series

Today on Netflix, 6 seasons of a brutal and fast-paced action series with an impeccable score

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Before the History Channel jumped into fiction, the network was known for its potential for crazy memes on shows centered around conspiracy theories about aliens in the pyramids. In 2013 he made a strong commitment to his first fiction series: ‘Vikings‘, a production set in 9th century Scandinavia that surpassed 6 million viewers at its premiere. Now you have its 89 episodes in Netflixand continues to triumph in audiences. The source material for the series is somewhat slippery: the main source on the life of Ragnar Lothbrok is the ‘Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok’, a 13th century Icelandic text (among other works that mention him, such as the ‘Heimskringla’, or the ‘Sögubrot’). They are texts that were written three or four centuries after the events they describe, based on oral tradition, and their historical reliability is very debatable (although experts at the time They have praised his rigor when capturing the past). And yet, as the network’s first bet on serialized fiction, it worked: the showrunner Michael Hirst had just written the film ‘Elizabeth’ and created the series ‘The Tudors’. Hirst wrote each of the 89 episodes alone.something unusual in a television production of that scale. The narrative coherence that this generates is considerable, and that is why it has obtained Consistently positive grades on rating aggregators as Rotten Tomatoes (where seasons 3 and 6 achieved a 100% rating from critics), with an average of 93. And all thanks to its balance between the most visceral action and the historical analysis of paganism, customs and geopolitics. And although it was not received in such a unanimously positive way, if you binge the six seasons you also have on Netflix the three seasons of the sequel, ‘Vikings: Valhalla’, set more than a century after the events of the original series, and analyzing the conflicts between the descendants of the Vikings and the English nobility. The Nordic saga does not end here: Amazon Prime has contracted the rights to ‘Bloodaxe’, in which Michael Hirst once again gets behind the scripts, reviewing the life of another famous Nordic creature. In Xataka | Today on Prime Video: the international blockbuster that has restored luster to the erotic thriller genre

“A structured resistance routine with appropriate series and weights is sufficient”

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When you enter the world gym it is quite likely that two great mantras: “You have to change exercises constantly so that the muscle does not get used to it” and “The more sets and weight we load, the more the muscle will grow.” However, the latest scientific evidence is dismantling these popular beliefs piece by piece to make way for much more efficient training. A new study published in April in the journal Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport forces us to rethink how we create our routines, especially if we are looking to have a much larger arm. To do this, the researchers set out to resolve a fundamental question: is it really necessary to increase the number of sets or vary the exercises constantly to continue gaining muscle? To figure it out, they recruited 32 young adults with no prior strength training experience and subjected them to a 14 week protocol. The first six weeks were standard conditioning, where all participants gained a remarkable 4.0% of lean mass in their upper limbs, measured with extremely high precision using scanners. DEXA. The real test came over the next eight weeks, where they divided the subjects into four groups. Here one group kept the same basic routine, while the second group increased the number of sets they did of an exercise and the third also changed the type of exercise. And to bring it all together, the fourth group of young people increased both the number of series and the type of exercise. The result. There was no statistically significant difference between these four groups, since the group that limited itself to doing the basic routine with sufficient effort gained 3.1% of lean mass, even surpassing the group that had much more weight in its exercises and technically tying with those who varied exercises. The conclusion that can be drawn here is good news for beginners, since overcomplication offers no magical advantages over a solid and consistent routine. A bad idea. The conception we have that the muscle gets used to exercise and needs a “surprise” for it to start growing as we want, the truth is that it is a myth, as we are seeing. And in case there was any doubt, another article published in 2022 analyzed more than 240 participants to see if varying exercises had any type of advantage. Here it was seen that varying systematically can help regional hypertrophy, but changing too quickly or without any strategy behind it can compromise muscle gains. And if you change your routine every week, the nervous system spends time learning the coordination of the new movement, instead of effectively recruiting muscle fibers to make them grow. How much do you have to train? If constantly changing isn’t the key, is living in the gym? Here a large review crossed data from 4,784 people to determine what is recommended It is a minimum of 10 weekly series per muscle group to optimize hypertrophy. When it comes to frequency, the reality is that training a muscle once a week or three times gives very similar results as long as the total weekly weight is the same. This means that, if you do 12 sets of biceps a week, it doesn’t matter if you do 12 on Monday, or 6 on Monday and 6 on Thursday. Don’t change for the sake of changing. Instead of randomly varying exercises, science suggests choosing the most biomechanically effective movements and progressing through them. Here, a study done in 2023 compared triceps training with the arms above the head versus neutral positions and the result was clear: the overhead position generated 28.5% hypertrophy in the long head of the triceps, compared to 19.6% in the neutral position. They did not grow more because they were “confusing the muscle,” but because the elongated position generated greater mechanical tension. With all this, we must keep in mind that the change of exercises must be done according to biomechanics and with a sense behind it. In Xataka | Walking does not count as “exercising”: for the 10,000 steps a day to be effective, the x3 rule must be applied

Tomorrow on Prime Video, a series with a superb Nicolas Cage that is already said to be Marvel’s best proposal in years

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Nicolas Cage was about to don the Superman suit in the mid-nineties, in a Tim Burton production by Warner Bros. that was canceled when filming was already imminent. Decades later, two estimable ‘Ghost Rider’ films, an animated cameo in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ and a very brief multiversal nod in ‘The Flash’ as ​​the Superman that never was are his resume as an actor with a cape and/or mask. ‘Spider-Noir‘ comes to Prime Video this May 27 and makes us dream of an unleashed Cage who restores some dignity to the exhibition of mediocrities that superhero cinema has become. The series is not a spin-off of the Spiderverse films, although Cage voiced Spider-Man Noir in the aforementioned ‘Into the Spider-Verse’. It is based on the comics from the 2009 Marvel Noir line, which relocated the label’s classic characters to an alternate interwar universe. In this version, Cage plays Ben Reilly (not Peter Parker, as in the original comics), a private investigator who ends up becoming a superhero called The Spider. The nickname comes from the heroes who inspired Stan Lee in the creation of the publisher’s first superheroes. Prime Video has released the series in two visual formats, “Authentic Black and White” and “True-Hue Full Color”, i.e. black and white in the style of the thirties and vibrant colors and with an artificial point. It is an unusual decision that, those responsible say, is not free: neither of the two is the “main” one, both have been calibrated and designed so that they function completely and autonomously. The color one, specifically, has sought the effect of an artificially colored black and white film. ‘Spider-Noir’ enjoys a spectacular 92% on Rotten Tomatoesone of the highest scores for any property in the live-action Spider-Man franchise. It is already spoken of as one of the best series of the yearand the interpretation of Cage, lost sometimes (just sometimes) in recent years among products that do not deserve his talent, as one of the most eccentric and stimulating contributions to the MCU. In Xataka | Today the culmination of one of the most famous series in the history of Spain arrives on Prime Video in an ironic closing format

One of the best science fiction series in history is animated, and today it returns to HBO Max with new episodes

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In 2013, Adult Swim premiered a series about an alcoholic scientist and his teenage grandson traveling the multiverse. ‘Rick and Morty‘ seemed like another hooligan animated series, but it became, for reasons that have a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time, into one of the most relevant television phenomena of the last two decades. The ninth season has just arrived HBO Maxand everything indicates that they are going to give us more of the same. Which in the case of ‘Rick and Morty’ is always excellent news. Season 7, released in 2023, was the first without Justin Roiland, one of the series’ co-creators. Adult Swim cut ties with him in January of that year following criminal domestic violence charges (ultimately dismissed) and the ‘Rick and Morty’ characters, voiced by him, were reassigned to other actors (and if you didn’t know it, it would be impossible for you to detect it). The public reaction was cold, and it ended up having the lowest score in the series’ history on Rotten Tomatoes. The eighth season, broadcast in 2025, was proof that the series could survive trauma. It started with 100% among critics and its public score reached 93%, which finally stabilized at 79%. A considerable improvement over the previous year and more in line with the series average. Now comes the time to confirm that, indeed, the series has overcome past traumas. And he does it in a big way: with the return of Evil Morty and with the introduction of a new cosmic entitythe Collective. Furthermore, this return is accompanied by other news: Warner Bros. is in the first stages of development of a feature film. Its possible director, Jacob Hair, has helmed several episodes since 2019 and is the current supervising director of the series. According to the co-creator of the series, Dan Harmon, the intention is to invest more money and make a 90-minute episode, no more, no less. It may not seem too ambitious, but let’s not forget that we are facing one of the best science fiction series of all time. In Xataka | Five years later, there is a Netflix series so well made that psychologists recommend it to understand mental health

Today the culmination of one of the most famous series in the history of Spain arrives on Prime Video in an ironic closing format

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When the series ‘Aída’ ended in June 2014 with four million viewers saying goodbye, no one seriously considered a sequel. A decade later, Paco León turns that reunion into metacinema with ‘There and back’which now premieres Prime Videoa film that functions as another chapter, but also as a question about what it means to revisit something that has not completely disappeared from collective memory. It is clear that the dizzying audience figures for ‘Aída’ belong to another era, when audience fragmentation was not as great as it is now. At one of its peaks, the series reached 33.2% share and 6,282,000 spectators. Throughout its nine years on screen, the series led the audience in its first two seasons; During the 2006-2007 season it was the most viewed Spanish fiction, and in the following season it not only maintained the leadership, but did so above foreign productions. ‘There and back’ arose as a commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the end of the series and twenty years of the original premiere. The filming featured almost the entire original cast (Carmen Machi, Mariano Peña, Miren Ibarguren, Eduardo Casanova, Pepe Viyuela, Melani Olivares, Canco Rodríguez and León himself), with the notable exception of Ana Polvorosa (Lore), who felt that she was not at her best to reprise her role. The twist that no one expected was the one that led the film to merge elements of fiction with metanarrative to show the recording process of an episode, mixing the original characters with the actors themselves giving life to themselves. The narrative axis is Carmen Machi’s resistance to returning to the character, and all this with abundant reflections on the nature and limits of humor, which the original series exceeded on numerous occasions. Can’t you make humor out of anything anymore? ‘Back and forth he does it… and he also wonders why. In Xataka | This Prime Video series ends after 7 years and 40 chapters, making history with an audience more divided than ever

This Netflix series is a great portrait of addiction and anxiety

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There are series that work because the plot is engaging, and there are series that work because they delve deeply into how our heads work. ‘Queen’s Gambit managed to do both at the same time, and in fact, five years after its premiere in Netflixcan boast an impeccable and unusual track record: researchers cite her in academic psychiatry journals to explain how addictions work in the real world. Released in October 2020 and created by Scott Frank and Allan Scott based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, the miniseries already has 112.8 million views according to platform data (it is the most viewed miniseries in its history) and won the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries in addition to the Emmy for Best Directing of a Limited Series. But what makes this sketch of the life of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) special, a chess prodigy who grows up in an orphanage where she develops a dependence on tranquilizers and, later, alcohol, is that researchers from ‘The British Journal of Psychiatry‘They analyzed it in 2022 as a clinical study case. What the series does well is not turning the protagonist’s rooms into a decorative element around her genius. According to the publication, hThere are three consistent triggers for Beth’s substance use. throughout the series: shame, anxiety and isolation, all three in a chain. A defeat damages her self-image, anxiety about revenge paralyzes her, and consumption arises as an avoidance mechanism and the isolation that this consumption causes, which aggravates the first two factors. A perfect storm with very recognizable symptoms for psychologists. And also the solution to the problems presented by the series makes sense: other characters reveal to him the real cost of continuing to drink, others help him restore some of his damaged self-esteem, and the collective support of his rivals allows him not to relapse. According to the study, resolving underlying issues is what opens the door to sobriety. All in a series that not only has a first-class setting and performances, but can also boast scientific support in aspects that are often ignored in fiction. In Xataka | One of Prime Video’s main action heroes returns to the platform today, although in a new format

This Prime Video series ends after 7 years and 40 chapters, making history with an audience more divided than ever

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Today Prime Video premieres the last episode of ‘The Boys‘. It is not just any ending: it comes with the highest audience figures in the entire history of the series and, at the same time, with social networks converted into a battlefield over whether this latest installment of the superhero satire has been worth it. What is clear is that one of the most ambitious and rounded productions of the recent era of the streaming. ‘The Boys’ was born as an adaptation of the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson published between 2006 and 2012 and arrived on Prime Video in July 2019 with a brutal premise:what if superheroes were corporate tools with powers of mass destruction? The series created by Eric Kripke immediately connected with a eerily similar political and information climate to the starting point of the series. In the following seven years, the fiction has accumulated five seasons, a spin-off (‘Gen V’) and an expanding universe that turned Patriot, more than a villain, into a disturbing reflection of reality. For a series to reach its conclusion at the best audience moment in its history is not usual. ‘The Boys’ has done it. The fifth season has reached an average of 57 million viewers per episode on a global scale, the highest figure in the entire history of the series. The season is also among the ten most viewed from any Prime Video original series. All this while there has been a more heterogeneous public reception than ever with the series (often praised by critics, but with very combative detractors for its powerful political message). In addition, this season has encountered criticism of its pacing, filler episodes and lack of action. It has been compared to ‘Game of Thrones’ in its controversial final stretch and although Kripke has defended the decisions that have been made, today is the day to check to what extent the series manages to live up to its prestige. In Xataka | 8 premieres this week on Netflix, including a science fiction and mystery series from the creators of ‘Stranger Things’

12 premieres this week on Netflix, including a sci-fi mystery series from the creators of ‘Stranger Things’

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We’re halfway through May, and although Netflix slows down its pace of releases a little, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have attractive proposals for this week. On the one hand, a curious mystery and science fiction film with a seal of distinction: the Duffer Brothers from ‘Stranger Things’, tireless in their search for new veins. And it’s not the only thing: the occasional exclusive film and a documentary about a true diva. Let’s review everything. series Kylie Three-episode documentary series that covers five decades of Kylie Minogue’s career, from her beginnings on television to her consolidation as a global pop icon with more than 80 million records sold. She starts from her now-forgotten beginnings as an actress in the series ‘Neighbors’ to becoming one of the most influential pop figures worldwide. The director of the series is a renowned specialist in celebrity documentaries, with titles such as ‘Beckham’ and ‘Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie’ to his credit. The series not only reviews the milestones of her career but also moments as difficult as the breast cancer diagnosis that interrupted her career, in footage punctuated by statements from close friends such as Nick Cave, Jason Donovan and producer Pete Waterman. Premiere: Wednesday, May 20 The Boroughs: Rebel Retirement Matt and Ross Duffer, creators of ‘Stranger Things’, take us this time as producers to a luxurious retirement complex in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The creation of this nice ‘The Boroughs: Rebel Retirement’ has been left to Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, from ‘Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’, and it stars Alfred Molina, who plays a newcomer who soon faces a mysterious monster that stalks the residents of the idyllic community. To do this, he allies himself with a group of misfits from the neighborhood, with whom he will unravel what the complex hides. The cast includes names such as Bill Pullman, Geena Davis and Jena Malone. The brothers’ reference, as they have said, is the legendary ‘Cocoon’ by Ron Howard. Premiere: Thursday, May 21 Other series Very expensive – Wednesday, May 20 James – Thursday, May 21 One Tree Hill – Thursday, May 21 Season of zeal – Friday, May 22 Future desert – Friday, May 22 Movies Ladies first British adaptation of the French comedy ‘I’m not an easy man’, which addressed the reversal of gender roles with a satirical tone. Here we will meet an arrogant and successful man who, after suffering an accident, wakes up in an alternative reality where women dominate all spaces of power, from companies to social life, experiencing firsthand the dynamics of inequality that he was previously unaware of. Katie Silberman, writer of the wonderful ‘Super Nerds’, co-writes this story that mixes humor and social criticism and whose cast is headed by Sacha Baron Cohemn and Rosamund Pike. Premiere: Friday, May 22either In Xataka | One of the most brilliant films and also the most ignored by the last Oscars arrives today on Prime Video

Today on Prime Video, the conclusion of the best series from the creator of ‘The Sandman’ comes with a radical surprise in its duration

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For three years millions of fans of ‘Good Omens‘ trapped in one of the cruelest cliffhangers on recent television, which concluded the second season. Now the conclusion of this story of friendship between heaven and hell comes back to Prime Video turned into a very different series… and for reasons that go far beyond creative decisions. And the third season has been reduced to a single 97-minute episode. In December 2023, when Prime Video confirmed the renewal of the series, Neil Gaiman, creator of the adaptation and co-author with the late Terry Pratchett of the original 1990 novel, Gaiman had not yet been canceled by the industry after several accusations of sexual assault. In October 2024, Amazon confirmed that Gaiman was no longer part of the production team, and disappeared from the credits. The season originally intended to be six episodes was reduced to just one hour and a half. The third installment picks up the narrative arc where season 2 left off: Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) is the Supreme Archangel and is entrusted with the supervision of the Second Cominga responsibility that surpasses him when Jesus disappears from the divine plan and begins to wander the streets of London. Crowley (David Tennant), for his part, has been wandering around Soho for months, sunken. Old acquaintances return, such as Jon Hamm as Archangel Gabriel, Derek Jacobi as Metatron and Doon Mackichan as Archangel Michael. As always, critics have praised the extraordinary chemistry established between the two protagonists of the series, although many point out that the drastic reduction in footage is noticeable in a certain narrative haste. ‘Good Omens’, of course, is not the only series affected by the change in public perception of its creator: Netflix’s ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ was canceled in 2024 after a single season; ‘The Sandman’ on Netflix concluded in 2025 with its second season; Disney halted the adaptation of ‘The Graveyard Book’ in September 2024; and ‘Anansi Boys’, the Prime Video series with Delroy Lindo that had already finished filming, remains without a release date, and we may never see it. In Xataka | One of the most brilliant films and also the most ignored by the last Oscars arrives today on Prime Video

Netflix premieres today one of the best dystopian series of all time and breaks a sadly unusual record

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When ‘The Handmaid’s Tale‘ premiered on Hulu in April 2017, winning the Emmy for Best Drama when it was still a cult series. Now, a year after airing its sixth and final season, the series lands on Netflixbreaking a record that is as pleasant as it is sadly unusual: it is a series with a very specific production company (owned by Disney), but in Spain it can be accessed on practically all platforms. It’s on Netflix, yes, but also on Disney+ (where you can also see – this time, exclusively – its prequel ‘The Testaments’), Prime Video, HBO Max and Movistar Plus+. The weight of the series It is well understood by reviewing its impressive collection of awards: six seasons, 76 nominations and 15 Emmy wins, including the historic award for Best Drama in its first season, the first ever awarded to a streaming platform. streaming. That first season also won for writing, directing, leading actress (Elisabeth Moss), supporting actress (Ann Dowd) and guest actress (Alexis Bledel). For its last season it only received one nomination, but by then it had already made history. In its terrifying dystopian vision, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale tells us how in the near future, the United States government has been overthrown by a theocratic movement that founds the Republic of Gilead. In the face of a global birth crisis, the new regime enslaves the few remaining fertile women (the Handmaids) and assigns them to elite families to father children through ritualized rape. The series follows the awakening, escape and rebellion of one of these maids. Margaret Atwood, author of the original 1985 novel, stated that nothing in the novel was pure invention: everything had already happened. The repressive Taliban system, which since its return to power in 2021 has denied women access to work, education and almost any form of presence, has been repeatedly pointed out as the most direct parallel with the Republic of Gilead. But in the United States, debates about reproductive rights in different states have continued to fuel the political reading of the series. Nobody is spared. For this reason, the Handmaids’ clothing has become a symbol of feminist protest, thanks to a series that remains as shocking and terrifying today as when it premiered. In Xataka | The ambitious adaptation of a literary classic with 70 million copies sold comes to Prime Video

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