Among the bold choices in Luca Guadagnino's feverish film of William S Burroughs' novel are the late 20th-century pop and alternative soundtrack (Nirvana, Prince, New Order) for a 1950s story, and the casting of an unrecognisable, orc-like Manville in a trumped-up cameo as the shaman Dr Cotter, who was male in the original book.
Over the past year, viewers fiercely debated the YA love triangle of The Summer I Turned Pretty and found steamy inspiration in the hockey romance Heated Rivalry. So perhaps it's no wonder that Netflix's Finding Her Edge - a show about the criss-crossing passions of Olympics-bound, ice-dancing teens - debuted to such fervid viewership. The series scored a swift renewal and, as of writing, is the streamer's No. 3 TV title globally.
The original Star Trek TV series debuted in 1966, so trying to get your head round all the sequels, prequels and timeline-splitting spin-offs can often feel like homework. It was only a matter of time before the venerable sci-fi franchise used a school as a setting. But Starfleet Academy, the latest streaming series, is not some random cosmic polytechnic for aliens to study humanities or vice versa.
Tattooed on Asia Kate Dillon's neck is "einfühlung," the German word for empathy. Not only is it a pretty bad*ss tattoo, it's also a guiding principal for an actor who strives to be a conduit for empathy in all their work, whether they're playing an inmate on Orange Is The New Black, a high-powered enforcer in John Wick: Chapter 3, or a financial analyst in the Showtime drama Billions, where they made history as the first non-binary main character an a mainstream American TV show.
Listen to the spectacular nonchalance with which she says, "Fine, I'll fuck you, but you have to bring someone who will open your ass for me." Or when she passes Elliot off to an out-of-town associate, with a "Screw her real good, but don't let her penetrate you, she's not that close a friend." Erika's a great, outsize character, and she's also an avatar for Araki's many gleeful provocations.
The story kicks off in a diner when a man claiming to be from the future barges in with a detonator and a warning about an impending AI-fueled doom spiral - and from there, it only gets weirder. Richardson says she tore through the script in one sitting. "My agent said, 'Haley, there's a good script. We want you to do it,' which is rare," she explains. "And then I read it all in one sitting... which is also rare."