Philip K. Dick’s alternate-history novel The Man In The High Castle has one hell of a premise: What if the Allies lost the Second World War? One of the first great pleasures of the pilot episode of this adaptation is how cleverly it introduces that premise without ever stooping to expository narration or introductory text. Instead, the world of an America divided in two (one part controlled by Germany, the other by Japan) is presented as simple fact, with background information filtering in through the context of character and plot.

Niko and the Sword of Light’s premise is about as basic as these things come: Niko (Felix Avitia) has a glowing sword and a mysterious past and has to use both to defeat some great “darkness” at the top of a Cursed Volcano. He has a magical friend voiced by Tom Kenny, and fights monsters in a big, bad swamp. The pilot hits all the expected beats, right down to the introduction of a shadowy assassin-like antagonist at the end of the episode. – Erik Adams, Les Chappell, Molly Eichel, Zack Handlen, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Noel Murray, Brandon Nowalk, & Eric Thurm, The A.V. Club

(Full Story: http://avc.lu/1sDcb7a )