It’s 3 p.m.! Let The A.V. Club briefly make use of the waning hours of your productivity with some pop culture ephemera pulled from the depths of YouTube.

After last week’s gross episode, The Orville rebounds with a solidly enjoyable adventure. Tonight’s episode, “Firestorm,” is essentially a redux of the season’s second episode, “Command Performance,” that once again places Alara at the center in order to address her lack of self-confidence and anxiety in response to…

In the past, Star Trek has never shied away from dealing with god. The crew of the Enterprise encountered numerous false deities or godlike alien beings over the course of its mission. In the pilot for Voyager, the eponymous ship is hurtled into the Delta Quadrant by a powerful being that’s worshipped as a god. The…

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.

For a few years, it seemed like DVD box sets were so popular that every TV show that ever aired would get some kind of unnecessarily expensive collection. Then, when Blu-rays became more and more successful, fancy HD versions of things started to come out, giving people a chance to spend more money on something they…

The destruction of the USS Kelvin in 2009’s Star Trek deprived James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) of his father, but the cataclysmic event had even farther-reaching consequences. It helped create the alternate reality in which J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin have carte blanche to muck about with the space-time continuity as part…

The Star Trek franchise turns 50 this year, and it’s celebrating by combining geekdom and chicdom. Specifically, MAC is releasing a 25-piece line of official Star Trek-branded cosmetics, including lipstick, eye shadow, and nail polish.This is far from MAC’s first venture into pop culture-themed makeup lines, and it’s…

While Sarah Silverman’s comedy is well known by now, the comedian and actor has also been quietly taking on dramatic roles, most notably in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz. Now, she’s moved from supporting actor to star for her first leading role in a drama, the stark and deeply serious I Smile Back. (The film opens…

The Etrian series of dungeon crawls for Nintendo’s DS and 3DS handheld systems are the only games that I buy without reading reviews or waiting for critical consensus to build up. I know I’m going to dig whatever that team puts together, because I know it’ll always include three things: One, the series’ signature…

Characters added in the middle of a TV show’s run get a bad rap. For every Cousin Oliver or Scrappy-Doo, there are characters who actually added something to their show, even rejuvenating a longrunning series’ later seasons. Some start as stand-ins for departed cast members, then take on expanded roles—others begin as…

If you’re a human being with an internet connection, you’re probably well aware that today is May 4th, unofficially known as “Star Wars Day.” You’ve most likely heard countless friends and coworkers say “May the Fourth be with you.” But do you really know the meaning behind this phrase? How knowledgable are you about …

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.