Space, suspense and some extremely bad decisions

Stephen Steps Lowe is back rummaging through the worlds of film, television, streaming and gaming, beginning this week somewhere considerably beyond Luxembourg. Project Hail Mary provides the Featured Soundtrack, with Daniel Pemberton's inventive score accompanying Ryan Gosling into deep space.

Steps explores how Pemberton uses orchestra, electronics and some decidedly unusual instrumentation to chart the developing friendship between Ryland Grace and Rocky, alongside an eclectic collection of songs from Miriam Makeba, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Diamond, Scorpions and The Beatles.

Back on Earth, there's plenty happening at the cinema. Verity takes the top spot at Kinepolis ahead of Resident Evil, Heart of the Beast, Digger and Christopher Nolan's apparently immovable The Odyssey. Stephen also previews Andrew Scott's acclaimed performance as Ian Charleson in Elsinore and the rather less restrained Avengers: Doomsday, which brings Robert Downey Jr. back to Marvel, this time as Doctor Doom, alongside an ensemble cast large enough to constitute its own small country.

Movie news brings a curious reversal of fortunes as The Odyssey returns to IMAX screens following Digger's difficult opening, while Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim turn their cameras on disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything. And because cinema occasionally gives us precisely the nonsense we deserve, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Santa Claus in festive heist movie The Man With The Bag. Thirty years after Jingle All the Way, Arnie is once again responsible for Christmas. What could possibly go wrong?

This week's reviews occupy opposite ends of the ladder. The Fall: Deadpoint earns ★★½: still capable of inducing sweaty palms whenever its characters are dangling over enormous drops, but undermined by increasingly ridiculous plotting and some conspicuous green-screen work. Apple TV's Last Seen, meanwhile, comes within touching distance of perfection at ★★★★½. Superbly performed and frequently nerve-shredding, it's less interested in who did something than why, using its central mystery to dig into grief, guilt, resentment, loyalty and the secrets people keep from those supposedly closest to them.

Elsewhere, Eddie Murphy heads into prestige television with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner's The Chairman, House of the Dragon's Ewan Mitchell is linked with villain duties in the next James Bond film, and Top Boy star Ashley Walters steps behind the camera for Animol, starring Stephen Graham.

Gaming brings The Conjuring: Unspoken, a smartphone-controlled Netflix horror experience; Final Fantasy's enormous 40th-anniversary Distant Worlds orchestral tour; and Arc Raiders developer Embark's refreshingly relaxed response to the modern obsession with Steam player counts.

Add another rummage through the musical-theatre cupboard with Show Tunes, more music from Project Hail Mary, and this week's Triple F. involving The Blues Brothers, 103 cars and a frankly irresponsible attitude towards vehicle insurance, and Episode 74 is suitably packed.

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