Television

Television

I would argue that the most crucial aspect of any television set is its picture quality. Never mind its smart capabilities, brand prestige, or super-high refresh rate. For human beings, at first glance anyway, the visual stimulus overrides all else. This is why when you walk into Costco, you are arrested by the exquisite images flashing on a bunch of big-screen TVs set to "Retail Mode," peacocking their 4K beauty. First impressions are always based on appearance.

While it's not necessarily the biggest or the flashiest, the 43" Samsung U7900 UHD 4K Smart Tizen TV earned the spot as one of our top recommendations for 40-inch TVs--even before it went on sale. ZDNET writer Taylor Clemons dubbed it the "best 40-inch TV for streaming," and wrote that it's "a great TV for live TV, movies, and shows" with 4K resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, and Samsung's Object Tracking Sound Lite technology that provides "3D audio" for on-screen action.

Peak TV was great, and Kevin Reilly had a great seat during the Peak TV era. Reilly steered programming at networks including NBC, Fox, and FX during the boom, which was fueled first by cable, and then by competition from streaming. That era is over, and it's not coming back, Reilly says. Which helps explain why he's in AI now.

It is 40 years since TV juggernaut Blind Date first aired, and Sue and Alex Tatham were the first couple who met on the show to get married, in a ceremony broadcast to around 17 million people. They both said they didn't go on the show looking for love, but love was what they found, and they have now been married for 34 years.

Christian Lee Hutson is a 35-year-old American singer-songwriter whose career began as a member of The Driftwood Singers. He went solo in 2019 and has since released three albums: Beginners (2020), Quitters (2022) and Paradise Pop. 10 (2024), the latter of which Hawke appears on with co-writing credits and guest vocals. These album releases were co-produced by Phoebe Bridgers. As well as releasing his own music, Hutson has co-written for Samia, Marshall Vore, Whitmer Thomas, Conor Oberst and Ethan Gruska.

The biggest challenge this TV poses is fitting it in your home. This thing is gigantic; it's 85.7 inches wide, 49.1 inches tall, and the feet are 68.5 inches apart. If you have a wall big enough to mount it on, then you're all set. However, if you don't, you might find yourself scrambling to find an entertainment center large enough to accommodate this behemoth.

When Netflix crashed within minutes of releasing Stranger Things series five, it felt like a plot twist worthy of the sci-fi show itself. Viewers were left unable to stream the opening episodes of the long-awaited final series, with many voicing their frustration on social media platforms. The outage tracker Downdetector recorded more than 14,000 reports in the US, while fans in India reported the streaming service freezing and displaying connection errors, with 200 reports made in the country during its peak.

Mega Man: The Complete Series is on sale for 40% off at Amazon for Black Friday. Fans of the Blue Bomber can pick up the '90s animated series on Blu-ray for only $30 (was $50). Mega Man: The Complete Series just launched on Blu-ray at the end of October, so it's not surprising this is a new all-time low for one of Discotek Media's latest Blu-ray releases.

The tropes of these stories have found particular success in franchises like The Hunger Games and Squid Game, but you can only replicate a formula so many times before even the best stories feel boring. Thankfully, Netflix just dropped a new take on the story, and it's pushing the genre into the future by taking it over a century into the past.

Welcome to our weekly Verge-subscriber discussion of , the new sci-fi series on Apple TV from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. The show follows Carol as one of the few "survivors" on Earth after a virus of unknown origins turns the rest of the world into a connected hive mind, one seemingly unable to handle any negative emotions. This creates a huge conflict with Carol who is a pretty miserable human being.