Based on the novella by George R R Martin, “Nightflyers” follows eight maverick scientists and a powerful telepath who embark on an expedition to the edge of our solar system aboard The Nightflyer in the hope of making contact with alien life.

But when terrifying and violent events begin to take place they start to question each other – and surviving the journey proves harder than anyone thought.

Martin also serves as an executive producer and the 10-part series is being co-produced by Universal Cable Productions and Netflix. Jeff Buhler wrote the adaptation for television.

Gretchen Mol from “Boardwalk Empire” is set to star as Dr Agatha Matheson alongside Eoin Macken (“The Night Shift”) as Karl D’Branin and David Ajala (“Fast & Furious 6”) as Roy Eris. The series will also star Sam Strike as Thale, Maya Eshet as Lommie, Angus Sampson as Rowan, Jodie Turner-Smith as Melantha Jhirl and Brian F O’Byrne as Auggie.

In 1981, “Nightflyers” won the Locus Award for best novella and the Analog Readers Poll for best novella/novelette, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella. The novella was also the recipient of the 1983 Seiun Award in Japan for foreign short fiction.

Wright steps into the leading character in the final season after actor Kevin Spacey was forced to leave the series for alleged sexual assaults.

The acclaimed political series “House of Cards” focuses on an ambitious Democrat Frank Underwood (Spacey) who becomes the US president aided by his wife Claire Underwood (Wright).

Wright is joined by Academy Award nominees Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear as well as Cody Fern this season alongside Emmy Award nominee Michael Kelly, Jayne Atkinson, Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson, Emmy Award Nominee Constance Zimmer, Derek Cecil, Campbell Scott and Boris McGiver.

In 2013, “House of Cards” became the first original online series to receive major nominations from the Primetime Emmy Awards. The series has received 53 Emmy nominations to date, with seven awards – including the first major Emmy for a streaming service for David Fincher for “Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.” “House of Cards” received six Golden Globe nominations, and two wins. The historic series has also received 11 Screen Actors Guild nominations with two wins; an AFI Award; four Writers Guild Award nominations, with one win; two BAFTA nominations; four Producers Guild Award nominations; two Directors Guild Award nominations; and a Peabody Award, among other accolades.

Instead, critics have slammed it as fat-shaming, homophobic and denigrating to transgender people.

The offbeat show follows the story of overweight teen Patty, who is mocked and bullied incessantly until she has an accident that requires her jaw be wired shut — which causes her to shed significant weight.

With her new svelte figure, she vows to seek revenge on all those who attacked her, notably by participating in beauty contests.

The trailer prompted fierce backlash from critics accusing the show of body-shaming.

It perpetuates “not only the toxicity of diet culture, but the objectification of women’s bodies,” read a petition launched last month.

With the show’s release on Friday, the petition — which calls for the series’ cancellation — had more than 229,400 signatures.

Some people also skewered the show for the way it portrayed homosexuality, including apparently making light of Patty’s best friend Nonnie for her repressed desire.

In another scene, a young girl who accidentally releases a nude photo of herself says she initially “figured everyone would think I’m a slut.”

“Now they think I’m a lesbian and that’s way worse,” she says.

And in another scene, Patty and a transgender woman compare being fat to being transgender, saying they both aspire to change their bodies.

“At the very least, it will be a conversation starter,” said Alyssa Milano, who stars in the show.

“People bring with them their own emotional history and that’s what makes art amazing and TV entertaining. I’m completely aware that it’s not a show for everybody but we’re really proud of what we did.”

Netflix’s vice president of original series, Cindy Holland, said the series explores issues “satirically, in a very over-the-top way.”

Lauren Gussis, who created the show, called it “a cautionary tale about how damaging it can be to believe the outsides are more important — to judge without going deeper.”

“Please give the show a chance,” she said.

OFTEN HAILED as one of the finest actors of his generation, Ewan McGregor, who returns to big screens today as a grown-up Christopher Robin, has played a diverse line-up of roles across a multitude of genres, styles and scopes. Most recently seen playing brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy in the award-winning series “Fargo”, he made his breakthrough as the heroin-addicted Mark Renton in “Trainspotting” and went on to star as Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars: Episode I –The Phantom Menace”, as Christian in “Moulin Rouge”.

Ewan McGregor plays a grown-up Christopher Robin in the film of the same name.

He made his directorial debut in 2016 with “American Pastoral”, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. McGregor also starred in the film opposite Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning.

We put some questions to him about his latest role as Christopher Robin.

HOW FAMILIAR WERE YOU WITH THE CHARACTERS CREATED BY AA MILNE?

I remember the books, obviously. They were read to me when I was a little boy and I remember being very fond of them, and I read them to my children as well. I had a bear like Winnie the Pooh…it was a sort of old fashioned bear with arms and legs that had those funny joints. It wasn’t a Winnie the Pooh bear, but it was very much like him. And when I acted with our Winnie the Pooh it reminded me of my old bear.

Winnie the Pooh goes for a wander in the forest.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE ANIMAL CHARACTERS IN THE FILM?

The creatures that they’ve made or designed for this film are amazing. They’re amazingly full of character just sitting still.

WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS ROLE?

I was quite charmed by the script and loved that they made Christopher Robin a man my age and that Winnie the Pooh comes back to him at a difficult time in his life. I found that really moving. Christopher Robin is the father of a daughter who he’s not very close to, and he recognises that and would like to be closer to her. And certainly, you get the feeling that she would like to be closer with her dad as well, and there’s something about this coming together of a father and his daughter that really appealed to me as a father of girls.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE SETS?

Looking at our sets and the stuff we’ve done outdoors on the streets where we’ve turned the streets of London into 1949 London streets, it looked so real. I’ve done lots of period things and the danger with period films is that they can become sort of in your face and you can see the period. But on this film somehow it didn’t….it just felt very realistic. And I think it was due to our talented production design and costume design.

HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH DIRECTOR MARC FORSTER?

Because of Marc and the people he chose to make this film with, like our director of photography Mattias Konigswieser, who did an amazing job, and the beautiful exterior and interior sets…everything looked absolutely beautiful and classic and real.

TALK ABOUT HAYLEY ATWELL, WHO PLAYS YOUR WIFE EVELYN IN THE FILM.

I love Hayley. Hayley and I did a Woody Allen film with Colin Farrell some years ago called “Cassandra’s Dream”. I think it might have been her first movie out of drama school, but it was fun working with her on that. So I was happy when Marc told me that he was thinking about casting her in this.

HOW ABOUT BRONTE CARMICHAEL, WHO PLAYS YOUR DAUGHTER MADELINE?

Bronte’s lovely…she was so natural and, again, so real. She is so lovely when she’s acting because she’s totally unaffected. I don’t know if it was her first film or not, I think it might have been (her parents are actors too, I think, and they’re lovely people), and she was just really, really good and a total sweetheart.

Bronte Carmichael plays Christopher Robin’s daughter Madeline.

HOW WAS IT WORKING OPPOSITE A STUFFED BEAR?

In this film we had to do takes with the hero teddy bears (they call them stuffies)…now I don’t know if that was an Americanism or a filmism, but they were basically teddy bears. So when I did the first takes, I did those with Pooh, and what Marc Forster did brilliantly was cast players for Pooh, Tigger, Kanga and Eeyore, actors who stood in for each of them. The film wouldn’t be nearly as affective, and the acting wouldn’t feel as real and as good if it wasn’t for those actors playing the characters.

HOW DID THE STUFFED ANIMALS LOOK?

They looked beautiful and very real with a sort of aged look to them…like Winnie the Pooh had a little balding patch on his tummy. They all looked like they had been in a toy box for 30 years.

WERE YOU ABLE TO RELATE TO THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTOPHER ROBIN?

I really like Christopher Robin. I really liked playing him, and I felt like I wanted to play him –not him particularly – but this character, I feel like I’d had in me for a long time.

WHAT DO YOU THINK AUDIENCES WILL TAKE AWAY FROM THE FILM?

I think people will be surprised and I think it’s probably what Walt Disney wanted from the beginning….a film that is for children, but not just for children.

Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly and Tony Award winner Daveed Diggs star in the series. Set seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer centres on the remnants of humanity, who inhabit a gigantic, perpetually-moving train that circles the globe. Class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival are questioned in this riveting television adaptation. The series is based on the acclaimed movie of the same name.

The series also stars Alison Wright, Mickey Sumner, Katie McGuinness, Susan Park and Tony Award winner and Grammy nominee Lena Hall.

“Snowpiercer” is a co-production of Tomorrow Studios, a partnership between Marty Adelstein and ITV Studios, and Turner’s Studio T. Award-winning writer and producer Graeme Manson (“Orphan Black”) is the showrunner and also serves as executive producer along with Scott Derrickson, Matthew O’Connor and the original film’s Bong Joon Ho, Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae-hun and Dooho Choi.

James Hawes will serve as director and co-executive producer.

The series will debut on TNT in the US.

The series — which debuted on Youku on July 24 — was adapted from the hit online novel of the same title.

Penned by novelist Banming Banmei, the story takes place during a turbulent era in ancient China’s history. Trained as an assassin in the fictional town of Guihua, the protagonist, Wan Mei, a young beautiful woman, teams up with her devoted aide, Yingzi, to survive a series of conflicts and conspiracies. It’s the latest Chinese series to promote a strong female lead character, with distinct feminist overtones —a trend which is proving popular amongst female audiences.

The series will be broadcast in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Mauritius, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey, Mexico and the United States — a new high for the overseas broadcast of a Chinese online series.

Banming Banmei adapted his novel for the screen, while Xu Jizhou, known for directing the crime thriller, The Liquidator, is executive producer. Additionally, the series is choreographed by Guo Yong, perhaps best known for his work on the fantasy epic, The Monkey King 2.

Actress, Li Yitong, who plays the lead role and also sings one of the theme songs, is joined by actors, Qu Chuxiao and Wang Duo.

 The first four episodes will be shown on August 4 in APAC markets excluding Japan and English-speaking regions excluding the US, and Episodes 5 and 6 will stream the same days as the Korean broadcast, on August 6 and 7 at 11.30pm, followed by a regular weekly schedule.

All other territories excluding the US and Japan will see two episodes weekly, every Monday at 11.30pm, while all episodes will be available in the US on September 12.

“Life” is a new medical drama from Lee Su-yeon, writer of “Stranger”, which was popular among Netflix viewers in Thailand last year.

The series won the Grand Prize in TV at the Baeksang Arts Awards in South Korea. Director Hong Jong-chan previously helmed “Dear My Friends”.

The drama series is about people in a hospital who want to protect and save and also those who want to defend what they believe is right.

Sometimes, like an inner body reaction, the characters in “Life” collide aggressively as the story progresses.

The K-drama features Lee Dong-wook, well known for his lead part in “Goblin”(“Guardian: The Lonely and Great God”) as Ye Jin-woo, one of the doctors in the hospital.

Jo Seung-woo, who was the lead in a mystery story in “Stranger”, plays Koo Seung-hyo, the new CEO of the hospital.

Khun Pan, the 1940’s cop hero, is coming back to the big screen later this month but fans shouldn’t expect the icon of righteousness to be as pure as driven snow. This time round, the detective crosses to the dark side to join forces with notorious criminals in “Khun Pan 2”

The first film, released in 2016, was a hit for director Kongkiat Komesiri, earning a respectable Bt60 million at the box office. And despite being criticised for his work, he’s back at the helm for round two.

Considered one of the most versatile filmmakers in Thailand since his debut “Long Khong” (“The Art of the Devil”), Kongkiat was also behind the acclaimed though not money making “Muay Thai Chaiya” and “Chuean” (Slice”). But, he says with a grin, “Khun Pan” is by far the most entertaining film he’s worked on.

“It’s been fun making this film but also very exhausting and full of problems. Even though this is a sequel, we still had a limited budget, which is difficult when you are trying to make an action movie, some of my team quit and my actors were burnt out from the tough shoot,” he says.

Yet despite the measly Bt30 million budget, which allowed little for visual effects, he is pleased with the outcome.

“Making an action fantasy movie like this is challenging but I loved the idea of reviving the Thai action movie style called raberd phookhao phao krathom (exploding mountains and burning shacks),” he says. The phrase refers to the popular scenes that appeared in the Thai action films so popular in the 1970s and 1980s featuring superstars like Sombat Methanee, Soraphong Chatree and Krung Sriwilai as heroes going up against influential people exploiting the rural poor. It’s a movie style that the director, like other kids at that time, was crazy about as a youngster. And thanks to the period and the background scenery, “Khun Pan 2” is filling the boots of yesteryear’s heroes.

Director Kongkiat Komesiri

“Making an action movie is challenging. It reminds me of my youth when I used to go to outdoor screenings. The story-lines were improbable, even crazy, but we loved them.”

“Khun Pan 2” is neither a tribute to nor a return to that style, more, the director says, a question of bringing mood and tone to audiences.

“There is a thin line between a remake of the style and being inspired by it. We have to tread carefully otherwise it’s outdated and boring. What we’ve done is similar to the approach Quentin Tarantino uses to bring some style from a Shaw Brothers’ movie or the slasher movies on which Robert Rodriguez draws,” he explains.

“Khun Pan 2” is set just after the World War II during an upsurge in crime and violence all over the country. Criminals rob people at will and law enforcement takes advantage of the corrupt system. Khun Pan (Ananda Everingham), who is now assigned to take down criminals in the central region, is suspended from duty as a result of the corrupt police system, leading him to question the state of justice. While suspended, he is drawn into a crime that affects the people around him and decides to investigate alone. That leads to him joining the notorious gang led by Suea Fai (Lt Col Wanchana Sawasdee) and Suea Bai (Arak Amornsupasiri.) “Suea” was the title by which notorious criminals were known in that era and both Suea Fai and Suea Bai were real-life robber barons in Thailand’s central region.

Has Khun Pan made the right decision in joining the gang of Suea Fai and Suea Bai? 

Rachawin Wongviriya plays the owner of an entertainment venue where both criminals and law hang out while Arpa Pawilai stars as Suea Bai’s girlfriend.

Khun Pan is more mature and more human than in the first part, which pleased actor Ananda and partly made up for the exhaustion he suffered during the filming. The casting of Lt Col Wanchana, who is best known for portraying King Naresuan in the epic “The Legend of King Naresuan”, will come as a surprise to fans though his characterisation of Suea Fai will bring to mind Sombat Methanee during his heyday.

“That’s my intention,” Kongkiat says, adding that he also would have liked to cast a supporting villain like that played by the late actor Phiphob Phoopinyo.

Magic weapons are also introduced including Khun Pan’s famous magical Red Sword, a whipped gun and a magic bullet that hits everyone in Suea Bai’s vision. There are magic spells too that help the characters survive as well as magic that helps them be invisible others or “Salikar Lin Thong” -the spell that makes people believe whatever you say.

Kongkiat introduced magic and superstition in the first film as he worked to create a Thai action hero franchise movie. The concept is more concrete in the second part helped along by the decision to make Khun Pan a fictional character in a carousel of tidbits drawn from real-life events.

The fist “Khun Pan” was adapted from the career of Pol Maj-General Khun Phanthrak Rajadej during the 1930s and ’40, who was best known for using his “superstitious” powers to take down notorious criminals in the south of Thailand and the central region. He died in 2006 but his name came back to everyone’s lips during the craze for the Jatukam Ramathep talismans in 2007. Khun Pan was a maker of the amulets.

The idea to make Khun Pan a franchise came from film producer Somsak Techarattanaprasert who wanted to make Khun Pan a James Bond type of character. However the first part was caught between biopic and fictional action hero and didn’t do either justice.

“That is why the first part was criticised by those who respect Khun Pan. So we decided to set the clear direction in “Khun Pan 2” as a fictional and entertaining approach. It’s just like watching Ethan Hunt in ‘Mission Impossible’,” he says.

The first “Khun Pan” was also disparaged for its poor visual effects, a criticism the director freely admits was down to a limited budget and time constraints. This time, he’s attempted to fix the problem by avoiding visual effects as far as he can.

“I don’t complain about the budget because I understand the investors’ position. We cannot be selfish and demand what we want while ignoring the risks. But the budget is a headache as it makes it impossible to make the film as perfect as we want,” he says.

Kongkiat adds that with Khun Pan’s universe clearly defined, he has plenty of ideas for continuing the franchise. In real life, Khun Pan took down many influential criminals across the country |and was also known for his superstitions and talismans, all facts that can be fictionalised for an entertaining story in the next “Khun Pan” sequel.

“I’ll be proud of the project if it has its own life without me. The project can now be handed over to other directors to continue the series,” he says.

“Ballers” returns for its nine-episode fourth season, at 9am, with a same day primetime encore at 10pm.

Exploring the glamorous, often cut-throat, world of pro football through a group of past and present players striving to stay in the game, “Baller” stars Johnson as ex-superstar Spencer Strasmore, who has reinvented himself as a financial manager for today’s players.

After refusing to compromise his principles by joining an alliance with the filthy-rich Anderson brothers to move a football franchise to Las Vegas, Spencer and his partner Joe set out to expand their foothold in the client-management business, weighing an opportunity to purchase an extreme-sports LA outfit.

“Insecure” begins its eight-episode third season, at 9.30am, with a same day primetime encore at 10.30pm.

Starring Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Issa Rae as Issa, Yvonne Orji as Molly, Lisa Joyce as Frieda, Natasha Rothwell as Kelli and Amanda Seales as Tiffany, the series follows the friendship of two African American women as they deal with their own real-life flaws while attempting to navigate different worlds and cope with an endless series of uncomfortable everyday experiences. In the third season, Issa attempts to navigate her complicated relationship with Daniel (Y’lan Noel), a childhood friend and on-and-off-again fling who’s looking to take his music career to the next level. On the work front, she begins to question her role at the non-profit “We Got Y’all” and Molly sets boundaries in order to concentrate.