Astronauts at the International Space Station added a new item to their dine-in menu last weekend after whipping up a batch of tacos using the first-ever chile peppers grown in space.

NASA astronaut Megan McArthur shared photos on Twitter of what she called her "best space tacos yet," consisting of fajita beef, rehydrated tomatoes and artichokes, and Hatch chile, which has been growing at the ISS since July. She said the crew sampled the red and green chile before getting creative with their new ingredients in the kitchen.

Friday Feasting! After the harvest, we got to taste red and green chile. Then we filled out surveys (got to have the data! 😁). Finally, I made my best space tacos yet: fajita beef, rehydrated tomatoes & artichokes, and HATCH CHILE! https://t.co/pzvS5A6z5u pic.twitter.com/fJ8yLZuhZS

— Megan McArthur (@Astro_Megan) October 29, 2021

NASA's ISS Research account also celebrated the occasion, noting that the crew had conducted "one of the most challenging station plant experiments to date." As part of the Plant Habitat-04 investigation, a team of scientists planted seeds of Hatch chiles — a type of pepper found in New Mexico's Hatch Valley — and observed their growth over time.

The crew aboard the ISS were able to taste the fruits of their labor on Friday, and collected data about the red and green chiles. "The investigation involved microbial analysis to improve understanding of plant-microbe interactions in space and the crew's assessment of flavor, texture, and nutrition of the first peppers grown in space," NASA said in a statement.

While the experiment tempted the tastebuds and spiced things up at the Space Station, NASA hopes astronauts will be able to expand the number of crops they can grow in space during future missions. According to CNN, the chile trials are ongoing, with Crew-3 astronauts reportedly launching to the ISS this week ahead of a second harvest later in the month.

Some of the chiles will be sent back to Earth for analysis, much like the red romaine lettuce and various other veggies that astronauts have cultivated in space. Assuming the cargo isn't lost on its journey back to Earth, the chile peppers will likely end up being offered as a nutritious alternative to the meal replacement bars that NASA once developed for missions.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Head of the Class premieres Thursday, Nov. 4 on HBO Max.

'80s/'90s sitcom Head of the Class gets the reboot treatment with an energetic but clunky new outing featuring One Day at a Time's Isabella Gomez as the young, unorthodox teacher of GPA-obsessed high school smarties. It's well-meaning but ineffective, offering up a weakly handled premise and nervous, patchwork comedy.

The original Head of the Class was a modest hit, working as a both a return to TV for WKRP in Cincinnati's Howard Hesseman (he'd be replaced by comedian Billy Connolly for the final season) and also as a vehicle for the fresh faces playing his students. It ran for an "okay" five seasons but it has little to no cultural footprint now as part of our current, rotating pool of nostalgia.

Was bringing it back was a bit of a head-scratcher? Sure, even if Gomez's own One Day at a Time revival was met with critical fanfare and firmly carved out its own territory as a funny, important series that was able to address pertinent social issues while also bringing genuine laughs. It was very much evocative of the original Norman Lear comedy in that way.

The original Head of the Class never landed with any significance along those lines, but this reboot — which is actually a "legacy sequel" since, after the first episode, Robin Givens returns as Darlene from the old series — tries very much to interweave hot button topics of the day into the show's fabric. With Gomez playing the rule-bending, chatterbox debate teacher for five AP teens (which seems to be her only class?), there's an attempt to hash out certain issues — the first being "cancel culture."

But instead of addressing what cancel culture actually is, it only touches on what it's perceived to be. In Head of the Class' premiere, the kids feel like they can't make any mistakes in their life for fear of repercussion, but never is there an attempt to discuss the difference between, oh, a high school social faux pas and, say, a racist remark or sexual misconduct.

So right out of the gate, Head of the Class doesn't even tackle the topic effectively. It's as if the show itself, like the teens, is scared to make a mistake. Add to this some strange joke pacing — in which the pauses for the laugh track are either too long or the gags go by too quickly for the track to feel proper — and Head of the Class feels like directionless extra credit.

Gomez is a supreme talent, and on paper she's a great fit for this gig. At the heart of the old Head of the Class were uptight, Ivy League-focused kids clashing with a "hippie" teacher. That's who Hesseman was in the original, as the history instructor. Here, Gomez is great as the "only 10 years older" instructor, Alicia, who awkwardly wants to be liked, and who can also still relate to teens on a certain level, but the show itself isn't zipped-up tight enough to squeeze out the funny parts of that premise.

In this first episode, the class itself — played by Gavin Lewis, Dior Goodjohn, Adrian Matthew Escalona, Brandon Severs, and Jolie Hoang-Rappaport — mostly feel like a normal set of teens you'd find in any new streaming sitcom. They don't feel like rigid brainiacs or aggressive grade-trackers, just, like, run of the mill students who'd naturally side-eye a teacher, with no previous experience, for being loud and weird.

There's also a strange background story running about how Alicia is supposedly also aloof and only took the job because it seemed easy, and not a 9-5 grind. A fellow teacher, played by Jorge Diaz, warns Alicia that she'll soon get emotionally invested, which she scoffs at. This not only makes you wonder how she got hired in the first place but also, just from a premise standpoint, makes you ask why we should care about an unorthodox teacher who doesn't care about her kids.

Black Friday doesn’t kick off in earnest until later this month, but here’s an early shopping event that puts money back in your account. It’s called Cash Back Day. It’s a deal event put on by RetailMeNot that gets you up to five times the standard cash back for purchases made at a variety of retailers. This year, Cash Back Day will run for 48 hours, spanning November 4 – 5.

What Is Cash Back Day?

Cash Back Day is an annual retail event that started in 2019. It takes place each year during the first Thursday and Friday of November. This year’s Cash Back Day features a long list of retail partners, ranging from Amazon and Target to LEGO, Home Depot, Verizon, Nike, Old Navy, and more.

How Does Cash Back Day Work?

All you have to do is follow these steps:

1. Log in or create your RetailMeNot account
2. Click here to find offers you want to activate
3. You’ll be sent to the retailer’s website to make your purchase (you can even use RetailMeNot codes to save money during this step)
4. Allow up to 45 days for your purchases to be validated, at which point your cash back rewards will be available in your RetailMeNot wallet, where you can redeem them via PayPal or Venmo

Get Exclusive Deals Through Deal Finder

If you want to maximize your savings, download the Deal Finder browser extension. For the first time this year, you’ll be able to access limited-time exclusive cash back offers through Deal Finder. In fact, there’s a Deal Finder-exclusive 10% cash back deal on the LEGO Store during Cash Back Day.

Deal Finder is a web browser extension that automatically finds the best promo codes and cash back deals as you make online purchases. It scans available deals at over 20,000 retailers, including Target, eBay, Kohl’s, DoorDash, and many more.

Disclosure: RetailMeNot and Deal Finder are owned by Ziff Davis, the parent company of IGN. The companies operate completely independently, and no special consideration is given to announcements or promotions for coverage.

Finch debuts on Apple TV+ on Nov. 5.

Apple TV+’s Finch stars Tom Hanks as an engineer trying to survive in a stunningly bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland with the help of a robot he builds from scavenged parts and scanned books. The resulting AI, Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones), is charmingly human in his efforts to please his creator, but the film itself lacks the same animating spark. The script by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell feels like a soulless imitation of better films.

In the near future, solar flares have shredded Earth’s ozone and left the planet an irradiated desert. Hanks’ Finch Weinberg was a misanthrope even before the disaster and blames humanity’s poor reaction to the crisis for how devastating it became, but having an external cause for the catastrophe creates an unnecessary level of abstraction from what could otherwise be a dark warning about effects of climate change.

Finch’s isolation evokes Hanks’ Academy Award-nominated role in Cast Away, while his methodical, engineering solutions to a series of crises he must face alone are more similar to Matt Damon’s performance in The Martian. But in both those cases, the toll of loneliness feels stronger. Finch is never really alone but accompanied by his dog, Goodyear; Dewey, a scavenging robot that resembles Wall-E; and Jeff, who is capable of having real conversations and taking initiative even when his judgment isn’t sound.

The tension Cast Away and The Martian built around whether their protagonists would survive is also lacking here, since it’s clear from very early on that the radiation has caught up to Finch. Jeff is built with Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, preventing him from harming humans, plus a fourth law that trumps the others — take care of Goodyear when Finch can’t do so himself. This seems like a recipe for disaster, as the extremely strong robot could kill to protect the dog and would no longer have a purpose when the animal dies. But Finch and the film’s writers don’t seem particularly concerned with that conflict.

If Jeff was programmed to try to help heal the world or save humanity in the mold of Wall-E or 9, Finch’s efforts would feel more meaningful. Instead, a certain futility permeates the entire film. The stirring melancholy score from The Last of Us composer Gustavo Santaolalla adds to the feeling of despair, and yet the movie fails to earnestly commit to the theme. Setbacks that seem like they should derail Finch’s quixotic quest to reach the Golden Gate Bridge before he dies have no real impact beyond upsetting him in the moment. Persistent hazards melt away with no real explanation.

While the story is by no means cohesive, it can coast by at times through its spectacular visuals. The lonely devastation is reminiscent of 28 Days Later and I Am Legend, while the menacing sandstorms Finch must regularly flee stack up against any disaster movie. Jeff also looks fantastic as he flexes his articulated fingers while considering Finch’s teachings or awkwardly lumbers along following his creator with the same devotion as Goodyear. Director Miguel Sapochnik (who won an Emmy for his work on Game of Thrones’ famous “Battle of the Bastards”) does excellent work alternating between claustrophobic crumbling spaces where Finch and his robot companions scavenge and the vast vistas of the American southwest. Yet the suspense he tries to build as Finch flees from the elements and other survivors always feels muted because the film’s outcome is so grimly inevitable.

Hanks brings a charm and vulnerability to so many of his roles and Finch is no exception. Relatively little is shared about Finch’s history, and some of the explanation that is there actually feels unnecessary because Hanks does such a good job evoking how broken he was even before the world fell apart and the solace he’s found in his strange tribe.

But it’s really Jones who steals the show with his flat delivery and naivete as he points out the circuitous answers Finch gives to his questions or declares himself an excellent driver shortly after colliding with a building in Finch’s impressively modified RV. There’s an especially goofy dynamic between Jeff and Goodyear, who hates and mistrusts his robot guardian, though the turning point in their relationship is so painfully obvious it cheapens the progress made before then.

You can currently save $40 on an Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller at Best Buy, bringing it down to $139.99 (see here). Best Buy's early Black Friday sales have already kicked off, with plenty of great deals to check out, including this discount on the Elite Series 2 controller.

There are plenty of other incredible Black Friday deals already live, including 15% off Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, 50% off Fire TV Stick 4K, and much more.

Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 down to $139.99 (Save $40)

Widely considered one of the best controllers ever made, getting this gamepad for just $140 is an incredible deal, especially since deals are rare for it, and it usually sits at $180 quite stubbornly. But, now you can get it at a top discount for Black Friday, an incredible result for Xbox fans.

Best Buy's Black Friday Price Guarantee

Best Buy has officially guaranteed that these prices won't go lower, even on the big Black Friday shopping day. So grab it now, and rest assured you won't find this controller at a better price later this year, at least not at Best Buy.

What Can the Elite Series 2 Controller Do?

Here's the pitch. Xbox's Elite Series 2 Controller usually comes in at around $179.99 at most retailers, with this discount you're getting it for $139.99. That's still pricey, but you're paying for premium components, customizability, and a luxury feel.

The thumbsticks, D-pad, and triggers are swappable, so you can pick the parts that feel best for you. It also comes with a rechargeable battery that can last up to 40 hours, so you won't have to go hunting for batteries as you might with the Core controller.

(Renewed) Elite Series 2 Controller for $132.42 at Amazon

If you want an even better deal, and don't mind buying a renewed product, you're in even more luck. You can currently get an Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller for just $132 at Amazon.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.