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This article contains spoilers for episode 3 of The White Lotus. The White Lotus season 3 keeps revealing more and more connections to the first season. From the beginning, we’ve known that Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) was set to return just as Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) did in season 2. However, the first episode of season 3 […]

The post The White Lotus Just Teased a Closer Connection to Season 1 appeared first on Den of Geek.

A science fiction spaceship is a lot like a house party. When I see one, the first thing I want to know is what’s going on in the kitchen. Interior designers are the unsung heroes of sci-fi worldbuilding, and a bit of carefully dressed set can do the work of a dozen dramatic exposition-filled voiceovers or lengthy opening text crawls. And this is nowhere more evident than the kitchen.

Take a look at your own kitchen. What appliances have you got? A kitchen-bound time traveler could quickly determine when they are with a look at your microwave and fridge. A look at how much the dirty dishes have stacked up tells you about the routines and temperaments of the people who live here. A glance at the fridge will tell you how many kids are here, or show you the nearby takeout favorites.

But more than that, the kind of food available will tell you about the world at large—how far the supply chains reach and how quickly produce can be moved along them, and what kind of cross-cultural pollination this setting is subject to. You can learn about water, power, and heating infrastructure, how much room the people who live here have access to in the rest of the home. The kitchen is a microcosm of everything else that is happening in a place or time.

When I was writing the Fermi’s Progress series—four novellas about an FTL ship that vaporizes every planet it encounters—the spaceship’s kitchen became a key setting for the story due to all of these reasons mentioned above. And in mapping it out in my head, I thought a lot about how kitchens have worked on other well-known spacecraft.

Nostromo (Alien)

We have talked before about the enormous influence the Nostromo’s kitchen and otherwise has had on spaceship set design in general. Alien’s impact on sci-fi aesthetics as a whole is incalculable, sometimes to the detriment of the genre, but that influence is felt strongest where movie spaceship crews eat.

And with good cause. The meat of the action in Alien does not take place on some bridge or control room, or in a laboratory or Star Trek-style space conference room. It doesn’t even take place in its many spacious air shafts. It all happens in the kitchen. This is where we meet the Nostromo crew for the first time arguing about percentages. This is also, of course, where John Hurt has the worst case of indigestion in film history. It is where plans are suggested, argued over and agreed on. It is where Ash attempts his brutal and terrifying murder of Ripley and the crew overpowers, interrogates and ultimately, cooks him.

The set for the Nostromo’s kitchen might also just be one of the most intricately designed film sets in movie history. It still places the bar for environmental storytelling, from Ron Cobb’s now legendary “Semiotic Standard” to the cereal station, the wall of cups neatly ensconced in their little cupholders. Everything has its place, its premade slot. 

But the gap between its intended and actual use is also clear—the stark white is everywhere covered in grime; the walls plastered with pin-ups, stickers, and notes. It is not just the room where the story action takes place, it is the room where the characters live, often despite the wishes of the employer that put them there, and that is visible in every detail.

One of the most illustrative elements is the food itself. There are no ovens or hobs visible, and certainly no fresh meat or vegetables. This is a place for out-of-the-packet living. The Nostromo crew drinks canned beer and scoop food out of Tupperware containers, eating big bowls of what looks like cheap noodles, although the crew “don’t know what it’s made of.” Frankly, the food tells you how much the crew’s well-being is valued by their employer, foreshadowing what will become of them.

Serenity (Serenity)

The kitchen aboard the workhorse spaceship of the series Firefly and its movie spinoff Serenity is probably the second best known spaceship kitchen out there. Before we go any further it is important to also acknowledge we’re not here to celebrate Joss Whedon (who by many accounts is a shit), but Firefly’s impact on the sci-fi genre is undeniable (even if arguably that impact is recycling a bunch of stuff from the Millennium Falcon and throwing in some ideas from Cowboy Bebop and Southern Revisionism of the American Civil War).

The Serenity has a lot in common with the Nostromo. It is a blue-collar spaceship in a setting so retrofuturistic that it borders on being just plain retro. The kitchen of that spaceship is in many ways its hero set. But Serenity’s kitchen is not your workplace cafeteria; it is the dining room in the homestead. As much as Nathan Fillion’s Mal Reynolds might seem like a salt of the earth working man, he is a salt of the earth working man who can afford an entire working spaceship.

Comparing the two, the differences are immediate. Instead of pin-up posters, the walls have flowers painted on. There are warmer colors, wooden furniture, a hob for cooking on, and a sink for doing the dishes in. This is a domestic space as much as a workplace. People here tell stories and celebrate birthdays as much as they argue percentages on the latest job.

When it comes to food, every meal is “protein,” reflecting a universe where food has to travel for longer than fresh produce can be expected to last. But that protein is prepared with care, with spices used to improve the flavor—and when they come by fruit, it is a delicacy.

But what Serenity most illustrates about the role of the kitchen is that it says a lot about who a space belongs to. The Nostromo’s kitchen belongs to the Company, its crew just eats there. The Serenity’s kitchen is ostensibly the property of its captain, but it is maintained and occupied by its crew, and their personalities shine through in this space.

Icarus II (Sunshine)

The kitchen and dining area in Sunshine will not pass the “Definitely Not the Nostromo” smell test. Alien’s design aesthetic is felt strongly here. Yet once you start looking for differences they start to mount up. The lighting is softer, and the crew’s well-being is more of a concern. There is room for personalization in the form of bookshelves and personal storage spaces, but unlike the expansive Nostromo set, here everything is packed in closely, bringing to mind the weight and space restrictions that are a concern on any real-life space mission.

But the really revealing bit of worldbuilding here is the food. The crew of the Icarus II gets to dine on things that the Nostromo and Serenity crews could only dream about. This is not because their spaceship is any more luxurious, but because the crew are eating the vegetables grown in their own hydroponic garden—the same garden that recycles their oxygen supply.

It shows us how a spaceship can be many different things. The Serenity is hopping job to job, resupply to resupply. The Nostromo is a cog in a vast machine, equipped with the cheapest mass-produced components necessary for it to complete its job. Icarus II, however, is on a true mission into the unknown. It is designed to be a self-contained world because its crew is not sailing to the next port, they are sailing into a place hostile to life, and so need to take everything they need with them.

Rocinante (The Expanse)

Like the Icarus II, the Rocinante is a ship designed with the practicalities of space travel in mind. Where most sci-fi spaceships are laid out like a maritime vessel with decks running horizontally from the fore to the aft of the ship, the Rocinante is more like a tower, with its control room at the top and the engines at the bottom. In this way, acceleration draws everything toward the engine-end of the ship, creating a simulation of gravity.

That is reflected in the way the Rocinante’s dining and kitchen area is laid out—everything is functional and compact. The kitchen fittings and implements can tell you a lot about technology as well. Are the kitchen crowded with cups and jars, plates and sharp implements? Then this is a spaceship that has real faith in its artificial gravity and inertial dampeners. Alternatively, is everything locked down and strapped into place?

That hob we mentioned earlier, is it electric or is this crew willing to light a naked flame in a highly pressurised environment in the cold depths of deep space?

Everything on the Rocinante has a place to be put away—nobody leaves knives lying around that might become projectiles if the ship has to perform a tricky manoeuvre. Fresh herbs for long voyages are grown in small centrifuges that will keep them growing properly even during periods of Zero G.

But beyond the fittings, spaceship kitchens also tell us a lot because of the kinds of interactions they facilitate. Is this ship’s kitchen a space where a family all eat together at predetermined times of the day, or is it like a student dorm, where people rotate through one or two at a time to feed themselves?

The kitchen is the room on a spaceship where we are most likely to see the crew when they are not working or asleep. It is the room where characters get downtime, showing us how they relate to each other out of crisis mode. It shows us if people are eating three square meals, or are just grabbing snacks on the fly. The Expanse’s Rocinante was also home to one of the all-time great space kitchen scenes where we see the Rocinante crew get to sit down and share a meal. 

Unreliable (The Outer Worlds)

For fans of wandering around spaceship kitchens, poking into all the cupboards and nosing through the fridge, there are quite a few video games that scratch the itch. One of the best examples is the kitchen of the Unreliable in the video game The Outer Worlds. Clearly inspired heavily by Serenity’s kitchen, the Unreliable’s dining area tells stories through the detritus that gradually builds up over time, including scattered game pieces and cards, used dishes, and off-duty crew shooting the shit between missions.

The Millennium Falcon never showed us much of a kitchen (although expanded universe reference materials tell us Han Solo installed one as a wedding gift for Leia which is… a choice), but Star Wars games have proven an excellent hunting ground for space kitchen fans with the Jedi games’ Stinger Mantis and Outlaw’s Trailblazer both giving you a little kitchenette to sniff around. Mass Effect: Andromeda’s kitchen is pretty small and tucked away, but does give us the ability to watch the crew bickering through notes on the fridge.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds)

All of the kitchens we have looked at so far vary from the spartan yet homey to the grimy yet utilitarian. But all-out luxury can be just as revealing of a setting and its characters. Let’s thus take a look at the kitchen in Captain Pike’s quarters aboard Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Enterprise.

This is a matter of opinion, but as a big fan of both spaceship kitchens and Star Trek, I think I am qualified to say that Trek does not normally do it for me on the kitchen front. Its ships are, first and foremost, a living room-centred environment. The ship’s dining areas are usually sterile and gray, the only appliance they need is a replicator, and even Neelix’s kitchen feels like an afterthought rather than a facility capable of serving approximately 150 people.

But Captain Pike’s kitchen in the newest series shows the culmination of what cooking can become in Star Trek’s space communist future, even before the invention of the replicator. It is a leisure activity and a luxury.

The kitchen is spacious enough to contain three sets of crew quarters from Kirk’s Enterprise (and I still harbor a theory that Uhura assigned Kirk one of the crappier upper deck cabins before repurposing Pike’s room as a Lower Deckers clubhouse). But as well as being a social location, it also serves a work function. This is not the “family table” we see aboard Serenity. Here people are expected to stand, and more importantly, to mingle. For all the friendly bonhomie it evokes, it is a networking space, and Pike is assuming as much authority as he stands over the grill as he does sitting in the bridge’s Big Chair.

And of course, on Pike’s Enterprise people eat whatever they damn well please, because we might be in deep space, but Star Trek is the definition of luxury space communism. Once, during a talk, someone asked the beloved fantasy writer Terry Pratchett what he first thought about when designing a fantasy city. Pratchett reportedly answered that you should think about how the clean water gets in and the sewage gets out.

When you are designing your spaceship there are similar concerns—thinking about when, what, and how your crew take in food and water is a good place to start.

Except of course as a genre, space fiction is usually a good deal more reticent about where the sewage goes…

The post Why the Kitchen Is the Most Important Room in a Sci-Fi Spaceship appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains finale spoilers for Towards Zero.  “Why have a husband when you can have a lawyer?” asks Lady Tressilian in episode one of Towards Zero. It’s a maxim that Audrey Strange would have done well to follow, considering how this twisted story unfurled. The name “Nevile Strange” with its idiosyncratic one-l spelling was a clue hiding […]

The post Towards Zero Ending Explained and How It Changes the Agatha Christie Book appeared first on Den of Geek.

A science fiction spaceship is a lot like a house party. When I see one, the first thing I want to know is what’s going on in the kitchen. Interior designers are the unsung heroes of sci-fi worldbuilding, and a bit of carefully dressed set can do the work of a dozen dramatic exposition-filled voiceovers or lengthy opening text crawls. And this is nowhere more evident than the kitchen.

Take a look at your own kitchen. What appliances have you got? A kitchen-bound time traveler could quickly determine when they are with a look at your microwave and fridge. A look at how much the dirty dishes have stacked up tells you about the routines and temperaments of the people who live here. A glance at the fridge will tell you how many kids are here, or show you the nearby takeout favorites.

But more than that, the kind of food available will tell you about the world at large—how far the supply chains reach and how quickly produce can be moved along them, and what kind of cross-cultural pollination this setting is subject to. You can learn about water, power, and heating infrastructure, how much room the people who live here have access to in the rest of the home. The kitchen is a microcosm of everything else that is happening in a place or time.

When I was writing the Fermi’s Progress series—four novellas about an FTL ship that vaporizes every planet it encounters—the spaceship’s kitchen became a key setting for the story due to all of these reasons mentioned above. And in mapping it out in my head, I thought a lot about how kitchens have worked on other well-known spacecraft.

Nostromo (Alien)

We have talked before about the enormous influence the Nostromo’s kitchen and otherwise has had on spaceship set design in general. Alien’s impact on sci-fi aesthetics as a whole is incalculable, sometimes to the detriment of the genre, but that influence is felt strongest where movie spaceship crews eat.

And with good cause. The meat of the action in Alien does not take place on some bridge or control room, or in a laboratory or Star Trek-style space conference room. It doesn’t even take place in its many spacious air shafts. It all happens in the kitchen. This is where we meet the Nostromo crew for the first time arguing about percentages. This is also, of course, where John Hurt has the worst case of indigestion in film history. It is where plans are suggested, argued over and agreed on. It is where Ash attempts his brutal and terrifying murder of Ripley and the crew overpowers, interrogates and ultimately, cooks him.

The set for the Nostromo’s kitchen might also just be one of the most intricately designed film sets in movie history. It still places the bar for environmental storytelling, from Ron Cobb’s now legendary “Semiotic Standard” to the cereal station, the wall of cups neatly ensconced in their little cupholders. Everything has its place, its premade slot. 

But the gap between its intended and actual use is also clear—the stark white is everywhere covered in grime; the walls plastered with pin-ups, stickers, and notes. It is not just the room where the story action takes place, it is the room where the characters live, often despite the wishes of the employer that put them there, and that is visible in every detail.

One of the most illustrative elements is the food itself. There are no ovens or hobs visible, and certainly no fresh meat or vegetables. This is a place for out-of-the-packet living. The Nostromo crew drinks canned beer and scoop food out of Tupperware containers, eating big bowls of what looks like cheap noodles, although the crew “don’t know what it’s made of.” Frankly, the food tells you how much the crew’s well-being is valued by their employer, foreshadowing what will become of them.

Serenity (Serenity)

The kitchen aboard the workhorse spaceship of the series Firefly and its movie spinoff Serenity is probably the second best known spaceship kitchen out there. Before we go any further it is important to also acknowledge we’re not here to celebrate Joss Whedon (who by many accounts is a shit), but Firefly’s impact on the sci-fi genre is undeniable (even if arguably that impact is recycling a bunch of stuff from the Millennium Falcon and throwing in some ideas from Cowboy Bebop and Southern Revisionism of the American Civil War).

The Serenity has a lot in common with the Nostromo. It is a blue-collar spaceship in a setting so retrofuturistic that it borders on being just plain retro. The kitchen of that spaceship is in many ways its hero set. But Serenity’s kitchen is not your workplace cafeteria; it is the dining room in the homestead. As much as Nathan Fillion’s Mal Reynolds might seem like a salt of the earth working man, he is a salt of the earth working man who can afford an entire working spaceship.

Comparing the two, the differences are immediate. Instead of pin-up posters, the walls have flowers painted on. There are warmer colors, wooden furniture, a hob for cooking on, and a sink for doing the dishes in. This is a domestic space as much as a workplace. People here tell stories and celebrate birthdays as much as they argue percentages on the latest job.

When it comes to food, every meal is “protein,” reflecting a universe where food has to travel for longer than fresh produce can be expected to last. But that protein is prepared with care, with spices used to improve the flavor—and when they come by fruit, it is a delicacy.

But what Serenity most illustrates about the role of the kitchen is that it says a lot about who a space belongs to. The Nostromo’s kitchen belongs to the Company, its crew just eats there. The Serenity’s kitchen is ostensibly the property of its captain, but it is maintained and occupied by its crew, and their personalities shine through in this space.

Icarus II (Sunshine)

The kitchen and dining area in Sunshine will not pass the “Definitely Not the Nostromo” smell test. Alien’s design aesthetic is felt strongly here. Yet once you start looking for differences they start to mount up. The lighting is softer, and the crew’s well-being is more of a concern. There is room for personalization in the form of bookshelves and personal storage spaces, but unlike the expansive Nostromo set, here everything is packed in closely, bringing to mind the weight and space restrictions that are a concern on any real-life space mission.

But the really revealing bit of worldbuilding here is the food. The crew of the Icarus II gets to dine on things that the Nostromo and Serenity crews could only dream about. This is not because their spaceship is any more luxurious, but because the crew are eating the vegetables grown in their own hydroponic garden—the same garden that recycles their oxygen supply.

It shows us how a spaceship can be many different things. The Serenity is hopping job to job, resupply to resupply. The Nostromo is a cog in a vast machine, equipped with the cheapest mass-produced components necessary for it to complete its job. Icarus II, however, is on a true mission into the unknown. It is designed to be a self-contained world because its crew is not sailing to the next port, they are sailing into a place hostile to life, and so need to take everything they need with them.

Rocinante (The Expanse)

Like the Icarus II, the Rocinante is a ship designed with the practicalities of space travel in mind. Where most sci-fi spaceships are laid out like a maritime vessel with decks running horizontally from the fore to the aft of the ship, the Rocinante is more like a tower, with its control room at the top and the engines at the bottom. In this way, acceleration draws everything toward the engine-end of the ship, creating a simulation of gravity.

That is reflected in the way the Rocinante’s dining and kitchen area is laid out—everything is functional and compact. The kitchen fittings and implements can tell you a lot about technology as well. Are the kitchen crowded with cups and jars, plates and sharp implements? Then this is a spaceship that has real faith in its artificial gravity and inertial dampeners. Alternatively, is everything locked down and strapped into place?

That hob we mentioned earlier, is it electric or is this crew willing to light a naked flame in a highly pressurised environment in the cold depths of deep space?

Everything on the Rocinante has a place to be put away—nobody leaves knives lying around that might become projectiles if the ship has to perform a tricky manoeuvre. Fresh herbs for long voyages are grown in small centrifuges that will keep them growing properly even during periods of Zero G.

But beyond the fittings, spaceship kitchens also tell us a lot because of the kinds of interactions they facilitate. Is this ship’s kitchen a space where a family all eat together at predetermined times of the day, or is it like a student dorm, where people rotate through one or two at a time to feed themselves?

The kitchen is the room on a spaceship where we are most likely to see the crew when they are not working or asleep. It is the room where characters get downtime, showing us how they relate to each other out of crisis mode. It shows us if people are eating three square meals, or are just grabbing snacks on the fly. The Expanse’s Rocinante was also home to one of the all-time great space kitchen scenes where we see the Rocinante crew get to sit down and share a meal. 

Unreliable (The Outer Worlds)

For fans of wandering around spaceship kitchens, poking into all the cupboards and nosing through the fridge, there are quite a few video games that scratch the itch. One of the best examples is the kitchen of the Unreliable in the video game The Outer Worlds. Clearly inspired heavily by Serenity’s kitchen, the Unreliable’s dining area tells stories through the detritus that gradually builds up over time, including scattered game pieces and cards, used dishes, and off-duty crew shooting the shit between missions.

The Millennium Falcon never showed us much of a kitchen (although expanded universe reference materials tell us Han Solo installed one as a wedding gift for Leia which is… a choice), but Star Wars games have proven an excellent hunting ground for space kitchen fans with the Jedi games’ Stinger Mantis and Outlaw’s Trailblazer both giving you a little kitchenette to sniff around. Mass Effect: Andromeda’s kitchen is pretty small and tucked away, but does give us the ability to watch the crew bickering through notes on the fridge.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds)

All of the kitchens we have looked at so far vary from the spartan yet homey to the grimy yet utilitarian. But all-out luxury can be just as revealing of a setting and its characters. Let’s thus take a look at the kitchen in Captain Pike’s quarters aboard Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Enterprise.

This is a matter of opinion, but as a big fan of both spaceship kitchens and Star Trek, I think I am qualified to say that Trek does not normally do it for me on the kitchen front. Its ships are, first and foremost, a living room-centred environment. The ship’s dining areas are usually sterile and gray, the only appliance they need is a replicator, and even Neelix’s kitchen feels like an afterthought rather than a facility capable of serving approximately 150 people.

But Captain Pike’s kitchen in the newest series shows the culmination of what cooking can become in Star Trek’s space communist future, even before the invention of the replicator. It is a leisure activity and a luxury.

The kitchen is spacious enough to contain three sets of crew quarters from Kirk’s Enterprise (and I still harbor a theory that Uhura assigned Kirk one of the crappier upper deck cabins before repurposing Pike’s room as a Lower Deckers clubhouse). But as well as being a social location, it also serves a work function. This is not the “family table” we see aboard Serenity. Here people are expected to stand, and more importantly, to mingle. For all the friendly bonhomie it evokes, it is a networking space, and Pike is assuming as much authority as he stands over the grill as he does sitting in the bridge’s Big Chair.

And of course, on Pike’s Enterprise people eat whatever they damn well please, because we might be in deep space, but Star Trek is the definition of luxury space communism. Once, during a talk, someone asked the beloved fantasy writer Terry Pratchett what he first thought about when designing a fantasy city. Pratchett reportedly answered that you should think about how the clean water gets in and the sewage gets out.

When you are designing your spaceship there are similar concerns—thinking about when, what, and how your crew take in food and water is a good place to start.

Except of course as a genre, space fiction is usually a good deal more reticent about where the sewage goes…

The post Why the Kitchen Is the Most Important Room in a Sci-Fi Spaceship appeared first on Den of Geek.

The BBC and Mammoth Productions’ next Agatha Christie adaptation is here, following on from 2023’s Murder Is Easy, 2022’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, and the five miniseries previously adapted by Sarah Phelps (The Pale Horse, The ABC Murders, Ordeal By Innocence, The Witness for the Prosecution and And Then There Were None). This time, […]

The post Towards Zero Cast: Meet the New BBC Agatha Christie Adaptation’s Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

The BBC and Mammoth Productions’ next Agatha Christie adaptation is here, following on from 2023’s Murder Is Easy, 2022’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, and the five miniseries previously adapted by Sarah Phelps (The Pale Horse, The ABC Murders, Ordeal By Innocence, The Witness for the Prosecution and And Then There Were None).

This time, Christie’s 1944 novel Towards Zero has been brought to television, adapted by Bel Ami and NW screenwriter Rachel Bennete. It’s the story of a love triangle, a beautiful coastal mansion, public scandal, family intrigue, and of course, murder. Meet the three-part series’ characters below and find out more about the actors playing them.

Clarke Peters as Mr Frederick Treves

The lawyer appointed to serve Lady Tressilian and her family in all matters legal, Mr Treves is relied upon as a voice of authority and wisdom at Gull’s Point. He and his young ward Sylvia are invited to the house to act as the voice of reason between the family’s sparring members.

Treves is played by Clarke Peters, who recently appeared in US sci-fi series The Man Who Fell to Earth and in Channel 4 crime drama Truelove, as well as playing parts in His Dark Materials, Treme and Person of Interest, but who will always be connected with the role of Det. Lester Freamon in HBO’s The Wire.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Nevile Strange

Nevile Strange is a wealthy famous tennis player whose marriage has recently become the stuff of newspaper gossip columnists. As the nephew of Lady Tressilian, he grew up at the family pile of Gull’s Point.

Strange is played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who followed up early roles in UK period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford and Mr Selfridge with a move to US dramas Dracula, Emerald City, The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. In 2020, he played the titular character in feature film The Invisible Man and recently appeared opposite Jenna Coleman in Prime Video’s Wilderness.

Ella Lily Hyland as Audrey Strange

Audrey Strange is Nevile’s childhood sweetheart-turned-wife. Orphaned as a child, she too grew up at Gull’s Point and is independently wealthy. She’s played by Ella Lily Hyland, who impressed in Prime Video tennis coach abuse drama Fifteen Love, and again in Netflix’s darkly comedic spy thriller Black Doves. She’s currently in Disney+ historical boxing crime drama A Thousand Blows.

Anjelica Huston as Lady Tressilian

Camilla, Lady Tresillian is a wealthy widow and the matriarch of her family, which she commands out of her bedroom in Gull’s Point. She’s played by movie star Anjelica Huston, who’s acted in countless memorable feature films from Prizzi’s Honour, The Grifters, The Addams Family and The Witches to name just a few.

Mimi Keene as Kay Elliott

Kay Elliott is characterised in the national press as a vamp and a gold digger. She’s played by Mimi Keene, who started out as rebel teenager Cindy Williams in BBC soap EastEnders before playing the central role of Ruby in Netflix’s teen comedy-drama Sex Education, opposite Asa Butterfield, Ncuti Gatwa, Aimee-Lou Wood, Emma Mackey and more.

Anjana Vasan as Mary Aldin

Mary Aldin is employed as Lady Tressilian’s companion, and lives an isolated life with her at Gull’s Point. Unbeknownst to her ladyship, Mary is engaged in a written correspondence with banished family member Thomas Royde (see below).

Mary is played by screen and stage actor Anjana Vasan, who plays guitarist-scientist Amina in Channel 4’s excellent comedy series We Are Lady Parts, and was seen recently opposite Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in comedy feature film Wicked Little Letters, as well as having had roles in Killing Eve, Temple and Black Mirror season six episode “Demon 79“.

Jack Farthing as Thomas Royde

Thomas is a cousin to Nevile and a mysterious member of the Gull’s Point family, from which he is banished for reasons unknown at the beginning of the story. He’s playing by Jack Farthing, familiar to Poldark viewers as the treacherous George Warleggan, and the star of Rain Dogs, Chloe, The Serial Killer’s Wife and much more, including two previous Agatha Christie roles in The ABC Murders and Poirot.

Matthew Rhys as Inspector Leach

Inspector Leach is an invented character for this TV adaptation, and an amalgamation of several book characters who solve this murder mystery. When we meet him, he’s in a bad way, depressed and heavily drinking.

He’s played by Matthew Rhys, whose career really took off in the US with a long-standing role in Brothers & Sisters, and the co-lead in 1980s-set spy drama The Americans. Since then he’s starred as the titular character in the Perry Mason reboot, and recently played satirist George Carlin in Ivan Reitman’s 2024 film Saturday Night.

Adam Hugill as Mac

A mysterious valet who offers his services to Nevile Strange during the turbulence surrounding his court case, Mac is a question mark with a knack for violence and the whiff of ambition surrounding him. He’s played by Adam Hugill, seen recently in acclaimed BBC drama Sherwood, and on stage at the National Theatre playing footballer Harry Maguire in Dear England, as well as playing Constable Carrot Ironfoundersson in Terry Pratchett-inspired TV series The Watch.

ALSO APPEARING

– The Lost Boys and Mary & George’s Khalil Gharbia as playboy Louis Morel
– The Borderline, Motherland and Mandy’s Jackie Clune as housekeeper Mrs Barrett
– Casualty’s Olive, aka Grace Doherty, plays Mr Treves’ troubled schoolgirl ward Sylvia
– The Crown, Downton Abbey and Poldark’s Michael Culkin as the court judge

Towards Zero airs on Sunday nights at 9pm on BBC One.

The post Towards Zero Cast: Meet the New BBC Agatha Christie Adaptation’s Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

The Hulu original series Good American Family premieres this month (March 19). The series stars Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and is a dramatic retelling of the adoption of Natalia Grace. Inspired by true events, Good American Family follows a midwestern couple who adopts someone they believe to be a young girl with a rare form […]

The post Hulu New Releases: March 2025 appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

Anyone who decided to catch up with Anora because of Oscar buzz might find themselves confused early on. The movie begins as a Cinderella story with a sex worker in the princess role and the son of a Russian oligarch as the prince, and then switches to a broad farce that veers between slapstick comedy […]

The post The Power of Anora Comes from Its Last 10 Minutes and Final Scene appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

This review contains spoilers for Yellowjackets season 3 episode 4. As the name of episode 4 suggests, “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis” is centered on the trial of Coach Scott (Steven Krueger) as he desperately tries to plead his case to the Yellowjackets (and Travis). This episode of Yellowjackets might not be quite […]

The post Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 4 Review: An Unexpected Death appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

As art forms, literature and video games couldn’t be more unalike…at least on the surface. Video games are hypersensory, stimulating with sight, sound, and touch while giving the player agency to play their way. Novels on the other hand are hyperlinear and unfold in the theater of the mind. One would think it would be […]

The post The 15 Best Video Games Inspired by Books appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

A murder mystery set at a luxury coastal resort filled with wealthy, glamorous, hateful suspects? Somebody should make a TV show about that.  Somebody has, other than the makers of HBO’s eat-the-rich satire The White Lotus. The BBC’s latest Agatha Christie adaptation Towards Zero is a stylish whodunnit with a cast so good looking they could be whispering […]

The post Towards Zero Review: A Sizzling Agatha Christie Murder Mystery appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

When most people sign up for a Disney+ subscription, they’re probably thinking about catching up with Disney Channel Originals they loved as kids or watching the latest Marvel movie at home. For most, Disney+ means access to endless streams of frothy entertainment, with social issues presented in the form of cartoon allegories like Zootopia. The […]

The post One of the Best Oscar Nominated Documentaries Is Streaming Now on Disney+ appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, […]

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.

After leaving high school behind in the season 3 finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggled to find its footing in young adulthood. Season 4 was an epic mix of highs and lows, with each episode being a toss-up between a series-defining masterpiece and a well-intended misfire. In the wake of that often disappointing 22-episode run, it was clear that Buffy needed a change of pace. By perfectly blending the show’s signature supernatural elements with relatable, grounded drama, season 5 is brave, moving, and masterful – thanks, in no small part, to the introduction of Buffy’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) brand-new little sister Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who tragically passed away on Feb. 26, 2025.

In what remains one of the best teen drama twists of all time, season 5’s opening episode drops a bombshell before a quick cut-to-black: the young girl briefly shown in Buffy’s room is, according to their mother, her little sister—despite never being part of the series prior to this moment. As the season continues on, Buffy eventually learns that Dawn was created by a group of monks, transformed from a magical key into a person that Buffy herself would ultimately die to protect from an angry god. While this premise is as harebrained as it gets (and par for the course in the series’ supernatural wheelhouse), Dawn’s evolution from annoying little sister to beloved pillar of the show all circles back to the brilliant writing elevated by Trachtenberg’s vulnerable and moving performance. 

Dawn herself could have easily devolved into nothing more than a plot device. Her presence in the fifth season’s story is straightforward and often predictable, and, in less capable hands, it’s easy to see how one-note this key-turned-sister could’ve been. But from her very first full episode on the show (titled “Real Me,” season 5 episode 2), Trachtenberg imbues her with a tangibility that is only matched by Gellar’s early work on the series as Buffy herself. 

There’s a gentle touch behind every move Dawn makes, where her charming, troublemaking streak blends with her heartbreaking, grounded fear layered with a heavy dose of supernatural symbolism. Dawn questions whether or not she’s a real person deserving of love, mirroring the fears of many teenagers as they try to develop into themselves. Dawn acts out when Buffy’s larger-than-life stakes overshadow her teenage drama, injecting an even stronger inferiority complex against Buffy’s godly position within her family and friend group. 

In one of Trachtenberg’s greatest moments on Buffy, Dawn and Buffy regroup after a fight with the season’s Big Bad, and Buffy asks if Dawn is alright. Dawn asks why Buffy cares, she’s not really her sister, after all. She’s just an object that a group of monks made flesh, why should Buffy concern herself with her feelings? Who’s to say she even has them? But when Buffy takes her own blood and clasps Dawn’s bloody hand within her own, it’s clear that these two women are bound for life. Even without the Summers blood running through her veins, Buffy loves Dawn, and no amount of cosmic intervention could change that. 

While Gellar is often the focal point of the scene, Trachtenberg gives such a stunning performance, even after her lines have finished. You can see as she puts up her walls, preemptively shutting Buffy out before her sister can hurt her by insisting that she’s not a person at all. Those walls slowly come down throughout Buffy’s heartfelt speech, genuine love and surprise clouding Trachtenberg’s wide, blue eyes. When Buffy finally hugs her, her face fully collapses, crying into her sister’s shoulder as she finally admits that she’s just a scared kid, facing problems and obstacles far beyond her reach. 

💔 pic.twitter.com/U7JkdUQ8xm

— ໊ (@buffys) February 26, 2025

It’s that admission that defines Dawn’s arc throughout the rest of the season, elevated by the absolutely pitch-perfect performance given in that moment. Nine episodes later, when Buffy tells Dawn that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it before she jumps to her own death to save her sister’s life, it’s that blood-tying moment that Buffy flashes back to. Of course, it’s to explain just how and why Buffy can sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place, but it’s also to remind audiences that Dawn is, truly, just a scared kid who doesn’t believe her life is worth saving, especially over Buffy’s. 

Even if Dawn didn’t believe she was worth Buffy’s sacrifice at the time, Michelle Trachtenberg made us believe she was. She made us believe she was the little sister we never had, but always wanted; she made us believe in the power of teenage whims and the weight of heartache and sorrow on a soul too young to have gone through so much; she made us believe in the magnitude of both being a teenager and being a lynchpin in one of the greatest supernatural stories ever told. 

As the series goes on, Dawn becomes further enmeshed in the canon, despite only appearing in the final three seasons. She becomes Spike’s (James Marsters) odd-couple friend, she becomes Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) number one shipper before it was cool, and she becomes the narrative’s beating heart, long after Buffy herself lost some of the light that used to shine in her eyes. 

Trachtenberg brought humor, heart, light, and relatability to Dawn that allowed her to become one of the series’ most iconic figures, picking up the baton from Gellar to bring grounded, teenage drama back into a series that knew its hero needed to grow up. While fans have rallied for decades behind their assertions that Dawn was “annoying” and stilted the show’s evolution, this one-dimensional take on this ultimately iconic character diminishes not only importance of the teenage aspects of Buffy to the show’s everlasting legacy, but also the incredible performance Trachtenberg delivered across 66 episodes. 

In the twelfth episode of the final season, Xander (Nicholas Brennan) sits Dawn down for a pep talk. With their house overflowing with potential slayers and an apocalypse looming on the horizon, Dawn is feeling useless and frustrated as her sister and their friends all prepare for battle. He tells her that he knows what it’s like to not be “chosen,” to not be “special.” “You’re not special,” he flat-out tells her. Dawn takes a tearful pause, Trachtenberg plays her humility and disappointment with a marked grace; but Xander isn’t done: “You’re extraordinary.” She’s special not because she has infinite power and a calling to save the world, but simply because she cares enough to stand by those who do. If Buffy herself represents heroism by force, Dawn represents heroism by choice, inspired by her sister to do what is right and good, no matter the cost. 

Extraordinary feels like the perfect word to describe both Dawn and Trachtenberg. The kind of perfect storm created by a character and performance so moving and incredible that it defines the series itself, that it becomes seminal to the genre in a way that is absolutely undeniable. The world is infinitely less bright without Trachtenberg in it, but, at the very least, her performance as Dawn Summers—TV’s greatest little sister, still, to this day—will live on as one of the best to grace both the series and the genre itself. 

The post Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dawn Summers Is TV’s Most Important Sister appeared first on Den of Geek.