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Anyone who hasn't seen the second season of "Alex Rider" in the stream can now look forward to the free TV premiere on ZDFneo. You can find out here when and how things will continue there.

In addition to lucrative advantages, Amazon Prime also offers its customers a wide range of film and series titles, including exclusive originals such as "Alex Rider". The coming-of-age espionage series, based on Anthony Horowitz's successful series of books for young people, started there two years ago. Season 2 followed last year. If you don't have an Amazon Prime subscription, you don't have to do without and you can now watch the series on free TV and in the ZDF media library.

"Alex Rider": Season 2 on free TV today

The refreshing British spy series is also enjoying a positive response in this country - no wonder it was extended early. While the second season has been available on Amazon Prime Video since the end of 2021, the free TV launch is now pending: Today, Wednesday, December 7, 2022, you can see all the episodes of the second season “Alex Rider”. ZDFneo. So get ready for a small series marathon, because all eight episodes will be broadcast directly in one go. It starts at 8:15 p.m., the last episode ends at 1:40 a.m. the following day. If you don't want to stay up late half the night, you can also find the new episodes free of charge in the ZDF media library from December 7th.

For the first season, the second novel "Point Blanc" was filmed, the second season is now adapting the fourth volume of the series "Eagle Strike". Alex (Otto Ferrant) and his friends are faced with a new case involving a hacker attack on the Pentagon and a game developer worth millions. But who is really pulling the strings here?

Alex Rider Season 2 Cast

Some familiar faces await us in the second season, above all, of course, Otto Farrant ("Salmon Fishing in Yemen"), who plays the eponymous main character. Alex's best friend Tom (Brenock O'Connor) will also be back, as will MI6 agents Alan Blunt (Stephen Dillane) and Mrs Jones (Vicky McClure). Newcomers include Thomas Levin as Yassen Gregorovitch, Toby Stevens as Damian Cray and Charithra Chandran as Alex's girlfriend Sabina.

Al Strobel is dead. The actor, who played one of the stars of the cult series "Twin Peaks" as one-armed Mike, has died at the age of 83. This was announced by "Twin Peaks" producer Sabrina Sutherland on behalf of the family. A cause of death was not released.

"It is with much sadness that we say goodbye to Al Strobel. He is irreplaceable and will always be an important part of our 'Twin Peaks' family," she wrote, according to media reports.

Crowd favorite Mike in "Twin Peaks"

In the cult series, Al Strobel embodied one of the most dazzling and important characters with his role as Mike from 1990. Al Strobel also appeared in the theatrical spin-off "Twin Peaks: The Movie" (1992) and the later series sequel "Twin Peaks: The Return" (2017).

Al Strobel lost his arm when he was 17

Al Strobel was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1939, which is also where "Twin Peaks" is set. At the age of 17 he lost his left arm just below the shoulder. In the 1970s he began working in the theatre. Strobel made his film debut in the 1986 horror film Shadow Play. Four years later, David Lynch (76) cast him for "Twin Peaks".

Mike remained Al Strobel's best-known role despite subsequent appearances on TV and theater. In 2005 he retired from acting. He only took a break from retirement for the late third season of Twin Peaks.

Helen Mirren credit:Bang Showbiz

Dame Helen Mirren felt "very intimidated" by Harrison Ford when they worked for the first time.

According to her own statements, the Oscar winner was still a "nobody" when she was very nervous in 1986 with the 'Star Wars' actor for the film 'The Mosquito Coast', and she was very nervous to work with the 80-year-old star today , who had already made a name for himself both in the space franchise and in the 'Indiana Jones' films.

Today the actress admits: “When we worked for the first time, he was a big film star and I was a nobody. I was very intimidated, very intimidated. ”But the 77-year-old icon also remembers that working with Harrison“ learned a lot ”by working with Harrison and still uses some of his lessons today. She continued: “I also learned a lot from him because I haven't had much experience yet. I had done a lot of theater at that time, I hadn't made many films. So I watched him and he taught me a lot of things about film spectacles that I still use. ”

The couple has now teamed up again for the 'Yellowstone' spin-off '1923' and Harrison is also happy to work with the actress of 'The Queen' again. He said reporters at the show's premiere: “I admire your work and your person now and I have the same level of admiration for you as then. She is wonderful, she is simply a lovable person and so it was both a professional pleasure and a personal pleasure to work with her again. ”

© HBO Max

When it comes to video game adaptations, extremely interesting developments can currently be observed in Hollywood: while in the 1990s the studios primarily focused on the rather undemanding and supposedly mass-market video games for screen adaptation, such as the fighting games "Double Dragon" and "Mortal Kombat". , they now also resort to works that are characterized by a dense plot, complex characters and ambivalent messages. For example, Francis Lawrence ("Constantine") is working on a Netflix film adaptation of "BioShock", a series on "Fallout" is being created on Amazon and the film adaptation of the award-winning and successful films will soon start on HBO Max, in Germany with the streaming partner Wow PlayStation Series The Last of Us.

The first full trailer for the ambitious series adaptation by showrunners Craig Mazin ("Chernobyl") and Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the video game template, has now been released at the Comic-Con Experience (CCXP) in São Paulo:

Just breathtaking: This real trailer shows the effort that went into the major project. You wouldn't expect anything else from the company that has produced series like "House of the Dragon", "Euphoria" and "Station Eleven". Fans of the template should immediately recognize the different locations and the all-too-familiar setting and, with the characters shown, have in mind the sometimes terrible fates that have happened and/or will happen to them.

This trailer makes it perfectly clear, even to audiences unfamiliar with the fantastic video games developed by developer Naughty Dog, that The Last of Us will be a deeply nihilistic, at times melancholy, experience. One that will not let go of you for a long time - as is the case with the template. And: The scary factor will definitely not be neglected, just the sight of the bloater at the end gives you goosebumps. This will be a scary fight for the survivors. Also interesting for connoisseurs of video games: Apparently story elements from the DLC "Left Behind" were integrated here. Ashley Johnson, who played Ellie in the video games, will also be seen as her mother, Anna.

"The Last of Us": This is the plot of the first season
The world isn't the same anymore: the outbreak of a mysterious pandemic involving the parasitic cordyceps fungus has thrown it into chaos. Those infected tend to behave highly aggressively, in turn biting and infecting others while the fungus causes a horrific metamorphosis within them. The clickers and bloaters, as the survivors call them, are no longer human, they are completely consumed by the fungus and, unless destroyed, end up as spore carcasses that continue to infest the area with the dangerous parasite.

In this inhospitable world, the survivors can only really survive in fortified quarantine zones. Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) is one of them, who hires himself out as a smuggler. Then he gets a job from the Fireflies to bring a human cargo from Boston to Salt Lake City: the girl Ellie (Bella Ramsey). She is said to be immune to the fungus and could be of utmost importance in the development of an antidote. What begins as a normal assignment for Joel eventually becomes a way for the embittered man to put an end to his past and find a new purpose in life.

The first season will contain a total of nine episodes and will start on January 15, 2023. Now that the long-lived zombie series "The Walking Dead" has come to an end, this series should be considered a welcome spiritual successor.

Actor Bjarne Mädel (54) recently celebrated great success with "Delivered" and "Sörensen is afraid". He was awarded Grimme prizes for both films. Now he can be seen in the sequel to the satirical improv series "Kranitz - in the case of separation, money back" by screenwriter and director Jan Georg Schütte (59), which was also nominated for a Grimme Prize. Once again Mädel slips into the role of the criminal buddy Manni, who wants to find himself with the help of the unconventional therapist Klaus Kranitz (Schuette). The four new episodes of the second season will be broadcast on NDR starting today (30 November, Wednesdays, 10:30/10:45 p.m.).

In an interview with the news agency spot on news, Bjarne Mädel gives an insight into the fine art of improvisation, in which the actors and actresses are only given their role profiles beforehand, but no worked out sentences and dialogues.

What do you think privately of couples therapists?
Bjarne Mädel: I think the professional help from outside makes sense. If you are stuck as a couple or alone in a situation that makes you unhappy and from which you cannot free yourself, then a good therapist can ask the right questions to solve the tension and knots in the relationship or in your own head contribute.

Have you personally ever had anything to do with this professional group?
Mädel: Only as a player in the film "Wellness for couples" and there the therapist, played by Jörg Pannenbäcker, asked extremely great questions that triggered a suitable emotionality in our game.

What is the magic of improvising for you?
Mädel: It's a happy event for me when, like now, as happened during the shooting of "Kranitz" in the scenes with Aleksandar Jovanovic, Jan Georg Schütte and me, a rhythm emerges that I also describe in terms of content, in modern German, as " flow" would denote. You tell a story together and one retort forces the next, or individual sentences build upon and intertwine in a way that makes the moment feel organic and light.

You step onto the ice together and then slide together wide awake and joyfully in one direction. The "magic" is then that everything fits together and you can feel it at the same time when developing and inventing. You are in the best sense: in the moment, in the here and now.

Can you practice improvising?
Girl: Yes. There are certain rules that must be followed in order to move forward together.

What characterizes good improv artists?
Girl: That he or she knows these rules. Firstly, the artists think ahead and secondly, they not only think of themselves, but also provide templates that their colleagues can use to do something. That's a lot of the fun for me. Giving and receiving game templates. For me, improvisation in acting is comparable to football. It's a team sport. Of course you can also improvise a monologue, but I find the double pass more exciting.

You played in the improv "crime scene: the team" and perhaps also heard the discussion about the improv "crime scenes" in Ludwigshafen. The latter did not go over well at all. As a specialist, what do you think of the criticism?
Girl: I didn't hear the discussion, nor did I see the films. With our improvised "Tatort: The Team" we clearly reached our limits. I believe that the crime genre - especially with existing detective figures from other formats - was not suitable for group improvisation. You really needed a team that had worked well together over the years and "The Team" wasn't that.

What can your fans look forward to next?
Girl: To more interviews. And the audio book "I'm next door - monologues for home" by Ingrid Lausund (57), which I produced together with Speak Low and with incredibly great colleagues such as Matthias Brandt (61), Lina Beckmann (41), Bastian Pastewka ( 50), Fritzi Haberlandt (47). Also, I'm shooting a second "Sörensen" film right now, which I'm extremely excited about myself.