"Customized action figures at massive scale," promises a video at CNN. They'll be priced at $59.99, and it'll all start happening this fall — thanks to Hasbro's new partnership with 3D printer company Formlabs.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland explains: "It wasn't until recently that two technologies came into play at once," Brian Chapman, Hasbro's head of global design and development tells CNN. "One is a very simple way to scan someone's face and head" — which can now be accomplished with a Hasbro mobile app (which also allows customers to select other customizations like specific costumes). "And then, a very affordable way to print that head in a one-off way" (so it can be affixed to the standard body of Hasbro's action figures).

Imagine your face on Star Wars and Marvel action figures, as well as Power Rangers, Ghostbusters — and more.

CNN adds that Hasbro say it will not sell user face data, and will delete it after 60 days.

In March, Microsoft enabled audio CD playback in the new version of Media Player, something that the old version had supported for pretty much as long as it had existed. And now, Microsoft is rolling out support for CD ripping in the new version of Media Player, presumably so that we can all convert our old Weezer and Matchbox 20 CDs into files we can copy over to our iPods and Zunes. From a report: By default, CDs can be ripped to AAC files at constant bitrates ranging between 96 and 320kbps. The WMA, FLAC, and ALAC formats are also supported. MP3 support and variable bitrate support, two features that are still included in the "Media Player Legacy" app, are notably absent.

An anonymous reader writes: There are three constants in life: death, taxes and the "lofi hip hop radio -- beats to relax/study to" YouTube stream. That is, until YouTube falsely hit the Lofi Girl channel with a DMCA takedown, bringing the beloved streams offline for the first time in over 2 years. With over 668 million views, the stream was one of YouTube's most popular places for people to go when they wanted to listen to calming, yet engaging music while studying or working. Listeners sometimes used the stream's live chat like an anonymized, distant study group, reminding each other to take breaks and drink water. So when the stream suddenly stopped, fans were worried.

[...] Yesterday, Lofi Girl addressed the sudden takedown in a tweet, stating that "the lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes." In response, fans of Lofi Girl circulated the tag #BringBackLofiGirl to get YouTube's attention. Some even went as far as to spam and troll FMC Music, the Malaysian label that allegedly issued the false copyright complaint, while others created fan art. Lofi Girl told TechCrunch that all of the channel's music is released through its record label, Lofi Records, so they have the necessary rights to share it. Because Lofi Girl has the proper rights to the music, YouTube determined that the account is not in violation of copyright laws. The platform responded to Lofi Girl on Twitter Monday, saying that the missing livestream videos should be reinstated in 24 to 48 hours.

If past precedent holds true, Lofi Girl's next stream will have to start again from the beginning, rather than as a continuation of the existing 2-year-long stream. In 2020, the channel faced a similar problem when an accidental suspension ended its 13,000-hour stream. In that case, YouTube also owned up to its mistakes and reinstated the account, but the same issues have apparently returned. [...] Today, in YouTube's reply to Lofi Girl, the company said that the takedown requests were "abusive," meaning that they were leveraged as an attack against the channel, rather than out of actual concern for copyright violations. This behavior is incredibly common, but platforms have struggled to determine when these reports are legitimate and when they're unsubstantiated. "This event has shone a light on an underlying problem on the platform: It's 2022, and there are countless smaller creators out there, many of which engaged in this discussion, that continue to be hit daily by these false claims on both videos and livestreams," Lofi Girl wrote in a tweet.

"We're shocked and disappointed to see that there's still not any kind of protection or manual review of these false claims," Lofi Girl wrote on Twitter. "At the end of the day, it was entirely out of our control, and the sad part is that there was no way to appeal beforehand/prevent it from happening."

Howard Altman writes via The Drive: In an effort to protect those with information about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and increase the influx of reports about them, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc) has introduced (PDF) an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. "The amendment would establish a process within the government for reporting UAPs and provide whistleblower-like protections," Gallagher's spokesman Jordan Dunn told The War Zone Thursday morning. For a multitude of reasons, U.S. troops and government contractors have traditionally been reluctant to come forward with information about these incidents, regardless of their validity. Beyond that, there have also been long-standing allegations that the government and defense contractors could be hiding previous UFO-related programs and evidence. This would allow those with information to come forward without retribution. Some have even posited that language like that in Gallagher's amendment could lead to "UFO disclosure."

In essence, it says that regardless of any previous written or oral non-disclosure agreements "that could be interpreted as a legal constraint on reporting by a witness of an unidentified aerial phenomena," those with information about UAPs, more commonly known as UFOs, would not be violating federal classified information laws if they come forward. The amendment also calls for the head of the new Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), tasked with investigating UAPs on behalf of the Defense Secretary and Director of National Intelligence, to establish "a secure system" for receiving reports of "any events relating to" UAPs and any government or government contractor activity or program related to UAPs. The reporting system shall be administered by "designated and widely known, easily accessible, and appropriately cleared Department of Defense and intelligence community employees or contractors" as part of AOIMSG, which is a much enhanced and more deeply mandated effort that replaced the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.

Any information would first be screened "to prevent unauthorized public reporting or compromise of properly classified military and intelligence systems, programs, and related activity, including all categories and levels of special access and compartmented access programs, current, historical, and future." However, federal agencies and contractors working with the government would be precluded from taking actions, including suspending security clearances, for those who report UAP incidents and information. And those who are retaliated against "may bring a private civil action for all appropriate remedies, including injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages, against the Government or other employer who took the personnel action, in the United States Court of Federal Claims," the amendment states.

In a game called GeoGuessr, competitors try to pinpoint where in the world a Google Street View image has been taken. Some can do it in seconds. From a report: An unremarkable stretch of highway and trees, as seen on Google Maps' Street View, appeared on the screen. It could have been anywhere from Tasmania to Texas. "This is going to be south Philippines, somewhere on this road down here," Trevor Rainbolt said instantly, clicking on a location on a map of the world that was less than 11 miles from the spot. A road winding through woods was up next. Lake Tahoe? Siberia? "It looks like we're going to be in Switzerland here, unless we're in Japan. Yeah, we have to be in Japan here," Mr. Rainbolt said, correctly pinpointing the country.

Mr. Rainbolt has become the face of a fast-growing community of geography fanatics who play a game called GeoGuessr. The premise is simple: As you stare at a computer or phone, you're plopped down somewhere in the world in Google Street View and must guess, as quickly as you can, exactly where you are. You can click to travel down roads and through cities, scanning for distinguishable landmarks or language. The closer you guess, the more points you score. To some, Mr. Rainbolt's snap answers seem like wizardry. To him, they are simply the result of countless hours of practice and an insatiable thirst for geographic knowledge.

In a move that will undoubtedly draw severe criticism, movies from Studio Canal that customers have purchased on the PlayStation Store will be completely removed next month. From a report: The legal notice is published on PlayStation's German and Austrian websites where it reads (translated): "As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library. We greatly appreciate your continued support."

In other words, customers will lose access to movies such as Apocalypse Now, Django, John Wick, La La Land, Saw and The Hunger Games that they purchased on the PlayStation Store. Not rented, but purchased.

The wildly popular series Squid Game drew criticism for its English subtitles. Just how did those happen? CNET News: Subtitlers contend with unrealistic expectations, tight deadlines and competition from clunky machine translation. Often, their work goes underappreciated, under the radar. Sometimes Uludag would be sent a file to translate at 11 p.m. -- "and they would say we need it by 8 a.m." Without skilled subtitlers, movies such as historic Oscar winner Parasite are lost in translation. Yet the art of subtitling is on the decline, all but doomed in an entertainment industry tempted by cheaper emerging artificial intelligence technologies. Subtitlers have become a dying breed.

And this had been the predicament before the world started watching a little show called Squid Game. In 28 days, Squid Game leapfrogged Bridgerton as Netflix's most popular series ever. It also inadvertently started a global conversation about bad subtitles. While critics lauded the South Korean battle royale-themed drama for its polished production values, gripping story and memorable characters, many accused Netflix of skimping on the quality of Squid Game's English subtitles.

A prime example: Ali, the Pakistani laborer, shares a touching moment with Sang Woo, an embezzler who graduated from Korea's top university. Sang Woo suggests Ali call him hyung, instead of sajang-nim or "Mr. Company President." The term hyung literally translates as "older brother," a term used by a man to address an older man with whom he has formed a closer bond. That's Ali and Sang Woo. Yet, the line "Call me hyung" was translated as "Call me Sang Woo." A rare moment of compassion and humanity, amid all the gloom and gore, was lost. [...]

Yet Netflix, which abandoned its in-house subtitling program Hermes one year after its launch in 2017, is interested in a different area of translation: dubbing. It's not hard to see why. For example, 72% of Netflix's American viewers said they prefer dubs when watching Spanish hit Money Heist, Netflix's third most popular show ever. Unfairly criticized, underfunded and facing a lack of support from the entertainment industry, subtitlers are on the brink. At least the Squid Game controversy illuminated an unsung fact: Good subtitles are an exceptionally difficult art.

Monday Amazon posted a 15-second teaser trailer on Twitter for their upcoming Prime Video series The Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power (premiering September 2nd) — drawing on two lavish one-minute trailers released earlier in the year.

"The first season of Amazon's show will be the most expensive season of television ever produced," reports IndieWire: Season 1 has a $465 million budget. Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke stated in May 2021 that she was "pretty confident" that the show will draw the required viewership to make the money worth spent.

Back in 2017, when it was reported that Amazon had bought the rights to "The Lord of the Rings" — winning a bidding war against Netflix — the number reported with that sale was $250 million. That number alone made it the most expensive television series ever, but later, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the whole series would end up costing more than $1 billion, due to production expenses (casting, producers, visual effects, etc.). "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy's own Elijah Wood reacted to that particular figure during an interview, saying, "That's crazy to me." For context, the Peter Jackson trilogy grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. The combined budget for all three films was $281 million.

That $250 million rights deal for "The Lord of the Rings" also came with a five-season commitment for the series. A guaranteed five seasons should also guarantee at least one full story told from beginning to end, even though there's always the possibility of more, depending on the series' success. The deal also allowed for the potential of spin-off series, which could mean the potential for even more of Middle-earth outside just this adaptation. In November 2019, Deadline confirmed that Amazon had officially ordered a second season of the series and that it was already in the works. According to the report, the official early renewal means that there will be a shorter wait time between the first two seasons come release.

However, the series may not ever get out of the Second Age — which is, again, 3,441 years long, so it's got a lot to work with — as, according to Tolkien scholar and "The Lord of the Rings" consultant Tom Shippey, the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has refused to grant Amazon permission to film anything other than the Second Age, as to not alter the history of the more fleshed out Third Age. "But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions..."
The tagline of the newly-released trailer? "Nothing is evil...in the beginning."

In 2019 Shippey was quoted as saying the first season would have either 20 episodes or 22 episodes, though this year Amazon said a number "hasn't been officially announced."

And there's one other thing we know. There will be orcs (and some of their backstory), according to IGN's exclusive interview with the show's executive producer — and the head of its prosthetic department.

SFGate calls it "the most technologically advanced ride Disney has ever opened." The 18-minute journey involves a secret rebel base, interrogation from the First Order, uncomfortably close brushes with Kylo Ren and a daring rescue mission, and has sophisticated animatronics and a trackless ride system unlike anything else currently in Disneyland.

With all of those moving parts, though, the ride breaks down frequently.

"Rise of the Resistance" can sometimes break down multiple times a day, often for long stretches. The ride already has modifications for minor breaks, like a scene with a Kylo Ren animatronic that has a "b mode" where a broken piece of wall blocks off the malfunctioning Ren and he's shown on a screen instead. A room with cannons that dart out between ride cars has stopped the cannons from moving because they caused so many ride breakdowns.

But still, even with those fixes, larger problems happen. In fact, earlier this week, one Disneyland guest reported getting evacuated from Rise three times in the same day. "I've been on RoR 3 times today and have been evacuated every time," the person posted on Reddit. "Send thoughts and prayers!"
The article also cites data from the theme-park site Thrill Data, which estimates the ride's historical wait time average is 105 minutes — but which can shoot up after breakdowns to two or three hours.

The maximum wait time ever recorded was six hours and six minutes.

Esquire celebrates the 40th anniversary of the movie Blade Runner: Based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Scott's film created a world so rich, so dirty and wet and worn out, so visually stunning, that imitation was an inevitability. Less gym-bro than The Terminator, less wacky than Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and less all-out apocalyptic than Mad Max, Blade Runner arguably defined not just 1980s science fiction, but in the forty years since its initial release, sci-fi films in general. From Ghost In The Shell, to Total Recall and Minority Report and even Black Panther, Blade Runner is owed a debt of gratitude.

Working from a formula he perfected in 1979's Alien, Scott brought his world of grimy industry and neon-lit shadows, rogue androids and put-upon protagonists to California, swapping Alien's body horror for the police procedural. Granted, Deckard isn't Ellen Ripley, but in its portrayal of the battered and bruised detective battling against the system, Blade Runner is a Chinatown of the future. That it was only Scott's third film as director makes it all the more impressive. (As an aside, has Harrison Ford's three film run of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), and Blade Runner (1982) ever been beaten?).

Famously, the film was a critical and commercial flop in the U.S. with VHS sales and endless re-edits eventually leading to its cult status. (In 2004, it was even voted as the best science fiction film of all time by a panel of global scientists). Today, it's difficult to picture a sci-fi film that doesn't play homage. Would HBO's Westworld have updated its 1973 film version so successfully and stylishly without Blade Runner paving the way both visually and in terms of its musings on free will? And, decades before Elon Musk looked set to take over the world, Blade Runner's Tyrell Corporation (and indeed, Alien's Weyland-Yutani) was inspiring evil empires from Resident Evil's Umbrella Corporation to RoboCop's Omni Consumer Products and The Terminator's Cyberdyne Systems.
The article argues that Rutger Hauer's replicant character Roy Batty "delivers one of the greatest speeches in cinematic history in his 'Tears in rain' soliloquy."

And it points out that fans of Ridley Scott's prequels to Alien speculate those movies also exist in the same cinematic universe.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Comcast's NBCUniversal subsidiary and Google are the "top contenders" for Netflix's upcoming ad-supported streaming tier. "After many years of resisting ads, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced the plan for an ad-supported tier in April," reports Ars Technica. "Netflix's stock price dropped 35 percent the day of that announcement, and Netflix revenue growth has been slowing amid a loss in subscribers." From the report: A deal with NBCUniversal would likely mean that "Comcast's video ad unit, FreeWheel, would supply technology to help serve up ads, while NBCUniversal's ad-sales team would help sell ads in the US and Europe," the report said. The Alphabet-owned Google, of course, has plenty of experience serving ads, including on its own YouTube and YouTube TV video platforms. Netflix already uses Google's ad-buying tools.

A deal with either NBCUniversal or Google would likely be exclusive, the WSJ report said. Comcast/NBCUniversal and Google aren't the only contenders, as "Roku has also had early talks with Netflix about ad partnerships," the report said. The Information reported last week that Netflix executives recently "met with representatives of both Roku and Comcast to discuss arrangements under which those companies would handle either the ad sales or the technical infrastructure for Netflix's forthcoming ad-supported tier of service."

Netflix "is looking to start doing some pre-roll ads, which run before a show starts, in the fourth quarter," The Information report said. Netflix is also negotiating with entertainment companies to put ads into shows that Netflix doesn't create itself. Licensing TV shows and movies for both ad-free and ad-supported streaming will cost Netflix about 20 percent more than for ad-free streaming alone, The Information report said. Variety has confirmed the streamer is "letting go of roughly 300 staffers [...] across multiple business functions in the company, with the bulk of the jobs lost in the U.S." Netflix also laid off 150 employees, and dozens of contractors and part-time workers in May.

"Today we sadly let go of around 300 employees," a Netflix spokesperson told Variety. "While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth. We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition."

Pioneering electronic artist Four Tet has reached a settlement in the legal battle against his former record label. The result could set a legal precedent for contract disputes in the music business; where royalty rates have been subject to heavy scrutiny since last year's inquiry into the streaming market by MPs on the Culture Select Committee. The BBC reports: The musician, whose real name is Kieran Hebden, sued Domino Records last year over the royalties he gets paid when his music is downloaded or streamed. He argued that the 13.5% royalty rate he was being offered was unfair, and demanded a 50% split with the label. In a settlement, Domino agreed to the honor the 50% rate and reimbursed the musician for historic underpayments.

It was quite a reversal for the indie label, which originally responded to the case by removing several Four Tet albums from streaming services (they were later reinstated). "It has been a difficult and stressful experience to work my way through this court case and I'm so glad we got this positive result," wrote Hebden in a statement announcing the settlement. "Hopefully I've opened up a constructive dialogue and maybe prompted others to push for a fairer deal on historical contracts, written at a time when the music industry operated entirely differently."

An anonymous reader shares a report: For Jung Ki-young, a South Korean software engineer, Microsoft's decision to retire its Internet Explorer web browser marked the end of a quarter-century love-hate relationship with the technology. To commemorate its demise, he spent a month and 430,000 won ($330) designing and ordering a headstone with Explorer's "e" logo and the English epitaph: "He was a good tool to download other browsers." After the memorial went on show at a cafe run by his brother in the southern city of Gyeongju, a photo of the tombstone went viral.

Many commercials continue to play on ad-supported streaming services after viewers turn off their television, new research shows, a problem that is causing an estimated waste of more than $1 billion a year for brands. From a report: The findings come as an ever-growing share of ad dollars is shifting from traditional TV to streaming platforms, a trend that is likely to accelerate now that industry giants Netflix and Walt Disney's Disney+ have embraced the idea of offering an ad-supported version of their services. Some 17% of ads shown on televisions connected through a streaming device -- including streaming boxes, dongles, sticks and gaming consoles -- are playing while the TV is off, according to a study by WPP's ad-buying giant GroupM and ad-measurement firm iSpot.tv.

That is because when a TV set is turned off, it doesn't always send a signal to the streaming device connected to the TV through its HDMI port, GroupM said. As a result, the streaming device will continue playing the show and its ads unless users had exited or paused the streaming app they were watching before turning off their TV. Due to the nature of the problem, using a smart TV -- on which streaming apps are loaded -- makes it far less likely that ads would be shown while the TV is off, since in this instance the television and streaming device are just a single piece of hardware. GroupM said it found "virtually no incidence" of the issue on smart TV apps. The study, which included smart TVs and some hooked up with a streaming device, found that on average, between 8% and 10% of all streaming ads were shown while the TV was off.

Samsung has been caught cheating by designing its TVs to recognize and react to test patterns used by reviewers. The company promises to provide software updates to address the situation. From a report: Reviewers, calibrators and certification bodies typically use a 10% window for HDR testing, which simply means that it takes up 10% of the screen. In this window multiple steps from black to white as well as a set of colors are measured. Samsung has designed its TVs to recognize this and other commonly used window sizes, after which the TV adjusts its picture output to make measurements appear more accurate than the picture really is. When using a non-standard window such as 9% (everything else equal), the cheating algorithm can be bypassed so the TV reveals its true colors. This is deliberate cheating, an orchestrated effort to mislead reviewers. Vincent Teoh of HDTVTest first identified and documented the issue on Samsung's S95B QD-OLED TV. FlatpanelsHD has since identified and documented the issue on Samsung's QN95B 'Neo QLED' LCD TV where it gets even worse. QN95B not only changes its color and luminance tracking during measurements to appear very accurate, it also boosts peak brightness momentarily by up to 80%, from approx. 1300 nits to 2300 nits. This is possible because the power supply can send short bursts into the miniLED backlight -- these cannot be sustained without damaging the panel. In our QN95B review we found no evidence of the TV surpassing 1300 nits with real content.

Disneyland's Galaxy's Edge, aka "Star Wars Land," lets its visitors "immersively" experience the planet Batuu during the period between Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi and Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker. But there's some big changes coming, reports SFGate.com: Disney recently announced — at the "From a Galaxy Far, Far Away to Disney Park Near You" panel at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022 event — that main characters from the immensely popular Disney Plus series "The Book of Boba Fett" and "The Mandalorian" would begin appearing at Disneyland.

Yes, including the universally adored, merchandise and meme-dominating Grogu, aka "Baby Yoda."

However, there is one sarlacc-sized snag: Those stories are set about five years after Return of the Jedi, and about 25 years before The Force Awakens, which raises a galaxy of questions about how this will impact Galaxy's Edge. The introduction of new characters into the attraction will either break the timeline of Star Wars land or, perhaps, unburden it from self-imposed shackles. This could be a good thing, the article suggests, since "Currently there is frankly not a lot of character interaction on Batuu." Kylo Ren pops in on occasion to interrogate guests, and some stormtroopers march around. Rey and Chewie pose for pics, R2-D2 wheels around, and Vi randomly shows up. But that's about it. There is no BB-8 or C-3PO, no Poe or Finn walking around, no Captain Phasma (who died in "The Last Jedi"). The cast members do their part to speak the local lingo of "bright suns" and "till the spire," but Black Spire Outpost feels somewhat unpopulated. It looks and feels like a Star Wars town, but lacks true full immersion. Oga's Cantina does feel lived in, and always crowded, but the closest immersive experience is Savi's Workshop, where building a lightsaber is a damn near religious experience, complete with the Force ghost voice of Yoda.

So how would new characters impact this? If Mando appears at Galaxy's Edge, are guests to assume he (and Grogu) are still bouncing about by the time of the sequel series...? The town of Black Spire Outpost might come to resemble Fantasyland, for instance, where multiple characters occupy their own zones and don't intersect...

Regardless, this change further populates Galaxy's Edge, which is good for the guest who wants to take a lot of character photos. It also allows Disney to roll out their most popular modern characters, and potentially open the door for them to showcase original trilogy and prequel trilogy characters (which are having a moment right now).

But it does create major story hiccups.

Music streaming giant Spotify has revealed that it's intending to make a big splash in the audiobooks business. Trusted Reviews reports: At the company's Investor Day 2022, CEO Daniel Ek revealed that the company would be branching out into audiobooks following its successful music and podcast offerings. Several months ago, Spotify announced its agreement to acquire audiobook distribution platform Findaway, which was a surefire indicator that it was thinking big in this area. Whie that deal has yet to close, Ek has confirmed that he sees audiobooks as "a massive opportunity."

The overall book market today is worth $140 billion, yet audiobooks only represent 6 to 7% of that. In the most developed audiobook markets that figure is closer to 50%, so Spotify as seeing this as a potential $70 billion market that it's going to compete with Amazon and its Audible platform for. Spotify revealed that it's planning to relaunch the audiobook arm of its streaming service later this year. As this suggests, you can already access audiobooks through Spotify, but it's not a particularly well fleshed out offering, and it's not easily accessible. No specifics were mentioned on the pricing of this audiobook offering.

An anonymous reader shares a report: At Roku, a video-streaming platform operator that's suffered a punishing stock plunge, employees are buzzing about the possibility of an acquisition -- and their talk and hopes are pinned on Netflix. Employees at Roku have been discussing the possibility of a Netflix acquisition in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. The chatter comes as Roku's stock has dropped about 80% since late July on weaker demand for video streaming and lower set-top-box sales.

Roku competes with Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung in the market for streaming devices, and some of those industry titans are battling with the smaller company for lucrative video-ad dollars. The collapse in Roku's stock made it hard to compete with its larger tech rivals on pay in a tight labor market. The result has been a staggering increase in equity grants to employees, leaving Roku well underwater on stock-based compensation. Roku has been seen as an acquisition target before -- including last year, when, according to The Wall Street Journal, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts considered purchasing the company. In January, the departure of a top Roku executive stoked questions about the company's future.

HBO Max has canceled the sci-fi TV show Raised by Wolves after two seasons. From a report: Originally ordered to series for the cable channel TNT, its first season premiered in 2020, and four months after HBO Max launched, it ranked as the service's top streaming series. The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, and the plot, which focused on two androids raising human children on a desolate alien planet, aligned well with the hallmarks of his style. [...]

Before the cancellation, cast members were calling on watchers to advocate for the show's future. Abubakar Salim, who played "Father" in Raised by Wolves, hinted in a Twitter thread last week that the show's fate was in jeopardy with the hashtag #RenewRaisedByWolves, while referring to the merger of HBO Max parent company WarnerMedia and Discovery, which was completed in April. HBO Max said in a statement to Variety, which first broke the news: "While we are not proceeding with a third season of Raised by Wolves, we are beyond grateful to the stellar cast and crew, our creators Aaron Guzikowski, Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, and the entire team at Scott Free Productions, for their beautiful artistry and unique ability to immerse fans into the world of Kepler-22b."

This week saw the premiere of The Orville: New Horizons on Hulu — a third season, now streaming after two seasons on broadcast TV from 2017 to 2019. Seth MacFarlane (the show's creator/star) tells the Hollywood Reporter how that will change the Orville: "The biggest difference for me being on Hulu is that I don't have to tell a story that's exactly 43 minutes long every week because I have to make room for a certain number of commercials.

"That's not how storytelling works — different stories are different lengths, and you start to fall into this cadence where you're shaving scenes down, you're cutting things that don't need to be cut. The best part about being on Hulu is that those moments where you want to linger on an actor's face because it's meaningful and it helps to tell the story? You can do that. You have the time; you can be indulgent in that way."
MacFarlane tells TV Guide the series is now "a dramatic sci-fi show with comedic elements that come about from the character's personalities." And MacFarlane tells ABC News, "I think people can expect a lot more than they think they can." It's not just Covid that's the reason that it's taken so long. It's a pretty massive uptick in scope. We're only doing 10 episodes, as opposed to 12, they're longer episodes. The scope of these episodes is much more film-like. I think people are a little unprepared for what's to come. Disney and Hulu really gave us the resources to do this right, and we've put it all on the screen.
Long-time Slashdot reader Marxist Hacker 42 wrote a journal entry (with some spoilers) about the new season's premiere episode, noting "a very powerful morality tale" that led to a fifth act with "some prime technobabble worthy of the show's Star Trek heritage." (While long-time Slashdot reader antdude calls it "better than the newer Star Trek like Picard," long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo calls it "an enjoyable watch, and would have been the highlight of the week if it wasn't for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds overshadowing it."

GameRant argues that The Orville in general "is actually truer to the Star Trek spirit than any of the franchise's contemporary entries."

And the series will also stay true to its Yaphit, reports Yahoo Entertainment: Behind the scenes, The Orville team bid farewell to one longtime crew member during the production of Season 3. Comedian Norm Macdonald has voiced fan favorite character, Lt. Yaphit, since the show's freshman year and completed recording his dialogue prior to his death from leukemia last September.

MacFarlane says that he wasn't aware of Macdonald's illness during their three-season collaboration. "As I finish the episodes, the emotion that I feel more than anything is gratitude that he left us with all this great stuff," he remarks. "I was very moved by the fact that he had continued to record for us and continued to play this part. As sad as it is, I'm happy there's more Norm yet to come through The Orville."

Asked whether Macdonald's passing means that Yaphit's tenure aboard The Orville will also conclude at the end of Season 3, MacFarlane suggests that fans may not have seen the last of the gelatinous lieutenant. "We do have a plan," he teases. "We would not do Yaphit without Norm, but there is a plan for how we are going to handle it if we are lucky enough to do Season 4." (As of now, a fourth season is up in the air as the cast's contracts have expired.)