Check Out New Doctor Who In First Official Image

The first image of the new star of Doctor Who has been released. The picture was tweeted by the show’s official twitter account and gives us a first look at the latest Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker.

Whittaker was announced in the role of the 13th Doctor in July. She is the first female star of the long-running sci-fi series, and is pictured on a grassy plain with the TARDIS behind her. Check it out below:

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Whittaker replaces Peter Capaldi, who has played the Doctor since 2013. Capaldi will make his final appearance on this year’s Christmas Special, and it’s likely we’ll see Whittaker make her debut in it too. The Christmas episode is titled “Twice Upon a Time,” and a trailer was revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in July.

Whittaker’s first full season as the Doctor will air in 2018. The show also has a new showrunner, with Broadchurch‘s Chris Chibnall taking over from Steven Moffat. In a recent interview with the Radio Times, Chibnall suggested the show might take a different approach from previous seasons.

“What the BBC was after was risk and boldness,” he said: “I had ideas about what I wanted to do with it. When I went to them and said, ‘This is what I would do,’ I actually expected them to say, ‘Ooh, let’s talk about that.’ But they said: ‘Great!’

“I finally said yes because I love the show to my bones. I resisted it for a very long time, and [the BBC] really had to woo me.”

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Comic Book Reviews for November 8, 2017

It was another big week of comics. Marvel released new chapters of Venom and Despicable Deadpool, brought Moon Knight back into the spotlight and welcomed a new writer on Star Wars. DC delivered more great tie-ins to Dark Nights: Metal and finally revealed Wonder Woman’s twin brother in Wonder Woman #34. And there were two great crossovers on tap this week thanks to Kong on the Planet of the Apes #1 and TMNT/Ghostbusters II #2.

Scroll down to check out our reviews for these and various other new releases, and be sure to let us know your favorite books of the week in the comments below.

MARVEL COMICS

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The Millennium Falcon Is Hidden Near a Golf Course in Rural England

Han Solo’s famous ship the Millennium Falcon has been found dormant in a field in England.

Eagle-eyed Google Earth users spotted the iconic freighter seemingly left near a golf course in Surrey, in the South of England.

Now that filming has wrapped on the upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it looks like the production team has decided to hide it in the great outdoors until filming starts for Episode IX.

falcon-google-earth The Millenium Falcon kept under wraps in a field in Surrey, England (courtesy of Google Earth).

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Nintendo Switch Quietly Adds Its First Video Streaming App Today In The US

Despite the fact that both Wii and Wii U offered video streaming apps for services like Netflix, Nintendo Switch launched without them. For its part, the company said it was focused on making Switch a solid games system and that such apps could come later, but firm plans were never revealed. Now, the US is finally getting its first Switch video app, some eight months after its initial launch.

As always, Nintendo has sent out its weekly press release detailing the games releasing on the Eshop in the coming days. And it’s there, quietly buried toward the end of a bullet point list, that we see Hulu launches for Switch today. At the time of this writing, neither its Nintendo website page or system Eshop page has gone live, so we don’t yet know any details beyond that.

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Still, its release is notable given that it marks the system’s first video streaming app (with the exception of Japan’s NicoNico Switch app). There’s no indication if this will open the floodgates for Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and other services to also release their own apps or if this is intended as a test.

The absence of video streaming apps proved to be a confusing decision to some. Just after launch, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stated, “We built the Nintendo Switch to be a world-class gaming device, meaning we want you first and foremost to play games on the system and have an incredibly fun experience. We’re talking to a range of companies about other services, companies like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon–things that will come in time. In our view, these are not differentiators.”

“When you think about a new platform, what will define it as a long-term success are the ongoing range of games and experiences that come to the platform–not what’s available on day one,” he added. “For the Nintendo Switch, we were very deliberate in wanting to make sure, from a Nintendo publish[ing] standpoint, that we had a steady cadence of great games in addition to strong titles at launch.”

Beyond feeling it would not help to set the system apart, Nintendo may have wanted to be clear in its messaging that this was a gaming system first and foremost–not something to be confused with a tablet. Whether that has played a part or not, Nintendo has achieved a great deal of success with Switch in its first eight months on the market. It’s sold 7.63 million units as of the end of September, and it recently projected that Switch will top Wii U’s lifetime sales within its first 13 months on the market.

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LA Noire Makes Perfect Sense for Switch and VR

Repurposing LA Noire as a $30 VR game (called LA Noire: The VR Case Files, exclusively for the HTC Vive for now) is as fun as I’d hoped it would be. And on the Nintendo Switch (priced at $50, including all of the DLC ever released), it runs and feels like it belongs, even if it’s Switch-exclusive features – like motion controls and touchscreen functionality – don’t add a lot to the experience. I played both ahead of their imminent launches – November 14 for Switch and December for VR Case files, though remember that the 4K Remastered release is also out on November 14 for Xbox One X and PS4 Pro.

LA Noire looks nice and clean on Nintendo’s newest console when running at 1080p in docked mode. It’s got every piece of content ever released for the detective thriller, and it’s (mostly) slower pace make it a great fit for an on-the-go game in handheld mode. It’s aged reasonably well; the motion-captured facial animations that LA Noire hung its hat on in 2011 have held up best. The rest of the game world shows some last-gen cracks, but nothing I’d knock it for. The most obvious issue was the object pop-in on the horizon when you’re speeding down the streets during driving sections.

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Multiple Explosions Aren’t Enough to Kill ‘Zombie’ Star

From what we’ve understood about the life cycle of stars, a supernova is the thrilling death knell: a violent display signifying the end for a star. At least, we thought that’s how it went.

When a supernova occurs, a star brightens for about 100 days before going dark. But one star has kept the display up for 600 days now.

According to a study in Nature, supernova iPTF14hls refuses to die. The star was first observed back in September 2014 and chalked up as a fairly textbook example of a star’s death.

The supernova has qualities never before seen by scientists. “Instead of a 100-day plateau,” the study reports, “the light curve of iPTF14hls lasts over 600 days,” and includes “five distinct peaks” where its brightness varies”by as much as 50%.”

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