As reported by Deadline, French New Wave icon Anna Karina—a frequent collaborator with and former wife of director Jean-Luc Godard—has died. Deadline says French officials and her agent confirmed that she died earlier this weekend in Paris from cancer. Karina was 79.

This week’s entry: Extreme ironing

Saturday Night Live coincidentally had a Hallmark Channel sketch all locked and loaded for last night’s Scarlett Johansson-hosted show. Which is good timing, since the unassuming home of your aunt’s favorite nondescriptly identical TV movies starring pleasant white people falling in tepid like suddenly found itself in…

“It’s like saving the world, too, just on a smaller level.”

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Sunday, December 15. All times are Eastern.

Our weekly thought-starter asks you (and us) a simple question each week: What pop culture did you consume this weekend, and what did you think of it? If you have suggestions for AVQ&A questions, big or small, you can email them to us here.

In the beginning, Steven Universe was silly and sweet; then life happened and things got a bit less silly, but the sweetness was still there. Now, in Steven Universe Future, it seems like the silly is trying to creep back in, even as everything has changed. Steven doesn’t react to hijinks the same way anymore. He’s…

Hallmark maintained its reputation as the network where romantic miracles can happen—but not in a good way—this week, by performing a high-profile vanishing act on a series of commercials from wedding planning site Zola. Said ads had the temerity/gall/etc. to show two women kissing each other at their wedding, in…

Is Baby Yoda cuter than an actual baby? It’s the question no parent wants to confront, forced, as they very well may be, to acknowledge that their own offspring simply fails to match up to The Mandalorian’s big-eared agent of chaos. But if it’s a matter of getting said child to do what you want them to do, well, that’s…

Hollywood’s ongoing efforts to adapt every single book that some guy spent way too much time and energy recommending at you at a party in college continues apace today, with Deadline reporting that HBO has put a TV version of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash into development. The series comes courtesy of The Kid Who Would…

Since its first season, Starz’s fantasy drama American Gods has seen its share of cast and crew shake-ups, including a carousel of showrunners. After the unceremonious departures of original point men Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, who adapted Neil Gaiman’s novel in 2017, and Jesse Alexander, who was essentially…

In its final episode of 2019—and the decade, for that matter—Riverdale forgoes another seasonally-appropriate holiday episode and instead delivers a midseason finale largely concerned with moving on. The big theme of “Tangerine” seems to be setting the past on fire (quite literally) in order to push forward, with…

What does Superman’s mid-life crisis look like? In the pages of Superman, he’s said goodbye to his villainous father, sent his young adult son off to “future college,” and taken on extra responsibility as Earth’s ambassador to the newly formed United Planets. Big events have forced Superman to reconsider his identity…

Although she hails from our hometown of Chicago, The A.V. Club first encountered visual artist and filmmaker Jennifer Reeder in New Orleans, where her visionary film Knives And Skin was playing at the Overlook Film Festival. There have been many variations on the Twin Peaks theme of a small town rocked by the…

As part of our best of 2019 coverage, this week we’re asking:

Here’s a compilation of our favorite features published this week. Be sure to follow along with our TV recaps and check out all our recent reviews.