From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Amélie, a young Belgian woman who spent the first five years of her life in Japan, returns to Japan as a young adult, signing a one-year contract as a translator at the prestigious company Yumimoto. Through a series of comical cultural misunderstandings, Amélie, who begins at the bottom of the corporate ladder, manages to descend even lower. During her time at Yumimoto, she is the direct subordinate of Fubuki Mori, whose friendly demeanor quickly disappears when Amélie unwittingly oversteps herself. Bored and frustrated with how she is apparently not assigned to do anything productive, Amélie tries to take the initiative by memorizing the company's list of employees and delivering the mail, only to be reprimanded for "stealing someone else's job." When she is assigned to photocopy the departmental manager's documents, which she discovers are the rules to his golf club, Amelie is forced to redo her work when the manager returns it with the complaint that the copies are off- centre and that she must not use the feeder for the copier. While she is redoing the task, the kindly Mr. Tenshi takes notice of her and asks for her help in drafting a report about the new method of manufacturing reduced-fat butter developed in Belgium. Amélie's contributions to Mr. Tenshi's report make it a big success and she requests not to be given credit. Though it seems her transfer to Mr. Tenshi's department is imminent, Fubuki feels offended as this constitutes a violation of the company's hierarchy and she exposes everything to the vice-president, who severely scolds Mr Tenshi and Amélie, and sees to it that Amélie writes no more reports and strictly sticks to doing duties assigned by Ms Mori. Although advised by Mr Tenshi not to do so, Amélie decides to confront Ms Mori and talk to her personally. This encounter can be seen as the main juncture of the novel, as both characters feel the other should apologise, but at the same time each of them fails to recognise why she herself should do the same. The main difference is that while Amélie feels her progress in her career from useless work to the place where she actually can use her skills has been hindered for no other reason than maliciousness, Ms Mori interprets Amélie's move as being against her as Amélie was trying to pass her by, thus violating the correct hierarchy. Ms Mori had to suffer and work hard for years to achieve her position and it was inconceivable to her to imagine that Amélie might achieve the same level of hierarchy within only a couple of weeks. From that point on, the relationship between them changes from a fairly good one (which, though, only Amélie would describe as 'friendship') to animosity, although still accompanied by respect and admiration from Amélie's side, which Ms Mori either fails to notice or chooses to ignore. Amélie proves herself useless at the tasks she is subsequently asked to do in the Accounts Department, as she apparently suffers from dyscalculia to some extent, while Ms Mori thinks Amélie is making mistakes on purpose to sabotage the company and the manager herself. Another dialogue reveals the differences between the different concepts of responsibility in Japanese and Western cultures. While for Ms Mori the manager is directly responsible for the mistakes of their staff (You made the mistakes deliberately only to expose me to the public ridicule), Amélie thinks everybody is responsible for their own mistakes (I ridiculed only myself, not you). The biggest mistake Amélie commits comes after Ms Mori has been severely abused by the vice-president in front of all the department. When Ms Mori, not having shown tears to her colleagues, goes to the bathroom to let her feelings out in private, Amélie follows her to console her. While from Amélie's point of view Ms Mori is not in a shameful position and offering a consolation like that is only a kind-hearted gesture, Ms Mori feels utterly ashamed to be seen showing her feelings and misunderstands Amélie's following her as vengefulness and hostility. The next day Amélie is assigned the job of a bathroom cleaner by Ms Mori. With six more months of her one-year contract to go, Amélie decides to endure until the end, which might be shameful from the Western point of view, but from the Japanese point of view means not losing face. After her contract finishes in January 1991, she returns to Belgium and starts publishing: her first novel Hygiène de l'assassin appearing in 1992, she receives a brief congratulation note from Ms Mori in 1993.BookerTalkPurdue.edu. docs, Christine Vance, “Culture Shock in a Japanese Firm: Amélie Nothomb’s Stupeur et Tremblements”,5-21-2010New York Times, Books, Susan Chira, Lost in Translation”, March 25, 2001Kirkus Reviews ===== On the planet Venus, the native Plookhs —who require the participation of seven different sexes in order to reproduce — are corrupted by human film director Hogan Shlestertrap. ===== ValérieTake One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film, ed. Wyndham Wise, University of Toronto Press, 2001, p. 211 is the story of a comely young woman, Danielle Ouimet, who, upon leaving a convent with the leader of a motorcycle gang, discovers the hippie culture of Montreal and turns to prostitution. This improbable storyline, made famous by the frank display of nudity and sexuality, came from a culture that was still labouring under a strong sense of Catholic guilt. It was the first of a group of films known as maple-syrup porn.Retrieved Oct. 14, 2015 ===== The family goes to a magic- themed restaurant. While there, Marge gets drunk on Long Island Iced Teas and Bart becomes so fascinated with magic that he buys a magician's kit from the gift shop. On the way home, a sturgeon falls from the sky (implicitly from the space station Mir) onto the family car's hood, which is severely damaged. Homer and Bart start their magic show as a way to make money, but the act becomes a failure, and Homer leaves Bart to do the rest of the act on his own. Bart is left out on the street, and people begin giving him money so he can get home on public transportation. As Homer drives home, he sees Bart in a taxi, and when he gets home he sees him eating a steak dinner. They decide they can make money grifting, however Marge and Lisa begin suspecting of them after they "worked" without Bart's kit, which they both left behind at home. Homer and Bart continue to grift after they have fixed the car, and Grampa volunteers to help them grift, since he was a con-artist during the Great Depression. Grampa, Homer, and Bart grift the residents at the Springfield Retirement Castle. While performing the grift, they are arrested by an FBI agent. When Homer and Bart get to jail, they realize the FBI agent himself is a con man, and conned them out of their money and the car. Homer and Bart say the car was stolen in the church parking lot. The next morning they are surprised however to learn that Groundskeeper Willie was arrested for stealing the car, as he matched the description they gave of the carjacker as a "foreign loner with wild, bushy hair". Not wanting to admit they were conned, Homer and Bart go along with Marge's theory. At the trial, the Blue Haired Lawyer leads Homer to say that it was Willie who stole the car. After Willie is proven guilty, he snatches Wiggum's gun and shoots Principal Skinner. At this point Homer finally confesses that he got conned but Marge and the townspeople themselves tell Homer and Bart that they set up the trial and the carjacking to teach them a lesson on conning people, revealing that Skinner was not really shot (it was a fake blood pack), the judge was Grampa wearing a latex mask, and the con man who stole their car was an actor called Devon Bradley. As Lisa is ready to explain why the town, media and police officials had "nothing better to do" than show them the consequences of their actions, Otto runs through the courtroom doors, shouting, 'Surf's Up!'. The scene then cuts to Springfield at the beach, with characters from the episode surfing, including the waiter from the restaurant, the two astronauts from the Mir space station and the sturgeon swimming in the sea. ===== In the Straits of Sembaleng, five men are dispatched by submarine in Klepper canoes to rescue survivors of a shot-down plane on a nearby island which is occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. Led by Paul Kelly (Gibson), an inexperienced commando officer, the team secretly lands on the island and hides their kayaks. As they venture in land, Ted 'Kingo' King is hit by fire from an unseen machine gun post, the team quickly eliminates the Japanese defenders and return to their wounded comrade. King has been hit on the leg, the bullet smashing his kneecap. King cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands and compromise the mission under interrogation, and after sharing a cigarette with him, Costello shoots him. The four remaining men return to their search; coming across a rice farmer, they learn of the area in which the plane crashed. The rice farmer is also killed in order to preserve secrecy. But as they near their destination they spot a Japanese squad at a local house, after the Japanese leave they enter the house and meet the local resistance leader Lin, his grown up daughter Chien Hua and her younger brothers and sisters. With a guide to lead them, they head off to the plane but are attacked by Japanese soldiers at a Buddhist temple. Separated from the rest, interpreter Jan Veitch ends up returning to Lin's house where Chien Hua hides him from the returning Japanese. After the deaths of their soldiers, the Japanese officers Watanabe and Imanaka torture Chien to tell them the location of her father, who they believe is hiding the survivors of the crashed plane, but Chien Hua refuses. Lin's son Shaw Hu falsely tells the Japanese that Lin, the Z men, and the plane's survivors are heading for the island's capital. All the Japanese leave except for two soldiers guarding Chien Hua; Veitch kills both with help of Shaw Hu. Meanwhile, within sight of the plane, Kelly watches as locals blow up the wreckage. Lin is evasive, and after quizzing the inhabitants of a village, the team head on to the plane. Kelly manages to get Lin to tell them that the two survivors are being taken to his home, so they turn around and head back. In the capital, Veitch is led to the survivors. One of them is a defecting Japanese government official Imoguchi, and he is believed to hold a secret that could end the war faster. Only Kelly knows that he must be rescued at any cost - or killed. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall together, Kelly must persuade his own men that Imoguchi is worth rescuing and the local resistance that it is worth fighting against their Japanese enemies. ===== Faith Ferguson (Mimi Rose) is a relatively shy but intelligent teenager who is heartbroken when her mother informs her that she must spend Easter break at her Catholic girls' school as opposed to coming home. She's roomed with the rebellious Jamie (Sheeri Rappaport), who initially scandalizes Faith with her wild antics. Despite her initial misgivings, Faith finds herself bonding slightly with Jamie and the four other teen misfits that had to remain behind - Erica, Gina, Nicole, and Kelsey. The group is soon intrigued when construction work on the school's church uncovers a Satanic temple containing the mummified remains of several schoolgirls believed to have gone missing almost a hundred years ago. The girls venture into the temple one night while everyone is asleep and they discover an ancient book written in Latin. Faith is fluent in Latin and translates the book, which outlines a spell that will summon a demon from the pits of hell. Jamie and some of the other girls are eager to practice the spell, but Faith is reticent due to the spell requiring a virgin sacrifice - especially after learning that the schoolgirls were murdered by a guardian devoted to keeping the spell from being cast. This reluctance, along with her interactions with a handsome construction worker named Daniel (Tommy Stork), helps alienate her from Jamie, who was somewhat attracted to him. Things grow more tense when the teens return to the hidden room and discover that there is still a guardian around, as the room was covered in graffiti that warned them that summoning the demon would lead to their deaths. Because Faith has refused to help translate the rest of the book, Jamie decides to play a cruel trick on her by inviting Daniel to their room and making it appear as if he was trying to rape her. The girls' young schoolteacher, Sister Sherilyn (Jennifer Rubin), provides Faith with some guidance and has her bring meals to Mother Clodah (Zelda Rubinstein), a strange nun bearing a distinctive birthmark on her face. This ends up being to Faith's benefit, as she manages to avoid falling under one of Jamie's spells by praying with Mother Clodah. Unfortunately the encounter also ends with Mother Clodah's death due to Jamie poisoning her meal, believing Mother Clodah to be the guardian. Jamie, who has taught herself to read Latin due to Faith's refusal to translate, proceeds with the spell as planned. The movie implies that the teens will use Faith as a sacrifice due to her virginal nature, but Jamie ends up using Daniel instead after she learns that he is also a virgin. Horrified that they are moving forward with the spell, Faith receives help from Sister Sherilyn, who reveals that she is the guardian. They manage to stop the ceremony in time to save Daniel, but at the cost of the lives of Jamie and all of the other girls involved with the spell. ===== The story follows the fortunes of Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde), starting as a new medical student at the fictional St Swithin's Hospital in London. His five years of student life, involving drinking, dating women, and falling foul of the rigid hospital authorities, provide many humorous incidents. When he has to leave his first choice of lodgings to get away from his landlady's amorous daughter (Shirley Eaton), he ends up with three amiable but less-than-shining fellow students as flatmates: * Richard Grimsdyke (Kenneth More). A relative had left him a small but adequate annuity while he remains in medical school, so he sees to it that he flunks each year. * Tony Benskin (Donald Sinden), an inveterate woman chaser. * Taffy Evans (Donald Houston), a rugby fanatic. Towering over them all is the short-tempered, demanding chief surgeon, Sir Lancelot Spratt (played by James Robertson Justice in a manner quite unlike Gordon's original literary character), who strikes terror into everyone. Simon's friends cajole him into a series of disastrous dates, first with a placidly uninterested "Rigor Mortis" (Joan Sims), then with Isobel (Kay Kendall), a woman with very expensive tastes, and finally with Joy (Muriel Pavlow), a nurse at St Swithin's. After a rocky start, he finds he likes Joy a great deal. Meanwhile, Richard is given an ultimatum by his fiancée Stella (Suzanne Cloutier) – graduate or she will leave him. He buckles down. The climax of the film is a rugby match with a rival medical school during Simon's fifth and final year. After St Swithin's wins, the other side tries to steal the school mascot, a stuffed gorilla, resulting in a riot and car chase through the streets of London. Simon and his friends are almost expelled for their part in this by the humourless Dean of St Swithin's (Geoffrey Keen). When Simon helps Joy sneak into the nurses' residence after curfew, he accidentally falls through a skylight. This second incident gets him expelled, even though he is a short time away from completing his finals. Sir Lancelot, however, has fond memories of his own student days, particularly of the Dean's own youthful indiscretion (persuading a nurse to reenact Lady Godiva's ride). His discreet blackmail gets Simon reinstated. In the end, Richard fails (as does Tony), but Stella decides to enroll at St Swithin's herself so there will be at least one doctor in the family. Simon and Taffy graduate. ===== The film opens to a shot of an abandoned office, where the main character (Pierre Jolivet), who is only identified as 'The Man' in the end credits, is having intercourse with a sex doll. The Man is then seen attempting to salvage parts from abandoned vehicles, but returns to his dwelling empty handed, where he works on building a makeshift aircraft. The Man ventures outside the office building he lives in, which is surrounded by a desert wasteland. A group of men are shown surviving in the wasteland. They hold a man, 'The Dwarf' (Maurice Lamy), captive, and force him to retrieve water for them. The Man, who has been observing the survivors, makes his way to their camp, stabs their leader, 'The Captain' (Fritz Wepper) and retrieves a car battery. Survivors pursue The Man, though he is able to escape in his now completed aircraft. 'The Brute' (Jean Reno) is seen approaching a hospital with a box containing canned food. The Brute rings a bell, and 'The Doctor' (Jean Bouise), instructs him to place the canned goods on the ground and back away from the door. The Doctor then takes the goods and closes the door before The Brute can get inside. The Man's aircraft crash lands at night. The following morning he continues on foot. The Brute returns to the hospital with a new box of items, though this time he constructs a device that will keep the door open long enough for him to enter the building. The plan works, however, once back inside the building The Doctor pulls a lever which closes a secondary iron bar gate preventing The Brute from entering. The Man finds an abandoned bar, gets himself heavily intoxicated and passes out. When he awakes, he ventures outside where he is amazed that it is raining fish. While searching for a way to cook the fish, The Man encounters The Brute. A fight ensues; the Brute gains the upper hand though The Man is able to escape. The Man, now badly injured, wanders around until he finds The Doctor. The Doctor treats The Man and cooks him some fish. The Doctor inhales a form of gas that allows him to, with some difficulty, say a single word: Bonjour. The Man also takes the gas and is able to reply with the same word. Both are ecstatic about being able to speak. The Man and the Doctor bond over table tennis and painting, before The Man ventures outside into a sandstorm to retrieve a painting he found in the bar. The Brute, who has been living in the bar, returns and notices the painting is missing. The Doctor prepares some food and blindfolds The Man. He leads The Man to a part of the hospital where a woman is kept, and gives her the food. The Brute sets fire to the front door of the hospital, though The Doctor and The Man extinguish the flames. The Man and The Doctor go to bring food to the woman again, and The Man gives her a wrapped gift. They then catch The Brute attempting to saw through the iron bar gate, though are able to scare him off. The Doctor and The Man prepare food for the woman, yet this time The Doctor permits the man to not be blindfolded, and encourages him to comb his hair. Meanwhile, it is revealed that The Brute has breached the iron gate to the hospital. The Doctor is killed on the way to the woman when chunks of rock rain down from the sky. The Man, who does not know how to find the woman without The Doctor, attempts to locate her, though he is confronted by The Brute. A fight ensues, with The Man eventually killing The Brute. The Man then locates the woman's room, though is devastated when he discovers that The Brute had already killed her. The Man repairs his aircraft, and flies back to the original survivors he encountered. He kills their new leader and frees The Dwarf. The Dwarf shows the Man where The Captain keeps his concubine (Christiane Krüger). The Man greets her with a warm smile, which she returns. ===== An emotionally scarred waitress named Frankie attends her godson's baptism in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, a middle-aged man named Johnny is released from prison. Frankie returns home to New York City to her job waitressing at the Apollo Cafe. The owner, Nick, sends her co-worker Helen home early after she complains of dizziness. Johnny arrives looking for work and Nick hires him as a short-order cook despite his criminal record. After work, Frankie returns home to her apartment to find a stranger, Bobby, installing shelves, but he is revealed to be the boyfriend of her friend and neighbor, Tim. That night, Johnny solicits a prostitute, but just asks her to lay clothed in bed with him. The next day, Nick announces to his staff that Helen has been hospitalized. Frankie and her co-worker Cora visit an unconscious Helen and share their fears of dying alone like her. The next day, after helping a man who had an epileptic seizure, Johnny asks Frankie out on a date, but she refuses. Helen dies and Frankie, Cora, and fellow waitress Nedda are surprised to see Johnny at her funeral. Back at work, Johnny asks Frankie out again. After she refuses again, he has a one-night stand with Cora, which she shares the details of with Frankie and Nedda. Weeks pass, and Johnny asks Frankie to be his date at a co-worker's going-away party, but she again refuses. He shows up at her apartment anyway, where Bobby and Tim help Frankie decide what to wear. At the party, Johnny attempts to convince Frankie that they are a good match. After the party, he buys her a flower and convinces her to take him back to her apartment, where they spend an intimate night together. Now convinced that they are meant to be together, Johnny shows up at her bowling night and professes his love to her. Frankie argues that he cannot love her after such a short period of time, and reveals that she cannot have children after Johnny mentions starting a family. Afterwards, Frankie avoids Johnny, not answering his phone calls and switching her shifts. However, Johnny switches his shifts too and they talk to each other. Johnny confesses that he is divorced and has two children who he hasn't seen since he got out of prison for check fraud. Frankie encourages him to see them, and she confesses that her last boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend. After work, Johnny walks Frankie to her apartment, where they discuss their lives and listen to "Clair de Lune". However, the intimacy makes Frankie uncomfortable and they argue. She asks him to leave, but before he does, he calls the radio station and asks them to play an encore of "Clair de Lune". Frankie confesses that a previous boyfriend had physically abused her, at one point causing her to have a miscarriage which made her unable to have children. Frankie invites Johnny to stay and they watch the sunrise together. ===== Johnny and girlfriend Frankie are performers on a Mississippi River riverboat, which also has a casino. Johnny is a compulsive gambler who is down on his luck and in debt. Johnny and his friend Cully, a musician and composer, visit a gypsy camp to get his fortune told. A lady reads tea leaves and tells Johnny that he will soon meet a red-haired woman who will bring him luck. Back on the boat, Johnny and Cully promptly encounter Nellie Bly, their boss Clint Braden's on-again, off-again girlfriend. Nellie has just caught Braden seducing another singer, Mitzi. Since she has red hair, Nellie is persuaded by Johnny to touch his chips for luck. After he wins, Johnny is convinced that the gypsy must be correct. Frankie finds out and becomes jealous, as does Johnny's boss. In a bit of musical theatre, Frankie shoots Johnny for dancing with Nellie Bly while singing Cully's latest song. A Broadway recruiter sees the riverboat show and buys the rights to this new song, suggesting that Frankie and Johnny should work together with him in New York City. Landing in New Orleans, the musical cast and riverboat crew attend a masked ball. Frankie, Nellie and Mitzi all rent the same Madame Pompadour costume. Johnny is eager for the luck of redhead Nellie to win more money, contrary to Frankie's expressed wishes. Being masked and in costume, Frankie and Nellie scheme to switch places to test Johnny's lucky-redhead theory. Johnny wins $10,000 at roulette, but when he kisses the woman he believes to be Nellie, he discovers the switch. Frankie is furious and throws all the winnings out of a window, into the street. Blackie, a dim-witted stooge who works for the boss, hears Braden drunkenly complain about how he has lost Nellie. Thinking he can be of help, Blackie switches the blank cartridge in Frankie's stage gun for a real bullet. The boss tries to prevent the impending disaster, but arrives on stage too late and Johnny is shot for real. Frankie forgives his gambling as the love of her life appears to be dying but he stands up, apparently unhurt. Johnny was saved because the bullet struck a lucky medallion he was wearing that Frankie had given him. ===== Homer and Bart use fireworks to accomplish things Marge has told them to do: fix a stuck shelf, demolishing Santa's Little Helper's doghouse (while promising him another one would be built by January 2007), and attempting to fix Lisa's VCR, but end up destroying her room with fireworks instead. To make it up to her, the family spends a day at the Springfield Festival of Books for her birthday. There, they encounter famous authors such as Stephen King, Tom Wolfe, John Updike, and Amy Tan. While waiting in line for an autograph from Krusty, Bart strikes up a conversation with a girl named Sophie. When she gets to the front of the line, she reveals to Krusty that she is his daughter. Sophie tells Krusty that he met her mother when she served as a soldier in the Gulf War, spending the night with her after a USO show; however, she dumped Krusty the next day after he ruined her attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein. Krusty proves a distant and unemotional father, and on a trip to the beach, he sees Homer playing with the kids and asks him for advice on how to be a good parent. Krusty and his daughter begin to bond, and Sophie shows Krusty her prized violin and plays a song for him. That night, Krusty plays in a poker game with Fat Tony, where he is dealt four aces with a king kicker, but is forced to bet Sophie's violin after running out of money and betting his Rolex watch, and loses the hand to Fat Tony, who had a straight flush (2-3-4-5-6 of diamonds). Sophie loses her trust in Krusty upon hearing the news, and Krusty turns to Homer for help; the two attempt to break into Fat Tony's mansion while a mafia summit is being held. They find a room filled with violin cases, but most of them are filled with weapons. They attempt to sneak out with the cases, but they fall to the ground and a mob shootout erupts around them; Krusty finds the violin, and the two escape. The next day, Krusty gives the violin back to Sophie, who is delighted to find that the case has been lined with money. ===== The family take Bart to dinner at the Singing Sirloin restaurant (as seen in "Life on the Fast Lane") for getting his first "A" on an astronomy quiz. When asked how he achieved this rarity, Bart explains that he was in Mrs. Krabappel's class trying to force a hamster and a lizard to mate, but was forced to hide in the coat closet when he saw Krabappel and Principal Skinner making out, and needing to get his mind off this, he studied a chart of the Solar System on the closet wall. The family's feeling of pride does not last, though, as a waiter tells Homer that the credit card he has attempted to use for paying the meal has been rejected. The family responds by trying to run away, but are stopped and made to sing and entertain the other customers in the restaurant to work off their debt. At the end of the night, as the family is driving home, Bart and Lisa notice that the back seats and floor of the car are missing, and Homer explains that he had to sell them for gas money (which he spent on a novelty car horn). He and Marge subsequently learn from a visit to financial planner Lindsay Naegle that the Simpsons are having severe money woes. In the hope of sorting out these problems, Homer decides to ask his boss, Mr. Burns, for a raise. Burns, meanwhile, has decided to spend a week looking for things to amuse himself while his assistant, Smithers, is in New Mexico performing in a Malibu Stacy musical that he wrote. When Burns tries unsuccessfully to use the salad bar at the cafeteria, Homer shows him how, then sums up his courage to ask for a raise. Burns is unimpressed and, wanting a "larf", orders Homer to throw a pudding at Lenny with the promise of four dollars. Homer does so, amusing Burns so much that he decides to make Homer his "Executive in Charge of Recreation" or, in his words, his "prank monkey". Subsequently, Burns takes Homer around the streets of Springfield, making him perform embarrassing or cruel tasks, such as eating an original copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in front of Comic Book Guy and pretending to be a baby in a public toilet, and paying him for each of these tasks. Then, Burns takes him to the Springfield Zoo, where he makes him put on a panda suit and masquerade as a new female panda named "Sim-Sim" in the hope of shocking onlookers when they discover the disguise. It goes wrong for Homer, though, when first he is zapped by two animal handlers, before the zoo's male panda, Ping-Ping, becomes romantically interested in "Sim-Sim" and drags "her" into his cave, where it is implied Homer is raped by the panda. Finally, when Homer tries to escape after the rendezvous, he ends up in the skunk exhibit and gets sprayed. It is then that Lisa discovers him. Lisa convinces Homer to stop being a "prank monkey" as his dignity is more important than money. This he does, though Burns still gives him his payment for the panda task. When Homer asks Lisa what he should do with all the money he has earned, Lisa suggests donating it to needy children, so he spends it all on toys at Costington's Department Store. Mr. Costington is so impressed by this show of generosity that he suggests that Homer dress up as Santa Claus for the upcoming Thanksgiving Day parade, distributing the toys to the kids. During the parade, however, Burns shows up and tries to convince Homer, in his Santa costume, to pull a prank on the whole town. Homer flatly refuses, only to be tempted by Burns' promise of one million dollars. Santa is then seen throwing bucketfuls of fish guts into the crowd, which results in an attack by seagulls. A disappointed Lisa watches on, remarking, "Oh, dad, you sold your soul," when Homer, back in his normal clothes, appears alongside her; it turns out that Burns is now wearing the Santa costume. Homer thanks Lisa for giving him "the gift of dignity", and the family embrace before Burns throws fish guts at them. ===== In response to a distress signal, the Seventh Doctor and Ace materialise the TARDIS near Lake Vortigern in England. The sound of explosions leads the Doctor and Ace to Brigadier Bambera of UNIT, in charge of a nuclear missile convoy. Following the encounter, the retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is informed of the Doctor's return, and a helicopter is sent to his country home to collect him. At the Gore Crow hotel, the Doctor and Ace meet a young woman called Shou Yuing, who shares Ace's love of explosives. Meanwhile, as Bambera stops to examine a certain blue police telephone box at the side of the road, she is caught in the crossfire between two groups of armoured knights, using both swords and futuristic guns. The Doctor shows interest in a scabbard excavated from the battlefield, which hangs over the mantelpiece in the hotel. The scabbard is hot to the Doctor's touch, and the hotel owner's blind wife, Elizabeth, says she can sense it waiting for something, or someone. Archaeologist Warmsly dates the scabbard to the 8th century, but the Doctor senses that it is far older than that and has been waiting for something. As Ace and Shou Yuing share a talk about explosives, a knight sails through the roof of the hotel brewery. The Doctor, Ace and Shou Yuing find the knight, Ancelyn, who wakes to recognise the Doctor as "Merlin". While the Doctor mulls the portent of this revelation, the party is surrounded by an ominous group of knights. Bambera faces down their leader, Mordred, but Mordred is more frightened to see "Merlin", whom he believed was imprisoned by his mother, Morgaine. Following some vague threats from the Doctor (who is by this stage pretending that he knows exactly who Merlin is), Mordred's knights retreat. Later, as Mordred begins an arcane ritual, the scabbard in the hotel flies across the room, stirred by the magic. Morgaine then arrives on the scene through a rift in space and time. The next day, Warmsly shows the Doctor where he uncovered the scabbard. They find a rune, written in the Doctor's own handwriting, which he translates to "Dig hole here." Using a canister of Nitro-9, Ace blows an opening. On arrival in Carbury, Lethbridge-Stewart's helicopter is shot down by Morgaine's sorcery. As Morgaine's knights hold a remembrance ceremony for the soldiers of Earth's world wars, Lethbridge-Stewart has a peaceable meeting with Morgaine — though she warns Lethbridge-Stewart that, when they meet again in battle, she will kill him. Following the tunnel created by the Nitro-9 blast, the Doctor and Ace enter a chamber under the lake, finding a door programmed to open at the Doctor's voice. The Doctor tells Ace that "Merlin" may well be his future self. Presently, they realise that the chamber is part of an organic spaceship and find the body of King Arthur, lying next to a sword, which was apparently the source of the distress signal, and also lured Mordred and Morgaine. When Ace removes the sword from its plinth, she activates a defence mechanism, unleashing a hostile, glowing entity. Attempting to hide, Ace enters an alcove. A door closes, and the alcove starts to fill with water. As Ace yells for help, the entity knocks the Doctor unconscious. The Doctor recovers just in time to eject Ace from the spaceship, sending her shooting up through the waters of the lake. As Ancelyn and Warmsly stand at the shore, discussing the Lady of the Lake, Ace emerges, still grasping the sword. Ancelyn identifies it as Excalibur. The Brigadier arrives on-scene, in time to destroy the creature below the lake and rescue the Doctor. Mordred and Morgaine go to the hotel to retrieve Excalibur. Lavel, Lethbridge-Stewart's co-officer, shoots, but Morgaine simply catches her bullet with sorcery. Morgaine then takes knowledge from Lavel's mind, which kills her, and turns her body to dust. As Morgaine leaves, she pays for the drinking tab of her unruly son by restoring Elizabeth's sight. Meanwhile, UNIT troops are staging an evacuation. The Brigadier shows off some of UNIT's specialised ammunition, but when the Doctor jokingly enquires about silver bullets, the Brigadier rushes to get some. The Doctor instructs Ace to draw a chalk circle around herself to protect against Morgaine's sorcery. He then drives off in his old car, Bessie, hoping to halt a battle between Morgaine's knights and the UNIT soldiers. A storm breaks outside the hotel, so Ace and Shou Yuing draw the circle around themselves and Excalibur (which is the real source of their protection). Ace and Shou Yuing start to bicker, and Ace nearly leaves the circle before realising that Morgaine is toying with their minds. Just as Mordred and Ancelyn are about to fight, the Doctor intervenes. Mordred reveals that the battle was a ruse to lure the Doctor, and that Morgaine has summoned the Destroyer of Worlds, whom she has bound with silver chains. Morgaine appears before Ace and Shou Yuing and tries to entice them to hand over Excalibur. When they refuse, she unleashes the power of the Destroyer. The Doctor and the Brigadier capture Mordred and set off for the hotel. On return, the Doctor finds the hotel in ruins, but Ace and Shou Yuing safe. He is pleased to hear that Ace gave Excalibur to Morgaine, as doing so protected her. In the debris, the Doctor finds a portal to Morgaine's castle, and he, the Brigadier, and Ace bravely enter. On arrival, the Brigadier shoots the Destroyer, to no effect. The Destroyer's return volley sends the Brigadier flying through the window. Ace bursts through the portal, ramming into Morgaine, and knocking Excalibur from her grasp. Morgaine releases the Destroyer's bonds. In the confusion, she scoops up Excalibur, and heads back through the portal, along with Mordred. Outside, Ace tells the Doctor that Morgaine bound the Destroyer with silver chains, so he loads the Brigadier's revolver with the silver bullets. Although the Doctor wants to face the Destroyer himself, the Brigadier says that he is more expendable than the Doctor, and knocks the Doctor out, retrieving his gun so that he can face the Destroyer in the Doctor's place. The Brigadier marches back into the castle, tells the Destroyer, "Get off my world!", and then empties the revolver into the monster's chest. The Destroyer explodes, and the Doctor wakes to find the castle engulfed in flames. He spots the Brigadier's prostrate form and begins to mourn his fallen friend — at which point the Brigadier opens his eyes and rises, unharmed. Back at the convoy, Morgaine and Mordred attempt to detonate the nuclear missile. The Doctor confronts Morgaine, insisting that there is no honour to nuclear warfare. Morgaine realises that he is right and asks to fight Arthur in single combat. The Doctor then tells her of Arthur's death, much to her sadness. Mordred and Morgaine are then imprisoned by Bambera (who has developed a relationship with Ancelyn). The Brigadier, the Doctor and Ancelyn are left to do the chores at the Brigadier's home while his wife, Ace, Shou Yuing and Bambera take off in Bessie to do some shopping. Chuckling, the Doctor says he'll cook supper. ===== Plundered Hearts casts the player in a well-defined role. The lead character is a young woman in the late 17th century who has received a letter. Jean Lafond, the governor of the small West Indies island of St. Sinistra, says that the player's father has contracted a "wasting tropical disease". Lafond suggests that his recovery would be greatly helped by the loving presence of his daughter, and sends his ship (the Lafond Deux) to transport her. As the game begins, the ship is attacked by pirates and the player's character is kidnapped. Eventually the player's character finds that two men are striving for her affections: dashing pirate Nicholas Jamison, and the conniving Jean Lafond. As the intrigue plays out, the lady does not sit idly by and watch the men duel over her; she must help Jamison overcome the evil plans of Lafond so they have a chance to live happily ever after. ===== Rick Richards (Presley) returns to his home in Hawaii after being fired from his job as an airline pilot. He and his buddy Danny Kohana (James Shigeta) go into the helicopter charter business together. But Rick's reckless flying and his careless flirting with local women may cost Rick the business and Danny his home. This tendency seems to get in the way of their secretary, Judy "Friday" Hudson (Suzanna Leigh) and Rick getting together. Disaster looms as Danny becomes overdue on a flight after Rick has been grounded by government officials. Rick must decide if he should risk losing his license forever by going to look for his friend. ===== A Perfect Spy is the life story of Magnus Pym, a British intelligence officer and double agent. After attending his father's funeral, Pym mysteriously disappears. As his fellow intelligence officers frantically search for him it becomes clear that, throughout most of his career, Magnus worked as a spy for the Czechoslovak secret service. Although intrigue, wit, and suspense make up much of the novel, the story of Magnus Pym is partly an unadorned recollection of his childhood and memories of his father Rick Pym. The non-linear narrative cuts back and forth between the present-day manhunt for Pym (being conducted by his mentor, boss, and longtime friend, Jack Brotherhood), and Pym's first- person reminiscences of his life as, in hiding, he writes a memoir explaining to his family and friends why he betrayed his country. It incorporates flashbacks to Pym's childhood with his father, the enterprising charismatic rogue and con-man, Rick; to his early years at school and university; to his amorous adventures, to his introduction to espionage and state secrets; and to his encounters with long-time friend and Czech spy Axel. The portraits reveal Pym as a man who for so long has manipulated his appearance to those closest to him that, in the end, he was unable to hold together the conflicting personae within him. Magnus Pym has been a perfect spy, but at the cost of his soul. ===== Rohan is heir to the throne of The Desert and its chief holding, Stronghold. His father, Prince Zehava, is unsure of his son's ability to rule, but is wounded in a dragon hunt and Rohan is suddenly the ruling Prince. He must solidify his right to rule by outwitting The Desert's antagonists, chiefly the High Prince Roelstra, in order to protect his lands and maintain peace throughout the world. His aunt, Andrade, the Lady of Goddess Keep and highest ranking of the faradhi, or Sunrunners, gifted humans who can use light to communicate, warns that the High Prince will try to take over the Desert by marrying one of his daughters to Rohan and then killing him. To decline a royal marriage would in turn insult Roelstra, so she offers a marriage with Sioned, another of her Sunrunners. Marriage between a prince and a Sunrunner is unheard of, but Rohan is smitten by a vision of Sioned that Andrade conjures in fire for him. Rohan persuades Sioned to help him trick High Prince Roelstra into signing various treaties while he pretends to choose between princesses. Sioned pretends to be unsure of Rohan as her groom, and the two have a merry time with their charade at the tri-annual Rialla (a fair and gathering of princes held every three years). Rohan pretends to be a foolish, ignorant young man. The other princes initially believe the masquerade. Roelstra, in turn, is interested in Sioned, both as a woman and a faradhi. High Prince Roelstra is an evil, cunning man and the father of seventeen daughters. Despite a marriage and a series of mistresses, he never succeeds at conceiving a son and heir. His latest mistress, Lady Palila, is pregnant during the Rialla. Roelstra's eldest daughter, Princess Ianthe, schemes with her sister Pandsala to switch Palila's baby for a girl if it is a son. Pandsala, thinking Roelstra will marry her to Prince Rohan if Palila helps her, plans to turn the tables on Ianthe and help Palila switch another daughter for a boy. They bring four pregnant waiting- women along, planning to induce labor in them when Palila's begins. Rohan and Roelstra ultimately spar over Sioned, and Roelstra is infuriated to discover Rohan played him for a fool. Ianthe betrays Palila and her sister, and gains her father's trust. In return, she is granted the castle of Feruche, an important outpost on the border between Roelstra's and Rohan's lands. Roelstra gives Pandsala and the new baby, named Chiana (for "treason" in an old language), to Andrade. He burns Palila alive in her bed. Rohan and Sioned are married and return to the Desert, but Sioned fails to conceive a hoped-for heir. She suffers a series of miscarriages, and the entire realm is decimated by Plague in the ensuing years. Sioned is comforted by a vision of herself with Rohan's child at her breast, although she knows she cannot bear his baby. Ianthe's men capture Rohan and bring him to her at Feruche castle, where she seduces him, convincing the drugged prince she is Sioned. Rohan discovers the truth and violently rapes Ianthe. Ianthe also captures Sioned, locks her in a lightless dungeon underneath Feruche and allows her castle guards to rape her. Sioned realizes the child in her vision is Ianthe's, and refrains from killing her when Ianthe finally releases them. Rohan and Sioned return to find Stronghold besieged. Rohan goes to war with Roelstra while Sioned waits out Ianthe's pregnancy. Rohan doubts he can claim this child as his, although Sioned is confident they can defeat Roelstra and claim Ianthe's son as their own. When Ianthe gives birth, Sioned returns to Feruche, steals Ianthe's newborn son, and burns Castle Feruche to the ground. Sioned names the child Pol, which means "star" in the Old Tongue. At the same time, Rohan kills Roelstra in a duel and becomes High Prince in his stead. The novel ends with the other princes proclaiming fealty to High Prince Rohan and High Princess Sioned, and accepting Prince Pol, the new Sunrunner heir. ===== Mike McCoy (Elvis Presley), the lead singer for a traveling band who is also a part-time race car driver, enjoys his carefree single life, which is threatened by three different women who seek to marry him. Enter Cynthia Foxhugh (Shelley Fabares), a spoiled heiress and "daddy's girl," who is determined to get what she wants, no matter the cost. Such as was the case when Cynthia's millionaire father Howard (Carl Betz) tricks Mike and his band into interrupting their music tour to travel to Santa Barbara and serenade Cynthia with "Am I Ready" for her birthday. Cynthia becomes first of the three women who want to marry Mike. Also, apparently knowing about Mike's racing skills, Howard is determined to hire Mike to drive Howard's Fox Five car in an upcoming road race, but Mike prefers to race his own car, a Cobra 427 sports car, which he tows around the region with his 1929 Model J Duesenberg. Meanwhile, Mike is stalked and spied upon by Diana St. Clair (Diane McBain), an author of books for women about men. Diana is in the process of writing her new book, The Perfect American Male, and uses Mike as one of her subjects. Actually, she later reveals to Mike that he is the "perfect American male," thereby planning on Mike to marry her—to the point of already making wedding arrangements. The female drummer of Mike's band, Les (Deborah Walley), is looked upon by Mike and the other band members as a tomboy, and becomes fed up with such treatment. Mike and his other band members are taken aback when at a party, Les picks her moment and reveals her true feminine side, walking back out from a room dressed up in an evening dress. She reveals herself as the third woman who wishes to marry Mike. Faced with this predicament, Mike must decide which of the three women he will marry—after the race (which Mike wins in a car he does not even own). So, he decides to marry all three of them—to other men. Mike marries Cynthia to Phillip (Warren Berlinger), a nervous employee of Howard's who is prone to fainting (he had a secret crush on Cynthia since he has known her, which he finally picks up the nerve to tell her). Next, Mike marries Diana to Howard, who fell in love with each other after they met at one of Mike's parties. And finally, Mike marries Les to Lt. Tracy Richards (Will Hutchins), a police officer whom Les won her way to his heart through his stomach (he likes her gourmet cooking). This allows Mike to reclaim his single and carefree life, which he dearly enjoys. ===== A corrupt and greedy businessman, Carl Ridley (Bill Paxton), is running from the government, with his 18-year-old daughter Pippa (Agnes Bruckner) in tow. Pippa is not happy to leave her friends and comfortable life in Miami for the Cayman Islands. Arriving in the islands, Ridley is preoccupied. Banks are rapidly closing and he must find a clean place to store his stolen money. Meanwhile, Pippa finds native Caymanian Fritz (Victor Rasuk) sleeping off a late night in her bed. He flees out the window, leaving his wallet behind. She later finds Fritz on the beach to return his wallet and befriends him, in spite of his ridiculous come- on attempts. Fritz is yearning to show her the island, including its wild parties. But he owes money to island gang leader Richie Ritch (Raz Adoti), and when he peeks in on Pippa's father unwrapping a massive amount of cash that he had taped around his torso, Fritz begins scheming. Pippa is completely unaware that she's leading her father into even more trouble than he had in the United States. A parallel storyline involves Shy (Orlando Bloom), a Cayman native. He is in love with Andrea (Zoë Saldaña), the daughter of his boss, Mr. Sterling, a very influential person in the island. But for an unknown reason, Andrea's brother Hammer (Anthony Mackie) despises Shy. To protect their secret affair, whenever Shy would visit Andrea at home his good friend Kimo (Mpho Koaho) would watch the house in case Andrea's father were to arrive. On Andrea's birthday Shy visits her house and has sex with her, but Kimo falls asleep and fails to warn Shy of Sterling's arrival. Shy escapes out the window, but not without being identified by Hammer. Later on, to avenge his sister's lost womanhood, Hammer attacks Shy with acid which leaves a permanent scar on Shy's face. Hammer is sent to jail for four months. Physically and emotionally scarred, Shy becomes a recluse. Andrea is emotionally broken and gives in to drugs and sex. Shy has his friend Patrick, the son of Mr. Allen (Ridley's lawyer), take him to Richie's birthday party to find Andrea. Finding her in the bathroom having sex with a stranger, he runs into the front yard and vomits. She runs after him but he pushes her away knowing that she is high. Hammer sees Shy and begins to beat him up with help from his friends. Shy finally breaks free and runs down the street as Hammer curses at him, telling him to stay away. Meanwhile, at the same party, Fritz gets pulled in to see Richie while Pippa talks to a few other white girls doing drugs. Upset after smoking some pot, she finds Fritz and demands that he take her home. Having just told Richie to go to her home to steal the cash, he instead takes her to Mr. Sterling's yacht. As they sit down inside, they find that the alarm has been set off; the police arrive shortly and arrest both of them. Pippa is taken to the police station, while Fritz is transported to a laundromat where a local cop who knows him delivers a lecture and a beating for acting disobediently throughout his life. After his own beating, Shy obtains a gun and returns to the party to find Hammer. After firing the gun to clear out the party, he corners Hammer and explains what a mess Hammer has made of his own sister's life. He says that he will spare Hammer's life so that he can watch the trouble that he has caused in Andrea's life. Hammer replies that he would rather see Andrea become a whore than be with Shy. Enraged, Shy pulls the trigger. Shocked by what he has done, he apologizes and runs off. Over the next few hours, Andrea asks Patrick to take her to find Shy. He is disgusted with her and kicks her out of his car, but tells her that Shy is at the docks. When she finds him, she expresses her desire to be with him, regardless of others' feelings. When he confesses to killing her brother, however, she leaves him in disgust, forgetting her shoes in her hurry. When Allen and Ridley go to the police station the next morning, Ridley soon realizes that he has been betrayed and is taken into custody by the FBI. When Allen goes home to retrieve the money that he believes he tricked Ridley into leaving in his safe, he discovers that the bag contains only sand and a conch shell. At her own condo, Pippa discovers the million dollars under her mattress. In the final scenes, Andrea prepares for Hammer's funeral with her father, Kimo comforts Shy's mother, and Shy sits on the dock where Andrea left him. He then gets into his boat, cuts the rope and motors away, throwing the gun into the water. ===== Jimmy faces a dilemma because he begins to experience random erections. This makes him afraid to perform his stand-up comedy routine at the South Park Elementary Talent Show for fear that he would be embarrassed in front of the entire school. He consults Butters, the only kid in town whom he expects not to make fun of him. Butters explains to him about sexual intercourse; Jimmy concludes that if he does not want to get an erection during his performance, he should have intercourse before he goes up. He attempts to arrange a date with a girl from school, with Cartman's help. When this ultimately fails, he goes to the red-light district of town based on a suggestion from Officer Barbrady, looking for sex. While the talent show begins at the school, Jimmy picks up an obese, STD-ridden prostitute known as Nut-Gobbler. The naïve Jimmy attempts to woo her but her pimp comes in and, thinking she is betraying him, grabs her and goes off to kill her. Jimmy summons a taxi, and a car chase ensues. In the end, Jimmy manages to distract the pimp with his comedy routine, while Nut-Gobbler subdues him with a club to the back of the head. Jimmy, presumably after having sex with the hooker, arrives at the talent show and hurries onstage at the last minute. He begins his routine, but then suddenly gets another erection. ===== The film is divided into two separate, unequal stories. In the shorter of the two, Holmes is approached by a famous Russian ballerina, Madame Petrova (Tamara Toumanova), who proposes that they conceive a child together, one who she hopes will inherit her physique and his intellect. Holmes manages to extricate himself by claiming that Watson is his lover, much to the doctor's embarrassment. Back at 221B, Watson confronts Holmes about the reality of the ensuing rumours, and Holmes only states that Watson is "being presumptuous" by assuming Holmes has had relationships with women. In the main plot, a Belgian woman, Gabrielle Valladon (Geneviève Page), is fished out of the River Thames and brought to Baker Street. She begs Holmes to find her missing engineer husband. The resulting investigation leads to a castle in Scotland. Along the way, they encounter a group of monks and some dwarfs, and Watson apparently sights the Loch Ness monster. It turns out that Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee) is involved in building a pre- World War I submarine for the British Navy, with the assistance of Monsieur Valladon. When taken out for testing, it was disguised as a sea monster. The dwarfs were recruited as crewmen because they took up less space and needed less air. When they meet, Mycroft informs Sherlock that his client is actually a top German spy, Ilse von Hoffmanstal, sent to steal the submersible. The "monks" are German sailors. Queen Victoria (Mollie Maureen) arrives for an inspection of the new weapon, but objects to its unsportsmanlike nature. She orders the exasperated Mycroft to destroy it, so he conveniently leaves it unguarded for the monks to take (rigging it to sink when it is submerged). Fräulein von Hoffmanstal is arrested, to be exchanged for her British counterpart. In the final scene some months later, Sherlock receives a message from his brother, telling him that von Hoffmanstal had been arrested as a spy in Japan, and subsequently executed by firing squad. Heartbroken, the detective retreats to his room to seek solace in a 7% solution of cocaine. ===== United States Navy officer Lieutenant Junior Grade (j.g.) Ted Jackson (Elvis Presley) is a former U.S. Navy frogman who divides his time between twin careers as a deep sea diver and nightclub singer. Ted discovers what he believes could be a fortune in Spanish gold aboard a sunken ship and sets out to rescue it with the help of go-go dancing yoga expert Jo Symington (Dodie Marshall) and friend Judd Whitman (Pat Harrington, Jr.). Gil Carey (Skip Ward), however, is also after the treasure and uses his girlfriend Dina Bishop (Pat Priest) to foil Ted's plans. Presley's sings six songs in the movie: the title song, "I'll Take Love", "Sing You Children", "You Gotta Stop", "Yoga Is as Yoga Does" in a duet with Elsa Lanchester, and "The Love Machine". The film would be the first starring Presley that had a ballad-free soundtrack since his 1956 film debut, Love Me Tender. Despite this, only 30,000 copies were sold, making it the worst selling record that Elvis ever released for RCA Victor.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061610/ ===== In South Africa, during a time when apartheid was at its worst, Courtenay tells a story of how oppressed people worked together with those who sought justice against the inhumane dictators of the country and those who supported it. There are also storylines and themes involving boxing, which was predominant in Courtenay's earlier novel, The Power Of One. ===== The game starts at a chemical plant known as "The Corporation," with scientist Dr. Daniel Caine sneaking into the research lab where he worked, in order to find evidence that crimes were being committed using a toxic gas he created. Caine discovers that his colleagues are planning "Operation: Omega": a plan to release a plague upon the populace, and make a fortune because they hold the only cure. However, the Director of The Corporation discovers Caine in the lab. Caine is disposed of by means of chemical waste, but the chemicals do not kill him; instead, they alter him into the angry, sentient, formless creature known as "The Ooze". Swearing revenge, the doctor seeks two things: his former colleagues, and to assume his human form once again. He must now find the DNA helices scattered throughout the wasteland or else end up imprisoned in the Director's lava lamp. ===== As with many action/platformer video games, the plot is minimal except for revealing future stages. In this game, the players control Goemon (loosely inspired by the historical Goemon) and Ebisumaru (the two are called Kid Ying and Dr. Yang respectively in all non-Japanese releases of this game). After noticing some odd occurrences in their hometown of Oedo, involving a Ghost Woman at the local temple and ghost animals that come from the temple at night, Goemon and Ebisumaru decide to investigate. After defeating the Ghost Woman, she reveals herself to be Kurobei, a ninja cat. She explains that she was looking for strong people to help her, then offers the duo money and tells them to search for her boss, Koban, on Shikoku Island. Upon arrival, they find Hyotoko dancers in town during a festival, of whom some of the townspeople are suspicious. After finding and defeating the Lantern Man, leader of the evil dancers, they rescue Koban, who informs them that Princess Yuki, daughter of the Emperor, is believed to have been kidnapped by an odd group of mimes and clowns counterfeiters known as the Otafu Army. His clan of ninja cats were unable to investigate further because of devices the army has that disable their shapeshifting powers. He then directs the duo to nearby Awaji Island, where Goemon and Ebisumaru find that the army has set up a bizarre, anachronistic amusement park. The pair then make their way across the park to the nearby town of Yamato, where they discover that the army has been recruiting the townspeople. Upon invading the Otafu HQ and defeating its leaders, they free Yae, the ninja. She tells them that the Otafu Army never had Yuki, but that a wise man in Iga may be able to help them. The Old Wise Man's palace in Iga is guarded by an army of robotic clockwork ninjas, and the pair fight through the palace and its leader, Sasuke, to get to the old man's chamber. The Old Wise Man tells them that the White Mirror in the Dragon Pond of faraway Izumo can find what they seek. He uses his "Miracle Transport Machine" (which is only a cannon) to shoot them there. To save the princess, the protagonists must travel through different regions of Japan to find clues about the army and the location of the princess. ===== Charulata is based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore, Nastanirh (The Broken Nest) and set in Calcutta in the late nineteenth century. Bengal Renaissance is at its peak and India is under British rule. The film revolves around Charulata / Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee) the intelligent and beautiful wife of Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee). He edits and publishes a political newspaper. Bhupati is an upper class Bengali intellectual with a keen interest in politics and the freedom movement. Charu is interested in the arts, literature and poetry. Though Bhupati loves his wife, he has no time for her. She has little to do in the house run by a fleet of servants. Sensing her boredom, Bhupati invites Charu's elder brother Umapada and wife Manda to live with them. Umapada helps in running of the magazine and the printing press. Manda with her silly and crude ways is no company for the sensitive and intelligent Charulata. Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), Bhupati's younger cousin comes on a visit. Bhupati asks him to encourage Charu's cultural interests. Amal is young, handsome and is of the same age group as Charu. He has literary ambitions and shares her interests in poetry. He provides her with much needed intellectual companionship and attention. An intimate and teasing friendship develops between Charulata and Amal. There is a hint of rivalry when she publishes a short story on her own without his knowledge, following his publishing of a poem that she had forbidden him from getting published. He realizes that Charulata is in love with him but is reluctant to reciprocate due to the guilt involved. Meanwhile, Charu's brother and sister-in-law who were guests in the house swindle Bhupati of his money and run away. It destroys Bhupati's newspaper and the press. The episode shatters Bhupati who admits his hurt to Amal. He tells Amal that now Amal is the only one he can trust. Amal is overcome with guilt of betraying his cousin. He is also uncomfortable with Charu's higher intellect that he has helped nurture. He leaves unannounced, to marry and go away to England for higher studies. He leaves behind a letter to Charu. Charu is heartbroken but hides her disappointment. Bhupati accidentally enters her room and finds her crying over Amal. Bhupati realizes Charu's feelings for Amal. He is broken, shocked and bewildered by it. He rushes out of the house, wanders aimlessly in his carriage. On his return, Charu and Bhupati make a hesitant gesture to reach out, but their extended hands remain frozen in a tentative gesture. ===== The setting is Hollywood in the late 1940s, with two stories occurring simultaneously: a Hollywood comedy and a detective drama. The real- life scenes feature full-color sets and costumes, while the movie scenes are in black-and-white. Most of the cast (with the exception of the actors playing Stine and Stone) doubles as characters in the "real" world and their fictive counterparts. ===== ===== The story begins by introducing Kane and Abel's past and the feud between them. It then tells the story of Kane and Abel from the perspective of their children, Florentyna Rosnovski and Richard Kane. Their childhood, and all the incidents and people who affected them, are portrayed in a similar manner as their fathers' lives were told in Kane and Abel. There are some inconsistencies, however. For example, after Abel's divorce from Zaphia in Kane and Abel Abel gets the custody of Florentyna. But in The Prodigal Daughter, Zaphia has custody of Florentyna. Richard and Florentyna meet by sheer chance and fall in love. When their parents are told, both sets naturally react explosively; Abel goes so far as to slap the daughter he had raised with great affection. The two lovers run away that day to a friend's house in another city. Later, they two create a chain of retail stores named Florentyna's, which are a huge success. Abel helps his daughter anonymously, but refuses to accept his son-in-law. The tale takes a twist with the senior Kane's death, when Abel learns that Kane was the anonymous benefactor who helped him launch his hotel empire. He thus accepts Richard and his grandchildren and considers it an honor that his grandson is named William Abel Kane. Richard and Florentyna take charge of the Baron Hotels, with Florentyna as chairwoman, and then in a daring feat take over Lester's (Kane's bank). Eventually Florentyna takes up politics due to the persuasion of a childhood friend named Edward Winchester. Florentyna's career becomes central to the plot, as she attempts to deal with the problems a very busy and successful mother faces, including the fact that her daughter has an abortion in the early 1980's and smokes marijuana in the mid 1970's. However, her career takes a back seat when Richard dies in a car crash in 1985. For some time, Florentyna loses the will to pursue anything, even her career. Then suddenly, seeing a homeless Vietnam Vet impels her to come "back with a vengeance." Working harder than ever, she comes very near her goal of becoming the first female U.S. President. For the good of her party, she strikes a deal with her opponent, Pete Parkin to support him if he promises not to run for a second term, and if he makes her his vice presidential candidate. During Parkin's term, Florentyna averts many a crisis: actions for which the President takes full credit. At the end of his term, however, he not only reneges on his promises and wants to run, but undermines Florentyna's support by announcing Ralph Brooks, the other Illinois Senator as his running mate. It seems as though Florentyna's dream will never become a reality. Disgusted with the entire situation, she leaves Washington. While she is playing golf and discussing what to do with her life—her son William is now President of Lester's, with Edward, Secret Service agents arrive to announce President Parkin's sudden death from a heart attack. Florentyna thus becomes the President. ===== Two hitmen, Max and Al, come to a small town, Brentwood, New Jersey, to kill Pete Lund, known as "The Swede". Lund's coworker at a gas station warns him but, strangely, he makes no attempt to flee, and they kill him in his hotel room. The Swede is soon revealed to have really been named Ole Anderson. A life insurance investigator, Jim Reardon, is assigned to find and pay the beneficiary of the Swede's $2,500 policy. Tracking down and interviewing the dead man's friends and associates, Reardon doggedly pieces together his story. Philadelphia police Lieutenant Sam Lubinsky, a close, longtime friend of the Swede, is particularly helpful. Through flashbacks, it is revealed that the Swede was a professional boxer whose career was cut short by an injury to his right hand. Rejecting Lubinsky's suggestion to join the police force, the Swede gets mixed up with a bad crowd, including "Big Jim" Colfax. He drops his girlfriend Lily for the more glamorous Kitty Collins. When Lubinsky catches Kitty wearing stolen jewelry, the Swede "confesses" to the crime and serves three years in prison. When the Swede gets out, he, "Dum-Dum" Clarke and "Blinky" Franklin are recruited for a payroll robbery in Hackensack, New Jersey, masterminded by Big Jim. Complicating matters is the fact that Kitty is now Big Jim's girl. The robbery nets the gang $254,912. When their rendezvous place (supposedly) burns down, all of the gang members but the Swede are notified of where to meet. Kitty then informs the Swede that he is being double-crossed. The Swede takes all of the money at gunpoint and flees. Kitty meets him later in Atlantic City, then disappears with the money herself. Back in the present, Reardon watches the boarding house where the Swede lived. Sure enough, Dum-Dum shows up, searching for a clue as to the whereabouts of the loot. Reardon gets some information from the robber, but Dum-Dum gets away before the police can arrest him. When Reardon gets confirmation of one particular detail, he is certain he knows what happened. He goes to see Big Jim, now a very successful building contractor in Pittsburgh. Reardon lies, telling Big Jim that he has enough evidence to convict Kitty. He suggests that Kitty contact him. She agrees to meet him, and they go to a nightclub at her suggestion. However, after she goes to the ladies' room, Max and Al show up and try to kill Reardon. He and Lubinsky are ready for them, and the two hitmen are slain instead. Reardon and Lubinsky head to Big Jim's mansion, but are too late to stop Dum-Dum and Big Jim from killing each other. Reardon explains that when he discovered that the fire that destroyed the rendezvous point had been set hours after Kitty was sent to notify everyone of the new meeting place, he realized that Kitty and Big Jim, her husband, had been setting up the Swede. Dum-Dum finally figured out the truth, as well. When Lubinsky asks the dying Big Jim why he had "the Swede" killed, Big Jim tells him he could not take the chance that another member of the gang might find the Swede, as he had. Kitty begs her husband to exonerate her in a deathbed confession, but he dies first. ===== Bridget Jones is 32, single, engagingly imperfect, and worried about her weight. She works at a publishing company in London where her main focus is fantasizing about her handsome boss, Daniel Cleaver. At her parents' New Year party, Bridget is introduced to Mark Darcy, a childhood acquaintance and barrister, son of her parents' friends. Mark finds Bridget foolish and vulgar and Bridget thinks Mark is arrogant and rude, and is disgusted by his novelty Christmas jumper. Overhearing Mark grumble to his mother about her attempt to set him up with "a verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother", Bridget decides to turn her life around. She begins keeping a diary to chronicle her attempts to stop smoking, lose weight, and find her Mr Right. Bridget and Daniel begin to flirt heavily at work, ahead of an important book launch, at which Bridget bumps into Mark and his glamorous but haughty colleague Natasha. Bridget leaves with Daniel and they have dinner, despite Daniel's notorious reputation as a womaniser. Daniel tells Bridget that he and Mark were formerly friends but says Mark slept with his fiancée, for which they now hate each other. Bridget and Daniel start dating. Bridget is invited to a family party, originally a "Tarts & Vicars" costume party, which is tied into a mini-break weekend with Daniel. They spend the day before the party at a country inn where Mark and Natasha are also staying. The morning of the party, Daniel says he must return to London for work and leaves Bridget (dressed as a Playboy bunny) to endure the party alone. When she returns to London & drops in on Daniel, she discovers his American colleague, Lara in flagrante, naked in his flat. Bridget cuts ties with him and immediately searches for a new career. She lands a new job in television, and when Daniel pleads with her to stay, she declares that she would "rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's arse". Bridget attends a friend’s long-standing dinner party, where she is the only single person. Once again she crosses paths with Mark and Natasha. Mark privately confesses to Bridget that, despite her faults, he likes her "just as you are". Some time later, as a well known barrister, he allows Bridget an exclusive TV interview in a landmark legal case which boosts her career and allows her to begin to see him in a different light. Bridget begins to develop feelings for Mark, and when she misguidedly and somewhat disastrously, attempts to cook her own birthday dinner party, he comes to her rescue. A drunken Daniel arrives after a happy dinner celebration with Bridget's friends and Mark, and temporarily monopolizes Bridget's attention. Mark leaves, but returns to challenge Daniel and the two fight in the street, eventually smashing through a window of a Greek restaurant. They eventually call a draw only to have Daniel mutter "wanker" at Mark as he turns away and which only Mark can hear; Mark knocks Daniel down; shocked, Bridget chides Mark and he leaves, but after a self-serving appeal from Daniel, she rejects him as well. Bridget's mother, Pamela, has left Bridget's father, Colin and begun an affair with perma-tanned shopping channel presenter Julian. When the affair ends, she returns to the Jones's family home with an unintentional revelation: Mark and Daniel's falling-out resulted from Daniel (then Mark's best friend at Cambridge University) sleeping with Mark's wife which Mark walked in on, not the other way around. At the Darcys' ruby wedding anniversary party the same day, Bridget confesses her feelings for Mark, only to learn that he and Natasha have accepted jobs in New York and are on the verge of an engagement, according to Mark's father. Bridget interrupts the toast with an emotionally moving speech which peters out as she realizes the hopelessness of her position; her words clearly have an effect on Mark, but he still flies to New York. Bridget's friends rally to repair her broken heart with a surprise trip to Paris, but as they are about to leave, Mark appears at Bridget's flat. Just as they are about to kiss for the first time, Bridget flies to her bedroom to change into sexier underwear. Mark peeks at her diary, finds her older unflattering opinions of him, and leaves. Bridget, realizing what he has read and that she might lose him again, runs outside after him in the snow in her tigerskin-print underwear and a skimpy jumper, but is unable to find him. Disheartened, she is about to return home when Mark appears with a new diary for her "to make a fresh start". They kiss in the snow-covered street, and Bridget remarks that "nice boys don't kiss like that", to which Mark retorts "Oh, yes, they fucking do." ===== Cartman plays a prank on Butters by disguising himself in a crude cardboard suit as a robot named "A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4000" and by putting himself in a crate "from Japan" on Butters's doorstep. Cartman is planning to befriend Butters so that he can discover his most embarrassing secrets, which will allow him to blackmail him and/or embarrass him in school. Butters falls for the trick and reveals highly embarrassing personal secrets. However, just as Cartman is about to reveal his identity, Butters mentions that he himself knows one of Cartman's secrets: Butters has a videotape of Cartman doing a Britney Spears dance routine to a life-sized cutout of Justin Timberlake while dressed as her and making out with the cutout, which he plans to show to his classmates the next time Cartman plays a prank on him. Cartman, terrified of Butters' plan of revenge, searches desperately for the tape (while having the robot suit on, or Butters will know AWESOM-O was another prank), but to no avail. Cartman soon begins to starve because Butters believes that, since he is a robot, he does not need to eat. Butters also forces the robot to do all his chores for him, including some of the more unpleasant tasks. With the agreement of Ms. Cartman, who is willing to temporarily let her son off punishment for trying to exterminate the Jews two weeks prior, Butters' parents (knowing who AWESOM-O really is, but thinking it is an elaborate game that Butters is in on) decide to let Cartman come along with Butters on a trip to Los Angeles to see his aunt. Cartman realizes that he will have to accompany Butters on the trip, in order to keep up his disguise. Upon arriving, he is so hungry and worn out after wearing the suit for a whole airplane ride that he makes up an excuse to use the bathroom and proceeds to eat toothpaste. During their visit to Universal Studios Hollywood, two movie producers find out about the "robot" and decide to hire him to create movie ideas. Cartman, as the robot, comes up with over two thousand terrible, nonsensical film concepts (800 of which would star Adam Sandler), which the movie producers all find brilliant. To make matters worse for Cartman, the fortune that he makes from the movie ideas is donated to charity by Butters, who believes that AWESOM-O has no need for the money. Meanwhile, the U.S. military hears about AWESOM-O, and decides to capture it and make it into a weapon. Cartman flees the movie studio in panic after a film producer tries to engage in sexual activity with him, thinking that he may also be a "pleasure model". The military captures Cartman by shocking him and conveying him to a secret base. Cartman tries to explain that he is really just a kid, but the military believes he is a robot with artificial intelligence enabling him to think like a human, even possessing the memories of a nonexistent eight-year-old child. A scientist, moved by this, attempts to save Cartman, who is about to reveal that he is a human when Butters shows up to rescue him. He has to maintain his disguise, allowing the military to kill the rebellious scientist. Butters pleads with the military to spare AWESOM-O, and the general is touched. Just as it appears he will get off undetected, Cartman farts, and his attempts to cover it up cause everyone—including Butters—to suspect and finally discover his true identity. Butters carries out his promise and shows the video to the whole town, as well as the movie producers and the military, at a special screening. The theater is filled with wall-to-wall laughter. As Butters finally celebrates his revenge and the military general calls Cartman a "little faggot," Cartman, ridiculed and upset, simply uttering, "Lame." ===== The game reproduces many of the novel's scenes, few of which are interconnected in any way. The player assumes the role of John Blackthorne, pilot-major of the Dutch trading ship Erasmus. During a voyage in the Pacific Ocean in the year 1600, the Erasmus is shipwrecked in Japan. Blackthorne must survive in a land where every custom is as unfamiliar to him as the language. After learning some of the society's ways, he is drawn into a political struggle between warlords and falls in love with a Japanese woman. Eventually he embraces Japanese life and is honored as a samurai. ===== The novel is based on the events that occurred to Agee in 1915 when his father went out of town to see his own father, who had suffered a heart attack. During the return trip, Agee's father was killed in a car accident. The novel provides a portrait of life in Knoxville, Tennessee, showing how such a loss affects the young widow, her two children, her atheist father and the dead man's alcoholic brother. ===== In a lone building on a busy road going through an arid desert in Spain, the beautiful Silvia spends her evenings making potato omelettes to sell at the factory where she works sewing men's underwear. Her mother Carmen works as a prostitute in a roadside brothel nearby. José Luis, pampered son of the factory owners, has been seeing Silvia on the side and when she tells him she has missed two periods, he picks up a soda can tab from the ground to serve as an engagement ring and promises he will stand by her. He cannot promise marriage until he can convince his wealthy parents that she will be a suitable bride. Appalled, his mother Conchita refuses approval but his father Manuel refuses to intervene. Conchita then decides to get rid of Silvia, by finding somebody to seduce her. She picks Raúl, an aspiring bullfighter and part-time model. After his advances are repulsed a few times Raúl is genuinely smitten by Silvia, and he starts to woo her in earnest. Meanwhile Conchita comes to desire Raúl for herself. Alarmed at the failure of her ploy, she gives Raúl a motorcycle as an enticement. Enraged by all this, José Luis forces himself upon Silvia to revenge himself against Raúl. Desperate to keep Raúl, Conchita seduces him at the isolated ham warehouse that she supervises. José Luis arrives and is furious. Seizing upon hams to use as weapons, the two men fight, which results in the death of José Luis, while Raúl is badly wounded. With Conchita weeping over her injured lover, her husband Manuel arrives with Silvia. The two comfort each other, he having lost his son and she her fiancé. Then Silvia's mother Carmen turns up to embrace the corpse of José Luis, her lost son-in-law and (in her professional capacity) client. In a timeless moment, across the desert a shepherd herds a flock of sheep. ===== The story revolves around five wealthy and ambitious American girls, their guardians and the titled, landed but impoverished Englishmen who marry them as the girls participate in the London Season. As the novel progresses, the plot follows Nan and her marriage to the Duke of Tintagel. The novel begins with three socially ambitious families looking for the status needed for their daughters to live successful lives complete with European titles. The young women's fathers' money is very attractive to European aristocrats to maintain their version of wealth: collections of art, property, and societal status. While some girls live in unhappy marriages, they often take lovers to make their marriages work- or they file for divorce. While these young women were not in the best of situations with high expectations from the dukes, some fall in love such as Nan. Nan eventually falls in love with Guy Thwarte.Edith Wharton (1915) ===== ===== Lassie Plots during the first ten "boy and his dog" seasons were similar: the boy (Jeff or Timmy) got into some sort of trouble. Lassie then dashed off to get help or rushed in to save her master's life herself. After being reunited with family and breathing a sigh of relief, the boy received a light lecture on why he should not have done what he had done.Collins 1993, p.121 In 2004, June Lockhart described the show as "...a fairy tale about people on a farm in which the dog solves all the problems in 22 minutes, in time for the last commercial."Barron Two Timmy and Lassie episodes launched Campbell's Soup premiums, while two others promoted a UNICEF Halloween project and the Peace Patrol, a children's savings bond program spearheaded by Lassie and The Lone Ranger. The same seasons saw several Christmas episodes, while conservation and environmentalism were brought center stage. Some scripts dealt with race and ethnicity with both Jeff and Timmy championing Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. Aging Americans were presented in a positive light during the years when Andy Clyde was featured as Martin family friend/neighbor Cully Wilson. Seasons 11–16 were the "Ranger years" of the series, as Lassie (because she was not able to go to Australia with the Martins when Paul got a job teaching agriculture there) was taken in by U.S. Forest Ranger Corey Stuart (who appeared in a few episodes of season 10) and began to work with the U.S. Forest Service. Color filming was exploited during the Ranger years with Lassie and her friends sent to exotic locations such as Sequoia National Forest and Monument Valley, creating miniature travelogues for viewers. Other rangers would be featured during the latter part of this era when Robert Bray (who played Stuart) left the series. For season 17, the program shifted gears again and became somewhat of an anthology series, with Lassie traveling on her own, getting into different adventures each week (similar in format to The Littlest Hobo). No explanation was given as to why Lassie was no longer with the Forest Service. Some episodes during this final CBS season were animals-only. During seasons 18 and 19 (with the series having moved to first run syndication), Lassie was taken in by Garth Holden (played by Ron Hayes) who was in charge of the Holden Ranch – a home for orphaned boys – which he ran with his college-age son and his friend. This became Lassie's home for the final two years of the series.Collins: Lassie themes explored the relationship between boys and their dogs with the show helping to shape the viewer's understanding of mid-twentieth century American boyhood. Lassie was associated with the wholesome family values of its period but some parents' groups monitoring television content found cliffhanger plots showing children in danger too intense for very young viewers and objected to some of Timmy's actions which were believed to encourage children to disobey parents. However, Lassie was consistently depicted as caring, nurturing, and responsible with a commitment to family and community, often rescuing those in peril and righting wrongs. She was the perfect 'mother' within the American ideology of the 1950s and 1960s. ===== Scott Hayward (Presley) rebels against the plans and expectations of his father, extremely rich oil tycoon Duster Hayward (Gregory). He drives to Florida in his red 1959 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Racer to find himself. When Scott stops for gas and refreshments, he encounters Tom Wilson (Hutchins), who is on his way to take a job as a water skiing instructor at a Miami hotel. A chance remark by Tom gives Scott the idea to switch identities with Tom so he can find out how people react to him as an ordinary person rather than as a millionaire. Tom has fun staying at the same hotel and pretending he is rich. Shortly after, hotel guest Dianne Carter (Fabares) insists on taking a lesson minutes after Scott checks in with his new "employer". However, once they are out on the water, Dianne proves herself to be an expert skier, performing fancy maneuvers to gain the attention of wealthy young playboy James J. Jamison III (Bixby). Later, Dianne confesses to Scott that she is a gold digger, assuming that he is one, too. Scott agrees to help Dianne land Jamison, but ends up falling for her himself. Scott persuades boat builder Sam Burton (Merrill) to allow him to rebuild Burton's Rawhide, a high-performance boat that was damaged when raced at high speed, and drive it in the annual Orange Bowl Race, which Jamison has won the last three years. Scott sends for some "goop", an experimental coating one of his father's companies spent a lot of money trying (and failing) to perfect. Between his day job and working on the goop at night, Scott is run ragged, but he thinks he has fixed the goop's major flaw: losing its strength in water. With no time for testing before the race, he applies it to the boat's hull and hopes it will hold the Rawhide together. Duster learns where his son is and comes to see what he is doing. To Scott's surprise, his father is enormously proud of what he is doing. Meanwhile, Jamison proposes to Dianne. Scott enters the suite before she can give Jamison an answer, but the playboy informs Scott they are getting married right after he wins the race. Dianne, however, decides to give up her scheme and return home. In the race, Jamison takes the lead in his boat, the Scarlet Lady, but Scott passes him at the finish line. Scott then offers to give Dianne a lift. On the drive, he gives her an engagement ring he bought with the winnings from the race. Dianne insists that Scott take it back, but agrees to marry him. This prompts Scott to confess to Dianne who he really is. She does not believe him at first, but when he shows her his driver's license, she faints. ===== Verden Fell (Vincent Price) is both mournful about and feels threatened by the death of his first wife, Ligeia. He sensed her reluctance to die and was concerned about her near- blasphemous statements about God (she was an atheist). Alone and troubled by an eye condition that requires him to wear dark glasses, Fell shuns the world. By accident, he meets a headstrong young woman, Rowena (Elizabeth Shepherd), who pursues him even though she is apparently betrothed to an old friend, Christopher Gough (John Westbrook). Against Fell's better judgement, he marries Rowena. Ligeia's spirit seems to haunt their mansion, previously a medieval abbey, and nocturnal visions and the sinister presence of a cat (which may be inhabited by the spirit of Ligeia) distress Rowena. The cat, who first appears at Ligeia's burial, wounds and appears to attempt to kill Rowena several times and Fell unsuccessfully orders its destruction. Ultimately he must face the spirit of Ligeia and resist her or perish. The climax of the film takes place when Fell has a showdown with Ligeia, now in the form of a cat. Fell is blinded by Ligeia, but gets the upper hand and strangles the cat, while the tomb around him burns down, due to an accident. Fell and Ligeia perish and Gough and Rowena start a new life together. ===== The book tells the stories of two men born worlds apart. They have nothing in common except the same date of birth (18 April 1906 in the book, and 1901 in the miniseries based on it) and a zeal to succeed in life. William Lowell Kane is a wealthy and powerful Boston Brahmin while Abel Rosnovski (originally named Władek Koskiewicz) is a Pole who was born in a situation of great poverty and eventually migrated to the United States. William follows the steps of his father, Richard Kane, to become a successful banker. When William was still a child, Richard dies in the Titanic disaster, leaving William fatherless and heir to the Kane & Cabot bank. William displays extraordinary discipline and intelligence as a young man at St. Paul's School and later at Harvard. His mother, Anne, marries Henry Osborne, who turns out to be interested in gambling and women (One of the godparents of William). William hates Henry from the beginning and spends most of the time at Harvard and at his best friend Mathew Lester's home. William dreams of becoming the chairman of Lester's bank one day. Henry spends every last penny of Kane's mother's money on the pretext of speculation. Anonymous notes warn Anne (who has been impregnated by Osborne, a matter which causes William some worry—until he finds out that he can toss Henry out easily without any money) about her husband whose real name is Vitorio Tossana. She hires a detective to find out the truth, and miscarries fatally from the shock—after which Kane ejects Henry from his home. Władek Koskiewicz is born in a forest and raised by a trapper family. When he grows up and is found to have exceptional intelligence, Baron Rosnovski asks him to become a companion to his son Leon so Wladek might prove to be a competition to him. Władek agrees to go to the Baron's castle on the condition that he can bring along his elder sister Florentyna. Soon afterwards, World War I breaks out. Germans attack Poland and capture the Baron, his staff and son in his castle. Leon dies by the hand of a soldier. Before dying, the Baron hands Wladek his silver band of authority. Władek realises that the Baron was his father when he finds that, like him, the Baron also had a missing nipple. Florentyna, Władek's beloved sister, who was now his only family, is raped 17 times and killed brutally in front of young Władek by Russian soldiers. Władek was then moved to Siberia from where he manages to escape to Turkey after facing many hardships. There he nearly loses his hand (a Hudud punishment for theft) for stealing food but is luckily rescued by two British diplomats, owing to the silver band given by Baron which he wore on the hand. They transfer him to the Polish consulate from where, with their help, he migrates to America and assumes the name Abel Rosnovski (as inscribed on the silver band). He starts his life as a waiter in the Hotel Plaza, while taking night classes in economics at Columbia University. While Abel is working there, Davis Leroy, owner of the Richmond group of hotels, is impressed by his work and appoints him manager of his flagship hotel. Abel converts the ill-managed hotel to a profit-making one and buys stock in the chain. During the Great Depression, the hotel needs a backer and Davis, unable to find one, commits suicide, leaving the remaining shares in the Richmond Group to Abel. Before committing suicide, Davis mentions that Kane & Cabot was the bank that didn't support him. Abel thus plans for revenge and considers Kane his arch rival who was responsible for the death of his closest friend. The bank gets him an anonymous backer. Abel assumes it to be David Maxton, owner of Stevens' hotel. During this time, Abel catches up with his old time friend, George Novak and marries Zaphia—both Polish emigres he had met on the ship-journey to the United States from Turkey in his earlier life. Abel changes the name of the hotel from Richmond to Baron and builds up a successful hotel chain. By collaborating with Henry Osborne, who had by now entered politics, Abel plans to ruin Kane and his bank. Abel begets a daughter, named Florentyna in memory of his dead sister, while Kane has a son, Richard and two daughters, Virginia and Lucy. Both Kane and Abel had volunteered to serve during World War II. Abel during World War II had saved Kane's life in France, unaware of each other. He divorces Zaphia when he returns home from the war. Meanwhile Kane's bank and Lester's bank merge and a provision is made that anyone who has a share of 8% can summon board meetings. Abel tries desperately to obtain 8% of the bank's stock but Kane manages to thwart his attempts. They unknowingly meet each other many times throughout the novel. Florentyna Rosnovski, daughter of Abel Rosnovski and Richard Kane, son of William Kane, happen to meet and fall in love without knowing about the rivalry between their fathers. They get married despite vehement protests from their fathers and start a chain of boutique stores named Florentyna's. Finally, after Kane exposes Abel's dealings with Osborne and thwarts his ambition to be named Ambassador to Poland (the position goes to John Moors Cabot), Abel manages to obtain enough shares of the bank and ousts Kane from power. In 1967, Kane decides to forgive his son and daughter-in-law and expresses his wish to meet them. Both he and Abel observe the grand-opening of the New York branch Florentyna's, from outside, and they wave at each other. He dies before he is able to see them and his grandson William. Finally Jeffrey's yarn is unwoven as Abel comes to know that his backer was not David Maxton, but William Kane. Filled with remorse, he reconciles with his daughter and son-in-law. Abel dies soon after, and bequeathes everything to his daughter Florentyna, except his silver band of authority, which he leaves to his grandson, whom Florentyna and Richard have named "William Abel Kane". ===== The First Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) arrive outside Paris in 18th-century France and venture to a nearby farmhouse. They find it is being used as a staging post in an escape chain for counter- revolutionaries during the Reign of Terror. They are discovered by two counter-revolutionaries, D'Argenson (Neville Smith) and Rouvray (Laidlaw Dalling), who knock the Doctor unconscious and hold the others at gunpoint. A band of revolutionary soldiers surrounds the house and both D'Argenson and Rouvray are killed during the siege. The soldiers capture Ian, Barbara, and Susan and march them to Paris to be guillotined. The soldiers set fire to the farmhouse, and the Doctor is saved by a young boy (Peter Walker), who tells him that his friends have been taken to the Conciergerie Prison in Paris. He sets off after them. Ian, Barbara, and Susan are all sentenced to death as traitors. Ian is confined in one cell, while the women are taken to another. Ian's cellmate is an Englishman named Webster (Jeffry Wickham), who tells him that there is an English spy, James Stirling, highly placed in the French Government, who is now being recalled to England. Webster dies, and a government official named Lemaitre (James Cairncross) arrives and probes any conversation between Ian and the dead man. Lemaitre crosses Ian's name off the execution list. En route to the guillotine, Barbara and Susan's transport is hijacked by two men, Jules (Donald Morley) and Jean (Roy Herrick), who take them to a safe house. They are told that they will be smuggled out of France through the escape chain. Jules and Jean reassure Barbara that they will try to reunite them with Ian and the Doctor. They are then joined by another counter-revolutionary, named Léon Colbert (Edward Brayshaw). The Doctor reaches Paris and exchanges his clothes for those of a Regional Officer of the Provinces. He heads for the Conciergerie, but finds his companions gone; Ian has successfully stolen the key to his cell and escaped. Lemaitre arrives and takes the Doctor to visit Maximilien Robespierre (Keith Anderson) to report on his province. Ian follows Webster's words and finds Jules Renan, who turns out to be the man sheltering Barbara and Susan; the latter is ill in bed. When Barbara takes Susan to a physician (Ronald Pickup), they are recaptured by revolutionary police. Ian meets Colbert only to find he is the mole in the escape chain and there are armed troops waiting for him. Jules rescues Ian, killing Colbert in the process. They return to Jules' house and are stunned to meet Barbara. The Doctor has returned to the Conciergerie, where Lemaitre reports that Robespierre wishes to see him again the following day. Lemaitre ensures that the Doctor spends the night in the Conciergerie in order that he remain in Paris for his second audience with Robespierre. He is still there when Barbara and Susan are brought in as prisoners. With Susan too weak to be moved, he engineers Barbara's release on the pretext that she can be trailed to lead the security forces to the core of the escape chain. Robespierre suspects his deputy, Paul Barras (John Law), is conspiring against him and asks Lemaitre to track Barras to a secret assignation at an inn outside the city. When Lemaitre heads back to the Conciergerie, he privately unmasks the Doctor as an impostor. Lemaitre insists that the Doctor help him find Jules's house. With Susan held in the prison as a hostage, the Doctor takes him to Jules. Once there, Lemaitre reveals that he is in fact the English spy James Stirling. In response, Ian relays Webster's message and Stirling realises that the secret assignation at an inn on the Calais Road is where the conspiracy will take place. Jules, Ian and Barbara head to the inn and overhear Barras conspire with a young general, Napoleon Bonaparte (Tony Wall), in the indictment and overthrow of Robespierre. The following day, Stirling arranges Susan's release from prison. The coup against Robespierre has begun. Stirling heads for Calais and England, while Jules and Jean lie low as they measure the future. Meanwhile, the Doctor and his companions return to the TARDIS. ===== ===== Sabrina Fairchild is the daughter of a chauffeur to the wealthy Larrabee family, who live in a mansion on the North Shore of Long Island. Returning from a stay in Paris after working as the private secretary to the "Assistant Economic Commissioner Office of Special Representative for Europe Economic Cooperation Administration", she presents herself as a young woman of beauty, charm, incredible sophistication and zest for living, so different from the domestic's daughter the family had largely ignored. She proclaims her desire "to do everything and see everything, sense everything; to know that life is an enormous experience and must be used. To be in the world, and of the world, and never stand aside and watch." Although she once had a crush on David Larrabee, the young playboy of the family, and returns to America with a wealthy French suitor in tow, she finds herself drawn to Linus Larrabee, whose intelligence, lack of sentimentality, and knowledge of the world stimulates her. She, out of all the Larabees, sees something about Linus. When it's revealed that Sabrina's father has amassed a fortune on the stock market over the past decades, she wants to return to Paris that she feels is her home. Linus as her financial, as well as intellectual, equal causes her to fall in love permanently with Linus. The title cites John Milton's song from his masque Comus (1634), which is quoted in the play: With its patrician setting, witty dialogue, and development of a romantic plot between two clever and committed idealists across class lines, Sabrina Fair has much in common with Philip Barry's comedy Holiday. ===== Native American rodeo rider Joe Lightcloud is a Navajo whose family still lives on the reservation. He returns to the reservation in a white Cadillac convertible that he uses to drive cattle. Joe persuades his congressman to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so that he and his father can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend Bronc Hoverty accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy home improvements for his stepmother Annie Lightcloud. Joe is able to borrow a bull named Dominick, but the bull is lackadaisical and shows no interest in the heifers. Mamie Callahan, the daughter of shotgun-toting tavern owner Glenda Callahan, can't seem to stay away from the girl-chasing Joe. Joe trades in his horse at a used car dealership for a red convertible automobile from which he sells off the parts to obtain cash from a salvage yard. After almost all of the usable car parts are sold, Joe rides around in a beat-up motorcycle. To raise money, Joe organizes a contest in which riders have to ride Dominick the bull. Joe himself has to ride Dominick and hang on in order to win the prize money, which he does. In a fight at his father's house, Joe and his friends are involved in a large fight that destroys the house that they have been building. ===== Bart, needing money for the new video game console Gamestation 256, takes a job hanging menus on doors for a Thai restaurant. Lisa is concerned that the menus are wasting paper and hurting the environment, but the family ignores her worries. On a trip to Krusty Burger to celebrate Bart's new job, they see protesters dressed as cows on the roof of the restaurant. The protesters unfurl a banner and accuse Krusty Burger of deforesting the rainforest to create grazing land for cattle. The police arrive and shoot the protesters with bean bag rounds. As the protesters are being arrested, Lisa meets their leader—radical environmentalist Jesse Grass—and is instantly smitten with him. Lisa visits Jesse in jail, but feels intimidated when she sees that he is more dedicated to environmentalism than she is. She attends a meeting of Jesse's activist group, Dirt First, and learns that an ancient tree in Springfield is scheduled for demolition. Jesse asks if anyone in the group would be willing to live in the tree to prevent its destruction. Lisa, hoping to impress him, volunteers. She climbs the tree and sets up camp, but after a few days she begins to miss her family. She sneaks away from the tree at night and goes home to see them, but finds them asleep. She lies down with them and accidentally falls asleep. When she rushes to the tree in the morning, she finds it has collapsed. Upon returning home, Lisa learns that the tree was not cut down by the loggers, but struck down by lightning, and that she is presumed dead. When Lisa learns that the forest will be turned into a nature preserve in her honor, she decides not to reveal that she is alive. Marge is angered by Lisa's decision, considering the fact that the Simpson family had suffered bad luck when it comes to farces for a noble cause. Homer and Bart immediately begin to take advantage of the sympathy of the townspeople. But when the Rich Texan decides to turn the forest into an amusement park called "Lisa Land" rather than a nature preserve, Lisa reveals that she survived. Jesse Grass cuts down the log that has been turned into a "Lisa Land" sign, and it slides down a hill and into Springfield's business district. Jesse is jailed again, and the log travels across the country, passing Mount Rushmore and ultimately winding its way down Lombard Street in San Francisco before reaching the Pacific Ocean and heading out to sea, all set to a parody of This Land is Your Land called This Log is My Log. ===== A new family, the Harrisons, move into South Park, and their son Gary, stereotypically depicted as unusually perfect (achieving high grades, being state champion in sports, being perfectly polite, etc.), invokes the wrath of the other boys. Stan is drafted into the job of beating him up by the other children, but Gary's sheer politeness leads Stan to discover himself walking away with an invitation to dinner that night. Stan meets Gary's family, an overly friendly, loving, talented family (including a very articulate infant.) After dinner, the five- child, two-parent family has "Family Home Evening" where they play games, do performance art and read from the Book of Mormon. Stan is intrigued and confused by all this, and asks his parents about the Mormon family's beliefs. Randy (his father) concludes that they must be religious fanatics attempting to brainwash Stan, and heads over to confront Mr. Harrison and beat him up. Instead, he too finds himself quelled by the family's perfection and politeness, and in the end, actually decides to convert to Mormonism himself. The next day, Kenny, Cartman and Kyle cruelly mock Stan for hanging around with Gary and his family, accusing Stan of going on a date with Gary. When the Harrisons and Gary show up, the three children walk off lying about going to "put in some volunteer work at the homeless shelter". Throughout the episode, characters ask questions about Mormonism, and the story then breaks off to a sub-story about Joseph Smith and the founding of the religion. For satirical purposes, the show deviates from the original accounts of Mormonism's founding by adding extra details to stories originally left vague (e.g. the precise location where Martin Harris lost the only transcript of the Book of Lehi given to him by Joseph Smith); furthermore, during the narration, an upbeat tune plays in the background, with a choral "Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum" following the lyrical lines of the song. When skeptic Lucy Harris appears in the sub-story, the chorus changes to "Smart, smart, smart, smart, smart", and it becomes clear that the voices are actually singing "Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb" after the specifics of Smith's story. The show asserts flaws in the religion's founding, which especially concern Stan (for example, that Joseph Smith offered no proof to the general public of finding the golden plates, and that he claimed to have translated from a slightly different plate after the first translation was lost while in the possession of Martin Harris). Stan ends up shouting at the Mormons that they are ridiculous for believing in it without proof; they smile and patiently explain that it's a matter of faith, while Stan argues that it should be a matter of empirical evidence. He further lashes out at them for acting unusually nice all the time, claiming it blindsides stupid people like his father into believing in Mormonism (to which Randy Marsh responds with a determined "Yeah!"). Stan's anger doesn't upset anyone in the Mormon family other than Gary, who confronts Stan and the other boys the next day, pointing out that he believes his religion does not need to be factually true, but it still supports good family values and helping the poor. Gary condemns their bigotry and ignorance in language that is normal for the main characters but extremely surprising and powerful coming from Gary. He walks away, leaving the boys in utter shock. The episode ends as Cartman, with a new-found respect for Gary, says "Damn, that kid is cool, huh?". ===== Frightened into piety by Father Maxi's fire-and-brimstone sermon, Stan, Cartman, and Kenny begin to attend Sunday school classes with a nun named Sister Anne, who teaches them about Communion and confession. Issues arise when the children begin to ask questions regarding their classmates Kyle, who is Jewish, and Timmy, who is disabled and can say little more than his own name. The priest explains that both will go to Hell if they do not confess their sins. Later, in the confessional, Father Maxi tries to choke Cartman after he unwittingly confesses all the pranks he has played on the priest. Cartman tells the other kids that he has felt God's angry hand, which scares them even more. Meanwhile, in Hell, Satan and the people of Hell sing The Hukilau Song (featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tiny Tim, Mao Zedong, Diana, Princess of Wales, Adolf Hitler, among many others). Satan is torn between two lovers: Chris, an overly sensitive man he is living with (voiced by Dian Bachar), and Saddam Hussein, Satan's emotionally abusive ex, whom he had killed at the end of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Satan is surprised to see Saddam, though Saddam points out the obvious logic: "Yeah, you killed me. Where was I gonna go, Detroit?" It's apparent that Satan is still attracted to Saddam, and he struggles to choose between him and Chris. Chris invites Saddam over for dinner. Back in South Park, the boys, frightened of dying without having confessed all their sins, are rushing to church when Kenny is hit by a bus. When they arrive at the church, they discover Father Maxi copulating with a woman in the confessional. A brunette woman with glasses runs away and shortly after Father Maxi is on his knees begging forgiveness then yells "Mrs. Donovan is a temptress from hell!" The boys, horrified at the priest's blatant sinfulness and hypocrisy, decide that they will have to save everyone themselves. The episode ends with Cartman using a bullhorn and a stereotypical, exaggerated Southern preacher's accent on a street corner, directing a large group of children to the creation of a new religious movement. ===== On an ordinary day at Springfield Elementary, Lisa attempts to make friends with a new girl, Francine, but Francine, who is much larger and tougher than Lisa, punches Lisa in the face, giving her a severe black eye. Even attempting to share an interest in Malibu Stacy does not work since the doll that Francine has turns out to be Lisa's, which she then ruins. Lisa attempts to hire the school bullies (Nelson and his friends Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney) to protect her, but they decline since girls fight dirtier than boys and boys tend to be more vulnerable to falling in love. It is up to Lisa to investigate by herself the reason why Francine is targeting her and the nerds. Meanwhile, Homer starts to fear that Maggie could die from touching things unsafe to her when he hears this from a childproofing saleswoman; and is alarmed when he learns of the cost of childproofing his house. As a result, he starts his own childproofing crusade, selling cheap but safe and effective products and making Springfield safe for children. However, this causes the baby-injury- related business in Springfield to go in decline. Homer feels bad for making people such as pediatricians lose their jobs and urges the children to get themselves hurt in order to save the pediatricians' careers. After realizing that Francine did not beat her up at the swimming pool because she was wearing a nose blocker, Lisa does scientific research on nerds and discovers that the odor of the chemical nerd pheromone "poindextrose" attracts bullies like Francine, proving that both nerds and bullies are predisposed to be what they are. Lisa then tests the poindextrose extracted from the nerds on famous boxer Drederick Tatum by putting it on his clothes when he visits the school. This causes Nelson to start punching Tatum uncontrollably and give him a wedgie. Lisa demonstrates her experiment at Professor Frink's science conference, the "12th Annual Big Science Thing", using an antidote on herself and making Francine peaceful and friendly towards her, the antidote being just salad dressing which covers up the smell of the poindextrose. The audience is impressed and Lisa is awarded a gift certificate from J. C. Penney for her research. However, the salad dressing soon runs out and Francine goes on an unprovoked rampage beating up all the scientists in the room. Francine’s parents suggest just letting Francine tire herself out from the beatings, just before Francine lunges herself at the viewer. ===== The Simpson family visits Blockoland, a theme park similar to Legoland which is completely made of blocks. When Lisa finds a piece missing from an Eiffel Tower kit she has bought, Homer persuades the gift shop clerk to give it to her. Energized by the idea of "standing up for the little guy," Homer talks a girl Bart likes into going to a school dance with him, gets a beauty salon owner to put free highlights in Marge's hair, and finds a way for the salon to cut its expenses. He next tries to get Lenny a refund on his season tickets for the Springfield Isotopes baseball team (previously introduced in the season 2 episode "Dancin' Homer"). At the Isotopes' ballpark, Homer encounters team owner Howard K. Duff VIII, who refuses to grant a refund. In his haste to leave, Homer discovers a room filled with merchandise for the "Albuquerque Isotopes" and realizes that Howard is planning to move the team. Howard denies the idea, then has Duffman drug Homer and dump him at the Simpsons' house to cover up the truth. Homer attempts to warn the media of Howard's plan, but by the time he can lead reporters to the ballpark, Howard has removed all evidence of it. Angered by their dismissal of his claim and calling him a liar, Homer stages a hunger strike, chaining himself to a pole in the parking lot and refusing to leave or eat until Howard admits the truth. After Homer begins to attract public attention, the team secretly moves him into the ballpark one night and dubs him "Hungry, Hungry Homer" as a publicity stunt. They claim publicly that Homer will not eat until the Isotopes win the pennant, covering up his real message. As his health declines and he begins rapidly losing weight, he nearly gives in while seeing fans eat at the ballpark. However, a visit by the ghost of Cesar Chavez (who assumes the appearance of Cesar Romero, since Homer does not know what Chavez looks like) inspires him to stand his ground. Thinking that Homer has gone insane and that his popularity is waning, Howard unchains him and offers him a hot dog in a public ceremony during an Isotopes game. As Homer is about to eat it, he realizes that it is loaded with Southwestern-style toppings and angrily denounces Howard. Inspecting their own hot dogs, the fans discover their wrappers marked with the "Albuquerque Isotopes" team name and realize that Homer was right from the start. The crowd boos Howard, and Duffman turns against him and throws him bodily off the field. Homer earns a round of cheers from the crowd and ends his hunger strike, eagerly devouring the food they throw to him. The mayor of Albuquerque abandons his plan to steal the Isotopes from Springfield and decides to turn his attention to purchasing the Dallas Cowboys, with the intent of forcing them to play baseball instead of football, declaring, "For I am the Mayor of Albuquerque!" ===== When the popular game show Me Wantee! steals ratings from The Krusty the Clown Show, Krusty, annoyed with the network executives, announces his fifth--and final--retirement. During an interview with Kent Brockman, he says he is tired of doing his show, and admits to taping Judge Judy over all his old shows featuring Sideshow Bob. Upon hearing this on TV, Bob vows revenge and plots to kill Krusty. Bob is released from prison and applies for a job at Springfield Elementary as an assistant janitor. However, Principal Skinner decides to make him the morning announcer. Over the announcements, he asks Bart to meet him in the abandoned tool shed. Sideshow Bob then hypnotizes Bart, and starts to program him to kill Krusty on sight. Bob tests his hypnoses by having Bart smash a statue of Krusty at a local Krusty Burger location. The next night is Krusty's farewell special, and as Krusty describes the history of his career, Bob straps Bart with explosives in order to kill Krusty. Bart attempts to hug Krusty, thereby setting off the explosives, but before he can, Krusty talks to the audience about how he regrets mistreating Sideshow Bob, holding himself responsible of turning Bob into a ruthless criminal. Krusty even goes far by singing a song on behalf of Bob, stating how very remorseful he is of mistreating him. Upon witnessing this, Bob is touched and develops a change of heart, but does not have enough time to stop his original plan from being carried out. Luckily, Krusty's trained chimp Mr. Teeny sees the life-threatening explosives, which he throws into the network executives' office, breaking Bart's hypnotic state and killing all the executives, though they then reanimate themselves like the T-1000. After the show, the Simpsons have dinner with Krusty, Bob and Sideshow Mel in a restaurant. Although Krusty and Bob reconcile, the police decide to execute Bob by guillotine for his attempted murder plot, although he wonders to Chief Wiggum that he should have a trial for it at least. ===== "Big John" McMasters (Clark Gable) and "Square John" Sand (Spencer Tracy) are two down- on-their-luck oil wildcatters who join forces. Without enough money, they steal drilling equipment from a skeptical Luther Aldrich (Frank Morgan). Their well proves a bust and they have to hastily depart when Aldrich shows up with the sheriff to take back his property. The two oilmen team up and make enough money to partially pay Aldrich. To get him to back them for a second try, they cut him in for a percentage of the well. This time, they strike it rich. When Elizabeth 'Betsy' Bartlett (Claudette Colbert) shows up, McMasters sweeps her off her feet (without knowing that Sand considers her his girl) and marries her. Sand accepts the situation, wanting Betsy to be happy. However, on their first anniversary, she catches her husband dancing with a barroom floozy. As a result, Sand quarrels with McMasters and they flip a coin for the entire oilfield. Betsy leaves too, but returns when she learns that her husband has lost almost everything to Sand and needs her. Each man goes through booms and busts. Building on his renewed success as a wildcatter, McMasters moves to New York to expand into refineries and distribution, competing against former customer Harry Compton (Lionel Atwill). Seeking inside information about his rivals, he hires away Compton's adviser Karen Vanmeer (Hedy Lamarr), who uses her social contacts and womanly charms to gather industry information. Meanwhile, Sand loses everything he has built up in South America to a revolution. When he meets McMasters at an oilmen's convention, the two finally reconcile, and Sand goes to work for his old friend. When he suspects that McMasters is carrying on an affair with Karen, he tries to save Betsy's marriage by offering to marry Karen. However, she deduces his motives and declines. When a miserable Betsy tries to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills, Sand decides that the only way to help her is to bankrupt McMasters. Sand loses his costly battle with his former friend and goes broke. It is only when he asks McMasters to give his wife a divorce that the married man finally comes to his senses. Later, McMasters is prosecuted by the government for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and loses his business. In the end, poor, but happier, Sand and McMasters team up again, with the blissful Betsy looking on. Aldrich supplies them with equipment and the whole cycle begins again. ===== Opening screen (C64)First graphical screen (C64) The character controlled by the player is knocked unconscious and awakens in the fairy land of Kerovnia, a silver bracelet around their wrist that cannot be removed. A general election is about to be held to decide whether King Erik will be replaced by a dwarf whose campaign promise is to "rid dungeons of mazes of any sort." The character must interact with others and perform tasks for them, gathering objects that will be needed for later tasks in order to escape from Kerovnia and return to reality. ===== The show was called The Riordans after the name of the central family, who were two middle-aged parents, Tom Riordan and his wife Mary, together with their oldest son, Benjy and other siblings including brother Michael and sister Jude, all of whom except Benjy had left farming for other careers and had more adventurous personal lives. Other leading characters included the family doctor, his Protestant gentry-born wife, the (radical Vatican II-oriented) Catholic priest, the conservative Church of Ireland rector, the local pub owner, some nomadic Irish Travellers and others. ===== The novel tells the story of Divine, a drag queen who, when the novel opens, has died of tuberculosis and been canonised as a result. The narrator tells us that the stories he is telling are mainly to amuse himself whilst he passes his sentence in prison – and the highly erotic, often explicitly sexual, stories are spun to assist his masturbation. Jean-Paul Sartre called it "the epic of masturbation". Divine lives in an attic room overlooking Montmartre cemetery, which she shares with various lovers, the most important of whom is a pimp called Darling Daintyfoot. One day Darling brings home a young hoodlum and murderer, dubbed Our Lady of the Flowers. Our Lady is eventually arrested and tried, and executed. Death and ecstasy accompany the acts of every character, as Genet performs a transvaluation of all values, making betrayal the highest moral value, murder an act of virtue and sexual appeal. ===== In the world of underground motorcycle drag racing, the undefeated racer known as Smoke (Laurence Fishburne) is the undisputed "King of Cali". But Smoke's dominance of the set is about to be threatened by a young motorcycle racing prodigy called Kid (Derek Luke), who is determined to win Smoke's "crown" and earn the coveted title. Kid says that the difference between men and boys are the lessons they learn - and that his father, Slick Will (Eriq La Salle), taught him plenty. Kid, a novice rider and motorcycle club "prospect," has been assisting his father, Slick Will, as they prepare Smoke's bike for an evening of drag races. One biker issues a challenge to Smoke, who accepts, and the race begins. In the midst of the race, the other biker suffers a hydraulics malfunction and spins out of control, sending his bike flying from under him into a row of parked bikes, one of which heads right into Slick Will, throwing him through a store window and killing him instantly. At Slick Will's funeral, dozens of bikers from the "Black Knights", to whom the late Will was the mechanic, show up with Smoke, who drops a single rose and a signed Black Knights flag into his grave. Six months later, Kid is now a familiar racer with his own custom-powered bike. His first "race" being when he interferes in a dangerous challenge with Donny (Tyson Beckford). As Kid interrupts the race, he pulls off several stunts, notably standing on top of the motorcycle while it is still moving. He wins the race and the crowd seem to like his stunts, much to the dissatisfaction of Smoke. Kid demands to race with Smoke but the latter says he is too inexperienced and that Kid should get experience first. Kid goes to a diner where he meets Stuntman (Brendan Fehr), and it is revealed that the two were hustling in the previous race. Fellow biker Primo (Rick Gonzalez) tells them to create a bike club; after a bit of persuasion they agree, and Kid goes to the biker jury consisting of 8 leaders of the most powerful biker gangs, where Smoke is the chairman. He apologizes for his disrespect towards Smoke and they all agree to verify the club, calling themselves "Biker Boyz". Kid is set to race Motherland (Djimon Hounsou) to prove himself to Smoke. However, he has showed up late to "make an entrance" after Smoke has already beaten his long-time rival Dogg (Kid Rock), who is continually after Smoke's helmet. Kid is arrested when racing Motherland and the rest of the bikers manage to escape. Kid's mother Anita (Vanessa Bell Calloway) confronts him, threatening to evict Kid from her house if he races again. One night at a Black Knights dance, Kid is challenged to race Dogg and accepts in a fit of rage. Having overheard, Anita finds Smoke before the race and demands that he stop it. Angry, Smoke confronts Anita and demands a reason where she tells him that Kid is actually his son, not Slick Will's. Smoke successfully stops the race by punching out Kid and stealing his keys, but this only leads to a fight between the two, from which Kid comes off considerably worse than Smoke. Smoke then tells him that he is his son, to which Kid angrily goes home and confronts Anita, who confesses that it's the truth. Enraged, Kid leaves and moves in with his girlfriend Tina (Meagan Good). Kid soon decides to turn renegade and, after gaining quite a few more followers for his club, announces that "we're gonna win more lids than any crew on the set and we're gonna out hustle every crew off the set" and indicates that from that point on, "Biker Boyz set their own rules." The Biker Boyz get their own hangout and begin hustling several races, but when Stuntman successfully hustles the nephew of a dangerous biker, he and Primo (Rick Gonzalez) are ambushed at a party. Kid comes to the rescue but is quickly overpowered as the leader of the other club pulls a gun on him; Smoke and some of the other Black Knights intervene and convince the other bikers to stand down. Smoke takes Kid inside and sits down to give him a stern talking-to, but Kid shrugs it off angrily. Aggravated, Smoke finally agrees to race Kid, under the condition that whoever loses will never race again; but first Kid has to race Dogg - this time, at the track. On the race track, everybody shows up, including the Black Knights. At the race, Dogg and Kid race down, and Kid is going to win, but Dogg plays dirty and causes him to crash; although Kid survives, his bike is wrecked. Later that day, Smoke talks to Kid, and informs him that the authorities are going to close the track, due to many crashes, but he managed to rent a local farm outside of town to race on it. Kid agrees to arrive the next day. Later that night, Kid, Primo, and Stuntman are trying unsuccessfully to fix Kid's bike until Dogg's crew arrives to confront them, but Dogg's mechanic admits that the damage is too severe to be fixed in time for the race. Dogg informs Kid; "There are only 2 bikes as strong and fast as Smoke's: yours, and mine." As a peace offering, Dogg offers to lend Kid his bike, but only if Kid promises him that he will beat Smoke tomorrow. On the day of the race, both the crew of the Black Knights and the Biker Boyz arrive. Smoke wants it to be a fair race, with no nitrous oxide system, and Kid wants Tina to start the race. Smoke and Kid are racing on a farm with open fields. With the finish line in sight, it is obvious that Smoke will win - however, filled with emotions, he decides to slow down and let his son win the race, becoming the new "King of Cali". Kid tells Smoke to hang onto his crown for a while, and that he'll come and get it someday. He then rides off, repeating his sentiment that the difference between men and boys are the lessons they learn, and that his father taught him plenty. ===== When the Simpson family visits an animation festival, Homer discovers Animotion, a motion capture technology that enables a real person to control a cartoon character with his or her own movements. Homer volunteers to demonstrate this technology and likes it so much that he invests his life savings in the Animotion stock. Two days later, he discovers that the stock has plunged and the company behind the technology has gone out of business. At Moe's Tavern, he tells Barney and Moe about his economic troubles, and Barney suggests that Homer become a human guinea pig to earn money. Homer gets a job at a medical testing center. During one experiment, while commenting on Homer's stupidity, the doctors find a crayon lodged in Homer's brain from a childhood incident when he stuck sixteen crayons up his nose and didn’t sneeze one of them out. The doctors offer to surgically remove the crayon, and Homer accepts their offer. Homer survives the operation, and his IQ goes up fifty points, allowing him to form a bond with his intelligent daughter Lisa. Homer's newfound brain capacity soon brings him enemies, however, after he performs a thorough report on the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's many hazards, leading to massive layoffs when the plant is shut down until its many problems can be repaired or resolved. When Homer visits Moe's Tavern, he sees an effigy of himself being burnt by his friends who worked at the plant. Homer realizes that due to his improved intelligence, he is no longer welcome and that his life was a lot more enjoyable when he was an idiot. He therefore begs the test center doctors to put the crayon back into his brain. The scientists refuse to do it, but recommend Homer to someone who can: Moe, who is also an unlicensed physician. At his bar, Moe inserts a crayon into Homer's brain, returning him to the idiot he was before. Lisa is initially saddened that she and her father have lost the new connection they shared. However, she finds a note written by Homer before the operation, explaining to her that while he is taking the "coward's way out," he has greater appreciation for Lisa after realizing what it is like to be smart like she is. ===== While Marge takes Maggie to the hospital after Maggie swallowed an issue of Time magazine whole, Homer, Bart and Lisa go grocery shopping. Homer and other shoppers at the store mistreat the bag boys, which results in every bag boy in Springfield going on strike. Presumably and strangely having no ability to shop without bag boys to pack their bags, they are unable to buy more food. When the Simpsons run out of food in their home, the family follows Santa's Little Helper into the attic, where he finds a 30-year-old box of animal crackers. Homer bites into a solid-gold giraffe, which is the winning contest piece for a trip to Africa. The animal cracker company initially refuses to honor the prize because the contest ended a number of years ago. But when Homer is hit in the eye by a sharp corner of the box, the company gives the Simpsons their Africa trip in order to avoid a lawsuit. The family lands in Tanzania. When the family is in Africa, their tour guide Kitenge takes them to experience such sights as the Masai Mara, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and meet with a group of Maasai tribesmen. During a vigorous tribal dance, Homer manages to enrage a hippo. It chases after the family, but they escape by using a tribal shield as a raft going down a raging river. After surviving the plunge over Victoria Falls, the family eventually reaches Mount Kilimanjaro and stumbles upon a nearby chimpanzee sanctuary maintained by the scientist Dr. Joan Bushwell (a parody of Jane Goodall). She claims to be researching the animals behavior when a group of poachers arrive to take the chimps. The Simpsons try to hold the poachers but eventually they break into the sanctuary. The poachers are revealed to be Greenpeace activists, who prove that Dr. Bushwell is actually a chimp slave master, exploiting their labor at a nearby diamond mine. Worried that the Simpsons will report her to the authorities, Dr. Bushwell offers everyone diamonds as a bribe – which all the Simpsons except Lisa happily accept. On the plane ride back to Springfield, it is revealed that their former tour guide, Kitenge, is now president of the country, with the former president now the Simpsons' flight attendant. ===== Jonathan Safran Foer (the author), a young American Jew, who is vegetarian and an avid collector of his family's heritage, journeys to Ukraine in search of Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather's life during the Nazi liquidation of Trachimbrod, his family shtetl (a small town) in occupied eastern Poland. Armed with maps, cigarettes and many copies of an old photograph of Augustine and his grandfather, Jonathan begins his search with the help from Ukrainian native and soon-to-be good friend, Alexander "Alex" Perchov, who is Foer's age and very fond of American pop culture, albeit culture that is already out of date in the United States. Alexander studied English at his university, and even though his knowledge of the language is not "first-rate", he becomes Foer's translator. Alex's "blind" grandfather and his "deranged seeing-eye bitch," Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr., accompany them on their journey. Interspersed throughout the book is the story that Jonathan Safran Foer (the character) learns about his ancestors—namely, his great-times-five-or-six grandmother Brod and his grandfather Safran. Brod has a magical, maybe-virgin birth, when she, as a baby, bobs to the surface after her father dies in a wagon accident in the river Brod, for which the baby is later named. A man named Yankel raises her until he dies. ===== By the terms of her late father's will, spoiled London heiress Epifania Ognissanti di Parerga, the richest woman in the world, cannot marry unless her prospective husband is able to turn £500 into £15,000 within a three-month period. When Epifania becomes smitten with Alastair, a muscular tennis player, she rigs the contest by giving him £500 in stock and then buying it back for £15,000. Alastair is unable to live with the domineering Epifania, however, and leaves her for the more domestic Polly Smith. Contemplating suicide, Epifania melodramatically plunges into the Thames, and when Dr. Ahmed el Kabir, a self-effacing, selfless Indian physician who runs an inadequately equipped clinic for the poor, ignores her plight and paddles past in his rowboat, she swims to shore and accuses him of being an assassin. Julius Sagamore, the shrewd family solicitor, then suggests that Epifania undergo therapy with noted society psychiatrist Adrian Bland. The opportunist Bland makes a bid for her hand, but after he criticises her father, Epifania throws him into the Thames, and when Kabir rows out to help Bland, Epifania jumps in the river after him. To ensnare Kabir, Epifania feigns injury, but the dedicated doctor remains impervious to her charms and indifferent to her wealth. Determined to win the doctor, Epifania buys the property surrounding his clinic and then erects a new, modern facility. After Kabir rejects Epifania's offer to run the facility, she suggests that they marry instead. Intimidated by the headstrong heiress, Kabir manufactures a deathbed promise that he made to his mother, pledging that he would not marry unless his prospective bride can take 35 shillings and earn her own living for three months. Undaunted, Epifania accepts his challenge and then discloses the details of her father's will and hands him £500. When Kabir protests that he has no head for money, Epifania plops down the wad of bills and leaves. Setting out to prove her worth, Epifania takes 35 shillings and heads for a sweatshop pasta factory. There, she threatens to expose the labour violations unless Joe, the proprietor, allows her to manage the plant. Three months later, Epifania has installed labour-saving machines, thus boosting productivity and making the plant a big success. Kabir, meanwhile, has tried in vain to give away his £500. After Kabir becomes drunk at a scientific dinner hosted by a wealthy doctor, he finds a sympathetic ear in his former professor and mentor, who generously offers to accept his money. At the clinic, Kabir eagerly turns over the cash to the professor. Soon after the professor leaves, Epifania appears and informs Kabir that she has met his mother's challenge. When he replies that he has failed and given all the money away, Epifania is deeply offended. Deciding to turn her back on the world of men, she announces that she plans to fire her board of directors, disband her empire and retire to a Tibetan monastery once she has evicted all the monks. Desperate to keep his job, Sagamore realises that Kabir is responsible for Epifania's erratic behaviour and goes to see the doctor. At the clinic, Sagamore tells Kabir that Epifania has vowed to withdraw from the world at the stroke of midnight. Concerned, Kabir hurries to the reception where Epifania is to bid farewell to her previous existence. Certain that their marriage is now imminent, Sagamore meets the terms of the will by purchasing Kabir's medical papers for £15,000. After Kabir rushes to Epifania, they kiss and he finally expresses his love. ===== Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan tells the story of 13-year-old junior high schooler Sakura Kusakabe, who twenty years in the future develops a technology that causes all women to stop physically aging after they reach twelve years old in an attempt to create a "Pedophile's World". However, this act accidentally creates immortality amongst humans, thus offending God. Dokuro Mitsukai, a member of an order of assassin angels that are called Lulutie, has been sent from the future to kill him. Believing that Sakura can be redeemed, Dokuro decides instead to keep Sakura so occupied and distracted that he can never develop the immortality technology. In response to her reluctance to complete the assassination mission, Sabato, another assassin of the Lulutie order, is dispatched to ensure the mandate of God is carried out. Using her feminine wiles along with her electric baton as her weapons of choice, Sabato seeks to kill Sakura herself and Dokuro is forced to oppose her. In so doing, Dokuro pits herself against the will of Heaven itself in order to protect him. Ironically, she herself quite possibly poses a greater threat to his well-being as a result of her capricious and highly volatile personality. Due to her impulsive nature and super-human strength, she often carelessly or unthinkingly kills him with her massive spiked kanabō (club), Excalibolg, only to regret it moments later and return him to life with angelic power accompanied by her whimsical personal chant of "Pipiru-piru-piru-pipiru-pii". This repeated trauma, along with the myriad other problems she causes for him, prompts Sakura to ultimately question whether her "protection" is worth it and ponder that it might be ultimately preferable to simply allow Sabato to kill him permanently and put an end to his perpetual misery. ===== Steve Grayson is a generous NASCAR race car driver with a heart of gold who feels compelled to bail friends and acquaintances out of financial hardship. However, Steve's manager Kenny Donford, a compulsive gambler, had been mismanaging Steve's winnings to support his gambling habits, landing Steve in deep trouble with the IRS for nonpayment of back taxes and causing many of Steve's valuable possessions to be repossessed. This proves to be a problem for Steve in his efforts to continue racing competitively and support those who depend on his intense generosity. Susan Jacks is the IRS agent assigned to keep tabs on Steve and apply his future prize money toward his $150,000 debt, but she ends up taking a romantic interest in him as well. This movie is loosely based on Colonel Tom Parker and his gambling habit and the money he continually siphoned from Elvis. ===== The game package acknowledges the strong influence of Tolkien on the plot of Journey. A land reminiscent of Middle-earth has been ravaged by a mysterious, evil power. Crops, water, and the inhabitants themselves suffer from unexplainable illnesses and blights. A group of villagers ventured forth to seek the help of the reclusive wizard Astrix, but they have not been heard from in months. It is feared that few will survive the additional hardships of the coming winter, and so a second group is being dispatched. The four chosen are Bergon (a young carpenter), Praxix (a wizard), Esher (a healer), and Tag (a merchant). They leave their village behind to cross unknown lands with two goals: to discover the fate of the earlier party, and to plead Astrix for assistance. While Bergon is the leader the group, the story is told by Tag and, for the most part, seen through his eyes. ===== Greg Nolan is a newspaper photographer who lives a carefree life until he encounters an eccentric, lovelorn woman named Bernice on the beach. Bernice assumes different names and personalities whenever the mood hits her. She introduces herself to Greg as "Alice" but she is known to the grocery delivery boy as "Susie" and to the milkman as "Betty." After having her Great Dane dog Albert (which was reportedly Presley's real-life dog Brutus, though Priscilla Presley has stated that it was a trained dog used for the film) chase Greg into the water when he insults her after a kiss, Bernice invites him to stay at her beachfront home. She later manages to make him lose his job and apartment after drugging him, which leaves him in a deep sleep for days. However, Bernice also manages to find Greg another home. He wants to repay her, so he procures two full-time photographer jobs: one for a Playboy- like magazine owned by Mike Lansdown (Don Porter), and the other for a very conservative advertising firm co-owned by Mr. Penlow. The two jobs are in the same building, forcing Greg to run from one to the other without being detected. He also must deal with Bernice and her eccentric ways. ===== After Otto destroys the school bus, Homer is forced to carpool several students to school. He is shocked to find all the kids hate the classic rock radio station he listens to. Homer realizes that music from his high school days is no longer considered cool after a hipster at a record store derides it. Hoping to impress them, Homer takes Bart and Lisa to the Hullabalooza music festival. Homer tries to act cool by wearing a Rastafarian hat, but an angry crowd of Generation Xers confronts him after mistaking him for a narc. After being tossed out by the crowd, Homer angrily kicks a cannon, which shoots one of Peter Frampton's inflatable pigs at his stomach. The festival head is impressed by Homer's ability to absorb cannon fire and hires him for the festival's freak show (played by the Jim Rose Circus). Homer tours with the festival and parties with rap and rock stars — Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill and The Smashing Pumpkins — while earning respect among young people, including Bart. As the tour approaches a stop in Springfield, Homer's stomach aches and he is sent to a veterinarian. The doctor informs Homer he will die if he takes another cannonball to his gut. Homer decides to perform his act one last time, but he dodges the cannonball at the last second. After a warm sendoff from the touring bands, Homer leaves the festival and loses his kids' respect for no longer being cool, which he embraces. ===== Steven (Hugo Stiglitz} a U.S.-born Mexican businessman, arrives in a Mexican resort village on a yacht anchored off shore. One of the local fishermen and the caretaker of the yacht, Colorado (Roberto Guzmán) takes Steven with him when he goes to haul in the sharks he's caught - and he's annoyed to find that another shark has taken a huge bite out of one of them. Steven then sets his sights on Patricia (Fiona Lewis), an Englishwoman on vacation. They have a whirlwind romance but break up when Steven can't decide if he's in love with her. Steven is extremely jealous, however, when she begins a relationship with Miguel (Andrés García) a womanising swimming instructor at the nearby resort hotel. While Steven stews on the yacht, Patricia and Miguel have sex. Then she goes skinny-dipping in the ocean and is eaten by a large, apparently emphysemic, tiger shark. The next day, Steven confronts Miguel in the hotel bar. Miguel tells Steven that Patricia was in love with Steven but she must have returned to England. Neither man ever learns of her true fate. Miguel introduces Steven to two sisters, American college students Kelly and Cynthia Madison (Jennifer Ashley and Laura Lyons). They go on a double date and, at the sisters' suggestion, swim to the yacht for some skinny-dipping. The shark's heavy, labored breathing can clearly be heard but they make it to the boat safely. Kelly and Cynthia then hop back and forth between Miguel's and Steven's beds. They all swim back to shore the next morning and the submerged tiger shark again chooses not to bother them. When Miguel and Steven start a shark hunting business, Miguel tells Steven that if a tiger shark ever appears, they must immediately get out of the water. One night, Miguel and Steven meet Gabriella (Susan George) a young English tourist. Miguel and Steven take Gabriella shark hunting with them. She's appalled by what they do, but admits her feelings for them have become powerful. The three of them decide to have a triangular relationship; she'll be sexually involved with both of them, but they won't fall in love with her or she with them. They tour the local Mayan archaeological sites together, then retire to the yacht for sex. The next time they go shark hunting, a shark appears and rips Miguel in half. Gabriella is so upset that she decides to return to England. Steven, meanwhile, vows revenge on the shark, enlisting the local coastguard and fishermen in a campaign to kill the tiger shark and seemingly every other shark in the area. "I hate the bastards", Steven tells him the troubled Colorado, who in turn assures him that so many sharks have been killed, the tiger shark must have been one of them. Meanwhile, unbeknown to Steven or Colorado, the tiger shark attacks another small fishing boat and eats two fishermen. Steven goes to a nighttime beach party with Kelly, Cynthia and two other American women (Priscilla Barnes and Pamela Garner) after the party ends, Kelly and Cynthia suggests more skinny-dipping. This time, the tiger shark attacks, ripping Cynthia from Steven's arms as he tries to make out with her in the water, as well as injuring the other two women, both of whom safely make it ashore. Steven vows to kill the shark himself. That evening, Steven lures the shark with a devilfish he's speared for the occasion, and when he hears the shark's rasping approach he shoots it with a speargun with an explosive charge. The shark rips off Steven's arm but it's finally destroyed by the explosive. Steven awakens in a hospital room, minus his right arm, thinking happy thoughts about his ménage à trois with Gabriella and Miguel. ===== Jess Wade (Elvis Presley), a former member of a gang of outlaws led by Vince Hackett (Victor French), is standing at a bar waiting on an old flame, Tracey Winters (Ina Balin). Vince's younger brother Billy Roy (Solomon Sturges) enters the saloon and spots Jess. Before a shoot-out ensues Jess orders the bar's patrons to leave. Jess then makes a break for the door but is stopped by Gunner (James Sikking) and forced to relinquish his gun. The gang take Jess with them to their hideout in the mountains. Vince shows Jess that the gang have stolen a gold-plated cannon that was used by Emperor Maximilian in his ill-fated fight against popular Mexican leader Benito Juárez. Vince intends to sell the gun for $100,000 to other gangs. In revenge for Jess deserting the gang, Vince informs him that he has been set-up and that the Federales believe he was behind the robbery. He shows off a wanted poster that identifies Jess. Vince explains that during the robbery another gang member called Norm was fatally wounded in the neck and that Vince has let it be known that it was Jess rather than Norm so that Jess would take the blame. Vince orders the gang to subdue Jess and using a hot poker he burns Jess on his neck. The gang beat Jess unconscious and then leave him with just his saddle before riding off. Jess manages to catch up with the gang later that night, Vince gives Jess some food but informs him that he's now a wanted man (being chased by the Mexican government as well as the US cavalry). Jess manages to track down a wild stallion, breaks it and saddles it. Jess makes his way to a local town where he greets Sheriff Dan Ramsey (James Almanzar). Dan explains that he's received a wanted poster and knows all about the robbery. Jess tells Dan he is innocent and goes into detail about Vince's plot which Dan believes. Jess leaves the Sheriff's office and sneaks into the local hotel where he finds his former lover Tracey Winters. The two embrace but then Tracey tells Jess she knows all about the theft of the cannon. Jess tries futilely to explain that Vince has set him up, Tracey gives him his pistol and holster and begs Jess to let Vince go. Tracey threatens Jess that if anything should happen, she'll expose him to the local town as a wanted man. Meanwhile, Billy Roy Hackett arrives into town and accosts Marcie (Lynn Kellogg), but she walks away from him. Billy Roy enters the saloon and starts to talk with the barman before Tracey intervenes. Jess seeing Billy Roy attempts to diffuse the situation. Sheriff Dan arrives after being summoned by Marcie. Billy Roy pretends to acquiesce to Jess and Dan's request for him to leave but takes Tracey at gunpoint. He then shoots Dan but Jess knocks him unconscious and drags him out of the saloon. Jess ensures Dan is looked after by the town doctor and barber Opie (Paul Brinegar) and ensures Billy Roy is safely jailed. Dan swears Jess in as his deputy and asks that he keep the town safe, while he recuperates. Jess returns to the jail where the townspeople are threatening to lynch Billy Roy. To defuse things, Jess knocks Billy Roy out and then arms the men and instructs them to defend their stores. When challenged Jess shows the men he has been deputised by Dan and they grudgingly acquiesce to his instructions. At the gangs camp, Vince awakes to find that Billy Roy has snuck off from the town. He beats several gang members for letting Billy Roy sneak away before heading to town. Meanwhile, Jess checks in on Dan and Opie tells him that Dan will recover. Tracey angrily approaches Jess and tells him he should have men on lookout for the gang, Jess agrees it's a good plan and Tracey storms off. As she walks across the street with Marcie, she spots that Jess already has every man on their roofs defending their property in advance of the gangs arrival. Vince arrives into the town and heads for the saloon inquiring after Billy Roy. Tracey informs Vince that Billy Roy has been jailed for shooting Dan and there are multiple witnesses. Vince leaves the saloon and heads for the jail where he demands the release of Billy Roy. Jess counters that Vince should return the cannon and clear his name. Vince issues an ultimatum that if Jess doesn't release Billy Roy before sundown he'll unleash the cannon against the town. Jess brings Vince out onto the main street where he shows him the armed townspeople. Vince glances at his watch as he shows he's called the Mexican cavalry in. He then threatens to expose Jess to the Mexican Lieutenant Rivera (Tony Young). Jess in turn threatens to shoot Billy Roy and Vince backs down agreeing to get rid of the cavalry. He approaches Lt Rivera and promises to bring them to the cannon in exchange for a $10,000 reward. Jess goes to Dan with Vince's proposal. The wounded Sheriff denies Jess' request to free Billy Roy. Jess agrees to not release Billy Roy. Dan's wife Sara (Barbara Werle) chases after Jess and pleads with Jess not to heed Dan's instruction and let Billy Roy go. Jess explains to Sara that he gave Dan his word and cannot break it. Meanwhile, outside the town, the gang create an ambush for Lt Rivera and his men. They train the cannon on the troop as they cross at the river. Vince crosses first and just as Lt Rivera and his men enter the river the gang fire the cannon. Lt Rivera's men are massacred but he survives, as he goes to confront Vince, Vince coldly guns him down. Vince informs the gang that they are to bring the cannon to the town so they can force Jess to release Billy Roy. When one of the gang stands up to Vince and calls the plan crazy, Vince guns him down and the gang quickly comply. Billy Roy in the jail starts to mock Jess from his cell as Vince arrives back into town. Vince demands his brother's release while Jess tries to antagonise him into a shoot-out. Just then the gang begin a bombardment with the cannon destroying the church. Sara screams as another explosion destroys their house and runs in to find Dan dead. She rushes back blaming Jess for Dan's death and grabs the wanted notice exposing Jess in front of the entire town. The town start to turn on Jess demanding for him to release Billy Roy. Jess explains to them that once Billy Roy is released Vince cannot let anyone else live as they can expose him as the real thief. Vince rides out and the townsfolk demand Billy Roy be released. Tracey approaches Jess and tells Jess she can see he has changed and they embrace. He asks her to get somewhere safe. Jess grabs Billy Roy as the townsfolk led by Sara break into the jail. Sara accuses Jess as working against the town and being in with the gang all along. As the cannon goes off again Tracey announces to the town that Jess is still on their side. She attempts to rally the town behind Jess. As the gang are about to start the final bombardment Jess sets a trap for the gang. He ties Billy Roy to a tree and has him call-out to the gang. The gang attempt to sneak up on Jess and when that fails they try and shoot Jess with the cannon. In the shoot out the cannon falls off the wagon and rolls against the tree crushing Billy Roy. Jess picks off the remaining gang members and captures a distraught Vince. He informs him that he intends to take Vince and the cannon back to Mexico. In the final scene in the town Sara is shown to forgive Jess. Opie and the townsfolk gather and thank Jess for his actions. Tracey runs after Jess who informs her that while he doesn't intend to return to the town, he'll send for her. ===== In a small Iowa town in 1927, a traveling Chautauqua company arrives, with internal squabbles dividing the troupe. The new manager, Walter Hale (Elvis Presley), is trying to prevent Charlene, the troupe's "Story Lady" (Marlyn Mason), from recruiting the performers to form a union. Meanwhile, the town has a scandal following the murder of the local pharmacist Wilby (Dabney Coleman). Although a shady gambler is arrested, Walter realizes that the real killer is Nita (Sheree North), one of Wilby's employees. Walter successfully gets Nita to confess during a Chautauqua performance, where she makes public the sexual harassment that Wilby directed at her. Nita's self-defense plea frees the wrongly jailed man, but Charlene is outraged that Walter used the crime to financially enrich the Chautauqua, and attempts to quit. Walter attempts to reason with Charlene, but when she refuses to give in, he deceives her and uses the local police force to be sure that she must leave on the train with the rest of the troupe. ===== Set in 1987, Carla's Song tells the story of love in a time of war. The plot follows the relationship between a Scottish bus driver, George Lennox (Robert Carlyle) and Carla (Oyanka Cabezas), a Nicaraguan refugee living in Glasgow. George first encounters Carla when she sneaks onto his bus without paying the fare. They go out for coffee but Carla seems hesitant to tell George anything about her life or where she's from. When Carla needs a place to stay George arranges for her to stay at his friend's place. Later George returns to his friend's flat and finds Carla in the bathtub where she has slit her wrists. George takes her to the hospital where he learns that Carla also attempted suicide six weeks ago. George stays by Carla's side in the hospital while she is recovering. Carla later explains that she read letters from her boyfriend, Antonio (Richard Loza), which she had never been able to open before. She was so horrified by the content of the letters that she tried to take her own life. Carla tells him that she doesn't know what happened her boyfriend Antonio or to her family and asks George to hold her. She appears to be haunted by her past and suffering the effects of posttraumatic stress disorder. George decides they need to return to a war-torn Nicaragua to find out what happened to Antonio and Carla's family. George begins to learn and about the U.S.-sponsored Contra insurgency against the Sandinistas. When they return to Nicaragua, they find Bradley, a U.S. citizen who is working as an aid worker and helping other U.S. citizens document human rights abuses conducted by the Contras. Bradley claims that he doesn't know the whereabouts of Carla's boyfriend and says that he will be heading North soon and that Carla should join him. While Carla and George are taking a truck to the North of the country, the truck engine overheats and explodes in a burst of steam making a sound resembling gunfire. Carla completely breaks down and becomes catatonic when she hears this, and George tries to comfort her. Bradley happens by in a 4x4 and offers to take them off the truck and give them a ride while attempting to calm Carla down. Bradley later admits that Antonio has been staying with. Carla tells Bradley that he needs to let go of his past, which he seems to be struggling with also. Carla has terrible night horrors where she relives the experience of being in the revolution and their group being attacked by the Contras. In the nightmare, Carla is shot in the back several times yet manages to flee while the Contras descend on Antonio who falls after being shot. Carla's watches on in horror from some bushes. On the way to Carla's family, a group of Sandinistas warns them that there are Contra fighters in the area. Carla finds her family and introduces George to them. Later that night, heavily armed Contras attack the village. The Contras kill many people and huge explosions go off around the village, while Sandinista villagers return fire. In the morning George discovers that Carla and Antonio have a baby daughter. George asks Carla to return to Glasgow with him and bring the baby, but Carla refuses. George meets Bradley who seems absolutely incensed. Bradley explained that the Contras, who are operating out of Honduras, are a CIA-organized and funded group. Bradley then explains how Antonio was captured by the Contras, who used CIA torture methods. The Contras cut out Antonio's tongue, broke his spine in several places with rifle butts leaving him paralysed, and poured acid on his face, all while Carla watched from her hiding place in the bushes. George breaks down when he hears what Carla has suffered through and runs to find her. George finds Carla's family who gives him a letter which Carla left for him. The letter says that Carla is heading north to find Antonio, and implies she may try to take her own life again. George steals a bus and Bradley joins him to help find Carla. They head to Bradley's village and find Carla in a room curled up and terrified of reuniting with Antonio. George encourages her to visit Antonio and explains that she will have to do this alone, that he can't do it with her. Antonio is sitting on a stool in Bradley's house, a guitar in hand. Antonio's face is severely disfigured from the acid mutilation. Antonio reaches out to Carla and begins to play his guitar. Carla sings her song in accompaniment with the guitar, suggesting that they may reunite. George prepares to return to Glasgow. ===== The Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Adam arrive on Satellite 5, a space station orbiting Earth in the year 200,000. The Doctor gets Adam and Rose some credits to buy food while he looks around the station. The Doctor meets a woman named Cathica, a reporter who tells him that the station is a giant broadcast tower transmitting news across Earth. Cathica leads them to a room where she sits down in a chair located in the centre of a round table. The reporters are connected to the computer via a special port installed directly into the brain. The Doctor believes there is a malevolent purpose to the station that is holding back human development. He learns from Cathica that a select few are invited to Floor 500, which is believed to be the highest promotion that can be earned on the station. The Doctor, with Rose, hacks into the computer systems of the station and is detected by the Editor. The Editor allows the Doctor and Rose to travel to Floor 500, with Cathica following soon after. On Floor 500 the Doctor and Rose find the Editor directing control over the station through a number of dead humans. On the ceiling resides the Editor-in- Chief, the Jagrafess, to whom the Editor answers. The Doctor learns that the Jagrafess controls the lives of the people on the planet below by manipulating the news. Meanwhile, Adam discovers that he can gain access to information about Earth's future. He has an information port installed in his brain and uses Rose's phone to call his answering machine at home and transfer data to it. The port also allows the Jagrafess into Adam's mind. The Jagrafess learns about the Doctor and makes plans to kill him. The Doctor, aware of Cathica's presence outside the room, loudly comments on how altering the environmental systems will likely kill the Jagrafess. Cathica reverses the cooling system, causing Floor 500 to overheat, killing the Jagrafess and the Editor. As the humans on board the station and on Earth come to wake from the stupor they have been in, the Doctor congratulates Cathica and gives her hope for the future. The Doctor discovers Adam's duplicity and takes him to his home on Earth. The Doctor destroys the answering machine with the data from the future on it and tells Adam he is no longer welcome in the TARDIS. The Doctor warns Adam that he cannot allow anyone to discover the information port and must live a quiet life from now on, but his mother accidentally activates it shortly after returning home. ===== The action takes place in 2023–2025 in Galveston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Grenada, an island on the northeast coast of South America; Singapore; and Africa. Protagonist Laura Webster, mother of three-month-old Loretta, works as a public relations employee for Rizome, a global corporation of economic democrats. Together with her husband David they run the Lodge, a resort for Rizome workers on the island of Galveston. The action sets off when Rizome organizes a conference between itself and three data havens - EFT Commerzbank of Luxembourg, The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank and Grenada United Bank - in the Lodge. After the first day of the conference Winston Stubbs, the Grenadan representative, is assassinated. The organization which admits to killing him calls itself "F.A.C.T." (Free Army of Counter- Terrorism). Rizome decides to send Laura with her husband and baby to Grenada on a diplomatic mission to prove that Rizome had nothing to do with the murder. While in Grenada, Laura and David learn about its tragic history and the advanced technology flourishing on the island thanks to “mad-doctors” like the American Brian Prentis. Grenada is ruled by one party, the New Millennium Movement, with Prime Minister Eric Louison who uses voodoo tradition as a means of keeping order in the country. Food is plentiful and cheaply produced on one of the huge tankers adapted for factories and housing. Drugs, in the form of a pure synthetic THC, are also cheap and widely accessible. Laura and David manage to escape Grenada after Singapore attacks it. They return to Atlanta and separate. David takes the baby to one of Rizome’s Retreats and Laura sets off to Singapore to continue her mission to improve the world. In Singapore, Laura witnesses the launching of the first Singaporean space rocket, celebrated by a speech by Singapore’s prime minister and leader of the People’s Innovation Party, Kim Sue Lok. The celebration ends in chaos as the prime minister spits fire and explodes, a victim, as it turns out, of Grenada’s pseudo-voodoo tricks. This event triggers national panic and riots. Grenada invades Singapore in reaction to Singapore’s previous attack. In addition, Singapore’s opposition party Anti-Labour Party tries to use the situation to get into power. The last group to invade Singapore is the Red Cross. Ace Books 1989 paperback edition of Islands in the Net Cut off from the Net, Laura cannot contact her husband or Rizome’s headquarters. Together with other Rizome’s workers in Singapore, she decides to get herself arrested and wait in prison for the end of war. Unfortunately, Laura gets separated from her companions and ends up on the roof of The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank. From there a chopper takes her and with other survivors of the riots to a cargo ship somewhere in mid-ocean. The ship is bombed by F.A.C.T., and Laura is taken to one of F.A.C.T.’s submarines, where she learns more about the organization. She is then taken by plane to a prison in Bamako, the capital of Mali; F.A.C.T. had taken over the Malian government to provide themselves a military base. After a conversation with the Inspector of Prisons, she finds out that she poses a threat to the organization because they think she knows they have an atomic bomb, which they keep on board of Thermopylae, the submarine she has been kept on. She spends two years in the prison. When a South African country supported by European authority of the Vienna convention attacks Mali, she is taken in a convoy to the atomic site to be shot on camera as a hostage. She is miraculously freed when the convoy is attacked by a group of Inadin Cultural Revolutionists. Their leader is Jonathan Gresham, an American journalist and radical, who helps Inadin people (also called Tuaregs, the nomadic tribes of the Sahara) fight against any forms of outside interference in their traditional way of life. Gresham takes Laura to an Azanian relief camp in order to save the life of her convoy companion, Azanian doctor Katje Selous, who was wounded in the action. Outside of the relief camp Gresham records Laura’s statement on all that happened to her and sends it on the Net. Laura and Gresham get romantically involved, but this feeling has no future as she has to go back to the States while Gresham will continue to help Inadins. Laura arrives at Galveston and takes part in an official Rizome party organized for her. Her husband David had lost hope that she was alive and gotten involved with Emily Donato, her closest friend, and Laura and David’s daughter Loretta is raised by Laura’s mother Margaret. Laura continues to work for Rizome and tries to improve the world by doing so. The last scene in the novel describes Hiroshima being bombed by F.A.C.T. Fortunately, this time the bomb did not explode. ===== The Simpsons are at Springfield War Memorial Stadium, watching the Springfield Isotopes baseball game. After the first pitch, Homer becomes disappointed by the poor performance of the Isotopes and goes to wait in his car. The game picks up heavily as the Isotopes and the rival team are deadlocked into a final showdown. Six months later, he enters Moe's Tavern and is informed by Lenny and Carl that the Isotopes are in the playoffs, and have so far been playing well. Homer quickly joins in with the fans to support the Isotopes, who end up winning the pennant. To celebrate, Homer, Lenny, Carl, and Barney go on a drunken ranging rampage and accidentally vandalize Springfield Elementary School. The next morning, Homer discovers his now badly damaged car, making him oblivious that in reality he and his friends were responsible. Chief Wiggum blindly jumps to the conclusion that the vandalism at the school is the work of Bart and Lisa and their friends, who are all kids, and immediately enforces a curfew on all of Springfield's children, prohibiting them from being on the local streets and roads after dark. However, every child of Springfield is annoyed with not being allowed out after the sun has fallen down. The kids soon rally together to break curfew so they can see an 1950s drive-in horror movie which they saw advertised on television, called The Bloodening. While at the movie, the screening is suddenly stopped by Wiggum. As punishment for breaking curfew, the children must clean a police billboard with Wiggum on it. To get even with their parents and the other grownups, the mortified children set up a late night radio show called "We Know All Your Secrets", in which they expose the grownups's secrets all through Springfield, just like the villainous children in the movie. They are tracked down at the billboard by Professor Frink, resulting in a massive confrontation, in song form, between the kids and adults of Springfield. However, this in turn rouses the ire of Grampa and the other senior citizens trying to get some sleep. To get even with both groups, they take the measure of voting a brand new curfew, sending everyone under the age of seventy to their own homes during sunset. It is passed by a single vote, due to Homer refusing to cast a ballot, humiliating Marge in the process. ===== Homer becomes depressed after learning he has lived past the halfway point of the average life expectancy for men without accomplishing anything worthwhile. His family tries to cheer him up by showing him a film of his accomplishments and a special appearance by the character KITT from the Knight Rider television series that Homer is a fan of. When the film projector stops working, Lisa mentions that Thomas Edison invented the projector and many other inventions. Homer decides to learn more about Edison and eventually idolizes him. In an attempt to follow his footsteps, he quits his job at the power plant to become an inventor. Thomas Edison inspires Homer to begin inventing The family disapproves of his first few inventions, including a make-up shotgun, electric hammer, alarm that only stops beeping when something is wrong, and reclining chair with a built-in toilet, making Homer more depressed. However, they like one particular invention, a chair with two hinged legs on the back, making it impossible to tip over backwards. Homer is encouraged until he notices his poster of Edison shows him sitting in the same type of chair. Bart points out that the chair is not featured on a list of Edison's inventions, meaning he never told anyone of this invention. Homer and Bart travel to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey, with his electric hammer to destroy the chair, but Homer notices a poster of Edison comparing himself to Leonardo da Vinci, much like how Homer compared himself to Edison. Feeling a renewed connection to Edison, he decides not to destroy the chair. Homer and Bart return to Springfield, unaware they left Homer's electric hammer at the museum. Later when the family watches the news on television, Kent Brockman announces that the chair and electric hammer have been discovered at the Edison Museum and are expected to generate millions for Edison's already wealthy heirs, to the ire of the family. ===== After the Simpsons win a trip to Delaware, Homer refuses to pay a $5 airport tax for his flight. After Homer violates the Anti-Fist Shaking Law, the family jumps onto a freight train where they meet a singing hobo who tells them three stories. ===== During an ice cream social at church, Ned Flanders reunites with Rachel Jordan, a woman he met after hearing her and her Christian rock band sing at church after suffering the loss of his wife Maude. Rachel decides to stay with Ned for the night, but leaves after waking up to find Ned, who she notices has not gotten over Maude's death, cutting her hair to resemble Maude's. Ned asks the Simpson family to help him forget about Maude by throwing away everything in the house that reminds him of her except for a sketchbook. Ned looks through her many sketches until he finds designs for a Christian theme park, called Praiseland. With the encouragement of his sons and the Simpsons, he decides to fulfill Maude's dream by building a Christian theme park in her honor. When Praiseland opens, the townspeople are put off by its excessive wholesomeness and leave, until a mask of Maude's face rises up in the air in front of a memorial statue of her. Believing they are witnessing a miracle, the townspeople gather to watch the mask float around briefly until Principal Skinner collapses near the statue, writhes and experiences a vision of Heaven. The park-goers then immediately decide to experience their own visions of Heaven from the statue; with the Simpsons encouraging Ned to donate the extra money from these proceedings to the local orphanage. Ned explains to his children this is God's will until he notices Homer trying to work the gas grill at a concession stand. He then discovers a gas line near Maude's statue is leaking, causing everyone to inhale the fumes, which explains the visions. He finds out from the utility company that the gas is dangerous and tries to shut the place down, but Homer points out that Praiseland has brought everyone together. The joy is short- lived when Homer spots two orphans lighting candles near the leaking gas, forcing him and Ned to tackle them before an explosion can happen. The townspeople believe Ned and Homer assaulted the children and the former is forced to shut down Praiseland. Rachel, now in a wig to cover the Maude hair, returns to accept a date from Ned. That night, they get rid of Maude's imprint on Ned's bed and make plans for another date. ===== The family goes to the local YMCA to attend one-time-only free classes. Homer participates in a basketball class, but suffers a torn ACL after a dunk attempt ends with the backboard crashing down on his leg. After Homer gets surgery, he is told by Dr. Hibbert that he cannot go to work and must stay home, where he finds himself extremely bored. One evening, Ned asks Homer to watch Rod and Todd while he attends a Chris Rock concert (that he believes is a Christian rock concert). Rod and Todd enjoy having Homer take care of them, which gives Homer the idea to establish his own day care center. Homer turns his house into the "Uncle Homer's Day Care Center". With Homer giving all his attention to other kids, Bart and Lisa feel neglected. The daycare center is wildly successful, and Homer earns a nomination for the "Good Guy Awards". But during a video tribute at the awards ceremony, Bart and Lisa splice in home movie footage of Homer at his worst (passed out drunk next to the tree on Christmas day, losing Maggie to Moe in a poker game, and chasing Bart with a medieval flail while yelling, "I'll mace you good!"). The audience becomes outraged and Homer angrily strangles Bart on stage. Everyone in the audience becomes horrified by Homer's behavior, and they decide to prevent him from watching their kids. Homer escapes from the ceremony with all the kids in a van, until he crashes into a tree, and is caught by the police. After three mistrials, Homer apologizes to Bart and Lisa for neglecting them, and promises to care for his own children instead of the neighborhood kids. The episode ends with the family eating from the craft services table because the union workers never came to retrieve it. ===== The focus of the novel is the effects of global warming in the early decades of the 21st century. Its characters are mostly scientists, either involved in biotech research, assisting government members, or doing paperwork at the National Science Foundation (NSF). There are also several Buddhist monks working for the embassy of the fictional island nation of Khembalung. ===== Frank Vanderwal, having spent a year at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Washington, D.C., is impatient with what he sees as its passivity and its reluctance to demand serious political change in the face of severe climate change. He keeps an eye on environmental triggers such as climate change in the Arctic and thermohaline circulation. Though he likes his colleague, Anna Quibler, and much of her work, he misses his hometown, San Diego. An athletic man, he frequently goes climbing and canyoneering when he can. Interested in sociobiology, he views both his own behavior and others' as that of primates who evolved on the African savannahs and who are not entirely biologically prepared to live in the urban environment. He considers behaviors in ordinary situations, such as traffic, and in extraordinary situations in light of the game theory decision making strategy known as the prisoner's dilemma. Anna's husband, Charlie Quibler, feels as urgently as Frank does about environmental issues. He juggles the raising of their two young sons, Nick and Joe, with encouraging Senator Phil Chase and Chase's chief of staff, Roy, to badger the conservatives in Congress about passing legislation to convert the United States to a non-anthropogenic global warming society, to construct carbon sinks, and to work for international cooperation for amelioration of climate change. (It is clear that the President, never named, is George W. Bush; we are told that his predecessor was Bill Clinton; he views climate change as a "downer" and refers to it as "climactic [not climatic] terrorism.") Anna, a devoted wife and mother, is, in Frank's view, something of an ultra- rationalist; Charlie is amused by her constant search for quantifiable measurements in all parts of her life. She discovers the new Khembali embassy in the NSF building and invites Drepung and Rudra Cakrin to lunch. When they all get along well, and she becomes interested in their concern about the threat of rising sea levels to Khembalung, their small island nation in the Bay of Bengal, she invites them to come for dinner when they all have time. Leo Mulhouse, a science director at Torrey Pines Generique, a biotechnology startup company in San Diego, searches for therapies for various human diseases. He is alarmed to learn that his boss, Derek, has spent $51 million to buy another company which might (and might not) work in tandem; Torrey Pines has not yet been able to show any profits, which puts them at risk for sale to investors who might care to purchase or even quash any patentable techniques they come up with. He turns out to be right when the company is sold some weeks later. Leo has another worry: his house, located on a cliff over the Pacific, is threatened by coastal erosion. Frank, eager to return to California, writes an angry denunciation of NSF and leaves it in the in-box of the director, Diane Chang, for her to find the next morning. That evening, he unexpectedly has a romantic encounter with a beautiful woman in a Washington Metro subway elevator when the elevator is stuck between floors. They are released, and she disappears before he can learn her name. Invited to the Quiblers' house to meet the Khembalis, he tells Anna about the woman; she is pleased to find him so excited and talkative, and urges him to track her down. Frank, thinking that now he might want to stay in D.C., regrets the angry letter about the NSF and decides to break into Chang's office and remove it. Using his climbing skills, he enters the NSF building from the roof, descends through the atrium skylight, manages his way down a large mobile, and gets into Chang's office. The letter, however, is gone; Chang often comes into her office at all hours. Nervous and upset, he returns home. The next day, Chang tells him to prepare a talk for the NSF Board of Directors. Frank realizes that Chang has read his letter, but he tells the directors honestly how he feels about the NSF and urges them to become more daring and more politically active. During the discussion, he sees that many of them feel as he does. Frank accepts an invitation to remain at NSF for another year. A catastrophic "trigger event" occurs when what Robinson calls the Hyperniño creates an enormous storm on the West Coast. The sandstone cliffs of California begin shelving off into the Pacific Ocean. Leo, now unemployed, witnesses this at his Leucadia, California home and, in the rainstorm, joins members of the United States Geological Survey and an army of volunteers in attempting to shore up the cliffs. Meanwhile, another enormous storm in the Atlantic creates a flood in Washington. Charlie is trapped at the Capitol Building with other co-workers. They watch as the rain comes down for hours and the National Mall is drowned. "Constitution Avenue looked like the Grand Canal in Venice." The Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay overflow, flooding the city: When the National Zoo faces rising waters, the Khembalis help the staff to unlock the cages and free the animals. Drepung and his associates arrange for two tigers to be brought to the Quiblers' house, where one is kept in a zoo truck and the other is put into their cellar. Frank, joining other volunteers in deploying sandbags out in the storm, is amazed to see his mystery woman pass in a boat up the river. Spotting the boat's number, he gets her phone number and calls her; she promises that, after a while, she will call him back. After days, the storm and the floodwaters subside. Charlie, finally arranging a lift home from the office, says to Senator Chase, "Are you going to do something about global warming now?" ===== A group of soldiers led by Major Baker (Bradford Dillman) is ordered to investigate the basement level of a missile base, which appears to have been attacked, and the garrison all but wiped out. After Baker contacts his commander, General Slater (Richard Widmark), they begin to investigate a civilian van found parked at the base. It is revealed to be owned by a scientist, Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine), one of the few survivors of the attack, but not someone stationed at the base. Slater orders two helicopters to track a large airborne mass moving slowly away from the base. The mass is revealed to be a swarm of bees, which engulfs the two helicopters, killing their crews. Crane insists to Slater that the base was attacked by this swarm, composed of deadly African killer bees. Slater does not trust Crane, but Helena Anderson (Katharine Ross), one of the base's doctors, supports Crane's story. Meanwhile, in the countryside, a family is attacked by a swarm of the bees. Their teenaged son, Paul Durant (Christian Juttner), manages to escape in a Mustang, although he is also stung, and crashes into the Marysville town square, where the citizens are preparing for the annual flower festival. The boy is brought into the hands of military personnel, where he hallucinates a vision of giant bees attacking him, on account of the after effects of the bee stings. Much to Slater's annoyance, Crane is put in charge by the President and calls in many experts to help. Wheelchair-bound Dr. Walter Krim (Henry Fonda) arrives at the base and confirms to Crane that the very war they have feared for a long time has started with the bees. At the gates of the base, Slater must confront angry country bumpkin Jed Hawkins (Slim Pickens), who demands to see the dead body of his son, who was killed by the bees. Hawkins takes the body bag and departs, leaving the entire watching crowd silent over the loss. Slater suggests airdropping poison on the swarm, but Crane considers the ecological possibilities of the situation, and overrules him, instead focusing on a solution that will kill the bees without harming people and the environment. Recovering from his earlier bee attack, Paul and two of his friends go in search of the hive to firebomb it, which results only in angering the bees, which make their way to Marysville and kill hundreds, including some children at the local school. Crane and Helena take shelter at the local diner, with pregnant café waitress Rita (Patty Duke). Reporter Anne McGregor (Lee Grant), watches from the safety of her news van, hoping to get some exciting footage about the siege. After this most recent attack, Slater suggests evacuating many of the townsfolk in a train. However, the bees engulf the train, as well, causing it to derail and crash, killing most of the occupants, including a love triangle made up of school superintendent Maureen Scheuster (Olivia de Havilland), retiree Felix Austin (Ben Johnson), and town mayor and drug-store owner Clarence Tuttle (Fred MacMurray). Confined to a hospital bed, Rita gives birth to her child, falling in love with the doctor in the process, but Paul, who has fallen ill again, succumbs to the after effects of the stings and dies, devastating Helena. The savage swarm heads for Houston, so Crane drops ecofriendly poison pellets designed by Dr. Hubbard (Richard Chamberlain) on them, but the bees ignore the pellets, evidently intelligent enough to sense danger. Working on an antidote to the bees' venom, Dr. Krim self-injects to keep track of the results; the trial proves fatal and Krim dies from the effects of the venom. Meanwhile, nuclear power plant manager Dr. Andrews (José Ferrer), ignoring the warnings of Dr. Hubbard, is convinced that his plant can withstand the attacks of the bees. However, the bees invade the plant, killing both Andrews and Hubbard, as well as completely destroying the plant and wiping out an entire town. Washington orders that operations to stop the bees be placed under military control and Slater takes charge. He orders the evacuated city of Houston to be deliberately torched by soldiers with flamethrowers, hoping the conflagration will destroy the swarm. Helena, who was stung during the attack on Marysville, falls seriously ill again. Crane analyzes tapes from the original bee attack of the base and comes to the conclusion that their alarm system attracted the swarm into the base as the sound resembled a signal from the swarm's queen. The bees break into the headquarters building so Slater and Baker use a flamethrower to allow Crane and Helena to escape, but at the cost of their own lives. Helicopters successfully manage to lure the bees out to sea by placing floating buoys with speakers emitting the sound Crane discovered into an area of water doused with oil. When the swarm arrives, the oil is set ablaze by missiles fired from the nearby coast, destroying all of the bees. ===== The TARDIS misses Metebelis Three and materialises on the SS Bernice, a ship that suddenly disappeared while travelling the Indian Ocean. Being repeatedly arrested as stow-aways, the Third Doctor and Jo find out that ship's occupants keep repeating their actions, having no recollection of earlier encounters. The pair escape from the ship through a strange hatch plainly visible to them both but ignored by the crew and passengers. The Doctor and Jo venture through the circuitry of some sort of giant machine and arrive at marsh lands. They soon discover that they are not outside but are still inside the machine. Chased by Drashigs, huge swamp-dwelling carnivores, they escape back into the circuitry. Here, the Doctor realises that they have materialised inside the compression field of a Miniscope, a machine that keeps miniaturised groups of creatures in miniaturised versions of their natural environments. The Time Lords have banned such machines, but apparently one escaped. The Drashigs break into the circuitry and the Doctor and Jo flee back to the ship. They are separated in the confusion as the crew defend against the Drashigs. The events inside the miniscope are intercut with events involving its owners, travelling showman Vorg and his assistant Shirna, who have just arrived at the planet of Inter Minor but are suspected of being spies and refused entrance by a tribunal. The tribunal learns that objects removed from the machine soon return to their normal size when Vorg extracts a foreign object stuck in the circuitry – actually the TARDIS – from the machine. Two of the tribunal members, dissatisfied with the leadership of their planet, plot to let the Drashigs escape from the machine and allow them to wreak havoc, causing a crisis and the president's resignation. The Doctor eventually finds a way to the real outside and is restored to normal size. He cooperates with a reluctant Vorg to return into the machine by linking it with the TARDIS. After he goes back into the Scope, which is now overheating due to the Drashigs' damage, the device he attached is shot by a tribunal member and ceases to function, leaving the Doctor stranded. He finds Jo, but they collapse on the floor as the heat gets to be too much for them. Two Drashigs escape, but Vorg kills them by fixing the eradicator, sabotaged by the mutinous tribunal members. He fixes the Doctor's device, pushing the Phase Two switch which brings the Doctor and Jo back, just in time, and also returning all of the Scope's other occupants to their rightful space-time positions. As the penniless Vorg tries to get enough credit bars to return home by using the old three-magum-pods-and-a-yarrow-seed trick, the two travellers depart in the TARDIS. ===== The Third Doctor is making adjustments to the TARDIS' coordinate programmer in preparation for a visit to Metebelis Three, when Jo reads in a newspaper about the mysterious death of a miner named Hughes in the abandoned coal mine in Llanfairfach in South Wales. The miner was found dead and glowing bright green. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Jo go down to investigate the miner's death. The Doctor agrees to follow the Brigadier, but is determined to go to Metebelis Three first. The Brigadier's first port of call is the recently opened Global Chemicals oil plant, close to the abandoned mine. Its headman, Stevens, claims that the plant can "produce 25% more petrol and diesel fuel from a given quantity of crude oil"—but that the 'Stevens process' only produces a minimal amount of waste. Jones is convinced that the oil-making process must create thousands of gallons of waste. He also believes that there is a link between Global Chemicals and Hughes' death—but his research is too demanding for him to go down the mine and investigate. Jo heads for the mineshaft. The Doctor reaches Metebelis Three, but it is far from the "blue paradise" he described. He is attacked by various unseen creatures, and returns to the UNIT laboratory with only a small blue crystal to show for his misadventure. He then drives down to South Wales in his car, Bessie, and meets the Brigadier at Global Chemicals. They then set off to go down the mine to investigate, despite Stevens' insistence that it should be sealed. Stevens summons his henchman, Hinks, and tells him in a strange emotionless voice "nobody must go down the mine". Hinks leaves and Stevens dons a pair of strange headphones. Jo has arrived at the pithead ahead of the Doctor and the Brigadier, and gone down the shaft with a miner called Bert to help another man, Dai Evans, who has called for help at the bottom of the mine. When the Doctor and the Brigadier arrive, Dave, the man controlling the cage's descent, finds that the brake has been sabotaged. The Doctor slows the cage's descent, but his efforts leave Jo and Bert trapped at the bottom of the shaft. There, they find Dai, who is turning bright green and dying. Bert remembers there is an emergency shaft out of the mine, and he and Jo set off. The Doctor suggests cutting the mineshaft cables and linking it up to a donkey engine, which would enable him to use the second cage to get down the mine. The Brigadier goes to Global Chemicals to request some cutting equipment, but a man named Fell informs him that they do not have such equipment. The Doctor has Professor Jones and his environmentalist friends create a demonstration at the Global Chemicals gate, while he slips in, in an attempt to steal the equipment. However, he is captured. Fortunately, Dave and the Brigadier, while on their way to get cutting equipment, stopped at a petrol station and found a man using the required equipment to cut up an old car. They borrow this, free the secondary mine cage, and the Doctor goes down the shaft with Dave and two other miners. They find Dai now dead and a note from Jo telling them that she and Bert have headed for the emergency shaft. Jo and Bert have made good progress through the old mine tunnels, when they find a green slime trickling down the wall. When Bert touches this, he begins to grow weak, and his hand starts to turn bright green. At Bert's insistence, Jo goes on without him. Dave and the Doctor find Bert, and the Doctor goes on to find Jo. By the time they reunite, Jo has found a vast lake of bright green slime, filled with huge maggot creatures. When the tunnel collapses behind them, they use an old mining wagon to get across the green lake. They then climb a steep shaft, where the Doctor collects a huge egg to take back for experimentation. At the top of the natural shaft, they find a large pipe, with the insides covered with traces of crude oil waste—meaning that the pipe leads to the Global Chemicals plant. In the plant, a worker named Elgin, an old friend of Fell, tells him about Dai's death and the dying Bert. Elgin later follows Fell into a pumping control room, where Fell is pumping the oil waste from the main tank on level four into another tank. The security system then registers the Doctor and Jo's presence in the pipe. Fell, who has actually arranged for the waste to be pumped down the pipe into the abandoned mine workings, is initially reluctant to rescue the two in the pipe. Elgin convinces Fell to help him open the hatch, and the Doctor and Jo escape as the oil waste cascades down the pipe. Fell goes to see Stevens, complaining about a 'headache', and Stevens puts the headphones on Fell. A voice tells Stevens that 'Fell's 'processing' was a failure' and orders self-destruction. After Stevens presses a button on a control panel, Fell leaves the room and jumps off a balcony to his death. The Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier end the day with a meal of fungus at Jones' retreat the "Nuthutch", but the frivolity is cut short when they hear Bert too has died. After everyone retires to bed the egg the Doctor brought back from the mine hatches out into a giant maggot. Escaping from the lab where the egg was left, the maggot first heads for Jo, but then jumps on and bites Hinks, sent to the Nuthutch by Stevens to steal the egg. The maggot escapes from the house into the dark, and Hinks quickly weakens as the poisonous "green death" infection spreads through his body. The next morning, the Brigadier has the UNIT troops lay explosives and detonate the whole mine pithead, to the Doctor's fury. This fails to trap the maggots in the mine, as they begin to emerge; first, attempting to escape up the Global Chemicals waste disposal pipe, then burrowing through the slagheap near the mine. At Global Chemicals, Mike Yates has been sent in undercover by the Brigadier, and is contacted by the Doctor, who dons some improbable disguises in order to get through the gates and move freely. Having liaised with Yates, the Doctor learns that Stevens take his instructions from someone on the top floor of the complex, and heads up there in the special lift to find out who is in charge. He finds that this is the home of the BOSS, a supercomputer with its own megalomaniac personality. It runs the company, controls Stevens and other key staff members, and is responsible for the polluting chemical process. The Doctor rejects the brainwashing technique that Stevens and the BOSS subject him to – but Yates is more susceptible and is converted into one of the computer's slaves. After the Doctor escapes, Yates is sent to the Nuthutch to kill the Doctor. His conditioning is deep, and is only broken by the Doctor's use of the blue crystal he brought from Metebelis Three. Jo has alienated Jones, with whom she is falling in love, by ruining one of his experimenting slides of green slime. Determined to make amends, she heads to the slagheap in search of a maggot to run some tests on. Meanwhile, Jones finds that the fungus powder Jo spilt on the slides is actually a cure for the 'green death' infection. He races to the slag heap to find Jo surrounded by giant maggots, and they are both caught in an RAF bombing raid on the maggots. Jones is infected with the 'green death' and begins to turn green — and all before he was able to share his knowledge of the cure. Jo contacts her UNIT friends with her radio, and the Doctor and Sergeant Benton rescue the two from the maggots in Bessie. Hearing Jones utter the word "Serendipity", the Doctor realises that Jones might have stumbled upon something that could combat the maggots and their infection. Benton arrives with a maggot chrysalis—proof that the maggots are beginning to transform into mature giant insects. Then, the maggot that escaped from the laboratory is found on the table—dead. Realising that the creature died from eating some of the fungus, the Doctor also discovers the cure for Jones. The Doctor and Benton drive around the slag heaps, scattering the fungus, which proves deadly to the maggots. They are then attacked by a giant fly creature—the mature adult form of the maggots—which the Doctor kills by throwing his cloak over it when it is in mid-air, causing it to get tangled in it and fall to the ground. The Doctor returns to Global Chemicals to confront the BOSS. The computer plans to link up with others and effect a corporate takeover of the human race. By now, Stevens is completely under the computer's control. The Doctor tells Stevens that the BOSS' "efficiency" will result in greater pollution, brainless brainwashed humans, and more death and disease. The Doctor then uses his blue crystal to break Stevens' hypnotic state, and Stevens, infuriated at what the BOSS has done to him, cross-feeds the generator circuits, causing the whole plant to explode, apparently destroying Stevens and the computer. The menace defeated, UNIT troops and environmentalists gather at the Nuthutch for a celebration made all the more special when Jo and Jones announce they are getting married. The Doctor gives his blessing and gives Jo the blue crystal as a wedding present, but since this means the end of Jo's travels with the Doctor, he is evidently upset by the situation and quietly slips away while the party is in full swing. As Jo and Jones dance, the Doctor drives Bessie off into the sunset. ===== ===== The Doctor and Leela arrive in London so that Leela can learn about the customs of her ancestors. Performing at the Palace Theatre is the stage magician Li H'sen Chang. On their way to the theatre, the Doctor and Leela encounter a group of Chinese men who have apparently killed a cab driver. All but one escape, and he, the Doctor and Leela are taken to the local police station. At the station, Li H'sen Chang is called in to act as an interpreter, but unbeknownst to everyone else he is the leader of the group – the Tong of the Black Scorpion, followers of the god Weng-Chiang. He stealthily gives the captive henchman a pill of concentrated scorpion venom, which the henchman takes and dies. The body is taken to the local mortuary, along with the body of the cabbie. There they meet Professor Litefoot, who is performing the autopsies. The cabbie is Joseph Buller, who had been looking for his wife Emma, the latest in a string of missing women in the area. Buller had gone down to the Palace Theatre where he had confronted Chang about his wife's disappearance. Afterwards, Chang had sent his men, including the diminutive Mr Sin, to kill Buller. Chang is in the service of Magnus Greel, a despot from the 51st century who had fled from the authorities in a time cabinet, now masquerading as the Chinese god Weng-Chiang. The technology of the cabinet is unstable and has disrupted Greel's own DNA, deforming him horribly. This forces him to drain the life essences from young women to keep himself alive. At the same time, Greel is in search of his cabinet, which is now in the possession of Professor Litefoot. Mr Sin is also from the future but is a robotic toy constructed with the cerebral cortex of a pig. Greel tracks down the time cabinet and steals it, whilst concurrently the Doctor tracks Greel to the sewers underneath the theatre, aided by the theatre's owner, Henry Gordon Jago. However, Greel has already fled, abandoning Chang to the police. Chang escapes, only to be mauled by one of Greel's giant rats. While the Doctor and Leela try to find Greel's new hideout, Jago comes across the key to the time cabinet. He takes it to Professor Litefoot's house, and there, after leaving the key and a note for the Doctor, the Professor and Jago set out to follow anyone coming around the theatre in search of the bag. However, they are captured. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Leela find Chang in an opium den, dying from his injury. The Doctor and Leela ask where Greel can be found, and Chang tells them he can be found in the House of the Dragon, but dies before he can give them the exact location. The Doctor and Leela return to Professor Litefoot's house. There they find the note and the key to the time cabinet. They decide to wait for Greel and his henchmen. When they arrive, the Doctor uses the key, a fragile crystal, as a bargaining chip. He asks to be taken to the House of the Dragon, offering the key in exchange for Litefoot and Jago's release. Instead, Greel overpowers the Doctor and locks him in with the two. Leela, who had been left at Litefoot's house, has followed them and confronts Greel. She is captured by Greel, but before her life essence is drained, the Doctor, Jago and Litefoot escape and rescue her. In a final confrontation, Mr Sin turns on Greel as the Doctor convinces it that Greel escaping in his time cabinet will create a catastrophic implosion. The Doctor defeats Greel by forcibly pushing him into his own extraction machine, causing it to overload and Greel to disintegrate. The Doctor then captures and deactivates Mr Sin. The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Professor Litefoot (Trevor Baxter) ===== The White Guardian recruits the Fourth Doctor to collect the six hidden and disguised segments of the powerful Key to Time. He assigns him an assistant Time Lady named Romanadvoratrelundar, whom the Doctor calls Romana (despite her preference for "Fred" when given a choice by the Doctor). He warns him that the Black Guardian also seeks these segments, but for an evil purpose. The White Guardian provides them with a wand-like device, which can locate the pieces and remove their disguise. When inserted into the TARDIS console, the locator first reveals a segment to be on Cyrrenhis Minima, but then moves to Ribos. Ribos is an icy planet with late- medieval-type inhabitants who are unaware of alien cultures. A human from Earth named Garron tries to sell Ribos to an exiled tyrant called the Graff Vynda-K. The Graff is impressed by the planet's supposed quantity of jethrik, the rarest and most valued mineral in the galaxy. He believes the opportunity confirmed when he sees a piece of jethrik among the Ribos crown jewels. This is all part of a ruse orchestrated by Garron; the jethrik was planted by Garron's assistant Unstoffe, who also was playing a native with an "honest face" spins a yarn to the Graff about a nearby lost mine. The locator points the Doctor and Romana to the same jethrik, which must be the disguised segment of the Key to Time. The Graff Vynda-K provides a large sum of money, as a deposit for the planet that is to be kept safely in the room with the crown jewels, watched by Ribos guards by day and a shrivenzale beast by night. Later, Unstoffe distracts the shrivenzale, recovers their piece of jethrik, and takes the money from the safe. The Graff learns of Garron's deception when he discovers a covert listening device in his room. He imprisons Garron with his "accomplices" the Doctor and Romana, and he starts the search for Unstoffe, who still has the money and the jethrik. Unstoffe hides with Binro, a homeless outcast who believes that Ribos is a planet orbiting a star, and that there are other stars in the universe, which Unstoffe confirms to be true (because he was from Earth). The Ribos guards summon a Seeker who locates Unstoffe's hideout. Using the listening device in the Graff's room, Garron warns Unstoffe about the Graff. Binro, thankful for Unstoffe's encouragement, leads him to the labyrinthine Catacombs under the city, where the natives bury their dead. The Graff and his men enter the Catacombs without the guards, who fear the place, and the Seeker warns that if they enter, "All but one are doomed to die." K9 helps the Doctor, Romana, and Garron to escape and go to the Catacombs. The guards destroy the entrance to the Catacombs causing the ceiling to collapse on the Graff's men. Having recovered the money and the jethrik, the Graff gives his last surviving guard an explosive to kill himself with. The guard, actually the Doctor in disguise, swaps the explosive for the jethrik. The Graff walks off into the maze yelling like a madman as the sounds of one of his previous battles resound around him, before exploding. After leaving the Catacombs, the Doctor, Romana, and K9 dematerialise in the TARDIS. Garron and Unstoffe claim the Graff's deserted ship, full of years of plunder, while the Doctor and Romana transform the jethrik into the first piece of the Key to Time. ===== We3, a squad of three prototype "animal weapons", are part of a government project headed by Dr. Rosanne Berry and her superior Doctor Trendle. The group consists of a dog, "Bandit" a.k.a. "1"; a cat, "Tinker" a.k.a. "2"; and a rabbit, "Pirate" a.k.a. "3", who were all kidnapped from a nearby city and encased in robotic armor. They have also been given a limited ability to speak through skull implants. Their body armor fields numerous weapons, including mine laying devices, machine guns and razor claws. After the group carries out another successful assignment of assassinating U.S. enemies, a senator makes a visit to the project's facility to see it, where he congratulates the project staff members, only for the General in charge of the project to decide afterwards to decommission We3 in favor of creating newer animal weapons. Berry, unwilling to end the lives of the three animals, instead has them break free. Feeling guilt over her part in what has been done to them, she hopes to be killed by them in the process of their escape; to her surprise, they leave her alive. She is taken into custody by the government while Trendle works closely with the General and the military to terminate We3. We3 escape into the wild and, confused by their new surroundings, decide to look for "HOME". They are later found and chased by the military, but they manage to brutally kill the attacking soldiers thanks to their cybernetic enhancements. Trendle decides to send his cybernetic enhanced rats to attack We3, telling Berry that if the rats fail the military will use her to lure We3 back. While fighting the rats on a bridge, Pirate drops several landmines after spotting an oncoming train. The mines explode causing the train to derail and fall into the lake below. Bandit attempts to rescue the conductor, but Tinker points out that the man is already dead. Pirate is nowhere to be seen. Bandit and Tinker manage to find Pirate, but Pirate is in a confrontation with a family who mistake Pirate for an alien. Pirate ends up getting shot in the head by the father, damaging his speech. Angered, Bandit and Tinker kill the father and the family's dog, but leave the boy alive. Realizing that the situation is getting far worse, the military send out We4, an enhanced English Mastiff, against the wishes of Berry. We3 take refuge in a homeless man's domain and gain his sympathy. The homeless man encounters the military who have the police escort him from the area, while the man claims that he didn't see anything. Setting up around the area, the military unleash We4, who kills Pirate but is in turn damaged by one of Pirate's mines in the process. Berry is then sent by the military to calm Bandit and lead him into military sniper fire, but as the snipers prepare to take out Bandit, she instead tells him his real name and sacrifices herself by jumping in the way of the sniper bullets. Enraged, Bandit and Tinker both brutally attack We4 and all combatants end up breaking through a wall onto the highway, causing a car pile up. We4 begins to attack a police officer whom Bandit then rescues. At Trendle's insistence, the military terminate We4 from afar using a code word to trigger a bomb in We4's head. Bandit and Tinker escape and, with painful effort, shed their armor, leaving it to explode and taking out some more soldiers on their trail. The homeless man manages to find them again and he removes the two's remaining cybernetic enhancements. Trendle then speaks out against the government's actions, and it is revealed that the now normal Bandit and Tinker have been taken into the care of the homeless man. As he compliments how well behaved the animals are, Trendle gives hundreds of dollars to the homeless man before walking up the steps of the courthouse to a crowd of reporters. ===== Tracking the third segment of the Key to Time, the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive in modern-day Cornwall. They meet Professor Emilia Rumford and her friend Vivien Fay, studying the "Nine Travellers" standing stones in Boscombe Moor. Their work is disrupted by a Druidic sect that worships the Cailleach, the Druidic goddess of war and magic, led by de Vries. de Vries and the sect are hostile to the newcomers, but the Doctor later finds the sect killed by mobile stones similar to those of the Nine Travellers and determines the stones must be alien beings that feed on blood. He and Emilia find evidence that suggests Vivien is older than she looks. Meanwhile, Romana catches Vivien awakening more stones with blood, and Vivien uses a device to send her to a spacecraft in hyperspace. When the Doctor and Emilia arrive, Vivien tells them that Romana will be safe before disappearing herself. The Doctor recognises the stones as Ogri, a life form from the planet Ogros. The Doctor constructs a projector to cross into hyperspace, leaving Emilia and K9 to guard it. On the spacecraft, the Doctor determines it is a prison ship, and inadvertently releases two floating globes called Megara that serve as justice machines. They accuse the Doctor of breaking a seal on the ship and prepare to put him on immediate trial. Elsewhere, Vivien finds the Doctor's presence, and returns to Earth, awakening one of the Ogri and damages the Doctor's projector, but sparing Emilia's life as a friend. She and the Ogri return to the craft to attend the Doctor's trial. K9 guides Emilia in repairing the projector, allowing them to bring back Romana, along with an Ogri. They are pursued by the Ogri, leading them back to Vivien's cottage. There, Romana discovers an alien device that proves Vivien is not human. They lure the Ogri back to the projector, and she and the Ogri return to the spacecraft. On the ship, the Doctor learns the Megara are seeking a criminal known as Cessair, who had stolen the Great Seal of the planet Diplos, which grants its bearer great powers. The Doctor suspects Vivien is Cessair, and attempts to force the Megara to question her, but their law prevents such intervention. Having decided the Doctor's guilt, they fire an energy weapon at him, but at the last moment, the Doctor drags Vivien into the shot. The Megara immediately stop their attack and scan Vivien to see if she is unharmed, but instead discover that she is Cessair. Romana arrives with the additional evidence, and the Megara pass judgement on her. They return her to Earth and transform her into a standing stone in the moor, but not before the Doctor recovers the Great Seal which she wore. The Megara are about to pass judgment on the Doctor when they're forced to return to their ship and depart to Diplos. The Doctor had set the controls of the ship before leaving, and he affirms the Great Seal is the third segment of the Key, and he, Romana, and K9 thank Emilia for her assistance before they leave in the TARDIS. She smiles as she now has a new stone in the circle to study. ===== The society of the planet Tara is a mix of the feudal and the futuristic, with a rigid social monarchical hierarchy developed alongside a skill in advanced electronics and android making, a skill reserved to the lesser orders. Centuries earlier, after a plague wiped out nine tenths of the population, the peasants, abandoned by the nobles, began building androids to deal with labour shortages. The planet is now troubled by a struggle for the crown and the power on Tara. The rightful heir, Prince Reynart, is facing a challenge to his rule and coronation from his cousin, Count Grendel of Gracht, a suave but deadly villain who has kidnapped Reynart's sweetheart, the Princess Strella, and is holding her captive to persuade Reynart not to take the throne. The Fourth Doctor and Romana arrive on Tara in search of the fourth segment of the Key to Time. While the Doctor goes fishing, Romana identifies and transforms the fourth segment alone—it was disguised as a segment of a Grachtian statue. She is attacked by a native Taran bear and only saved by Count Grendel, who takes Romana to his castle on the pretext of treating her injured ankle and "registering" the Key segment as an exotic gemstone. Once there, it becomes clear that Grendel believes she is an android, because she exactly resembles the captive Strella. Grendel orders her to be disassembled, and just before Romana's head is to be chopped off, Grendel's surgeon/android engineer Madame Lamia realises Romana is real. However, Romana is then imprisoned in Grendel's dungeons like the Princess. Meanwhile, the noble swordsmen Zadek (Simon Lack) and Farrah (Paul Lavers) have recruited the Doctor to assist Prince Reynart. He agrees to help repair an android copy of the Prince, which is to be used as a decoy to help him reach his coronation by diverting the attention of Grendel's men while the real Prince slips into the coronation chamber through a back way. This plot looks plausible, but Grendel strikes first, drugging the Prince and his retinue and kidnapping Reynart himself. When the Doctor and the swordsmen recover they decide to change the original plan and crown the android Reynart instead. The party move through the tunnels beneath the royal castle to get to the throne room so that the android Reynart can be crowned, for if he is not there at the correct moment then he forfeits his claim and the crown may be offered to Grendel. The real Reynart was wounded in his capture and has been imprisoned with Romana to prevent any legitimate succession. The Doctor calls K9 from the TARDIS to provide armed support and scanning intelligence that confirms that the Count has Romana in his castle. The Doctor and his party sneak the android Prince into the throne room, and the coronation begins; but the android is damaged and it is clear the ruse will not hold for long. After the Prince is crowned King, Strella appears, to swear loyalty to the King. Although struck by her resemblance to Romana, the Doctor recognises that she is an android and hits her on the head with the King's sceptre. Shortly afterward, Till, Grendel's manservant, arrives at the Reynart estate and offers the Doctor a chance to collect Romana from the Pavilion of the Summer Winds, a nearby gazebo. It is, however, a trap engineered by Grendel who knows the Doctor is the man who has deprived him of the throne. Grendel has persuaded his android maker Madame Lamia to make another android in the image of Romana that is programmed to kill the Doctor. However, K9 detects the android Romana and eliminates it. While this is happening, the real Romana escapes from Castle Gracht and heads off to find the Doctor. She arrives at the Pavilion in the aftermath of Grendel's attack, which has left Lamia dead, and helps the Doctor flee. The situation is soon reversed; Grendel, coming under a flag of truce to secretly offer the crown to the Doctor, destroys the Reynart android and then recaptures Romana. The evil Count now plots to have Romana pose as Strella and marry the real King Reynart in a shotgun wedding at Castle Gracht. Once they are married and she is his Queen, Reynart will then be killed, leaving Grendel free to marry her immediately afterwards thus ultimately making himself the legitimate King of Tara. The Doctor has K9 assist him to gain access to the castle by means of the moat and tunnels. The Doctor reaches the throne room just in time to stop Reynart's coerced marriage to Romana. He then engages the Count in a deadly duel with electro-swords, eventually defeating him and forcing him to flee. Romana has meanwhile freed Strella who is finally reunited with Reynart. Having retrieved the fourth segment of the Key to Time, the Doctor, Romana and K9 depart. ===== A cozy mystery series set in beautiful English and European gardens, Rosemary & Thyme features two women brought together by a sudden death who discover their shared love of the soil. Being gardeners means that they overhear secrets and dig up clues which lead them to handle floral problems, solve crimes and capture criminals. ===== The Fourth Doctor and Romana have arrived on the third moon of Delta Magna, searching for the penultimate segment of the Key to Time. They find themselves caught in the middle of a dispute between the crew of a methane refinery and the natives (known as 'Swampies'). The Swampies claim that the crew have disturbed the waters, and will incur the wrath of their god, Kroll. Kroll is revealed to be a giant squid which surfaces to feed every few centuries and is the source of the abnormally large amount of methane being mined. Originally a normal size squid, Kroll ingested the fifth segment of the Key to Time and began to grow, becoming a god-like figure to the Swampies and their descendants. After Kroll awakens and begins to attack both the Swampies and the refinery indiscriminately, the Doctor uses the tracer to retrieve the segment of the Key, which destroys Kroll and instigates cellular regeneration within the creature to produce hundreds of normal-sized squid. This process not only saves the planet's inhabitants but removes the source of methane from the refinery. The Doctor and Romana return to the TARDIS and set off on their next adventure. ===== The Fourth Doctor and Romana's holiday in Brighton ends abruptly when K9 chases a ball and takes in seawater and explodes. They instead venture to the Leisure Hive of Argolis, a holiday complex and message of peace built by surviving Argolins after their devastating 20-minute war with the Foamasi forty years earlier. They arrive at a point of crisis: the Leisure Hive is facing bankruptcy (because of falling tourist trade due to stiff competition from other leisure planets) and the Argolins' Earth agent, Brock, and his lawyer Klout have arrived bearing an offer to buy the planet outright. However, the offer is from the Foamasi, the only species that could live on the planet's radiation-infused surface, and the Argolin board will not consider it. The shock of events causes Board Chairman Morix's rapid death – from the Argolin war curse of advanced cellular degradation – and his consort Mena is declared the new Chairman. The Doctor is intrigued by the manipulation of tachyons in the Hive’s Tachyon Recreation Generator, which is the main tourist attraction and can duplicate and manipulate organic matter. He witnesses a human tourist being killed after it is sabotaged in the latest of a series of acts of deliberate damage. No sooner has Mena returned to Argolis than her own body clock begins to speed up, a side-effect of the radiation-heavy atmosphere. Earth scientist Hardin has been brought to Argolis to help her and her people by using time experiments to rejuvenate a people rendered sterile by the war. Recognising their value as scientists, Mena, instead of confining them, engages the Doctor and Romana to help Hardin with his work. The time travellers know Hardin has been faking his work, but Romana feels that the experiments should have worked. After discovering a skin of Klout in a wardrobe, Stimson, Hardin's financier, who travelled with him and persuaded him to fake the demonstrations, is brutally murdered and the Doctor is blamed. He is put on trial while Romana and Hardin perfect the time experiments. Just in time, they succeed and are able to bargain for the Doctor's freedom. However, after they leave, the hourglass of their experiment shatters. Due to her worsening condition, Mena volunteers to be the first guinea pig to test the time experiment, but the Doctor is selected instead. The machine malfunctions while he is inside and he emerges – having aged 500 hundred years – an old man with flowing white hair. Mena's son, Pangol, the most warlike and vindictive of the Argolins, orders that the Doctor and Romana be confined. Hardin later frees them, which is when the slower-witted Doctor notices something odd about the name Recreation Chamber. Romana sees it too, eventually: recreation is re-creation, the repeated creation of things or people. Sneaking back to the Recreation Room, the trio discover a group of Argolins, led by Pangol, performing dangerous experiments in order to perfect a secret project, under the guise of entertainment. Meanwhile, Brock and Klout bring a new offer from a mysterious organisation called West Lodge. It is then, while tearing up the offer, that Pangol reveals the secret of his past and the reason he is the only young Argolin in the Hive. He was the only successful, undeformed child from a cloning experiment meant to save the Argolin using the Recreation Generator. But, driven insane by hatred of the Foamasi and a xenophobic fear of all aliens, he lusts for a war-forged empire like that of their ancestor Theron (who started the war and doomed the Argolins to extinction). He needs an alien witness to his taking Mena's place after her death, and to the beginning of "New Argolis". The Doctor, Romana and Hardin find Foamasi agents in the Hive and escort them to the council chamber, where the agents reveal Brock and Klout to be Foamasi impersonators. The lead agent reveals West Lodge to be a criminal group who need Argolis as a base of operations. With the leader, Brock, captured, the organisation is doomed to fold and the Foamasi prepare to take the rogues for trial. Pangol refuses to let them pass, and takes up the Helmet of Theron (a sacred symbol for Argolins and a reminder to espouse peace and understanding) and rallies the Argolins to his cause. The Doctor, seeing what he is up to, takes the Randomiser from the TARDIS and attaches it to the Recreation Chamber, hoping to destabilise the mechanism. Romana tries to dissuade Pangol from using the Generator, but fails. The Foamasi shuttle tries to leave and is destroyed by Pangol, who dons the Helmet of Theron and uses the Generator to create an army of Tachyon replicas, in order to rebuild the Argolin race. He orders that Romana be put outside, while Hardin finds Mena dying and carries her to the Generator room. As Romana is taken, the clones are revealed to be merely tachyon images of a rejuvenated Doctor built up in a FIFO stack; first in, first out. She and the first Doctor to emerge (the real one) return to the Generator Room, where Hardin has put Mena into the Recreation Generator. Pangol, enraged that the Doctor has foiled his attempt to create an army, reenters the Generator, which closes behind him. The Doctor reveals that he set the machine to "rejuvenate", and it cannot be stopped. Pangol and Mena seem to be merging, so the Doctor grabs the Helmet of Theron and throws it into the visualising crystal, stopping the mechanism. Mena exits rejuvenated, holding Pangol, who has regressed to a baby. The Foamasi agents reappear, revealing that the West Lodge criminals tried to escape in the shuttle (so, in the words of the Doctor "Brock and Klout are kaput"). Against Romana's advice, the Doctor leaves the Argolins and Foamasi to make up and the Randomiser attached to the Recreation Generator (thus leaving the TARDIS vulnerable to the Black Guardian). ===== The book begins with Vercingetorix conceding defeat to Julius Caesar. His surrendered weapons remain at Caesar's chair for several hours, until a Roman archer steals Vercingetorix's famous shield, which he loses in a game of dice to another legionary, who then loses it to a drunken centurion, in return for the centurion not reporting him for a military offence. The centurion himself uses the shield to pay for a jar of wine at a nearby Gaulish inn; later, the shield is given by the innkeeper to a survivor of the Battle of Alesia. Following this prologue, Chief Vitalstatistix is made helpless by a sore liver, a consequence of overeating and drinking at his last banquet. Having demonstrated this, and temporarily eased the chief's pain, the druid Getafix sends Vitalstatistix to a hydrotherapeutic center in Arverne to be cured, with Asterix and Obelix (and Dogmatix) as his escort. On the way, they stop at various inns, where the heavy food revives the chief's sickness. At Arverne, the Gauls initially remain together; but because Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix are in no need of special diets, they feast on wild boar and beer while everyone else eats "boiled vegetables". When other patients complain, Vitalstatistix sends Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix to Gergovia. Along the way, the Gauls are offended by Roman envoy Noxius Vapus, and vanquish his guards. In the aftermath, Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix befriend the local tavern-keeper Winesanspirix, who retains them thereafter as guests. When Noxius Vapus makes his report to Caesar in Rome, Caesar plans a triumph on Vercingetorix's shield to "show them who's boss", and orders Vapus to search Arverne for it. When the initial investigations fail, the Romans send a spy, Legionary Pusillanimus; but on drinking too much wine at Winesanspirix's tavern, the latter discloses Caesar's plan and reveals his own knowledge of the shield's history, whereupon Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix set off in search of the shield themselves. To that end, they interrogate the archer, Lucius Circumbendibus, who now owns a wheel manufacturing business; the second legionary, Marcus Carniverus, who worked at a health resort before opening a restaurant; and the drunken Centurion Crapulus. Vapus and his men in turn search in vain for both the shield and Asterix and Obelix, as a running gag dirtying themselves with charcoal dust while searching the coal heaps belonging to Winesanspirix and their neighbors. The search eventually leads the two Gauls back to Winesanspirix, to whom Crapulus had given the shield in the prologue. Upon the protagonists' reunion with him, Winesanspirix confesses having given the shield to a dispirited Gaulish warrior, who is thereupon identified with the arrival of a newly cured and much slimmer Vitalstatistix. Vitalstatistix reveals he had the shield the whole time and it is the very one he is always carried upon. Upon Caesar's arrival at Gergovia, Asterix and the locals organize a triumph in which Vitalstatistix is carried on Vercingetorix's shield. Caesar then deports Vapus and his troops to Numidia, and Caesar promotes Centurion Crapulus to command of the garrison of Gergovia, and Legionary Pusillanimus to Centurion, on the grounds that they are the only "clean" legionaries present (despite both being visibly drunk). The Gauls return to their village (Vitalstatistix regaining his customary weight at the inns visited earlier in the story) to celebrate; but Vitalstatistix is forced into abstinence from the latter by his wife Impedimenta. ===== At the manor home of a 17th-century family, some unwelcome visitors arrive. In the console room, the Fifth Doctor is talking with Adric about the events of their previous adventure on Deva Loka (Kinda). Meanwhile, Nyssa is helping Tegan pack, as they plan to land back at Heathrow shortly after she left to join the Doctor (in Logopolis). Tegan and Nyssa enter the console room to find that they have landed at Heathrow... just 300-some years early. Tegan is distressed and storms out of the TARDIS. The four gather outside and immediately smell sulphur and head off to find the source. They are then attacked by villagers, but escape. In the confusion, Adric drops his homing device to find the TARDIS and the group is separated. Richard Mace, a highwayman and proclaimed thespian, encounters the group and takes them to safety inside a barn. While questioning Mace, they find out that some kind of comet recently landed nearby. The Doctor knows it was no "comet" and takes immediate interest in the necklace Mace is wearing. It is actually a bracelet used for prisoner control. The group begins searching the barn and comes across several power packs, and since they are far more fragile than the necklace, it means there were survivors. And so they set off to the nearby manor of the person who owns the barn. No one answers the front door, so the Doctor and Nyssa find a way in through a window. While searching the manor, they find more power packs, gunpowder and a mark from a high-energy weapon. The Doctor also notices that there is a wall where there shouldn't be one. And while he continues his investigation, Nyssa heads to the front door and lets the others in. But when they return to the wall, the Doctor is nowhere to be found. And as the four stand there trying to figure out where he's gone, a figure shuts and locks the door behind them. The Doctor then appears through the wall and explains it is a holographic energy barrier. The group walks through and joins the Doctor. Once in the cellar, they notice the place smells of soliton gas. Also in the cellar are caged rats and the device emitting the gas. While the five are searching the room, the figure from before, an android, sneaks up on them. It succeeds in "stunning" Tegan and Adric, while the Doctor, Nyssa and Mace are forced to retreat. The survivor is a Terileptil fugitive and interrogates Tegan and Adric about the Doctor. Meanwhile, the Doctor and the others find the Terileptil's ship near the manor while they plan on how to deal with the android: A sonic booster set up in the TARDIS might just deal with it. As they leave the ship, a group of villagers, all with the same device Mace found, approach them. They demand that the Doctor come with them, and when he refuses they attack. The three run back into the ship, now under siege by the villagers. The Doctor blasts open the rear hatch of the ship and the group escapes into the forest to find the TARDIS. The controlled villagers followed them at a distance. Back in the manor, Tegan and Adric have been placed in a locked room. While Nyssa heads back to the TARDIS to work on the sonic booster, the Doctor and Mace decide to question the local miller—who appears to be able to come and go from the manor with ease. Tegan and Adric eventually escape and head up into the manor proper. Adric succeeds in jumping out a window before Tegan is recaptured by the android. Unable to solicit any response from the controlled miller, the Doctor and Mace decide to join Nyssa in the TARDIS. However, just as they are leaving the mill, they are confronted by real villagers and are about to be killed for being "plague carriers". The Terileptil still needs the Doctor and sends the controlled Headman of the village in to stop them. The villagers then throw the Doctor and Mace into a room in the mill. At the manor, the Terileptil has placed a bracelet on Tegan. And back at the TARDIS, Adric arrives and assists Nyssa in setting up the sonic booster. The Doctor succeeds in disabling two of the bracelets and the Terileptil dispatches the android to retrieve them. Minutes later, the android, in the guise of the Grim Reaper, bursts into the mill, frightens off the villagers, and takes the Doctor and Mace back to the manor where they find Tegan under the control of the bracelet. The Doctor encounters the Terileptil, but his offer to take him off Earth is rejected. The Terileptil instead plans to kill everyone on Earth and take the planet over. Mace is also equipped with a bracelet and the Doctor is thrown in a room where the Terileptil destroys his sonic screwdriver. The Terileptil brings in a cage with a rat and explains his plan: he is going to use genetically enhanced plague carried on the rats to devastate the population. The Terileptil leaves and the controlled Tegan prepares to open the cage. The Doctor overcomes Mace and Tegan using spare power packs. The Terileptil leaves for his base in the nearby city and sends the android to take control of the TARDIS. The Doctor, Tegan and Mace escape and search the Terileptil's lab to find it completely empty. Mace tells the Doctor that the nearby city the Terileptil was referring to was London. The android arrives at the TARDIS and is successfully dealt with by the sonic booster Nyssa finished. Adric and Nyssa then move the TARDIS to meet the Doctor and the others at the manor. Using the TARDIS scanner, the Doctor locates the Terileptil in London. The TARDIS rematerialises there and the five enter the building. With the Terileptil leader are two others who get the jump on the Doctor and Mace. They manage to stop them, but the Terileptil leader's weapon starts to overload and detonates. The resulting explosion destroys the building and starts a raging fire. Mace stays behind to fight the blaze as the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric leave in the TARDIS. It is revealed that the fire is at Pudding Lane, the location where the Great Fire of London started. ===== As the TARDIS materialises in Earth's future, Adric argues with the Fifth Doctor about the lack of attention and respect he receives compared to Nyssa or Tegan. They explore a series of caves and are caught by soldiers led by Lieutenant Scott; Professor Kyle, accompanying Scott, accuses the four of killing the rest of her archaeological team. The Doctor convinces them to help, and Kyle leads them to the bodies of her team, near where they find an odd metal hatch. The group is attacked by androids, killing some of Scott's men, but the Doctor defeats them. He suspects the androids were guarding the hatch, and eventually opens it to reveal a powerful bomb that could destroy the planet. The Doctor and Adric defuse the bomb and trace its signal back to a freighter that is entering the Solar System. Scott and Kyle join the Doctor as they return to the TARDIS and travel to the freighter. The Doctor instructs the others to wait in the TARDIS while he and Adric explore the ship, and find a similar number of corpses in the cargo holds, before they are caught by the ship's security and taken to Captain Briggs, where they try to explain their situation. Throughout this, the Doctor and the humans are unaware that they are being monitored by the Cybermen, who seek to destroy the Earth. With the bomb defused on Earth, and the Doctor now interfering here, the Cyber Leader decides it is time to take command of the freighter. They leave the sealed containers they stowed away in, and began to march to the bridge. The ship's crew, along with help from Tegan, Scott, and Kyle, attempt to barricade their progress, but the Cybermen overpower them, killing Kyle and capturing Tegan, and soon the Cybermen control the bridge. Using Tegan to keep the Doctor in check, the Cybermen install a device that locks the controls of the freighter after setting it on warp-speed collision course with Earth, expecting the anti-matter engines will be powerful enough to destroy the Earth. The Cybermen then order the Doctor to take them to his TARDIS to escape, leaving behind Adric, Briggs, and other crewmen. Adric is able to pass the Doctor his gold Badge for Mathematical Excellence before they depart, knowing the Cybermen are allergic to gold. Scott and his men are able to overpower the minimal guard left on the bridge, and Adric immediately starts working to try to undo the control lock. His first attempt causes the ship to jump back in time about 65 million years; the Doctor, monitoring this on the TARDIS, observes that is about the same time of the extinction of the dinosaurs. Adric's second attempt brings the ship out of warp; though still on course to strike Earth, the impact would not be as devastating. Briggs, Scott, and the remaining crew use the opportunity to leave in escape pods. They try to convince Adric to come, but at the last moment, he returns, having another insight on defeating the lock. Scott relays their status to the TARDIS, and the Cyber Leader orders the Cybermen to kill the TARDIS crew, but the Doctor smashes Adric's badge on the Cyber Leader's chestplate, momentarily stunning it and allowing them to disable the Cybermen. The Doctor finds the TARDIS' controls have been damaged, making it impossible to rescue Adric. On the bridge, Adric nears undoing the lock when a weakened Cyberman fires on him, missing him and striking the keyboard, preventing Adric from making any further attempts. The TARDIS crew watches helplessly as the freighter collides with Earth in a massive explosion. ===== A group of futuristic humanoids in 1984 London are shot by two policemen led by Commander Lytton. Two of the humanoids, Galloway and Quartermaster Sergeant Stien, escape into the adjacent Butler's Wharf where a time corridor is situated, but Galloway is killed. Lytton transports back to his battle cruiser in the far future and prepares to attack a prison space station whose only prisoner is the creator of the Daleks, Davros, who has been held there since the events of Destiny of the Daleks. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are being dragged down a time corridor in the TARDIS following on from the events at the end of Frontios. They emerge in the London Docklands. The Daleks' assault on the prison station is fought off by the station crew, led by Dr. Styles and Lt. Mercer. Lytton persuades the Dalek Supreme to use poisonous gas, and the Daleks take over the ship. Watch Officer Osborn attempts to destroy Davros, but Lytton and an engineer break into the cell and kill Osborn before she can complete her mission, then release Davros from his cryogenic imprisonment. The Doctor and his friends meet the traumatised Stien, and all return to the warehouse to hunt for the end of the time corridor. There they meet a military bomb disposal squad, called in by builders. While the others are distracted, Turlough stumbles into the time corridor, ending up on the Dalek ship. Having learned that the Doctor is in the warehouse, the Supreme Dalek orders a Dalek to detain him. The Dalek travels through the time corridor and kills several of the squad's men before the Doctor advises them to focus their fire on its eyestalk, blinding it. In the resulting struggle, the humans push the Dalek out of the warehouse window, and it explodes on hitting the ground. Tegan suffers a head injury and blacks out. Only Styles, Mercer, and two guards are left alive of the original crew. Disguised in uniforms taken from Lytton's guards, they plan to blow up the station via its self-destruct system. Davros tells Lytton that he has been in cryogenic storage for 90 years, and vows to take his revenge on the Doctor. While Davros's travel chair is undergoing maintenance by the engineer Kiston, Lytton explains that the Daleks lost their war against the Movellans because of the development of a virus that specifically attacks Dalek tissue, and they have awakened Davros to find a cure. Davros demands that he remain on the prison ship while working on the virus, in case he needs to be refrozen. When Lytton leaves to discuss this with the Supreme Dalek, Davros uses a hypodermic-like mind control device to take control of Kiston. The Doctor and the members of the bomb disposal squad search for the Kaled mutant that was housed inside the destroyed Dalek. They kill it only after it wounds one of the squad's men. The Doctor and Stien head into the TARDIS to find out what is happening at the other end of the time corridor. The TARDIS materialises inside the Dalek ship and the Doctor tells Stien that they should find Turlough and make a swift exit. But Stien reveals that he is an agent of the Daleks. A patrol of Daleks close in to exterminate the Doctor, but Lytton enters and informs them that the Supreme Dalek has ordered that the Doctor be taken alive. The Daleks lead the Doctor away. Turlough joins the remnants of the ship's crew, telling them that the time corridor might help them escape the effects of the ship's self-destruct. On Earth, the man attacked by the Dalek creature appears disorientated. The group commander, Colonel Archer, decides to radio for help; he, seeks help from two policemen (Lytton's associates). As he tries their radio, a policeman holds a gun to his head. The Daleks reveal their plan of cloning the Doctor and his companions and using the clones to assassinate the High Council of Time Lords on Gallifrey. Stien begins the mind-copying sequence while the Doctor tries to talk him into resisting his Dalek mind conditioning. Styles and the two station guards are killed when trying to activate the self-destruct system. On Earth, a clone of Colonel Archer goes to the warehouse under Dalek control. The bodies of Colonel Archer and his men are later seen aboard the Dalek ship. Tegan makes an escape attempt but is recaptured by the policemen and taken to the Dalek ship. The squad's scientific advisor, Professor Laird, is shot while trying to flee the soldiers. Two Daleks take Davros, where he demands tissue to establish the cure. After consulting The Supreme Dalek, they agree but Davros uses the mind control device to take control of them. In the duplication chamber, Stien is overcome with confusion: the Doctor has realised that Stien's conditioning is unstable and tries to reawaken his ability to think for himself. Just as the mind-copying sequence nears completion, Stien breaks his conditioning and stops the process, freeing the Doctor. The Doctor finds Turlough and Tegan, and they return to the TARDIS along with Stien and the last surviving station crew member. Rather than depart, the Doctor decides to destroy Davros once and for all. With Stien and Lt. Mercer he heads to the station lab, leaving Tegan and Turlough in the TARDIS, which he has surreptitiously programmed on time delay to return them to the warehouse. The Doctor confronts Davros in the lab, but his chance to kill him is lost when Stien's conditioning re-asserts itself long enough to let Lytton's troops kill Lt. Mercer. Stien refuses to accompany the Doctor back to the time corridor and runs off into the station. Davros' army (consisting of Kiston, a soldier and two Daleks) is growing and he dispatches his Daleks to Earth. Anticipating resistance from the Daleks not loyal to him, Davros breaks open a capsule of the Movellan virus. Two Daleks enter with the intention of exterminating him but are themselves killed by the virus. At the warehouse, a battle takes place between Davros' Daleks and those loyal to the Supreme Dalek. The Doctor returns through the time corridor, realising that the "unexploded bombs" discovered earlier on are canisters containing the Movellan virus. He opens a canister that Tegan and Turlough have brought into the TARDIS, and places it behind the Daleks who start to die. Lytton has escaped and sees the Daleks' demise. He swaps his Dalek uniform for that of a policeman and joins his two fellow "bobbies" on their next vigil. Back on the space station, Davros prepares to flee in an escape pod, but the Movellan virus attacks and seemingly kills him. The Supreme Dalek appears on the TARDIS scanner and threatens the Doctor, claiming that the Daleks have duplicates of prominent humans all over Earth. Meanwhile, Stien is trying to activate the self- destruct sequence. Just as he is about to finish, the Daleks enter and exterminate him, but he manages to complete the sequence and destroys both the station and the Dalek ship. The Doctor calls for them all to leave, but Tegan refuses, saying she no longer enjoys her adventures, and runs off. The Doctor is saddened by this, and he and Turlough leave. As the TARDIS vanishes, Tegan runs back, remembering the Doctor's old admonishment: "Brave heart, Tegan." She calls out to the empty air that she will miss him. ===== While repairing the TARDIS console, the Sixth Doctor finds that the TARDIS has unexpectedly stopped in deep space and he can do nothing to fix it. Peri locates the TARDIS manual and presents it to the Doctor who dismisses it, as he knows perfectly well that transitional elements within the TARDIS have stopped producing orbital energy and only Zeiton-7 ore can realign the power systems. But as the Doctor explains, Zeiton-7 is exceptionally rare and only comes from one planet in the Cetes constellation: Varos. On Varos, originally a prison planet that now functions as a government system where voting is mandatory and torture and executions are televised, the Galatron Mining Corporation's swindling Mentor representative Sil is negotiating with Varos's Governor over the price of Zeiton-7 ore. Wanting a fair price for his people, and unaware that his Chief Officer is in league with Sil, the governor addresses his people to vote if they should hold out longer for a fair price. However, the popular vote is against the Governor, and as a consequence, he is subjected to exposure to potentially lethal Human Cell Disintegration Bombardment. As losing a subsequent vote will almost surely kill him, the Governor is forced to please the citizens by ordering the execution of a rebel leader named Jondar. By this time, the Doctor has managed to repair the TARDIS sufficiently and arrives at Varos's Punishment Dome close to where Jondar is to be executed. The guard stationed at the execution believes the TARDIS and its occupants are a hallucination resulting from the psychological effects of the Dome, which allows the Doctor and Peri to incapacitate the guard and free Jondar. But with their way back to the TARDIS blocked by more guards, the three flee, meeting up with Jondar's wife Areta. Venturing through the Punishment Dome to find another route to the TARDIS, the Doctor is separated from the others, who are arrested. With his attempt to escape now being broadcast as entertainment to all of Varos, he enters a corridor that appears in his mind as a desert, and due to its psychological effects, begins to die from thirst. By this time, Peri has been brought to the control centre in the company of the Governor, Sil and the other officers. They question Peri as she watches the Doctor's body being taken away to an acid bath for disposal. However, the Doctor has survived, and though he escapes, causing the death of two guards in the process, he is quickly arrested by Quillam, Varos's chief scientist. The Governor decrees that the Doctor and Jondar will be executed by hanging, while Peri and Areta are to be subjected to undergo horrific scientific experiments at the hands of Quillam and his cell mutator. At the gallows, at the last moment, the Doctor questions the Governor about Sil and his extortion while offering to help in the Zeiton-7 matter, causing Sil to order his bodyguards to rush the platform to pull the lever to silence the Doctor. But it turns out the execution was actually a farce to extract information out of the Doctor. The Doctor, who suspected this, agrees to help Varos on the condition that Peri and Areta are returned unharmed. However, Quillam refuses, even under duress, forcing the Doctor to resort to shooting the entire control panel. Luckily, the process has been halted in time, and the mutations are only temporary, and Peri and Areta soon return to their original selves. The four then escape back into the depths of the Punishment Dome towards a possible escape route before Peri, still in a stupor after the effects of the mutator, is recaptured and taken to the control centre. The Chief Officer and Sil make their final move on the Governor in hopes that losing the next vote will finally kill him, securing the way for them to control Varos and the Zeiton-7 ore. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Jondar, and Areta make their way into the End Zone of the Dome and the supposed exit. The vote starts and the bombardment begins, but the guard Meldak has a change of heart and stops the device, saving the Governor and Peri. The three then make their way to meet up with the Doctor. The Doctor's group is then chased by two cannibals, but loses them thanks to some deadly plant tendrils. The Chief and Quillam arrive on the scene but are entangled in the tendrils, killing them. The group then meet up with Peri, the Governor, and Meldak. They all make their way back to the control centre as Sil reveals the invasion force he had dispatched hours earlier to take Varos by force. However, Sil is mortified to learn that the invasion force has been called back, and a second Zeiton-7 deposit has been discovered, so his company has ordered him to obtain the Varosian ore at any price. The Doctor and Peri then bid the Governor farewell, taking some ore with them for the TARDIS. Soon after, the Governor issues a message to the citizens to abolish their government's injustice, torture, and executions. Citizens watch in disbelief, wondering what they should do now with their new-found freedom. ===== Malcolm King (Anthony Anderson) is a wealthy, selfish, obnoxious businessman who is about to divorce his wife Renee (Kellita Smith). She plans to ruin him financially during the court proceedings, and King is willing to do anything to protect his fortune. He enlists his mistress, Peaches (Regina Hall), and her brother, Herb (Charlie Murphy), to stage a mock kidnapping. They are to make and receive a huge ransom demand, which would keep the money safe from his wife. Unfortunately for him, two other people have similar plans to kidnap him; Angela (Nicole Ari Parker), an aggrieved employee and Corey (Jay Mohr), a good-natured yet hapless nobody who lives in his grandmother's basement and needs $10,000 after being threatened by his adopted sister. ===== The plot and graphics are similar to those of Yoshi's Story for the Nintendo 64. When Bowser starts wreaking havoc on Yoshi's Island, a book spirit named Hongo traps the entire island within the pages of a storybook. Only by locking Bowser away, Yoshi can convince Hongo to release the rest of the island, so he sets out to progress through the chapters of the book. ===== The film follows the lives of multiple characters, all of whom are connected via their patronage of a small Brooklyn tobacconist store managed by Auggie (Harvey Keitel). Brooklyn Cigar Co. was located on the corner of 16th Street and Prospect Park West. Auggie takes a photograph of the store from across the street at 8:30am every morning. A recently-widowed writer Paul Benjamin (William Hurt) sees his wife in one of the pictures, and breaks down. Later, he is saved from being run down by a truck by a young black man named Rashid (Harold Perrineau Jr.), whom he invites to stay in his apartment. Rashid accepts, saying he was recognised by robbers and his life is in danger. He tracks his father (Forest Whitaker) down to a small-town gas station, which he sketches. His father, not recognising him, befriends him, and Rashid gives his name as Paul Benjamin. Paul finds $5000 that Rashid has stashed in the apartment. Paul tracks Rashid down, and introduces himself to his father, who comments that Rashid and him share a name, and calls him out. Rashid admits that his real name is Thomas Jefferson Cole, which his father also has difficulty believing, as it is the name of his son. Rashid is hired to work at the tobacconist, but ruins a shipment of cigars when the sink overflows. He gives Auggie the $5000 to keep his job. Another thread has Auggie's old girlfriend (Stockard Channing) re-visit, asking for money for Felicity (Ashley Judd), who she implies is his daughter. Auggie later gives her the same $5000. The many story lines never really connect, except through Auggie. At the end of the film Auggie tells Paul a tender story about spending Christmas with a blind grandmother who at first thinks, and then pretends, he is her grandson. The story is based on writer Paul Auster's piece "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story", published in The New York Times on Christmas day, 1990. During and after the closing credits, Auggie's story is enacted in a poignant black-and- white sequence to the soundtrack of Tom Waits's Innocent When You Dream. ===== thumb The Buzz on Maggie follows Maggie Pesky (Jessica DiCicco), an expressive 13-year-old fly and her family; parents Chauncey (Brian Doyle-Murray) and Frieda (Susan Tolsky); brothers Aldrin (David Kaufman) and Pupert (Thom Adcox); and sister Bella (Tara Strong), who is still a maggot. The family resides in an old milk carton in a suburban fly metropolis called Stickyfeet, which is located in a dump. Maggie has an ambitious and adventurous personality and aspires to become a rock star. Her approach to life often suffers unexpected consequences that puts herself in jeopardy, as she often follows her own impulses although they go against the rules or her parents' wishes. However, she ultimately learns her lesson, which was one of the core themes for the show's conception. Maggie attends a junior high school called Buzzdale Academy with her best friend Rayna Cartflight (Cree Summer) and nemesis Dawn Swatworthy (Tara Strong). The school's staff include the sneaky Principal Peststrip (Jeff Bennett), pompous Mr. Bugspit (Curtis Armstrong) and gruff Mrs. Wingston (Candi Milo). The Buzz on Maggie uses a slapstick comedy style and relies slightly on gross-out humor. It also includes several insect aspects, such as flies' appetite for spoiled and rotten food. The show features various references to pop culture and common themes, such as sibling rivalry and peer pressure, from a fly's point of view. ===== While the four boys are camping at Stark's Pond they hear something in the woods. They seek help from Stan's uncle Jimbo and his war buddy Ned, who has lost his electrolarynx. Using a trap they discover an unusual creature which resembles a humanoid duck which turns out to be extremely annoying to everyone in town with the exception of Cartman, who is enchanted by its antics. The town has a meeting to decide what is to be done about the creature when representatives from the Department of Interior (DOI) show up and inform the townspeople that it is a near-extinct "Jakovasaur", which they intend to use to repopulate the species. The townspeople name the creature "Hope" despite its name actually being "Joon- Joon". Another Jakovasaur, which speaks English and is named "Jakov" makes itself known by seeking out Cartman and telling him he's looking for his wife Joon-Joon. Cartman, Kyle and Stan take Jakov to his wife in the barn where she is being held, but the townspeople hear them. Meanwhile, Jimbo brings Ned another voicebox, however he buys the wrong model and Ned is now forced to speak with an Irish accent. It is decided that the Jakovasaurs are to be given their own home in the hope that they will breed. However, problems arise when it is determined that both Jakov and Joon-Joon lack any genitalia. Dr. Mephisto instead artificially inseminates Joon-Joon, and after a gestation period of only four days, Joon-Joon gives birth to an entire litter of baby Jakovasaurs. It is quickly determined that the Jakovasaurs are a major disruption to everyday life for the people of South Park. The DOI reps sent to help repopulate the Jakovasaur species decide to abandon their duties because of how annoying the Jakovasaurs are. They make Cartman an official "Department of Interior Person", telling him he has authority and people must respect it. The episode begins to outline some of the issues surrounding illegal immigration. Fed up with the Jakovasaurs, the townspeople convince them to move to Memphis where they'll fit in as all the people there are "big, loud, annoying, and stupid". When Cartman finds out about the plan, he convinces the Jakovasaurs to stay in South Park instead. The townspeople then come up with a different way to get rid of the Jakovasaurs forever by rigging a game show in which Jakov will play against Officer Barbrady so that Jakov will win a trip to France with "50 of his closest relatives." Because Jakov is so stupid, Barbrady actually wins, but everyone wants the Jakovasaurs gone so they declare him the winner anyway. Stan, Kyle and Kenny try to distract Cartman from the game show so he does not realize it is fixed and take him to classify a "new antelope species" they found in the woods (which is actually Kenny with branches taped to his head, who eventually gets eaten by a bear that mistakes him for an antelope). Cartman realizes the trick and figures out the game is rigged, prompting him to rush to warn Jakov. Cartman is too late and he arrives at the airport just as the plane carrying Jakov and his family taxis down the runway and lifts off. The townspeople approach Cartman and tell him they learned that not every form of life is worth saving, and that it is better to let nature run its course. During this, Ned voices his input with a voice box that accurately captures his original voice (as heard in flashback during "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka"), only for him and Jimbo to conclude that said voice box sucks. The episode ends showing the Jakovasaurs on tour in Paris, looking for the Pyramid, when Jakov trips and crashes into a cafe full of French people. Rather than getting annoyed, the French people instead laugh and remark on how he reminds them of Jerry Lewis. ===== Ann Burden is a teenage girl who believes she is the last survivor of a nuclear war. Since her family's disappearance on a search expedition, she has lived alone on her farm in a small valley spared from radiation poisoning. A year after the war, a stranger in a radiation-proof suit approaches her valley. Afraid he might be dangerous, Ann hides in a cave and does not warn the man when he mistakenly bathes in a radioactive stream. When he falls ill, her fear of being alone forever leads her to reveal herself to help him. She discovers that the stranger is John Loomis, a chemist who helped design a prototype radiation-proof "safe-suit" at an underground lab near Ithaca, New York. Ann moves him into her house and fantasizes about eventually marrying him. Loomis becomes delirious, with traumatic flashbacks to the underground lab. He talks of how he shot his coworker, Edward, who tried to take the safe- suit to find his family. Though troubled by this revelation, Ann nurses him through his illness and keeps secret her knowledge of Edward's death. As Loomis recovers, Ann is taken aback when he forbids her to touch the safe-suit and begins giving her orders on farming and managing resources. His explanation that they have to plan "as if this valley is the whole world and we are starting a colony," makes her uneasy.O'Brien, p. 152. Her uneasiness increases when she asks if he was ever married, and he grabs her hand roughly, rebuking her when she accidentally hits him while trying to regain her balance. One night soon afterwards, she awakes to hear Loomis in her room. When he attempts to rape her, she flees to the cave again. Later, Ann approaches Loomis and proposes sharing the valley and farm work but living apart. He professes surprise when she tells him she won't live with him anymore and asks why, as if he has no idea. Ann remembers that he acted the same after he had grabbed her hand, "as if nothing had happened, or as if he had forgotten it,"O'Brien, p. 189. She refuses to justify her choice to him, to tell him where she is living, or to come back to live with him. Loomis answers that he has no choice but to accept her proposal, though he hopes she will reconsider and "act more like an adult and less like a schoolgirl".O'Brien, p. 190.. Though the arrangement is "unnatural and uneasy," and Ann worries about surviving winter, she sticks by her decision and wishes Loomis had never come.O'Brien, p. 192, 195. Loomis locks the store, cutting off her supplies. When she approaches him for the key, Loomis shoots her in the ankle. Ann flees, realizing that he had not shot to kill, only to lame her to make her easy to capture. Loomis uses her dog, Faro, to track her to the cave, where he burns her belongings, though Ann escapes. Ann's ankle wound becomes infected. As she recovers, she has feverish dreams of another valley where children wait for her to teach them. Ann comes to believe the dreams may be true and Loomis is insane, so she plans to steal the safe-suit and find her dream valley. Moreover, she decides to kill Faro to prevent Loomis from tracking her, though she is later unable to do so. However, Faro is fatally poisoned swimming across the dead creek to her. Ann finally acts on her plan. She lures Loomis from the house with a note offering to talk if he meets her unarmed, then steals the safe-suit and waits for Loomis to arrive. When he does, she reveals her knowledge of Edward's murder, which shocks Loomis enough to stop him from shooting her. He begs her not to leave him alone. Ann tells him she will send people to him if she finds any, and leaves. Loomis's last action is to call out that he once saw birds circling to the west. Ann walks west into the radiated zone, hoping to see a green horizon. ===== Homer Simpson sits on a park bench holding a box of chocolates, when Chief Wiggum appears to arrest him for impersonating a movie character. Homer tells Wiggum a story that he is not interested in at first, but becomes more intrigued when Homer uses flashbacks to help him tell the story. The Simpson family then arrives to take Homer to the Friars’ Club, where he is roasted by Krusty the Clown and other prominent citizens of Springfield. Among those roasting him are his children, Bart and Lisa, and his boss Mr. Burns who tries to warn the people of Springfield of Homer's incompetence which, much to his dismay, they think is a joke. The roasters utilize more clips from previous episodes. Soon, Kang and Kodos arrive at the roast and declare that humans are stupid, as demonstrated by more clips. However, when they probe Maggie's brain and see her memories through a monitor, the emotional impact seems to be too much for them and it appears they are crying, but they then inform everyone they were just vomiting from their eyes and say Maggie's memories just made them more angry. However, Maggie's mind also reveals more clips, this time consisting of various celebrities. Kang and Kodos love celebrities so they and the citizens make a deal, they agree to spare the Earth if everyone agrees to give them a place in the People's Choice Awards and the Daytime Emmys. They do, and Kang and Kodos enjoy the award ceremony. The episode ends with the song "They’ll Never Stop the Simpsons", which recounts additional past plots, possible future plots, and an apology for airing this clip show. ===== Homer is told that he has an overdue book from the library, which he checked out when Bart was a baby. He says that he had intended to read to Bart every day, but various things had gotten in his way. Before he returns it, he reads from the book, telling three stories. ===== The Simpson family watches the pilot episode of Police Cops, which follows a duo of suave and dashing detectives, Lance Kaufman and Homer Simpson. Homer is delighted with the positive attention he receives from townspeople for sharing the lead character's name, as well as the character's personality, despite the family telling him it is just a coincidence. Following the pilot, however, the Homer Simpson character is rewritten as Lance's overweight and inept comic relief sidekick who mistakes the toys for guns program as "guns for toys" and the police chief's insulin shipment for illegal drugs, resulting in Homer being mocked by the people of Springfield. Humiliated, he appeals to the producers to change the character back, but they refuse. Then, after unsuccessfully attempting to sue the company for improper usage of his old name, Homer legally changes his name to "Max Power". Though the negative attention fades away, Marge is unhappy that Max changed his name without consulting her. While shopping at Costington's, Max meets a successful businessman named Trent Steel. Trent invites Max and the family to a garden party, despite Marge's reservations, where they meet many famous people, but Max finds out the party is an excuse to save a redwood forest from destruction. After travelling with the party guests to the forest, Max, Marge, and everyone else chain themselves to the trees to prevent the bulldozers from knocking them down. The Springfield police arrive and Eddie and Lou chase Max around his tree, trying to "swab" him with mace. As Max rounds the tree, the chain cuts into it. The redwood falls and knocks down all other redwoods, angering their newfound friends. Max later changes his name back to "Homer Simpson". ===== When Marge takes the family to the Family Fun Center, she notices Nelson intentionally knocking Milhouse off a racetrack and winning a BB gun from stolen prize tickets. Bart and Nelson attempt to be friends but Marge forbids Bart to be with Nelson. Bart goes to his house anyway to use his BB gun. When Nelson pressures Bart to shoot a bird in a nest, Bart accidentally kills it. Marge learns where he went, goes to Nelson's house and is furious after seeing what he did but instead of punishing him, she refuses to have anything to do with his destructive ways and leaves. Bart discovers two eggs in the bird's nest and not wanting the babies to die too, decides to hatch them, secretly keeping the eggs warm in his treehouse. Marge gets suspicious after noticing him spending more time in his treehouse but forgives him after finding out what he has been doing. With Marge's help, the eggs eventually hatch but the Simpson family is shocked when a pair of lizards emerge from them, whom Bart had already named Chirpy Boy and Bart Jr. Bart and Marge take the lizards to the Springfield Birdwatching Society, where Principal Skinner, explains they are Bolivian tree lizards, a breed that steals a bird's eggs and leaves their own to be watched after by the mother bird, which is then eaten by the offspring once they hatch. As Skinner wonders how their mother ended up in Springfield, the audience gets a flashback from a nervous Apu's perspective, revealing that a pair of the lizards had come with his shipment of Bolivian donuts and escaped his store while he was putting them on the shelf. Skinner says the lizards must be killed by law because they have killed many bird species. Bart escapes and runs away with the lizards, but Skinner catches up to him and they struggle on top of the society building. The lizards fall off the side but to everyone's disbelief, glide to the ground. The lizards grow in population and start to eradicate pigeons in Springfield. Since the town considered the pigeons a nuisance, they are delighted and Bart is thanked and honored by Mayor Quimby with a loganberry scented candle. Lisa worries the town will become infested by lizards but Skinner assures her they will send in Chinese needle snakes to eat them, followed by snake-eating gorillas, which will "simply freeze to death" when wintertime rolls around. ===== After going back-to-school shopping, Homer Simpson learns from Apu Nahasapeemapetilon that he can sell grease to make a profit. At breakfast, Homer begins frying up various amounts of bacon to use the grease to make money and decides to have Bart help him with his "grease business" which forces Bart to quit school. Meanwhile, on the first day back at school, Lisa volunteers to help Alex Whitney, a fashion conscious new student, by showing her around the school. To help her make new friends, Lisa takes Alex, Sherri, Terri, Allison Taylor and Janey Powers for lunch in the cafeteria after the two groups meet up, but shortly after abandon Lisa after seeing that Alex owns sophisticated accessories like a cell phone, a purse, and perfume. Homer and Bart begin their grease business and make sixty-three cents worth of grease from twenty-seven dollars' worth of bacon, much to Homer's glee and Bart's disappointment. After Bart points out that they need larger amounts of grease, the pair drive to Krusty Burger, where they attempt to steal grease from the fryers. After loading it into Marge's car, two employees of The Acne Grease and Shovel Company steal it, claiming they control the grease and shoveling business in the city. Alex convinces Principal Skinner to have a school-dance rather than the regular yearly event of apple picking. Skinner agrees, so Alex and Lisa, accompanied by Sherri, Terri, Janey, and Allison, visit the mall to purchase party supplies, but the girls detour and begin trying on outfits for the dance, despite Lisa's protests. The group leave the mall, none speaking to each other. Lisa decides not to attend the dance, but changes her mind and goes to the school to take tickets at the door. She is later forced to enter the dance hall, discovering the boys and girls are standing on different sides of the room, and explains to Alex that it is like this because they are only children, not adults. Homer and Bart arrive at the school during the school-dance to steal the grease in the school's kitchen which Bart told him about. They sneak inside and plant a hose in the fryer to suck it into the car, but Willie spots them and finds the hose, claiming the grease to be his retirement plan, and attempts to stop them inside the school vents; Willie grabs Homer's leg and strangles him with the hose sucking the grease, which explodes due to the increased pressure, causing the grease to flood into the dance hall. A grease fight begins among the students, where Alex eventually joins in after being told by Lisa to act her own age. ===== The story of the game is set in 1947 and depicts archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones returning to his digging career after his involvement in World War II. Sophia Hapgood, an old friend of Indiana and a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, visits him at his dig site in the Canyonlands, and informs him that the Soviets are excavating the ruins of Babylon. Led by Dr. Gennadi Volodnikov, a physicist interested in alternate dimensions, the Soviets' objective is to find a weapon more powerful than the nuclear bomb, giving them a decisive advantage in the Cold War. Sophia hires Indiana to investigate what exactly the Soviets are searching for, and he travels to their dig site in the Kingdom of Iraq. There, he joins up with Sophia's boss Simon Turner and finds out that Volodnikov is looking for the Babylonian god Marduk who lives on another plane called the Aetherium. Deep in the ruins of the Etemenanki, Indiana translates some ancient tablets with cuneiform writing explaining the true story behind the Tower of Babel: 2600 years ago, Nebuchadnezzar II was inspired by Marduk to build a great engine, but the frightened Babylonians tore the tower housing it down, leading four of the god's disciples to escape with some parts of this "Infernal Machine". Indiana embarks on a journey to find these machine parts before the Soviets do, and retrieves all four of them from a monastery in the mountains of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, an active volcano on Palawan in the Philippines, an Olmec valley in Mexico, and a tomb near Meroë in the deserts of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He is confronted by Volodnikov and Turner who both demand him to hand over the parts as they think they would not be safe with the other side. Untrusting of his fellow Americans, but opting for the lesser evil, he gives the parts to Sophia and Turner. Volodnikov says that it was probably better this way, as Marduk would have his revenge on those who desecrated the machine. Alarmed, Indiana travels back to the Room of the Tablets in Babylon, and finds a now-opened gate leading further into the ruins, to the core of the Infernal Machine. He catches up with Sophia and Turner, the latter of which intends to convince the other dimension to cooperate with the United States, and uses the machine parts to activate the engine. He pushes the unwilling Sophia into a mystical cage as a means of sending her to the Aetherium as an ambassador. Indiana sees no other way but to kill him to reclaim all parts and rescue her. However, the activated machine goes awry, and Indiana and Sophia are sucked into a portal that leads to the other dimension. There, he defeats the malevolent Marduk and frees Sophia from her cage. Having escaped back to Babylon, the team is greeted by Volodnikov, who is curious to find out if they encountered God on the other side, which Indiana denies. In the ensuing conversation, the Soviet doctor turns out to be a lot less extremist than assumed, and the three wander off into the sunrise in search of a good bottle of vodka. A bonus level sees Indiana return to the Peruvian temple from the opening of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, and has him find another golden idol in a secret room. ===== ===== Maury Dann (Rip Torn) is a successful country-western singer who travels around the Southern states in a Cadillac and gets himself into all sorts of adventures. The film opens with Dann performing in a small club with his band, entourage, and nagging girlfriend, Mayleen, in tow. He meets a young girl named Sandy backstage and seduces her in the back of his car while her boyfriend and boss, Mr. Bridgeway, is looking for her. The band returns to a nearby motel, bringing along Rosamond, a young lady from the show. The next day, Maury visits his invalid mother and, along with a couple of the guys from the band, goes on a hunting trip. He gets into a fistfight with Bob Tally over Maury's dog Snapper, who is not being properly taken care of by Maury's sick mother. After the fight, Maury reluctantly gives Snapper away to Bob, but fires him from the band before returning to the motel. During the trip, Maury seduces Rosamond in the back of the Cadillac, much to Mayleen's dismay. Later, while in the ladies' room, Mayleen warns Rosamond to stay away from Maury. The band stops by a local radio station to help promote Maury's new album, Payday, and to bribe a DJ with a gift of Wild Turkey liquor to keep playing more of Maury's records on-air. During a heated exchange, Maury kicks Mayleen out of the car and leaves her stranded by the side of the road. Maury take a detour and goes to visit his ex-wife, Galen, to celebrate his son's birthday. They get into an argument as well and Maury leaves without seeing his son. At a restaurant, Maury and company are confronted by a drunken Bridgeway, who claims that Maury had raped Sandy the day before. Maury and Bridgeway step outside to discuss the matter. Bridgeway pulls out a knife and tries to attack Maury, who quickly turns the knife around and stabs Bridgeway to death. To avoid a scandal and missing tour dates, Maury's tour manager McGinty arranges for his chauffeur, Chicago, to take the blame for Bridgeway's death. With Chicago gone, Maury hires a young fan named Ted, an aspiring country singer, to be his new driver. Rosamond, feeling distraught over Bridgeway's death, tells Ted that she wants to go home but doesn't have any money to go back. The local police and district attorney come to Maury's motel to bring him in for questioning over Bridgeway's death. He makes a dash for the Cadillac. With Ted in the back seat and Maury driving the car, Maury suffers a heart attack and dies behind the wheel. The film ends with Ted, who survives the crash but is badly injured, running out of a wooded area looking for help. ===== After dropping Shelly off at Cartman's home, the Marshes and Stan are off to a party at the home of Mr. Mackey. Stan is upset that he has to go and becomes even more angered when he is locked in a room with nerdy "Melvin" classmates that he does not like: Pip, Butters, and Dougie. After finding a box of women's clothing the three insist on playing Charlie's Angels, and an unenthusiastic Stan uses the game to find a way out of the basement to an upstairs bedroom where there are cookies and TV. Meanwhile, at the party, Mr. Mackey gives the Broflovskis and Marshes a tour of his home and leads them out to the hot tub. The wives leave Randy and Gerald outside in the hot tub, who declare the present evening to be a night of experimenting. The two talk about threesomes and decide to masturbate in front of one another. This leads to awkwardness after Randy questions his sexuality. The ATF thinks that the party inside is a suicide cult, and that they plan to kill themselves at the start of the meteor shower. Determined to prevent this, they set up a blockade and prepare to open fire on the cult if they do not desist; at one point, a couple of party-goers leave and are immediately fatally shot at (due to the ATF believing they had weapons despite them clearly not having any). The Newsman recalls that the last time the ATF did this was at the Waco siege where they ended up killing innocent people for false accusation, but the ATF dismisses him. All the while, the party-goers (who progressively become drunk) inside are unaware of their presence. Stan and the kids discover what is happening and try to speak to the ATF, but are shot at and forced to flee back inside. The kids record a video tape showing that the party inside is not a cult to the Newsman; the ATF realizes their mistake, claiming it was a "test simulation" and quickly disperse after their secret weapon, a large rocket called "The Negotiator", fires and destroys every home in the neighborhood except for Mackey's. Inside, Randy is extremely uncomfortable being around Gerald, who is concerned about Randy's behavior. When Randy finally admits to the entire party that he and Gerald engaged in group masturbation, he is relieved upon discovering that he's not the only one to have masturbated in front of a person of the same sex. Outside, the boys rejoice their triumph of saving the day and Stan realizes that the others are just normal kids like him. All is immediately forgotten, however, when Kyle returns from Jewbilee camp and Stan goes back to his old ways, telling Kyle that he had to "spend the evening with these friggin' Melvins". The credits roll with a parody version of Cher's "Believe" (which the ATF used to drown out the party-goers in an effort for them to submit, unaware that Mackey was playing the same song and which everyone enjoyed). ===== The film opens with young Radha sitting in a mustard field with her parents. Her mother tells her a tale of a person who wanted to see the ocean, but Radha says that she does not understand the moral of the story. The film flashes forward to Sita, a newly married woman on honeymoon with her husband Jatin, who is distant and shows little interest in Sita. Jatin is in a typical joint-family arrangement - he lives with his older brother Ashok, his sister-in-law Radha, his paralysed mother Biji and the family servant Mundu. Ashok and Jatin run a small store that sells food and rents videotapes. Jatin shows no care for Sita, and she learns that he only agreed to the arranged marriage in order to put an end to Ashok's nagging. Jatin continues to date his modern Chinese girlfriend, and Sita does not rebuke him. The rest of Jatin's home is not rosy either. Biji is immobile and speechless after a stroke, and Sita and Radha must constantly attend to her. Sita spends her days slaving in the hot kitchen, and finds herself lonely and frustrated at night because Jatin is out with his girlfriend. She yearns to break out of this stifling situation. It is revealed that Radha faces a similar problem. Many years ago, Ashok had come under the influence of Swamiji, a local religious preacher, who teaches that desires are the cause of suffering and must be suppressed. Ashok is completely taken by these monastic teachings and suppresses all his desires. He also donates large sums from the meager store income to treat the Swamiji's hydrocele condition. The Swamiji teaches that sexual contact is permitted only as a means for procreation, and Radha is infertile. Accordingly, Ashok aims to stamp out all his desires and has not slept with Radha for the past thirteen years. He puts Radha through an excruciating ritual in which they lie motionless next to each other whenever he wants to test his resolve. Radha is racked with guilt over her inability to have children and driven to frustration by the ritual. While the older Radha remains bound by tradition and subdued into silence, the younger Sita refuses to accept her fate. Sita's attitude slowly spills over onto Radha, who becomes slightly more assertive. One evening, shunned by their husbands and driven to desperation by their unfulfilled longings, Radha and Sita seek solace in each other and become lovers. Overjoyed at finding satisfaction in this manner, they continue it in secret. They eventually realise their love for each other and start looking for ways to move out. The pair's daily antics and adventures are witnessed by Biji, who disapproves, but is unable to stop them. After some time, Mundu becomes aware of their relationship, and he causes Ashok to walk in on Radha and Sita. Ashok is horrified. He is also shattered when he finds this incident has stoked his own long-dormant desire. Nita decides to pack her belongings and leave the house immediately, while Radha stays behind in order to talk to her husband. The women promise to meet each other later that night. Ashok confronts Radha, who overcomes her subservience and pours out her emotions. Amid this argument, Radha's sari catches fire, and Ashok angrily watches her burn without helping. Radha puts out the flames and recalls her mother's advice from when she was young - she can finally see her ocean. An injured Radha leaves Ashok, moving out in order to join Sita. ===== Prologue: An unnamed narrator tells how he befriended an old "Hispano-American" gentleman who never spoke of his past. His interest piqued, the narrator finally elicits the story. Venezuela, c. 1875. Abel, a young man of wealth, fails at a revolution and flees Caracas into the uncharted forests of Guayana. Surviving fever, failing at journal-keeping and gold hunting, he settles in an Indian village to waste away his life: playing guitar for old Cla-Cla, hunting badly with Kua-kó, telling stories to the children. After some exploring, Abel discovers an enchanting forest where he hears a strange bird-like singing. His Indian friends avoid the forest because of its evil spirit-protector, "the Daughter of the Didi." Persisting in the search, Abel finally finds Rima the Bird Girl. She has dark hair, a smock of spider webs, and can communicate with birds in an unknown tongue. When she shields a coral snake, Abel is bitten and falls unconscious. Abel awakens in the hut of Nuflo, an old man who protects his "granddaughter" Rima, and won't reveal her origin. As Abel recovers, Rima leads him through the forest, and Abel wonders about her identity and place of origin. Abel returns to the Indians, but relations become icy, because they would kill Rima, if they could. Rima often speaks of her dead mother, who was always depressed. Abel falls in love with Rima, but she (17 and a stranger to white men) is confused by "odd feelings". This relationship is further strained because Abel cannot speak her unknown language. Atop Ytaiao Mountain, Rima questions Abel about "the world" known and unknown, asking him if she was unique and alone. Abel sadly reveals that it is true. However, when he mentions the storied mountains of Riolama, Rima perks up. It turns out that "Riolama" is her real name. Nuflo must know where Riolama is, so a wrathful Rima demands that Nuflo guide her to Riolama under threats of eternal damnation from her sainted mother. Old, guilty and religious, Nuflo caves in to the pressure. Abel pays a last visit to the Indians, but they capture him as a prisoner, suspecting that he is a spy for an enemy tribe or consorts with demons. Abel manages to escape and return to Rima and Nuflo. The three then trek to distant Riolama. Along the way, Nuflo reveals his past, and Rima's origin. Seventeen years ago, Nuflo led bandits who preyed on Christians and Indians. Eventually, forced to flee to the mountains, they found a cave to live in. Hiding in the cave was a strange woman speaking a bird-like language. She was to be Rima's mother (never named). Nuflo assumed the woman was a saint sent to save his soul. Nuflo left the bandits and carried Rima's mother, now crippled for life, to Voa, a Christian community, to deliver Rima. Rima and her mother talked in their magical language for seven years, until Mother wasted away in the dampness and died. As contrition, Nuflo brought Rima to the drier mountains. The local Indians found her queer, and resented how she chased off game animals, and therefore tried to kill her. A mis-shot dart killed an Indian, and they fled Rima's "magic". In the cave, Rima is eager to enter Riolama valley. Abel reveals sad news: her mother left because nothing remained. She belonged to a gentle, vegetarian people without weapons, who were wiped out by Indians, plague and other causes. Rima is indeed unique and alone. Rima is saddened but suspected it: her mother was always depressed. Now she decides to return to the forest and prepare a life for herself and Abel. She flits away, leaving Abel to fret as he and Nuflo walk home, delayed by rain and hunger. They return to find the forest silent, Nuflo's hut burned down, and Indians hunting game. Abel, exhausted, is again taken prisoner, but isn't killed, as he quickly makes a vow to go to war against the enemy tribe. On the war trail, he drops hints about Rima and her whereabouts. Kua-Ko explains how, thanks to Abel's "bravery", the Indians dared enter the forbidden forest. They caught Rima in the open, chased her up the giant tree. They heaped brush underneath it and burned Rima. Abel kills Kua-kó and runs to the enemy tribe, sounding the alarm. Days later he returns. All his Indian friends are dead. He finds the giant tree burned, and collects Rima's ashes in a pot. Trekking homeward, despondent and hallucinating, Abel is helped by Indians and Christians until he reaches the sea, sane and healthy again. Now an old man, his only ambition is to be buried with Rima's ashes. Reflecting back, he believes neither God nor man can forgive his sins, but that gentle Rima would, provided he has forgiven himself. ===== Chaplin plays a laborer on a house construction site. When he gets paid, his wife wants all the money, but he manages to keep enough of it to go out drinking. He returns home just in time to pretend he has just woken up to go to work. ===== During the later years of the First World War Brigadier- General Hannay is recalled from active service on the Western Front to undertake a secret mission hunting for a dangerous German agent at large in Britain. Hannay is required to work undercover disguised as a pacifist, roaming the country incognito to investigate a German spy and his agents, and then heads to the Swiss Alps to save Europe from being overwhelmed by the German army. ===== Marc Revere, an American TV singer of Italian heritage, travels to Italy in search of his jet-setting fiancée, Carol Ralston, played by Peggie Castle. Revere moves in with his comical and good hearted cousin Pepe Bonelli (Renato Rascel), a struggling artist who also befriends a beautiful young girl, Raffaella Marini (Marisa Allasio), whom Revere had met on a train, and who develops a crush on him. Lanza, after some difficulty, lands a contract to sing in a fine nightclub, but misses his opening night due to unforeseen circumstances during a date with Carol. ===== Luther Heggs is a typesetter for the Rachel Courier Express in Rachel City, Kansas who lives at the Natalie Miller boarding house and aspires to be a reporter. But Luther is not taken seriously, being mocked by his peers when an assumed murder near the supposedly haunted house known as the Simmons Mansion was actually a local drunk who had merely been knocked unconscious by his irate wife. The next morning, Heggs overhears full-time reporter Ollie Weaver making light of his mistake. Ollie happens to be dating Alma Parker, a young woman Luther has a crush on. While at work, asked to add some "filler" to the paper, Luther learns from the newspaper's janitor Mr. Kelsey, who was a gardener at the Simmons Mansion, that the haunted house was the site of a murder-suicide committed by Mr. Simmons who killed his wife with a bladed instrument before jumping to his death from the organ loft. Legend has it that the ghost of Mr. Simmons can still occasionally be heard playing the organ at midnight. Luther is encouraged by Kelsey to write about the Simmons Mansion with his article a hit with the public, resulting in him being assigned to spend the night in the manor on the 20th anniversary of the murder-suicide. Luther musters the courage to enter the mansion, finding a hidden passage in the book shelf leading to the organ loft. At midnight, Luther runs down stairs when the old organ begin to play by itself, finding pruning shears stabbed in a portrait of Mrs. Simmons. His eerie story gets the town abuzz and causes a delay in the agenda of Nicholas Simmons, the nephew of the deceased couple who intends to demolish the mansion. With the bank unable to complete the arrangements due to his spiritualist wife, Nicholas decides to discredit Luther by taking him and Rachel Courier Express to court for libel. Luther's credibility is questioned when Nicholas's attorney brings in the former's grade school teacher as a character witness, Luther's testimony then twisted to make it appear that he concocted the story in the Simmons Manor to win a job as a full-time reporter. Luther's dramatic denial prompts the judge to order the jury and all interested parties to reconvene at the Simmons house before midnight to confirm the story. But nothing happens with everyone concluding that Luther made it all up, Alma having separated from the group prior to them reaching the organ loft. Everyone leaves the mansion, with Luther about to walk home when he hears the old organ and finds it played by Kelsey. Kelsey confesses of being responsible for the mysterious happenings Luther witnessed, unable to help Luther confirm his story as he was kept out of the mansion by officer Herkie taking his job as a security guard seriously. Kelsey explains that he needs Luther's help to expose the true case of Mr. Simmons's death before they hear a scream from the secret passage, finding Nicholas holding Alma captive. Kelsey confronts Simmons for his attempt of implicating him in the murder of the Simmons couple, the murder weapon used to killed Mrs. Simmons revealed to be Kelsey's shears. Nicholas is revealed to be tearing down the Simmons Mansion to destroy the hidden passage he used as his alibi. Luther rescues Alma by knocking Nicholas unconscious with a full body lunge from behind, the murderer is tied up to be arrested by the police with Kelsey explaining everything. Alma takes Luther's hand, grateful for his heroic act in saving her as they later marry at a small ceremony. At the end of the wedding, the wedding's organ music suddenly changes to the spooky organ music of the Simmons' mansion. Everyone turns to see the small organ's keys moving by themselves, hinting that there really is a ghost after all. ===== Many, many years ago, a spaceship carrying precious life-giving ore crashes to Earth. The chunks of ore scatter across the planet, and over the years, ten humans each find a stone of the ore, and are transformed into powerful beings, War Gods. And now, they are fighting each other to possess all the stones and become the ultimate super-warrior. To do this the player must beat the other 9 fighters, and a clone of the character the player has chosen, before going on to fight the sub-boss, Grox, and the main boss, Exor. ===== At a WNBA game which the Simpson family are attending, the announcer offers a $50,000 prize for successfully shooting a half-court basket. Ned Flanders kneels and prays before shooting the basket, and makes it. He declares he will donate the money, much to Homer's dismay. The following day, Homer asks Ned what his secret is, and Ned replies it is hard work, clean living, and prayer; since the first two would require effort on his part, Homer focuses on prayer. Later, Homer could not find the remote control and prays to God to help him find it. He finds it under the couch and sees that his prayers are working. After noticing his excessive praying, Marge tells Homer that he should not ask God to do everything for him, which he bluntly refuses to consider. On a Sunday, Homer is walking towards the church and looking up, talking to God. Not looking where he is going, he falls into a shallow hole. A lawyer convinces Homer to sue the church. In court, the jury finds in Homer's favor and he receives the deed to the church. Despite Marge's objections, he moves the family there, displeasing Reverend Lovejoy, who eventually leaves town. The church becomes a bar and hangout for the townspeople, and Ned observes that they have violated all Ten Commandments. As Marge worries that Homer is incurring God's wrath, a rainstorm begins and Homer is struck by lightning in the mouth (God's way of smiting him for his blasphemy, sacrilege and heresy). The town begins to flood, and the townspeople flee to the roof of the church. Just as the townspeople are about to enact revenge on Homer, Reverend Lovejoy returns in a helicopter and leads everyone in prayer, asking God to forgive them. The flood subsides, and afterwards Lisa gives logical reasons for the cause of the events that had happened, with the storm and flood caused by bonfire and trees being cut down, but when questioned about why the rain suddenly stopped, Lisa just says "I don't know. Buddha?". The camera then pans to God, Buddha and Colonel Sanders watching from Heaven, rationalizing that the humans have suffered enough. ===== The hero, Adi Cherryson, also known as Sneer (named after one of Zajdel's fellow science fiction writers Adam Wiśniewski- Snerg), is a lifter who "helps" people cheat during the computer controlled IQ exams by giving them the correct answers through a micro-radio communicator or taking the exam for them. Sneer, who is officially only a level 4, could easily become the top level 0, but he prefers his medium level which doesn't attract much attention. In addition to lifters a whole gallery of black market figures is presented - there are downers (who use their low IQ to provide realistic 'stupid' answers for those who want to keep their class artificially low like Sneer), chameleons (black market point dealers), key-makers (providing all sorts of illegal, special purpose Keys). The story starts when Sneer is questioned by an undercover police agent on the street and unintentionally reveals his intelligence by his answers (or so Sneer thinks). As a result, a few hours later his Key is locked and he is told to report to a testing station for an IQ test. Knowing that in such situation "electro- hipnosis" is used to prevent subjects from hiding their true intelligence, he solicits help of a "downer". He finds a suitable specialist through another "lifter" - Karl Pron. He goes to the testing station with the "downer", who takes his Key and goes inside, leaving Sneer waiting outside. A few minutes later Sneer sees the "downer" arrested. Without his Key he faces the reality of not having a shelter and being able to even find anything to eat without points. Wandering through the city, he sees some of the misery of life in Argoland he didn't notice before. Finally, he meets mysterious Alice, who gives him shelter and some mysterious clues about a singer and a song about the lake Tibigan. In the morning he meets the "downer" and learns how he secured his release through a ruse - he reported Sneer's Key as found on the street. Sneer goes to the central police station and retrieves his Key, but the experience makes him uncomfortable, and he starts to look at his world in a different way. He visits his parents and an old friend, a doctor, revealing to the reader the history of this world and some further facts about it. He also tries to listen to the song Alice told him about and discovers that theoretical freedom of press is in fact a fiction as some songs etc. can be prohibited. Meanwhile, Sneer is hired by a government official (a 'zero') to monitor the scientific lab dealing with Keys - The Key Institute. Working undercover as a doorman, Sneer discovers to his amazement that the Key Institute that should know everything about the Keys, having designed them, is in fact studying them as if they were an alien object. Meanwhile, his "lifter" friend Karl Pron tests a new counterfeited Key, which gives the owner an unlimited amount of yellow points. This Key was ordered by the group of '0's – who in fact work in the lab on which Sneer is now spying upon. When Sneer obtains the super Key, he is taken to the meeting with top officials of the local government, where he learns that the social system of 'Argoland' is, in fact, an experiment imposed upon the humanity by the Aliens. The 'over-zeroes' form a ruling class, which suppresses dissent fearful of the Aliens but permits all kinds of irregularities which they see as preserving the human nature of people. The end is largely mystical, but it suggests that, with the help of Alice, Sneer succeeds in saving humanity, though it is not clear exactly how he achieves that. ===== Paradyzja (from "paradise") is the story about the human colony on a space station orbiting a distant and mineral rich star system. The colony is controlled by a totalitarian regime. All human activity is tracked by electronic devices. It had been primarily devised as a ring in which the gravity force is simulated by the centrifugal force exerting upon all objects inside a ring tube in the direction opposite to the centre of the ring. The space station was built accidentally. The expedition had to settle on the planet Tartar in order to live there and exploit the natural goods. But General Cortazar, the leader of settlers, decided that Tartar was not suitable for settling because of a lack of good conditions for living, so the living place had to be built as a space station on the Tartar's orbit. On Paradise, living rooms are made of transparent material and to get to some of them, one must pass through other living rooms. Personal watches are not allowed there; the only clocks are those in living rooms. Rinah Devi's first impression is that all people strictly adhere to the regime law, but he then discovers that they had devised various ways to work around the system. One of them is "the only language of truth", Koalang, an artificial poetic language invented by the inhabitants of Paradise to evade the electronic eavesdropping system. The government and the safety service is trying to suppress every possible knowledge of physics, which could allow a verification of the statements about what Paradise is as presented to Paradisians. That is why every research in physics is blocked, especially every research about Coriolis force. The main hero discovered it when he was trying to check whether the forces really differ on every floor: all things that would be used to make such an experiment, even such as a spring from his ballpen, have been taken from him by the customs officers and no other things that would make such a simple experiment possible are accessible. Then, he discovers that minutes on clocks in living rooms are not equal in length. Finally, he finds out that Paradise is not a ring-tube space station but a train of buildings lying on the surface of the planet. In addition, Tartar is a planet quite well suitable for settlement, and the group in charge built some buildings and gardens for itself and kept the majority of settlers in the fictional Paradise and made them believe that it was an artificial planet. ===== ===== Having achieved fame and financial security, Captain Sir Horatio Hornblower has married Lady Barbara Leighton (née Wellesley) and is preparing to settle down to unaccustomed life as the squire of Smallbridge in Kent. He still yearns to serve at sea and accepts with alacrity when the Admiralty appoints him a commodore, puts him in command of a squadron and sends him on a diplomatic and military mission to the Baltic. His primary aim is to bring Russia into the war against Napoleon. Hornblower is shown dealing with the problems of squadron command, and using naval mortars (carried on special ships known as bomb vessels) to destroy a French privateer. This leads to the French invasion of Swedish Pomerania. Later his squadron calls at Kronstadt, where he meets with Russian officials, including Tsar Alexander I, who is favourably impressed by Hornblower and his squadron. Hornblower narrowly averts a major diplomatic incident when his interpreter, a Finnish refugee assigned to him by the Admiralty, attempts to assassinate the Tsar at a court function. After Russia enters the war, Hornblower's squadron takes an important role in the defence of Riga, which is besieged by French forces. The bomb vessels again take an important role, and so do amphibious operations under the protection of the squadron. The siege is finally broken, and Hornblower negotiates the defection of Prussian troops forced to accompany Napoleon's army into Russia. At this point it becomes clear to the accompanying Brown that Hornblower is gravely ill, apparently with typhus. In some editions of the novel the story ends here with the hallucinating Hornblower imagining himself being greeted in Hampton Court by Lady Barbara and his infant son. C.S. Forester however provided an additional chapter in which the convalescent Hornblower returns safely to Smallbridge in time for Christmas. During the siege and pursuit, Carl von Clausewitz, a German officer in Russian service, who is later to become famous as a military theorist and writer, is a character. ===== Hornblower alters the appearance of his own vessel, the Porta Coeli, so it can masquerade as the mutinous vessel. As dusk falls, he follows a valuable blockade runner into port, pretending to be the Flame. Then, once the two vessels are moored, he captures it and takes it out to sea. He then pursues the Flame, which retreats to the French port. Believing the mutineers responsible, the French send four gunboats to take her. Hornblower manages to exploit the fighting to capture both the Flame and a gunboat. Seine River Among the French prisoners is Lebrun, the young and ambitious assistant to the mayor of Le Havre. Lebrun asks to speak with Hornblower privately; he proposes to surrender Le Havre to the English fleet. Hornblower and Lebrun arrange a plan: Lebrun's role is to undermine those parties who would resist a British seizure of the city. Overcoming some tense moments with audacity, Hornblower is able to capture the city with a half battalion of Royal Marines and finds himself its military governor. Hornblower finds his new duties different from that of commanding a naval vessel or squadron. He finds his role demanding, in part because he is such a demanding perfectionist. The Duke of Angoulême, one of the heirs to the Bourbon dynasty, is sent to assume control of the civil leadership. Hornblower hears that Napoleon has been able to amass a strong force, to be transported by barge down the Seine to retake Le Havre. He sends a force, borne by half a dozen large ship's boats, to try to blow up the barges and ammunition. He puts his best friend, Captain William Bush, in command. The raid is a success and the French force is stopped, but an unexpected explosion kills most of the British, including Bush. Hornblower is raised to the peerage, possibly in part to provide him with more dignity, gravitas, when dealing with the French heir's entourage, as well to reward him for his accomplishments. During the following peace, Hornblower's wife Barbara accompanies her brother, the Duke of Wellington, to the Congress of Vienna, leaving Hornblower at loose ends. He decides to visit the Comte de Gracay, where he resumes his relationship with the Comte's widowed daughter-in-law, Marie. When Napoleon escapes from Elba and raises a new army, Hornblower, the Comte and Marie lead a guerrilla fight against the Imperial forces. They are eventually defeated, and Marie dies from a leg wound. Hornblower and the Comte are captured and condemned to death, but news of the Emperor's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo arrives just in time to save their lives. ===== The Simpson family gathers to celebrate Maggie's birthday. After the party, Grampa feels depressed, so Marge sets him up for a date with her mother, Jacqueline. Eventually, the couple falls in love, which enrages Homer, who believes that old people should not date each other — especially in-laws — and fears that his children will become "freaks" if the two decide to marry. To impress Jacqueline, Grampa takes her out dancing, but when he does, Mr. Burns steals her from him and breaks his heart. Burns declares that he is in love with Jacqueline, and they are going to get married, against Marge's interest. Meanwhile, Bart buys a $350 Itchy & Scratchy animation cel with one of Homer's credit cards. In order to pay Homer back, Bart blackmails Burns by threatening to ruin his suit before his date. On the day of the wedding, Grampa crashes Burns' and Jacqueline's wedding ceremony and asks that Jacqueline marry him instead. Partly due to Burns' boorish behavior, she decides not to marry either man. Deciding that Jacqueline's decision is good enough for him, Grampa grabs her and they run out of the church and onto on a bus, leaving Burns heartbroken. On the bus, the two sit silently, contemplating what will happen between them now, before Grampa yells at bus driver Otto to turn the music off. After being rebuffed, Grampa talks over the song and credits about why he loves Jacqueline, before being cut off by the Gracie Films logo. ===== In November 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his family at their house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. He claimed that he was persuaded to kill them by voices he heard in the house. One year later, married couple George and Kathy Lutz move into the house along with Kathy's three children from a previous marriage, Billy, Michael, and Chelsea. The family soon begins experiencing paranormal events in the house. Chelsea claims that she has befriended a girl named Jodie, a name belonging to one of the murdered DeFeo children. One night the couple decide to go out, and they hire a babysitter to watch the three kids. When the babysitter, Lisa, arrives, they come to find out that she had previously been hired to babysit for the DeFeos. Lisa tells them about the murders that took place in their house. When she goes to Chelsea's room, Chelsea tells her that she is a bad babysitter, claiming that Jodie told her so. Lisa begins to scold Jodie for being the reason behind her getting fired. Then Billy dares Lisa to go inside the closet (the same closet where Jodie was murdered), and she gets locked inside. After a few seconds she encounters Jodie herself, and begs to be let out. She goes into shock and the paramedics arrive to take her away; on the way to the hospital, Lisa tells Kathy that she had seen Jodie. George's behavior towards Kathy and her children becomes abusive and the paranormal activity continues. One night, George hears Harry barking in the boathouse. Seemingly possessed, he grabs the axe and proceeds to murder the family dog. The children look for Harry the next day, with George denying he knows where he is, despite Billy's suspicions. Kathy asks priest Father Callaway (Philip Baker Hall) to bless the house, as a protective measure to prevent any future paranormal incidents, but Father Callaway flees the house when he encounters such occurrences himself. Kathy discovers that the house once belonged to a cult preacher named Reverend Jeremiah Ketcham, whose evil actions towards Native Americans during his "mission" in 17th century Amityville are said to be the cause of the haunting at 112 Ocean Avenue. Meanwhile, George, as he is walking through the basement of the house, encounters the apparitions of the various Native Americans who were tortured and killed there by Ketcham centuries ago. Entering a dimly-lit room, George encounters Ketcham himself (though he is not aware of who he is), and the ghostly figure of the evil missionary turns around, picks up a knife, and slits his throat in an act of recreating his suicide, covering George with blood, and causing him to become nearly completely possessed. Kathy becomes convinced that George's abusive behavior is owed to a spiritual possession. Following urgent advice from Father Callaway, Kathy tries to evacuate her children from the house and escort them to safety, but the possessed George attempts to kill her and the children; Kathy knocks him out to prevent him from doing so and transports him away from the residence. Subsequently, George is released from the spirit's control and the family permanently leaves the house. A title card states that the family left within 28 days of arriving and never returned. Jodie is shown standing in the now empty house and screaming in terror while the house rearranges itself. Subsequently, she is pulled beneath the floor by a pair of disembodied hands. ===== On land after ceasing his use of laudanum, Stephen Maturin finds he has changed; his naturally "ardent" temperament returns and alters his relationship with his wife Diana, who is now pregnant with their child. Maturin looks forward to the arrival of the child he is certain is a daughter. As the high level traitor in British intelligence is not yet identified, the time on land raises risks to his friend Jack Aubrey, who agrees to sail immediately. Aubrey, Maturin, and their shipmates prepare for a mission to sail the letter of marque Surprise on a mission to South America. Upon reaching Lisbon, Sir Joseph Blaine intercepts Maturin with news that he and Aubrey are required to carry a diplomat to the Sultan of Pulo Prabang, a piratical Malay state in the South China Sea. Edward Fox is the envoy leading the mission to persuade the Sultan to become an English rather than French ally. The French mission includes the same English traitors - Ledward and Wray - who were responsible for Aubrey's former disgrace. With the Surprise under the command of Captain Pullings, Aubrey and Maturin return with Blaine to England, where Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, reinstates Aubrey as a Post-Captain in the Royal Navy and gives him command of the recently captured French ship Diane. The voyage south forms the crew, with frequent training on the guns; by the luck of a timely breeze and much hard rowing in the ship's boats, Diane escapes the inshore currents of Inaccessible Island. Sailing through the high forties (south latitude), she first touches land at Java, meeting Lieutenant Governor Raffles near Batavia, where they hear the first word of bank failures in England. Arriving in Pulo Prabang, Maturin meets fellow natural philosopher van Buren and helps the arrogant envoy Fox plot against the French mission. During the leisurely negotiations with the Sultan, Maturin climbs the "Thousand Steps" to Kumai, a protected valley in the crater of a volcano and home to the orangutans he has been longing to see. Returning to town, he learns that Abdul, the Sultan's cupbearer and catamite has been caught in a compromising position with both Ledward and Wray. Abdul is executed and Ledward and Wray are banished from the court for their indiscretions, effectively ending the French mission. Wray and Ledward are eventually assassinated and Maturin and van Buren dissect their bodies. After a feast to celebrate the treaty, at which Fox and his retinue behave without discretion, the Diane makes for Batavia and to rendezvous with the Surprise. Fox behaves with increasing arrogance during the return voyage, the success of the treaty having gone to his head. After missing their rendezvous, the Diane sails toward Batavia, so Fox can sail to England on another ship. The frigate strikes a hidden reef and the ship cannot be floated again. They set up camp on a small island, but Fox insists on sailing in Diane's pinnace, rather than waiting until the ship is again afloat. He leaves Edwards aboard with an official duplicate of the treaty. A typhoon destroys the marooned Diane and Aubrey believes that the pinnace, if caught in the same storm, likely did not survive. With the situation growing desperate, Aubrey directs the men to build a vessel to get them to Batavia. ===== Homer is extremely late for work after sleeping for more than a whole day. As punishment for his lateness, Mr. Burns makes Homer eat toxic waste in a dark room. Lenny and Carl come in and invite Homer to go bowling. Homer lies to Marge on the phone, telling her that he was not able to attend a tea party date with Maggie because there was a breakdown at the plant and Lenny was hospitalized. Homer then goes bowling with Lenny and Carl; this scene is noted for the classic line "Spare me your guttermouth." Homer bowls a 300 game, and makes the evening news, earning the attention of the entire town. With this accomplishment, Homer becomes a celebrity, appearing on The Springfield Squares. The appearance ends disastrously, with Homer getting into a fight with fellow celebrity guest Ron Howard, leading Kent Brockman to lament inviting a "flavor of the week" like Homer onto the show. Determined to prolong his moment in the limelight, Homer attempts a walk-on during a Penn & Teller special. This also backfires on him as Penn chases him off the stage with a crossbow (and leaves Teller slowly descending into a tub of shark- filled water). Homer's 15 minutes of fame wanes, and he becomes "yesterday's news" according to an entertainment news show. Worrying that his life has peaked, he attempts to commit suicide by jumping from a tall building, but Otto, who is bungee jumping, saves him. Thankful for being alive, Homer dedicates his life to his children after seeing Ron Howard take his children to a zoo. He tries, but fails to connect with Bart (who already has a father figure in construction workers, the Internet, and Nelson Muntz) and Lisa (who is too intellectual for him), so he decides to spend more time with Maggie. He tries to teach her how to swim, but she does not trust him and will not go in the water. When Homer takes Maggie to the beach, he gets caught in a rip current and nearly drowns. Maggie swims out and pulls him to shore. For saving him, Homer treats Maggie to a game of bowling--and she bowls a perfect game, but Homer penalizes her for going over the foul line. ===== Homer gets a magazine loaded with personality tests and quizzes his friends and family with them. Later on, he takes his own test which reveals that has only three years left to live. Terrified of his supposedly impending death, he develops insomnia and goes insane. Homer visits the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's psychiatrist, who suggests that he take a long vacation. The Simpsons go on a trip to Florida and find themselves in the middle of a raucous spring break when they get there. Marge wants Homer to stay in his hotel room, but he escapes to party and attends a concert featuring Joe C. and Kid Rock. Homer becomes the life of spring break until it ends and the wild college students return to their studies. Homer, who still wants to party, rents an airboat and forces his family to come with him. He races through a swamp, accidentally killing the state's most famous resident and reptile – an alligator named Captain Jack, whom Marge, Maggie, Lisa, and Bart saw on a tour earlier, while Homer made a fool of himself at the concert. A sheriff quickly arrives on the scene, and although Homer is the sole guilty culprit, the entire family is charged for killing the alligator. The family flees from the sheriff and during a car chase they are hit by a train that pushes their car on the rails for several miles. Eventually, the car is dislodged from the train, and the Simpsons escape to a restaurant, where they are given employment. They live in a nearby trailer and progressively turn into hillbillies. The sheriff eventually tracks them down and kidnaps them while they are sleeping. For their crimes (and Homer's foolish attempt at defending himself in court), the family is put into forced labor. One night when they are working at a party held by a judge in front of the capitol, tending to the guests (and failing to escape), Captain Jack strolls out of the capitol's doors, revealing that he was never killed, but was simply knocked out. The family is acquitted, though they are banned from entering the state of Florida again (leaving them only able to travel to Arizona or North Dakota). ===== The book begins with Asterix and Obelix hunting wild boar until one boar leads them to a Roman patrol, which the Gauls vanquish while the boars escape. In Rome, Julius Caesar orders M. Devius Surreptitious, the head of M.I.VI, service, to send an agent to infiltrate the Gauls. This agent is a Gaulish-Roman druid known as Dubbelosix, who travels in a folding chariot full of secret devices. Dubbelosix and Surreptitius communicate via a carrier fly, who develops a crush for Dubbelosix. In the Gaulish village, Getafix is depressed because he has run out of rock oil, which he requires to make the magic potion enabling the Gaulish resistance to Rome. The following day, Getafix is cheered by the arrival of Ekonomikrisis the Phoenician merchant but suffers a stroke upon hearing that he forgot to bring rock oil. When Chief Vitalstatistix tells Asterix and Obelix to fetch another druid to treat him, they discover Dubbelosix, who successfully revives Getafix with an alcoholic tonic. Asterix determines to go with Obelix and Dogmatix to obtain rock oil from Mesopotamia; Dubbelosix insists on coming, and they set off on Ekonomikrisis' ship. Along the way, they defeat pirates and Roman warships, while Dubbelosix secretly corresponds with the Romans, to arrange a blockade. The Phoenician ship finally lands at Judea, where Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix, and Dubbelosix disembark for Jerusalem, where some sympathetic traders help the Gauls to enter secretly, in spite of an attempt by Dubbelosix to alert the city guards. Leaving him behind, Asterix and Obelix make contact with Ekonomikrisis' supplier, Samson Alius, who directs them to Babylon as the Romans have destroyed rock oil supplies in Jerusalem. In the Syrian desert, Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix find themselves caught up in ongoing wars between the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites, Assyrians, and Medes, much to Asterix's frustration. In the ensuing arrow battles, their waterskin is pierced, but they find a source of rock oil in the ground and carry some back to Jerusalem in the repaired waterskin. There, the two Gauls capture Caesar's personal ship, as well as Surreptitious and Dubbelosix. Near the coast of Gaul, Dubbelosix seizes the waterskin of rock oil and, as he tries to force it open, Obelix leaps upon him, spilling the oil into the sea. Asterix has lost all hope, but when they come back to the village, they find the Gauls fighting Romans as merrily as ever, and learn Getafix has replaced the rock oil in his potion with beetroot juice. Out of dismay, Asterix has a stroke, but after being cured with the new potion, convinces Getafix to perform experiments before testing him. Thereafter, the Gauls send Dubbelosix and Surreptitius to Caesar in a gift-wrapped box. Caesar sends them to the Circus Maximus as punishment for failure, where they are covered in honey and chased by bees, with the lovesick carrier fly following behind. ===== The battle to save the outside world starts within as Jen Tate, a young woman of our world, faces the demons of alternate planes and discovers her own supernatural origin. In Oblivion, there are four distinct realms, each occupied by a demon race. Two are aligned with order and two with chaos. But the scales of balance are overthrown, and chaos is engulfing Oblivion. ===== Sid Boggle (Sid James) and his friend Bernie Lugg (Bernard Bresslaw) are partners in a plumbing business. They take their girlfriends, prudish Joan Fussey (Joan Sims) and meek Anthea Meeks (Dilys Laye), to the cinema to see a film about a nudist camp called Paradise. Sid has the idea of the group holidaying there, reasoning that in that environment their heretofore chaste girlfriends will relax their strict moral standards. Sid easily gains Bernie's co-operation in the scheme, which they attempt to keep secret from the girls. They travel to the campsite named Paradise. After paying the membership fees to the owner, money-grabbing farmer Josh Fiddler (Peter Butterworth), Sid realises it is not the camp seen in the film, but merely a standard family campsite. To add to their disappointment, it is no paradise but instead, a damp field; the only facilities being a very basic toilet and a washing block. They reluctantly agree to stay there after Fiddler refuses a refund and the girls approve of the place. There is further disappointment when the girls will not share a tent with the boys. Sid and Bernie soon set their sights on a bunch of young ladies on holiday from the Chayste Place finishing school. The ringleader of the girls is blonde and bouncy Babs (Barbara Windsor). In charge of the girls is Dr. Soaper (Kenneth Williams), who is fervently pursued by his lovelorn colleague, the school's matron, Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques). The girls soon leave for Ballsworth Youth Hostel, where Babs and her friend Fanny (Sandra Caron) change the room numbers on Dr. Soaper's and Miss Haggard's doors and convince Dr. Soaper that the female washroom, where Miss Haggard is, is the male washroom. Dr Soaper leads an outdoor aerobics session, during which Babs' bikini top flies off; he catches it. Other campers are Peter Potter (Terry Scott), who loathes camping but must endure his jolly yet domineering wife Harriet (Betty Marsden), with her irritating laugh, and naive first-time camper Charlie Muggins (Charles Hawtrey). Chaos ensues when a group of hippies arrive in the next field for a noisy all-night rave led by band The Flowerbuds. The campers club together and successfully drive the ravers away, but all the girls leave with them. However, there is a happy ending for Bernie and Sid when their girlfriends finally agree to move into their tent. Their joy is short-lived when Joan's mother (Amelia Bayntun) turns up, but Anthea lets loose a goat that chases Mrs Fussey away. ===== Homer test drives - and destroys - a new electric car so that he can get a free gift, which turns out to be free tickets to a preview screening of the new Mel Gibson film, a remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The audience members are given comment cards to fill, so that the filmmakers can change the film based on the audiences' reactions. The film is enjoyed by everyone but Homer. During the screening, Gibson, having come to the test screening unannounced, is assured by the producers that the film is wonderful, but while reading the comment cards after the movie, he is certain that everyone loves him too much to tell him how to improve the film. When he reads Homer's comments, partially inspired by him seeing Gibson flirting with Marge, he thinks that Homer was the only person brave enough to tell him the truth. Gibson shows up at the Simpsons' door and invites Homer and his family to come with him to Hollywood to change the film. Homer and Gibson work together while the rest of the family explores Hollywood, but when Homer's ideas prove to be stupid and pointless, Gibson begins to wonder whether he made a mistake. However, he is enthusiastic when Homer tells him his ideas for the famous "filibuster" scene at the end. The next day, they present the new ending to the producers, in which Mr. Smith goes berserk and slaughters every member of the United States Congress and the President in a mindless action movie sequence. The producers are horrified at this, saying that the film was meant to be the studio's prestige picture. They attempt to burn the new ending, but Homer and Gibson, determined to save their film, run away with it. They meet up with the rest of the family at a car museum, where they steal a replica of the main villain's car from The Road Warrior and engage in a ludicrous car chase through the streets of Hollywood, with the film executives on their trail. Homer, taking an idea he believes to be from Braveheart, moons the executives along with Gibson so that they will stop their car out of disgust. Homer and Gibson then attend the film's premiere back in Springfield, but when the film ends, the entire audience walks out disgusted, and Jimmy Stewart's granddaughter threatens to sue them for the bad film. Homer then tries to apologize to Gibson, who does not blame him, arriving to the conclusion there is no place for violence-lovers like them in Hollywood; however, as soon as Homer suggests more stupid film ideas, Gibson kicks him out of his limousine. ===== The film opens with a series of still photographs appearing over melancholic music, representing the abstract memories of the unseen Herman Raucher, now a middle-aged man. Raucher recalls the summer he spent on Nantucket island in 1942. The film flashes back to a day that then 15-year-old "Hermie" and his friends – jock Oscy and introverted nerd Benjie – spent playing on the beach. They spot a young soldier carrying his new bride into a house on the beach, and are struck by her beauty, especially Hermie, who is unable to get her out of his mind. They continue spending afternoons on the beach where, in the midst of scantily-clad teenage girls, their thoughts invariably turn to sex. All of them are virgins: Oscy is obsessed with the act of sex, while Hermie finds himself developing romantic interest in the bride, whose husband he spots leaving the island on a water taxi one morning. Later that day, Hermie sees her outside the local market struggling with grocery bags that she subsequently drops and comes to her aid and offers to carry the bags home for her, which she gladly accepts, and in this way gets to meet her. Meanwhile, Oscy and Hermie, thanks to an illustrated sex manual discovered by Benjie, become convinced they know everything necessary to lose their virginity. Led by Oscy, they test this by going to the cinema and picking-up a trio of high-school girls. Oscy stakes out the most attractive one, Miriam, "giving" Hermie her less attractive friend, Aggie, and leaving Benjie with Gloria, a heavyset girl with braces. Frightened by the immediacy of sex, Benjie runs off, and is not seen by Hermie or Oscy again that night. While they are waiting in the ticket line for the movie the young war bride appears and greets Hermie and asks him if he can help her move some boxes the next day. The remainder of the evening is devoted to attempting to "put the moves" on Miriam and Aggie while they watch the film. Oscy pursues Miriam, eventually making out with her during the movie, and later learns her ways are well known on the island. Hermie finds himself succeeding with Aggie, who allows him to grope what he thinks is her breast; Oscy later points out Hermie was fondling her arm. The next morning, Hermie helps the bride move boxes into her attic, her bare thigh at one point passing by his face on a ladder, and she thanks him by giving him a kiss on the forehead. Later, in preparation for a marshmallow roast on the beach with Aggie and Miriam, Hermie goes to the local drugstore. In a painfully humorous sequence, stammering, he builds up the nerve to ask the druggist (Lou Frizzell) for condoms. That night, Hermie roasts marshmallows with Aggie while Oscy succeeds in having sex with Miriam between the dunes. He is so successful he sneaks over to Hermie and Aggie to ask for more condoms. Confused as to what's happening, Aggie follows Oscy back, where she sees him having sex with Miriam and runs home, upset. The next day, Hermie comes across the bride sitting outside her house, writing to her husband. Hermie offers to keep her company that night and she says she looks forward to seeing him, revealing her name is Dorothy. An elated Hermie goes home and puts on a suit, dress shirt and heads back to Dorothy's house, running into Oscy on the way; Oscy relates that Miriam's appendix burst and she's been rushed to the mainland. Hermie, convinced he is at the brink of adulthood because of his relationship with Dorothy, brushes Oscy off. He heads to her house, which is eerily quiet. Going in, he discovers a bottle of whiskey, several cigarette butts, and a telegram from the government. Dorothy's husband is dead, his plane shot down over France. Dorothy comes out of her bedroom, crying, and Hermie tells her "I'm sorry." The sense of empathy triggers her to channel to Hermie some of her loneliness. She turns on the record player and invites Hermie to dance with her. They kiss and embrace, tears on both their faces. Without speaking, and to the sound only of the waves, they move to the bedroom, where she draws him into bed and gently makes love with him. Afterward, withdrawing again into her world of hurt, Dorothy retires to the porch, leaving Hermie alone in her bedroom. He approaches her on the porch, where she can only quietly say "Good night, Hermie." He leaves, his last image of Dorothy being of her leaning against the railing, as she smokes a cigarette and stares into the night sky. At dawn Hermie meets Oscy and the two share a moment of reconciliation, with Oscy informing Hermie that Miriam will recover. Oscy, in an uncharacteristic act of sensitivity, lets Hermie be by himself, departing with the words, "Sometimes life is one big pain in the ass." Trying to sort out what has happened, Hermie goes back to Dorothy's house. Dorothy has fled the island in the night and an envelope is tacked to the front door with Hermie's name on it. Inside is a note from Dorothy, saying she hopes he understands she must go back home as there is much to do. She assures Hermie she will never forget him, and he will find his way of remembering what happened that night. Her note closes with the hope that Hermie may be spared the senseless tragedies of life. In the final scene, Hermie, suddenly approaching manhood, is seen looking at Dorothy's old house and the ocean from a distance before he turns to join his friends. To bittersweet music, the adult Raucher sadly recounts that he has never seen Dorothy again or learned what became of her. ===== It is an unseasonably hot Easter at church, and no one is interested in Reverend Lovejoy's sermons. When the collection plate is passed around, Homer puts in a chocolate Easter bunny that he found in the dumpster, enraging Reverend Lovejoy, calling it a wicked idol, and provoking him to read the Bible from the beginning. The Simpsons all fall asleep. ===== After a long morning at church, the Simpsons go to the grocery store Eatie Gourmet's to take advantage of free samples in lieu of a Sunday brunch and Bart's suggestion that the family go Catholic so they can have "communion wafers and booze". At the store, Homer wants to buy a lobster, but since the larger ones are too expensive (eight dollars a pound), he decides to "buy an eight dollar lobster, fatten it into an eighty dollar lobster and eat the profits". Homer also tries to look for normal flavors of ice cream among the unusually named flavors at the "Ken & Harry's" factory plant, so he puts Lisa into the freezer to look for some in the back, which ultimately causes her to catch a cold. Although Lisa hates the idea, Marge wants Lisa to stay home from school for the next few days to recover from her cold. Lisa is derisive about playing one of Bart's video games in order to pass the time, but soon becomes addicted to it, and consequently ignores the homework on The Wind in the Willows that she is given by Ralph Wiggum. She even fakes the perpetuation of her illness so that she can continue playing the game. When Marge finally compels her to return to school, Lisa realizes she is unprepared for a test on the book, having not read it. In a panic she visits Bart, who brings her to Nelson, from whom she gets the test answers. Miss Hoover grades the tests over lunch, and Lisa is awarded the rare grade of A+++. Meanwhile, Homer becomes attached to his lobster and names him Pinchy. When the time comes to cook Pinchy, Homer cannot bring himself to do it, and instead declares him a part of the family. The family is extremely proud of Lisa's "achievement", although she is guilt-ridden at having cheated. The next day at school, Principal Skinner informs Lisa that her test grade has brought Springfield Elementary's GPA up to the state's minimum standard, and they now qualify for a basic assistance grant. Lisa admits that she cheated on the test, but Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers persuade her to keep it a secret so the school can keep the money. During the presentation, Lisa says that she understands how desperately the school needs the basic assistance grant money, but also says that the truth is more important, confessing that she cheated. However, this was anticipated by Skinner, who fooled Lisa by staging a fake presentation before the real one, with the comptroller being revealed as Otto wearing a latex mask, allowing the school to keep the money anyway. Meanwhile, Homer discovers that he has accidentally cooked Pinchy while giving him a hot bath. Later that night, a distraught Homer eats Pinchy and finds him delicious. ===== Writing his doctoral thesis ('The Book of Daniel'), a political genealogy of the American Old Left, T. V. Reed, "Genealogy/Narrative/Power: Questions of Postmodernity in Doctorow's The Book of Daniel," American Literary History, 4.2:288-304 (July 1992), pp. 288-89. Daniel Isaacson confronts his own personal relationship to that historical narrative by investigating the background to his parents' conviction and execution by the State, with some assistance from his adoptive parents (the Lewins). The dénouement is the revisiting, in flashback, of the death of his parents, Rochelle and Paul Isaacson, and, in due course, the death from nervous disorder (and attempted suicide) of his sister Susan. The novel closes as the library in which Daniel is working is closed by student protests. Doctorow closes his novel with a parody of lines from Chapter 12 of the Biblical Book of Daniel. This moment culminates a merger of the text's two primary levels of narrative concern: Daniel's self-conscious inability to find and tell his own truthful personal history, which mirrors the anxiety of the radical 1960s New Left to emerge from the failure of the Communist Party to achieve its revolutionary potential in the 1950s.T. V. Reed, "Genealogy/Narrative/Power: Questions of Postmodernity in Doctorow's The Book of Daniel," American Literary History, 4.2:288-304 (July 1992), pp. 288-89. The book is written in four parts, and in each Daniel is the principal narrator; the narrative moves fluidly and rapidly between 1967 ('the present') and flashback (to the late 40s/early 50s), and between first and third person: :1. Memorial Day – Opens, in 1967, with Daniel, his young wife, Phyllis and baby Paul, walking to the sanatorium to see Susan; closes with the dropping of atom bomb in Japan :2. Halloween – closes with the lawyer, Ascher, telling Daniel and Susan of the forthcoming start of the Isaacsons' trial :3. Starfish – closes with Daniel's bruising involvement in an anti-draft march, while his sister (the starfish of the title) is lying dying from complications following her suicide attempt. : Daniel says to Phyllis through broken teeth '...It looks worse than it is. There was nothing to it. It is a lot easier to be a revolutionary nowadays than it used to be.' :4 Christmas – recalls the closing moments of the trial, including the key evidence from their co-accused, Selig Mindish; Daniel's later search for, and discovery of Mindish, now senile, in Disneyland; and the funerals of Daniel's parents and his sister Susan. ===== Rukmani and Nathan love each other and their marriage begins in relative peace and plenty. When a large tannery is built in the neighboring village, it begins insidiously destroying their lives. As the tannery grows larger and more prosperous, Rukmani and Nathan struggle to feed their children and to pay the rent on the land that gives them life. Although matters continue to worsen, they quietly resign themselves to ever-increasing hardships—flood, famine, even death—and cling to their hopes for a better future. Dr. Kennington, or "Kenny", an itinerant English doctor, is an important presence in the novel. Although Rukmani's fatalistic attitude toward hardship exasperates him, he feels compassion for her and helps her when he can. At the end, Rukmani goes to live with her youngest son, now a doctor at the hospital Kenny has built. Throughout the novel, Rukmani is faced with struggle after struggle with no indication that her circumstances will improve. Each time her situation worsens, she endures quietly, holding on to the hope that things will soon be better. ===== While watching television, the Simpson family sees a commercial for the "Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con", a science-fiction convention featuring Mark Hamill and others, and decide to attend. A riot breaks out at the convention after Hamill offers the chance for someone in the crowd to act out a scene with him. Homer notices that Hamill and Mayor Quimby are in danger of being trampled due to the riot and quickly rescues them. In gratitude, Quimby employs Homer as his bodyguard. Homer begins training at "Leavelle's Bodyguard Academy," where he quickly graduates and begins his new job. Unbeknownst to Homer, Quimby made a deal with Fat Tony shortly after Homer was employed to provide milk to the schools of Springfield. Homer discovers the milk is from rats and confronts Quimby, accidentally knocking him out a window. Discovering Quimby hanging from a ledge, Homer makes him promise to expose Fat Tony in return for being pulled to safety. Quimby organizes the arrests of Fat Tony and his men, but Fat Tony threatens Quimby's life. Scared at having to defend Quimby due to the death threats, Homer attempts to reassure the Mayor by taking him to a dinner theater to see Hamill portray Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls. Homer discovers Fat Tony is there alongside his henchman, Louie, having been released on bail, and unwittingly made the situation worse when he did what Fat Tony told him to do by planting a kiss on Mayor Quimby, oblivious to the fact that he had given the Mayor the kiss of death. Louie attempts to stab Quimby but is stopped in a scuffle with Homer after Hamill advises Homer to "use the forks." However, Fat Tony is still able to savagely beat Quimby with a baseball bat. Hamill says to Homer that Quimby will be fine, and Homer helps Hamill escape from the paparazzi. ===== ===== Buffy surprises Angel with a visit to Los Angeles. Their emotion-driven discussion is interrupted by the arrival of a Mohra demon. Angel stabs the demon, but it retreats to the sewers. Buffy and Angel hesitantly follow, discussing their future as a couple and the feelings about each other. They split up; Angel meets the demon on his route. As they fight, the Mohra demon cuts Angel. Angel kills the demon. Its blood, eventually found to be the Blood of Eternity, merges with his own, and he becomes human. Realizing what this means for their relationship, Angel spends the night with Buffy. However, Doyle shares the news that the Mohra demon is alive: the demon's rejuvenating blood also worked on itself. So, Angel sets out with Doyle to kill the demon, without Buffy's much-needed supernatural assistance. Angel fails miserably until Buffy shows up and slays the demon. Angel realizes how useless he is in his human form, and asks the Oracles to turn back time to make him a "demon with a soul" once more. They consent, and time is set back twenty four hours despite a heartbroken Buffy begging Angel to remain human before the Mohra demon is killed, with only Angel as a witness to the night he and Buffy shared in the erased timeline. ===== Sheila and Gerald Broflovski are getting ready to go to Mr. Mackey's meteor shower party. Kyle and his brother Ike are preparing to go to Jewbilee camp: a Boy-Scout-esque camp for Jewish boys with separate programs called "Jew Scouts" and "Squirts". When Kenny arrives at Kyle's house to hang out, Kyle invites him to go with him to Jewbilee, so it would not "suck so hard." Kyle's parents explain to Kenny that because he is not Jewish, he might not be accepted at Jewbilee. Kyle tells his parents that "Kenny will believe whatever you tell him to" and asks his parents if they can take Kenny with them. They then grant Kenny permission and explain to him the basic tenets of Judaism on the car ride to Jewbilee. Once they arrive, Sheila tells the boys to have fun and advises Kenny to "act Jewish". She and Gerald then leave for Mr. Mackey's party. Kenny then becomes initiated, despite not being Jewish. Meanwhile, Ike is assigned to go with the other tots to the Squirts camp, which is a Cub- Scout-esque camp. After the initiation ceremonies, the boys make soap sculptures to honor their god Moses who demands arts-and-crafts-like things, including macaroni pictures that the Squirts were supposed to make, and popcorn necklaces. Kenny is then identified as not being Jewish and is banished from the camp. As he tries to reach home, the ATF and a couple of police cars are seen driving by, away from Mr. Mackey's house, where they thought a cult was residing. He then returns to the camp where Garth, the elder of the "Anti-Semitic Jews" sect, has captured Moses in a conch shell and has locked everyone else in a cabin at gunpoint while he tries to summon Haman to be the new leader. Meanwhile, the Squirts master, Shlomo, wants to capture the bear the Broflovskis saw earlier in the episode, but only so he can get his chutzpah badge and therefore become a master Scouts rather than Squirts. The bear kidnaps the Squirts one by one, and Shlomo continues to devise plans that ultimately fail. Soon, the bear captures all the Squirts and Shlomo has to go to the Warden, but is shot in the shoulder by Garth, when he tries to release Moses from the conch shell in which he is trapped. Kenny gets captured by the bear only to find that the bear was not killing the Squirts but was finding friends for her cub, who was celebrating his birthday. Kenny gets the Squirts and they make their way back to Shlomo and they head back to camp to find everyone else in trouble. The Squirts stand on top of one another to reach the keys and unlock everyone from the cabin, as Kenny saves the day by smashing his head against the conch shell to free Moses, and Haman is defeated. Moses then kills Garth, and as everyone discovers Kenny died smashing open the conch shell, Moses declares the Jews shall meet every year on that day to celebrate Kenny by making soap sculptures, macaroni pictures and paper plate bean shakers decorated with glue and glitter. ===== A joint task force operation between the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Army has been formed to dismantle one of the largest drug cartels operating in South America. Multiple attempts to assault the cartel's mountainous compound have been thwarted by a (fictional) Scorpion-attack helicopter piloted by a mercenary pilot, Eric Stoller (Bert Rhine). After having several aircraft shot down, most notably a pair of UH–60 Black Hawks and their AH–1 Cobra escorts, the army turns to the new AH–64 Apache attack helicopter, which can match its enemies' maneuverability and firepower. Pilot Jake Preston (Nicolas Cage) is subsequently enlisted in the Apache air-to-air combat training program. Earlier, Preston was the sole survivor of a previous air-attack by Stoller. Upon his arrival at the training course, he encounters his ex-girlfriend Billie Lee Guthrie (Sean Young), who broke off their relationship to pursue a separate career flying OH–58 Kiowa scout helicopters which often work alongside the Apache as target identifiers and designators. Jake's arrogance and loose improvised style quickly earn him the mixed respect and chagrin of veteran pilot and flight instructor Brad Little (Tommy Lee Jones). During the training schedule, Preston is revealed to be suffering from an eye dominance disability, which makes it difficult for him to utilize the Apache's visual input. Using an unconventional but effective training method, Little helps Preston deal with his handicap. A formation of military aircraft consisting of four Apaches and Guthrie's Kiowa, flies down to South America to provide air support for a DEA mission to hunt down and arrest drug cartel leaders. However, they are soon attacked at their base camp, and one Apache is destroyed. With another Apache left to protect the DEA personnel, Preston, Little and Guthrie attempt to seek out Stoller. They soon locate his position, as well as a pair of Draken jet fighter aircraft who are also protecting the cartel. Little destroys one aircraft, but is shot down in aerial combat by Stoller. He survives, but his Apache is disabled. Stoller later targets Guthrie, but Preston reaches their coordinates and engages him in a fierce dogfight. Using the Apache's manoeuvrability near a mountainous peak, Preston manages to trick Stoller into flying past him; then attacks and destroys his helicopter. Meanwhile, Guthrie uses one of the Stinger missiles onboard Little's downed Apache to destroy the remaining enemy aircraft. With no air support, the cartel's defenses cease, and their leaders are later apprehended. As an injured Little is loaded onto a Medevac helicopter, he expresses pride in both Preston and Guthrie. ===== After the episode's end credits have scrolled, a BBC voiceover announces that there will be "Five more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus." In the ensuing sketch, an unnamed man portrayed by Michael Palin approaches a receptionist (Rita Davies) and says he would like to have an argument. She directs him to a Mr. Barnard (identified as Mr. Vibrating in episode transcripts), who occupies an office down the hall. Palin initially enters the wrong office, in which a man played by Graham Chapman hurls angry insults at him before clarifying that his office is dedicated to "abuse." Even after sending Palin on his way, Chapman calls him a "stupid git." Palin enters the next office, which contains Mr. Barnard/Vibrating, played by John Cleese. Palin asks if he is in the right office for an argument, to which Cleese responds that he has already told him he is. Palin disputes this, and the men begin an argumentative back-and-forth. Their exchange is a very shallow one, consisting mostly of petty and contradictory "is/isn't" responses, to the point that Palin feels he is not getting what he paid for. They then argue over the very definition of an argument until Cleese rings a bell and announces that Palin's paid time has concluded. Palin is dissatisfied, and tries to argue with Cleese over whether he really got as much time as he paid for, but Cleese insists he is not allowed to argue unless Palin pays for another session. When Palin finally relents and pays more money for additional arguing time, Cleese continues to insist he has not paid, and another argument breaks out over that issue. Palin believes he has caught Cleese in a contradiction—arguing without being paid—but Cleese counters that he could be arguing in his spare time. Frustrated, Palin storms out of the room. The original broadcast version features Palin exploring other rooms in the clinic; he enters a room marked "Complaints" hoping to lodge a complaint, only to find that it is a complaint clinic in which Eric Idle is complaining about his shoes. The next office contains Terry Jones offering "being hit on the head lessons," which a series of policemen interrupt as being too silly. ===== Trevor Hale is attractive, witty, uncommonly intelligent—and he may be Cupid, the Greco-Roman god of erotic love. Probably not, but he thinks so. Trevor's insistence that he is Cupid lands him in a mental hospital, where he meets psychologist Claire Allen, a renowned authority on romance. Trevor tells Claire that he has been stripped of his godly powers by Zeus, and exiled from Mount Olympus as a punishment for arrogance. To win his way back among the gods, Trevor must unite 100 couples in everlasting love, without his bow and arrows. Claire does not believe in Cupid, but she risks her career by releasing Trevor from the hospital, assuming responsibility for his behavior. Trevor finds work as a bartender, and regularly disrupts Claire's group therapy sessions. All the while, he plots his campaign to promote romance, and earn his way back to Olympus. While encouraging sexual abandon in others, Trevor remains chaste; he believes sex with a mortal will confine him to Earth forever. ===== A rare collection of artifacts from an archeological dig in Egypt are brought to the famous Musée du Louvre in Paris. While experts are using a laser scanning device to determine the age of a sarcophagus, a spirit escapes and makes its way into the museum's electrical system. Museum curator Faussier (Jean- Francois Balmer) brings in noted Egyptologist, Glenda Spencer (Julie Christie), to examine the findings, and she announces that the mummy inside the coffin was actually the evil spirit Belphegor. Meanwhile, Lisa (Sophie Marceau), a young woman who lives across the street from the museum, follows her runaway cat into the Louvre after closing time. She accidentally receives an electrical shock that transfers the stray spirit into her body. Soon Lisa is disguising herself as Belphegor and making off with the rare Egyptian treasures on display at the museum, convinced that they are rightfully hers. When Belphegor proves more than a match for the Louvre's security forces, renowned detective Verlac (Michel Serrault) is brought out of retirement to find out why the museum's Egyptian collection has been shrinking. ===== The picture opens with the District Attorney (Adolfo Yanelli), listening to voices from a recording in the black box retrieved from an air disaster. The docudrama then tells the story of director Enrique Piñeyro, who plays himself as T, a principled pilot at LAPA, an Argentine airline, upset over his company's disregard of basic safety regulations in order to save money. When T complains, he is labeled a troublemaker by the airline company. Soon he's chastised by his fellow pilots. When things get worse he walks out of the cockpit after multiple navigational instruments are inoperative and refuses to fly. The company simply replaces him and gets another pilot to fly. Increasingly frustrated and worried about a crash, T finally writes an angry letter to his superiors, warning that a crash is inevitable if action is not taken. The letter is leaked to the media, and the airline is sold, but the new owners want Pineyro to retract his statement. Complicating matters, their public relations person is Marcela (Mercedes Morán), a love interest from his youth. Even though Marcela is married, T pursues her. T's story is inter-cut with the District Attorney who is looking into the LAPA flight 3142 crash, and starts receiving death threats. Yanelli's character manages to bring the company’s chief executives and the Argentine Air Force authorities before a criminal court, establishing a unique precedent in commercial aviation history. ===== As each bouncer has their own unique story, how the game develops depends on which characters are selected for each level. Only by playing through the game as all three characters can the complete story be revealed. The game begins with a news report on Mikado's new solar powered generator satellite, which uses a large mirror to generate electricity from solar rays. It then converts the electricity to microwave radiation, which it beams back to a ground station on Earth, which subsequently converts it back to electricity and distributes it around the planet. Meanwhile, Leann receives a message that Mikado have located Dominique. She expresses surprise that "they beat us to it," and rushes out. At Fate, Dominique celebrates Sion's one year anniversary as a bouncer by giving him a pendant. However, Mikado Special Forces led by Mugetsu storm the bar and abduct her. Volt says they will have taken her to the Mikado Building, and Kou calls Leann, learning there is a train heading for the building in thirty minutes. Leann promises she will back him up in her ship, the Orage. Kou, Sion and Volt catch the train, which is carrying rocket fuel for the launch of the satellite. On board, they meet Echidna, who is shocked to see Volt. They fight and defeat her, and she jumps from the train into a river. Meanwhile, the Orage attacks the train, causing the brakes to malfunction. The trio detach the car containing the rocket fuel and jump from the train, which crashes into the station underneath the Mikado Building. They work their way up the building and find Dominique in a dome structure. Nearby, Kaldea is playing the piano. After a moment, she gets up and morphs into a panther. Meanwhile, Dauragon orders Wong to transport Dominique to the shuttle Galeos. Wong protests, telling Dauragon he is using the Mikado Group for evil, something of which his father would not approve. Dauragon attacks Wong as the trio enter, and the dying Wong tells them Dauragon must be stopped. Dauragon then reveals that Dominique is his sister. He and the panther attack the trio, defeating them, and the floor falls out underneath them. The game then cuts to the past as a young Dauragon arrives at a hospital, telling them his sister is dying. However, they turn him away. As he walks through the rain, a limousine pulls up alongside him, and Master Mikado and Wong get out, taking Dauragon and Dominique with them. Later, Mikado adopts Dauragon as his heir. After Mikado dies, Dauragon takes over the company, with Wong praising him for the man he has become, saying he would have made his father proud. Meanwhile, Sion wakes up in a storage room. Fighting his way through the building, he encounters the black panther, who leads him to a computer terminal, where he finds a file on Kaldea. Vaguely remembering her as childhood friend who was supposedly killed in an industrial accident at Mikado, Sion realizes Dauragon has been experimenting on humans. However, she is now older than him, with the file stating "the one drawback with our present technology is the treatment ages the subject cells approximately 10 biological years." Sion also finds a picture of Dominique under a locked file. Meanwhile, Volt wakes up strapped to a table. He breaks free and also fights his way through the building. Elsewhere, Kou wakes up in a locker room and steals a guard's uniform, sneaking through the corridors to the upper floors. Sion soon finds Dominique, but is ambushed by Mugetsu. Volt and Kou arrive and Mugetsu is defeated. The trio escape with Dominique but are soon confronted by a group of PD-4s. However, a signal is sent from an orbiting satellite, and Dominique is revealed to be a robot. She easily destroys the enemies and then collapses. Mugetsu arrives and once more takes Dominique, heading to the Galeos. Volt reveals he knew Dominique was a robot, explaining she was created in the image of Dauragon's dead sister. He also reveals that he was once the personal guard of Master Mikado. As they head to the Galeos, they encounter Echidna. They fight and defeat her, but Volt spares her life as she admits killing Master Mikado and framing Volt for the murder. The Galeos takes off, but as it leaves, it is attacked by a group of fighters led by Leann, who tells the trio to use an airship to catch up to it. They again confront Mugetsu, this time they defeat Mugetsu by knocking him over of the aircraft carrier, the flames from the Galeos engines scorch Mugetsu's body and he is thrown back by a searing wave and falls into the ocean. Meanwhile, on board the Galeos, Dominique is hooked up to a computer, with Dauragon using her circuitry to have the satellite fire massive lasers down onto the earth, beginning with the hospital that turned him away as a boy. The trio make it inside the Galeos, where they again encounter the panther. They defeat it, and it transforms into Kaldea. Depending on character selection: * Sion remembers Kaldea as his childhood friend. She tells him the Mikado Group staged her death to experiment on her, but as she speaks, Dauragon kills her. * Sion does not remember who she is and she dies from the injuries sustained in the fight. * Sion remembers who she is and she survives. In the command center of the Galeos, Dauragon explains that he plans to provide unlimited energy to those who will follow him and destroy those who will not. The trio attack and kill him, releasing Dominique from the computer. If Kaldea survived the previous fight, she tells them the Galeos is designed to split into two after leaving Earth. She leads them to the back half of the ship, and sacrifices herself to save Sion and Dominique. The front half of the ship rams and destroys the satellite, with the back half returning safely to Earth. Several weeks later, all has returned to normal. Sion says he will tell Dominique she is a robot when the time is right. Depending on character selection: * Dominique finds that Sion is wearing the pendant she purchased for him at the start of the game and hugs him. * Dominique tells Volt he looks kinder than he used to. Echidna then arrives, wondering if Fate is hiring any more bouncers. * Leann rings Kou, telling him that although Dauragon has been defeated, Dominique must still be kept under surveillance. She then tells him to go to the central plaza. There, he meets Leann and they spar. She warns him to keep his mind on the job. If Sion has been selected as the playable character in the final fight against Dauragon, the game ends with a scene showing his initial meeting with Dominique. ===== The story is set in the fictional Caribbean island and British colony of Cascara. Widely ignored by the British Government, media, and general public, local Governor Baxter Thwaites is having an easy life in his small and peaceful colony. That peace is disturbed when an abandoned oil rig starts delivering water - at the standard of the finest table water brands (and laxative companies, as it contains a substance that makes you "shit like clockwork"). Different parties, including Downing Street, the Cascara Liberation Front, the White House, French bottled water producers, and Cuban guerrillas take interest in the future of the island and threaten to destroy the cosy way of life enjoyed by the island's inhabitants. The plot spoofs some elements of the comedies Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1958) and Passport to Pimlico (1948) and the then-recent invasions of the Falkland Islands and Grenada. The film stars Caine as Baxter Thwaites, a Governor who has 'gone native' (similarly to his role in The Honorary Consul), and Billy Connolly as local biracial activist Delgado, supported by the last performance of Leonard Rossiter, as Sir Malcolm Leveridge, and one of the last performances of Fulton Mackay. ===== Inside the TARDIS, the Fourth Doctor, Romana, Adric, and K9, while travelling between E-Space and the normal universe (N-Space), become trapped in a white null space between the universes. Elsewhere in the void, a slave vessel, run by Captain Rorvik, has also become trapped. It uses members of the leonine Tharil race as their navigators. On becoming stuck, the current navigator, Biroc, escapes the ship and makes his way to the TARDIS on the winds of time. Biroc warns the TARDIS crew of Rorvik's treachery before disappearing. K9's memory wafers are shredded by the winds of time, leaving him functional but lacking long-term memories. The Doctor leaves on his own to explore the null space. He encounters some robots, called Gundans. Meanwhile, Rorvik and his crew have discovered TARDIS. Romana leaves to talk to them. Rorvik, believing Romana to be time-sensitive like the Tharils, dupes her into returning to their ship to examine the engines. When Romana does not return, Adric and K9 leave to recover her, but get separated; Adric eventually makes it to the ship and hides aboard, while K9 reunites with the Doctor and aids in repairing the Gundan, after which he learns from it that they were built by slaves and used to overthrow their masters in a violent battle. The Doctor's work is disrupted when Rorvik and several of his men arrive. During a stand-off between the crew and the Doctor, another Gundan activates and walks through the seemingly-solid mirror. Rorvik demands an explanation from the Doctor, revealing he has Romana captive, but the Doctor's only response is to walk through the mirror himself. Aboard the slaver ship, Romana is freed by another Tharil named Lazlo, and she hides in the hull. She encounters Adric; the two work out that the ship is made from an incredibly dense dwarf star alloy that can contain the Tharils. K9 arrives, and informs the two of dimensional instability in the null space, which they attribute to the alloy, causing the space to collapse in on itself. Romana rejoins Lazlo, and takes her to the gateway and through the mirror, while Adric remains aboard the ship. On the other side of the mirror, the Doctor and Romana are reunited with Biroc in a stable, time-locked universe. A repentant Biroc explains they were the slave masters, travelling on the winds of time in order to ravage other planets and subjugate their populations as slaves until the Gundan revolt. The Doctor and Romana are returned to the null space, and are immediately captured by Rorvik. Rorvik's crew realise that the null space is shrinking as the distances between the gateway, the TARDIS, and slaver ship continue to decrease. Rorvik has ordered the crew to try to blast through the mirrors in gateway, believing it to be the way out, but the mirrors resist all attacks. With the gateway and ship in visible distance of each other, Rorvik resorts to one last attempt to break the mirrors by using the exhaust of the ship's engines against them. While the Doctor warns that this action will be as doomed as the previous ones, Romana regroups with Lazlo and Adric, and together they free the remaining Tharils on the slaver ship. The TARDIS crew flee to the TARDIS as Rorvik initiates his plan—the blast from the engines is reflected by the mirrors back onto the ship, destroying it and its crew. As the saved Tharils pass through the mirror, Romana announces that she will be staying with them, having become empathetic to their plight and not wanting to return to Gallifrey. The Doctor gives her K9, as passing through the mirror will restore his memory but he will be unable to return. The Tharils, in exchange, provide the Doctor with information on how to leave the void back to N-Space. ===== At a shareholders meeting for International Projects, a billion dollar corporation, John T. Blessington (John Williams) announces he is replacing Edward L. McKeever (Paul Douglas), the company's founder, president and chairman of the board, who is resigning to work for the federal government in Washington D.C. Laura Partridge (Judy Holliday), a minority stockholder with just ten shares of stock, drives its arrogant, self-serving executives to distraction with her incessant questioning during this and subsequent meetings. Blessington comes up with the idea of hiring the struggling actress as director of shareholder relations to keep her occupied answering letters from small shareholders. He assigns her a secretary, Amelia Shotgraven (Neva Patterson), with secret instructions to obstruct her as much as possible. The conscientious Miss Partridge, upon discovering there is nothing substantial for her to do, decides to write the stockholders herself. She gains Amelia's friendship and wholehearted assistance by helping her develop a romantic relationship with office manager Mark Jenkins (Arthur O'Connell). When the directors find out, they fire Amelia. However, Laura discovers that Blessington's thoroughly unqualified brother-in-law, Harry Harkness (Hiram Sherman), has driven an apparent competitor into bankruptcy, unaware International Projects actually owns the unfortunate company. With that as leverage, she gets Amelia rehired. Still determined to neutralize Laura, the board decides to send her to Washington to persuade McKeever to give them some government contracts. She agrees to go, with the secret intention of trying to convince him to return and take back control from his crooked cronies. However, the company directors recall that he has divested himself of all his shares and is thus powerless, so they brush him off. McKeever takes them to court, arguing that Laura was an unlicensed, illegal lobbyist; but, when she is forced to admit on the stand that she had another, romantic, reason for seeing him, the case is dropped. However, Laura has forged a warm relationship with many of the smaller investors while working at the company; they responded and sent in their proxies, giving her the right to vote their shares. Laura and McKeever use these votes to replace the entire board. They marry. As a gift to "The Girl Who Has Everything," her husband presents her a single solid gold Cadillac for her birthday. ===== There are only three characters in After Miss Julie; Miss Julie, a rich lady in her 20s, and two servants: John, a valet/chauffeur, aged 30, and Christine, a cook aged 35. The action takes place in the kitchen of a large country house outside London, when the British Labour Party have just won their famous 'landslide' election victory. ===== As the Earth cargo ship C982 moves through hyperspace, it narrowly avoids a collision with the TARDIS. As the Third Doctor determines that they are in the 26th century, Jo sees a ship come alongside. Before her eyes, the ship shimmers, changing shape, turning into a Draconian Galaxy-class battlecruiser. The two pilots, Stewart and Hardy, send out a distress signal and prepare for battle. When Hardy goes to get weapons, he meets the Doctor, but sees him and Jo as Draconians. Hardy escorts them at gunpoint to the ship. On Earth, the President and the Draconian ambassador (who is also the Emperor's son) accuse each other of attacking the other's ships and violating the frontier established by treaty between the two empires. General Williams reports to the President that a mission to rescue C982 is being prepared. Williams's hostility against the Draconians is well known — it was his actions that started the original war between the two sides and the Prince believes Williams wants war again, a war the Prince warns the President that will see Earth destroyed. News of the attack spreads and anti-Draconian riots break out on Earth, with the opposition calling for the government to take action. Locked up in C982's hold, the Doctor deduces that the strange sound was some kind of sonic hypnosis device that caused Hardy to hallucinate and see what he most feared. As the enemy boarding party burns its way through the airlocks, Hardy gets the Doctor and Jo to use as hostages, but when the airlock door bursts open, the boarders are not Draconians, but Ogrons. The Ogrons' energy weapons stun the two pilots and the Doctor. They then tie Jo up, taking the ship's cargo and the TARDIS as they leave. When the Doctor revives and releases Jo, she tells him what the Ogrons did, and wonders if they are working for the Daleks, as they were when she first met them. The Doctor points out, however, that the Ogrons are mercenaries. When the rescue party arrives, Hardy and Stewart have stopped hallucinating, but with their memories garbled, accuse the Doctor and Jo of being Draconian spies... The two travellers get locked up again as C982 heads back to Earth. General Williams believes they are human agents planted by the Draconians to sabotage any war effort by Earth. He brings the two travellers to confront the Draconian Prince, but the Doctor denies working for the Draconians. He tries to convince the President that a third party is trying to provoke the two empires into war. However, as he can provide no reason why someone would want to, Williams orders the Doctor and Jo be taken away and vows he will get the truth out of them. In the Draconian embassy, the Prince arranges to help Jo and the Doctor "escape" so that they can be questioned. When the two are escorted from their cell to be brought to the President, a Draconian squad attacks, taking the Doctor prisoner. When Jo tries to get more guards to help, she is arrested instead. The Draconians question the Doctor, believing that he is involved in a plot with Williams to provoke a new war. The Doctor manages to escape the embassy, but is recaptured in the compound by Earth troops. Once back in the cell with Jo, however, she hears the same sound as on C982. Outside, the Ogrons raid the prison, being seen as Draconians thanks to the hypnosound. They break into the Doctor's cell and order him to go with them. The second escape goes no better than the first: the Doctor is recaptured yet again and the Ogrons disappear. This second "rescue attempt" cements Williams' suspicions, making him demand that the President give him the authority to strike first against the Draconians. The President agrees to break off diplomatic relations but will not go further without conclusive proof. Williams places the Doctor under a mind probe, but it indicates the Doctor is telling the truth. Refusing to believe it, Williams orders increased power, but eventually the probe overloads. The President orders that the Doctor be sent to the Lunar Penal Colony where political prisoners are exiled for life, while Jo remains on Earth. Williams and the President receive records from the Dominion government of Sirius IV, an Earth colony planet that has achieved a degree of autonomy from Earth. The records "prove" the Doctor and Jo are citizens of Sirius IV as well as career criminals. A commissioner from the Dominion has arrived to claim jurisdiction — who is in actuality the Doctor's old enemy, the Master. On the Moon, the Doctor meets Professor Dale of the Peace Party, who shows him around. The Doctor tries to get Dale to trust him and include him in his plans for escape. On Earth, Jo of course recognises the Master immediately, and surmises correctly that he was behind the Ogron attacks. The Master found out about the Doctor and Jo's presence when the Ogrons brought him the TARDIS. Given the unsavoury choice of going with the Master or staying in her cell, Jo agrees to go with him to fetch the Doctor. Despite his fantastic story, Dale believes the Doctor. The peace with the Draconians lasted many years, but suddenly devolved into senseless acts of hostility. The Doctor's story would explain a great deal. Dale outlines the escape plan: Cross, one of the overseers, will leave two spacesuits near an airlock, and they will walk across the lunar surface to steal a spaceship. Dale offers to take the Doctor back to Earth where he can tell his story to Dale's contacts in the press and government. However, once inside the airlock, they find oxygen tanks for the suits are empty. Cross has double-crossed them, and the room is depressurising. At the last moment, the Master arrives and restores the room's atmosphere. The Master obtains custody of the Doctor, and gets the Doctor to come along quietly by revealing that he has Jo. Reunited with Jo in a cell in the Master's ship, the Doctor wonders why he is still alive. The Master explains that his employers are very interested in the Doctor. The Master sets the automatic controls for the Ogron homeworld. Under the cover of telling Jo stories of his life, the Doctor uses a hidden steel wire to file his way through the hinges of the cell. While Jo blocks the security camera and natters on, pretending to continue their conversation, the Doctor sneaks out. Donning a spacesuit, the Doctor exits the ship and makes his way to the flight deck. The Master puts Jo in an airlock, threatening to eject her into space if the Doctor does not surrender, but the Doctor takes him by surprise. As the two face off, they do not notice a Draconian battlecruiser approaching. It docks, and enters the airlock where Jo is located. The Draconian captain informs them that, as all diplomatic relations with Earth have been severed, violating Draconian space is punishable by death. The Doctor says he has vital evidence for the Emperor and asks to speak to him. The captain decides to lock up all three of them and take them back to Draconia. However, the Master secretly activates a device whose signal is picked up by the Ogrons. As the ship arrives on Draconia, the Prince is speaking with his father, asking him for permission to strike first at Earth. The Emperor, like the President, is hesitant, as he knows such a war could bring down both empires. The Doctor, Jo and the Master are presented to the Emperor and the Doctor gives the ritual greeting, "My life at your command." The Prince is incensed that the Doctor has the temerity to address the Emperor like a Draconian noble, but the Doctor says that he is a noble of Draconia — the title was given him by the 15th Emperor, five centuries before when he aided Draconia against a plague from outer space. The Doctor accuses the Master of trying to instigate a war between Earth and Draconia using Ogrons and the hypnosound device. As the Emperor considers this, a courtier announces that an Earth spaceship has arrived. Jo hears the sound of the sonic device, and realises it is the Ogrons. They burst in, guns blazing, and retreat with the Master, leaving several dead Draconians in their wake. One Ogron has been knocked out by the Doctor, and as the effects of the hypnosound fade, the Emperor sees the "Earthman" before him transform into its true form. He then realises the Doctor is speaking the truth. The Emperor determines that the Ogron must be shown to the Earth authorities, but as a Draconian ship would be shot down, the Prince, the Doctor and Jo will take the Master's police ship. As they cross the frontier into Earth space, they spot another ship following them. However, by the time they identify it as the Ogron ship, it has already launched its missiles. As the Doctor takes evasive action, the captive Ogron breaks out of its cell, overpowering its Draconian guard. It enters the flight deck and in the struggle cuts the ship's speed. The Prince and the Doctor subdue the Ogron, but the Master's ship catches up and a party boards the police ship. A firefight breaks out on the flight deck, just as an Earth battlecruiser shows up. The Master recalls the boarding party, who take Jo captive along with rescuing the Ogron prisoner, and their ship zips away. The Earth battlercruiser places the Doctor's ship under arrest. Without the Ogron, the President is not convinced. The Doctor suggests an expedition to the Ogron homeworld, but Williams thinks it is a Draconian trick to divide Earth's forces. The Prince expects such a response from Williams -- after all, he started the first war. Williams protests, but the Prince reveals what is in the Draconian court records. Twenty years before, the Draconians sent a battlecruiser to meet the Earth Empire on a diplomatic mission. When the Draconian ship did not answer the Earth ship's hails, Williams gave the order to attack, believing that the Draconian ship was about to attack his damaged vessel. The battlecruiser was unarmed, its missile banks empty, and the reason it did not answer was because its communications systems were destroyed in a neutron storm, the same storm that had damaged Williams's ship. Williams is shaken by the Prince's revelation and apologises for the wrong he had done to the Draconians. Williams now intends to lead the expedition to the Ogron planet himself. The Master brings Jo to a bunker on the Ogron homeworld, where he shows her the TARDIS, which he plans to use as bait for the Doctor in addition to Jo herself. He tries to hypnotise Jo, first with his own powers and then with the hypnosound. However, Jo's mind is strong enough to resist, and the Master orders her to be taken away. An Ogron reports that one of their ships found and attacked two Earth cargo ships, destroying one. The Master is delighted, as this means that war is not far off, and indeed, demands for war from Earth are at a fever pitch. Williams prepares his personal scout ship, with the Doctor and the Prince accompanying and heads at maximum speed to the coordinates the Doctor took from the Master's ship. Jo manages to dig her way into the next, unlocked cell and sneak further into the bunker as Williams's ship enters orbit. She pockets the hypnosound, then finds a pad with the coordinates of the planet and bunker on it and transmits a distress signal with the information. The Master shows up, revealing that the signal was muted, and the only person who could have picked it up was the Doctor, whose ship he detected in orbit around the planet. When the Doctor comes, the trap will be sprung. Williams's crew lands the scout nearby, not knowing the Ogrons have set up an ambush. The Ogrons open fire on the landing party, but are frightened away by an orange, slug-like lizard they call the Eater. The Master is furious, and warns the Ogrons that their masters are coming, which makes them even more terrified than they were of the monster. Williams's party hears the roar of a spaceship landing, and when they look up on the ridge, they see the Master... accompanied by several Daleks, who exterminate Williams's men before they can even fire. The Daleks want to exterminate the Doctor immediately, but the Master proposes that the Doctor be placed in his hands, to be allowed to see the galaxy and Earth in ruins before they kill him. The Gold Dalek agrees, and leaves for its ship, to go and prepare the Dalek army on another planet. Answering the Prince's question, the Doctor explains that the Daleks want a war between Earth and Draconia so both empires will destroy each other, and then the Daleks can pick up the pieces. The Doctor modifies the stolen hypnosound, making the Ogron guard see him as the Gold Dalek, and in fear, it unlocks the gate to the cell. The Doctor tells Williams and the Prince to get the word back to their respective governments and mount a joint expedition against the base on the Ogron planet. The Doctor and Jo find their way to the TARDIS, but are surrounded by the Ogrons and the Master, who trains a blaster on the Doctor. The Doctor activates the hypnosound, panicking the Ogrons. One knocks the Master's arm, making him fire, the shot grazing the Doctor's head. The Master and the Ogrons scatter. The Doctor, barely conscious, asks Jo to help him into the TARDIS. He staggers over to the console, dematerialising the ship then pressing his palms to the telepathic circuits. He is sending a message to the Time Lords. ===== Dr. Susan Wheeler is a surgical resident at Boston Memorial Hospital. Susan is devastated when a patient, Nancy Greenly, who happens to be her best friend, is pronounced brain-dead and comatose there after a routine suction D & C (Dilation and Curettage) abortion and its concomitant general anesthetic. Her suspicions are aroused when another young and otherwise healthy patient, Sean Murphy, also falls comatose during knee surgery for a recent sports injury. Susan finds that over the previous year an unusual number of other fit, young people have suffered the same fate. She discovers three similarities among the cases: they all took place in the same operating room, all patients were tissue-typed and all the comatose bodies were moved to a remote facility called the Jefferson Institute. She offends Chief of Anesthesiology, Dr. George - a powerful figure in the hospital whose wife is also an heiress - by asking to review the relevant case patient charts. Increasingly isolated and under mounting pressure from superiors and colleagues, she wonders whether she can even trust her own boyfriend, Dr. Mark Bellows. She also visits the morgue where a postmortem examination is being performed on Nancy, who had since died. The pathologists are puzzled, and this leads to speculation on how to commit the perfect murder, to which one of the pathologists suggests carbon monoxide poisoning. Susan is called into the office of Chief of Surgery, Dr. George Harris, owing to her trouble with Dr. George, and is given a weekend off to recuperate from the loss of her friend. She and Mark travel to the seaside and spend a relaxing weekend together. Driving back to Boston they see a sign for the Jefferson Institute. Following an access road, a mysterious, imposing and unmarked concrete building reveals itself. Susan wants both of them to go inside, but Mark declines, allowing her to go alone while he waits in the car. After pressing the buzzer at the entrance, she is greeted by Nurse Emerson. Susan announces herself as Dr. Susan Wheeler, and asks if she can enter, but is informed that the facility is closed, but that the next tour for physicians is Tuesday morning. Returning to join the tour, Susan finds what is apparently an advanced, low-cost care facility for comatose patients. However, while investigating the large areas of the building that were left unvisited, she discovers that the institute is a front for black-market organ sales, where the patients' organs are sold to the highest bidder. Boston Memorial purposely induce comas in select patients whose organs match those of potential buyers. The patients are rendered brain- dead via covert carbon monoxide poisoning through a line that leads from a tank in the basement to one OR--number 8--the valve for which is controlled by a radio signal. While she investigates the Jefferson Institute, Susan is caught on surveillance cameras. She manages to escape security atop the roof of an ambulance leaving to transport harvested organs to Logan Airport. Susan thinks that Dr. George is the mastermind of the scheme, and rushes to her supervisor, Dr. Harris, with whom she has been confiding, and explains what she has discovered. Dr. Harris offers her a drugged drink which begins to incapacitate Susan while also causing severe abdominal pain that mimics appendicitis. As she loses consciousness, Dr. Harris phones in an emergency from his office and offers to perform the appendectomy on Susan himself. As they are preparing for surgery, Dr. Harris is informed that his preferred operating room is not available. His vehement insistence upon using room eight arouses the suspicions of Mark, who finds the gas tank and line to room eight – disconnecting it before the carbon monoxide can permanently injure Susan. Susan awakens after surgery, much to Dr. Harris' surprise, and is wheeled out of the operating room holding Mark's hand. A defeated Dr. Harris is left back in operating room eight, while two police officers wait outside to arrest him. ===== The story begins with the murder of Mr. Grope by two black men. An innocent bystander named Jefferson is charged with and convicted of the murder. He is sentenced to death. In his trial, Jefferson's attorney explains to the jury "What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this." That statement causes Jefferson to believe that he is indeed a hog, not a man. Jefferson's godmother Miss Emma Glenn, and Tante (Aunt) Lou, the aunt of the local schoolteacher, ask Lou's nephew Grant Wiggins to turn Jefferson from a "hog" to a "man." However, they must first get permission from Sheriff Sam Guidry, who is racist. To accomplish that, they successfully ask Sheriff Guidry's brother-in-law Henri Pichot for assistance. When Grant is not there, Miss Emma, Tante Lou, and Reverend Ambrose also visit Jefferson. Over the course of the novel, Grant and Jefferson form a close friendship. Unusual for the time, Grant also forms a friendship with Deputy Paul Bonin. In early February, it is announced that Jefferson will be executed on April 8. Around then, Reverend Ambrose becomes concerned that Grant, an agnostic, is not teaching Jefferson about God and thus begins visiting him regularly. The conflict reaches a head when Grant buys Jefferson a radio, which the seniors in the black community, or "quarter," see as sinful. The novel ends with Jefferson's execution and, much to Grant's surprise, a visit from Paul in which he tells Grant that "Jefferson was the strongest man in that crowded room" when he was executed. ===== During the late 16th century, Catholics and Protestant Huguenots are fighting over political control of France, which is ruled by the neurotic, hypochondriac King Charles IX, and his mother, Catherine de' Medici, a scheming power player. Catherine decides to make an overture of goodwill by offering up her daughter Margot in marriage to Henri de Bourbon, a prominent Huguenot and King of Navarre, although she also schemes to bring about the notorious St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when thousands of Protestants are slaughtered. The marriage goes forward but Margot, who does not love Henri, begins a passionate affair with the soldier La Môle, also a Protestant from a well-to-do family. Murders by poisoning follow, as court intrigues multiply and Queen Catherine's villainous plotting to place her son the Duke of Anjou on the throne threatens the lives of La Môle, Margot and Henri of Navarre. A book with pages painted with arsenic is intended for Henri but instead causes the slow, agonizing death of King Charles. Henri escapes to Navarre and sends La Môle to fetch Margot, but Guise apprehends him. La Môle is beheaded in the Bastille before Margot can save him, and King Charles finally dies. Margot escapes carrying La Môle's embalmed head as Anjou is proclaimed King of France as Henry III. ===== The Midnight Bell tells the story of Bob, a sailor turned bar waiter who falls in love with Jenny, a prostitute who visits the pub. Ella, the barmaid at the pub, is secretly in love with Bob. Eventually, Jenny loses interest once Bob has spent all his savings on her. The Siege of Pleasure relates Jenny's early life as a servant, and her descent into prostitution. Bob and Ella do not feature at all in this novel. The Plains of Cement focuses on Ella, and is set during the events in The Midnight Bell, although from a different perspective. Ella, still nursing an untold affection for Bob, has to deal with the increasingly unwelcome advances of Ernest Eccles, an elderly customer of the pub. The narrative concludes one day after the final scene of The Midnight Bell. ===== In I, Jedi, Corran Horn must develop his Jedi powers in order to save the life of his wife, Mirax Terrik. Corran Horn was a member of the elite X-wing force Rogue Squadron. After returning home from a long campaign to find his wife kidnapped, he turns to Luke Skywalker, the only remaining Jedi Master at the time, for help. This coincides nicely with the master's timing, as he is seeking students for his new Jedi Academy on Yavin 4. Corran knows that he is Force-sensitive, and that only with the Force as his ally can he track down his enemy. It turns out that Corran's wife, Mirax, was tracking down a group of elusive pirates known as the Invids. The Invids' primary tactic is to drop out of hyperspace with the flagship, an Imperial Star Destroyer named the Invidious, strike, and disappear with perfect timing. As she grew closer to solving the mystery of how these pirates performed their supernaturally accurate attacks, she was kidnapped and placed into stasis on their fortress planet. On the journey to save Mirax, Corran learns that his grandfather was a Jedi, a member of the Halcyon line. His adopted grandfather shows Corran the records that the Jedi had left behind, and with that, Corran eventually makes up his mind to follow in his ancestor's footsteps and become a Jedi. After extensive training and being caught in a crisis involving the risen spirit of the Dark Sith Lord Exar Kun, Corran goes as far as he can, and infiltrates the pirates using his CorSec training. He quickly rises through the ranks, and finds out where Mirax is being held. With the timely help of Luke Skywalker and his squadron friend and wingman, Ooryl Qrygg, he fights his way past the Jensaarai, a splinter group of Jedi who focus on stealth and premonition, and into the fortress, where he is able to rescue his wife. ===== The plot details his life in a New Orleans uptown ghetto and about his brother Kevin Miller played by Anthony Boswell. Master P wrote, directed and acted in the film. The movie itself was a huge success for No Limit Records and No Limit Films. It was an independent release. ===== Ark takes place on a dying alien world in which a global war between two technologically advanced human civilizations has reduced the planet to a wasteland. The only way to escape the world is by activating the Ark, an ancient giant robot capable of supporting a human city as well as traveling through space. James Woods plays Jallak, the military general of the reigning civilization, the Storrians, who captured the Ark from the Ceveans. But they are unable to get the Ark to work in order to save their people. The Ceveans, having been enslaved and with only the wasteland to roam free are constantly attacked and brutalised by the Storrians. A leader of their resistance movement is a young resistance fighter named Rogan. Rogan is arrested during a resistance uprising, but manages to escape. He bumps into the general's adopted daughter Amarinth, whom the general had secretly rescued from a Cevean hibernation pod cluster where they had hidden their children for safety. They then meet again during a civilian protest rally and she offers to help hide him and tend to his wounds. Rogan goes with her back to her apartment and meets her pet JuJu, but then vanishes when he discovers she's the Storrian general's daughter. Baramanda, the Empress's manipulative right-hand man, arrives unexpectedly to take Amarinth into custody after discovering the truth of her lineage. Rogan helps her escape from Baramanda and takes her to the resistance base within the slave quarters of the Ark. There she meets with an elderly man who explains Amarinth's birthright with the help of JuJu, who turns out to have originally belonged to him. Unknown to Rogan, and to Amarinth herself, she turns out to be the daughter of the Cevean priestess who originally built the Ark, Amiel, who had disappeared 100 years earlier. Amiel helped construct not just the Ark the Storrians hold, but another known as The Ark of York. The plans for the Arks passed down from the Gods (another alien race). It took all her strength to create them, causing her to fall into a deep sleep and not awaken again. Before entering her eternal hibernation, she placed her very young daughter into the hidden hibernation pod. Then her body was secretly hidden by her people until discovered by the Storrians. They find Amiel's molecular structure enables her body to generate a pulsing electronic field throughout her bloodstream. Not only does this make her body perfectly preserved despite how long she had been inactive, it is the reason the Arks will not work: she and Amarinth are descendants of the gods themselves and only they have the ability to pilot the Arks. A cell of her dead blood can supply power to an entire building, but it becomes apparent that no matter how much energy Amiel's body retains, since she is dead it's not enough to move the ark. Both civilizations scramble to use Amiel's daughter, Amarinth, to activate their Ark and leave the other civilization behind to die. However, Amarinth, who has ties to both civilizations, wishes to try to find a way to use her power to save everyone. She is opposed by the lifeforce-stealing wraith Baramanda, who wishes to steal the power of the Ark for his own selfish purposes. Amarinth after going to the Ark of York, refuses to pilot it and leave the Storrians behind. Despite her lineage as a Cevean, she was raised as a Storrian. When she finds out her father, Jallak, had been arrested for high treason and was to be executed for hiding her, she demands that Rogan and the others help her rescue him if they want her help. They agree and return to save him. After freeing Jallak, Baramunda tries to drain Amarith's blood but is stopped by Amiel who awakens momentarily to stop him. All escape but Jallak remains behind to save his people, as the Ark starts to fall apart. Rogan takes Amarinth back to The Ark of York as Baramanda merges with the core of the other Ark and awakens it. Amarinth discovers that, just as her mother Amiel died in constructing the Arks, so she would perish to pilot one. Rogan and Amarinth kiss for the first and final time as she merges with the core of York just as The Ark comes stomping up to it. The Arks clash in a giant battle with the earth breaking down beneath their feet. Amarinth grabs the city plate off of SidArk as Jallak and his friend set the self-destruct mechanism. They perish in the explosion as the planet begins to crumble. Rogan narrates at the end as it shows The Ark of York kneeling with the SidArk city plate on another planet flourishing with vegetation. He states that no one knew both civilizations would make it and neither does anyone think it would work out, living together, sharing the planet. He continues saying that it was hard to imagine that their old world, which was now no more, might have looked like this before the war. So the Storrians and Ceveans are going to try to coexist, to preserve this planet and Amarinth's sacrifice. It's difficult at times, and Rogan wishes that Amarinth was there to bridge the gap between the two civilizations. He states that they could have learned so much from her, but that they already had. ===== Set between June 1932 and December 1933, it tells the story of young Isao Iinuma, a rightist reactionary trained in the samurai code by his father. Isao becomes the instigator of a plot to topple the zaibatsu that he feels have corrupted the Yamato-damashii and betrayed the will of the Emperor. He is assured of the army's assistance by the young Lieutenant Hori. They plan to assassinate many key government figures simultaneously on December 3, 1932. Shigekuni Honda, a character who figured prominently in Spring Snow, the first novel of the cycle, appears again here as a judge and later lawyer. He comes to believe that Isao is the reincarnation of Kiyoaki Matsugae, the aristocratic schoolfriend whose story was told in Spring Snow. Realising that Isao too seems to be hurtling towards a "picturesque" death, he makes strenuous efforts to save him without revealing this personal connection. ===== In a Baltimore neighborhood known for having the thickest local accent, Pecker is an unassuming 18-year-old who works in a sandwich shop and takes photos of his loving but peculiar family and friends on the side. Pecker, so named for his childhood habit of "pecking" at his food, stumbles into fame when his work is "discovered" by a savvy New York art dealer, Rorey Wheeler. Pecker's pictures, taken with a cheap Canon Canonet 28, are grainy, out-of-focus studies of unglamorous subjects, but they strike a chord with New York art collectors. Unfortunately, instant over-exposure has its downside. Rorey's efforts to turn Pecker into an art sensation threaten to ruin the low-key lifestyle that was his inspiration. He abandons his trusty old rangefinder camera for a new, full-featured Nikon N50. Pecker finds that his best friend, Matt, can't shoplift anymore now that Pecker's photographs have increased his visibility. Shelley, Pecker's obsessive girlfriend who runs a laundromat, seems especially distressed when the press dub her a "stain goddess" and mistake her good-natured "pin-up" poses for pornographic come- ons. When his family is dubbed "culturally challenged" by an overzealous critic, they begin to feel the uncomfortable glare of stardom. Pecker's mother Joyce, is no longer free to dispense fashion tips to the homeless clientele at her thrift shop. Pecker's grandmother, Memama, endures public ridicule when her experience with a talking statue of the Virgin Mary is exposed on the cover of a national art magazine. Tina, Pecker's older sister, is fired from her job emceeing go-go dancing at a gay bar because Pecker's edgy photographs chronicle the sex practices of the club's patrons. Even Little Chrissy, his six-year-old sister, feels the pressure of celebrity when her eating disorder is exposed, bringing unwanted attention from nosy child welfare agencies, and she's mistakenly diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and prescribed Ritalin. After Pecker's new-found fame disrupts the lives of his family and friends, Pecker turns the tables on the art world by refusing to participate in a scheduled show at the Whitney Museum of Art. Instead, he forces New York art collectors to come to Baltimore to see his latest photographs, which portray the same people who disparaged his family in an unflattering light, one photo shows Lynn Wentworth adjusting her breasts in a mirror. Pecker is then asked what he plans to do next. He replies that he would like to direct a film. =====