Dadnology Week 35: Spy thrillers, LEGO's Executor & GTA 6

🕵️ The week that was — Slough House opens its doors

Three genuine stories this week rather than one headline. We opened a whole spy-thriller shelf — Slow Horses, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Mitch Rapp — with the first pieces live now and dozens more scheduled through September. LEGO revealed its biggest Ultimate Collector Series set ever, a 136cm Star Wars flagship, alongside a full Halloween subtheme and a Batmobile that actually transforms. And gamescom 2026 gave us the first real look at GTA 6 in motion, a fresh Tomb Raider demo, and Xbox’s 25th-anniversary console — all while Apple quietly pushed Mac mini pricing past $900 for the first time, which is exactly why five new guides about getting more out of the mini you already own showed up on the site this week. It is a lot, so we have sorted it properly by category below.

Jump to: 🎬 Movies & TV · 🎮 Gaming · 🧱 LEGO & Family · 🏠 Smart Home, Camera & Tech

🎬 Movie & TV news this week

Slow Horses Season 1 is a perfect 5/5 — and four author hubs behind it

Slow Horses Season 1 earns a rare perfect 5/5: six episodes with no wasted minute, and Gary Oldman playing the most repellent man on television. Season 2 follows at 4.5/5, Cold War sleeper agents waking up in the home counties and costing the team someone real. Season 3 lands at 4.5/5 too, the most propulsive run yet with a siege that turns inward on Slough House itself. The thesis under all of it: Clancy-style thrillers run on competence, while Slow Horses runs on failure — its heroes are the ones MI5 could not be bothered to sack, and that inversion makes for a better show. Why Slow Horses Is So Good is the entry point if you have not started — every season ranked, plus what Season 6 is bringing. Behind it, four author hubs are already live: Tom Clancy maps the Ryanverse across novels, games and films; Robert Ludlum covers the Bourne trilogy and the wider Ludlum shelf; Frederick Forsyth is built around The Day of the Jackal, a novel Forsyth wrote from real experience covering the actual 1962 assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle as a Reuters correspondent; and Mitch Rapp untangles who actually wrote which Vince Flynn novel, since Flynn’s death in 2013 handed the series to two different continuation authors. Individual book and film reviews for all four are queued through mid-September — Seasons 4 and 5 of Slow Horses follow this weekend, with the Clancy shelf, the Bourne trilogy and the Jackal landing over the next several weeks. Prime Video’s free trial carries the whole run.

What to actually watch in September

New Movies & Shows Coming in September 2026 is our monthly curated list, not a full calendar — The Mandalorian and Grogu, both Spider-Man sequels, Slow Horses Season 6, Neagley, LEGO ONE PIECE, and the entire Rocky and Creed run landing on Paramount+. If you are building a September watchlist, start there.

Blue Eye Samurai gets a planned ending

Blue Eye Samurai Season 3 Confirmed as the Final Season — Netflix announced the ending at Anime NYC rather than the usual cancellation notice. Season 2 lands January 2027, with the finale following in 2028, which means the show gets to actually close its own story.

HBO Max orders a true-crime comedy about Jimmy Olsen

DC’s Jimmy Olsen Gets a True-Crime Comedy on HBO Max covers HBO Max’s eight-part mockumentary from the American Vandal creators, set inside James Gunn’s DC Universe — an odd, promising angle on a character usually played for comic relief.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day passes Avengers: Endgame

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Just Passed Avengers: Endgame is the number nobody saw coming — $858.4M domestic on a $225M budget, still climbing. We break down how a sequel got there.

Getting ready for Ahsoka Season 2

If your household is planning to watch before the January premiere, What to Watch Before Ahsoka Season 2: The Full Order lays out three levels of commitment, and which seasons you can honestly skip.

🎮 Gaming news for dads

GTA 6’s extended look finally shows the game in motion

Rockstar’s GTA 6 Extended Look: What Rockstar Actually Showed breaks down 26 minutes of real PS5 footage that premiered on Netflix — six-star wanted levels, a genuine cover system, bullet time, and the two-protagonist design fans have theorized about for years. It reads as a very long trailer rather than a developer walkthrough, but it quietly confirms most of what leaked, and the release date is now a hard November 19.

The other GTA 6 question every dad is about to get

November 19 is now close enough that the negotiation has already started at our dinner table, and it will start at yours. Is GTA 6 OK for Kids? A Dad’s Honest Age-Rating Guide is the answer we wrote for it — what the rating actually covers, what is in the game versus what the playground says is in it, the PS5 and Xbox parental controls step by step, and the part most parents get backwards: the risk worth worrying about is not the one in the trailer.

Gamescom’s four reveals that actually mattered

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026: The 4 Reveals We Actually Cared About cuts dozens of announcements down to the ones worth your attention — LEGO Skylines, a Heroes of Might and Magic III remake done in full 3D, a Rayman Legends remaster, and Turok: Origins, which slipped to spring 2027.

Tomb Raider goes back to Peru

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Gameplay Brings Back the T-Rex covers Crystal Dynamics’ 20-minute demo — gear puzzles, raptors, and the dinosaur that made the Lost Valley memorable in the first place.

Xbox turns 25 in translucent green

Xbox Series X25 Anniversary Console Revealed is a $899.99, individually numbered throwback console with a matching $79.99 controller, arriving November 13 — a genuine collector’s piece rather than a spec bump.

Is Marvel’s Wolverine okay for your kids?

Insomniac’s Marvel’s Wolverine game lands September 15 rated Mature 17+, and Is Marvel’s Wolverine OK for Kids? A Dad’s Age-Rating Guide walks through what is actually in it, including the gore toggle, and why Spider-Man was never this.

🧱 LEGO & family round-up

The biggest UCS set LEGO has ever built

LEGO Star Wars Executor (75457) Announced: A 6,130-Piece UCS Flagship is this week’s headline LEGO story — 6,130 pieces, 136cm long, and seven minifigures including all six classic bounty hunters, at $799.99 when it lands October 1. If a metre-scale UCS flagship is what you actually want on the shelf today, the Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser is the current-generation equivalent.

A brand-new Halloween subtheme

LEGO Icons Mayor Manor (11383) Revealed: New Halloween Line introduces Midnight Valley, LEGO’s first 18+ Halloween subtheme — 1,420 pieces, $119.99, a deliberately crooked haunted house and three zombie minifigures.

A Batmobile that genuinely transforms

LEGO DC Batman Returns Batmobile (76355) Revealed recreates the 1992 Tim Burton car at 2,269 pieces and $229.99, with a real transformation function into the Batmissile, out September 1.

Eight new Super Mario minifigure sets

LEGO Super Mario Minifigures Revealed: 8 New Sets for 2027 spans a $9.99 Pipe Jump up to an 850-piece Bowser’s Castle, all landing January 1, 2027 — the theme’s biggest single wave since it launched.

September’s full LEGO wave, sorted by budget

New LEGO Sets September 2026: The Best Picks for Dads and Kids is our monthly overview — the Halloween subtheme, the transforming Batmobile, the biggest Harry Potter set yet, and honest picks at every price point, all in one place.

Which LEGO Batmobile should you actually buy?

With five LEGO Batmobiles now on the market, Best LEGO Batmobile: All 5 Sets Ranked and Compared is built on four we have actually assembled — which one wins at every budget, and which one just quietly retired.

Is the $199.99 X-Files set worth it?

LEGO X-Files (21369): Is It Worth $199.99? is the honest case for and against a set we have not built yet, with the real alternatives if it is not for your shelf.

🏠 Smart home, camera & tech round-up

Apple pushes Mac mini pricing past $900

New Mac Mini: M6 and M5 Pro Chips, and a Higher Price confirms the refresh ships September 22 at an $899 starting price, the highest in the Mac mini’s history. New Mac Studio: M5 Ultra Goes Up to 512GB of RAM covers the bigger sibling, starting at $2,499 and scaling to $5,499 for workloads almost no family actually needs.

What you actually need on a Mac mini desk

Mac mini Accessories: What You Actually Need separates genuine upgrades from upsell, and it is the first of five guides we published this week about getting more out of the mini you already own — which is exactly the point, now that Apple’s price jump makes the M4 sitting on our own desk more attractive rather than less. How to Run a Mac mini Headless fixes the resolution bug nobody warns you about, How Much RAM and Storage Does a Mac mini Need? covers the external-SSD strategy that saves hundreds, The Mac mini as a Family Media Server turns it into a Plex box and backup target, and Mac mini or Mac Studio for Photo Editing? makes the honest case that most people who buy a Studio did not need one.

The drive that is actually on our desk

Samsung T7 Shield Review earns a perfect 5/5 — the external SSD we recommend in nearly every Mac guide we write, and the one genuinely plugged into our own setup. The 2TB model is the capacity that stops you thinking about capacity.

A windows family switches to Mac, honestly

MacBook Neo Review also lands a 5/5, a few weeks with the Neo as a daughter’s school laptop bought by a Windows household. Pair it with Switching From Windows to Mac: A Family’s Honest Guide for what genuinely changes — Office and OneDrive both carry over untouched, and the guide is honest about which household member struggles most with the switch, and it is rarely the kid. Microsoft Surface Pro Review: Four Years With the Pro 9 makes the other side of the argument — also a 5/5, four years as the shared family PC across five accounts, homework, holidays and photo culling included.

A speaker that finally fixes family Spotify

Google Home Speaker Review rates 4.5/5 for the one thing that actually matters in a multi-kid household: every family member gets their own music account, and the Gemini subscription changes the math on whether that is worth $99.99.

Studying with NotebookLM, tested by a real family

How to Study With NotebookLM: Our Family’s Test Method covers the method we have actually used since launch — photograph the real class handouts, let a kid revise from them in chat, then get quiz questions of your own.

The Dadnology Week archive: missed last week? Catch up with Dadnology Week 34.

❓ FAQ

What were the biggest dad-relevant releases in week 35, 2026?

We opened a whole spy-thriller shelf this week, led by Slow Horses (Season 1 is a perfect 5/5) with hubs for Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth and Mitch Rapp. LEGO revealed its biggest-ever Ultimate Collector Series set, the 6,130-piece Executor Super Star Destroyer, and Rockstar released GTA 6’s first real gameplay footage. Apple also refreshed the Mac mini and Mac Studio, and we published five new Mac mini accessory and setup guides in response.

What is the best family pick from week 35, 2026?

Slow Horses Season 1 is our pick without much competition this week — a perfect 5/5 that earns the description of best spy show since Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and it streams on Apple TV. For something hands-on with the kids, the LEGO DC Batman Returns Batmobile (76355) is the most fun new reveal, a 2,269-piece build that actually transforms.

Should I wait for LEGO's Executor Star Wars set?

Only if $799.99 and October 1 both work for you. It is 6,130 pieces and 136cm long, LEGO’s largest Ultimate Collector Series set to date, with seven minifigures including all six classic bounty hunters. If you want a comparable metre-scale UCS flagship on your shelf right now, the Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser (75367) is already available.

What did Dadnology publish this week?

The spy-thriller shelf launch (Slow Horses Seasons 1-3 reviewed, the Slow Horses evergreen, and franchise hubs for Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Jason Bourne and Mitch Rapp, with dozens of individual book and film reviews still publishing through September), four LEGO reveal briefs (Executor, Mayor Manor, Batman Returns Batmobile, Super Mario minifigures), the September LEGO new-sets guide, LEGO Batmobile and X-Files buying guides, GTA 6’s Extended Look breakdown, the gamescom Opening Night Live recap, a Tomb Raider gameplay brief, the Xbox Series X25 reveal, a Marvel’s Wolverine kids’ age-rating guide, Blue Eye Samurai’s final-season news, HBO Max’s new Jimmy Olsen series, the Spider-Man: Brand New Day box office record, an Ahsoka Season 2 watch-order guide, the September streaming picks, the Mac mini/Mac Studio refresh news, five Mac mini accessory and setup guides, and reviews of the Samsung T7 Shield, the MacBook Neo, the Surface Pro, the Google Home Speaker, plus a Windows-to-Mac family guide and a NotebookLM study-method guide.