The Walking Dead
Episode 8.4 “Some Guy”
Written by Dan Liu
Directed by David Leslie Johnson
Starring Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Lennie James, Christian Serratos, Tom Payne, Khary Payton, Austin Amelio, Alanna Masterson, Katelyn Nacon, Steven Ogg, Pollyanna McIntosh
AMC
Air Date: Sunday, November 12, 2017

Warning – SPOILERS for AMC’s The Walking Dead…

On last week’s The Walking Dead, the All Out War theme of Season 8 dragged on, as the united armies of Alexandria, Hilltop, and The Kingdom continued their assault on Negan and the Saviors. During the fight, Eric was shot and eventually died of his wounds, leaving his love Aaron to mourn. Rick came face to face with Morales, a survivor he knew from Season 1 who is now a Savior; Morales was ready to waste Rick, but Daryl put him down before he could do anything. There was a lot of indiscriminate killing going on, although Jesus seemed to want to keep all the highly dangerous Saviors — the ones who really deserve to die — alive for some bizarre reason, and brings them as prisoners to the Hilltop to go before Maggie. At Hilltop, Maggie takes in Gregory, even though he repeatedly has betrayed them — and unbeknownst to her, has left Father Gabriel for dead. The episode ended with King Ezekiel’s group being ambushed.

On this week’s episode, 8.4 “Some Guy,” we see that most of the soldiers of The Kingdom were killed in the ambush, but first a flashback to right before they headed out for the fight with King Ezekiel giving another one of his motivational speeches, which ended with a chant of “We are one!” Honestly, and I think I said this last week, I’m getting really tired of his speeches, especially since they are so cocky. Any time someone is cocky on this show, they ended up getting theirs and that’s what happens here, because when we see Ezekiel for the first time in the present, he’s crawling out from under the now-dead bodies of his subjects, who had shielded him during the ambush.

The Walking Dead
Episode 8.3 “Monsters”
Written by Matthew Negrete & Channing Powell
Directed by Greg Nicotero
Starring Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Lennie James, Christian Serratos, Tom Payne, Khary Payton, Austin Amelio, Alanna Masterson, Katelyn Nacon, Steven Ogg, Pollyanna McIntosh
AMC
Air Date: Sunday, November 5, 2017

Warning – SPOILERS for AMC’s The Walking Dead…

On last week’s The Walking Dead, the three groups that banded together to fight Negan and the Saviors — Alexandria, Hilltop, and the Kingdom — came up with a plan to finally best their enemy. Most of the episode featured all the groups shooting at one another in a machine-gun frenzy. There’s a purpose for it all… I guess, but honestly, it was kind of annoying. The best part of it was that the trio team cornered the Saviors at first, killing a lot of them, so that when they turned, they then attacked the living. Nice strategy.

This week’s episode, 8.3 “Monsters,” continues the annoying gunfire. Once again, we see King Ezekiel giving one of his inspirational sermons about how they have a plan and they are going to “win.” We then see them head off into the woods, where they are ambushed by some Saviors, but it turns out they have their people surrounding the area. More gunfire, those Saviors are killed, and as Ezekiel promised during his speech, not one from their own ranks is killed. Carol says that’s because they have strategy.

The Walking Dead
Episode 8.1 “Mercy” (Season 8 Premiere)
Written by Scott M. Gimple
Directed by Greg Nicotero
Starring Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Lennie James, Christian Serratos, Tom Payne, Khary Payton, Austin Amelio, Alanna Masterson, Katelyn Nacon, Steven Ogg, Pollyanna McIntosh
AMC
Air Date: Sunday, October 22, 2017

Warning – SPOILERS for AMC’s The Walking Dead…

Tonight marks the Season 8 premiere of The Walking Dead, as well as being the AMC show’s milestone 100th episode, and as with previous seasons, this new one finds Rick and his people in a dangerous situation.

When we last saw Rick and crew in the Season 7 finale back in April, it was at their home base in Alexandria. They had been double-crossed by their supposed new allies The Scavengers, who turned on them because they got a better deal with Negan and his Saviors. And Sasha, who had been Negan’s captive, sacrificed herself to help the Alexandrians, who ended up in a shoot-out with the Saviors and Scavengers. Negan once again it seems had the upper hand and was just about to dish out some of his cruel justice when Ezekiel and the Kingdom, including Shiva the tiger!, arrived to save the day … for now. This new element forced Negan and company to retreat, including Dwight, who had been helping the Alexandrians and thankfully did not actually betray them.

Once back at the Sanctuary, Negan told his people “We are going to war,” while back at Alexandria, the Alexandrians, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom stood united, getting ready to face their enemies.

Outlander
Season 3 Episode 5: “Freedom & Whisky”
Directed by Brendan Maher
Written by Toni Graphia
Created by Ronald D. Moore
Based on the books by Diana Gabaldon
Starring Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan, Tobias Menzies, Duncan Lacroix, Richard Rankin, Sophie Skelton, Grant O’Rourke, Romann Berrux, John Bell, Steven Cree, Laura Donnelly, Greg Esplin
Starz
Air Date: Sunday, October 8th, 2017, 8:00pm

Warning! Spoilers below for Sunday night’s episode of Outlander!

Last week on Outlander, Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) grew closer as the trail to Jamie grew hotter then hit a dead end. Claire (Caitriona Balfe) gave up and went back to Boston, a sad Brianna in tow. In the past, Jamie went to work for the Dunsany family where the youngest daughter blackmailed him into taking her virginity before she married an old man. It was eventually found out and Jamie (Sam Heughan) saved the baby, his baby, from being killed by the crazed old man. He stayed on to be near the boy, leaving only when the resemblance could no longer be hidden. He asked Lord John Grey (David Berry) to take care of his boy, who considered it an honor, and went back home to Lallybroch.

Spoilers below.

Much like John Carter and The Lone Ranger, The Orville seems to be one of those ventures that professional critics and fanboys alike hated before a single frame was viewed; it became cool to deride them.

Here are a few examples of why this criticism seems unfair. And a word of caution: everything from here on will be SPOILERS.