Author: trafficblast

With a number of new shows premiering, the biggest victory of the fall TV season may actually be the return of a series on The CW. After ending its first season with rather mediocre ratings, Riverdale returned on October 11 to quite a surprise–a much larger audience.

When it comes to live ratings, the new season of the series based on Archie Comics premiered to a 60% larger audience than the series debut did early in 2017. With 2.3 million live viewers, it fell just under The Flash—2.8 million viewers–when it comes to being the highest-rated show of the week on The CW. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the good news doesn’t stop there. The show’s live-plus-3 ratings–which include viewing via DVR up to three days later– jumped to 3.3 million total viewers.

What prompted the major uptick in audience? There’s a number of possibilities, whether it was episodes being available on The CW’s app, reruns airing over the summer, or even the show having a strong presence at San Diego Comic-Con. That said, the answer to Riverdale’s audience mystery should be obvious: Netflix.

Prior to last season, The CW signed a deal with Netflix. It would see next-day episodes of their shows removed from Hulu, but in return, entire seasons would be added to Netflix’s streaming library one week after the season finale. And as THR reports, Riverdale was an extremely popular streaming choice over the summer, especially with younger audiences.

That should explain why the show’s teen audience jumped 400% with the Season 2 premiere. It also explains how the premiere of the new season is already the CW app’s most streamed episode ever.

Whether it can retain that audience is the next hurdle for Riverdale to face. In its second episode of the season, The Flash lost 10% of its live viewership with only 2.5 million viewers tuning in. Will Riverdale face the same fate or will it actually rally to a bigger audience?

Only time will tell. Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 PM on The CW.

This Sunday, October 22, the team of Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose reunites once again as The Shield to take on The Miz and his four stars in a TLC handicap match. That’s not the only big match happening at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Raw brand-exclusive PPV, TLC, has six other matches, including the debut of former NXT women’s champion Asuka.

It all kicks off at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT on the WWE Network, with the Kickoff Show happening one hour earlier. Here’s the entire match card and our predictions.

Sasha Banks vs. Alicia Fox (Kickoff Match)

Alicia Fox recently attacked Sasha Banks backstage and now the two are involved in a heated rivalry. Banks and Fox will have the chance to take their aggression out on each other during the Kickoff show, which airs one our prior to the main card. I don’t see Banks losing this one. She feels buried, and she’s way too talented to keep losing matches like this.

Our prediction: Sasha Banks wins

Asuka vs. Emma

Asuka is making her debut at TLC. If you’re not familiar with the Empress of Tomorrow, she held the NXT women’s championship for over 500 days and currently has a win-streak longer than Goldberg’s during the ’90s. Sorry Emma, but there’s no chance Asuka is losing during her debut.

Our prediction: Asuka wins

Secondary prediction: The match is no longer than 1 minute

Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Mickie James

(For the Raw Women’s Championship)

Alexa Bliss and Mickie James have been locked in the feud revolving around James’ age–which we break down in better detail here. Now, Bliss will defend the Women’s Championship at TLC, and while she’s been a great champion, James will get the win. It will add more to her legacy at WWE and knock Bliss down a peg or two.

Our prediction: Mickie James wins

Cedric Alexander & Rich Swann vs. Gentleman Jack Gallagher & The Brian Kendrick

The first of two 205 Live matches–yes, two matches–has Rich Swann and Cedric Alexander taking on the team of Jack Gallagher and The Brian Kendrick. This match could go either way as it’s not really compelling, and it’s a bit of a bummer to see this taking a spot on the main card, with so much other talent on the Monday night show not in the spotlight. Anyway, I’m giving the win to Alexander and Swann, with the hopes of seeing Swann dance.

Our prediction: Cedric Alexander and Rich Swann win

Kalisto (c) vs. Enzo Amore

(For the Cruiserweight Championship)

Enzo Amore has waged war against the cruiserweight division, and while he beat Neville for the title, he quickly lost it to Kalisto. Enzo is getting his rematch at TLC in order to prove he’s more than a one-trick-pony. I can see Enzo winning the title here, but every fiber in my being doesn’t want that to happen. Sure, Enzo winning would be better for moving the storyline forward, but I’m giving the win to Kalisto because he’s so much more talented in the ring.

Our prediction: Kalisto wins… please let Kalisto win

The Demon vs. Sister Abigail

Everyone has a dark side, Finn Balor’s is The Demon, a madman with an immense amount of willpower that will not go down. Bray Wyatt–an already dark character–has Sister Abigail, which we known nothing about–thankfully Abigail is Wyatt and WWE didn’t introduce another character as her. This is going to be a weird battle, but I’m thinking this will swing in Balor’s favor, in the hopes that Wyatt becomes lost in this new Sister Abigail persona.

Our prediction: Finn Balor wins

The Shield vs. Braun Strowman, The Miz, Kane, Cesaro & Sheamus (TLC Handicap Match)

Finally, nostalgia plays a major factor into the main event, as Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Roman Reigns have joined forced to reform their team The Shield in order to take on The Miz, Braun Strowman, Kane, and The Bar in a handicap match. The odds are stacked against the good guys, and because of that, I’m giving the win to The Shield. They should be able to overcome said odds and triumph over Miz’s ridiculously overpowered team.

Our prediction: The Shield wins

Some gameplay structure spoilers about Middle-earth: Shadow of War follow below, though no specific plot details are discussed.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War developer Monolith is beefing up the Lord of the Rings game’s endgame content. At the end of the main game, you are attacked by orcs who are attempting to reclaim the fortresses you took earlier in the story as part of a system called Shadow Wars. Presently, this battle comes to an end, but the game’s first expansion–The Slaughter Tribe–will make these encounters endless.

The infinite Shadow War mode is free for everyone, but the Slaughter Tribe expansion costs money. All of this was confirmed during a livestream event this week, as reported by Eurogamer. There is no release date yet for the Slaughter Tribe expansion.

GameSpot’s Shadow of War review scored the game a 7/10. Reviewer Justin Haywald specifically called out the endgame as a low point. But overall, Haywald said Shadow of War is a “fun experience with brilliant moments that provide fascinating insight into some of the untold stories of Middle-earth. I just wish it had known when to stop.”

Shadow of War is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. For more, check out GameSpot’s guide that covers seven advanced tips and tricks to help you dominate Mordor.

DOWNLOAD UNLOCKED 318 (Audio version)

Our Xbox show dissects the radical shift at EA that’s resulted in the closure of Visceral Games, a change in direction for their Star Wars game, and an uncertain future at EA for Amy Hennig. Plus: Master Chief Collection is back, and more!

Oh, and Unlocked now has its own snazzy new homepage! Bookmark this: go.ign.com/unlocked

And we’ve got our own YouTube channel too! Subscribe here: youtube.com/ignunlocked

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Niantic has added a new Hoenn Pokedex badge to Pokemon Go, providing even more evidence of an imminent release of generation three.

Let’s be clear: you do not need to wait until October to watch horror movies. But it’s hard to think of a better time. Halloween is right around the corner, night falls earlier and earlier, and you’ve got all this candy in the house so you might as well eat it while watching something spooky.

Fortunately, Netflix – which doesn’t always have the best horror selection – has boosted their Halloween cred this season by adding a “Halloween Favorites” section, adding some new titles and highlighting several others that don’t get nearly enough attention the rest of the year. Some of these movies are slumber party classics, some of them rank among the scariest movies ever made, and some are relatively new, totally awesome horror films that haven’t officially become cult hits yet… but they will.

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There seems to be some sort of unwritten rule that Marvel always needs to have a Deadpool vs.

miniseries on the stands at all times. Now that Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe Again has ended, it falls on Old Man Logan to keep the Merc With a Mouth occupied. There’s a real sense of diminishing returns with these crossover adventures, and Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan #1 does little to revive a stale formula.

Not that there isn’t plenty of potential in pairing these two characters right now. Both Wade and Logan are in profoundly different places relative to where they were when they served together in Uncanny X-Force. Wade in particular is suffering from the fallout of his action in Secret Empire and has given up his years-long quest to establish himself as a legitimate hero. There’s a good dynamic to be mined between these weary, jaded versions of Wolverine and Deadpool. But if writer Declan Shalvey intends on exploring that dynamic, readers will have to wait until later chapters. This first issue follows a pretty simple, unremarkable formula – Logan is on a mission, Wade gets in his way, the two fight, etc.

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A moving, fact-based firefighter drama from the director of Tron: Legacy. In theaters Friday.

 Be sure to visit IGN Tech for all the latest comprehensive hands-on reviews and best-of roundups. Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

The Logitech flagship mechanical gaming keyboard, the G910 Orion Spectrum (See it on Amazon), takes some of the best features of its lower-priced cousin, the G810, and adds on a few noteworthy items of its own like dedicated macro buttons, a removable wrist rest, and integrated second-screen features via ARX Control. The latter isn’t particularly great, but a well-designed keyboard backed up with smoothly actuating Romer-G switches and intelligent software keeps the G910 Spectrum near the top of the heap in the crowded mechanical gaming keyboard market.

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

As much as this season of South Park has felt like a return to form for the series, there are still episodes that miss the mark. We saw it with the premiere, and we saw it again this week with “Hummels & Heroin.” This episode took a promising concept and failed to exploit it to its fullest.

It’s frustrating, because there’s a lot South Park could do with the subject of the US opioid epidemic. Here you have one of the greatest public health crises in the country’s history, one perpetrated by greedy pharmaceutical corporations, opportunistic drug cartels and money-hungry quack doctors. Surely a show like South Park would have a lot to say about the situation and the trail of ruined lives these corporations are leaving in their wake. But this episode never felt like it had much interesting to say about the subject. At best, “Hummels & Heroin” feels like a halfhearted retread of Season 16’s “Cash for Gold,” which offered a brilliant, scathing look at the never-ending cycle of exploitation that is home shopping networks and “cash for gold” pawn shops. That episode’s “Jewelry Polka” sequence still haunts me years later. It’s a shame this episode couldn’t reach similar heights.

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