this an unusually weighty entry in the Marvel Universe.

Finally, there’s Ben Kinglsey’s The Mandarin, a familiar figure from the Iron Man comics, pressed into an unusual mould here. With his unfeasibly long beard and grandiose speeches, Iron Man 3’s version of the character is a media-savvy warlord with a taste for the theatrical. But from the first time we see him, we sense something a bit off: his clothing, that throne, those rings: it’s all a little too showy, a tad absurd. His American accent is atrocious. Has Black made a terrible misstep here?

By the glorious reveal at the mid-point, we learn that, no, it was all part of the story: Mandarin is little more than a construct (“A think tank thinked him up!”), a character portrayed by Kingsley’s sleazy, dishevelled London thespian Trevor Slattery. Kingsley’s performance here is a superb piece of comedy, as is Stark's reaction when he discovers that this feared terrorist is pure smoke and mirrors - a puppet for the true villain, Killian, who wants to use the fear of terrorism to sell his Extremis technology. (In a bit snipped out of our interview due to its spoiler-filled nature, Shane Black told us that he loved the idea of Tony Stark fighting a villain wearing a "Lacoste shirt and chinos".)

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Put all this together, and you have a superhero movie that is both smart and playful; it explores similarly current themes to the Dark Knight trilogy, but does so in a far more humorous, Technicolor manner. And like The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3 finds a way to bring Stark's story to a close, while at the same time leaving the door open for more adventures: Stark could put his Iron Man suit on again in a future movie, or maybe the wide-eyed young inventor Harley (Ty Simpkins) will one day take up his mantle.

Some readers of the Iron Man comics might be somewhat dismayed at the film's rather casual treatment of The Mandarin (and fan reaction so far does appear to have been mixed) but for us, Black's mischievous reveal was one of the funniest surprises we've seen in a comic book movie for some time. What Black and co-writer Drew Pearce have achieved, in pulling together the funny and the tense, the wryly satirical and the action-packed, all in one summer movie, really shouldn't be underestimated.

When Black was signed up to make Iron Man 3 back in 2011, its producers probably sensed that Black’s cynical style of writing made him the closest the filmmaking world has to a real Tony Stark. And it has to be said, they were quite right.

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This review contains spoilers.

1.3 The Prisoner

One of the best things about Da Vinci's Demons is the way the programme is shot. It's very well crafted, and it's obvious that money was spent in the making. For example, when the show is going to feature a location, they do their best to make it as perfect as possible. If you go into a haunted nunnery full of demon-possessed nuns, it is going to be set-dressed to within an inch of its life. Torn books blowing ragged pages in the wind, demonic Latin written on the walls in blood, an off-screen smoke machine creating rolling clouds of fog, and lots of creepy artwork will decorate the place. It will look smashing no matter what is going to happen; director Jamie Payne is no slouch when it comes to TV direction. 

This week's episode takes a bit of a side-step from the pursuit of the Book of Leaves and the conflict between Rome and the Sons of Mithras and emphases the conflict between Rome and the people of Florence, specifically their Medici leadership. That means spies, intrigue, and... possessed nuns? Indeed, in one of the show's many running themes, Leonardo the great humanist squares off against the superstitiousness of the fifteenth century Catholic Church and the people of Florence when a rash of demonic possessions wracks a nearby nunnery. Is it God punishing Florence, or the machinations of the evil Pope Sixtus? 

Strangely, for a show that goes out of its way to look great, there's a pretty similar pattern of how characters look. Aside from Leonardo and his distinctive Indiano Jonesetti leather jacket, Nico's looking like Lommy Greenhands, and Lorenzo always wearing a bright red, I'm having difficulty telling my Dragonettis from my Giulinos and Zoroasters. Ditto telling apart Lorenzo Medici's two women, Lucrezia and Clarice. They're two very pretty, petite, brunettes (Lorenzo must have a type) and I've had kind of a bit of trouble keeping them separate, except for when Lucrezia wears that thing on her forehead or when they're together in the same scene. This has rendered one of the show's many subplots very confusing and hard for me to follow, and I really hope it's not just me. 

I can generally tell the other men apart based on how much they try to beat up Leonardo; believe me, I'm getting a bit tired of Guilino Medici's untoward aggression vis a vis Leo. He doesn't like him, but I don't like a lot of people and I rarely go around trying to strangle them to death in mid-sentence. They seem to have made some strides in that relationship this week, and I kind of hope that particular dislike tempers down to something a little less community theater. It's borderline comical, but not funny so much as it is irritating. 

Still, the thrust of the script, Guilino aside, is solid. Da Vinci's trial and error process this week is good, as are the scenes with Riario and the mysterious prisoner, albeit a bit heavy-handed. I like the use of parallel action between those voice-overs and Da Vinci's actions. Perhaps the best thing the show did was have what is essentially a stand-alone episode that also moves its main plot forward (that of Leonardo versus Rome in all its forms). It's actually a pretty clever bit of storytelling, thanks to Scott Gimple (the new showrunner of The Walking Dead) and David Goyer. 

There are still a lot of flaws with the way the show presents itself. It goes too far into the Game of Thrones style of storytelling in which we see some characters a few times an episode for a minute or two at a time and no more until next week. That works on Thrones because we're in the third season and we know all the characters - and that show did a better job of differentiating characters, locations, and stories from the get-go. However, there's something to be said for Da Vinci's Demons creativity, and this week's episode is definitely an improvement over previous efforts. It's far from perfect, but there's some substance there to work with, clay that can be molded. 

Read Ron's review of the previous episode, The Serpent, here. 

US Correspondent Ron Hogan is not surprised to see that gratuitous nudity and gratuitous violence can work so well together. It's the basis of every exploitation movie ever! Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.

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This review contains spoilers.

4.20 The Originals

We’ve all been nervously awaiting the appearance of this backdoor pilot episode for The Originals aka The Adventures of Klaus the Lonely Snowflake, and here it is. Taking a moment away from the tedious and troubling goings on back in Mystic Falls, we spend an hour in New Orleans with Klaus and Elijah (with Rebekah to join them soon), and it was pretty darn good. The Originals borrowed a few problems from its parent show but, by and large, this was a darker, more adult take on the world the exec producer Julie Plec and co. have already spent four years building.

I’m going to ignore the unnecessary bookends, which I thought took away some of the power of the self-contained episode at their centre, and it’s really nice to review an episode of The Vampire Diaries without dwelling on the various love triangles. The Originals won’t be trifling with such matters of the heart, for this is a show about family and the power that familial loyalty can offer you. We’re told that the original family built New Orleans many years ago but, with their father chasing them away at every turn, they had to leave soon after. In their absence, Klaus’ protégé, Marcel, took over as king of the castle.

Klaus has returned because of the tip Katherine left for him last week, and he soon discovers that Hayley is also there. It seems that their drunken one night stand has led to an unexpected consequence – Hayley is pregnant with Klaus’ child. Well done show – I didn’t think you could remind me more of Angel, but you managed it anyway. This is the element of The Originals (which has been picked up for series by The CW) that will cause most controversy with the fans, but it’s the issue around which the rest of the thematic elements are built. Elijah wants to rebuild the Mikaelson family, and a new baby would allow them to do that.

The dynamic between the two brothers was the most exciting thing about this episode, and it reminded me of a time when The Vampire Diaries was also about the broken bond between Damon and Stefan. Elijah and Klaus are a little more ‘mature’, since they’ve had endless eons to work out their differences, but it also means that they are, as individuals, more damaged. Elijah’s sensible words do eventually break through Klaus’ stubbornness, and their quiet mission-statement conversations are a real treat for fans of these characters. It makes you realise what a good idea shoving them off to a separate show really was.

And that mission statement is a war between two rulers – Marcel and his former mentor. This is bigger and grander than anything being handled in Mystic Falls, where the worst thing they have to deal with is who’s dating who, and hopefully sets us up for exciting things to come. Marcel is a fabulous baddie, possibly even more devilish than Klaus, and allows Klaus to be the sympathetic hero despite all the things he’s previously done. I naively thought that they’d have to change him fundamentally for this to happen, but it turns out that good writing trumps all. His journey will be an emotional one, with the promise of a family at the end.

The Originals even looks and sounds ever-so-slightly different from its predecessor, with an environment ruled by vampires and under the thumb of one particularly nasty character. I doubt that the series will be filmed in New Orleans once it really gets underway, but we can all dream. It still fits on The CW, with lots of pretty young people with perfect makeup and white teeth, but everything feels more disordered and dangerous than the high-school setting of Mystic Falls, still governed by human rules.

My only worry is that taking such strong characters away from The Vampire Diaries will cause more damage than they thought. There are a lot of fans who are invested in the Caroline/Klaus relationship, for example, and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get a satisfying resolution to this now. The phone call at the end of the episode suggests that there will be story elements that carry over from show to show, but The Originals also has to stand on its own. If it is to work as well as Buffy and Angel did in their heyday, then both shows have to work without the other.

Read Caroline's review of the previous episode, Pictures of You, here.

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Strax shooting a gun! Diana Rigg doing a Yorkshire accent! Mark Gatiss serving up another horror-themed Who!

Now that we've been on an - intermittently baffling but indubitably exciting - journey through the TARDIS, it's on to the next episode: The Crimson Horror. See both BBC promo videos below...

The Crimson Horror airs on BBC One and BBC America on Saturday the 4th of May (no jokes please). Read our spoiler-filled review of Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS, here.

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When Marvel Studios began taking control of its cinematic universe in 2005, the movie landscape was rather different. Earlier adaptations of Marvel’s comic books were handled by all sorts of different studios, with varying degrees of success. But when, in the middle of the last decade, Marvel Studios began buying back the rights to its characters (Thor from Sony, Iron Man from New Line), it embarked on a quite unique eight-year project: to establish a string of movie adaptations all set within a cohesive universe, culminating in The Avengers, which would bring all those characters together for the first time.

It was an ambitious, even risky proposition, given that one box-office misfire among the five films leading up to The Avengers could have caused the entire project to falter. But if there's one thing that defines Marvel Studios' approach so far, it's a willingness to take creative chances with its much-loved material.

It was with the release of Iron Man in 2008 that Marvel Studios made its first, confident mark. At the time, the appointment of Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark may have seemed surprising, given he hadn’t starred in a major hit movie since his career faltered somewhat in the late 90s. But it was a decision that proved to be a masterstroke; Downey Jr has charisma and considerable abilities as an actor, but not the kind of status that might distract from the role itself. Instead, he became the arrogant millionaire genius Tony Stark in a fashion that could be seen as a definitive reading of the character. As director Jon Favreau said in 2008, "He found a lot of his own life experience in Tony Stark."

Downey Jr was one of dozens of interesting, apparently dicey choices from Marvel Studios. Kevin Feige, the studio's president and producer who’s overseen all the films in the recent phase of comic-book adaptations, clearly understands the value of Marvel’s properties, but isn’t afraid to make some leftfield creative choices when it comes to bringing them to the screen. 

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Just look at the approach taken with Thor. Kenneth Branagh was handed the role of director, while ex-Home And Away actor Chris Hemsworth was to play the hammer-wielding lead. In retrospect, these were perfectly sane choices, given the hit that it would soon become. But on paper, Kenneth Branagh was unproven as a director of effects-filled summer movies, in spite of his form in Shakespearian drama or gothic proto sci-fi (Hamlet, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), while Hemsworth, although a proven actor, wasn’t by himself a box-office draw.

What Fiege relied on was the recognisability of the Marvel Universe, and the latent promise that each film was leading up to the superhero collision of The Avengers, as suggested in those now famous post-credit stinger scenes.With that in mind, Fiege’s approach seems to involve looking back into an actor or filmmaker’s past, and looking at how their talents could be applied to a specific comic adaptation, rather than the bankability of their output; Branagh may not have been a noted director of special effects movies, but his reputation as a director of actors, particularly in dialogue-heavy Shakespeare adaptations, made him perfect for the grandly eloquent characters in Thor.

This certainly applies to director Joe Johnston, who may not have been the biggest filmmaking name in Hollywood before 2011 (his biggest hit was Jurassic Park III, released a decade earlier), but who’d proven his ability to craft an exciting and much-loved period action piece - The Rocketeer, another comic book adaptation - even if that particular film was more cult favourite than blockbuster.

As it turned out, this was another great decision. Captain America: The First Avenger provided a stirring and human take on Steve Rogers' origin story, establishing Chris Evans in the title role, and once again building up anticipation for the following year’s Avengers.

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And as history has proven, the appointment of Joss Whedon as the co-writer and director of The Avengers was yet another shrewd move. Like Johnston and Branagh, Whedon’s previous work had enjoyed enormous cult success, but through misfortune rather than lack of talent, he hadn’t yet broken through with a major hit, at least in cinema. But once again, Marvel saw his potential as a writer and director, not to mention his obvious passion and understanding for the characters he’d have to command on screen.

The Avengers arrived with such widescreen swagger and good humour that its success almost seemed preordained. But in reality, there was much that could have gone wrong; for one thing, the movie had to fulfil the promise of all those post-credits scenes and one-shots, not to mention the years of fan anticipation. The notion of seeing so many superheroes on one screen may have been The Avengers’ draw, but it could also have been its downfall; indeed, there were some who’d predicted that balancing all those rival egos, gods and scientists would result in an incoherent mess.

As it turned out, The Avengers proved to be a major pop culture moment, and vitally for the continuation of the Marvel movies, was a colossal hit. Even those who’d rushed to their keyboards to denounce the signing of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner were forced to admit that, really, Ruffalo was perfect casting.

This isn’t to say that there haven’t been a few bumps on the road to success, however. Iron Man 2, although another hit, didn't quite recreate the magic of its predecessor. A wobble like that may have led some studios to circle its wagons and think about how it could make a film more like the original Iron Man. But to its credit, Marvel didn’t change its strategy, but hired Shane Black: a familiar industry name, but whose only movie directing credit was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (another critical rather than financial hit).

By now, you’ll probably know where this is all going: Iron Man 3 has, so far, proved to a far bigger hit with critics than Iron Man 2. And while it’s too early to start counting final till receipts, we see no reason why it shouldn’t also be another major hit at the box-office. It's up to $200m so far, even before it's made it to America.

Part of Iron Man 3‘s success is due, in part, to the free reign Black and his co-writer Drew Pearce were given in making the property their own. Some studios may have been a little touchy about the way the writing duo treated one or two of the characters in their screenplay, and certainly, early screening reactions suggest that some fans may have been a little irked by this. But whatever your opinion of their storytelling decisions, Black and Pearce's refusal to stick rigidly to a superhero template - but in fact play games with it as much as adhering to it - has resulted in a far fresher movie than many critics could have predicted. 

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Iron Man 3 sees Marvel on the cusp of what it calls Phase Two. Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: Winter’s Soldier are on the horizon, while Avengers 2 is currently in the planning stages. Then there’s Guardians Of The Galaxy - which, with James Gunn at the helm, may be the most eccentric superhero film yet - and beyond that, Edgar Wright's Ant-Man (2015) will herald the start of Phase Three.

From the very beginning, Marvel has refused to take obvious or easy paths - an anomaly, in a filmmaking system seldom noted for its risk-taking. Where there was once a tendency to either give superhero movies to well-known actors or directors, or just punt them out relatively cheaply (see the 1990 Captain America for an example of that approach), Marvel Studios has repeatedly tried to make intelligent and creative choices, choosing filmmakers and actors with skill rather than hits behind them. This has not only kept the bills relatively low (imagine what an Iron Man directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise would have cost), but has also resulted in fresh, surprising films.

Will Phase Two see Marvel’s decisions bear similarly bountiful fruit? Only time will tell. But given the continuing quality of its output, we certainly wouldn’t bet against Marvel for a while yet.

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Since its inception in 1985, Studio Ghibli has established itself as Japan's foremost animation studio. This year sees the 25th anniversary of two key films, My Neighbor Totoro and Grave Of The Fireflies, which were released as a double-bill in Japanese cinemas in 1988. To mark the occasion, founder members Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata both have films due for release this year - The Wind Is Rising and The Tale Of Princess Kaguya.

Although Ghibli's name will always be associated with its own brand of lyrical animation, we've also seen the studio branch out into new territory of late. A collaboration with videogame developer Level-5 resulted in the spectacular RPG, Ni No Kuni. Ghibli may have dipped its toe in interactive waters in 2002 with the rather obscure Magic Pengel: The Quest For Color, but Ni No Kuni looks and feels like a true Ghibli game, from its adorable character designs to its child's-eye view of a mystical second world.

Then there's something called A Giant God Warrior Appears In Tokyo (Kyōshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru), an eight-minute short that marks the studio's first foray into live-action filmmaking. The film was created to publicise a 2012 exhibition at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, called Hideaki Anno's Special Effects. As the name implies, the exhibition served as celebration of Japanese miniature effects in the nation's kaiju and tokusatsu movies and TV shows, with exhibits ranging from prototype Ultraman figures to miniature helicopters from Godzilla.

Hideaki Anno is a popular figure in Japan, and best known for his series Neon Genesis Evangelion. But before that, he worked as an animator on Hayao Miyazaki's proto-Ghibli film, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind. An adaptation of Miyazaki's own manga of the same name, Nausicaa was a breathtakingly realised sci-fi fantasy that helped form the foundations of Studio Ghibli.

Anno teamed up with Miyazaki again for A Giant God Warrior, which uses painstakingly realised miniatures and practical effects to show a colossal monster wrecking havoc on Japan's capital. Although it's clearly meant to resemble a classic kaiju moive, it also has its roots in Miyazaki's animated work; the film is a prequel to Nausicaa, showing the destruction which led to the post-apocalyptic world seen in the 1984 feature.

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The Giant God is based on a Miyazaki design, and it's easy to see the similarity when you compare a shot from the live-action short (above) and an opening scene from Nausicaa (below). Unfortunately, Studio Ghibli have been quick to pull any instance of the short from YouTube, though you may be able to catch a look at it over on Dread Central's site. Failing that, there's the video below, which gives an impression of the effort that went into the scale recreation of Tokyo:

The leaked version is a shade under nine minutes long, and according to a 2012 story over on the Anime News Network, a longer, 10-minute version was shown in front of Evangelion: 3.0 in Japanese cinemas last year.

Sadly, there are no signs of Giant God getting a release in the UK, but it's just possible that it might appear alongside Evangelion 3.0 when it eventually reaches these shores - we already know that the short will appear on the Evangelion 3.0 Blu-ray disc in Japan.

Giant God Warrior also raises an intriguing question: might it be the start of a new strand of live-action filmmaking for Studio Ghibli? The film's voiceover and scale suggests a much larger story condensed down into what feels like an extended trailer; could Anno and director Shinji Higuchi have a full-length version of the movie in mind? Or alternatively, could the studio have another non-animated feature in the pipeline?

Certainly, with Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim out this summer and Gareth Edwards'Godzilla out next year, the time might be right for a kaiju prequel to the classic Nausicaa. But failing all that, and assuming this is purely a one-off for Ghibli, we hope we'll see a proper release of A Giant God Appears In Tokyo - with HD visuals and English subtitles - appear in the west very soon.

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Numerous game developers have attempted to look beyond the standard humanoid protagonist. From sentient blobs which can stick to walls and crawl through pipes (as seen in the 8- or 16-bit games A Boy And His Blob, Silly Putty or Jerry Boy) to the mystical wolf of Okami, there are plenty of classic games that prove that engaging central characters don't necessarily have to look like us.

This leads us on to Japan Studios' current work in progress, Rain. A third-person action platformer in development for the PlayStation Network, Rain is perhaps the first game to feature a central character who can barely be seen. Its invisible boy protagonist is picked out by droplets of rain, giving him a shimmering outline like a glass statue come to life.

Introducing a benighted city where it never stops raining, the game has a quiet, melancholy tone akin to Ico. And the invisible boy isn't alone in this dreary world, either; there are vicious monsters lurking here, too, which are also picked out by the droplets falling from the sky. 

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From what we've seen so far, the game is about the boy's quest to locate an invisible girl, and in order to find her, he has to navigate the rain-swept environment, which is full of platforms, ladders and physics=based puzzles. A little like Limbo and Braid, the game unfolds organically, with titles and scene descriptions overlaying the action as the player explores the grimy, faintly 1940s-looking city.

An early gameplay video shows how the external parts of the game, where the protagonist is just about visible in the rain, disappears entirely when indoors, his position only discernible thanks to his tell-tale wet footprints.

As the boy - and the player - heads off in pursuit of the mysterious girl, invisible beasts pursue him through the city. With its unusual camera angles, elegiac piano score and the backwash of constant miserable weather, there's a melancholy, quite beautiful tone to the game, enriched further by some finely detailed environmental design and subtle lighting.

There are hints at stealth elements buried in here, too; the boy seems utterly unable to defend himself by conventional means, and must therefore find ways to hide or outsmart the wolf-like monsters on his trail. His invisibility appears to come into play here, since the beasts can't see the boy when he's in the dry; the player must therefore hunt around the environment for sheltered areas where the boy can retreat from danger. These stealth elements may be a nod to developer Acquire's history (they're one of the teams co-creating Rain) - the studio's earliest success was the Tenchu series of stealth games, whose traditional Japanese aesthetic and fleet-footed gameplay was continued in the later (and more obscure) Shinobido series.

Although there's an official website, and the occasional screenshot and video has appeared, Sony's been oddly quiet about Rain so far. At the time of writing, we're not even exactly sure when it's likely to come out - though we're hoping that it might be scheduled for release late this year or early next, considering its developers have recently said it's 'half-way through development'.

Rain looks like it could be the latest in a string of gentle, artistic download-only games for the PlayStation 3. Thatgamecompany carved out its own niche with a trio of games - Flow, Flower and Journey - which brought with them a unique sense of poetry with their use of minimal shapes and sonorous music.

Rain appears to follow along similarly atmospheric lines, and serves as a more subtle counterpoint to Japan Studios' other work-in-progress, Puppeteer, which is a comic, macabre and chaotic side-scrolling platformer - think of a LittleBigPlanet level designed by Tim Burton, and you'll have a rough idea of what to expect.

For us, though, it's Rain that's captured our imaginations so far. Admittedly, its platforming-and-stealth gameplay doesn't look groundbreaking, but its setting and premise are what set it apart. Plus, there are all the questions its trailer raises: where is it set? Why is the boy invisible? Is he some sort of ghost? Where did those monsters come from?

It's likely, of course, that Rain will be like another download-only gem, Limbo, in that it simply establishes a surreal and moody world, but doesn't explain who its protagonist is or how he got there. But as Journey proved, it's not necessarily the answers that matter in these sorts of games, but the strength of the experience itself.

You can keep up to date with Rain's development here. When we get a firm release date, we'll be sure to pass it along.

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One of the many concerns regarding Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy is how well director James Gunn and his team will use heavily-CG characters and backdrops in an effective way that doesn't make it all look ridiculous. A recent example of this not quite going to plan was Green Lantern, which boasted a great cast, including a solid lead in Ryan Reynolds, but fell apart - partly due to a plodding story, and partly due to unconvincing CG work.

Kevin Feige has addressed concerns regarding the use of CGI in Guardians Of The Galaxy in a recent interview with io9, and it's clearly a concern. “Iron Man 3 has as much CG as any movie we've ever made", he said, "and I hope it doesn't feel like Green Lantern. It's all about the aesthetic you go for."

He continued, adding that, "we have an art department as impressive as any art department I've ever seen in London on Guardians. And it's, you know, designing things and believing that they're real when part of the team's made up of a raccoon and a tree.”

Time will tell how effective the CG will be on this one, but the lessons of Green Lantern do appear to have been absorbed somewhere along the line. Guardians Of The Galaxy is set for release in August 2014.

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There's not long to go now before we see just what director Zack Snyder has been up to with his Superman reboot, Man Of Steel. And with so much banking on the movie for Warner Bros, it's hardly surprising that the publicity machine is fully in force already. Snyder himself, for instance, has given another interview about the movie, this time to SFX. And he's kicked off by talking about its fight scenes.

“It's a more violent experience. It's raw. It takes effort to do and that's what we're going for", he explained. "It's almost like there's this kind of Right Stuff quality to it. He's constantly booming around, accelerating. You think he's going as fast as he can and then it's like 'Yeeaahh!' he's always got an extra gear he can use".

But what about the look of Krypton in the new movie? Well, Snyder wants it to "be this kind of special place that's immersive and totally different from Earth, but not unbelievable. And ancient. I really wanted to give this ancient feeling to Krypton. I love technology that's rusty because it's so old. It's so advanced, but it's so old. That was the kind of world that I tried to create. A dying world that's ancient and torn apart".

Rounding off by enthusing about Henry Cavill's performance in the lead role ("It's awesome. Watch the movie and you're like 'Holy shit, that's Superman!' And it's not weird or crazy, it's just cool"), Snyder seems in upbeat mood. Not surprising, given the hugely positive response to the trailers thus far. We'll find out what the film itself is like when it's released on June 14th.

SFX

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We’ve been covering Spartacus since it first bodyslammed on to our TVs back in 2010. It seems a little wrong to describe its fans as 'legions'– perhaps 'hordes' would be better? – but regardless, it’s certainly put Liam McIntyre, who took over the lead role following the tragic passing of Andy Whitfield, on the map. We caught up with him to find out how he’s handling his new-found fame and what’s next for the legendary bringer of rain.

How was filming the final episode? 

We worked really hard to do something that was powerful and I spent so much time with the director and with Steven [DeKnight, writer] looking over the script. I was a fan from season one, and there were all these moments that we really wanted to bring full circle, back to where the story started, with Andy. So, in the very first episode, the first scene is him looking at his trembling hands as the world crashes down around him, and then another important motif was the velvet ribbon – I asked if we could get that in somewhere. 

I think that was the right way to end the story, and I hope Andy would like it. I spent so much of my energy trying to make it a show he’d be proud of, because I loved looking after it for him. And I’m so glad he was there, right at the very end of the final credits. 

Of the whole series, looking back, which was the most difficult scene to film? 

The finale in general was hard, not just because it was my last chance to do a good job and finish up this incredible journey, but it was the biggest script I’ve ever seen for TV. The scale of it was immense – the first draft came in at more than sixty pages and it was all action. Plus we didn’t have much time to do it – eleven days as opposed to thirteen or fourteen – so I was learning fight scenes with my stunt director and double on the fly and then just winging it. 

I probably did more gruelling shoots on other episodes – the one where we were trying to rescue Naevia from the mines, for example – but as far as emotionally draining and physically draining that last episode was something else. It was probably the first time in my acting life that I couldn’t get rid of the emotions that I was feeling on set – it was so busy there wasn’t really time to break and then prepare again, so I realised it was either going to be half-performed or I was going to be feeling this terrible, terrible feeling for the next three days.

So I had to stay in this sort of half worn out state. My poor fiancée was like, “are you all right?” and I was like, “not really...” But you just have to get through it. That’s why I got the job, I guess, in the end what’s three days, when you get to tell a story like that? 

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The show’s idiosyncratic language is one of the things that makes it great – have you found yourself saying things like “gratitude” when off set? 

Little words do creep in, so yes, I don’t say thank you so much as I say gratitude any more, and you start saying apologies because you’re late for something instead of sorry. And then you notice other people are saying it too, and it’s like a little club, and anyone who doesn’t understand you just doesn’t get it. 

How did you decide on Spartacus’ accent? 

Well, it’s part Andy and part me. The official accent they wanted is called “mid-Atlantic”, which I guess is an English accent which sounds familiar to Americans, so it has some of the dialectical choices of an English accent but is also starting to form its own character. 

That said, with the Aussies originally being a penal colony, I think there’s something about the Australian accent for Spartacus that has a perfect gruff, not lazy, but... inelegant quality about it. So if you mix that with an English accent you lend the impression that perhaps they began to speak more like their Roman masters, who are generally portrayed as English. 

It seemed right, anyway. You know, I’ve auditioned for a few things since Spartacus and they’ve said, “Wow, you’re really good at accents” and it’s like, well, I’m never going to get to use my Australian one, am I? But it’s not just Aussies who get typecast on accent. I was talking to Simon [Merrells], who plays Crassus and he was like, “well, that’s it, I’m going to be a villain for the rest of my life.” 

If you were going to create a Spartacus spin off, what would you make? 

I personally want a story that bridges the gap between now and Rome becoming an empire under Augustus Caesar. So that would cover the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus and Pompey, all the way through to the assassination of Caesar and then his adopted son, Augustus, taking over Rome and it becoming a fully-fledged empire. 

I think that would be fascinating and I would love to see it, although I guess some of that’s been touched on by HBO’s Rome. So maybe move it a bit before, have Caesar go off to conquer Gaul – that could be a bit of fun. I think Todd Lasance [Caesar] is amazing in our show and if there has to be more Caesar I’d gladly submit to him! 

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You’re clearly interested in Roman life - did you know much about it before you started working on the show? 

I’m a huge nerd. I taught myself all about ancient history as best I could as a kid - it’s one of my favourite subjects, so I was just so happy to get a role where the playground was the world I used to fantasise about – the world of legions and soldiers and conquest and arenas – the birthplace of the Republic. 

My dream role – all I ever wanted to be – was Maximus from Gladiator, Russell Crowe... He was incredible. So in some ways it’s quite ridiculous that I’m Spartacus. I’ve been lucky enough to visit Rome twice now and you know what is very meta, and very odd? When people take photos of you in the Colosseum – someone recognising me as Spartacus and being like, “can I have a photo?” 

Spartacus is a real hero – someone who stood for valuing every human life equally. Who are the heroes in your life, or the people you admire? 

I’ve got all the usual ones like my mum, dad, step dad, my best friend James, my fiancée Erin – they’re my actual, real life, living, breathing, walking around heroes that I can look to every day. But in terms of figurehead heroes I guess my childhood hero was always Michael Jordan, because he was this incredible, almost superhuman, sportsman who was at the pinnacle of his profession, and so dedicated, such a great leader.

Then as I became an actor I found a hero in Hugh Jackman – he’s a great actor but he also seems like he has a real life, and is so grounded. In terms of pure, raw, acting power Daniel Day Lewis is my other hero – I think he’s probably the greatest living actor of our generation – a true icon. 

Has playing Spartacus led you to think about modern slavery and human trafficking? 

It’s almost harrowing to think about how relevant this story still is, whether it’s slavery to a modern day system like the banking system with people in cycles of debt and poverty. But then you think – that’s in my comfortable world. If you look to other parts of the world, to the less affluent nations, it’s the reality of what goes on in a lot of those places. 

It’s quite scary to think that the storyline of Spartacus is still realistic - that there are millions of slaves all around the world that no one even hears about, because unlike in Roman times, when it was just the way things were so it was not hidden from society, it’s an underground thing now and your average person in your comfortable house just doesn’t hear about it. 

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What are your plans now that Spartacus is over?

I wish I could tell you – I’m currently waiting to hear if I’ve got a really cool job. But honestly, I’m still struggling to understand how different my life is now to the life I had a couple of years ago. I was working in a cinema, deciding what films we were going to put on with my boss, which was a very cool job. But I was also trying to act for anyone who would take me... And then suddenly someone says “you’re Spartacus”, and here I am two years later speaking to incredible casting directors and trying my luck at getting a great pilot or a great movie... Stuff I couldn’t have dreamed of doing. It’s very hard to believe and still feels very new. 

Even the interviews and all the crazy events they get you to do for the show... I love it! I was one of those kids who used to talk too much at school. I was a good kid, but I always got detentions for never shutting up, so this is basically my perfect job. 

When I got the first Spartacus contract it said something like “you are required to go to ComicCon” - as in, like, you couldn’t get out of it and I was like “What?! Wait, that’s my job?” I’ve wanted to go to Comic Con for the last ten years! It was probably good that my agent was negotiating that deal and not me because I would have been like “forget the rest, I’ll do it for Comic Con!” So I probably wouldn’t have made any money at all. 

Have you dabbled at all in the writing/directing side of showbusiness? 

I used to write all these ideas down for TV shows and films, just because I liked writing. But now people care and I might even be able to get one of them made – it’s amazing. My favourite idea? Well, I don’t want it to get pinched, but there’s one about angels and demons, with a vaguely X-Men vibe, and then there’s another one which is a cowboy story, but we’ll see. If anyone wants to buy them, that’d be nice. 

Who are your favourite comic/superheroes? 

Oh... Batman, James Bond, but I was less into comic books as a kid and more into video games. At the moment there’s a long list I’m playing. Dishonored, the new Assassin’s Creed, I’m playing Starcraft with my mate, oh, and FIFA, too, as Arsenal (don’t hate me). I occasionally talk about how much I’m enjoying a game on Twitter and then I’ll get people bitching back at me saying “I was really enjoying talking to you but apparently you’re an Arsenal fan!”, and then I’ll know they’re English! 

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What would you suggest withdrawing fans get into in order to miss the show less? 

I’m so excited about Game Of Thrones. I’ve got a friend that’s in Vikings, and I’ve only seen one episode, but I’m interested to see if it can be a spiritual successor to Spartacus or not. And then there’s Black Sails coming up – the pirate show – and if they knock that out of the park I’ll be very jealous that I’m not in it! Who doesn’t love pirates, right? 

Other than that, I’m still trying to make my way through Battlestar Galactica, which I only discovered about a year ago. My fiancée and I have been watching it and it’s amazing. 

And finally... Go on, tell us... What’s Spartacus’ real name? 

John. No, wait, Ringo. You know what, this is one of those cheeky things that we were thinking about putting in the last episode and I was like “no, we can’t do it!” So anyone who was desperate to find out if it was Reginald or something – it’s partially my fault. 

But you can’t say his name that’s ridiculous. Nobody really wants to hear it – you think you do, but you don’t. If Spartacus has no name he’s everybody. We’re all Spartacus. 

Liam McIntyre, thank you very much.

Spartacus: War of the Damned and Spartacus: The Complete Collection come to DVD and Blu-ray on the 29th of April 2013.

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