The Week in Geek: Green Lantern and Superman return, Benioff and Weiss exit

We've made to the end of another week. The last week of October; the last week of Halloween; the last time this year we'll be able to collectively avoid Christmas marketing.

But before we go into that good night before Christmas, there's some very important business we have to take care of. News business. The business of rounding up the news.

Here they are: The five biggest stories from... The Week in Geek.

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE THANKFULLY NOT TOO DARK

The Terminator movie franchise has had more failures at this point than it has had successes. Rise of the Machines is known for its ending but not much else, Salvation is known better for fights that went down on set than for the film itself, and Genisys is known for forcing the letter "y" into a place the letter "y" does not belong.

For 28 years, fans of time-traveling deathbots that look like metal skeletons have dutifully waited for the return of two people: Terminator's creator, James Cameron, and its star, Linda Hamilton. This week, Terminator: Dark Fate, the latest film in the franchise, brought back both.

And as you may have heard, Terminator: Dark Fate is pretty good. The action sequences are big and exciting, the new Terminator is suitably unstoppable, and the new heroes stand toe-to-toe with Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. This movie may not change the future, but maybe that's not Terminator's job anymore. Just like the end of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, maybe the point is simply to endure.

The CW

MORE THAN A LOIS AND CLARK REHASH

The CW's Arrowverse is in the midst of a mighty shakeup. Its next crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, is coming, and, with it, so is the end of the show that started it all, Arrow. Oliver Queen is probably going to die. Barry Allen might die for a little while. And with the debut of Batwoman, the Arrowverse landscape is already beginning to change.

This week, however, it was confirmed that there will be another new show in the Arrowverse lineup, maybe one you weren't expecting: Superman and Lois.

It's been a while since actor Tyler Hoechlin first stepped into the role of Superman on Supergirl. Both he and Elizabeth Tulloch, the latest Lois Lane, took a back seat as Supergirl found her footing. In fact, last we saw those two, they were headed off-world to deal with having a child.

Now they're getting their own show. Surprise! And, unlike any other Superman-centric show that's come before it, Superman and Lois is going to be the story of the pair as a married couple raising a child together. Whether or not Jon Cryer will return as Lex Luthor remains to be seen. And, indeed, what villains will be utilized at all remains a bit of a mystery. But, for now, Superman is getting his own show for the first time since Smallville, and that's worth celebrating.

HBO MAX ANNOUNCES NEW GREEN LANTERN WHAT?!

This week, Apple TV+ debuts, and, with it, a host of weird, wild new content hoping to grab eyeballs. But despite a cool looking new take on Emily Dickinson, despite Jason Momoa as a blind Conan typeset in a post-apocalyptic society, the streaming news that really won the week was the official announcement of HBO Max.

We found out this week that HBO Max will debut in May 2020, that it will cost $14.99 a month, and, perhaps most exciting of all, that one of the shows the service will boast is a new Green Lantern series. Yes, a live-action one.

For the first time since the ill-fated Ryan Reynolds movie, Green Lantern is finally, finally, FINALLY getting another true chance in the spotlight. Not much is known about the new series, beyond the involvement of Arrowverse-producing alum (and original Green Lantern movie producer), Greg Berlanti. Oh, yeah. We also know it will at least partly be set in space. That's exciting.

And that's not the only DC property getting a new series. Strange Adventure, an anthology series designed to be a series of morality plays exploring the complex relationships between superheroes and mere mortals, is also set to debut on HBO Max. That, too, will involve Berlanti as well as Gotham producers John Stephens and Charlie Huston alongside The Twilight Zone producer Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. All of which is to say, Strange Adventure will likely be very strange indeed.

There are plenty of new and existing properties coming to HBO Max, but those were the big headline grabbers.

Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO

D&D HAVE A NO GOOD, VERY BAD WEEK

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, creators of the acclaimed-turned-despised HBO series Game of Thrones, started the week having a public conversation they... maybe should not have had.

At the Austin Film Festival, the pair sat down to talk about their approach to Game of Thrones and how the show got made. The talk was tweeted out by user @ForArya, and let us just say that Benioff and Weiss spent the dragon-share of their time talking about how much they did not know what they were doing. They screwed up the pilot, they didn't really know how to make a TV show, and they learned virtually everything in real-time as they were shooting.

And if you want to know how people reacted to all this news, the answer is: BADLY. People hated this and they hated that it felt as if Benioff and Weiss' could just seemingly pick up and take on a show despite having no real qualifications (beyond being two white guys). The optics: They weren't great.

Later, actual audio of the conversation came out, clarifying a lot of their statements and making it clear that they were being at least somewhat self-effacing. But the damage was done.

Not long after that, Benioff and Weiss made a new announcement. You know how they were supposed to do their own Star Wars trilogy? Wellllllllp.

"We love Star Wars," the two declared in a statement sent through Lucasfilm. "When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything. But there are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away."

Now, the rumor is that Benioff and Weiss have been on their way out the door since August, but the other rumor is that, in addition to their new Netflix deal, the other reason they were getting out of dodge was "toxic fandom." That's right. They were looking at how Star Wars fans had treated folks like Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy (spoilers: like s**t), and thinking, "hmm..."

THE NEW MANDALORIAN TRAILER IS A THING ALL STAR WARS FANS SEEM TO LIKE

Is it all bad news in the realm of Star Wars? No. Of course not!

Despite fandom infighting, despite creators supposedly departing partially over said infighting, there is still the forthcoming Disney+ series The Mandalorian. This week, the show's final trailer dropped and, yes, it is baller. We saw the first footage revealed and we can confirm: Tons of action, lots of western vibes, a general sense of badassery... look, this section is pretty short because all that's left to be said is that The Mandalorian starts streaming November 12. Yeah. Good.

And that's it. Your Week in Geek is over. Go in peace. Maybe do a little after-Halloween candy consuming. Let us know what you thought of these stories and what stories were taking up your time and attention. Just don't start talking about Christmas yet, all right?