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  Atticus, aka "Tic," walking the old familiar streets. [credit: YouTube/HBO ]

A Black family in 1950s Chicago struggles to reclaim their lost ancestral legacy while warding off monsters and magic spells in HBO's Lovecraft Country , based on the 2016 dark fantasy/horror novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. Like the novel that inspired it, the series' pointed juxtaposition of supernatural Lovecraftian horrors against more mundane, but equally horrifying racial inequalities of that era is especially timely in a year that has seen widespread civil rights protests against the brutal killings of Black men (and women) by police officers. And social relevance aside, it also works as pure entertainment.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

Set in the Jim Crow era of the 1950s, Ruff's book is structured as a series of short stories, although everything is inter-related. The first quarter of the book focuses on Atticus, a black Korean war veteran and big H.P. Lovecraft fan, despite the author's notorious racism. When his estranged father disappears after encountering a well-dressed white man driving a silver Cadillac, leaving a cryptic message, Atticus sets out on a road trip from Chicago's South Side to rural Massachusetts. He's accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide —and his childhood friend Letitia (aka Leti).

Enlarge / AT&T's logo and share price displayed on a monitor at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg )

AT&T lost 627,000 TV customers in Q3 2020, an improvement over previous quarters as the company continues its attempt to sell the failing DirecTV division.

In earnings results reported today, AT&T said it lost 590,000 "Premium TV" customers, a category that includes DirecTV satellite, U-verse wireline TV, and the online service known as AT&T TV. AT&T also lost 37,000 customers from AT&T TV Now, the streaming service formerly known as DirecTV Now.

The Premium TV loss of 590,000 customers in Q3 is the best result since AT&T lost 544,000 subscribers in Q1 2019. AT&T's Premium TV losses ranged from 778,000 to 1.16 million customers per quarter from Q2 2019 through Q2 2020. AT&T currently has 17.1 million Premium TV customers, down from over 25 million in early 2017.

Enlarge / AT&T's logo and share price displayed on a monitor at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

AT&T is reportedly moving ahead with its plan to sell DirecTV despite receiving bids that value the satellite division at less than one-third of the price AT&T paid for it.

AT&T bought DirecTV for $49 billion in 2015 and has lost seven million TV subscribers in the last two years. In late August, news broke that AT&T is trying to sell DirecTV to private-equity investors and that a deal could come in at less than $20 billion.

The New York Post yesterday provided an update on the sale process , writing that AT&T is pressing ahead with an auction even though it is "shaping up to be a fire sale." The sale process is being handled for AT&T by Goldman Sachs.

Today marks the release of a new trailer for HBO Max’s upcoming sci-fi series Raised by Wolves , produced and initially directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien and The Martian .

Compared to the initial trailer that landed recently, this one fleshes the world out a bit more by introducing additional characters and more thoroughly explaining the central conflict in the series.

Here’s a quick recap of what we know about the series so far: it principally stars a female, possibly part-biological android named Mother, who has left behind some catastrophe on humanity’s home planet to travel to a new one. There, she raises a group of children who will be the seed for a new human civilization that avoids the mistakes that purportedly destroyed civilization as we know it. But in the course of raising them, it becomes clear that the young humans are susceptible to the same tendencies that Mother claims were humanity’s undoing.

Fans who have been clamoring to see Zack Snyder's director's cut of the disappointing 2017 film, Justice League , will finally get their wish, as HBO Max released a two-minute trailer for Zack Snyder's Justice League during the virtual DC Fandome event. The trailer actually leaked online before the panel, but was quickly pulled until the official release.

(Some spoilers for the 2017 Justice League below.)

The original Justice League was the third film in a trilogy that included Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). It brought together Ben Affleck's Batman and Henry Cavill's Superman with Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). They are on a mission to save the world from arch-villain Steppenwolf, a New God in search of three "Mother Boxes" that will enable him to terraform the Earth into something more hospitable to him and his army of Parademons.