Most things in this world have their good points and their not-so-good points, and this is certainly true of “The Copenhagen Test,” a science-fiction spy story about a man whose brain has been hacked. Without his knowing it, everything he sees and hears is uploaded to an unknown party, in an unknown place, as if he were a living pair of smart glasses. Created by Thomas Brandon and premiering Saturday on Peacock, its conceit is dramatically clever, if, of course, impossible. What do you watch when you learn that what you’re watching is being watched?

In a preamble, we meet our hero, Andrew Hale (Simu Liu, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”), a first-generation Chinese American Green Beret, rescuing hostages in Belarus. A voice in his headset instructs him that there is enough room for one on a departing helicopter and that he must prioritize an American citizen. Instead he picks a foreign child. This, we will learn, is the less-preferred choice.

Three years later, Hale is working for the Orphanage, a shadowy American intelligence agency that spies on all the less-shadowy American intelligence agencies — watching the watchers. (So much watching!) Its proud boast is that, since its inception in the Bush I administration, it has never been compromised. (Until someone started looking through Hale’s eyes, that is.) There is a secret entrance to their giant complex, accessed by locking eyes with a statue in a library — it’s thematically appropriate, but also very “Get Smart!” That is a compliment, obviously.

The lower floor is where the analysts toil; entry to the upper floor, where the action is, is by the sort of fancy key that might have been used to open an executive washroom in 1895. (The decor is better there, too, with something of the air of an 1895 executive washroom.) Hale, who has been been listening to and translating Korean and Chinese chatter, dreams of moving upstairs, which will come with the discovery that his head is not entirely his own.

Meanwhile, he has been suffering migraines, seizures and panic attacks. Ex-fiancée Rachel (Hannah Cruz), a doctor, has been giving him pills under the table. Other characters of continuing interest include Michelle (Melissa Barrera), a bartender who will spy on Hale from the vantage point of a girlfriend, sort of; Parker (Sinclair Daniel), a newly promoted “predictive analyst” with a gift for reading people and situations; Victor (Saul Rubinek), an ex-spook who runs a high-end restaurant and has known Hale forever; Cobb (Mark O’Brien), a rivalrous colleague whose Ivy League persona has been drawn in contrast to Hale’s; and Cobb’s uncle, Schiff (Adam Godley), who also has spy knowledge. Peter Moira (Brian d’Arcy James) runs the shop, and St. George (Kathleen Chalfant) floats above Moira.

As parties unknown look through Hale’s eyes, the Orphanage is watching Hale with the usual access to the world’s security cameras. (That bit of movie spycraft always strikes me as far-fetched; however, a conversation in the privacy of my kitchen will somehow translate into ads on my social feeds, so, who knows?) “The Copenhagen Test” isn’t selling a surveillance state metaphor, in any case; this is just one of those “Who Can You Trust?” stories, one that keeps flipping characters to keep the show going, somewhat past the point of profitability.

Like most eight-hour dramas, it’s too long — “Slow Horses,” the best of this breed, sticks to six — and over the course of the show, things grow muddied with MacGuffins and subplots. While it’s easy enough to enjoy what’s happening in the moment, it can be easy to lose the plot and harder to tell just who’s on what side, or even how many sides there are. (It doesn’t help that nearly everyone is ready to kill Hale.) I can’t go into details without crossing the dreaded spoiler line, but even accepting the impossible tech, much of “The Copenhagen Test” makes little practical sense, including the eponymous test. (Why “Copenhagen?” Det ved jeg ikke. Danish for “I don’t know.”) I spent so much time untwisting knots and keeping threads straight that, though I continued to root in a detached way for Hale, I ceased to care entirely about the fate of the Orphanage and the supposedly free world.

The show is well cast. While the characters on paper are pretty much types, each actor projects the essence of the part, adding enough extra personality to suggest a real person. (And they’re all nice to look at.) When not keeling over from pain, or engaged in a shootout or hand-to-hand combat, Liu is an even-keeled, quiet sort of protagonist — rather in the Keanu Reeves vein — and as a Chinese Canadian actor, still a novelty among American television action heroes. He does have a kind of chemistry with Barrera, who has screen chemistry all on her own, though it’s somewhat limited by the demands of the plot.

The ending, including a diminished-chord twist, is pretty pat, if happier than one might imagine given the ruckus that’s gone before. Neat bows are tied — though at least one has been left loose in hopes, according to my own predictive analysis, of a second season. And though releasing a series in the last week of the year doesn’t exactly betoken confidence, I can predict with some confidence that there might be one.

Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1985 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1985 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around, it’s Dec. 27, 1985, and we’re off to see Murphy’s Romance, Revolution, and The Trip to Bountiful.

Murphy’s Romance

It should be illegal for people to have this much chemistry.

Emma Moriarty (Sally Field) moves to a small Arizona town with her son to try to make a living by training and boarding horses. There she meets Murphy Jones (James Garner), the town’s lone pharmacist. Despite a massive age difference, the two find themselves drawn closer and closer to one another, even though they’re the seemingly last two people to realize it.

Field and Gerner have an undeniable chemistry in this film. They play off one another so naturally. The script, while not perfect, also shows a lot of restraint in how it plays out the budding romance, seeming to know when exactly to hit the accelerator and slow down once again to let everyone settle into their shifting rhythms.

Well acted and endlessly charming.

Revolution

I can not imagine a less fun way to experience the Revolutionary War.

Fur Trader Tom Dobb (Al Pacino) finds himself thrust into the Revolutionary War when his boat is conscripted into the war, and his son accidentally joins the army. What follows is several years of following Tom and his son throughout the war while also occasionally running into Daisy McConnahay (Nastassja Kinski), the idealistic daughter of a wealthy merchant. Though their encounters are brief, Daisy and Tom find themselves falling for one another.

Revolution is one of those films that claims its run time is 2 hours and 4 minutes, but around hour 18, I wondered when my misery would end. The film is excruciatingly boring and filled with numerous scenes that go absolutely nowhere and serve no purpose.

And how anyone thought Pacino and Kinski were right for these roles is beyond me.

An incredibly easy one to say you can pass on.

The Trip to Bountiful

It only seems fitting that I close out the year with a film that is all about connecting with your past.

Carrie Watts (Geraldine Page) has lived with her son and his wife for 15 years, and she is desperate to visit her childhood home in Bountiful. She finally sneaks out one day and makes her way to a town only a few miles away when her son finally has the sheriff catch up with her to bring her back home. She finally is able to talk the sheriff into taking her to the town so she can see what she presumes is the last time.

Based on a play of the same name, it’s a touching story that allows Page to shine, which led to her winning an Academy Award. It’s a sweet, quiet character study that’s worth a watch, but make sure to keep your expectations in line with a quiet film about someone enjoying the final days of their life.

1986 Movie Reviews will debut on Jan. 3, 2026, with Head Office.

While the swirl of chatter around Travis Kelce on Christmas Day was on whether he plans to retire at the end of the season, the 11-time Pro Bowl tight end quietly moved up to No. 9 on the NFL all-time receiving list.

Kelce’s fifth and last catch in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 20-13 loss to the Denver Broncos was No. 1,077, pushing him past Anquan Boldin. With two more receptions in the Chiefs’ regular-season finale, Kelce will surpass Terrell Owens in the No. 8 spot.

Statistics were seemingly the last thing on Kelce’s mind as he walked off the Arrowhead Stadium field on Thursday, perhaps for the last time. The Chiefs finish the season on the road next week against the Las Vegas Raiders.

Kelce’s recent years are inextricably linked to his fiance Taylor Swift. Was this the last time the music megastar would grace the Kelce family luxury suite to watch her beau rack up the receptions? (If so, let the record show that Swift wore a red bomber jacket from the Frankie Shop.)

Kelce, 36, admitted he was feeling reflective afterward.

“A whole lot of emotions,” he told reporters. “You’ve got everybody in the world watching you. You get to go out there with the young guys on prime-time television. Young guys getting an opportunity to taste what this NFL life is like.”

For Kelce, the NFL life has been fulfilling. He’s won three Super Bowls and is all but certain to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And he’s played his entire 13-year career with the Chiefs.

So while he sorted through emotions and memories after the game, he basked in the adulation beforehand.

“You only get a few of those where you get to stand there and appreciate 70,000 Chiefs fans cheering for you,” he explained. “I always embrace that moment.

“You feel the generations of happiness and the love [the fans] have. It’s a beautiful thing, man.”

For a decade, Kelce was a regional sports figure, revered in the Midwest as a hard-nosed, consistent producer on the field. His profile began to change ahead of the 2022 season when he and his brother, Jason, launched an immediately popular podcast, “New Heights.”

Kelce and Swift began dating ahead of the 2023 season, and a year later, the Kelce brothers signed a three-year, $100-million podcast deal with Amazon’s Wondery. Then in August, Kelce and Swift announced their engagement.

Tight ends, with their three-point stances and proximity to tackles and guards, traditionally don’t seek or attract attention. But Kelce is now a full-fledged national celebrity.

Just don’t allow that to obscure his numbers. Kelce has 73 catches for 839 yards in 2025, putting him alongside Jerry Rice as the only players in NFL history to eclipse the 800‐yards receiving mark in 12 consecutive seasons. Kelce also is the only tight end to exceed 90 catches for seven seasons in a row, a streak that will end this year.

Rice, the former San Francisco 49ers great, is the NFL‘s all-time leading receiver with 1,549 catches. Larry Fitzgerald is next with 1,432. Then come the only tight ends with more catches than Kelce: Tony Gonzalez (1,325) and Jason Witten (1,228).

Should Kelce decide to play another season, he almost certainly would climb to No. 5, passing Marvin Harrison (1,102), Cris Carter (1,101) and Tim Brown (1,094) in addition to Owens.

Kelce may have already decided whether this is the right time to retire. He just isn’t ready to say so, indicating he will let the Chiefs know soon after the season ends.

“I’ll let that be a decision I’ll make with my family, friends and the Chiefs organization when the time comes,” he said.