Enlarge / Tokyo residents find themselves trapped in a post-apocalyptic parallel world called Borderland, where they must compete in deadly games to survive. (credit: Netflix)

In the carefree, pre-pandemic Before Times, escape rooms were all the rage as fun group activities, where people had to solve a puzzle or mystery, or complete a series of tasks, in order to escape. Alice in Borderland , a hugely entertaining new Netflix series from Japan, takes that concept to a whole new level, transforming Tokyo into an alternate dimension called "Borderland." Those trapped therein must compete in deadly games to survive, and escape is by no means guaranteed. This is an emotionally intense, addictive series you'll definitely want to binge.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

As previously reported , the series is based on the Japanese manga by Haro Aso. It has elements of Alice in Wonderland and Ready Player One , with a dash of Lord of the Flies and the 1997 sci-fi horror film, Cube , thrown in for good measure, but it's very much an original vision. The TV adaptation is directed by Shinsuke Sato, best known for 2001's The Princess Blade and last year's Kingdom , and co-written by Haro Aso and Yasuko Kuramitsu. The manga tells the story of Ryōhei Arisu (Arisu can be translated as "Alice"), a bored high schooler who longs for a more exciting life. Arisu's wish is granted during a fireworks celebration: he and his two best friends find themselves in a post-apocalyptic parallel world known as Borderland.

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  Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) has a good thing going with Lou Carmody (Jonathan Langdon). [credit: AMC ]

A young mother must overcome her personal demons to save her son from a psychic vampire in the second season of horror drama NOS4A2 (pronounced "Nosferatu"), an adaptation of the 2013 novel of the same name by Joe Hill . (Hill is having a banner year between this and the successful Netflix adaptation of Locke and Key ). While the otherwise compelling first season dragged in places—mostly when it was weighed down a bit by the need to build out the fictional world—S2 wastes no time kicking off the action. NOS4A2 rarely lets up over its newest ten episodes.

(Spoilers for S1 below. Mostly mild spoilers for S2 until after the final gallery. We'll give you a heads up when we get there.)

As we've reported previously , the novel is about a woman named Vic McQueen with a gift for finding lost things. She's one of a rare group of people known as "strong creatives," capable of tearing through the fabric that separates the physical world from the world of thought and imagination (their personal "inscapes") with the help of a talisman-like object dubbed a "knife." For Vic, her knife is her motorcycle; for a troubled young woman named Maggie, it's a bag of Scrabble tiles. And for psychic "vampire"/child abductor Charlie Manx, it's a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, which seems to have a mind of its own.

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  Just a retired admiral and his trusty Number One. [credit: YouTube/CBS All Access ]

Nobody can deliver lines with Shakespearean gravitas and comforting emotional resonance like Patrick Stewart, which is why the actor—and his famous Star Trek character, Jean-Luc Picard—remain so beloved in the franchise. He gives yet another sublime performance in the new CBS All Access series, Star Trek: Picard , anchoring the larger-than-life stakes of the broader narrative with his intensely personal portrayal of a grief-stricken, disillusioned retired Starfleet admiral who feels the world he once dominated has passed him by.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

As Ars' Kate Cox noted in her review of the pilot episode, the events of 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis "are the plot and emotional scaffolding over which the initial episode of Picard is draped"—most notably, Data sacrificing his life to save the rest of the Enterprise crew. Honestly, that loss drives the entire season, along with 2009's Star Trek film reboot of the franchise.