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A new Planet of the Apes movie is on the way from Maze Runner and Ruin director Wes Ball. At the time of its announcement, it wasn’t made clear if the film would be a continuation of the reboot series that begin in 2011, or a reboot of the entire franchise.

Ball has now himself confirmed on Twitter that “Caesar’s legacy will continue…” which seems to be a strong suggestion that this will be a follow-up to War for the Planet of the Apes instead of a reboot of the entire franchise. That being said, Ball’s brief statement does leave some wiggle room.

Ball’s comment came in response to a story that claimed the new movie would be a reboot that is not connected to the three films–Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes–that were made by 20th Century Fox.

The Planet of the Apes series is based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Boulle, and was first made into a popular movie in 1968 starring Charlton Heston. That film led to many sequels and extensions on the screen and TV. In 2001, Tim Burton rebooted the series again with Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter in starring roles.

The announcement of the new Planet of the Apes is no surprise, as Disney CEO Robert Iger said the Planet of the Apes series was a priority for the company following Disney’s acquisition of Fox.

The newest reboot series of Planet of the Apes has grossed more than $1.6 billion at the global box office across three instalments. Veteran motion-capture actor Andy Serkis played Caesar in the new films, with a supporting cast that included James Franco, Gary Oldman, and Woody Harrelson over the three instalments.

War for the Planet of the Apes was directed by Matt Reeves, who is now writing and directing the new Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson.

For its first four episodes, Star Trek: Picard was a pretty dark and dour affair. Unlike The Next Generation, the cheerier and often easier-going series it follows, Picard has been imagining a Star Trek galaxy where things are a little more lawless and people are a little less moral. That makes for an interesting deconstruction of a legendary Starfleet captain, but it also has meant that Picard has lacked some of the lighter moments that are also a big part of Star Trek. Episode 5, “Stardust City Rag,” corrects that issue to make for one of the more fun episodes the series has seen so far.

At the center of the episode is a fairly formulaic heist-type scenario, with Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew brokering a deal with criminals by pretending to be gangsters themselves. It’s a fairly worn idea, one that’s popped up on all sorts of TV shows, including Star Trek. But while the premise is played out, there’s a good reason these moments have become such a cliche: they push characters into unexpected situations and encourage them to do something other than brood. In “Stardust City Rag,” it seems like the cast is reveling in that opportunity, but nobody as much as Stewart himself.

Up to now, Picard’s plan has been to find Bruce Maddox, the cyberneticist who created Data’s daughters, in hopes of locating and rescuing Soji (Isa Briones). That takes him and his crew to a planet called Freecloud and its Star Trek equivalent of a seedier Las Vegas, Stardust City. A local criminal has Maddox, and in order to free him, the good guys are forced to pretend to be bad guys, with the help of the recently arrived Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). In order to pull off the plan, everyone has to dress up and play comically over-the-top crooks.

The result is one of the lighter extended moments of Star Trek: Picard, largely thanks to Stewart. While Rios (Santiago Cabrera) dresses up as a flamboyant Facer, Picard dons not only an unnecessary eye patch, but also a fairly ridiculous French accent. It’s a goofy, nonsensical addition that does nothing to make Picard seem like a more trustworthy villain, but it lightens up the situation, and with it, the show as a whole. Star Trek: Picard has had a funny moment here or there, but this is the first time it’s tried something this playful. It’s a momentary return to the more relaxed feel of The Next Generation and its movies–likely because this episode had TNG actor and director Jonathan Frakes at the helm.

While Picard’s brief turn as a tough-to-parse one-eyed gangster is a nice change of pace to lighten the mood, the rest of Episode 5 is plenty dark as it continues to expand on the supporting characters. The fact that Picard’s current crew is a group of troubled, struggling spacefarers continues to be the engine that drives the show. This episode dips into the backstories of both Raffi (Michelle Hurd) and Seven, using both to explore Star Trek: Picard’s ongoing theme of one generation failing another, and learning to live with that failure.

The show continues plumbing Star Trek history, as well as the central conceits of its 1990s series, for ways to challenge its characters, and Seven of Nine in particular serves as a great mirror for Jean-Luc and his choices, as well as a fascinating expansion on her Star Trek: Voyager character. The more human, more damaged take on the former Borg character is a great expansion on the Seven fans will remember, and it’s great to see Picard draw from a series other than The Next Generation to shed new light on old story threads. Picard is having a deep and layered conversation with the rest of the Star Trek franchise, and the way it’s re-examining past characters and key Trek ideas is its best aspect.

It’s notable that “Stardust City Rag” doesn’t include any scenes on The Artifact, the captured Borg cube where the plots of Soji and Romulan spy Narek (Harry Treadaway) are taking place–and it might be better for it. That’s the plotline that seems to be indulging the show’s worst impulses, whether it’s falling into long explanations of made-up science that add little to the proceedings, or spending a lot of time establishing that yes, spies are doing spy things–and we still don’t know what they are. Episode 4 was useful in expanding on Soji and Narek and making their story a little more compelling, but for the most part, time spent on The Artifact has been confusing.

“Stardust City Rag” continues an upward trend with Star Trek: Picard, where the show continues to build on the foundation it painstakingly built in the first three, much slower episodes. Its lighter moments are a nice change of pace, even if they stray a little toward the goofy, but Episode 5 also brings in a lot of serious character development that’s further expounding on Picard’s themes. With Episode 5, Star Trek: Picard strikes a precarious balance between the fun Trek adventures of the past and its darker, grittier take on the franchise, and it’s one of the better episodes because of it.

Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.

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Mortal Kombat series creator Ed Boon recently posed a question to his more than 500,000 Twitter followers: what is the most important element of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X?

The options in Boon’s informal Twitter poll included affordable price, better graphics, exclusive games, and backwards compatibility for last-gen consoles. More than 50,000 people took part in the survey, and an affordable price was the most important for voters.

Price accounted for 37.5 percent of the vote, followed by last-gen compatibility (30 percent), better graphics (19.2 percent), and exclusive games (13.2 percent).

Boon said he was surprised to see exclusive games rank the lowest. In any event, a Twitter poll–even one that has 50,000 respondents–is not necessarily reflective of consumer interest or intent.

Sony and Microsoft have not yet announced the price points of their next-generation consoles, but with each system due to launch this year, those details should become clear in the months to come.

For comparison, the PS4 and Xbox One launched at $400 USD and $500 USD, respectively. The Xbox One was more expensive than the PS4 at launch in part because every system included a Kinect camera. Microsoft later cut the camera from the bundle and the price came down to be on par with the PS4.

Both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are slated to launch this holiday. Microsoft has been more forthcoming in regards to details, as it showed off the Xbox Series X in December 2019 during The Game Awards. Announcing and showing the console so early was a bold and risky move that Microsoft employed to compete with Sony, according to Microsoft.

For its part, Sony has confirmed smaller details like improved loading times and support for PS4 games, but the company has yet to actually show the console or announce more key particulars.

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One enduring mystery from US version of The Office was what, exactly, was written in the note that Jim (John Krasinski) intended to give to Pam (Jenna Fischer) in a Season 2 episode.

If you need a refresher, Jim, fuelled by the Christmas spirit of telling people how you really feel, wanted to give his romantic interest Pam the perfect gift that summed up how he felt. He knew she liked tea, so he bought her a teapot and stuffed a number of other personal items into it, including a note.

However, at the last minute, Jim removes the note. We don’t see the note again until the final season of The Office, when Jim finally gives Pam the card–it’s a very emotional scene. Still, though, the contents of the note remained a mystery. Until now.

On her Office Ladies podcast (via Entertainment Weekly), Fischer revealed that the note contained a message from John Krasinski written to Jenna Fischer as opposed to being a note from Jim to Pam.

“I’m on camera, and I open up the note that John had given me, and I just start crying,” Fischer said.

She said showrunner Greg Daniels told Krasinki to write a farewell message to Fischer, because The Office was coming to an end and it meant so much to both of them. Krasinski reportedly wrote in the note about how special it was to work with Fischer for so long on a project that helped push both of their careers to new heights.

Fischer is keeping the specific contents of the message a secret, but now we finally know more about it, and that’s exciting for fans of The Office. “I’ll never say exactly what John wrote, but just know that it was perfect,” Fischer said.

Another fun fact to know is that Fischer read the note for the first time on camera, and she cried her eyes out. “The first take was probably not usable,” she said on the podcast, according to BuzzFeed.

A reboot of The Office is reportedly in the planning stages with a new cast. In other news, NBCU recently paid $500 million to take The Office away from Netflix and release it on its own streaming service, called Peacock, starting in 2021.