During the last 90 minutes of a screening of ''Dragon Inn'' at an old Taipei cinema about to close down, the hobbled ticket woman tries to find the projectionist to give him a steamed bun. A Japanese tourist seeks a homosexual encounter; Chen Chao-jung brushes off his advance and tells him the place is haunted. Jun Shi, an actor in ''Dragon Inn'', watches the film with tears in his eyes. Outside, he meets Miao Tien, who also acted in the film and attended the screening with his grandson.

The Feathered Friends' Board of Birds - an organization whose purpose is to place stray birds with nice bird families - discusses the case of Big Bird. The group's social worker, Miss Finch, is sent to Sesame Street in New York City to find and bring Big Bird to a worthy family of dodos in Oceanview, Illinois. However, Big Bird begins to feel uncomfortable with his new family as they all think poorly of non-birds, and reaches his breaking point when the Dodos suggest he should have a bird as a best friend instead of Mr. Snuffleupagus, who is watching over his nest back on Sesame Street.

When Big Bird leaves his new home to return to Sesame Street, he ends up on the news where Miss Finch tells reporter Kermit the Frog that she intends to find him and bring him back to the Dodos. His friends on Sesame Street also see the news and band together to find him before Miss Finch does, and take various vehicles on their quest: Gordon and Olivia set out in a Volkswagen Beetle with Linda & Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert set out in an airplane, Count von Count sets out in his Countmobile, Grover flies as Super Grover (later falling into the Beetle), and Maria (to her dismay) sets out with Telly, Homer Honker, and Oscar in his Sloppy Jalopy. Bob instruts them to head to Toadstool, Indiana where they should meet up with Big Bird but Oscar chooses to go his own route wanting to have fun much to Maria & Telly's annoyance.

Along the way home, Big Bird hitches a ride with a trucker who encourages him to persevere and later meets two kids named Ruthie and Floyd at a farm, who allow him to sleep in their barn overnight. The next morning, Miss Finch arrives and Big Bird sneaks away.

While out imagining Mr. Snuffleupagus in a cornfield, Big Bird is spotted by Ernie & Bert. But plans derail when Big Bird thinks it's Miss Finch.

Two con artist brothers named Sid and Sam Sleaze, who operate a fraudulent carnival called The Sleaze Brothers Funfair, plot to capture Big Bird and put him on display for profit. When Big Bird arrives in Toadstool, Miss Finch arrives at the same time and chases him there. After escaping Miss Finch, Big Bird meets the Sleaze brothers at their funfair and asks if they have a place to hide, resulting in them putting him in their cage and deciding to paint him blue and tout him as "The Bluebird of Happiness", though he sings sadly about wishing to be back home. Despite this, he brings in plenty of customers.

After the show, two kids sneak backstage to see Big Bird, who asks them to call Sesame Street to inform his friends of his whereabouts. The next morning, the Sesame Street group sneak into the carnival and try to set him free. However, the Sleaze Brothers quietly wake up and just as Linda unlocks Big Bird's cage, they drive off in their truck with the cage - and Big Bird still in it - in tow. Gordon and Olivia give chase in the Beetle and successfully rescue Big Bird after he jumps from the moving truck. Shortly afterwards, a police officer pulls the Sleaze brothers over for speeding and arrests them on various charges.

Upon arriving back on Sesame Street, Big Bird is happy to be back home until Miss Finch arrives, admitting that the Dodos were not perfect for him and that she has found him another bird family before Maria tells her that Big Bird is happy on Sesame Street where it does not matter that his family consists of humans, monsters, grouches and other species. Considering Maria's statement and realizing how far Big Bird's friends went to bring him back, a sympathetic Miss Finch officially declares Sesame Street to be Big Bird's home and happily leaves with her job complete. As everyone celebrates Big Bird's return, Oscar the Grouch gets carried around the block in his trash can by Bruno the Trashman in order to get over everyone's happiness.

After his regeneration at the end of ''Logopolis'', the Fifth Doctor is still weak, and his companions, Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan take him to his TARDIS. Inside, the Doctor is delirious but asks to be taken to the "Zero Room" that contains Time Lord healing technology to allow him to recover.

Tegan and Nyssa discover a terminal on the TARDIS that describes how to use the machine. They attempt to pilot the TARDIS but find they are travelling rapidly to a preset time and destination, "Event One", the Big Bang, a trap set by the Master. After they are unable to find Adric, the women manage to bring the Doctor to the console room in time for him to jettison a quarter of the TARDIS' mass to propel them back to conventional time. They soon discover that the Zero Room was part of the jettisoned mass, so with the help of Nyssa the Doctor builds a temporary coffin-shaped zero cabinet from the zero room's doors. Tegan discovers information on the town of Castrovalva, an ideal place for the Doctor to recover, and directs the TARDIS there.

In the forest, Nyssa and Tegan have difficulties in transporting the Doctor, and become separated from him; the Doctor is captured by warriors protecting Castrovalva, while the women are forced to climb a rocky cliff to reach its entrance. The Doctor is cared for by Shardovan, a librarian, and the elderly Portreeve, before Nyssa and Tegan arrive. After a night's sleep, they discover strange aspects of Castrovalva; if they go out of the town through any of its exits, they find themselves in a particular plaza in the town, and a tapestry in the Doctor's rooms changes and reflects events of the outside world. The Doctor understands that they are trapped in a "recursive occlusion", and Castrovalva is fake. The Portreeve reveals himself as the Master, and shows them the trapped Adric. The Master has been able to use Adric's mathematical genius to create Castrovalva as well as alter the TARDIS, creating the terminal on the console that led them here. Realising the true nature of Castrovalva's reality, Shardovan swings from a chandelier into the web and destroys it, freeing Adric and causing Castrovalva to fall apart. Seeing all is lost, the Master flees to his TARDIS. The Doctor and his companions flee from the town. The Master appears to be trapped and is unable to escape as the town collapses in on itself. As the time travellers return to the TARDIS, the Doctor indicates that he has fully recovered from his regeneration ordeal.

Continuity

While he is still disorientated, the Doctor addresses Adric as "Brigadier" and "Jamie", Tegan as "Vicki" and "Jo", mentioning Romana, the Ice Warriors and K-9 as if they were in the vicinity, as well as adopting mannerisms or figures of speech characteristic of his four previous incarnations.

In 1804, Leslie Edwards, a foppish aristocrat, and the loud, low-brow Bartholomew Hunt are competing against the renowned Lewis & Clark to be the first to chart and make it across the United States to the Pacific Ocean. In the beginning of the film, Edwards has high hopes to head the first expedition to make it across the U.S., but while he has ambition and funding, he has grown up sheltered and knows little of the wilderness he seeks to cross. To aid in his journey, he hires the services of a supposedly knowledgeable wilderness-man and tracker, Hunt, who, once they get underway, turns out to be less than advertised.

They are aided by a crew of varied, rugged and grizzled frontiersmen, including the group's version of Sacagawea, a young Indian woman by the name Shaquinna, who is integral in helping them find their way across the dangerous and unknown terrain ahead, as well as eventually becoming Edwards' love interest. Along the way, the group goes through various mishaps and ordeals from having to deal with quirky, indigenous Indian tribes and vicious eagles, to running out of food and romantic snafus, as Hunt's ineptness often causes more problems than it solves. Along the way, Edwards and Hunt's shared journey helps Edwards shed his aristocratic, snooty ways and he learns camaraderie and honor, as well as a more humble view of a world he thought he understood. Hunt finds true friendship in Edwards and a sense of self-confidence he had not known before.

After many hardships and setbacks, they eventually make it to the Pacific coast just minutes before Lewis and Clark's expedition; however, once the celebration is over, they find that they do not necessarily want to go back to their old lives and collectively decide to continue their adventure, leading Edwards and Hunt's expedition to further explore the great uncharted world.

On the planet Cato Neimoidia, Jedi generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker lead clone troopers to capture Nute Gunray, Trade Federation viceroy and one of the leaders of the Separatists. Gunray narrowly escapes to rendezvous with General Grievous and the rest of the Separatist Council, but he leaves behind his walking chair equipped with a specially-constructed holotransceiver. Republic analysts find the afterimage of Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord who masterminded the Clone Wars. However, this puts the Jedi no closer to finding Sidious himself.

While Kenobi and Skywalker pursue the constructor of the chair, General Grievous is commanded by Sidious through his apprentice Count Dooku to relocate the Separatist Council to Belderone, where a Republic fleet lies in wait for them. Furious, Grievous learns that Gunray lost the holotransceiver. Republic Intelligence find the signature of the artist that designed the mechno-chair that Sidious provided Gunray. Kenobi and Skywalker seek out the artist, a Xi Charrian, who tells them to find the designer, contracted by Sidious, to build the holotransceiver built into the mechno-chair. The Jedi find the designer in a prison, where he tells them that he built two holotransceivers, one for the mechno-chair, another for a ship of unknown design. The designer knows the identity of the pilot that delivered the ship to its owners (Darth Maul and Sidious). The pilot, a Lethan Twi'lek, is discovered on a moon by the Jedi, and she describes to the Jedi the location of the delivered ship: a columnar building in The Works, a desolate industrial park on Coruscant.

On Coruscant, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine resists the Jedi Council's suggestion to recall Jedi from the Outer Rim worlds due to the Separatist threat. Palpatine's increased calls for public surveillance and restriction on freedom of movement and action prompt Senators Padmé Amidala, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma to persuade him to pull back from the brink. Palpatine somehow knows Sidious' name and orders the Jedi and Republic intelligence to hunt him down. In the bowels of the planet, trace elements lead Jedi Mace Windu, Shaak Ti and Republic intelligence to track down the same Darth Sidious that Count Dooku had been meeting with, the tower described by the Twi'lek pilot. The Jedi/Intelligence team are led through endless tunnels, but find a trail of evidence that leads to the Senate district. Here, the trail grows cold at the base of 500 Republica, the personal quarters of many of Coruscant's finest. At 500 Republica, a Republic Intelligence agent named Captain Dyne was separated from the Jedi, and was the first of the Republic to realize Darth Sidious' true identity – Supreme Chancellor Palpatine himself. He was astonished to learn that the Sith really do rule the galaxy. He died with the satisfaction of escaping the war. Before the search for the Sith Lord can proceed further, General Grievous leads an invasion of Coruscant that results in the capture of Palpatine.

As Coruscant is invaded by Separatist forces, Kenobi and Skywalker, fresh from an encounter with Dooku on the former industrial world of Tythe, use orbital hyperspace rings to depart for Coruscant. The novel ends "To Be Concluded".

Revenge of the Sith

The Supreme Chancellor effectively orders the Jedi on a wild-goose chase. But since certain Jedi trace the trail of his real identity back to Coruscant (see Yoda's ability to sense him on Coruscant, as well as Windu's investigations) he orchestrates his own kidnapping to end the chase and to further Anakin's eventual turn to the dark side of the Force.

After Kenobi, Anakin, and Palpatine crash land on Coruscant, Anakin and Kenobi have a brief conversation about who owes whom what. Obi-Wan mentions that "that business on Cato Nemoidia doesn't count."

Kamino Erasure

The novel reveals how all records of Kamino are erased from the Jedi Library in ''Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones''.

Set in the fictional city of Millbrook, Connecticut, Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg), a very smart and talented science student, pursues a scholarship to Harvard University. For the scholarship, she must present a personal summer project about physics. While watching a figure skating competition with her mathematically inclined best friend Ann, Casey realizes that her favorite childhood hobby, ice skating, would make a perfect project. She decides to try to improve her own skating by applying physics and what she has discovered from watching other skaters.

Casey becomes proficient and skips two levels to become a junior skater, following a recital. She helps junior skaters Gennifer "Gen" Harwood (Hayden Panettiere), Tiffany Lai (Jocelyn Lai), and Nikki Fletcher (Kirsten Olson) improve their skating by using algorithms generated by her computer. Torn between her Harvard dream and her growing love of skating, Casey has difficulty juggling schoolwork, skating, and a part-time job. Joan Carlyle (Joan Cusack), Casey's mother, attempts to prevent her daughter from skating due to her declining academic performance. Meanwhile, tension arises between Casey's mother and her coach Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), a disgraced former skater.

Tina, who manages the rink where Casey trains, has Gen on a strict training program. During a competition where both Casey and Gen compete, Tina sees Casey may outrank Gen and sabotages Casey's performance by buying her new skates. Unaware of the danger of unbroken-in skates, Casey's resulting long program is riddled with poor jumps and several falls. Upon being informed of Tina's intent behind her seemingly kind gesture, Casey lashes out at her and mistakenly assumes her children were equally involved in the plot. She ranks fifth in the competition and can only qualify for sectionals if any of the top four back out. As a result, Casey loses interest in skating and returns to her studies and goal of attending Harvard.

Upset at sabotage and frustrated by all the restrictions of training, Gen quits. While Casey and Gen reconcile, Casey can now qualify for sectionals as Gen quit. She declines the Harvard scholarship competition to devote herself to skating, to her mother's dismay. Casey asks Tina to be her personal coach and train for sectionals. Her mother, upset at this change of direction in her life, refuses to watch her skate.

At Sectionals, Casey is not fully focused on the competition, and falls while attempting a triple salchow jump. To her surprise, she sees her mother in the audience. Inspired, she gives a highly rated artistic performance. Sectionals ends with Nikki earning gold and Casey placing silver, both qualifying to go to Nationals and potentially the 2006 Winter Olympics. Gen's brother, Teddy (Trevor Blumas), gives Casey flowers to congratulate her; and they kiss. Later, Joan and Tina bicker about how many college courses Casey should take, her and Teddy's budding love, her sponsors, and her future in figure skating.

Jack Wyatt is a narcissistic actor who is approached to play the role of Darrin in a remake of the 1960s sitcom ''Bewitched'', but insists that an unknown play Samantha. Isabel Bigelow is an actual witch who decides she wants to be normal and moves to Los Angeles to start a new life and becomes friends with her neighbor Maria. She goes to a bookstore to learn how to get a job after seeing an advertisement of Ed McMahon on television. Jack happens to be at the same bookstore after attending some failed Samantha auditions. Jack spots Isabel and persuades her to audition. At the same time, while she's trying to settle into her new life, Isabel's intrusive father Nigel keeps appearing to convince her to return home, despite several rejections from Isabel.

After Isabel impresses the show's producers and writers, Jack finally convinces Isabel to join the show. Also joining the show is legendary actress Iris Smythson as Endora. After a successful taping of the pilot, Isabel happens to overhear a conversation Jack is having with his agent Ritchie. They are talking about how they tricked Isabel to appear without having any lines. Furious, Isabel storms off with Maria and new neighbor friend Nina close behind. She decides she only has three choices: quit, get mad, or live with it. Instead, Isabel's Aunt Clara visits and aids Isabel in casting a spell on Jack in order to make him fall in love with her. At the same time, Nigel is introduced to Iris and becomes infatuated with her.

The hex works and Jack becomes love struck by Isabel, insisting on several script changes to give her some dialogue and jokes, ignoring statements from test groups preferring Isabel over him. Jack's affection for Isabel grows and he asks her out on a date, making Isabel forget about the hex. But when he brings her home, she remembers and reverses it back to when she and Aunt Clara cast it. The next day, rather than the events the hex presented, Jack is outraged by the scores he received and takes his anger out on Isabel, who lashes back at him. Ritchie fires her, and she storms off.

Rather than be angry at her, Jack is fascinated with Isabel and chases after her, accepting all her comments. After another taping (with Isabel getting dialogue), their romance blossoms. But the next day, Jack's former wife Sheila arrives, determined to woo Jack back. Isabel sees this and casts a spell on her making her sign the divorce papers and have her decide to move to Iceland. Jack, thrilled, announces he will be throwing a party at his house celebrating the divorce.

Nigel attends the party with Iris and when Nigel begins flirting with much younger guests, Iris reveals that she is also a witch and casts a spell on each girl. When Jack makes a toast stating truth will be revealed with everyone, Isabel decides to tell Jack she's a witch. At first, thinking she's simply an amateur magician, Jack finally believes her when she levitates him with her broom. Jack becomes frightened and shoos her away with a stick. Offended and heartbroken, Isabel flies off.

Jack takes this hard, being brought to the studios by the police and becoming disenchanted with the project. Isabel decides to return home as she no longer wishes to stay. Jack, imagining himself on the ''Conan O'Brien Show'', is visited by Uncle Arthur. Arthur convinces Jack not to let Isabel leave, because Jack still loves her and wouldn't be able to return for 100 years (which is later proven to be a lie Arthur made up to inspire Jack). Arthur drives him to the studio where he finds Isabel at the set. Jack apologizes to her and tells her he wants to marry her. Six months later, they do get married and move into their new neighborhood (which resembles the neighborhood in the series, with the Kravitzes living right across the street).

In the first novel of the series, the reader is introduced to four high school students: Lena Kaligaris, Tibby Rollins, Bridget Vreeland, and Carmen Lowell. They have been best friends since birth (their mothers attended prenatal exercise classes together). The summer before their junior year of high school, Carmen finds a pair of old jeans that mysteriously fits each girl perfectly, despite their different sizes. This leads them to believe that the pants are magical. They share the "traveling pants" among themselves over the summer while they are separated.

Lena spends the summer with her grandparents in Santorini. During her stay, her grandmother attempts to set her up with a man by the name of Kostos. Kostos takes interest in Lena, who eventually returns the notion. She goes skinny-dipping and Kostos accidentally sees her. A misunderstanding leads Lena's grandparents to believe that Kostos attempted to assault Lena, causing an argument between the two families. Later in the summer, Lena explains to her grandparents what happened in order to repair the rift between her and Kostos' grandparents, and confesses to Kostos that she loves him.

Tibby spends the summer working at a Wallman's store, planning to film a documentary of her experiences. She meets a 12-year-old girl, Bailey, after the latter faints at the store; it is revealed that she has been diagnosed with leukemia. Over the course of the summer, the two become close friends and Bailey begins to help Tibby film her documentary. Bailey dies from her leukemia, which leads Tibby to refocus her documentary to capture the memories that they created together.

Carmen goes to South Carolina to spend the summer with her father, from whom she has grown apart since he and Carmen's mother divorced several years before. Carmen learns that he is engaged. Out of frustration at feeling left out of her father's new family, she breaks a window in their home with a rock and returns home to her mother. She eventually attends her father's wedding and reconciles with her father and his new family.

Bridget attends a soccer camp in Baja California. While there, she falls for one of the coaches, Eric Richman. Bridget pursues him in spite of the camp's prohibition on coaches and campers entering relationships with each other, and eventually sees him in his underwear. She conspires to lose her virginity to him, until Eric eventually tells her that he does not feel as if he can worship her as she deserves. Lena comes to comfort a depressed Bridget and ends up taking her home.

Ann Brashares got the idea for the novel while working as an editor when colleague Jodi Anderson, proposed the concept of a group of girlfriends who share a pair of jeans. This was based on some of Anderson's own college experiences. Brashares decided to write the book herself. Anderson was compensated with a small bonus and a promotion. Brashares later said, "I loved the idea. A shirt can more easily fit different people, but jeans are more judgmental. It totally captured my fancy."

Dan Foreman is a 51-year-old advertising executive and head of sales for ''Sports America'', a major sports magazine. Happily married with two daughters, Dan faces a life-changing event when his magazine is bought out by Globecom, an international corporation that promotes the corporate concept of "synergy". After he is forced to fire several of his longtime colleagues, Dan is demoted and becomes the "wingman" of his new boss, Carter Duryea, a 26-year-old business school prodigy. While Dan develops clients through handshake deals and relationships, Carter champions the corporate creed of synergy, cross-promoting the magazine with the cell phone division and "Krispity Krunch", a snack food also owned by Globecom.

Dan and Carter are both facing challenges in their personal lives. Dan is supporting two daughters—16-year-old Jana and 18-year-old Alex who is preparing to enter college—and learns that his wife is pregnant with their third child. Meanwhile, Carter is dumped by his adulterous, narcissistic wife of seven months and focuses all of his energy on work. With Dan facing the financial realities of taking out a second mortgage, to cover his daughter's college education costs, and a new child, and with Carter needing Dan's practical, real-life experience in the field of advertising, the two form an uneasy friendship.

Carter, who has been struggling with loneliness following the breakup of his marriage, invites himself to dinner at Dan's house, where he meets Dan's daughter, Alex, and the two quickly form an attraction. Their initial friendship allows Carter to forget his loneliness, and Alex, who is now attending New York University, is able to escape her own loneliness and boredom. In the coming days, Carter and Alex spend time together and become romantically involved. Fearful of offending her father, they keep their relationship a secret for the time being.

Their friendship, however, takes a turn for the worse when Dan discovers that Carter and Alex have been seeing each other, approaches them in a restaurant, and punches his boss in the face. The confrontation with her father convinces Alex to break up with Carter who is heartbroken. Soon after, Globecom CEO Teddy K visits the sales office and during a grand speech to all the employees on synergy and other similar corporate business strategies, he is questioned by Dan and shrugs him off. Carter's boss, Mark Steckle, tells Carter to fire Dan. Carter refuses, claiming that losing Dan will cost them a major advertising contract. Steckle gives them 24 hours to seal the contract or be fired. Dan has developed a long-term relationship with the client, and Carter gives way to Dan's personal approach. The strategy works, and they conclude a deal.

Following another corporate shakeup, ''Sports America'' is sold off, Carter is let go, and Dan returns to his former position as head of sales. Having developed fatherly feelings toward Carter, Dan offers him a position in his new department as his "wingman", but Carter declines, saying he needs to take some time and discover what he really wants to do in his life. On his way out of the building, Carter runs into Alex, and they exchange pleasantries. Dan's wife gives birth to a girl. He calls Carter in Los Angeles (who is jogging outdoors for the first time and feels like a new man) with the news.

Beginning ''in medias res'', the opening scene presents Terry Wolfmeyer and her four daughters, with a friend, Denny Davies, attending a funeral.

About three years earlier, a flashback reveals, a heavily intoxicated Terry announces to her daughters Hadley, Andy, Emily and Popeye that their father, Grey, has left the family to be with his secretary in Sweden. Terry continues to drink heavily to cope with her anger and pain, which causes her daughters to resent her. She later shares the news about her husband with her neighbor Denny, a retired baseball player turned radio talk-show host and fellow heavy drinker. Terry progressively grows close to the man, with whom she eventually begins an intimate relationship.

Keen to help where he can, Denny helps Andy to become a production assistant at the radio station where he works. There she meets Shep, Denny's producer who is a questionable character in his 40s; Andy and Shep begin a relationship which disgusts and angers Terry. Andy does well at the radio station, and soon outgrows the relationship. Meanwhile Popeye, a high school student, pursues a romance with a classmate, but he reveals to her that he's gay. They instead become close friends, bonding over their respective broken homes.

Terry clashes with Emily, who wants to pursue a career as a professional ballet dancer and rejects her mother's desire for her to go to a traditional university. Emily ultimately relents and starts classes at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but is soon hospitalized for complications from an eating disorder. She returns home to recover and, after a night at the ballet with the entire family, Terry appears to accept Emily's desire to pursue dance.

Hadley graduates from college and immediately afterward tells her mother and sisters that she's pregnant and engaged to her longtime boyfriend, David. Terry reacts with anger that Hadley had not told her sooner or ever bothered to introduce her to David, leading to an embarrassing drunken scene at a lunch with David's parents.

When Popeye asks Denny what his long-term intentions are concerning his relationship with her mother, Denny decides to broach the subject with Terry, only to be confronted by anger and accusations that he is trying to push her into a marriage for which she feels unready. Weary and tired of Terry's ever-shifting moods, Denny confronts her and then storms out of her house. After a brief separation, Terry finally acknowledges the depth of her feelings for Denny, and the two reunite.

When a real estate deal involving both Denny and Terry finally goes through, construction begins in the area surrounding their homes. A worker accidentally uncovers an abandoned, partially covered well, where Grey Wolfmeyer's body is found, revealing that he had never left his family. Rather, he had accidentally fallen in the well and died. Because Grey's secretary had abruptly returned to Sweden at the same time he disappeared, Terry believed he had run away with her.

As the story returns to the initial scene, the Wolfmeyers and Denny, now part of the family, leave Grey's funeral to reveal that Terry, while saddened and grieving, is coming to terms with her own and her daughters' life choices and, finally, finding some inner peace.

Prologue

Scooby-Doo and Shaggy arrive in Arabia on a magic carpet to become royal food tasters for the young Caliph. They are initially hired. After they eat everything in sight and leave no food for the Caliph, he and the Royal Chef get angry and the Caliph orders his guards to kill them. Shaggy and Scooby-Doo find a place to hide and Shaggy takes on the disguise as a harem girl. The Caliph, who is looking for a bride, falls in love with the disguised Shaggy and decides that they shall be married. Hoping to make the Caliph fall asleep so they can make their escape, Shaggy tells him two classic stories.

''Aliyah-Din and the Magic Lamp''

The Sultan of the land is worried as his son, The Prince, has not yet chosen a bride to marry; so he decides to have every eligible woman arrive the next day so that his son may finally get married. However, the Prince notices a young woman near a river washing her clothes and immediately falls in love with her; she notices him and runs off, leaving her scarf behind.

However, Haman the vizier is trying to become Sultan. He learns of a magical lamp hidden in a cave that is revealed every three years during a blue moon, but only a person pure of heart can enter the cave; that person being a young woman named Aliyah-Din (the same woman the Prince has fallen in love with). Haman goes into town and finds Aliyah-Din, where he tells her about the lamp, saying that it has special powers that will help heal the sick Sultan, to which Aliyah-Din agrees to help.

Later that day, the Prince is still searching for Aliyah-Din where he also attracts a lot of attention from many women who seek to marry him. Meanwhile, Aliyah-Din is late meeting with Haman, but on her way, she discovers the news that the Prince shall choose a bride the next day. Aliyah-Din and the Prince then bump into each other, and Aliyah-Din falls in love with the Prince. However, remembering her duties to help retrieve the lamp, Aliyah-Din is forced to leave.

At night, Aliyah-Din meets with Haman where they witness the cave opening. Aliyah-Din goes into the cave and finds the lamp, but the cave starts to collapse and it soon closes, leaving her and the lamp trapped inside. Aliyah-Din then rubs the lamp which releases Yogi Bear, a fully powered Genie and his sidekick Boo-Boo, a Genie-in-training, who reveal to Aliyah-Din that she is their new master and they are allowed to grant her three wishes.

Meanwhile, back at the Palace, Haman creates a special potion to use on the Sultan that will make him fall into a deep sleep. He goes to the Sultan's chambers where the potion takes immediate effect; soon after the Prince arrives, unaware of the spell. The Prince apologizes for not having selected a bride, revealing he will choose a bride and marry whoever it may be the next day. However, the Prince notices his father's condition and Haman puts the Prince under the same spell. Haman then brings the unconscious Prince to the dungeons before taking on the Prince's appearance.

Aliyah-Din then goes to the palace after wishing to become a princess. Haman reveals himself, takes the lamp, and has Aliyah-Din thrown into the dungeon. Haman uses his first 2 wishes to make himself sultan and ruler of the whole universe. Aliyah-Din escapes from the dungeon and removes the lamp from Haman's grasp, leaving him without a third wish. Aliyah-Din finally gets a do-over of three wishes and uses her first wish to bring everything back to normal.

With everything fully restored, The Prince regains consciousness and orders the palace guards to arrest Haman. The Prince then reunites with Aliyah-Din and returns her scarf before asking her to marry him. The now-awakened Sultan arrives and the Prince introduces his father to Aliyah-Din and reveals his desire to marry her. The Sultan, however, cannot bless their desire for marriage, as he reveals to his son that he can only marry a princess.

Saddened, The Prince apologizes to Aliyah-Din. However, upon learning her name, The Sultan realizes that Aliyah-Din is the long-lost princess the Prince was engaged to and allows them to be married. The Prince and Aliyah-Din celebrate their engagement and share a kiss, as Boo-Boo finally becomes a full-fledged Genie.

Interlude

After the first story, the Caliph was impressed the story and starts to make plans for the wedding by having the Royal Dress Worker pick out a dress. Scooby-Doo had to pose as the Royal Dress Worker's assistant to measure out a dress. Afterwards, Shaggy begins the next story.

''Sinbad the Sailor''

The second and final tale is about ''Sinbad the Sailor'' (played by Magilla Gorilla) and how he mistakes a pirate ship for a cruise ship. Abandoned by his own crew, the maniacal little pirate captain takes advantage of Magilla's situation and passes himself off as a cruise director with the plan to use Sinbad for stealing a rare rhuk egg from its nest, jewels from the Stream of Precious Gems (presented as a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque dark ride), and a golden toothbrush (owned by a stuffy rich cyclops), passing off the thefts as being part of a scavenger hunt. A running gag in the story involves the pirate ship getting sunk, followed by the cruise ship Sinbad was supposed to board sailing by.

Finale

Before Shaggy can escape, the Caliph decides to start the ceremony right away. When the wedding cake arrives, Shaggy pigs out, and his ruse is discovered by the Royal Chef. However, the Caliph reveals that since he enjoyed listening to the stories and was distracted from his hunger, he has decided to make Shaggy and Scooby royal storytellers which the duo happily accept as well as maintaining their royal food tasting job. Shaggy, Scooby-Doo, the Caliph, and the Royal Chef then eat the large cake.

The story begins as Dwight McCarthy, working as a photographer for a grossly overweight man named Agamemnon, saves one of the Old Town prostitutes, Sally, from one of her customers, whom Dwight was investigating on behalf of his wife; he then drives her back to Old Town. That night he receives a call from a woman named Ava Lord, asking him to meet her at a seedy bar called Kadie's Club Pecos. Dwight is suspicious of her, as Ava broke his heart four years ago by running off with another richer man, Damien Lord, but the lure of seeing her again is too powerful and he agrees to meet her anyway.

Marv is also there and greets Dwight. Ava arrives late (as she often used to) and attempts to convince Dwight her life is a "living hell" and begs for his forgiveness; Dwight refuses to listen until Ava mentions she believes she will soon be dead. But just then, Manute, Damien Lord's valet, arrives and takes Ava away. Ava is reluctant to go, but when Dwight attempts to defend her, she convinces him to stand down, asking him to remember her before she leaves. Dwight goes home, but cannot sleep. He decides to check up on Ava.

At Ava's estate, Dwight hops a fence and uses his photography equipment to find Ava swimming in the nude. He is discovered and claims that he is simply a Peeping Tom when Manute and Damien become involved. Ava comes to investigate and Dwight pretends not to know her, worried his presence may make things bad for Ava. Manute pretends not to recognize him from the bar in front of Damien then beats him brutally before throwing him from a car into the street. Dwight calls Agamemnon for a ride home and they stop several times for fast food.

As Dwight arrives home, he finds his Ford Mustang returned and his door unlocked. In his bedroom he finds Ava nude. Following a heated argument, they eventually reconcile and make love. Ava talks about how her husband regularly charges Manute with abusing her physically, believing soon Damien will go too far and kill her. She confesses to Dwight she came to him that night for one last night of love before Manute kills her, but then says she realizes she is not ready to die. Manute arrives and violently beats Dwight when he tries to defend her. Dwight is knocked out of his upper story apartment window to the street below, where he blacks out momentarily. He awakens to see Manute driving off with Ava.

Determined to rescue her, Dwight arrives at Kadie’s, where Marv is in the middle of a squabble with some out-of-town punks and the bar owner Kadie. One of them pulls a gun on Marv. At first Marv is patient, warning the out-of-towners not to offend Kadie or himself and further. But after calling Kadie "a cow" and Marv "ugly", Marv quickly and easily knocks him flat; the rest quickly scatter. Dwight convinces Marv, over several drinks and whilst watching Nancy dance, to help him storm Damien's estate. Both drunk as they approach the mansion, Dwight insists Marv leave the punk's gun, which Marv has procured, in the car. Marv tackles the guards as a distraction and eventually takes on Manute, ripping his right eye out and beating him savagely.

With Manute and the guards occupied, Dwight makes his way to Damien. When he finds him in his office, Damien calls Ava pathological and pulls a gun on Dwight. When Damien fires, Dwight beats him to death. As Dwight panics, realizing what he has done, Ava appears, and explains how Dwight was all a part of her plan to murder Damien whilst keeping her hands clean, so she can inherit his estate. Ava tells Dwight she never loved him or Damien, that she's waited years to "be in charge", even goes so far as to call herself "evil". She shoots Dwight six times, including once in the face. Dwight once again falls out of a window and is picked up and saved by Marv.

Upon Dwight's insistence, Marv drives him to Old Town, they're followed by a police car and when the police reach Old Town, they're met by a hailstorm of bullets, revealing to the reader that Cops have no authority in Old Town. Now in Old Town, Dwight finds a hooker, his old flame, Gail. Gail takes him to her surgeon just has he goes into cardiac arrest. The hookers of Old Town perform surgery on Dwight's multiple bullet wounds, then the leaders of the ladies (the Twins) tell him to leave. Gail proclaims her unwavering allegiance to Dwight and reveals to Miho, a deadly assassin, Dwight had saved her only 3 years ago. After gaining the loyalty of Gail and Miho, the Twins allow him to stay however long he wants, for rest and more surgery.

Two detectives following up on Damien Lord's death, Mort and Bob, talk to Ava. She claims that Dwight was a stalker psychopath who killed Damien out of jealousy. They believe her story, and soon after Mort begins an affair with Ava. They interrogate Agamemnon, who tells how Dwight is an upright man who went clean after being a wild alcoholic with a short temper in his younger days. When they speak with Dwight's landlady, she tells them about letting Ava in Dwight's apartment and the resulting loud noises of Ava and Dwight's sexual encounter then fight between Dwight and Manute the night of Damien's murder.

After multiple inconsistencies with Ava's story Bob doubts Ava considerably now. Mort on the other hand, has left his wife and fallen in love with Ava and refuses to see past her lies. Mort becomes more on-edge towards his partner when Bob continues to speak ill of Ava. This culminates with Mort killing Bob, then committing suicide. During the scene in which Mort kills Bob, while they are driving in the car, Wendy and Marv can be clearly seen driving past them, presumably on their way to butcher Kevin.

Meanwhile, Dwight is recovering from his near-fatal wounds and calls Ava to inform her he is coming for her soon. Ava, with her late husband's financial assets, is joining her corporation with the mob boss Wallenquist. Unaffected by Ava's flirting, he warns her not to underestimate him again and tells her to tie up her loose ends with Dwight; he has someone arriving from Phoenix soon to meet her about that.

Dwight (with his new face), accompanied by Gail and Miho, poses as Wallenquist's man from Phoenix. Inside Ava's estate, however, Manute sees past the new face and captures Dwight. Gail and Miho strike from Dwight's car, and Dwight shoots Manute with a hidden .25 he had up his left sleeve. Six bullets fail to kill him, and Manute aims shakily at Dwight as Ava grabs one of Manute's guns, shooting Manute in his shoulder.

Manute falls through a window and, upon landing, is stabbed in the arms by Miho, pinning him to the ground. Ava then tries to get Dwight to kill him, telling him that Manute had her under mind control to manipulate her and Damien and that it would be a cruel irony if he killed her now. Dwight finally sees through all the lies and kills Ava.

A house party at Crome is viewed largely through the eyes of Denis Stone. Described by his hostess as "one of our younger poets", he has been invited by Priscilla and Henry Wimbush to join their summer guests. Denis is secretly in love with their niece, Anne Wimbush, who appears more interested in the artist Gombauld. The rather naïve flapper, Mary Bracegirdle, decides to embark on an amorous adventure so as to overcome her repressions and makes unsuccessful advances to Denis and Gombauld before falling for the libertine Ivor Lombard one summer night. The hard-of-hearing Jenny Mullion confines most of her thoughts on what goes on to her journal, in which Denis eventually discovers a devastating deconstruction of his self and fellow guests. Mr. Wimbush, the owner of Crome, has been writing a history of the house and its family, from which he gives two evening readings. His wife is obsessed with alternative spirituality and finds a fellow sympathiser in the prolific literary hack, Mr. Barbecue-Smith. Also part of the party is Henry's former schoolfriend, the cynical Mr. Scogan, who lies in wait for anyone he can waylay with his reductive criticisms of the time and his visions for a dystopian future. After several ludicrous failures in trying to capture Anne’s affection, Denis despairingly arranges to be recalled home on 'urgent family business' and departs on the same slow train that had brought him.

Once upon a time there were two scientists, Dr. Little Emon and Dr. Ivan Walnuts, who worked together to create the world's most spectacular robots. One fateful day, Dr. Walnuts disappeared with the laboratory's seven military robots before appearing on TV to declare his intention to conquer the world. , an owarai robot who had been training in the Kansai region, is called back to the laboratory by Dr. Emon, who remodels Sukapon into a military robot in a last-ditch effort to stop his evil counterpart.

Sukapon's first task was to defeat the seven other robots and allow Dr. Emon to reprogram back to their original selves. All eight robots then proceed to take on Dr. Walnuts's many robots, each wave stronger than the last. After fighting each of their doppelgängers at Dr. Walnuts's castle, they finally face off against the most powerful robot, Houou, on the surface of the moon.

After Houou is destroyed, Dr. Walnuts attempts to flee in his ship, but his ship malfunctions and explodes. Fortunately, Dr. Emon rescues Dr. Walnuts from the moon's surface. Dr. Walnuts later wakes up, back to his normal self, and Dr. Emon convinces him that everything that happened was just a dream. Sukapon is remodeled back into an owarai robot, and all is returned to normal.

''Tea at Five'' is an intimate look at Katharine Hepburn at home in her Fenwick estate in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

The first act takes place in September 1938. Despite Broadway appearances and her first Oscar, she has just been labeled "box office poison" after a series of film flops. With her professional future in doubt, she contemplates her childhood in Hartford, education and her start in show business.

The second act takes place in February 1983, after Hepburn was injured in a car crash. The accident affords the now-legendary star an opportunity to reflect on the triumphs of her career and her heart-breaking romance with Spencer Tracy.

In 2065,Bentley 2005, p. 96. the first human mission to Mars is launched from Glenn Field in the form of the spacecraft ''Zero-X''. Unknown to Captain Travers and his four-man crew, master criminal the Hood has stowed away on board to photograph ''Zero-X'' s wing mechanism. Shortly after lift-off, the Hood inadvertently traps his foot in the craft's hydraulics, jamming them and causing ''Zero-X'' to go out of control. As the astronauts eject in the escape pod, the Hood extracts his crushed foot and parachutes to safety from the undercarriage. ''Zero-X'' crashes into the ocean and explodes.

In 2067,Bentley 2008, p. 303.Though Jeff is shown to be reading a newspaper dated June ''2066'', the Andersons intended this part of the film to be set in 2067 (Bentley 2008, p. 303). the Inquiry Board of the Space Exploration Center concludes that ''Zero-X'' was sabotaged. Meanwhile, a second ''Zero-X'' has been built and another mission to Mars planned. International Rescue agrees to provide security at the launch given the possibility of further sabotage. Jeff Tracy dispatches Scott to Glenn Field in ''Thunderbird 1'' to monitor the situation from the ground, while Virgil and Alan are assigned to escort ''Zero-X'' through the atmosphere in ''Thunderbirds 2'' and ''3''. Posing as a reporter at the pre-launch press conference, Lady Penelope arranges for each member of the crew to wear a St Christopher brooch with a concealed homing device. On launch day, Dr Grant's device is no longer registering, even though Grant is on board ''Zero-X'' awaiting lift-off. Scott unmasks "Grant" as the Hood in disguise. The Hood flees Glenn Field in a car, pursued by Penelope and Parker in FAB 1. Reaching the coast, he transfers to a speedboat and then a helicopter. Parker shoots down the helicopter with FAB 1's machine gun.Surviving the helicopter crash, the Hood returns in the sequel, ''Thunderbird 6'', as the villainous Black Phantom (Bentley 2005, p. 98). In her audio commentary for the DVD release of ''Thunderbird 6'', Sylvia Anderson said that Black Phantom is the Hood's son and is seeking to avenge his father's death. Meanwhile, the kidnapped Grant is found and returned to ''Zero-X'' and the spacecraft is launched without further incident.

Mission complete, Penelope invites Scott and Virgil to join her at popular nightclub The Swinging Star. Returning to Tracy Island, Alan feels unappreciated when Jeff insists that he stay at base while the others spend the night partying. Asleep in bed, Alan has a surreal dream in which he and Penelope travel to another Swinging Star located in space. Appearing at the nightclub are Cliff Richard Jr and The Shadows, who perform a song called "Shooting Star" and an instrumental called "Lady Penelope". The dream ends when Alan falls out of The Swinging Star and back to Earth, waking to discover that he has merely fallen out of bed.

After a six-week flight, ''Zero-X'' reaches Mars on 22 July and all of the astronauts except Space Navigator Newman touch down on the planet in their lander, the Martian Excursion Vehicle (MEV). Investigating the surface, the men are puzzled to find strange, coil-like rock formations. Space Captain Martin destroys one of the structures with the MEV's gun and Dr Pierce prepares to go outside to collect samples. The other structures come to life, revealing themselves to be one-eyed rock snakes. The aliens bombard the MEV with fireballs from their mouths, forcing the astronauts to take off prematurely. Docking with Newman in orbit, they start back to Earth.

As ''Zero-X'' re-enters Earth's atmosphere on 2 September, a lifting body fails to connect with the spacecraft and damages various systems, including flight control and the escape pod circuit. With the astronauts unable to eject and ''Zero-X'' set to impact Craigsville, Florida,Craigsville is located in Florida (Archer and Nicholls, p. 116; Archer and Hearn, p. 140) and background shots filmed in Portugal for the climax are intended to represent that area. Jeff launches Scott and Brains in ''Thunderbird 1'' and Virgil, Alan and Gordon in ''Thunderbird 2''. Craigsville is evacuated. Lifted into ''Zero-X'' s undercarriage, Alan repairs the escape circuit under Brains' guidance. Seconds before impact, Alan completes his task and jumps out as the astronauts eject. The empty ''Zero-X'' crashes into Craigsville. Picked up by Penelope and Parker in FAB1, Alan is driven to the real Swinging Star where Penelope, joined by the Tracy family, Brains and Tin-Tin, toast Alan as a hero.

In 2068,A newspaper seen in close-up is dated 11 June 2068 (Bentley 2005, p. 99; Bentley 2008, p. 305), placing ''Skyship One'' s maiden flight nine months after the conclusion to ''Thunderbirds Are Go'' and six months after the events of the final ''Thunderbirds'' episode, "Give or Take a Million" (Bentley 2005, p. 95). ''Captain Scarlet'' is also set in 2068. the New World Aircraft Corporation in England gives Brains an open brief to design a revolutionary aircraft. Brains suggests an airship, prompting howls of laughter from the executives. Nevertheless, his proposal is accepted and the corporation builds ''Skyship One'', a fully automated airship powered by an anti-gravity field. Representing International Rescue for the maiden flight – a private round-the-world trip with pre-programmed stops – are Alan Tracy, Tin-Tin, Lady Penelope and Parker. Brains, meanwhile, is forced to remain on Tracy Island after Jeff asks him to design a sixth ''Thunderbird'' craft. Working without a specification, Brains produces a range of concepts but all are rejected by Jeff.

Alan and Tin-Tin fly to England in an old Tiger Moth biplane and join Penelope and Parker before ''Skyship One'' departs. However, the group are unaware that Captain Foster and the stewards have been murdered and replaced by agents of The Hood, now operating as "Black Phantom" from an abandoned airfield near Casablanca.The Hood was apparently killed in ''Thunderbirds Are Go'' but returns in ''Thunderbird 6'' under a new codename (Bentley 2005, p. 98). In their audio commentary for the DVD release, Sylvia Anderson and David Lane referred to Black Phantom as the "son of the Hood" and said that he is seeking revenge for the death of his father. As the ship is automated, the impostors are not required to demonstrate any detailed knowledge of its systems and are thus able to avoid raising their guests' suspicions as the trip progresses.

After ''Skyship One'' leaves the Egyptian pyramids, Penelope finds a bugging device in her bedroom. Unknown to her, Foster and his men have been recording and editing her voice to assemble a fake radio message asking Jeff to send ''Thunderbirds 1'' and ''2'' to the abandoned airfield, where The Hood and his men intend to hi-jack the craft. During a stop in the Swiss Alps, Parker discovers the editing equipment, but before the group can act the message is completed and transmitted to Tracy Island via John on ''Thunderbird 5''. Jeff immediately dispatches Scott and Virgil in ''Thunderbirds 1'' and ''2'', but Alan realises that his brothers are flying into a trap and Penelope is able to forward the warning just in time. On landing at the airfield, Scott and Virgil use the ''Thunderbirds'' rocket launchers to destroy The Hood's base. They then take off to rendezvous with ''Skyship One''.

Aboard the airship, Alan, Penelope and Parker engage in a shootout with the impostors but are forced to surrender when Tin-Tin is taken hostage. The anti-gravity system is damaged in the fighting, causing the ship to lose altitude and crash into a radio mast at a missile base near Dover. With ''Skyship One'' balanced precariously on top of the mast and its anti-gravity field weakening, it is up to Scott, Virgil and Brains to rescue all aboard before the ship collapses onto the base below. However, Scott and Virgil are unable close in without their thrusters tipping it over and none of ''Thunderbird 2'' s Pod Vehicles is light enough to deploy onto it. At Gordon's suggestion, Brains flies the Tiger Moth up to ''Skyship One'' s top deck to airlift the passengers and crew to safety one by one. However, on landing, he is held at gunpoint by Foster and his two surviving henchmen. With Penelope hostage in the plane's cockpit, Foster tries to take off but is shot dead by Alan. The Tiger Moth launches with the International Rescue agents and impostors clinging on to the wings and landing gear. Shortly after, ''Skyship One'' crashes to the ground, starting a chain reaction that obliterates the missile base.FAB 1, Penelope's Rolls-Royce, is stored in ''Skyship One'' s cargo hold and is therefore destroyed with the airship (Bentley 2005, p. 99; Bentley 2008, p. 305; La Rivière, p. 173).

The remaining impostors are killed in a shootout aboard the Tiger Moth. Stray bullets puncture the fuel tank, forcing Penelope to make an emergency landing. After near misses with a factory chimney, a bridge on the M104 motorway and a tree, Penelope ditches the plane into a field. Parker is thrown out when the plane clips the tree top and ends up dangling upside down in its branches before falling to the ground.

Back on Tracy Island, Brains unveils the new ''Thunderbird 6'' as none other than the repaired Tiger Moth, which all agree has proven its worth in the field.

The Federation starship ''Enterprise'' is ordered to escort two Antedean ambassadors to an important conference on the planet Pacifica. The Antedeans are transported aboard in a self-induced catatonic state—to reduce the stress of space travel—along with a plentiful food supply for when they awaken, in accordance with their custom.

En route, the ''Enterprise'' is ordered to rendezvous with a shuttlecraft carrying the Betazoid telepath ambassador Lwaxana Troi, mother of ship's counselor Deanna Troi, and her mute manservant Mr. Homn. Due to his previous experience with her (see "Haven"), Captain Jean-Luc Picard does not entirely welcome Lwaxana's presence, as she tends to be overbearing and lack tact, but Starfleet's instructions are that she be afforded full diplomatic courtesy. Lwaxana invites Picard to dinner, and he is surprised to find that rather than the formal diplomatic function for the entire senior staff that he expected, it is a romantic setting for just the two of them. Picard evades her advances, inviting android Lieutenant Commander Data to join them, and manipulating him into taking over the conversation with long-winded anecdotes.

Troi explains that her mother has entered "The Phase": a stage in the life of a Betazoid woman when her sex drive drastically increases, and that she is searching for a new husband (having been long-since widowed). Moreover, her telepathy is clouded as a side effect, causing her to misread Picard's thoughts as indicating sexual desire for her. Picard retreats to the Holodeck to hide from her, leaving Commander Riker in charge. Frustrated by Picard's absence, Lwaxana targets Riker instead, and makes a surprise announcement to the bridge crew that they will be married.

The Antedeans have meanwhile revived, and Riker goes to the holodeck to notify Picard. Lwaxana follows, and having determined that Riker is not interested either, switches her attention to a character from Picard's Dixon Hill simulation, who returns her affections. Picard somewhat reluctantly informs her that her new husband-to-be is merely a holographic projection.

When the ship arrives at the conference and collected ambassadors prepare to beam down to the planet, Lwaxana offhandedly informs the crew that the Antedeans are actually assassins. Though they deny this, scans show they are carrying explosives, just as Lwaxana indicated, and they are taken into custody. She remarks that while she did not find a new husband, at least she saved the conference, and as she is beaming away, playfully chastises Picard for having "such naughty thoughts" about her, much to his dismay.

After defeating the Dominators and starting off a volcanic eruption, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves and the TARDIS in the path of a lava flow. Upon trying to dematerialise out of the way, the TARDIS experiences a fault in the fluid link. At the insistence of Zoe and Jamie, the Doctor uses an emergency unit that takes the TARDIS into another dimension outside of reality. Upon their arrival into an empty white void, the travellers find themselves assaulted, first subtly then overtly, by an unseen force. The attack results in the TARDIS breaking apart and the travellers being scattered.

The Doctor, after experiencing a series of curious encounters, manages to find Jamie and Zoe. He soon deduces that they are in a world filled with fictional and mythological characters. They finally meet a person called "The Master" who seems to be in charge. It turns out that he is in fact an Earth man abducted and brought to the land of fiction in order to provide creative energies for the unseen aliens who are really in charge. Everything that the Doctor has experienced was a series of tests to prepare him for his role as replacement. The aliens' plan is to control everyone on Earth and bring them to the land of fiction, leaving the Earth itself empty for easy colonisation.

The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe manage to foil the aliens' plans and to rescue the Master, freeing him of his mind control. As the central computer is destroyed, the Doctor hypothesises that everyone will be returned whence they came. In the end, the Doctor, Jamie, Zoe and the Master fade out of the world of fiction and the TARDIS appears to reform itself.

The game begins when Garrett steals a rare opal from a nobleman's castle. After fencing it, he is contacted by Keeper Artemus, who offers Garrett access to the Keeper Prophecies if he brings to the Keepers two Artifacts: The Builder's Chalice and the Jacknall's Paw, which is kept by the Hammerites and the Pagans, respectively. After learning of a coming "Dark Age", Garrett steals an ancient book, the Compendium of Reproach, that details more about the event, along with a third Artifact called the Kurshok Crown. The Keepers read the Compendium's prophecy, which mentions that an "evil one" will be revealed when time ceases to exist. Garrett suspects that the prophecy might refer to the city's clocktower, rather than time itself, and sabotages the clock, inadvertently causing the tower to collapse.

Caduca, the Keepers' Interpreter of the Prophecies, is found murdered. Keeper Orland blames Garrett, and fixes a trial where Garrett is found guilty. Garrett escapes, causing Orland to send the Keeper Enforcers, an elite unit of assassins, after Garrett. Garrett eludes them and is contacted by a group of sympathetic Keepers, who mention that the clocktower's rubble formed an arrow which points towards the Keeper Library at their compound. With Orland planning to promote a young girl named Gamall to replace Caduca, and believing Orland's betrayal is foretold in Keeper prophecy, Garrett journeys to the library for evidence. He encounters a mysterious old woman, who uses Glyph magic in an attempt to kill Garrett, but he escapes. Garrett visits Inspector Drept of the Hammerites for answers, and Drept identifies the woman as the Hag, a monstrous folklore creature. Drept advises Garrett to search the abandoned Shalebridge Cradle, having seen the Hag there as a child. The Cradle had formerly been an orphanage and an insane asylum, but has long been abandoned after a fire which killed its inhabitants.

At the Cradle, Garrett finds a spirit named Lauryl, who resembles Gamall in appearance. Lauryl beckons Garrett to help her trapped spirit leave the Cradle by removing traces of her from it. While successful, Garrett finds he is not able to leave the Cradle, as it remembers him. Garrett enters the past and tricks the Cradle into thinking that he had committed suicide by jumping out of a window. Lauryl leads Garrett to her tomb, which is covered in Glyphs left by Gamall. It is revealed Gamall killed Lauryl and obtained her appearance through the Glyphs for the purpose of becoming Interpreter in order to harness Glyphs and destroy the Keepers. Garrett removes the Glyphs on the tomb with Lauryl's blood, and Gamall, about to become Interpreter in a ceremony, is revealed as a monster. She attacks the Keepers and flees.

Gamall finds the Final Glyph, which is capable of annulling all glyph magic, and steals the Chalice and the Paw from the Keepers. Finding Gamall's underground lair, Garrett retrieves the Chalice and the Paw. He discovers that the five Keeper Artifacts must be placed in specific locations around the City to activate the Final Glyph, which Gamall intends to destroy. Garrett goes to the Wieldstrom Museum and steals the remaining Artifacts. Outside, Artemus instructs Garrett to hand over the Artifacts, but is revealed to be Gamall in disguise, who kills Orland. Garrett positions the Artifacts to activate the Final Glyph, causing all Glyph magic to end, while Gamall becomes a powerless old woman. In the final scene, Garrett catches a young girl attempting to pickpocket him, and repeats the words spoken by Artemus to Garrett as a young boy.

The plot of ''Happy Lesson'' is based on five teachers who end up living with a troubled and indifferent orphan and their unusual plan to become mother figures in an effort to make him a productive student. To achieve their plan, they employ various methods, such as science experiments, spiritual cleansing, physical training, and hijinks.

Resembles a harem anime.

Daniel Balint is a former Jewish yeshiva student, brilliant but troubled, who is now a fanatically violent neo-Nazi in New York in his early twenties. As a child, he often challenged his teachers with unorthodox interpretations of scripture. He once argued that the Binding of Isaac was not about Abraham's faith but God's power: that God's purpose was not to have Abraham accomplish a particular task, but rather to demand unquestioning obedience, which Abraham refuses to give. Daniel concluded that God is a bully.

Daniel finds a meeting of fascists run by Curtis Zampf and Lina Moebius, where he also makes a connection with Lina's daughter Carla. Daniel advocates killing Jews, and a banker named Manzetti in particular, but Curtis and Lina oppose harming Jews on practical if not moral grounds. Impressed with Daniel's intelligence, Lina invites him to their camp retreat in the country. Afterward, Daniel and his neo-Nazi friends pick a fight with two African-American men, get arrested, and are bailed out by Carla. He spends the night with her but returns to his ailing father's home where he is harangued by his sister Linda for his Nazi beliefs, but she also urges him to stay and have ''Shabbat'' dinner. The men watch television, which is forbidden on Sabbath according to some Orthodox Jews, leading them to commiserate on the incomprehensibility of Jewish law.

Guy Danielsen, a journalist writing an article on hate groups, meets Daniel for an interview. He listens to Daniel's antisemitic rant, then reveals that he had been in contact with Daniel's old rabbi and knows that Daniel is Jewish. Daniel pulls out a pistol and threatens to commit suicide if Guy publishes the truth.

Daniel goes to the fascist camp retreat, where he meets Drake, a skilled marksman, along with an explosives expert. Six of the retreat participants, including Daniel, go to a Jewish deli, where they torment the owner about Jewish dietary laws until a fight breaks out. Daniel and his friends are required by a court to take sensitivity training, where they listen to the experiences of Holocaust survivors. One talks about how his infant son was murdered by a Nazi. Daniel is enraged that the man did nothing to save his son, but all the survivors assert that Daniel would also have done nothing, and he walks out in anger.

The story haunts him, and he imagines himself as the Nazi. Later that night, Daniel and the gang break into a synagogue, vandalize it, and plant a time bomb under the pulpit. They also tear, trample, and spit on a Torah scroll, though Daniel protests. After they leave, Daniel takes the scroll and a ''tallit katan'' (a small Jewish prayer cloth) with him. The next morning, the neo-Nazis hear on the news that the bomb failed to go off. Back in his cabin, Daniel puts on the tallit under his shirt and performs a combination of the Nazi salute and a ''Hagbaha''.

Drake approaches him with a plan to kill Manzetti. Outside a temple, Daniel fires at him but misses. Drake discovers the tallit and realizes that he is a Jew, so Daniel shoots him and escapes. He continues to meet with Lina and Curtis, who want to start an above-ground movement to bring fascism into the political mainstream, inviting Jews, blacks, and liberals. Daniel reluctantly agrees to help them raise funds. At the meetings that follow, Daniel first charms, then enrages, their potential donors with his intellectual games, leading to his expulsion. When news breaks that Manzetti was killed, Lina suspects Daniel, since he proposed the assassination, but Drake is the real killer.

Carla comforts Daniel and they sleep together at his home. When she sees the stolen Torah, she asks Daniel to teach her Hebrew, ostensibly for intellectual reasons. He soon runs into an old friend and his fiancée, Stuart and Miriam, who invite him to a Rosh Hashanah service, assuming that he is an anti-racist skinhead. When Daniel arrives, another old friend calls him out as a racist skinhead. As he is leaving, Miriam, who works for the District Attorney, tells him that half of the people in Lina's meetings are informants for the D.A. She asks Daniel to record conversations at a meeting so she can help him with possible charges stemming from the Manzetti killing. He refuses because as Miriam confesses she doesn't care about the truth, she only cares about Daniel.

As Yom Kippur approaches, Daniel calls Miriam and insists on taking Stuart's place leading the Ne'ila service at the bimah on Yom Kippur. He and his friends plant a new bomb under the temple's pulpit even though they find it reinforced, limiting the explosion. When Daniel takes the pulpit the next day, he is shocked to see Carla in the congregation. He again imagines himself in the story the Holocaust survivor told him, this time as both the Nazi and the Jew. With minutes to go, Daniel stops and tells everyone to get out because there is a bomb, but refuses to leave himself.

Daniel is shown ascending the stairs in the Jewish school he left as a child. His old teacher approaches, hoping to talk about the Binding of Isaac, and suggests that Isaac died on the mountain and was reborn in the next world. But Daniel ignores him and keeps going, up, and up, as his teacher urges him to stop, calling out, "There's nothing up there."

Four hundred years ago, the ninja and the Youkai had a great war. The legendary Sarutobi Sasuke and four other ninjas sealed the Youkai Commander Nurarihyon and all his Youkai's energies away in a cave protected by the "Seal Door". In the present, one of the few remaining Youkai, Kappa, tricks Sarutobi Sasuke and Kirigakure Saizo's descendants, Saizou and Sasuke, into releasing the Youkai by opening the "Seal Door". Now these two, joined by three other descendants of great ninjas, become the Kakuranger to fight the reinvigorated Youkai with the aid of the Sanshinshou. However, the Kakurangers have their work cut out for them as the Youkai are slowly being united under one banner.

Fur trapper Tom Dobb reluctantly participates in the American Revolutionary War after his young son Ned joins the Army as a drummer boy, against his father's wishes. Later, his son is captured by the British, and taken by the strict Sergeant Major Peasy to replace some dead British drummer boys. Dobb attempts to find him, and along the way, becomes convinced that he must help fight for the freedom of the Thirteen Colonies, alongside the disgraced and idealistic aristocrat Daisy McConnahay.

Part One: Lost Letters

The first section occurs in 1971 and is the story of Mirek, as he explores his memories of Zdena. Knowing that he loved this ugly woman has left a blemish, and he hopes to rectify this by destroying the love letters that he had sent her. While he travels to her home and back, he is followed by two men. Mirek is arrested at his home and sentenced to jail for six years, his son to two years, and ten or so of his friends to terms of from one to six years.

Kundera also describes a photograph from 21 February 1948, where Vladimír Clementis stands next to Klement Gottwald. When Vladimír Clementis was charged in 1950, he was erased from the photograph (along with the photographer Karel Hájek) by the state propaganda. This short example from Czechoslovak history underlines the motif of ''forgetting'' in his book.

Part Two: Mama

Marketa invites her mother-in-law to visit her and Karel's home after her mother did nothing but complain. Inviting her to stay for a week – although contending that she must leave Saturday because they had somewhere to be on Sunday – the mother forces her way to stay until Monday. On Sunday morning, Eva – a friend of Karel and Marketa – arrives and is introduced to the mother as Marketa's cousin. Through narration the reader is told that Eva had met and made love to Karel, who then arranged for Eva and Marketa to meet. Through Marketa's suggestion, the three have conducted a sexual relationship over the years. Mother almost catches the three in the act, but instead realizes that Eva reminds her of a friend of hers from Karel's infancy. This makes Karel even more attracted to Eva, and after the mother leaves, they continue with renewed vigour.

Part Three: The Angels

This section concerns events after the Russians occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968, especially Kundera's attempts to write a horoscope under an associate's name. His boss – who has studied Marxism–Leninism for half of his life – requests a private horoscope, which Kundera extends to ten pages, providing a template for the man to change his life. Eventually, Kundera's associate – code named R. – is brought in for questioning concerning Kundera's clandestine writing, changing the mood from amusement to concern. Kundera also describes 'circle dancing' wherein the joy and laughter build up to the point that the people's steps take them soaring into the sky with the laughing angels.

Part Four: Lost Letters

Tamina, a woman who works in a cafe, wants to retrieve her love letters and diaries in Prague through her customer who will be going to Prague, Bibi. Also, another customer, Hugo, who lusts for Tamina, offers to help her if Bibi cannot go to Prague. One day, Hugo invites Tamina to dinner and they visited the zoo together. A group of ostriches move their mute mouths vigorously to Hugo and Tamina as if to warn them of something, which gives Tamina a bad feeling about the letters and diaries in Prague. As these items, which Tamina describes as packed in a parcel, are in her mother-in-law's, she phoned her father to take it from her mother-in-law, so it will be easier for Bibi to get them. After a lot of pleas, her father agreed to send Tamina's brother to take them. It turns out that the items are not packed in a parcel, and Tamina fears that her private letters and diaries are read by others. The situation turns worse as Bibi gets fed up with her husband and refuses to go anywhere with him, which means the trip to Prague is cancelled. Hugo offers to help and once again invites Tamina to his house. Hugo tries desperately to win her heart. Tamina later has sex with Hugo, but cannot keep her mind off her deceased husband. Hugo senses her uneasiness but he still finishes the act. Again, Hugo chats with Tamina and tries saying things that please her. However, Tamina is not interested in his talk but only in Hugo's trip to Prague. Hugo gradually knows that and his speech gets weaker and he starts to get angry. Tamina is increasingly disgusted by his talk and eventually vomits in the toilet. Hugo knows that she has absolutely no interest in him and refuses to help her. In the end, the letters and diaries remain in Prague.

Part Five: Litost

It starts with introducing Kristyna, who develops a romantic relationship with a student studying philosophy and poetry. Then, it explains the Czech word ''litost'', which the author says cannot be accurately translated into any other language. Litost is, according to Kundera, "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery." Litost seems to be always present in the student whom Kristyna loves, and this feeling is also one of the reasons that he broke up with his former girlfriend.

His professor, nicknamed Voltaire, invites the student to an evening gathering of the great poets of the country. However, the student has a date with Kristyna that night and refuses to go to the gathering. He then meets Kristyna on the day the gathering is held. He is surprised to find her tacky, gaudy and simplistic in the city setting and decides to go to the meeting. He tells her about it and she is fascinated by it and wants the student to go there so as not to miss the chance. The student agrees and goes to the meeting. He meets the great poets and listens to their arguments and insults to each other. Through this he learns a lot of things. He asks one of the poets, named Goethe by the author, to inscribe one of his books and then gives the book to Kristyna as a gift. He returns to his home and finds Kristyna waiting for him. She is moved by the inscription. They do not have sex but feels each other's immense love. The student tries several times to get Kristyna to separate her two legs, but Kristyna fears that this will make her pregnant, which threatens her life. So she keeps saying that by doing this she will die. The student misinterprets that she will die from the immense love from him if they are separated from each other for a long time. He is deeply moved. He soon falls asleep and wakes up next morning, finding a note in his coat from Kristyna. After thinking over their night, he realizes that he misinterpreted her statement last night. He feels Litost but cannot take revenge for Kristyna has already left.

One of the poets approaches him and fills him with glory, relieving the student's despair.

Part Six: The Angels

Returning to Tamina, the author parallels her struggles with the death of his father. She travels on a mysterious boat ride to an island where she is stranded with many children. The children taunt her and she doesn't mind, but eventually she tries to escape and drowns.

Part Seven: The Border

Describing an orgy scene, the author targets the progressivism of the Clevis family.

Like most of Kundera's novels, the book is divided into seven parts; the parts switch among the viewpoints of four characters. Ludvik Jahn was expelled from school and the Communist Party for his irreverence. Jaroslav is an old friend with a cimbalom band which Ludvik had once played in. Helena Zemánková is a radio reporter going to interview Jaroslav, and the wife of Ludvik's old nemesis. Kostka is a Christian foil for Ludvik who spars with his life philosophy.

The novel opens with Ludvik back in his hometown in Moravia for the first time in years, startled to recognize the woman cutting his hair, though neither acknowledges the other. He reflects on the joke that changed his life in the early 1950s over the next several chapters of flashback. Ludvik was a dashing, witty, and popular student who, like most of his friends, supported the still-young Communist regime. During their summer break, a girl in his class wrote to him about "optimistic young people filled through and through with the healthy spirit" of Marxism; he replied caustically, "Optimism is the opium of mankind! A healthy spirit stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!"

The girl, under pressure, shared the contents of the letter with others in the Party at school, who did not find it funny. Commissions were convened to investigate Ludvik, who remained defiant, culminating in a plenary session — led by his peer, Pavel Zemanek — in which he was unanimously expelled from the Party and from the college. At the wedding of his old friend Jaroslav, whom he had once encouraged to revive Moravian folk music under the Party banner, Ludvik found that his stance toward that revival had turned bitter.

Having lost his student exemption, he was drafted into the Czech military where alleged subversives formed work brigades, and spent the next few years working in the mines at a labor camp in Ostrava. Though he still felt like a believer in the Party, he was treated like an enemy of it, and was lumped with other enemies, and eventually resigned himself to their lot. The only respite was occasional leaves, during which the soldiers went into town to flirt with girls, but the soldiers' hijinks continually jeopardized their meager freedoms. During those scarce breaks, Ludvik fell in love with a girl, Lucie, who began to come to the fence of the labor camp each day with flowers. At great personal risk, Ludvik arranged a time when he could sneak away to sleep with her, but in the borrowed apartment, Lucie rejected his advances, Ludvik grew angry, and they separated.

Back in the present day where the novel began, Ludvik has become a successful but bitter scientist. He sees an opportunity for revenge when he meets the radio reporter Helena and learns she is married to Zemanek, who had led Ludvik's expulsion from the Party. Ludvik decides to seduce Helena in his old hometown to hurt Zemanek. His arranges to borrow the apartment of Kostka, who had himself been pushed out of the Party for his Christian faith; years prior, Ludvik had helped him find a good job. Ludvik triumphantly sleeps with Helena, but she then reveals that she has been separated from her husband for years. In fact, Zemanek has taken a mistress, and Ludvik has done him a favor by encouraging Helena to divorce him.

Ludvik meets with Kostka, who confirms that the girl in the barbershop had been Lucie, and goes on to say that he knew her well: he had learned of her past traumas, converted her to Christianity, and cheated on his wife with her. Ludvik is disturbed to realize that Kostka knew Lucie far better than he, despite his obsession, ever had. His revenge on Zemanek thwarted, his memory of Lucie confused, Ludvik wishes he could erase his years of pointless mistakes, and wants to escape Helena and his hometown as soon as possible, but he misses his train.

In the town, it is the day of the Ride of the Kings, a Moravian springtime folk festival. Jaroslav's son has been chosen to play the masked, silent King who rides through the town on horseback; Jaroslav, as a proponent of the folk traditions, is immensely proud. Ludvik runs into Zemanek, who introduces him to his young mistress; Ludvik is further horrified to realize that, in her mind, there is no ideological difference between Ludvik and Zemanek: they both belong to an obsolete generation. They see Helena and her assistant, they exchange innuendos, and Zemanek leaves with his mistress. Helena believes she will be leaving with Ludvik, but he, incapable of explaining the tortuous reasoning of his cruel stunt, simply tells her he does not love her and will never see her again.

Ludvik muses that errors are not exceptional in history; they are the norm. Alone in a cafe, he reflects on a pair of common delusions: that of ''eternal memory'', and that of ''redressibility''. In his view, nothing will ever be redressed by revenge or forgiveness, but it will not matter, because it will be forgotten. Meanwhile, the heartbroken Helena swallows an entire bottle of what she believes are analgesics. She writes Ludvik a suicide note and gives it to her unsuspecting assistant to give to him. When the assistant finds Ludvik in the cafe and Ludvik reads the note, they race to find Helena, only to find that the bottle had instead contained embarrassingly non-fatal laxatives.

Meanwhile, Jaroslav is despondent: he learns that the child on the horse is not his son, who, uninterested in the old-fashioned Ride, had instead snuck away to watch motorcycle races. Jaroslav angrily confronts his wife, smashes plates and chairs in the kitchen, and runs away with his violin. He falls asleep in a field where Ludvik, himself wandering, finds him. Ludvik takes pity on his broken friend, and asks to play with him. Rejuvenated, they go to the band's concert together, where Ludvik takes turns on the clarinet. As the crowd grows raucous, Jaroslav suffers a heart attack. Ludvik, assuming Jaroslav will survive, imagines the second half of his friend's life will be dimmer, and realizes that "one's destiny is often complete long before death."

The play tells the story of a young man's decision to leave the home of his parents for the bachelor pad of his older brother who leads a swinging '60s lifestyle. Buddy is a 21-year-old virgin and his older brother Alan is a ladies' man. Alan lives in an apartment in the East Sixties, New York City.

As the play progresses, Alan discovers feelings for one of the many women with whom he is sleeping, and when she leaves him, he falls apart. This juxtaposes Alan's hunger for companionship with Buddy's metamorphosis into a ladies' man. The playwright points out the fundamental spiritual and emotional emptiness of the playboy lifestyle for which the younger sibling desperately yearns.

;Characters Alan Baker Peggy Evans Buddy Baker Mr. (Father) Baker Connie Mrs. (Mother) Baker

''Renegade'' is the story of San Diego police officer Reno Raines, an ex-Army Ranger, who was called to Bay City, California , by his good friend District Attorney Harry Wells. Harry hired Reno to work under cover, exposing corrupt police officers. In a meeting with Harry Wells and Bay City Police Lieutenant Donald 'Dutch' Dixon, Reno explains he has enough evidence to press charges of murder and robbery against Dixon's partner Buzzy Burrell. Not wanting to be implicated in any crimes, Burrell and Dixon break convicted murderer Hogg Adams from prison to kill Raines. Later that night, Hogg busts into Reno's hotel room, aiming for Reno, but shooting his fiancé, Valerie Prentiss, instead. Hogg flees the hotel and Burrell is seen rushing in to make sure Reno is dead. Dixon arrives moments afterward and kills Burrell with Reno's weapon.

Framed for the murder of Officer Burrell, Reno Raines goes on the run. Dixon sends professional bounty hunter Bobby Sixkiller, a former Marine, after him, but Reno instead saves his life and gains his trust. Bobby realizes that some things were not right with Dixon. Reno then works as a bounty hunter alongside Sixkiller and his sister Cheyenne (Kathleen Kinmont) while searching for Hogg's brother Hound Adams, the one person who can clear his name and bring down Dixon — a witness who, fearing for his own life, will only come forward if Reno kills Dixon, something which he is unwilling to do.

Using the alias "Vince Black", Reno travels the country to look for bounties, whom Bobby turns in for a percentage of the reward money (knowing that Reno would be arrested if he attempted to turn in the criminals himself). He also helps people at the same time and proves the innocence of those he believes to be innocent. On many occasions, law-enforcement officers (and other people) learn who Reno really is, but never turn him in once they trust and believe him. Eventually, Dixon becomes a US federal marshal, giving him the ability to chase Reno with federal assistance.

In season three, Reno goes after Dixon when he learns an $80,000 reward is out for Dixon's capture and arrest for the murder of another Bay City officer. It all turns out to be an elaborate ruse set by Dixon to trap and capture Reno. Reno is arrested and put on trial for Buzzy Burrell's murder. Hound Adams agrees to testify for the defense, for a very large fee, that he knows who really killed Burrell, but when questioned on the witness stand, he implicates Reno, instead, as Burrell's killer. With no evidence to prove that Dixon bribed Hound to lie on the stand, Reno is found guilty of Burrell's murder and sentenced to death. Deciding not to wait for his sentence to be carried out, Reno escapes from prison with the help of a convict who was bribed by Dixon to kill Reno. The convict, chosen by Dixon because he knew he was dying of cancer and had nothing to lose, instead gives the bribe money to his lawyer to hold on to with instructions to send to the police should anything happen to his family.

As the series is coming to an end in season five, Dixon kills his own wife Melissa, and she dies in Reno's arms. She knew what Dixon was doing and was ready to help turn him in. Their adult son, Donald Dixon Jr., believes the newspaper articles (from Dixon Sr.'s testimony) and also goes for Reno. In the final episode, Reno, Bobby, Donald Jr., and Dixon's boss Marshal Jack Hendricks go after Dixon. Dixon shoots and wounds Hendricks and goes on the run. The marshals then put out a reward for his capture. The last scene shows Reno and Bobby discussing whether to go for him now or let him see what it is like to be a wanted fugitive. They choose the former, thus partially ending Reno's predicament while leaving a full conclusion ambiguous.

For many years after the show had aired, it was thought that the show had ended on a cliff-hanger, without any resolution to the main plot of Reno clearing his name and that the story would have been wrapped up in a hypothetical season six, with Dixon on the run and Reno pursuing. However, a "series finale" episode was in fact filmed, where Dixon is captured by Reno and Reno Raines is fully exonerated for the crimes that Dixon had in fact committed. According to Lorenzo Lamas, the episode was never aired or offered in the final syndication package because every episode - with the exception of the obvious multi-part episodes and the few episodes focused solely on the Reno/Dixon plot - was written as a standalone story that did not have to be viewed in chronological order. It was felt that a "conclusion" would prevent TV series buyers from airing the episodes out of order, which often happens with shows in syndication.

Chapter 1

Xenophon begins the dialogue by saying that he thinks the deeds of men not only in their serious times, but also in their playful times, are worth mentioning. He expresses his desire to explain the deeds on such a particular occasion, at which he himself was present (Xenophon's presence at the symposium is doubted, since he would have been too young to attend at the time).

After this preface, the dialogue proper begins. The Panathenaic Games are underway and Kallias is returning with Autolykos, the recent victor in the young men's pankration, from a horse race that they had just watched. Nikeratos and Lykon are also present. They are on their way to Kallias' house in the Piraeus when they come across Socrates and a few of his companions including Kritoboulos, Hermogenes, Antisthenes and Charmides. Kallias asks them all to join him at a symposium which he is hosting for Autolykos and his father, Lykon. Kallias promises to show them that he has become a man of much consequence, although he had kept the others ignorant of his ability to say many wise things. They politely decline at first, but ultimately accept the offer because Kallias' feelings seem hurt. They all go off, some to exercise, others to bathe in addition, and later reconvene at Kallias' house(1.7).

When they all sat down, each of them was struck by the beauty of Autolykos, being as it was combined with bashfulness and moderation. Each onlooker was struck differently by the boy's beauty. Some grew quiet, others struck some kind of pose. Kallias was almost as worth looking at since he was possessed by Eros, the god of sober love. They would all have eaten in near perfect silence if it were not for the sudden appearance of the uninvited jester, Philippos(1.11). His arrival sparks some conversation. Philippos tries twice to make the group laugh, but fails. Only when he weeps at his failure does Kritoboulos laugh(1.16).

Chapter 2

After they finished eating, an entertainer from Syracuse, who had been invited by Kallias, came with his entourage of performers including a girl good at flute playing, a girl who danced spectacularly, and a very pretty boy who played the cithara and danced 2.1). The flute player and the boy play their instruments together in a performance which pleases Socrates. He praises Kallias for the dinner and the entertainment which he provided. Kallias then suggests that the party should enjoy some perfumes, but Socrates refused, saying that men ought to smell of gymnastic exercise and the men with whom they associate. This leads to a discussion of the teachability of virtue (2.6), which Socrates suggests they drop because it is controversial. The dancing girl is about to perform with the flutist (2.7).

The performance is quite remarkable and causes Socrates to note that the female nature is not inferior to the male, except in judgment and physical strength, and so each man should teach his wife whatever he wants her to know(2.9). At this, Antisthenes asked Socrates why he had not educated his wife, Xanthippe, but lives with her, a most difficult companion. Socrates replies, saying that he acts much like one seeking to become an expert horseman who believes that if they can tame the most high-spirited horses, they could easily manage any other. Socrates deals with humans, so if he can deal with the most difficult of them, no others should give him trouble (2.10). Next the acrobatic girl alone performed a dangerous act which caused the audience to fear for her. After this act Socrates addresses Antisthenes, saying that manliness (andreia) is teachable even to women (2.12). Antisthenes then remarked that the Syracusan could charge money to make all the Athenians, including their women, fearless in battle. Philippos the jester interrupts, amused by the possibility that even cowardly men be taught manliness (2.14). No one laughs at this joke.

When the boy dances, Socrates remarks on how his beauty seems greater when dancing than when at rest. He admits his willingness to learn the poses from him because he wishes to dance(2.16). At this everyone laughs, and it is apparent that Socrates can easily make the party laugh while Philippos cannot. Socrates says that Charmides had caught him dancing recently and, upon seeing him, thought he had gone crazy. But when Socrates had explained what he was doing, Charmides himself went home and practiced shadow-boxing for exercise (2.19). Philippos makes another ineffective joke (2.20). But the jester finally makes the group laugh by imitating the dancers (2.21). There is a call for wine, and Socrates approves, praising its gladdening effects. But he suggests that they should drink little and often, in the manner of plants (2.25) so that they may enjoy their drinks but not become intoxicated(2.26).

Chapter 3

The boy plays the cithara and sings to the enjoyment of all. Charmides remarks that, like wine, music blended with the beauty of youth has a pleasing effect. Socrates points out that the performers give the onlookers pleasure and suggests that the symposiasts should make an effort to please each other as well. Everyone asks what he means (3.2). Socrates replies that he wants Kallias to fulfill his promise and demonstrate his wisdom (sophia). Kallias says he will do so if everyone else will share what good thing he understands. Socrates says that everyone should share whatever is the most valuable thing that he understands. Kallias then says that he prides himself most on being able to make men better. Antisthenes asks him whether he teaches men some craft, or gentlemanliness. Kallias says the latter, if it is justice. Antisthenes states that it certainly is, because gentlemanliness is never associated with injustice (3.4).

Kallias then says that whenever each man has said what beneficial thing he has, he himself will explain through what craft he makes men just. Nikeratos says he prides himself in his ability to recite the whole Iliad and Odyssey from memory. Antisthenes points out that even rhapsodes have that skill, and they are the most unintelligent of people, for they do not understand the hidden meanings (uponoia) of the poems. But Nikeratos had paid a large sum of money to learn from experts, and so he does understand these (3.6).

Kritoboulos prides himself most on his beauty. Socrates asks if he can improve men with his beauty, and Kritoboulos responds that he is not worth much if he cannot (3.7).

Antisthenes is proud of his wealth although we learn from Hermogenes' question that Antisthenes actually has little money or land, which fact he jokes about (3.8). His answer seems paradoxical. Charmides, on the other hand, prides himself on his poverty. Socrates praises this notion, because poverty does not cause envy, it is safe without being guarded, and it grows when neglected (3.9).

Next Kallias asks Socrates on what he prides himself. His answer, like his comments in sections2.16-2.19, is in jest (Huss reference). He says that he prides himself on match-making. Everyone laughs at his boast, and Socrates continues his jest saying that he could make a lot of money through the trade (3.10). This funny exchange leads Lykon to say that Philippos' pride must lie in jesting.

When asked by Antisthenes, Lykon says that he is most proud of his son, Autolykos. At this someone remarked that the boy was obviously proud of his victory in the pankration, but Autolykos denies this claiming instead to be most proud of his father (3.13). Kallias then addressed Lykon saying that he was the richest man in the world, a fact which Lykon admits. Finally Hermogenes says that he exalts most in the virtue and power of his friends because they can take care of him (3.14).

Chapter 4

Socrates now pushes for each man to prove that the thing of which he is proud deserves being proud of. Kallias says that he makes men more just by giving them money (4.1). Antisthenes questions him on the matter, and Kallias says that men who have money for necessities are less inclined to crime. Kallias explains that no one repays him, not even with thanks. Antisthenes says it is remarkable that those whom Kallias benefits do not behave justly toward their benefactor. But Kallias counters Antisthenes with Socrates’ support, and the discussion ends (4.5).

Nikeratos is next to speak. He says that he can better any man by teaching him Homer, since the poet wrote about nearly all human activities. He claims that onions complement drinking well. Socrates points out that eating onions may lead to a reputation for overindulgence. It is also not beneficial for those who intend to kiss someone afterward (4.9).

Kritoboulos next explains why he is proud of his beauty. He says that his companions swear he is beautiful and so he believes it. If he is beautiful, then his companions must feel about him how he feels about Kleinas, a particularly beautiful man. While strong men must toil, brave men must adventure and wise men must speak eloquently, beautiful men attain their ends without doing anything (4.13). Kritoboulos addresses Kallias saying that he himself makes people more righteous than Kallias because he can encourage men toward every virtue. Handsome people make people more generous, more heroic in danger and more modest because they are ashamed of their desires (4.15). Likewise generals should be handsome men, he says, because their soldiers would follow them into battle more eagerly (4.16). And nor does beauty decay with age, he continues. People of every age have their own distinct beauty (4.17).

Kritoboulos then claims that the dancing boy or girl would sooner kiss him than Socrates (4.18). Socrates replies indignantly in jest and Kritoboulos compares Socrates to a satyr. Socrates challenges him to a beauty contest in which the performers will act as judges (4.20). Kritoboulos proposes Kleinas act as judge, at which Socrates accuses him of always thinking of him. It is revealed that Kritoboulos' father had sent his son to Socrates to see what he could do about that fact (4.24). But Kritoboulos had kissed Kleinas and a kiss is the greatest incitement toward passion (4.25). Socrates therefore advises that those seeking to be prudent and moderate not kiss those in the bloom of their beauty. But Charmides jokingly calls Socrates a hypocrite, and that he had seen Socrates himself lusting after Kritoboulos. Socrates replies in feigned indignity and playfully warns Kritoboulos not to touch him until the young man grew a beard (4.28).

Charmides is asked why he values his poverty. He explains that, while he had been rich, he was always fearful of losing his property, the city always asked him for money, he had no chance for travel and he was always suffering. Now that he was poor, he says, he has the privilege of doing as he pleases, and he lives at the expense of the city. When he had money he was ridiculed for associating with Socrates and now he is free to do so. Whereas before he was afraid of losing property, now he expects to gain something (4.32). Kallias asks if he wishes to remain poor, and he replies that he does not.

Antisthenes is now asked to explain the paradox (3.9) that he is not wealthy, yet he prides himself on his wealth. He replies that wealth lies not in property, but in one's soul (psuche) (4.34). He explains that men who have much wealth fear themselves so poor that they jump at every opportunity to increase it. There are also wealthy people who commit crimes more terrible than those that poor people commit, he says (4.36). He pities such men as they are never satisfied, although they consume in abundance. Antisthenes has enough to satisfy his basic needs and is perfectly content with his lot(4.37-4.39). His greatest bit of wealth is that, even if his property was taken from him, he could earn enough at any job to meet his means (4.40). Indeed, those who are content with what they have are more honest than those who desire to make more money because they do not covet others' property (4.42). Antisthenes attributes his wealth and generosity to Socrates’ teachings. His most exquisite possession of all is leisure which allows him to see what is worth seeing, hear what is worth hearing, and to spend all day with Socrates (4.44).

Kallias remarks that Antisthenes' wealth is praiseworthy because no one resents him for not giving them a loan. Nikeratos cuts in and makes a joke about his own fondness of money which makes everyone laugh (4.45).

It now falls to Hermogenes to explain why he was proud (3.14) about his friends and their favor of him. He reveals that the friends to which he was referring are the gods themselves. Socrates inquires how Hermogenes keeps the gods so friendly toward him. He replies that he prays to them, returns some of what they give him, avoids profanity and lying.

Next they question Philippos about his pride in jesting. He answers that when someone has good fortune, they desire that Philippos be in their company, and when they suffer bad luck, they run away from him for fear that he would make them laugh in spite of themselves 4.50). Nikeratos says the jester's pride is justified because the opposite happens to him.

Finally Kallias asks Socrates to explain his pride in match-making. Socrates insists that they first agree on the functions of the match-maker. They conclude that the match-maker's job is to make people attractive to the community (4.60). Socrates then says that Antisthenes is a good match-maker because he introduced Kallias (4.62) and Socrates to several people (4.63). Such a person could also arrange suitable marriages and friendship between cities, he argues.

Chapter 5

Instead of challenging Socrates to a contest on wisdom, since they were the only two who were proud of an art and were able to prove that they should be proud of it, Kallias goads Kritoboulos into the beauty contest with Socrates (5.1). Kritoboulos accepts, but says that a light must be shined on Socrates. Socrates proceeds to question Kritoboulos by using the Socratic Method, and Kritoboulos is finally forced to accept that he has lost the debate. He calls for votes to be counted (5.8). Socrates insists that the light be shined on Kritoboulos so that the judges not be deceived (5.9). The ballots are counted and Kritoboulos is selected unanimously as the victor. Kritoboulos’ money corrupted the voters, unlike Kallias’ which makes men more honest, Socrates jives (5.9).

Chapter 6

While some urge Kritoboulos to claim the kisses he has won in the beauty contest, Socrates addresses Hermogenes. He says that the latter's taciturnity is annoying to the other guests. Hermogenes counters him, saying that he can hardly get a word in because the others talk so much (6.2). He asks if Socrates would prefer him to speak during the performances when everyone is silent (6.3). Socrates agrees, saying that Hermogenes’ speech would be enhanced by the accompaniment (6.4).

The Syracusan notices this conversation and, upset that they are ignoring his performances, asks Socrates if he is the one called the “Thinker” and accuses him of pondering celestial objects (a reference to the charge of his supposed impiety, for which he is sentenced to death in 399 B.C. with Lykon as one of his accusers) (6.6). Socrates counters him, saying that the gods are celestial and beneficial. In turn, the Syracusan asks Socrates to tell him the distance between the two of them in flea's feet (a reference to Socrates’ caricature in Aristophanes’ Clouds which was performed two years before the dramatic date of the ''Symposium''.

Antisthenes calls Philippos to defend Socrates by imitating the Syracusan, seeming to scold Socrates (6.8). Socrates forbids him from doing so, lest he also seem to abuse the Syracusan (6.9). Philippos asks how, if he is not allowed to imitate anyone, he can render his services at a symposium. Socrates responds that he should avoid topics which should not be spoken of at such a gathering (this alerts the reader that there are topics which should be avoided at such a pleasant dinner, much like some conversation is not appropriate to the dinner table today) (6.10).

Chapter 7

Socrates proposes that they all sing a song, and they do. A potter's wheel was brought in atop which the dancing girl was to perform juggling. Socrates remarks to the Syracusan that he himself may indeed be a “Thinker.” As a result, he says, he is considering how the performers may most please the banqueters. For all these spectacular performances are surely remarkable, but so is the fact that a lamp gives light while bronze does not, though both are bright; that oil feeds flame while water extinguishes it, though both are liquids (7.4). Though these questions are interesting, they are not appropriate to a symposium. Socrates proposes that a less marvelous performance, a dance accompanied by the flute, would be more appropriate and pleasing. The Syracusan agrees (7.5).

Chapter 8

When the Syracusan leaves to prepare the next performance, Socrates begins a speech on Eros. He says that all of them – Socrates, Charmides, Kritoboulos, Nikeratos and Hermogenes – have felt the power of love. Socrates asks Antisthenes if he is the only one present not in love with someone (8.3). Antisthenes insists that he is not, for he is in love with Socrates! (Antisthenes was one of the main Socratic authors, contemporary with Plato and Xenophon, who also presumably loved Socrates.) Socrates dismisses him, insisting that he is busy (8.4). Antisthenes continues, accusing Socrates of always having an excuse to ignore him (8.5). Socrates pleads that Antisthenes stop berating him, and jokingly suggests that Antisthenes keep his love a secret since it is clearly a love of Socrates’ physical beauty, not his sprit (8.6).

Socrates returns to his speech and addresses Kallias. The whole city knows, he says, that Kallias is in love with Autolykos (8.7). Socrates says that he has always admired Kallias’ character, but even more so at present because he sees that he is in love with a young man who epitomizes strength, manliness, and moderation. The character of the object of one's affections reflects on the lover's character (8.8). Socrates suggests the possibility of the existence of two aspects of Aphrodite; one the goddess of Vulgar (sexual) love, the other of Heavenly (chaste) love (8.9). Further, carnal love might stem from the Vulgar Aphrodite, and spiritual love from the Heavenly. The latter is the sort of love that Kallias seems to have for Autolykos (8.10). Socrates says this because Kallias makes his love known to the boy's father, Lykon (8.11).

Hermogenes praises Socrates for, by praising the ideal, encouraging Kallias to conform to it. Socrates will show that spiritual love is superior to carnal love (8.12). Spiritual lovers enjoy each other, while physical lovers may hate the habits of their lover (8.13). Or if the physical lovers also enjoy each other's habits, the youth's beauty disappears with age along with the affection felt for them, while spiritual love only grows with age (8.14). Physical lust can be sated like hunger is sated by food, but spiritual love is more pure and cannot be easily sated, though it is not less rich (8.15). The noble soul naturally shows affection for the object of its love, but this affection is also returned (8.16). For what person, knowing themselves loved unconditionally, could not return that affection (8.17)? Those that love another spiritually derive many benefits from the relationship which continue down to old age (8.18). But what benefit does the one valued only for his beauty derive (8.19)? If his lover uses persuasion he corrupts the soul of the one loved for his beauty (8.20). The one loved for his beauty is not touched by the same affection as the one who loves him for a youth does not take pleasure in intercourse as a woman does, but soberly looks on as the other is intoxicated by lust (8.21). He may thus develop ill feelings toward his lover, but this does not happen in spiritual love (8.22). In spiritual love the elder often acts as a fatherly figure, an educator, while in physical love the elder is always seeking another kiss, another caress (8.23). One who rents a farm is like one desirous of physical love; he simply seeks whatever harvest it will yield to himself. One who buys a farm, however, is like the man who enjoys spiritual love, for he uses all his resources to enrich the relationship (8.25). The beautiful youth is secure in his relationship and will act loosely, while one who is loved spiritually will be moderate to retain their lover's faith (8.26). Such a person will engender goodness in their companion as a result (8.27). Socrates maintains that not only people, but also gods value spiritual love more highly than the carnal (8.28).

Socrates concludes that all would probably trust one who finds loveliness in the spirit over one who tended toward carnal love (8.36). He praises Kallias’ affections for Autolykos because the boy is vigorous in his pursuit of victory and fame for his city (8.38). To favorably impress Autolykos, Socrates says, Kallias must consider how Themistokles liberated Greece, how Perikles was a great counselor to the city, how Solon created valuable laws and how the Lacedaemonians came to become great military leaders (8.39). The city would then entrust him with great responsibility, since he appears most able to bear hardship (8.40). Socrates apologizes if he has spoken more seriously than the circumstances provided for, but says that he has always loved men who long for virtue in addition to their already-good nature (8.41). Autolykos and Kallias share a gaze while the latter addresses Socrates. He asks if Socrates intends to play match-maker and get Kallias to enter politics (8.42). Socrates responds in the affirmative, as long as Kallias really values virtue (8.43).

Chapter 9

Autolykos rises to go for a walk and Lykon, following closely behind him, praises Socrates’ noble character. This comment is likely meant to have been ironic by Xenophon, since Lykon was one of Socrates’ accusers at his trial in 399 B.C. (9.1).

The Syracusan enters and announces the last performance. One of the girls plays Ariadne, a fair, modest girl. The boy plays Dionysius who enters the room to the tune of the flute. The two embrace in a clearly loving embrace. They profess their love for each other and head for the bridal couch. Those looking on who were not married vowed to marry and those who were married returned to their wives.

The LP album is ostensibly the latest in Cox's series of "mind-breaking records" purveying his New Age revelations, augmented with mock commercial television news coverage. There are no track divisions.

Side 1 (20:45)

Cox starts the record with a tinny-sounding recording of Richard Strauss' ''Also Sprach Zarathustra''. After a brief introduction plugging his records, he gives a reverberating montage of his latest revelations, such as "Dogs flew spaceships", "Men and women are the same sex", and "Your brain is not the boss"; concluding with "Everything you know is wrong!"

Cox interviews Heater County, California Sheriff Luger Axehandle (Ossman), who claims to have seen a dog- or wolf-like alien digging up a grave in Curio, Arizona. Cox follows this with an interview of Lem Ashhauler (Proctor), editor of the ''Hellmouth-Heater Democrat'' newspaper, who reads an archived 1897 story identifying the grave's occupant as a strange visitor who choked to death on a piece of cheese.

Next, Cox plays an educational film, ''Ben Franklin: Hero or Hophead?'', which alleges that the United States Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin (Bergman), Samuel Adams (Proctor), and Thomas Jefferson (Austin) planned the American Revolution while smoking hemp.

Cox follows this with a purported wire recording of an old-time medicine show produced by "Doctor Firesign's Antique Theatre". The show starts with Act One of the play ''Orphan's Tears'' (parodying ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''), in which Field Marshal Thomas Legree Quadroon (Bergman), a freed "professional slave", returns from the Civil War as a carpetbagger to terrorize his former owners by demanding they pay a "carpet tax" and telling them it's their turn to be the slaves. At intermission, the charlatan Professor Archer (Ossman) and his assistant Bowman (Bergman) prepare a potion from cactus juice, "Chief Dancing Knockout's Pyramid Pushover Paste", and "Don Brouhaha's Inca Hell-Oil Tonic". Cox then segues into his narration of a dramatization of Archer and Bowman ingesting their potion, turning into crows, and flying away to encounter Don Brouhaha (Proctor), an "ancient cockroach in a sombrero", actually a Native American shaman, a lampoon of Carlos Castaneda's character Don Juan Matus.

Cox's recording session is then interrupted by a phone call from psychic Nino Savant (Proctor), who tells him the aliens want to contact Cox. Savant moves from the phone to the TV, so Cox can listen to his answering machine. The only messages are from his bank, the trailer park manager Art Wholeflaffer (Ossman), and a teenage stalker fan named Gary (Bergman).

After Savant leaves the TV, it stays on and we hear the Channel 6 television news report, anchored by the "Where It's At" team of Harold Hiphugger (Ossman) and Ray Hamberger (Proctor) (pronounced "am-bur-ZHER", but Cox later addresses him as "Mr. Hamburger"). They lampoon the "happy talk" television news format which came into fashion about this time. Cox leaves his trailer to talk to Wholeflaffer, but leaves the TV on.

After a commercial for "Bear Wiz" beer, a quick weather report, and another commercial for "Magog Brothers Atlantis Carpet Reclaimers", who are stuck with a warehouse full of inventory damaged by the recent collision of a comet (inspired by the less-than-spectacular 1973 appearance of comet Kohoutek), cynical reporter Pat Hat (Bergman, a lampoon of Howard Cosell) interviews "daredemon" Reebus Caneebus (Austin), who plans to jump into the deep hole left in the desert by the comet (a lampoon of Evel Knievel's jump of Snake River Canyon).

Side 1 ends with Cox's voice-over teasing his "most startling new revelation" on side 2.

Side 2 (21:15)

This starts with aliens apparently revealing themselves and demanding the surrender of Earth, until Cox angrily stops the record, declaring he, too, "was taken in by clever fakes like this." As proof that aliens have landed on Earth, he plays an episode of the travel show ''The Golden Hind'', a parody of the 1950s-60s TV series ''The Golden Voyage'', hosted by Bob Hind (Austin, parody of travelogue film producer Jack Douglas). Hind interviews Buzz and Bunny Crumbhunger (Bergman and Proctor), a married couple who present a home movie of their abduction, murder and resurrection by aliens.

Cox then presents an "official stolen government training film" of "the secret plan to deal with an alien uprising", narrated by Air Force General Curtis Goatheart (Proctor, a lampoon of Curtis LeMay). The film contains an enactment of a general (Ossman) telling his wife (Austin) and two of his officers (Proctor and Bergman) at breakfast that "two flying saucers [eggs] have just landed on my plate." Though they think he is insane, he takes command and "bombs aliens back to stone age".

The Crumbhungers happen to live in the trailer space next to Cox, and Wholeflaffer has shared his suspicions of them. Cox enlists him to spy on a party they are hosting, but this plan goes awry when the Crumbhungers and their alien friends give Wholeflaffer a drink containing blue moss with hallucinogenic effects, and abduct him by driving their motor home away, headed for the comet hole in Curio. Just then, Gary and his friends drop in on Cox, who tells them to hitch their "Heavenly Bus" up to his trailer and follow the Crumbhungers. Just before leaving, Cox introduces Nino Savant's "Psychic Minute", a lecture on the subject of holes broadcast by "sending directly from his mind to yours." Nino mentions the comet hole in the desert, saying it leads to "the Sun at the center of the Earth".

This segues into Channel 6's continuing coverage of Caneebus's jump and its aftermath, anchored by Hiphugger and Hamberger. A videotape of the morning's jump shows Caneebus finding the hole is only 60 feet deep and contains a golden staircase leading to the Sun. When he decides not to return, Pat Hat jumps in after him. Live coverage then resumes, as the estimated 500,000 to one million spectators have formed a literal parade following Caneebus into the hole, culminating with "the former President's float" (Austin's imitation of Richard Nixon, who resigned two months before the album's release.) Finally, no one but the newsmen and Cox are left, and they ask Cox to keep the camera pointed at them as they enter the hole. Cox asks them to tell Wholeflaffer to come back if they see him, but they are oblivious to this request.

At last the aliens appear, happening to sound just like the "clever fake" on Cox's earlier record, and flying a spaceship that Cox describes as looking "like a big fried egg." Finding no one but Cox, the aliens decide to leave for another millennium. Cox is left alone to muse: "Seekers...it looks like this is the end. Or is it only the begin–?" A coyote howls in the distance, and Cox concludes, "No, it's the end."

Part I

The first part of the novel is told from two perspectives. An omniscient third person narration that centers on Joanie Golson is interspersed with diary entries written by Eudoxia Vatatzes. Joanie and Curly Golson are wealthy Australians vacationing in France. While out on a drive, Joanie observes a young woman living in a small cottage along with an older man and becomes fascinated by her. Unbeknownst to her, the woman is the child of a close friend of Joanie's in Australia (Eadie Twyborn). The young woman, who goes by the name Eudoxia Vatatzes, recognizes Joanie as her mother's friend and is disturbed by her intrusion into their life. Events conspire to bring them together, however, and the two couples end up having an awkward afternoon together at the cottage, after which Eudoxia and her elderly lover Angelos Vatatzes immediately flee the area. Shortly after settling into a new boarding house, Angelos dies, which closes out Part I.

Part II

Part II begins with Lieutenant Eddie Twyborn on a ship from Europe to Australia after the conclusion of World War I. It quickly becomes apparent that Eddie is the same person as Eudoxia Vatatzes from Part I. Now presenting as male (his birth gender), he attracts attention from both genders on the ship. Upon arriving in Australia, he visits his mother Eadie before taking up work at a sheep station. While at the sheep station, he carries on an affair with a married woman and is raped by a man.

Part III

In Part III, the protagonist is again presenting as female, this time as Eadith, the madam of a London brothel.

The world of ''The Trap Door'' is solely inhabited by monsters, and almost all action takes place in the monsters' castle, and especially the pantry or cellar where lives Berk, the central character. Beneath the castle are a series of dark and mysterious caverns inhabited by all manner of "horrible things", accessible by the eponymous trap door.

The master of the castle, "The Thing Upstairs", resides in the attic of the castle and remains an unseen character throughout the entire show, shouting orders to Berk when hungry or annoyed. Berk has two companions, Boni and Drutt. In most episodes, Berk accidentally leaves the trap door open, admitting a more troublesome monster than himself; but some monsters open it from below. Though mostly hostile or mischievous, the monsters emergent from the trap door include the amiable and periodic Rogg, and occasionally others as harmless as he.

The opening panels show Pope Oswald Leopold II sitting in a bar drinking and reminiscing. There is a flashback to a young child preparing to accept the mantle of Pope. He undergoes martial arts training from Bruce Lee, because "The Pope needs to be ready for anything." After becoming Pope, Leopold leads a life full of drinking, sex and debauchery. Eventually, God casts judgement on the entire human race, condemning them all. He allows the gates of Hell to open and the world is invaded by swarms of demons. After a great war, a treaty is formed and Hell's gates are closed. Human and demon survivors roam the Earth together and co-exist.

After the flashback, Pope witnesses a gang kidnapping a young woman. When Pope tries to stop the group, they summon the demon Belaam. Pope beats the demon after a brief fight by cutting off his right arm with a sword. The woman expresses her gratitude and goes back to Pope's house.

Later that night, Belaam ambushes Pope, killing the woman. While distracted by her death, Pope appears to be killed. As Belaam relishes his triumph, he is shot from behind by Jesus. Pope soon awakens and finds he is in the presence of Jesus and God. They reveal to him that God sent Saint Michael to watch over the good people left on Earth. Lucifer was able to overpower and capture the saint. God gives Pope super-strength and tells him that if he rescues Saint Michael, he will get into Heaven despite his deplorable life.

As Pope and Jesus search for Hellcorp – Lucifer's headquarters on Earth – they are attacked by the Zombie Twins, Lucifer's henchmen. Pope dispatches the duo, but they were not beaten and summon all of Earth's corpses to form a giant, writhing zombie monster. Pope can't stop this new monster, but Jesus is able to destroy them in a brilliant explosion when they try to eat him. After killing the zombies, Pope and Jesus are once again attacked by Belaam, now with a robotic arm, but he is easily defeated.

Finally at Hellcorp, Jesus and Pope enter, only to have to fight waves of demons waiting for them. After putting up an incredible fight, Pope and Jesus are incapacitated and brought before Lucifer. They then discover Lucifer's plan: to steal Saint Michael's halo and combine it with his own demon horns, expanding his powers to godlike proportions. Pope escapes, but is unable to prevent Lucifer from donning the halo and he is banished.

Pope then spends what seems like a long time in Hell, fighting every day to survive. But just 17 seconds later on Earth, Pope is rescued by God, who increases his powers by granting him a halo of his own. With his new-found power, Pope defeats Lucifer and saves Saint Michael. God grants Pope access to Heaven, but he turns it down to stay and protect the people of Earth.

Afterwards, Pope returns home and Jesus becomes his roommate.

In 1986, Jack Slavin, a Scottish farmer with a heart ailment, lives on an island which had been a hippie commune decades before. He is struggling to keep landowners from building developments on the wetland. His teenaged daughter Rose is a beautiful but isolated girl with a passion for gardening. Since Rose's mother had left the family, Jack homeschooled his daughter and did not expose her to life beyond their small island home.

Jack believes that they both "need a woman around". He travels to the mainland to ask his girlfriend Kathleen to move in with them. Jack breaks the news to a shocked Rose, from whom he had kept his relationship a secret. Rose remains disdainful when Kathleen and her two teenage sons move in. Kathleen struggles to adapt to the Slavins' rural lifestyle. Her sons, Thaddius and Rodney, are almost polar opposites; Thaddius is a sullen, rude delinquent, while Rodney is insecure and often overlooked.

While she still has a strained relationship with Kathleen, Rose develops strange bonds with her new "step-brothers". It is clear that Thaddius is attracted to her, but Rose does not like him. One night, Rose spies on Jack and Kathleen in bed together, and develops a strange jealousy toward Kathleen. Rose decides to lose her virginity, and shocks Rodney by confronting him topless and asking him for sex. Rodney refuses and reasons with her, and instead ends up giving her a dramatic haircut.

Afterward, Rose calmly takes her father's shotgun and possibly misfires it into Jack and Kathleen's bedroom as they sleep. An initially shocked Jack confronts Rose in disbelief, but the two seem to forget the event within minutes. Kathleen asks Jack about his relationship with Rose, and how she might have psychological problems that should be dealt with. Jack denies that his daughter has any problems. Meanwhile, Rose and Rodney become good friends.

Rodney is often criticized by his mother for being overweight, and the two fight constantly about his diet, but Rose sees only his kindness and intelligence. However, still on a mission to lose her virginity, Rose's thoughts turn to Thaddius. While trapping a copperhead intended for scaring Kathleen, Rose sees Thaddius and a girl named Red Berry having sex in the woods. Later that night, Thaddius enters Rose's room and though she dislikes him, Rose allows him to have sex with her. The copperhead, which Rose has kept in its cage under her bed, escapes into the house when the lock of the cage is loosened and drops open by the vibrations of the bed that Thaddius and Rose are having sex in.

To irk her father, Rose hangs her bloodied bedsheet in the front yard. Jack is furious that his daughter has been "ruined" and gives Thaddius one day to move out. Meanwhile, Kathleen is cornered by the copperhead. The resulting chaos puts the whole household on edge. That night, Rose holds a screening of a homemade movie about the hippie commune in her treehouse.

As the film rolls, Thaddius advances on Rose and is stopped by Jack. After a scuffle, Thaddius falls from the treehouse and is rushed to the hospital. Rose runs away and hides for days. Jack finally finds her in one of the housing developments, but quickly leaves to take care of a "transaction". Back on the island, Jack offers Kathleen ten thousand dollars, then fifteen, in order to have her move out. Kathleen agrees at twenty thousand.

Jack returns to Rose's hideout, and she is overjoyed with the news that Kathleen is gone. That night, Rose kisses Jack; the shock that his daughter is in love with him—and that he allowed her to kiss him—makes him upset, and he weeps. Waking the next morning, the memory of the kiss haunts Jack. He and Rose go to the house of the housing developer, Marty Rance, and Jack breaks down, finding that he has no fight left in him. He tries to sell his property to Rance, upsetting Rose.

He and Rose return home, and Jack dies in his sleep overnight. Rose had originally planned to kill herself when her father died, but after setting the house on fire and lying down next to Jack's body, she changes her mind and escapes. Two years later, Rose is shown living in Vermont and working in a greenhouse where Gray, her father's friend from the island, works as well.

It is the year 2160. Mankind has colonized the solar system and two political entities have emerged: the Alliance consisting of American, Australian, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, British and German forces, and The Coalition of Russian, Chinese and Middle-Eastern interests. The game begins with a surprise attack on Fort Kennedy, where a peace treaty turns into a bloodbath: all of the inner four planets are overrun, including Terra herself, and the Italian and French fleets are utterly lost. The Alliance fleet regroups at Triton, Neptune's moon, and attempts to regain lost territory. The player takes the role of a rookie pilot in the international 45th Volunteers squadron, under the command of Captain Robert Foster and Wing Commander Maria Enriquez, aboard the re-commissioned British carrier ANS ''Reliant''.

After being rejected by his girlfriend, Peter Rooker, an art-department employee in Portland, Oregon, decides to audition for a small role in an upcoming local community theatre's production of ''Cyrano de Bergerac''. Despite the fact that Peter has no experience or skill as an actor, the director casts Peter as Cyrano, as the lead. Peter soon becomes caught up in the various intrigues of the "theater people", including the charming but mercurial Michael Degan, the beautiful leading lady Grace Hargrove, and a cast of other eccentric players. Gradually, Peter discovers that in the world of theater, the normal rules do not apply, but in the end, everyone has a role. As Peter struggles with his acting, clearly he is not going to be ready for opening night.

An experienced, but universally disliked actor, Ken Zorbell, is brought in to play Cyrano. Realizing the writing is on the wall, Peter asks the director to let him relinquish the role and take another role as a background character. On opening night, the lead has not appeared, and the director asks Peter, who has never rehearsed the role, to play Cyrano. At first, he declines, but then realizing it is his dream, he plays Cyrano with great success.

This short piece read was first published in ''Exterminator!'' The titular "Priest" is the protagonist, an otherwise nameless heroin addict trying to score on Christmas Eve. After selling a leather suitcase filled with a pair of severed legs (and subsequently visiting the ubiquitous crooked doctor), the Priest returns to a boarding house with a fix. While preparing, the Priest is interrupted by muffled moans from the next room. He knocks and finds a crippled Mexican boy in the throes of agonizing withdrawal. After giving the boy his drugs as an act of charity, the Priest returns to his room, reclines on his bed and dies, in what Burroughs calls "the immaculate fix." Another reading of this piece was also used in ''The Junky's Christmas'', a short animated film in 1990.

Katie and Lin are born on the same day but into difference lifestyles: one in Malibu, California to a nuclear family that has to learn how to handle a growing teenager and the other into a single parent family with a teenager who was born with a facial deformity and suffers in isolationism.

Katie learns of a program, "Doctor's Gift", that provide world-wide, medical assistance to those in need. She learns about Lin.

Katie joins the program on one of its trips to China. Katie undergoes an attitude change while in China and on her own embarks to find Lin.

Lin's father, Daniel, brings Katie and Lin together. Lin is convinced to undergo surgery for her facial deformity. She is able to smile.

They both develop beyond the insularity of their particular world.

The rocky relationship between Jane Coslaw, the film's narrator, and her paraplegic younger brother Marty changes after a series of murders in their small rural town of Tarker's Mills, Maine, starting in the spring of 1976.

Railroad worker Arnie Westrum is decapitated by an unseen attacker, pregnant Stella Randolph prepares to kill herself but is brutally murdered in her own bedroom, an abusive father is killed in his greenhouse, and Marty's best friend, Brady Kincaid, is also killed. After Brady's death, citizens form a vigilante justice group. Although local Sheriff Joe Haller attempts to stop the citizens, he relents after Brady's father Herb berates him. Reverend Lester Lowe fails to dissuade the townsfolk from causing further bloodshed.

While the vigilantes hunt for the killer in the nearby woods, three are attacked and killed. The survivors - especially Andy Fairton - later deny seeing anything unusual. Afterwards, Reverend Lowe dreams that he is presiding over a mass funeral when his congregation including the bodies in the caskets begins to transform into werewolves before his eyes and attack him. He awakens screaming and asks God to "let it end."

Because of the mounting unsolved murders, curfews are put in place, canceling the town’s Fourth of July celebration. The Coslaws decide to have their own backyard party and invite their mother Nan's alcoholic brother, Red. Red gives Marty a custom-built wheelchair/motorcycle, which he nicknames the "Silver Bullet," as well as a pile of fireworks so he can have his own celebration. Marty uses the Silver Bullet to go out in the middle of the night to a bridge where he lights the fireworks. The fireworks get the werewolf's attention, and it confronts him, but he escapes after launching a rocket into the creature's eye.

Marty enlists Jane's help to look for someone with a newly injured or missing eye. She discovers that Reverend Lowe is missing his left eye. Realizing that no adult would believe his story, Marty begins sending anonymous notes to Reverend Lowe telling him that he knows who he is, what he is, and that he should commit suicide in order to stop the killings. Lowe tries to run Marty off the road with his car. When Marty is trapped under a closed covered bridge, Lowe, whose condition has fractured his sanity, tries to rationalize the murders he has committed as doing God's work. Lowe apologizes and moves in for the kill until Marty calls for help from a passerby.

The siblings manage to convince Red that Lowe is connected to the murders and attempted to kill Marty. Red persuades Sheriff Haller to investigate. That night, Haller, still skeptical but desperate to find the killer, goes to Lowe's house and finds Lowe has locked himself in his garage to restrain himself from further killings. Before Haller can arrest him, Lowe transforms and bludgeons Haller to death with a baseball bat.

Knowing the werewolf is coming for them next, Marty and Jane convince Red to take Jane's silver cross and Marty's silver medallion to the gunsmith, who melts them down into a silver bullet.

On the night of the full moon, they wait for the werewolf, who cuts the power to the house and smashes its way inside, attacking Red. The bullet is nearly lost in the melee, but Marty is able to retrieve it and shoots the werewolf in the right eye. The corpse turns back into Lowe before dying. As the trio recover, Marty and Jane say they love each other and embrace, and Jane narrates that although she hadn't always been able to say it, she was able to say it from then on.

On a snowy night, a stranger, his face swathed in bandages and his eyes obscured by dark goggles, takes a room at The Lion's Head Inn in the English village of Iping in Sussex. The man demands to be left alone. Later, the innkeeper, Mr. Hall, is sent by his wife to evict the stranger after he has made a huge mess in his room while doing research and has fallen behind on his rent. Angered, the stranger throws Mr. Hall down the stairs. Confronted by a policeman and some local civilians, he removes his bandages and goggles, revealing he is invisible. Laughing maniacally, he takes off his clothes, making himself completely undetectable, and drives off his tormentors before fleeing into the countryside.

The stranger is Dr. Jack Griffin, a chemist who discovered the secret of invisibility while conducting a series of tests involving an obscure drug called monocane. Flora Cranley, Griffin's fiancée and the daughter of Griffin's employer, Dr. Cranley, becomes distraught over Griffin's long absence. Cranley and his other assistant, Dr. Kemp, search Griffin's empty laboratory, finding only a single note in a cupboard. Cranley becomes concerned when he reads it. The note has a list of chemicals, including monocane, which Cranley knows is extremely dangerous; an injection of it drove a dog mad in Germany. Griffin, it seems, is unaware of this. Cranley deduces Griffin may have learned about monocane in English books printed before the incident that describe only its bleaching power.

On the evening of his escape from the inn, Griffin turns up at Kemp's home. He forces Kemp to become his visible partner in a plot to dominate the world through a reign of terror, beginning with "a few murders here and there". They drive back to the inn to retrieve his notebooks on the invisibility process. Sneaking inside, Griffin finds a police inquiry underway, conducted by an official who believes it is all a hoax. After securing his books, Griffin angrily attacks and kills the officer.

Back home, Kemp calls Cranley, asking for help, and then the police. Flora persuades her father to let her come along. In her presence, Griffin becomes more placid and calls her "darling". When he realizes Kemp has betrayed him, his first reaction is to get Flora away from danger. After promising Kemp that at 10 o'clock the next night he will murder him, Griffin escapes and goes on a killing spree. He causes the derailment of a train, resulting in a hundred deaths, and throws two volunteer searchers off a cliff. The police offer a reward for anyone who can think of a way to catch him.

Feeling that Griffin will try to fulfill his promise, the chief detective in charge of the search uses Kemp as bait and devises various clever traps. At Kemp's insistence, the police disguise him in a police uniform and let him drive his car away from his house. Griffin, however, is hiding in the back seat of the car, as surprises Kemp and tells that he was also following him all day while committing his crimes. He overpowers Kemp and ties him up in the front seat. Griffin then sends the car down a steep hill and over a cliff where it explodes on impact, killing Kemp.

A snowstorm forces Griffin to seek shelter in a barn where he falls asleep. Later a farmer enters and spots movement in the hay where Griffin is sleeping. He notifies the police, who rush out to the farm and surround the barn. They set fire to the building, which forces Griffin to come out, leaving visible footprints in the snow. The chief detective opens fire, mortally wounding Griffin. He is taken to the hospital where, hours later, a surgeon informs Dr. Cranley that Griffin is dying and asking to see Flora. On his deathbed, Griffin remorsefully admits to Flora, "I meddled in things that man must leave alone". As he dies, his body quickly becomes visible again.

Walter, a convicted child molester, returns home to Philadelphia after serving 12 years in prison. His friends and family have abandoned him, with the exception of his brother-in-law, Carlos. Walter's apartment is just across the street from an elementary school—an obvious source of temptation. He gets a job at a local lumber mill and meets Vicki, one of the few women working there. After sleeping with Vicki, Walter tells her that he molested little girls, but rationalizes his crimes by saying "I didn't hurt them." Vicki is clearly shocked and disturbed by this new information, but before she can consider how to respond, Walter tells her to leave his apartment.

Walter receives frequent visits from a verbally abusive police officer named Lucas, who makes it clear that he is waiting to catch Walter reoffending. Watching the school, Walter sees a man offering candy to little boys. He realizes that this man, whom he nicknames "Candy", is another child molester. Walter also meets an apparently lonely young girl named Robin who is a birdwatcher. Walter sees Candy abduct a boy, but does not report this to the police. Walter's life takes a further downturn when a suspicious coworker, Mary-Kay, learns of his conviction. She prints out his police record and posts it on the bulletin board at the mill for everybody to see. Some of the employees attack Walter, but Vicki and the boss of the mill come to his defense.

Ostracized and frustrated, Walter leaves his workplace and goes to the park. Vicki, fearing the worst, begins to search for him. Walter ends up meeting with Robin at the park. As they talk, he begins to succumb to his desires and invites Robin to sit on his lap. She politely refuses, but then begins to confide in him. As she starts to cry, Walter realizes that she is being molested by her father. In her anguish, and sensing a similarity between her father and Walter, she offers to sit on Walter's lap, wanting his approval. Walter finally understands the pain he caused his victims, and tells Robin to go home; as she leaves, she gives him a hug. On his way home, he sees Candy dropping off a young boy near the school at night. In a fit of rage and self-hatred, Walter beats Candy up. He then goes to Vicki's home, and she accepts him.

Soon after, Lucas visits Walter's apartment as Walter is packing to move in with Vicki and tells him that a man was beaten across the street the night before, and asks if he knows anything about it. Walter denies any knowledge, but Lucas knows better. He reveals that the boy gave a very good description of the assailant, which fits Walter. He also reveals that "Candy" is wanted in Virginia for raping a young boy. Lucas decides not to charge Walter with the assault.

With Carlos' help, Walter is reunited with his sister, whom he has not seen in years. However, she refuses to forgive him and leaves. In a voice-over discussion in which his therapist tells him that eventual forgiveness may take years, Walter replies that he understands and accepts her anger, and expresses optimism for his own future.

Joe Saunders and his brother Fred arrive in London from Leybourne in Kent, and go to the Elephant and Castle pub, the haunt of Tom Sayers, a leading boxer. While his brother, an aspiring boxer, is having a trial bout with Sayers, Joe Saunders is persuaded to sing a song to entertain the bar's customers. Initially reluctant, but persevering, his performance is a hit, leading to an offer from the landlord of a regular engagement at £1 a week and two free beers a night.

A month later, Saunders is a major hit at the bar, drawing large crowds. After receiving an invitation to sing at the local music hall, the Mogador, he unfortunately chooses to sing a slower, more melancholic song. Met with a mixture of indifference and hostility by the crowd, the Mogador's owner, Bessie Bellwood, calls the performance "horrible". Disappointed, he walks away and quietly begins to sing "Half and Half and Half" to himself, causing Bellwood to instantly change her opinion. Her job offer, however, has a catch: Saunders has to use a new name; he chooses George Leybourne, after his home town.

Soon, Leybourne establishes himself as a headlining fixture at the Mogador, performing to packed houses. When a member of the audience compares him unfavourably to "The Great Vance", whom Bellwood considers the greatest music hall performer of the era, she takes Leybourne to a performance Vance is giving; there he declares that he can be better than Vance. A new song is written for him, "Ale, Old Ale", quickly becoming a hit. An annoyed Vance, who considers drinking songs his territory, regards Leybourne as an upstart and responds with a new drinking song. A rivalry between them results in both developing fresh songs about different alcoholic beverages to outdo the other. Leybourne is eventually extremely successful with his signature hit: "Champagne Charlie".

An enraged Vance challenges him to a duel with pistols, fully expecting him to apologise. Leybourne, however, accepts the challenge, and a farcical duel takes place in which neither are hurt. Their rivalry continues, although music halls are under increasing threat from the government, which is being lobbied by theatre owners who see music halls as competitors to their business. Despite their rivalry, Vance and Leybourne begin to develop a grudging respect for each other and agree to stage a joint performance in support of the owner of one of the other music halls. A relationship also develops between Bessie Bellwood's daughter Dolly and Lord Petersfield, the young son of the duke in charge of the panel cracking down on the music halls.

Dolly resists Petersfield's repeated marriage proposals, believing that the gulf in class cannot be overcome, an impression especially fuelled by the polite but dismissive reception she receives from Petersfield's father, the Duke. Many years before, the Duke had nearly married Bessie Bellwood before being convinced by his father that she was beneath him. Bessie visits the Duke to persuade him to allow his son and her daughter to marry, reminding him of their own affair. She grows angry after discovering the Duke could ruin her because the committee he heads may close down the music halls.

During the first performance of Leybourne's latest song, a major riot is started by men paid by the theatre owners, who call upon the police to intervene. Fearing the closure of the Mogador and other music halls, performers and staff try to battle the rioters, sending out for help to the neighbouring music hall, where Vance is performing. Vance leads his own staff to the rescue. Overcoming the rioters and restoring order just before the police arrive, what is left is an orderly music hall audience listening to Leybourne's song.

Later summoned to give evidence before the committee, the performers give their evidence, expecting the worse. At the Mogador, Vance, Bellwood and Leybourne stage a joint performance. The Duke arrives, and on his announcement that the committee has decided in favour of the music halls, the entire audience erupts, drinking champagne to celebrate a secure future while singing "Champagne Charlie".

Three thousand years ago, the Space Pirates Balban invaded Earth. The Starbeasts and the first Gingamen, warriors of the Ginga Forest, fought them with a mystical power known as Earth and eventually imprisoned them. The Ginga people later cloaked their forest within marked boundaries and passed on the duty of the Ginga warriors through generations.

In the present day, Hyuuga, Hayate, Gouki, Hikaru and Saya are chosen as the 133rd warriors of the Starbeast Swords. Ryouma is very happy that his elder brother Hyuuga succeeds to the title. When Orghi holds the succession ceremony of the Starbeast Swords, an earthquake breaks the seal on the Balban.

Orghi orders the 133rd warriors to get the Ginga Braces hidden in Roaring Mountain. However, the Balban attacks them to prevent the birth of the new Gingamen. During the battle, Hyuuga is swallowed into a crack in the ground created by the Balban's leader, Captain Zahab. Enraged, Ryouma activates his hidden Earth power and awakens the Ginga Braces. The Gingamen fight together with the Starbeasts against the Balban, who desire to revive the Demon Beast Daitanix, on whose corpse they built their castle.

On Christmas Eve in New York, divorced publisher Rose Collins struggles to cope with caring for her mother, an Alzheimer's patient. As she contemplates suicide on a riverbank, former priest Charlie Boyd saves her life, and they spend the night together in her apartment. While Charlie explains that he has lost faith in God, the next morning he tells Rose that his faith has been restored by a telepathic conversation with Rose's mother, claiming that she wants Rose to move on with her life. Rose angrily ejects Charlie from her apartment.

Young couple Nina Vasquez and Mike Riley are on the verge of breaking up due to Mike's increasingly jealous behavior. When Mike attacks a homosexual platonic friend of Nina, she leaves him. When Nina goes to her family to celebrate Christmas there, she meets Rose, who has secretly sneaked into her parents' house, and confides her story to her. Feeling out of place, Rose and Nina go to a nearby bar.

Elderly waiter Artie Venizelos searches for his deceased wife every Christmas. He molests Mike, believing him to be his wife's reincarnation. When Artie collapses and is hospitalized, Mike learns from a colleague that Artie committed manslaughter in a fit of jealousy. As a result, his wife killed herself in a car accident. Mike sees this as a fateful sign that he must overcome his own pathological jealousy.

Jules Calvert is a depressed young man whose sole happy memory is a Christmas celebration in a hospital when he was a teenager. Seeking to repeat the experience, he allows the criminal Arizona to break his hand, only to learn that he cannot revive the past. Rose, feeling guilty over her treatment of Charlie, returns to the hospital and discovers that Charlie is in a coma in the room next to her mother's. Back on the riverbank, Rose decides to enjoy life again, and sets up a date with one of the doctors.

The film is a series of vignettes presented as the broadcast of the first animal Olympic Games through the fictional ZOO television network. The Games combine summer and winter Olympic events.

The event is covered mostly by Barbara Warblers, a stork, and "anchorturtle" Henry Hummel. The 100-meter dash is covered in the style of a drag race by Jackie Fuelit.

Unlike the real Olympics, continents are represented rather than countries. The continents featured are North America, South America, Eurasia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia. Eurasia represents the USSR, whereas Europe represents Western and Central Europe.

The only mention of areas other than continents are the New York City Rats soccer team, Dean Wilson being from California, a Central American marathon runner named Pepé Repanosa, an Acapulco cliff diver named "Primo Cabeza", marathon runner Terry Hornsby being from Boulder, Colorado, René Fromage being from France, and Kurt Wüfner appearing at the downhill event right before a Scandinavian is given a gold medal.

Although many of the segments stand alone, there are some recurring events and important characters. The largest such story is the coverage of the marathon, where competitors René Fromage and Kit Mambo are the favorites to win. Both are determined to win – Fromage having devoted his entire life to the marathon, Mambo determined to make a name for herself – they find themselves surprised when their minds wander to thoughts of mutual admiration and then to love, culminating in the pair holding hands for the rest of the race and crossing the finish line together. Another important story is that of Kurt Wüffner, a West German dachshund skier, and his disappearance to Dogra-la during a mountain climbing expedition shortly after the slalom event.

A minor story features an alligator named Bolt Jenkins. He was "born as a handbag" and told that he would never walk again. A song during his story reveals that he lives in the sewers. After seeing a frog named Boris Amphibiensky break the world record for the high jump, Jenkins has an epiphany, and becomes determined to break the record. Jenkins goes on to set world records in the high jump, the pole vault, and later the 100-meter dash. Jenkins sacrifices his gold medal in the hundred meter dash to an African competitor and favorite whom Jenkins considers to be his superior.

The film spoofs real-life sports personalities like Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali.

Stacy Holt (Brittany Murphy) is an associate producer on a talk show hosted by the domineering Kippie Kann (Kathy Bates). Stacy believes that "luck is when preparation meets opportunity". Boyfriend, Derek (Ron Livingston) appears to be the fulfillment of all of her wishes, despite his reluctance to commit or discuss his past relationships.

When Stacy brings home tapes of the show to study, Derek recognizes a guest, his ex, a French model Lulu (Josie Maran). He won't answer her questions about their relationship, and then Stacy confides in her co-workers Barb (Holly Hunter) and Ira (Kevin Sussman) about her worries. Inspired by Ira's pitch about using PalmPilots— the modern day "little black book"—to investigate a lover's secrets, Barb and Ira encourage Stacy to use Derek's to learn more about him.

Under the guise of possibly inviting Lulu back to the Kippie Kann Show, Stacy, Barb, and Ira question her about Derek. Lulu stole Derek away from his then-serious girlfriend Joyce (Julianne Nicholson) and that their relationship was purely sexual. Back at her apartment, Stacy becomes increasingly insecure, listening to answering machine messages for Derek, looking through his box of mementos from former girlfriends and finally his Palm Pilot. She finds pictures of two of his exes on it, Joyce and Rachel (Rashida Jones). Stacy makes a doctor's appointment to meet Rachel, whom she believes is a podiatrist.

Stacy discovers that Rachel is actually a gynecologist, and notices that Rachel has pictures of Derek's dog, Bob, in her office. Pretending it's research for the show, Stacy interviews Rachel, who reveals that she and Derek share custody of Bob and still see each other once in a while.

Next, Stacy meets Joyce, and the two strike up a friendship, although Stacy feels guilty for befriending Joyce under false pretenses. When Joyce gets a call from Derek, she asks Joyce about them. Joyce admits to Stacy that she still hopes that she and Derek will reunite.

Stacy panics and shows Joyce the interview with Lulu where she brags how Derek only went back to Joyce because Lulu became bored with him. Devastated, Joyce ends her friendship with Derek. Stacy feels guilty for making Joyce so unhappy and questions whether her investigation did anything to improve her own relationship with Derek. 

At the Kippie Kann Show, production prepares for the live show and Stacy is given lead responsibilities. She is thrust on stage, discovering that her investigations into Derek's past '''are''' the subject matter. Barb orchestrated the episode and invited Lulu, Rachel, Joyce, and Derek to the show. All are confused and hurt by the lies, especially Joyce and Derek. Stacy apologizes to the women and to him, tearfully breaking up with Derek and admitting that she is not right for him. She encourages him to get back with Joyce before quitting on air. Stacy goes backstage to confront Barb, who tries to defend her actions and congratulate Stacy on the episode's success. Stacy rebuffs her (to the live audience's applause) and leaves.

Interviewing for a job under Diane Sawyer she reflects on her experiences with the interviewer, getting the job. On her way out, she meets her idol, Carly Simon.

The story takes place in the Berkshire Downs in Oxfordshire (where the author lived and where, according to legend, St. George did fight a dragon).

In Grahame's story, a young boy discovers an erudite, poetry-loving dragon living in the Downs above his home. The two become friends, but soon afterwards the dragon is discovered by the townsfolk, who send for St George to rid them of it. The boy introduces St George to the dragon, and the two decide that it would be better for them not to fight. Eventually, they decide to stage a fake joust between the two combatants. As the two have planned, St George harmlessly spears the dragon through a shallow fold of skin suggested by the dragon, and the townsfolk rejoice (though not all of them, as some had placed bets on the dragon winning). St George then proclaims that the dragon is reformed in character, and he assures the townsfolk that the dragon is not dangerous. So the dragon is then accepted by the people.

, stands in for ''Denji Sentai Megaranger'' s Moroboshi High School.

Kenta Date, a senior high school student, is the ultimate champion of an arcade video game called "Megaranger". He belongs to the Cybernetics club, a group of like minded friends from his school. Koichiro Endo, Shun Namiki, Chisato Jogaseki, and Miku Imamura are also members of Cybernetics. The International Network of Excel-Science and Technology (INET), the games creators, invite Kenta and the Cybernetics club members to tour the INET laboratories. Following a short tour of the INET HQ buildings, the company is attacked by the Neijirejia, an evil force led by Dr. Hinelar on a mission to conquer the current reality. Dr. Kubota, INET's chief scientist, reveals that Megaranger was more than only a simple video game but actually a combat simulator to identify potential recruits for a super fighting team to combat the Neijirejia. While the INET headquarters (HQ) is destroyed by the Neijirejia warrior Yugande, Dr. Kubota gives Kenta and his friends devices known as 'Digitizers'. By entering the key-code "3-3-5" and shouting "Install, Megaranger!", Date, Endo, Namiki, Jogasaki and Imamura transform into the Megarangers to fight the Nejirejia.

The story takes the form of a signed statement by a Chinese professor of English named Doctor Yu Tsun, who is living in the United Kingdom during World War I. Tsun is a spy for ''Abteilung IIIb'', the military intelligence service of Imperial Germany.

As the story begins, Doctor Tsun has realized that an MI5 agent called Captain Richard Madden is pursuing him, has entered the apartment of his handler, Viktor Runeberg, and has either captured or killed him. Doctor Tsun is certain that his own arrest is next. He has just discovered the location of a new British artillery park and wishes to convey that knowledge to Berlin before he is captured. He at last hits upon a plan to achieve this.

Doctor Tsun explains that his spying has never been for the sake of the Kaiser's Germany, which he considers "a barbarous country." Rather, he says, he knows that Germany's intelligence chief, Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Nicolai, believes the Chinese people to be racially inferior. Doctor Tsun is, therefore, determined to be more intelligent than any White spy and to obtain the information Nicolai needs to save the lives of German soldiers. Doctor Tsun suspects that Captain Madden, an Irish Catholic in the employ of the British Empire, is similarly motivated.

Taking his few possessions, Doctor Tsun boards a train to the village of Ashgrove. Narrowly avoiding the pursuing Captain Madden at the railway station, he goes to the house of Doctor Stephen Albert, an eminent Sinologist. As he walks up the road to Doctor Albert's house, Doctor Tsun reflects on his great ancestor, Ts'ui Pên, a learned and famous civil servant who renounced his post as governor of Yunnan Province to undertake two tasks: write a vast and intricate novel and construct an equally-vast and intricate labyrinth "in which all men would lose their way." Ts'ui Pên was murdered before he could complete his novel, however, and wrote a "contradictory jumble of irresolute drafts" that made no sense to subsequent readers, and the labyrinth was never found.

Doctor Tsun arrives at the house of Doctor Albert, who is deeply excited to meet a descendant of Ts'ui Pên. Doctor Albert reveals that he has himself been engaged in a longtime study and an English translation of Ts'ui Pên's novel. Albert explains excitedly that at one stroke he has solved both mysteries: the chaotic and jumbled nature of Ts'ui Pên's unfinished book and the mystery of his lost labyrinth. Doctor Albert's solution is that they are the same, and the novel is the labyrinth.

Basing his work on the strange legend that Ts'ui Pên had intended to construct an infinite labyrinth and on a cryptic letter from Ts'ui Pên himself stating, "I leave to several futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths," Doctor Albert realized that the "garden of forking paths" was the novel and that the forking takes place in time, rather than space. In most fictions, a character chooses one alternative at each decision point and eliminates all of the others. In Ts'ui Pên's novel, however, all possible outcomes of an event occur simultaneously, all of which themselves lead to further proliferations of possibilities. Albert further explains that the constantly-diverging paths sometimes converge again but as the result of a different chain of causes. For example, Doctor Albert says that in one possible timeline, Doctor Tsun has come to his house as an enemy but in another, he comes as a friend.

Though trembling with gratitude at Doctor Albert's revelation and at his ancestor's genius, Doctor Tsun glances up the path to see Captain Madden rushing towards the door. Knowing that time is short, Doctor Tsun asks to see Ts'ui Pên's letter again. As Doctor Albert turns to retrieve it, Doctor Tsun draws a revolver and murders him in cold blood.

Completing his manuscript as he awaits death by hanging, Doctor Tsun explains that he has been arrested, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. However, he has "most abhorrently triumphed" by revealing to Nicolai the location of the artillery park. Indeed, the park was bombed by the Imperial German Air Service during Tsun's trial. The location of the artillery park was in Albert, near the battlefield of the Somme. Doctor Tsun had known that the only way to convey the information to Berlin was to murder a person with the same name so that news of the murder would appear in British newspapers, which connected with the name of his victim.

In the year 2014, Japan suffers a major economic collapse and people are forced to emigrate to mainland China. The movie introduced the story with two vampires, Kei and Luka, of whom the first was probably made a vampire by the former, and in later Kei's flashback is revealed that Luka decided to end his existence by watching the sunrise. Three orphaned boys live in a fictional Chinese city called Mallepa, a 'melting pot' of different Asian groups. They are named Shō, Shinji who is Sho's brother, and Toshi. All three survive through pickpocketing. During a theft gone wrong, Sho meets Kei - a vampire who appears to be a young man - sitting amidst a pile of debris and brings him back to the orphan's hideout. When the orphans are attacked by a man they previously robbed, Kei attacks, kills, and feeds off of their attacker, thereby revealing his status as a vampire to the orphans. However, Sho approaches him, unafraid.

Several years later, Sho is in his twenties, leading a band of thieves consisting of Kei and Toshi. During one of the robberies against another gang, they cross paths with a Taiwanese named Son. Son is going after the gang because their leader raped his sister, Yi-Che. Sho, Kei, Son and Toshi all become friends, and Sho quickly and awkwardly falls in love with Yi-Che though it is implied that she in turn harbors feelings for Kei. Toshi is murdered by the local mafia for helping Sho and Kei in their heists by using drugged pizza to sedate their targets. Soon, through this experience, Son and Yi-Che learn that Kei is a vampire.

Nine years later, Kei has left the band and Sho is head of his district in Mallepa and is married to Yi-Che. Son has joined Mr. Chan, the leader of the opposing mafia of Mallepa and is now Sho's enemy. Kei, who is revealed to be in prison for murder, makes several death sentence pleas; Sho goes to visit him in prison after seeing a news report about him on TV. During Sho's visit at the prison, he reveals to Kei that he had to propose to Yi-Che several times before she agreed because she was really in love with Kei. The couple now have a daughter together whom they named "Hana". After spending the entire conversation in silence, Kei states that he feared Sho, who had been reckless, was dead and that he is glad he is not.

Yi-Che develops a fatal cancerous brain tumor. Soon after the diagnosis, Sho's men are killed on the streets in broad daylight while Sho is away. Sho's brother, Shinji, is also killed when he points at gun at Mr. Chan while in a drug induced haze. Sho calls Kei and begs him to return. After speaking to Kei he is told that Kei had been sentenced to death, something Kei had actually requested. Kei, however, escapes his execution and returns to help his friend. Sho asks Kei to turn Yi-Che into a vampire so she will be around for the sake of Hana (their young daughter). Kei refuses angrily, but agrees to face Mr. Chan with Sho. He promises Sho that if anything happens to him, he will take care of Hana.

When they go to face Mr. Chan, Mr. Chan is shot by two of his own while Sho faces off with Son. Their battle comes down to a 'count to three and shoot' match when they are both down to only one bullet. Sho's gun misfires and he is shot in the chest by Son. Kei arrives on the scene and Son faces his own death by pointing his empty gun at Kei, who is enraged at the sight of his injured friend and fires at Son. Kei goes to Sho, who appears to die dramatically in Kei's arms.

In 2045, Hana is grown up and heading off to college. She says goodbye to Kei, who raised her in Sho's absence and it is implied that she is aware of Kei being a vampire. Before she leaves she mentions the feeling of someone watching her, and after her departure Sho appears as a vampire, thanking Kei for taking care of her all these years because he couldn't face what he had become. Together the two men drive to the beach and await the rising sun together to face death. The movie concludes with the entire gang back together at the beach in the daylight (something not possible for Kei in the past), presumably reunited in the afterlife or as reincarnations of themselves in another life.

Diverted from exploring the Pleiades, the ''Enterprise'' arrives at the terraforming colony on Velara III, as the project is behind schedule. The director, Kurt Mandl (Walter Gotell), insists they are on time but Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) orders an away team to the surface after Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) senses that Mandl is hiding something. After they arrive, one of Mandl's team is killed by a malfunctioning laser drill. During Lt. Commander Data's (Brent Spiner) inspection of the tool, it begins to fire at him, but his quick android reflexes allow him to dodge the shot and render the drill harmless. He finds the programming of the laser was rewritten to fire upon the staff. Nearby, a crystal is discovered giving off irregular light and radiation patterns. The crystal is brought aboard the ''Enterprise'' to study and Picard orders a halt to the terraforming.

Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Data discover the crystal may be alive. When the crystal attempts to interact with the ''Enterprise'' s computers, it is placed into a containment force field. The crystal begins to grow and gains access to the computer's translation program and attempts to communicate with the crew, treating the humans as an enemy, derisively calling them "ugly bags of mostly water". Picard discovers that Mandl and his team previously encountered the crystals; at the time, they had considered the possibility that the crystals were alive, but Mandl insisted on continuing to terraform. The terraformers used a drilling process responsible for removing the saline water layer from the water table of Velara III. This saline layer acted as a conductor, allowing many separate crystals to function as one life form. In a defensive response to the drilling, the crystal life form rewrote the laser's software and attacked the terraformers.

Data hypothesizes that a single crystal is not intelligent, but when linked to other crystals, their intelligence is formidable. As the crystalline life form accesses higher-level functions of the ''Enterprise'' s computer, Picard and the crew try to transport it to the surface but the crystal blocks all attempts to transport it off the ship. Data and Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) discover the presence of cadmium in the crystal and suspect it has photoelectric properties. They disable the lights in the medical lab and the crystal immediately begs for life. Picard peacefully negotiates to return the crystal life form to the surface of the planet where Starfleet will institute a quarantine, leaving the life form to live in peace.

Nature photographer Cliff Benson is found dead in the woods near the town of Hyde River, with his head and torso missing. His wife, Evelyn, is found covered with blood and half-crazed on a logging road and taken to a hospital, where she only has vague recollections of the events that transpired. Sheriff Les Collins is quick to pin the blame on a rogue bear. Cliff's brother Steve quickly finds holes in the theory and teams up with local sheriff's deputy Tracy Ellis. At the same time, several residents of the town are afflicted with a mysterious black rash which spreads over their bodies.

Benson and Ellis discover that a giant dragon is responsible for the deaths and that Harold Bly has the ability to control it. Through reading old letters and diaries provided to him by Levi Cobb, Benson learns that the town was purged of Christianity in the late 19th century, and any Christians taking residence in the town were either martyred or driven out. Those remaining reestablished Hyde River after signing a charter which gave the dragon free rein of the town. The town's founder and Harold Bly's ancestor, Benjamin Hyde, was believed to have control over the dragon.

Benson arranges to meet Bly at the bar to make peace. There, he learns that Harold Bly and all of his henchmen have the rash and that Harold never did control the dragon at all. Both the dragon and the rash are physical manifestations of unrepented sin. Bly drugs Benson's beer and takes him prisoner in an attempt to purge the town of Christianity as their ancestors did years ago. Benson escapes, but Ellis is eaten by the dragon. Filled with grief, Steve vows to destroy the dragon. He then puts one of Levi Cobb's plans into action and confronts the dragon using a makeshift spear constructed by Cobb. As Harold Bly and his followers watch in awe, the dragon attacks Benson with its fiery breath, but he does not suffer any burns. Frightened by the power of God, the dragon backs into the spear until it slides between its scales and into its heart. As the dragon's dying act, it bites Bly in half and dematerializes in a bright flash. The other townsfolk swear revenge on Benson for killing their dragon. Benson points to their hearts and tells them that they still have their dragon inside of them.

Steve Prefontaine, a Coos Bay, Oregon student, is too small to play most sports but becomes a talented distance runner. He enrolls at the University of Oregon in 1969, and meets fellow Oregon Ducks track and field athletes Pat Tyson and Mac Wilkins. With coaches Bill Bowerman and Bill Dellinger, "Pre" wins three national cross-country championships and four consecutive 5,000-meter runs, breaking the U.S. record in the latter. Prefontaine gains fame as an aggressive runner who likes to be out front from the start, rather than biding his time until a strong finish.

Prefontaine accompanies other top American runners including Frank Shorter and Jeff Galloway to the 1972 Munich Olympics, where they witness the terrorist attacks of the Munich Massacre which interrupt and almost cancel the games. In the 5,000-meter, Prefontaine leads with 150 meters to go, but three different runners pass him and he does not medal. The gold goes to Finland's Lasse Viren.

After his college career ends, Prefontaine prepares for a rematch with Viren at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The strict amateurism rules of American non-collegiate sports force Prefontaine to turn down a lucrative offer to become a professional runner, instead working as a bartender while living in a trailer home. He becomes an activist to help American athletes compete against better-funded international rivals. On May 30, 1975, after drinking alcohol at a post-meet party, Prefontaine is killed when his MG convertible flips while he is driving. After his death, the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 gives athletes more control over their sports' governance.

Episode 1

As Ronnie, Burger, and Sockbaby leave their house to go someplace to food up, they are confronted by Davis the Grey (a white faced demon in a black suit), who wants to take Sockbaby to Lord Opticord, leader of the Greys. Davis informs Ronnie that this Sockbaby is "the Sockbaby Jesus, Sock-savior to the Sock-people". While Burger escapes with the Sockbaby, Davis, and Ronnie fight each other, with Davis running off as he is defeated, and notified that, in the opinion of Ronnie Cordova, he and his brethren are gay.

At its Channel 101 screening on Sunday, January 25, 2004, it received an audience share of 45.5% and was the 5th top-voted show with 129 votes.

Episode 2

While Ronnie and Burger try to get their car started – Ronnie left the radio running, thus draining the battery – Lord Opticord dispatches more Greys to kill Ronnie and retrieve Sockbaby, including the ultra-powerful and poorly wardrobed club-wielding, two ton Chum-Chum. Ronnie once again manages to fight off a majority of the Greys, this time using even more spectacular fighting moves than before (utilizing a plasma pill), but he is eventually knocked down by the Chum-Chum.

At its Channel 101 screening on Monday, March 1, 2004, it received an Audience share of 39.7% and was the 7th top-voted show with 105 votes, leading to its cancellation.

Episode 3

Burger dispatches an odd-looking creature to kill Chum-Chum, and Ronnie rises again to defeat the remaining Greys, excluding Davis. Directly afterward he steps in a pile of dog feces, which he wipes from his shoe with a sock, tossing the sock on the ground. He then kills Davis for good, but discovers that Davis has killed Burger. Lord Opticord then confronts Ronnie directly. Opticord and Ronnie fight each other, during which Ronnie's funky disco medallion ties itself around both Ronnie's and Opticord's necks, putting both of them in an electric choke hold. While they are being choked, Opticord reveals to Ronnie what Opticord thought was the Sockbaby in his possession, but is actually Ronnie's discarded sock. Both Ronnie and Opticord then fall to the ground, dead. A shark robot then arrives, resurrecting Ronnie and leaving with the Sockbaby. Ronnie then finds that Burger has been revived as well, and together they leave to find some food.

Episode 4

thumb 2008 / 11 mins.

Ronnie Cordova is drinking margaritas poolside when a gang of Frogmen attack him. He defeats dozens of the frogmen intruders and comes face to face with the Frogmen's leader (Jon Heder) after he emerges from Cordova's pool and births a doppelgänger (Dan Heder, in a parody of ''The Manitou''), The Manitou Frogmen knock Cordova into the pool and mock him by telling him they have killed his master, but Cordova replies that it was only his master's clone. The Frogmen nearly drown Cordova, but he is saved when Doug Jones (played by himself) impales both frogmen with wooden stakes.

Jones explains that he is Cordova's father, whereupon Burger appears and claims that this cannot be true “cause Ronnie Cordova’s father is black!” Cordova, confused, asks Burger to let him deal with it.

Burger heads to a laboratory to perform a DNA comparison, while Ronnie and Jones stay at the pool to catch up. Jones poisons Ronnie as Burger discovers that the DNA does not match. Cordiva asks Jones why he would do this, and it is explained that Cordova's father killed Jones' son Guillermo. Jones throws Cordova into the pool and an animated sequence showing Ronnie's anthropomorphized lungs drowning is shown.

Burger arrives at the pool and defeats Jones, who asks his Guillermo for forgiveness as he dies. Burger performs CPR on Cordova, who hallucinates that he is in heaven, and sees his mother before being resuscitated. Ronnie awakes and asks Burger whether they are gay for having engaged in CPR. He then laughs pulls a chewing gum out of his mouth and puts it in Burger's.

As end card is displayed, followed by a scene wherein Cordova's father, Master Cordova (Isaac C. Singleton Jr.), is approached by an agent who tells him that they have found his son. The Master stokes his beard and says "Hello, Ronnie."

''Sockbaby 4'' premiered at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, 2008.

In 1940s Shanghai, petty crooks Sing and Bone aspire to join the notorious Axe Gang under the leadership of the cold-blooded killer Brother Sum. The pair visit a rundown slum known as Pig Sty Alley to extort the residents by pretending to be Axe Gang members. Sing throws a firecracker that he claims will signal the rest of the Axe Gang, but his bluff backfires when the firecracker explodes next to a real Axe Gang underboss. Sing blames the residents for throwing the firecracker and the boss attacks them, but he is struck and killed by an unseen assailant. Gang reinforcements arrive but they are all quickly dealt with by three of the slum's tenants: Coolie, Tailor, and Donut, who reveal they are actually kung fu masters. However, fearing the Axe Gang's retaliation, the slum's Landlady evicts the trio.

Brother Sum captures Sing and Bone, intending to kill them for posing as gang members. However, Sing uses his exceptional lock-picking skills to free himself and Bone before they are killed by thrown axes. The impressed Brother Sum allows them to join the gang on the condition that they kill someone. Sing laments being a failure in life. He recalls his childhood to Bone when he was tricked by a vagrant into buying a martial arts pamphlet with his meager saving because he was duped into thinking he was a natural-born kung fu master. After practising the pamphlet's Buddhist Palm technique many times, Sing attempted to save a mute girl named Fong from bullies but was instead beaten and humiliated. Sing becomes adamant that heroes never win and resolves to be a villain.

Sing and Bone return to Pig Sty Alley to kill the Landlady. However, their plan backfires as Sing is repeatedly stabbed by his and Bone's missed knife throws. He retreats to a traffic pulpit where his body rapidly heals from his deadly injuries. The pain causes him to strike the sides of the metal pulpit, covering the surface with hand-shaped impressions. Meanwhile Brother Sum hires two Harpists that use a magical guzheng to kill their victims with sound. The assassins arrive at Pig Sty Alley just as the trio of kung fu masters are leaving. The Harpists kill Coolie and defeat Donut and Tailor with their magical instrument; however, they are defeated afterwards by the Landlady and her husband the Landlord, who are revealed to be kung fu masters as well. The Landlady then warns Brother Sum, who watched the fight with his adviser, to stay away from Pig Sty Alley.

A frustrated Sing attempts to rob an ice cream vendor but discovers that she is actually Fong. When she recognises him and offers him a lollipop, he smashes it and leaves in shame; he also rebuffs Bone. Brother Sum offers Sing immediate gang membership if he uses his lock-picking skills to free the Beast, a legendary kung fu assassin from a Shanghai mental asylum. Sing brings the Beast back to the Axe Gang's headquarters.

Brother Sum is sceptical of the Beast's skills due to his flippant attitude and sloppy appearance. However, the Beast proves his kung fu prowess by stopping a bullet midair with his fingers. When the Beast detects the kung fu presence of the Landlady and Landlord, he destroys the casino next door to confront the couple. A fight breaks out between the three and culminates in all of them being immobilised in an inter-joint lock. Brother Sum orders Sing to attack the Landlady and Landlord to help the Beast, but Sing has a change of heart and attacks the Beast instead. Infuriated, the Beast smashes Sing's head into the ground, but he is saved by the Landlady and Landlord. The trio flee and Brother Sum berates the Beast for letting them escape; the Beast kills Brother Sum in response.

Back at Pig Sty Alley, the Landlady and Landlord treat Sing and are surprised by his quick recovery from his fatal injuries. Sing then treats the couple's wounds in return before confronting the Axe Gang. The Landlady deduces that the Beast's beating of Sing has realigned Sing's ''qi'', metamorphosing him into a natural kung fu master. The new Sing effortlessly dispatches the Axe Gang before fighting the Beast, who initially appears to have the upper hand due to his "toad style". However, when Sing is sent flying into the sky by the Beast, he has a vision of Buddha in the clouds and completes his transformation. Sing uses the Buddhist Palm technique to defeat the Beast. Awestruck by Sing's power and prowess, the Beast tearfully bows to Sing and concedes defeat.

Sing and Bone open a candy store with Fong's lollipop as their logo. Fong visits Sing at his store, and the pair embrace. Meanwhile the same mysterious vagrant who sold Sing the martial arts pamphlet speaks to another child just outside the store, but this time he is selling multiple pamphlets teaching several different styles.

In contemporary wartime San Francisco, chemist and blackmailer Albert Baker is killed by hitman Philip Raven, who recovers a stolen chemical formula. Raven is double-crossed by his employer, Willard Gates, who pays him with marked bills and reports them to the Los Angeles Police Department as stolen from his company, Nitro Chemical Corporation of Los Angeles. Raven learns of the setup and decides to get revenge. Police Detective Lieutenant Michael Crane, who is vacationing in San Francisco to visit his girlfriend, nightclub singer and stage magician Ellen Graham, is immediately assigned the case. He goes after Raven, but the assassin eludes him.

Meanwhile, Gates hires Ellen to work in his Los Angeles nightclub after an audition wherein she sings and performs magic tricks. Then, she is taken to a clandestine meeting with Senator Burnett, where she learns that Gates and Nitro Chemical are under investigation as suspected traitors, and is recruited to spy on Gates. Unknown to each other, Gates and she board a train for Los Angeles, followed by Raven. By chance, Raven and Ellen sit next to each other. The next morning, Gates is alarmed when he sees them asleep with Raven's head on her shoulder. He wires ahead to alert the police, but Raven forces Ellen at gunpoint to help him elude them again. He is about to kill her, but is interrupted by workmen, allowing Ellen to flee. From Gates's club, she tries to contact Crane, but he has left San Francisco to return to Los Angeles.

That evening, the suspicious Gates invites Ellen to his Hollywood mansion, where his chauffeur Tommy knocks her unconscious to set up a fake suicide. Tipped off by Ellen's friend at the club, Crane goes to the mansion looking for Ellen, but Gates has already left. Tommy tells Crane that Ellen has been gone for two hours. While Crane questions Tommy, and makes a phone call to Ellen's hotel, Raven arrives and hides outside, where he sees Tommy discard Ellen's purse, to keep Crane from spotting it. Raven realizes that Ellen is in danger. After Crane leaves, Raven knocks Tommy down a flight of stairs when the chauffeur denies Ellen is still there. Raven searches the house and rescues her. Tommy recovers and warns Gates at his club, where Crane has caught up with him. Raven and Ellen are confronted as they enter the club, so Raven takes her hostage as he flees. She surreptitiously drops monogrammed playing cards as a trail of "breadcrumbs". The police corner them in a railroad yard, but wait for daylight to move in.

Raven reveals to Ellen that he was orphaned at a young age and raised by an abusive aunt. One day, he snapped while she was beating him, and killed her, for which he was imprisoned in reform school; there, he was abused by the other children. She tells him that the formula he recovered was for a poison gas that Nitro is selling to the Japanese and begs him to extract a signed confession instead of killing Gates. Ellen helps Raven escape the dragnet, hoping she has appealed to his patriotism. However, he breaks his promise to her and kills a policeman who had almost managed to capture him to get away.

Raven arrives as Nitro Chemical conducts a gas attack drill and its employees wear gas masks, obscuring their faces. Gates orders Tommy to guard his door. Tommy spots Raven and gives chase, but Raven knocks him out. Raven disguises himself in Tommy's uniform and gas mask to surprise Gates, forcing him to take him to company president Alvin Brewster, the mastermind of the treasonous Nitro sale. Raven barricades himself with them when the police and Ellen arrive, and coerces both into signing a confession. Brewster dies of a heart attack while trying to kill Raven, who then kills Gates. Crane is lowered on a scaffold and exchanges gunfire with Raven, wounding him. Raven passes up the opportunity to kill Crane when he sees Ellen helping the detective. Other police fatally shoot Raven, but he lives long enough to be assured by Ellen that she did not turn him in and that he succeeded in getting the confession.

The year is 1910; the place, the badlands of Northeast Region, Brazil. Twenty-year-old Tonho is the middle son of an impoverished farm family, the Breves. He is next in line to kill and then die in an ongoing blood feud with a neighboring clan, the Ferreiras. For generations, the two families have quarreled over land. Now they are locked into a series of tit-for-tat assassinations of their sons; an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth. Embedded in this choreography of death is a particular code of ethics: "Blood has the same volume for everyone. You have no right to take more blood than was taken from you." Life is suffused with a sense of futility and stoic despair.

Under pressure from his father, Tonho kills one of the Ferreira sons to avenge the murder of his older brother. This act marks him as the next victim. Tonho's younger brother is addressed only as "the Kid" by the family. Anticipating future loss, his parents don't give him a name. The Kid is an imaginative and loving child, whose spirit will not break in the face of harsh parenting, brutalizing isolation, and numbing poverty. The Kid's love encourages Tonho to question his fate. When Tonho meets Clara, a charming itinerant circus girl, all of life's possibilities open up for him.

The film is narrated by "The Kid" who is later given a name by Clara and her stepfather, the traveling circus performers. They call him "Pacu" and he spends the whole film narrating which ultimately drives the viewers to identify and allows the film to humanize the characters.

Later, Pacu and Tonho visit the circus in town, with Tonho forming a relationship with Clara. Clara later leaves her stepfather to be with Tonho, arriving at the farm to be with him. The two sleep together before she departs, telling Tonho to meet her in the east by the ocean. One of the Ferreira men come to the farm in order to exact revenge on the Breves, initially appearing to kill Tonho. However, it is revealed that they actually shot and killed Pacu, devastating the Breves.

The father tells Tonho to get the gun in order to kill all of the remaining Ferreiras in retaliation. Tonho, realizing that his life with his family is destroyed, walks off without a word. His father attempts to shoot him for disregarding the honor of their family, but he is stopped by the mother who insists that the feud no longer matters and that it's over. Tonho arrives on a beach, staring at the sea with an expression of melancholic wonder on his face.

Fenton Meiks visits FBI Agent Wesley Doyle claiming that his brother Adam is the culprit in the "God's Hand" serial killings. Fenton says Adam has committed suicide, prompting Fenton to fulfill a promise to bury his brother in a public rose garden in their hometown of Thurman. He begins to tell Doyle about the boys' childhood and suggests that the bodies of the God's Hand victims are buried in the rose garden.

In the summer of 1979, when the brothers were children, their father told them that he had been visited by an angel and tasked by God with "destroying" demons disguised as human beings; a mission which must be kept secret. Their father "is led" to 3 tools: an axe, gloves and a pipe; he receives a list of names from the angel as well. He incapacitates a woman with the pipe and brings her home to kill with the axe. When he lays his hand on her, he claims to see a vision of her evil, then kills her and makes the boys help him bury her in the rose garden. Fenton is horrified and believes his father insane; Adam claims he sees the visions and supports their father.

After telling Doyle about the first killing, Doyle drives them to Thurman. On the way, Doyle tells Fenton that his mother had been murdered by someone that was never caught. Fenton then tells Doyle how they took the second victim in broad daylight, with his father insisting God would blind any witnesses. One night, Fenton's father tells him that after praying for the angel to visit Fenton (for his lack of faith) the angel instead visited him, and told him something bad about Fenton. He makes Fenton dig a hole and Fenton abandons all faith in God. Their father makes the hole into a cellar and moves the shed on top of it.

During the third episode, Fenton escapes from the cellar and runs to the sheriff who takes him back home. To quiet Fenton's apparent ramblings, the sheriff looks in the cellar, but finds it empty. As he leaves, their father kills him and is angry with Fenton for making him murder an innocent man. After burying the body, Fenton's father tells him the angel told him Fenton was a demon. To save him and encourage him to have faith, he locks Fenton in the cellar for over a week. Fenton claims to have been enlightened and his father releases him to carry out the next killing.

Fenton cooperates with his father to take the next victim but alerts him just before his father hits the man with the pipe, nearly blowing the scheme. In the cellar, Fenton readies to kill the man with the axe, but kills his father instead. As he tries to release the man, Adam takes up the axe and kills him anyway. While burying the two men, Fenton makes Adam promise to bury him in the garden if he ever "destroys" him.

Doyle is puzzled by his phrasing, since he said Adam killed himself. "Fenton" then reveals to Doyle that he is Adam. It is also revealed that Adam killed Fenton, who had grown up to become the actual God's Hand killer (a series of unrelated murders not committed by Adam "destroying" demons; Doyle is horrified to see the number of graves in the rose garden). Flashbacks reveal that Adam did in fact share his father's visions of the crimes of those they abducted, who were indeed demons. When Adam touches Doyle, a vision reveals that Doyle murdered his mother - he was on Adam's list. Adam kills him in a prepared grave as part of a long scheme to get him there.

After Doyle's disappearance, Agent Griffin Hull, who saw Adam, can't remember his face. The security tapes are also inexplicably obscured by static whenever Adam is in view. The FBI raid Fenton's house, finding the God's Hand list and Doyle's badge, which corroborate his being the killer. Agent Hull visits Adam Meiks, a nearby county sheriff, to tell him Fenton was the killer. Upon shaking his hand, Adam declares the agent a good man.

In the 30th century, time travel becomes illegal after a time paradox crisis. The Time Protection Bureau (TPB) is established to watch for and stop time crimes. Four new enlistee cadets of the TPB are tricked by mafia leader Don Dolnero and his gang into letting them time-travel to the year 2000 to commit various crimes and, to protect history, the four cadets pursue them. They encounter a severe problem: the Timeranger program requires five members for the first operation. They coerce a present-day martial artist, Tatsuya Asami, to join them, and they become the Timerangers. Tatsuya rents a building for them to live in, and they start a small odd-jobs business called Tomorrow Research to financially support themselves.

Over time, the four cadets begin to realize that their presence would inevitably change the future in the form of the City Guardians, a security force under the employment of the Asami Corporation to protect the city from the Londerz. The City Guardians form a tenuous relationship with the Timerangers, especially when Tatsuya's college acquaintance Naoto becomes Time Fire and later also becomes the City Guardian's captain.

The game's story is set in Celtland, a fantastic medieval world that resembles Ireland. The playable character is an apprentice mage named Brian. Brian sets off to find his father, who has left the monastery of the mages - the player learns later that his father is looking for a thief who has stolen the "Eletale Book". The player must also collect elemental gems, which have been hoarded by powerful criminals, before confronting the game's final boss.

''Prospero's Books'' is a complex tale based upon William Shakespeare's ''The Tempest''. Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, an exiled magician, falls in love with Ferdinand, the son of his enemy; while the sorcerer's sprite, Ariel, convinces him to abandon revenge against the traitors from his earlier life. In the film, Prospero is Shakespeare himself, conceiving, designing, rehearsing, directing and performing the story's action as it unfolds and in the end, sitting down to write the completed work.

Ariel is played by four actors: three acrobats—a boy, an adolescent, and a youth—and a boy singer. Each represents a classical elemental.

The events unfold just before the start of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. Lieutenant ''Steklov'', son of a high-ranking General, is assigned to Afghanistan, hoping to take part in combat and earn some medals before the war ends. Sgt. Arsionov (Aleksei Serebryakov) combines his combat experience and bravery with brutal hazing of young conscripts back on the field base. Major Bandura`s tour of duty has expired. He is free to go home and reunite with his wife whom he has almost forgot. This means leaving his mistress Katya (Tatyana Dogileva), a nurse in the base's hospital—to much anticipation from Bandura's superior Leonid (Mikhail Zhygalov), who is in love with Katya. Anxiety is felt by many characters about the politico-social changes taking place back in the Soviet Union during the Perestroika. Bandura himself thinks he might not be able to adapt. Katya says that Afghanistan will be remembered as the best part of their lives.

The Soviets arrange a deal with a local Afghan warlord that he won't take action against the withdrawing Soviet troops in exchange for weapons and supplies. When asked why he needs more weapons as the war seems to be coming to an end, he replies that his war will go on for a very long time. On its way back to base the convoy that has delivered the supplies is ambushed by another faction of the Mujahideen. The paratroopers take cover and fight back with only a few casualties, but the road is blocked by a damaged fuel tanker. While Bandura personally drives a tank to push the tanker off the road, the inexperienced Steklov dashes forward attempting to lead troops to counterattack and is badly wounded. Later, his leg is amputated at the hospital, which adds to the stack of Bandura's career problems. Bandura decides to stay with his men for a while and lead a retaliatory mission to kill a Mujahideen leader, who is presumed wounded and taken to the neutral warlord's village. When the preparations are finished, Bandura comes to say good bye to Katya, who is scheduled to leave the country on the morrow. A junkie soldier at the hospital insults him by insubordination but Bandura suddenly shows no will for disciplining him. Instead, he requests to be replaced by some other officer on the mission, citing a sore foot as a pretext. But after realization that his company is setting out, he resumes command. It goes awry again when the neutral warlord is accidentally killed in the raid and his men become hostile and together with the Mujahideen attack the paratroopers. Bandura is able to pull his unit out mostly intact, but they are pinned down and call in an Mi-24 airstrike that obliterates the village. After the strike, Bandura becomes apathetic, and without apparent reason, re-enters the village alone. He finds nobody alive except for a 10-year boy clinging to an AK-47. Bandura hesitates, unsure what to do, then walks away, allowing the boy to shoot him in the back and kill him. The final scene shows dozens of Soviet helicopters flying away from the devastated village.

Eyal is an agent in Mossad, the Israeli security service. He is a hitman who targets enemies of Israel. His wife has recently committed suicide, and the agency decides that he needs to take on a less challenging assignment: to find an aging Nazi war criminal.

In order to track down the old man, Eyal poses as a tour guide and befriends the Nazi's adult grandchildren, Axel and Pia. Pia lives on a kibbutz, an Israeli commune. Her brother Axel visits her in order to convince Pia to return to Germany for their father's seventieth birthday. It is later revealed that Pia's estrangement from her parents began when she discovered that they were hiding her grandfather. She shares this information with Axel.

Although he has a job to perform, Eyal truly befriends Axel and Pia. They spend time together and Eyal enjoys himself.

When the three are at dinner one night in a Tel Aviv restaurant, Axel speaks privately to the Palestinian waiter, Rafik, and finds out where the best club in town is. Later that evening, Axel, Pia, and Eyal arrive at the club. Eyal is shocked to discover that it is a gay club. He sees Axel dancing with Rafik.

Eyal is disgusted to discover that Axel is gay. He asks to be removed from the assignment for that reason. His boss, Menachem, insists that Eyal finish the mission. Eyal visits Germany and Axel invites him to his father's birthday party. Axel's parents surprise the guests by bringing out Axel's aged grandfather. Axel angrily confronts his mother and goes to Eyal's room, where he finds a folder full of information on Axel's family. Meanwhile, Eyal meets with Menachem and tells him that they can easily take the grandfather and bring him to Israel to be tried for his war crimes. Menachem reveals that the aim is to kill the grandfather. Eyal reluctantly takes the case of poisons that Menachem gives him.

Eyal arrives at Axel's house and enters the grandfather's room. Axel sneaks up behind him and watches as he fills a syringe with poison, doing nothing to intervene. Eyal is unable to fulfill the task and leaves. Axel tenderly caresses his grandfather's face before turning off his oxygen tank, killing him. He goes to Eyal's room, where Eyal tells him that the suicide note his wife wrote told him that he kills everything that comes near him. Eyal says that he does not want to kill anymore and breaks down in Axel's arms.

The story jumps ahead 2 years. Eyal and Pia are married with a child and living on the Kibbutz. Eyal and Axel remain good friends.

Hardened criminal and drug dealer King David returns to his unidentified East Coast city, where he can find redemption by settling an old score with drug lord Moon. He keeps tape-recorded journals about his life and is always talking about a woman named Edna. Upon David's return, he meets up with Jasper, a barkeep who expresses a strong dislike towards him. She contacts Moon to inform him of his return and willingness to pay his debt, as well as momentarily passing by Paul, a struggling writer.

Mike, one of Moon's henchmen, is assigned to collect his boss's money from David, appearing to be very interested in him for some reason. Before the deal, he is warned to not sabotage the deal to avert police attention. He, his friend Blue and his sister Ella go to David and collect the money. Mike is very tense upon arriving at the location of the pickup, prompting Blue to authorize it for him.

After a brief but tense transaction between Blue and David, the latter is set up for an ambush. Mike angrily demands that David recognizes him, and proceeds to stab him multiple times in the abdomen after receiving several taunts. A weakened David stabs Blue in the eye with an ice pick before they abandon him in a gutter. Paul, who passes by at that moment, drives David, a total stranger, to the hospital.

Paul is informed that King has died and has left him all his possessions. The items include jewelry, his car (which is a rare Stutz Blackhawk), and a collection of his audiotapes. Meanwhile, Moon is unnerved by Mike botching the deal by using violence against David and becomes paranoid of police attention.

After being informed of Blue's injury, he tells the two to wait in a parking garage for a car to come and drive them to the hospital. Instead, he sets them up as two henchmen shoot and kill Blue and Ella, to Mike's horror. Just before Mike can be killed himself, he gains gravity of the situation and guns down the henchmen but is unable to retain his sister's life as she dies in his arms. He then vows revenge against Moon for the double-cross.

As Paul listens to the journal, the story of David's life is told: after a particularly bad drug experience in the east, David relocated to the west in search of a second chance. He finds assistance with the Vietnamese and even a new girlfriend, Janet, whom he abuses. A television star, she turns to David's heroin and becomes sick and detached in the process. David abandons her as she presumably turns to selling his drugs to pay the bills and for her drug habit.

In the present, Moon sends out a duo of henchmen to kill Mike. Additionally, Moon learns of Paul's involvement in the situation from bystanders as his role as David's driver to the hospital, and requests for his murder, as well. Meanwhile, Paul continues to listen to the tapes; after he abandons Janet, David moves on to Juanita, a college student he meets in an upscale bar.

Their relationship goes well as David starts to make a lot of money, but then Juanita tries his drugs. She doesn't get addicted, but she does turn out to be very selfish by refusing to move in with David, insisting that she is just having fun with him and that his stash of $250,000 isn't enough on which to retire. Hurt and angry, David secretly switches her cocaine with heroin, getting her addicted.

Paul realizes that the money David talked about might be in David's trunk. It is, but at the same time, Moon's henchmen are sprawling all over the city in search of him. Mike follows Moon's limo via cab to a secluded back alley, at which he follows him into a bathhouse and proceeds to kill him.

Paul listens to the last tape; David leaves Juanita, but she soon returns, addicted and begging for help. He agrees to help her, providing her a drug fix in exchange for rough, demeaning sex. The humiliation and disgrace shatter her dreams and causes her severe emotional distress, thus making her addictions even stronger. After a while, she demands that he pay for her entrance to rehabilitation or else she'll call the police. Enraged, David decides to do the same thing he did to Edna: mix her heroin with car battery acid, resulting in a fatal seizure for her. Through a flashback, it is revealed that David is the biological father of Mike, who is also Edna's child, and that David brutally hit him before poisoning Edna (which explains the scar on his face). The tape ends with David speculating on how his return to the East Coast will bring about his redemption with Moon and tie the loose end with Edna's child, who he is completely unaware of as Mike in their second encounter.

Paul is found by Moon's henchmen, who hold him at gunpoint, but Mike arrives just in time and kills them. Paul tells Mike that King is his father, which greatly haunts the latter. As the police converge on the scene, the two make good their escape as Paul flees on foot and Michael takes David's car. It is revealed that Mike has a son of his own. Shortly afterward, Paul writes a story based on that night, titled "Never Die Alone," which is turned down by a publishing magazine as the agent believes it to be a fictionalized story.

David has cremated soon after. His narration focuses on the end of his life and how fate had such a powerful effect on not only his life but also on the lives of Paul, Mike, Edna, Juanita, Moon, and everyone else. Meanwhile, Mike drives through a tunnel and escapes without capture as David closes his narration with "I wonder what lies ahead for me on the other side".

The film opens as Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave) gets a silver cup engraved for her husband Archie (Timothy Dalton), who receives the gift with utter disdain. The couple walk to a publicity event for Agatha's new novel ''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd''. They are tailed into the venue by American reporter Wally Stanton (Dustin Hoffman). The next morning, Archie demands a divorce, saying he loves his secretary Nancy Neele (Celia Gregory).

That night, Agatha drives from the house and gets into an accident. The next morning, the police find her wrecked car. The press flock to the accident scene and learn that Christie left a letter for her secretary, prompting speculation of suicide.

Agatha arrives by train in Harrogate and takes a cab to the Harrogate Hydropathic Hotel (now renamed the Old Swan Hotel), where she books a room for two weeks. She registers as Theresa Neele from Cape Town. In the lounge, another guest, Evelyn Crawley (Helen Morse) notices Agatha's ripped stockings and muddy shoes. Agatha makes a note later to "use" Crawley.

The next day, Agatha begins receiving treatments at the Royal Baths. Meanwhile, the newspapers are publishing front-page stories about Agatha's disappearance. The police wonder why Archie is not helping with the search for his wife, but he has gone to Harrogate with Nancy for her slimming treatments. Meanwhile, Stanton interviews Agatha's secretary. She reveals that Agatha left her a coded message in newspaper advertisements.

The ad leads Stanton to the hotel in Harrogate. He makes a big show of checking in while Agatha is on the phone at the front desk. In the billiard room, Stanton helps Agatha make a winning triple bank shot. He introduces himself as Curtis Shacks Jr., an American seeking treatment for constipation. They spend the evening together, and he makes a pass at her, which she declines. In his room, he types notes about her behaviour.

Agatha researches the various spa treatments such as the galvanic bath and the Bergonic chair. She asks the attendants to explain how they avoid making a fatal mistake with the equipment. Stanton follows Agatha to a local electronics shop and begins to work out what she is up to. Agatha peruses a manual for the Bergonic chair and begins to experiment with the rheostat. She also poses as a staff member on the phone and reschedules Nancy's appointment for an earlier time.

Agatha is shown rigging the controls for the Bergonic chair as Nancy undresses for her appointment. When Nancy enters the treatment room, Agatha calls out from hiding to say that the nurse is not there. She asks Nancy to turn on the electricity. Having deduced Agatha's plan, Stanton is urgently searching for the room where Nancy's appointment is. Nancy flips the switch, causing a massive spark. Stanton follows the sound of Nancy's scream to find her all right, but that behind a curtain, Agatha is sitting in the Bergonic chair. Her suicide attempt is nearly successful, but Stanton rescues her with CPR.

The Christies claim that Agatha suffered from amnesia from the accident and remembers nothing. Agatha visits Stanton as he packs in his hotel room. He hands her a copy of the story he wrote, confessing that he cannot file it. Agatha stoops to help him pack, and Stanton confesses his love for her. She explains that she will divorce Archie, hinting at a possible future with Stanton. He watches the Christies depart at the railway station. The closing credits reveal that the couple divorced two years later and that Archie married Nancy.

In ''The Cement Garden'', the father of four children dies. Soon after, the children's mother also dies. In order to avoid being taken into foster care, the children hide their mother's death from the outside world by encasing her corpse in cement in the cellar. The children then attempt to live on their own.

The narrator is Jack (14 at the start of the book, becoming 15 later), and his siblings are Julie (17), Sue (13), and Tom (6). Jack describes how, when they were younger, he and Julie would play doctor with their younger sister, although he is aware that their version of the game occasionally broke boundaries. Jack then mentions how he longs to do the same to his older sister but it is not allowed. Sexual tension between Jack and his older sister, Julie, becomes increasingly obvious as they take over the roles of "mother" and "father" in the house, which is gradually deteriorating into squalor.

When Julie begins to date a young man called Derek, aged 23, and invites him to their house, Jack feels jealous and shows hostility towards him. Derek gets a hint that something is hidden in their cellar, and becomes more and more interested while the children attempt to hide it from him. When a smell begins to emanate from the cellar, the children tell him their dead dog, Cosmo, is encased in the cement. Derek then helps to re-seal the cement which their mother is hidden in. Eventually, Tom tells Jack that Derek has told him he believes their mother is in the cellar.

Jack enters naked into Julie's bedroom, apparently absent-mindedly. Only Tom is present. Jack climbs into Tom's cot and begins to talk to him about their parents. Julie enters and, seemingly unsurprised by her younger brother's nakedness, jokes that "it is big.” Jack and Julie sit on the bed while Tom sleeps, and Julie takes off her clothes. While talking, Jack and his older sister become more and more intimate with each other. Right at this point, Derek enters. He remarks that he has seen it all and calls them "sick.” When he leaves, Jack and Julie begin to have sex. A thudding noise is heard below, and their sister Sue comes and informs them that Derek is smashing up the concrete coffin. The three begin to talk, remembering their mother. After a while, police lights illuminate the room through the bedroom window.

The game begins with a teenage boy named Link, who works as a ranch hand in Ordon Village. One day, Bulblins take away the village's children. Link pursues and encounters a wall of Twilight. A Twilight monster pulls him beyond the wall into the Twilight-shrouded forest, where he is transformed into a wolf and imprisoned. Link is soon freed by a creature named Midna, who offers to help him if he obeys her unconditionally. She guides him to Princess Zelda, who explains that Zant, the Sorcerer/Usurper King of the Twili, invaded Hyrule Castle and forced her to surrender. The kingdom became enveloped in Twilight, turning all its inhabitants besides Link and Zelda into invisible spirits. To save Hyrule, Link, aided by Midna, must first revive the Light Spirits by entering the Twilight-covered regions and recovering the Spirits' light from the Twilight beings that had stolen it. Once revitalized, each Spirit returns Link to his Hylian form and informs Link and Midna of the hidden location of a Fused Shadow, one of the fragments of a powerful relic that will have to be used to match Zant's power to defeat him. During this time, the ghost of a departed swordsman, the Hero's Shade, also appears to provide swordsmanship training he had failed to pass on before his untimely death, as well as information regarding Link's destiny in Hyrule.

During his journey, Link also finds Ordon Village's children and assists the monkeys of Faron, the Gorons of Eldin, and the Zoras of Lanayru. After restoring the Light Spirits and obtaining the Fused Shadows, Link and Midna are ambushed by Zant, who takes away the fragments. Midna calls him out for abusing his tribe's magic, but Zant reveals that his power comes from another source, and he uses it to trap Link in his wolf state. Failing to persuade Midna into joining forces with him, Zant attempts to dispose of her by exposing her to the light of Lanayru's light spirit. Bringing a dying Midna to Zelda, Link learns from her that he needs the Master Sword to remove Zant's curse and she proceeds to sacrifice herself to heal Midna, vanishing mysteriously. Moved by Zelda's act of selflessness, Midna starts to care more about Link and the fate of his world.

After gaining the Master Sword, Link is cleansed of the curse that kept him in wolf form. Deep within the Gerudo Desert, Link and Midna search for the Mirror of Twilight, the only known gateway between Hyrule and the Twilight Realm, but discover that it is broken. The Sages there explain that Zant tried to destroy it, but only managed to shatter it into fragments; only the true ruler of the Twili can completely destroy the mirror. They also relate that they once used it to banish Ganondorf, the Gerudo leader who attempted to steal the Triforce, to the Twilight Realm after failing to execute him. Link and Midna set out to retrieve the missing shards of the mirror. Once it has been fully restored, the Sages reveal to Link that Midna is actually the true ruler of the Twili, usurped and cursed into her current form by Zant. Confronting Zant, Link and Midna learn that he forged a pact with Ganondorf, who asked for his assistance in subjugating Hyrule. After Link defeats Zant, Midna recovers the Fused Shadows and destroys Zant after learning that only Ganondorf's defeat can release her from her curse.

Returning to Hyrule, Link and Midna find Ganondorf in Hyrule Castle, with a lifeless Zelda suspended above him. Ganondorf fights Link by possessing Zelda and then transforming into a gigantic boar-like beast, but Link defeats him, and the power Midna received from Zelda is able to resuscitate her. Ganondorf revives, and Midna teleports Link and Zelda outside the castle so she can hold him off with the Fused Shadows. However, as Hyrule Castle collapses, Ganondorf emerges from it victorious, crushing the Fused Shadow piece that Midna wore on her head, and pursues Link on horseback. Assisted by Zelda and the Light Spirits, Link eventually knocks Ganondorf off his horse and duels him on foot before finishing him off with the Master Sword. With Ganondorf defeated, the Light Spirits revive Midna and restore her to her true form. After bidding farewell to Link and Zelda, Midna returns home and destroys the Mirror of Twilight, ultimately severing the link between Hyrule and the Twilight Realm. As Hyrule Castle is rebuilt, Link leaves Ordon Village, heading to parts unknown.

On arrival in Haiti, Madeleine Short reunites with her fiancé Neil Parker, with imminent plans to be married. On the way to their lodging, the couple's coach passes Murder Legendre, an evil voodoo master, who observes them with interest. Neil and Madeleine arrive at the home of a wealthy plantation owner, Charles Beaumont. Charles' love of Madeleine prompts him to meet Murder secretly in Murder's sugar cane mill, operated entirely by zombies. Charles wants to convince Madeleine to marry him and solicits Murder's supernatural assistance. Murder states that the only way to help Charles is to transform Madeleine into a zombie with a potion. Beaumont agrees, takes the potion, and surreptitiously gives it to Madeleine. Shortly after Madeleine and Neil's wedding ceremony, the potion takes effect on Madeleine, who soon dies and is buried. Murder and Charles enter Madeleine's tomb at night and bring her back to life as a zombie. In a drunken state, a depressed Neil sees ghostly apparitions of Madeleine and goes to her tomb. On finding it empty, Neil seeks out the assistance of the local missionary, Dr. Bruner, who recounts how Murder turned many of his rivals into zombies, who now act as Murder's closest guardians. The two men journey to Murder's cliffside castle to rescue Madeleine.

At the castle, Charles has begun to regret Madeleine's transformation and begs Murder to return her to life, but Murder refuses. Charles discovers he has been tainted by Murder's voodoo and is also transforming into a zombie. As Neil enters the fortress, Murder senses his presence and silently orders Madeleine to kill Neil. She approaches Neil with a knife, but Bruner grabs her hand from behind a curtain, making her drop the knife and walk away. Neil follows Madeleine to an escarpment, where Murder commands his zombie guardians to kill Neil. Bruner approaches Murder and knocks him out, breaking Murder's mental control over his zombies. Undirected, the zombies topple off the cliff. Murder awakens and eludes Neil and Bruner, but Charles pushes Murder off the cliff. Charles loses his balance and also falls to his death. Murder's death releases Madeleine from her zombie trance, and she awakens to embrace Neil.

Twelve-year-old Michael a.k.a. "Fresh" stops at a Latina woman's apartment to pick up dime bags of heroin before he goes to school. Fresh notices that she has given him the wrong amount, trying to swindle him out of his delivery. Fresh warns her that his boss Esteban will be angry with the incorrect amount. The woman, a drug addict, "finds" the missing bag. He leaves, disgusted. Next, he visits another apartment where several women and one man, Herbie (Victor Gonzalez), are measuring and cutting bricks of heroin. Herbie insults Fresh and makes crude comments about Fresh's sister, which angers Fresh. He rushes out because he is late for school. He meets up with another of Esteban's employees to count the drugs. The employee tells Fresh that Esteban wants to see him after handing Fresh his share of the money.

Fresh arrives late at school where he is his scolded by his teacher, Mrs. Coleman. At recess, Fresh and his best friend, Chuckie (Luis Lantigua), watch the girls' cheerleading team and Fresh talks to one of them, Rosie (Natima Bradley). After school, Fresh goes to a wooded, abandoned area. In a secret hiding place where he stashes his earnings, his savings now come to a substantial amount. From there, he goes to his grandmother's house where his aunt and eleven cousins reside.

The next morning, Fresh is selling drugs when a desperate drug addict offers sex to Fresh in exchange for drugs, but he sends her away. At the end of the day, Jake (Jean-Claude La Marre) (one of the lookouts) becomes angry and threatens to kill Kermit (who didn't show up to pay $50 Kermit owes him). Fresh seeks out Corky (Ron Brice) —his boss as well as Jake's— in order to get paid but Corky tries to short him. Fresh demands more money since the lookouts like Jake make $50 while his pay is $100 for selling the drugs. Corky agrees.

Fresh takes the subway to Washington Square to play chess for cash with a man who is undefeated while his father Sam, a skilled chess player, sits at another table watching him. After winning, Fresh plays his father but loses. Fresh visits Chuckie, who proposes to enter their dog, Roscoe, in a dogfight to earn cash and urges Fresh to get him a job with Esteban. Fresh leaves him to visit Esteban, who is annoyed that Fresh is selling crack for other drug dealers. Fresh leaves Esteban to go where his sister Nichole works. He bumps into James, Nichole's drug-dealing boyfriend. Fresh warns Nichole that Esteban is interested in her. She tells him that she doesn't like the way Esteban looks at her "like a queen" and that she doesn't love James either, only the drugs he gives her.

Fresh goes to watch a neighborhood basketball game, where Jake begins to show jealously towards a smaller kid, Curtis. During the game Curtis humiliates Jake by scoring the winning basket. As Rosie sees Fresh and walks over to talk to him, Jake fatally shoots Curtis. Everyone leaves except Fresh. He walks past Curtis' corpse and finds Rosie on the ground, choking on blood, having been struck in the neck by a stray bullet and dies. The police arrive shortly, demanding information which Fresh refuses to provide.

Next day, Fresh plays chess with his father Sam again who scolds him for being distracted. Fresh loses but is able to put his Father's king in "check" for the 1st time. Later, Chuckie and Fresh arrive at the dogfight. Their dog wins. Chuckie wants to enter him into another fight but Fresh stops him, agreeing to get him a job with Esteban. They go to Esteban's apartment where Esteban and Nichole are finishing having sex. Finally, Esteban dismisses Chuckie after Chuckie boasts of "busting those dope moves" and tells Fresh that he plans to groom Fresh to his protege and wants Fresh to stop selling for other dealers.

Meanwhile, Corky has the police's attention since Jake's shooting. Fresh takes his own savings to a cocaine source, Hector (Anthony Ruiz), under the pretense of being the runner for Corky. Hector refuses to hand over the drugs to Fresh. Fresh threatens him and offers him a big sum of cash (the entirety of Fresh's personal savings). Hector takes the cash and tells Fresh where to pick up the drugs. Fresh says that the police have wire-tapped Corky's phone numbers and tells Hector not to call Corky.

At school, Chuckie can't resist bragging about his supposed new job for Esteban. After school, he and Fresh buy science textbooks to hide the drugs. During the trip back, Chuckie almost gets arrested on the train for talking back to an officer, but Fresh deescalates the situation. They go to an abandoned house where Fresh is replacing their Heroin stash with Hector's Cocaine while Chuckie keeps lookout thinking he's just there to hide it. When leaving, three armed men step out from behind the corner. Chuckie shoots at the men and runs, but trips. The gun falls under a car's tire. Chuckie tries to grab it but the tire is shot and it flattens over Chuckie's left hand, crushing it. Fresh runs back over to help him, to no avail, and Fresh runs away. The assailants kill Chuckie. Fresh is questioned by the police at the police station, but is let go.

Back at home, Fresh's aunt tells him that she cannot risk the lives of her eleven other children for him and informs him that he will be sent to a group home. At school, Fresh's friends blame him for Chuckie's death and now truly alone, Fresh kills Chuckie's dog. When Fresh goes outside, Jake forces him in the car with the three assailants (revealing that Jake was behind the ambush on the kids). They bring Fresh to Corky who is upset with Chuckie's bragging about moving base for Esteban (the same drugs that Corky is selling) and that Esteban is encroaching on his product. The drugs that Jake and the assailants took off of Chuckie's bag reveal that both Fresh and Chuckie were carrying crack cocaine. Corky threatens to kill Fresh to send a message to rival dealers.

However, Fresh lies, stating he was being forced to sell for Jake. An astonished Jake pulls out his gun to shoot Fresh, but Corky's henchmen turn on Jake and Jake's friend, Red (Anthony Thomas), who try to convince everyone that Fresh is lying. However, Fresh insists that Jake and Red were planning to oust Corky and he was only saying that he was selling for Esteban as protection. Fresh tells them to call Hector, who will reveal the truth. Corky calls Hector. The conversation is short, with Hector expressing concern over Corky' phone being wire-tapped, as Hector was told by Fresh. Corky then kills Red and Jake. Corky turns to Fresh and asks who else is involved. Fresh names James.

Fresh then goes to Esteban's warehouse and tells him that Corky's crew had jumped him and that Corky is planning to sell heroin as well. He tells Esteban that Corky's distributor is James and the two are planning to meet that night. He also adds that Nichole is seeing James secretly because James is plotting with Corky to take Esteban out. Corky and his men arrive at James' place and storm in while Esteban, Fresh, and two other men wait in Esteban's car. Inside, Esteban's crew kills James, Corky, and Corky's men. Afterwards, they drive to Esteban's place and Esteban sees Nichole is there. He tells his henchmen to take Fresh home but Fresh makes them stop the car and he leaves. Then he runs into a convenience store and makes a phone call. He then shows up at Esteban's apartment. Esteban lets him stay because he wants to confront Fresh for telling Nichole that he found her father in Staten Island and for urging her to leave for a rehabilitation center.

Angry, Esteban demands to know what else Fresh is hiding from him. The police arrive and as Esteban goes to answer the door, Fresh hides something under the bed. The police officer turns out to be Sgt. Perez (Jose Zuniga), responding to a call about a domestic dispute (presumably the call Fresh made before he visited Estaban). Esteban denies any argument. Fresh comes forward and tells Perez that Esteban is a drug dealer who killed James, Corky, and several others earlier that night, and his sister is scared to speak up since he is now threatening her. Sgt. Perez checks under the bed and finds Esteban's gun (which he removed from the car after the shooting earlier) and the drugs Fresh planted. The police take Esteban away. Sgt. Perez promises witness protection for Fresh and his sister.

The movie concludes with Fresh meeting his father again to play chess. His father berates him for being late and antagonizes Fresh before their game. Fresh's father looks up and sees Fresh sobbing, with tears quietly streaming down his face.

The story takes place in the same world as ''Final Fantasy V'', named Planet R, set two hundred years in the future, where three of the four crystals have been stolen. The original heroes in ''Final Fantasy V'' are now legends of the past and a new evil, ''Deathgyunos,'' has risen on the Black Moon and must be dealt with. Mid, a recurring character from ''Final Fantasy V'', contacts a new hero and heroine: Prettz and Linally (a descendant of Bartz). They eventually meet the sky pirate Rouge and Valkus, commander of the Iron Wing.

Three misfit pupils of the Hayate-Style Ninja School, who are given a rigorous training regiment by their sensei Mugensai Hinata, are the only survivors when most of their peers were slaughtered during the graduation ceremony by a group of evil space ninjas known as the Jakanja that serve a mysterious power hidden on Earth. Mugensai, who turned himself into a hamster to evade his pursuers, and his daughter Oboro Hinata recruit the trio to become the legendary ''Hurricanegers'' to fight Jakanja. The Hurricanegers are joined by the Gouraiger brothers of the Ikazuchi-Style Ninja School, who were initially their enemies, and later the mysterious Shurikenger who unites the two ninja groups to stop Jakanja from acquiring the mysterious power.

It follows Kazu, a middle-age proprietress of an upscale Japanese restaurant that caters to politicians. She meets a semi-retired ambassador, Noguchi, grows to like him, and eventually marries him. From there the novel explores the conflicts that rise up between the two, as the tensions between the political world, Kazu's formerly well-ordered life, and Noguchi's integrity flare up. It is written in a distinctly Japanese style, dwelling on the minutiae of clothing and food in great detail.

A previously undefeated fairground boxer named "One Round" Jack Sander (Carl Brisson) is beaten in the ring by a mysterious challenger, who later is revealed to be Australian Heavyweight champion Bob Corby (Ian Hunter). Bob's manager is impressed with Jack's performance and offers him the chance to become Bob's full-time sparring partner, on the condition that he win a trial fight to be arranged at a later date.

Bob begins spending more time with Jack's girlfriend Mabel (Lillian Hall-Davis) and buys a bracelet for her to express his feelings. The two kiss but Mabel reluctantly puts a stop to it. The next day when Jack inquires about the bracelet, Mabel lies to Jack, telling him that Bob bought it for her because he didn't want to take the money.

Jack wins his trial fight and is made Bob's official sparring partner. Keeping his earlier promise to Mabel, he agrees to marry her the next day. Mabel goes through with the wedding, although somewhat reluctantly due to her new-found feelings for Bob. At the wedding reception Bob jokingly states that he wishes Mabel had been the prize at his and Jack's original fight. Jack boldly states that he would defend his wife in a fight against any man. A friendly exhibition match is arranged between the two fighters which Bob wins. After the fight Jack sees his bride flirting with Bob and suspects that they are having an affair. Jack declares his intent to fight Bob for the heavyweight championship, but is told he is not yet ranked high enough in the league to challenge Bob. Training intensively, Jack works his way up the rankings and eventually becomes the number one contender.

Jack arranges a party with his friends in his apartment as a way to surprise Mabel and let her know that he has won his latest fight and will now be fighting for Bob's title. Jack and his friends wait long into the night but Mabel does not show up. After Jack's friends leave, Jack stays up and waits for Mabel and eventually she sees her getting out of Bob's car. Jack angrily confronts Mabel about her liaisons with Bob and smashes a framed picture of him. Jack then goes to the club where Bob is and confronts him. Bob throws a punch but Jack knocks him out before he connects. Jack informs Bob that he is officially the number one contender and they will settle their differences in the ring.

On the day of the fight, the two fighters seem evenly matched until the final rounds where Bob starts to dominate Jack. Jack considers giving up until Mabel, seeing him in pain, runs over to his corner and declares that she wants to be with him, not Bob. Jack musters up his remaining energy and unleashes a flurry of punches in the final round, eventually knocking Bob out and winning the fight. Jack and Mabel embrace as Bob accepts defeat.

The United States has lost the war on drugs. Substance D, a powerful drug that causes bizarre hallucinations, has swept the country. Approximately 20% of the total population is addicted. In response, the government has developed an invasive, high-tech surveillance system and a network of undercover officers and informants.

Bob Arctor is one of these undercover agents, assigned to immerse himself in the drug's underworld and infiltrate up the supply chain. Arctor has a vision of being in his house with a wife and two children in Anaheim, California; today he has two drug-addicted, layabout housemates: Luckman and Barris. The three spend time taking D and having complex, possibly paranoiac examinations of their experiences. At the police station, Arctor maintains privacy by wearing a "scramble suit" that constantly changes every aspect of his appearance and voice; he is known only by the code name "Fred." Arctor's senior officer, "Hank", and all other undercover officers, also wear scramble suits, protecting their identities even from each other.

Since going undercover, Arctor himself has become addicted to Substance D, and buys from Donna, who Arctor hopes to purchase large enough quantities of D from so that she is forced to introduce him to her own supplier. They have a tense, at times caring romantic relationship, but she rebuffs his physical advances.

At work, Hank orders "Fred" to increase surveillance on Arctor himself and his associates. Arctor's house is now at the center of his own investigation, since this is where Donna and the other addicts spend time. Arctor is inexpertly negotiating a double life, and his prolonged use of D is damaging his brain. Barris is informing on Arctor to Hank, arguing that Arctor is a terrorist, and angling to be hired as a cop himself. However, Barris unknowingly conveys this information in the presence of Arctor himself, whose identity at the time is hidden behind his scramble suit.

Hank reveals to "Fred" that he has long known that he is Arctor. Arctor seems legitimately surprised, and repeats his own name in a disoriented, unfamiliar tone. Hank informs him that the real purpose of the surveillance was to catch Barris, and that the police were deliberately increasing Barris's paranoia until he attempted to cover his tracks. Hank reprimands Arctor for becoming addicted to Substance D, and warns him that he will be disciplined. Hank explains how seriously brain damaged Arctor has become from D, and Hank "phones" Donna, asking her to come pick up Arctor and take him to New-Path, a corporation that runs a series of rehabilitation clinics. Hank immediately leaves, and in private removes his scramble suit, revealing Donna. At the New-Path clinic, Arctor and other D addicts show serious cognitive deficiencies.

"Donna", now known as Audrey, meets with Mike, a fellow police officer. They discuss how New-Path is secretly responsible for the manufacture and distribution of Substance D. Audrey expresses her growing ethical aversion to their police work, in which they deliberately recruited Arctor — without his knowledge — to become addicted to D; his health sacrificed so that he might eventually enter a New-Path rehabilitation center unnoticed as a genuine addict, and collect incriminating evidence of New-Path's D farms. Audrey and Mike debate whether Arctor's mind will recover enough to grasp the situation.

New-Path sends Arctor to a labor camp at an isolated farm, where he mindlessly repeats what others tells him. Tending to corn crops, Arctor discovers hidden rows of the blue flowers that produce D. He secretly hides one flower in his boot, to bring to his friends at his next holiday from the farm.

Mike Windgren works on a boat in Acapulco, Mexico. When Janie Harkins, the bratty daughter of the boat owner, gets him fired, Mike must find new work. A Mexican boy named Raoul helps him get a job as a lifeguard and singer at a local hotel. Clashes abound when Mike runs into a rival lifeguard, who is the champion diver of Mexico. He is angry at Mike for taking some of his hours, and for stealing his woman.

Mike is recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a fear of heights, following a tragic high-wire accident during his career as a circus performer. However, after Mike sees the lifeguard perform a number of dangerous dives, including flips and head-first dives into a section of the pool surrounded by a ring of fire, he decides to get even with him and eventually sets himself up to perform a death-defying dive off the 136-foot cliffs of La Quebrada in front of hundreds of people. Mike dives off the cliff, and successfully lands in the water, earning the lifeguard's respect.

As the crowd and the lifeguard applaud, Mike performs one more song and leaves with Margarita and Raoul.

The game is set in a historical fantasy version of medieval Europe in which monsters and magic actually exist. The plot is not linear and there is no set path for the player to follow.

However, there is a main quest to follow in order to finish the game, which involves hunting witches and heretics. ''Darklands'' ends once the final battle is completed against the demon lord Baphomet, preventing the apocalypse. Baphomet can be found in a castle in an obscure part of the game map which can only be discovered after finding and defeating the evil occupants of various other fortresses around the game, in which the player's party can find information which will point the player to the final location. According to the official clue book for the game, the final battle location, as well as the location of some other quests in the game, is randomized at the start of each new game.

In Chicago in 1932, during Prohibition, a policeman is murdered inside a speakeasy. Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) and another man are quickly arrested, and are later sentenced to serve 99 years imprisonment each for the killing. Eleven years later, Wiecek's mother (Kasia Orzazewski) puts an ad in the newspaper offering a $5,000 reward for information about the true killers of the police officer.

This leads the city editor of the ''Chicago Times'', Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), to assign reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) to look more closely into the case. McNeal is skeptical at first, believing Wiecek to be guilty. But he starts to change his mind, and meets increased resistance from the police and the state attorney's office, who are unwilling to be proved wrong. This is quickly followed by political pressure from the state capital, where politicians are anxious to end a story that might prove embarrassing to the administration. Eventually, Wiecek is proved innocent by, among other things, the enlarging of a photograph showing the date on a newspaper that proves that a key witness statement was false. In actuality, innocence was determined not as claimed in the film but when it was found out that the prosecution had suppressed the fact that the main witness had initially declared that she could not identify the two men involved in the police shooting.

After brawling over a card game in the wharf area of New Orleans, a man named Kochak, suffering visibly from a flu-like illness, is killed by gangster Blackie and his two flunkies, Kochak's cousin Poldi and a man named Fitch. They leave the body on the docks, and later when the dead man, who carries no identification, is brought to the morgue, the coroner grows suspicious about the bacteria present in his blood and calls Lieutenant Commander Clinton Reed, a doctor and commissioned corps officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. Reed is enjoying a rare day off with his wife Nancy and their son Tommy, but decides to inspect the body.

After careful examination, he determines that Kochak had "pneumonic plague," the pulmonary version of bubonic plague. Reed springs into action, insisting that everyone who came into contact with the body be inoculated. He also orders that the dead man's identity be determined, as well as his comings and goings during the previous few days. Reed meets with people from the mayor's office, the police commissioner and other city officials, but they are skeptical of his claims. Eventually, however, his impassioned pleas convince them that they have forty-eight hours to save New Orleans from the plague. Reed must also convince police captain Tom Warren and the others that the press must not be notified, because report of a plague would spread mass panic.

The group discuss how to deal with public safety.

Warren and his men begin to interview Slavic immigrants, as it has been determined that the body may be of Armenian, Czech or mixed blood. Burdened by the knowledge that the massive investigation has little chance of success, Reed accuses Warren of not taking the threat seriously enough. In turn, Warren admits that he thinks Reed is ambitious and trying to use the situation to further his career. Reed, angry, decides to take matters into his own hands and, acting on a hunch that the man may have entered the city's port illegally, goes to the National Maritime Union hiring hall and passes out copies of the dead man's picture. Although the workers tell Reed that seamen never talk, he goes to a café next door hoping that someone will meet him with a tip. Eventually a young woman shows up and takes Reed to see her friend Charlie, who reluctantly admits that he worked aboard the ship, the ''Nile Queen'', upon which the already ill man was smuggled.

Meanwhile, Fitch, who was questioned by Warren but claimed to know nothing, goes to Blackie and warns him about the investigation. Blackie plans to get out of town, but begins to suspect that his sidekick Poldi received expensive smuggled goods from Kochak, explaining the police's intense investigation of the man's murder. Reed and Warren, who is now convinced of Reed's integrity, go to the Nile Queen and convince the crew to talk by telling them that they will die if the sick man was indeed on their ship. After carrying up a sick cook from the hold, the seamen then permit Reed and Warren to inoculate and question them, revealing in the process that Kochak boarded at Oran and was fond of shish kebab. With this lead, Reed and Warren canvas the city's Greek restaurants, and just after they leave one such establishment, Blackie arrives to meet Poldi, who is very ill. A short time later, Reed receives word that a woman, Rita, has died of the fever and realizes that she was the wife of the Greek restaurant proprietor John Mefaris who had earlier lied about having served Kochak.

Reed returns to headquarters to discover that a reporter is threatening to break the story that a pathogenic bacteria is endangering the city. Reed is impressed when the deeply committed yet unorthodox Warren throws the reporter into jail to keep him quiet. Late in the evening, a beleaguered Reed returns home for a cup of coffee and his wife announces that she is pregnant. She then tries to restore her husband's flagging self-confidence. A few hours later, Reed and Warren learn that the mayor is angry about their treatment of the reporter. The reporter, who has been released, announces that the story will appear in the morning paper in four hours, giving Reed and Warren little time to find their man. Meanwhile, Blackie goes to Poldi's room and tries to force him to reveal information about some smuggled goods, but the dying Poldi is delirious and only rants nonsensically. Blackie then brings in his own doctor and tells Poldi's grandmother that they will take care of him. Just then, Reed, having been tipped off by the nurse looking after Poldi, arrives, and Blackie and Fitch, who are carrying Poldi down the stairs, pitch the man over the side and flee. Reed chases the two to the docks, where he tries to explain to them about the plague. The men run desperately through depots, docks and a warehouse, and at one point, Warren shoots and injures Blackie, preventing him from shooting Reed. Blackie accidentally shoots Fitch and then tries to struggle onto a ship but, exhausted, he is unable to pass a rat guard on the mooring line, and falls into the water. His work finally done, Reed heads for home, and on the way, Warren offers to give him some of the smuggled perfume that Poldi had indeed received from Kochak. As the radio announces the resolution of the crisis, a proud Nancy greets her husband.

''The Night That Panicked America'' tells the story of the 1938 broadcast from the point of view of Welles and his associates as they create the broadcast live, as well as from the points of view of a number of different fictional American families, in a variety of locations and from a variety of social classes, who listened to the broadcast and believed the imaginary Martian invasion was actually occurring, with some people even committing suicide.

In Brooklyn 1942, Evelyn Kurnitz has just died following a lengthy illness. Her husband, Eddie Kurnitz, needs to take a job as a traveling salesman to pay off the medical bills incurred, and decides to ask his stern and straight talking mother, from whom he is slightly estranged, if his two early-teen sons, Jay and Arty (who their Grandma insists on calling by their full given names, Jacob and Arthur, which she pronounces "Yakob" and "Artur"), can live with her and their Aunt Bella Kurnitz in Yonkers. She refuses. After a threat by Bella, she lets them stay without ever saying they could stay. Despite their Grandma owning and operating a candy store, Jay and Arty don't like their new living situation as they're afraid of their Grandma, and find it difficult to relate to their crazy Aunt Bella, whose slow mental state is manifested by perpetual excitability and a short attention span, which outwardly comes across as a childlike demeanor. Into their collective lives returns one of Eddie and Bella's other siblings, Louie Kurnitz, a henchman for some gangsters. He is hiding out from Hollywood Harry, who wants what Louie stole and is hiding in his small black bag. Jay and Arty's mission becomes how to make money fast so that they can help their father and move back in together, which may entail stealing the $15,000 their Grandma has hidden somewhere. Bella's mission is to find a way to tell the family that she wants to marry Johnny, her equally slow movie theater usher boyfriend; the two could also use $5,000 of Grandma's hidden money to open their dream restaurant. And Louie's mission is to survive the next couple of days.

Act I

The play opens with the three major characters together in A's bedroom. Throughout the scene, A does most of the talking, frequently reminiscing and telling stories about her life. B humors her, while helping her do everyday things that have become difficult to do alone (sitting down, going to the bathroom, getting into bed). C, while getting a rare word in edgewise about the duties she is there to accomplish, is most often deterred by A's slipping into long-winded storytelling. C often challenges A's contradictory and nonsensical statements, but she is discouraged by B, who is clearly used to A and her habits. Act 1 ends when A, in the middle of one of her stories, has a stroke.

Act II

The play picks up with a mannequin of A lying in a bed. A, B, and C are no longer the separate entities of Act 1, but represent A at different times in her life (their ages corresponding to those of A, B, and C in Act 1). Since A, B, and C in this act are all very coherent (unlike the senile A of Act 1), the audience gets a much clearer insight into the woman's past.

At one point, the son comes in to sit by the mannequin. A and B (who are invisible to him) are not happy to see him, because of the rift between them. C (also unseen by the son) is none the wiser, because she is from a period in the woman's life before her marriage. He says nothing throughout, and leaves before the end of the play.

The play ends with A, B, and C debating about the happiest moment in their life. A has the last word, saying, "That's the happiest moment. When it's all done. When we stop. When we can stop."

In 1950, Will Kidder, age 64, is at his office at the Sunshine Southern Wholesale Grocery, where he has worked since his early 20s. He and his wife Lily Dale have just moved into their new house in Houston and, in Will's words, "There's no finer house in Houston." He was poor as a child and had a successful career. However, Will is fired.

Will talks about his only son, Bill, who had moved to Atlanta. Bill drowned six months ago, and Will suspects Bill actually committed suicide. Lily Dale refuses to consider that he committed suicide, instead believing that his death was an accident. Bill's roommate, Randy Carter, the "Young Man from Atlanta", had been trying to see Will, who believes that all he wants is money. Will learns that Bill had given Randy money, but eventually accepts that he knew Bill and "that's the only Bill I care to know about."Bryer, Jackson R. and Hartig, Mary C. [https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1438140762 ''The Young Man From Atlanta'', 1995] ''Encyclopedia of American Drama'', Infobase Learning, 2015 (no page number) A review in ''The New York Times'' titled "Nameless Menace in Latest by Foote" points out: "This being 1950, nobody in the play mentions the word 'gay,' or refers even euphemistically to the truth of the relationship between Bill and Randy."

Characters

• Lily Dale Kidder
• Will Kidder
• Pete Davenport
• Carson
• Tom Jackson
• Miss Lacey
• Ted Cleveland, Jr.
• Clara
• Etta Doris Meneffree

Elwood P. Dowd is an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey – whom Elwood describes as a six foot, three-and-one-half inch (192 cm) tall pooka resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit. Elwood introduces Harvey to everyone he meets. His social-climbing sister, Veta, increasingly finds his eccentric behavior embarrassing. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium. When they arrive at the sanitarium, a comedy of errors ensues. The young Dr. Sanderson mistakenly commits Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion.

When Elwood shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood's delusion has had a strange influence on the staff, including sanitarium director Dr. Chumley. Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection that will make him into a "perfectly normal human being, and you know what bastards they are!" (in the words of a taxi cab driver who has become involved in the proceedings) does Veta realize that she would rather have Elwood the same as he has always been – carefree and kind – even if it means living with Harvey. But the only reason Veta hears from the cab driver is that she can't find her coin purse and has to get the cab fare from Elwood. That is when the cab driver sees what is happening and goes into his spiel. Later Veta realizes that the purse was there all along, but Harvey hid it from her.

A few survivors have dedicated themselves to preserving and protecting what is left of mankind; among these is former Army Captain John Thomas Garth (Grant Show). Approached by Lapierre (Steve Bacic), a former comrade now employed by eco-profiteer Anton Reich (Art Hindle), Garth is made an offer he cannot refuse. In exchange for his father's and other's survival, Reich agrees to lead a small team of mercenaries into the impenetrable Vincent estate to "liberate" the priceless works of art that had been stored there. Accompanied by reconnaissance specialist Fernandez (Naomi Gaskin), sniper King (Matthew G. Taylor), and tech genius Ebershaw (Wayne Ward), Garth must find a way to circumvent Encrypt, the deadly computerized security system surrounding the estate. Other obstacles include the Rook, a killer robot, and Diana (Vivian Wu), the holographic security chief of the estate. With the help of Lapierre, Garth destroys the Rook and discovers that it actually protects a device that can restore the ozone layer. With the help of Diana, Garth triggers it, but presumably dies soon afterwards.

Erica Yurken is an arrogant girl who believes herself superior to everyone in Baringa East, a council town that is dilapidated and mostly vandalised. She believes that she belongs in a more luxurious place and that she is destined to be a famous theatrical actress. Erica attends Baringa East primary where she is entering the 6th grade at the beginning of the novel, and she is distant towards the other students as she feels her intellect is far higher than theirs. Erica often creates highly exaggerated stories about herself to impress her classmates and hide the true lack of class in her family and is a hypochondriac, constantly visiting the School sickbay for made-up ailments. While many of the teachers at Barringa East primary are incompetent, her grade 6 teacher Miss Belmont is intelligent and disciplinary, and Erica thrives under her control. She outshines her classmates by putting effort in her projects, and just as her ego begins to bloom, a section of one of the upper-class estates surrounding Barringa East is reclassified as part of their suburb, and due to the zoning system a new student, Alison Ashley, is placed in Erica's class.

Alison Ashley is a beautiful, rich, neat and intelligent girl, traits that Erica instantly grows envious of. She is seated beside Erica in class and though at first Erica wants to impress Alison in the hopes that she will befriend Erica, her jealousy of the girl grows stronger throughout the day, until she finally pushes Alison away. Over the next few days, Alison's organisation and talent angers Erica until finally she snaps, offending Alison and calling her a snob.

On many occasions, Alison appears to want to instigate a friendship, though Erica stubbornly turns her away out of spite and envy. Alison visits Erica's house, and after Erica's family humiliates her several times she accuses Alison of being judgmental and nosy. Shortly after, Erica finds Alison's belongings mixed up with hers and begrudgingly returns them to her, envious of Alison's luxurious house and clean living which is the polar opposite of her own. Though Alison attempts to be friendly, Erica unintentionally wakes up Alison's mother who has a demanding late-night job, and after she furiously asks Alison who is with her, Alison quickly says "No one," something Erica views as the ultimate indignity and causes her to once again refuse to speak to Alison.

The two girls are later placed in a cabin and group together on the annual Grade Six camp. Erica is once again outdone and thus infuriated by Alison Ashley, particularly in the camp play, where she is horrified to discover that she, having always dreamed of being an actress, suffers from stage fright while Alison displays skill as an actress and is cast in the lead role. On performance she can not bear to watch Alison take the spotlight and flees to her cabin, where she is touched to find that Alison has compiled the script that Erica wrote for the play into a book as a gesture of friendship. Erica also discovers that although Alison was in the lead role, her mother did not bother to attend the camp performance night as she cared little about her daughter, revealing to Erica that Alison was genuinely envious of her chaotic but warm family life and making Erica reconsider her disdain for her family. Erica and Alison reconcile and become friends.

Following the murders at Hillcrest Academy, a guilt-ridden and traumatized Laurie Strode has been confined to a psychiatric facility, after killing a man whom she had mistaken for her murderous brother Michael Myers. As two nurses talk about what happened, flashbacks reveal that a paramedic had found an unconscious Michael in the school, before he suddenly awakened and attacked the paramedic, crushing his larynx so that he could not speak. Michael then swapped clothes with the unconscious paramedic, and left the school grounds and escaped into the woods behind the school, as Laurie drove off in the ambulance she believed Michael was in.

On October 31, 2001, after three years of hiding, Michael re-emerges to attempt to murder Laurie again, who has been institutionalized at the Grace Andersen Sanitarium. Expecting his arrival, Laurie sets up a trap for him. After killing two security guards, Michael attacks and chases Laurie to the institution's rooftop, where her trap works and temporarily incapacitates Michael. However, Laurie's fears of killing the wrong person again get the better of her, and when she tries to remove his mask to confirm his identity, Michael stabs and throws her off the rooftop.

A year later, college students Sara Moyer, Bill Woodlake, Donna Chang, Jen Danzig, Jim Morgan and Rudy Grimes win a competition to appear on an Internet reality show called ''Dangertainment'', directed by Freddie Harris and Nora Winston. The students have to spend a night in Michael's abandoned childhood house in order to figure out what led him to kill. However, while setting up cameras throughout the house in preparation for the show, cameraman Charlie is killed by Michael, who has returned to Haddonfield. On Halloween night, equipped with head-cameras, Sara, Bill, Donna, Jen, Jim, and Rudy enter the house and separate into three groups to search for clues. While Sara's messaging friend, Myles "Deckard" Barton watches the live broadcast during a party, during the search, Michael suddenly appears and kills Bill.

Donna and Jim discover a wall filled with fake corpses and realize that the show is a setup, before the former is killed by Michael. At the party, Deckard and other partygoers witness the murder. But only Deckard realizes that it was real. Meanwhile, Freddie enters the house dressed as Michael in order to scare the competitors. He is followed by the real Michael, whom he mistakes for Charlie. When Rudy, Sara, and Jim find Freddie in the Michael costume, he reveals the scheme to them and begs them to cooperate, telling them that they will all be paid well if the show works out. After Freddie leaves, the trio decides to gather up the rest of their friends and leave. Jen discovers Bill's corpse and Michael decapitates her in front of Rudy, Sara and Jim, who soon realize that it isn't Freddie. Michael proceeds to kill Jim and Rudy before chasing Sara upstairs.

Locking herself in a bedroom, Sara begs for Deckard to help her. As the other party goers realize that all the murders were real, Deckard begins to message Sara on Michael's locations to help her avoid him. Sara runs into Freddie just as Michael finds them and stabs the latter. Sara runs into the tunnels and finds an exit leading to the garage, where she discovers Nora's body. Michael again arrives and attacks Sara, but a still-living Freddie finds them and fights Michael as an electrical fire starts in the garage. After electrocuting Michael, Freddie carries Sara to safety, leaving Michael to die in the burning garage. Later, Freddie and Sara are interviewed by the local news during which Sara thanks Deckard for saving her life. Meanwhile, Michael is presumed dead and his body is taken to the morgue. However, as the coroner prepares to examine his body, Michael suddenly awakens.

The main character of ''Bitten'' is Elena Michaels, a woman who is the only known female werewolf in the world. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and writes for a popular newspaper. She struggles to deal with her other-ness and to assimilate to the human world. She also contends with her terrible childhood and with the man who bit her and turned her into a werewolf.

Elena has settled into a somewhat normal existence, living with her architect boyfriend and ignoring her wolf side as much as possible. However, she learns that her Pack (the governing body of werewolves) is in trouble and comes to their aid, flying to Stonehaven, the country estate of the pack Alpha. It is in Bear Valley, a fictional city in up-state New York. When Elena arrives, she is greeted by her ex-lover, Clayton Danvers, who bit her and made her a werewolf (without her consent). Clayton is also the bodyguard and foster-son to Jeremy Danvers, the pack Alpha (leader). Elena learns that a local woman was found murdered on Stonehaven's land, savaged by what authorities thought to be a dog. However, the Pack has determined that she was murdered by a Mutt, a rogue werewolf. They find out he is a recently escaped killer who was recently turned into a werewolf. Clay and Elena chase him into a rave and after several of the partygoers are killed, the wolf is hit by an SUV.

Soon, the rest of the Pack arrives to help with the problem: Antonio Sorrentino, his son Nicholas Sorrentino, Logan Jonsen, and Peter Myers. The werewolf Pack are the self-appointed governing body of the werewolf world. If they feel any non-Pack wolves (called "Mutts") become noticeable to humans, they kill them. In an ambush Peter is killed and Jeremy, the Alpha, is seriously wounded. Finally, the pack figures out that the "mutts", tired of being governed by the Pack, are trying to free themselves from their rule. To do this, one mutt, Daniel, has started turning human killers and other escaped convicts into werewolves to fight the pack.

Englishwoman Evelyn Wingate, American reporter Jonathan Clark, Chinese peasant Su Tan, German physicist Klaus Bechner, and Soviet soldier Ivan Godofsky are randomly transported to an alien spacecraft in Earth orbit. There, they are met by a humanoid referring to himself only as "The Alien", who explains that he is the representative of a world orbiting a sun about to go nova. Needing a new world to inhabit within the next 35 days, yet prohibited by their moral code from killing intelligent life, The Alien provides each of the five with sets of three capsules in a clear, round, hand-held case. Each set is capable of destroying all human life within a 3,000-mile diameter; their expectation is that humanity will use ''all'' the capsules, obliterating itself, leaving the Earth for the aliens to populate. The capsules' containers can only be opened by the thought waves of the person to whom they were given. Once out in the open, they can be used by anyone, but ''only'' during the next 27 days, after which the capsules become inert. The Alien states that if humanity does not destroy itself, the Alien's cannot invade and will perish. He also explains that if one or more of the five die, their capsules will self-destruct and become harmless.

Returned to Earth, Eve throws her case into the English Channel and books a flight to Los Angeles. Su Tan chooses to commit suicide, and her capsules self-destruct. The others go about their business when the Alien commandeers all Earth's communications and reveals to the world the existence and power of the capsules. Overhearing the broadcast, Bechner is hit by a car while crossing the street and is taken to the hospital, while Pvt. Godofsky is detained by his superiors. Arriving in Los Angeles, Eve is met by a now-disguised Clark, who takes her to a closed race track where they can safely hide. Godofsky is interviewed by a Soviet general who, dissatisfied with his vague story, orders him subjected to intense interrogation.

Panic over the Alien's broadcast grows in the days that follow. Repeated beatings leave Godofsky in shock, while a recovering Bechner refuses to reveal the details of The Alien's plan. After two Communist agents nearly succeed in killing Bechner, and an innocent man who looked like Clark is killed by a mob, Clark and Eve reveal themselves and are taken into government custody.

Through the application of sodium pentothal to Godofsky, the Soviets discover The Alien's plan and gain access to his capsules. Their resulting announcement fuels global anxiety, prompting the other three remaining to cooperate with authorities. Confronted with an ultimatum for all U.S. military forces to withdraw throughout the world, one of Bechner's capsules is tested to verify the Soviet threat. A dying volunteer is left on a raft in the ocean, just within the 3,000 mile limit, while the U.S. Navy destroyer that delivered him sits safely outside that limit. Aboard, an emotionally wrought Bechner has to be convinced to open his case, but he is unable to use the capsules. The Admiral takes them and reads the coordinates out loud; the subject is instantly vaporized, and the U.S. begins withdrawing its forces worldwide.

Aboard ship, Bechner, Clark, and Eve discuss that the Soviets must use the capsules at the last minute to avoid retaliation. Determined to find a way to counter this, Bechner studies the remaining capsules and discovers an imprinted mathematical code. As the Soviet general prepares to use the capsules, Godofsky rushes him and knocks them from the general's hands; they fall to the ground two stories below. At the very same instant, Bechner launches the capsules. He later explains that the hidden code is programmed for both ''life and death''. The entire Earth is blanketed with a high-pitched sonic wave from space that selectively kills every "known enemy of human freedom".

At an later time, a unified humanity, under the United Nations, extends an invitation to The Alien and his race to coexist with us peacefully on Earth. The preceding events had secretly been a test of humanity's character, a way for The Alien to judge mankind's true nature. The Alien accepts the offer, and a new day like no other dawns for humanity.

In ''Chicken Trek'', Oscar Noodleman goes to Secaucus, New Jersey to visit his cousin Dr. Prechtwinkle, an inventor. Before this, however, he had dropped Dr. Prechtwinkle's valuable camera, and now has to work for him to repay the debt. Dr. Prechtwinkle tells Oscar about a contest where the goal is to eat a "Bagful o' Chicken" at all 211 Chicken in a Bag restaurants nationwide. The prize from this contest would pay Oscar's debt, so they attempt to win it.

*1st edition: New York : Dutton, c1987,

Richard is a new art teacher at a high school. Cornelia Englebrecht (played by Glenn Close) is a history teacher who invites Richard to see a painting of a young girl at a table, which she believes to be a genuine Vermeer, where she tells him stories, which are portrayed as flashbacks about the people who owned the painting in the past. All of the stories take place in the Netherlands, and the flashbacks happen mostly before the one preceding it. The first story, from the late 1800s, involved a romance and had flashbacks within flashbacks. Another story took place in the early 1700s when a baby was abandoned during a flood after a dike break. The painting accompanied the baby and was intended to be sold for the baby's expenses.

In the next story, a man left a university to take a job working with the machinery used for the dikes. He got interested in a servant girl who was punished by being put in stocks. It is revealed in this story where the baby came from.

The next story was very brief, and in it, a woman, who was unsuccessful in bidding for the painting at an auction, seemed to know more about the painting than the auctioneer. The next story revealed how Vermeer came to paint the girl's picture. Finally, Cornelia tells us how she came in possession of the painting.

Tagline: "A mystery hidden for generations. Now the truth will finally be revealed."

After college professor Richard Wanley sends his wife and two children off on vacation, he goes to his club to meet friends. Next door, Wanley sees a striking oil portrait of Alice Reed in a storefront window. He and his friends talk about the beautiful painting and its subject. Wanley stays at the club and reads ''Song of Songs''. When he leaves, Wanley stops at the portrait and meets Reed, who is standing near the painting watching people gaze at it. Reed convinces Wanley to join her for drinks.

Later, they go to Reed's home, but an unexpected visit from her rich clandestine lover Claude Mazard, known to Reed initially only as Frank Howard, leads to a fight in which Wanley kills Mazard in self defense. Wanley and Reed conspire to cover up the murder, and Wanley disposes of Mazard's body in the country. However, Wanley leaves many clues, and there are a number of witnesses. One of Wanley's friends from the club, district attorney Frank Lalor, has knowledge of the investigation, and Wanley is invited back to the crime scene as Lalor's friend but not as a suspect. On several occasions, Wanley slips and says things that seem to indicate that he may know more about the murder than he should, but Lalor does not suspect Wanley.

As the police gather more evidence, Reed is blackmailed by Heidt, a crooked ex-cop and Mazard's bodyguard. Wanley and Reed discuss the problem, and he concludes that the best way to deal with a blackmailer is to kill him. Wanley gives Reed prescription medicine in powder form for the murder. When Heidt arrives to collect his extorted payment, he suggests that she leave the country with him in exchange for forgetting about the crime. Reed plays along, but Heidt is suspicious when she insists he drink from his tainted cocktail. He angrily takes the money and leaves after deducing her plan. Reed calls Wanley to tell him of the failed attempt, causing him to overdose on the remaining prescription powder in a suicide attempt.

Meanwhile, Heidt is killed in a shootout immediately after leaving Reed's home, and police believe Heidt is Mazard's murderer. Reed, seeing that the police have killed Heidt, races to her home to call Wanley, who is slumped over in his chair, and apparently he dies. In a match cut, Wanley awakens in his chair at his club, and he realizes that the entire ordeal was a dream in which employees from the club were the main characters. As he steps out on the street in front of the painting, a woman asks Wanley for a light. He adamantly refuses and runs down the street.

In Baltimore, Maryland in the year 1962, Tracy Turnblad and her best friend, Penny Pingleton, audition for ''The Corny Collins Show'', a popular Baltimore teenage dance show (based on the real-life ''Buddy Deane Show''). Penny nervously stumbles over her answers, and another girl, Nadine Carver, is cut for being Black (the show has a "Negro Day" on the last Thursday of every month, she is told). However, despite being plus size, Tracy is a beautiful and strong enough dancer to become a regular on the show, infuriating the show's reigning queen, Amber Von Tussle, a mean, privileged, equally beautiful high school classmate whose racist parents, Velma and Franklin Von Tussle, own Tilted Acres Amusement Park which bans African Americans. Tracy steals Amber's boyfriend, Link Larkin, and competes against her for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963, fuelling Amber's hatred of her.

Tracy's growing confidence leads to her being hired as a plus-size model for the Hefty Hideaway clothing store owned by Mr. Pinky. She is also inspired to bleach, tease, and rat her big hair into styles popular in the 1960s. At school, a geometry teacher brands her hairdo a "hair-don't" and sends her to the principal's office, from which Tracy is sent to special education classes, where she befriends Black classmates sent there to hold them back academically. The students introduce Tracy to Motormouth Maybelle, an R&B record shop owner and host of the monthly "Negro Day" on ''The Corny Collins Show''. They teach Tracy, Penny, and Link dance moves such as ''The Bird'' and ''The Dirty Boogie'' and Penny begins an interracial romance with Motormouth Maybelle's son, Seaweed. This horrifies Penny's parents, Prudence and Paddy, who imprison her in her bedroom and hire quack psychiatrist Dr. Frederickson to brainwash her into dating White boys and opposing integration. Seaweed later helps her break out of the house and run away, and it is implied that her parents have disowned her.

Undeterred, Tracy uses her newfound fame to advocate for racial integration, aided by Motormouth Maybelle, Corny Collins, his assistant Tammy, and her own agoraphobic, slightly overbearing, overweight mother, Edna. After a race riot at Tilted Acres, where ''The Corny Collins Show'' is live from that day, results in Tracy's arrest, the Von Tussles grow more defiantly opposed to racial integration. Their plot to sabotage the Miss Auto Show 1963 pageant with a bomb hidden in Velma's towering bouffant wig literally backfires when the bomb detonates prematurely, and the Von Tussles are captured by the Baltimore police for their hate crimes. Tracy, who had won the crown but was disqualified for being in reform school, dethrones Amber after the governor of Maryland pardons her. She then comes to the pageant, integrates ''The Corny Collins Show'', and encourages everyone to dance in celebration.

Bobby DeVito schemes to get even when Christine is able to get high school hunk Grant knocked out of the race for class president and thus allowing her to run unopposed. For revenge, Bobby decides to nominate a shy new kid Darryl as her challenger. Darryl is initially unsure about taking on the challenge, but eventually gets into it only to eventually drop out himself when he realizes Bobby has used some underhanded tricks in order to help him win.

Steve Thompson returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee eager to rekindle their love against all better judgment. He resumes his old job as a driver at an armored-truck company.

Although Anna marries mobster Slim Dundee, she encourages an affair with Thompson. To deflect suspicion of the affair, Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery, only to double cross him when the crime is pulled off. Wounded during the botched robbery, Thompson is recovering in a hospital and considered the hero who wounded the robbers. Dundee has sent a man to the hospital to bring Thompson to him but Thompson bribes the man to drive him to Anna's hiding place where they are to meet and start a new life with the stolen money. But seeing Thompson's wounded condition Anna shocks Thompson with her "criss cross" by telling him that she will take the money and leave him behind. Thompson is trying to reason with Anna when Dundee arrives. He assumed Thompson would bribe the driver and followed them. He kills both Anna and Thompson, but as he turns to leave, sirens fill the air.

The film stars Saskia Burmeister, as Erica "Yuk" Yurken, an adolescent brunette who fantasises about a better life and stardom; and Delta Goodrem as her school rival Alison Ashley.

At school, Erica is not very popular. She sits alone in class, but when Alison arrives, it all changes. Erica at first is desperate to be Alison's friend but soon changes her mind, and they then become rivals.

However, when a school camp comes up, Erica realises Alison doesn't have the perfect life as she imagined.

The story takes place in a world which diverged from ours in 1888, when a mysterious explosion killed Queen Victoria and her entire immediate family, with the exception of Duke "Eddy" of Clarence, who survived as a brain damaged cripple and was thus unable to succeed to the throne. A mysterious American named Jack Planters then appeared with a claim to be a distant royal cousin named "John Charles Plantagenet", and was crowned King John II, popularly known as King Jack. Little does anyone suspect that Planters himself murdered the Royal Family after having dispatched four Whitechapel prostitutes for practice (Mary Jane Kelly is spared in this timeline, and makes a cameo as an old woman). Under King Jack's rule the British Empire becomes steadily both more militaristic, unjustly making war on France and other countries, and misogynistic, suspending all women's rights and establishing a harsh patriarchy.

Diana the Amazon is snatched away from Paradise Island by a Royal Marines squadron captained by Steven Trevor, here a wicked villain in contrast to the selfless hero that he is in the mainstream DC Universe. Diana is forcibly married to Trevor and by 1928 has become the star of a London theatre show which acts out Bible stories. She eventually runs away and adopts the heroic persona of Wonder Woman, organizing resistance against King Jack's cruel regime. Along the way, Wonder Woman learns that the King's son, Prince Charles, is as kindhearted and just as his father is murderous and tyrannical. Charles becomes Diana's partner in both war and love, leading to the story ending in an inevitable pun.

Skye Daley (Brooke Shields) is interviewing former child star Ricky Coogin (Alex Winter). Skye asks how Ricky so quickly went from one of America's sweethearts to a name that makes children scream in terror. Ricky, completely in silhouette, begins his story.

Ricky is shown accepting an endorsement contract from slimy mega-corporation E.E.S. (Everything Except Shoes) to promote "Zygrot 24", a toxic fertilizer, in South America. Although hesitant at first, the greedy, self-centered Coogin caves in after CEO (William Sadler) offers him $5,000,000. Ricky travels to the South American town of "Santa Flan" with his friend Ernie (Michael Stoyanov). During their flight, the duo have a run-in with Ricky's 12-year-old fan Stuey Gluck (Alex Zuckerman). Stuey begs Ricky not to promote Zygrot 24 only to accidentally fall out of the plane.

Once Ricky and Ernie arrive in Santa Flan, they cross paths with a group of environmentalists protesting Zygrot 24 and Ricky. In the group is Julie (Megan Ward), who Ricky becomes instantly smitten with. The two con Julie into thinking they're also environmentalists, with Ricky posing as a highly injured accident victim, his face covered in bandages, and she agrees to join them on a trip to another protest. However, she soon finds out their true identities and the three are stuck with each other for the rest of the drive. They decide to take a detour to see Freek Land, a local freak show, only to wind up in the clutches of demented proprietor and mad scientist Elijah C. Skuggs (Randy Quaid) and his henchman, Toad (Jaime Cardriche). Utilizing his "Tasty Freeks Machine", he merges Julie and Ernie into conjoined twins and turns Ricky into a hideous green mutation. Elijah runs out of Zygrot, resulting in only half of Ricky's body being mutated.

Ricky meets the other freaks, including Ortiz the Dog Boy (Keanu Reeves), Worm (Derek McGrath) a giant arthropod, Cowboy (John Hawkes) a literal anthropomorphic cow, the Bearded Lady (Mr. T in a dress) and Sockhead (Bobcat Goldthwait), who has a sock puppet for a head. Ricky has trouble adjusting to his new life as a freak, though he opens up when some of the other freaks recount how they were captured and disfigured by Elijah. During his first performance, Ricky foregoes his originally intended act and performs a Shakespearean monologue which captivates the audience. Spotting an EES agent in the crowd, Ricky jumps off the stage hoping to be rescued, but flies into a murderous rage when the agent mocks him and his appearance. Ricky tears his agent's head off and the crowd runs screaming into the night, with an amused Elijah simply noting "that's what I call entertainment."

The next day, Ricky discovers to his horror that he is seeing a floating specter of Stuey. He angrily shoos Stuey's astral form away, but Cowboy states that only a pair of soulmates can have such a strong telepathic bond. After multiple failed attempts to sell the story to newspapers Stuey manages to sell Ricky's story to the ''Weekly World News'', but ends up being captured by a group of businessmen that work for E.E.S.

Ricky tries to escape by stealing the outfit of a milkman, only to be captured by the Rastafar-eyes, Skuggs's gun-toting Rastafarian eyeball henchmen and brought before Elijah. Skuggs tells Ricky he plans to have him fully-mutated into a blood-thirsty monster who will kill all the other freaks at the next show. On his way back to the freaks shed, he runs into the other freaks also making an escape attempt, all dressed as milkmen. Ricky butts heads with Ortiz and the two fight until Ortiz is distracted by a squirrel and runs off, the Rastafar-eyes in pursuit. With Ortiz gone, Ricky is named the new freaks leader. Ricky and the freaks break into Skuggs's lab to create a serum that will complete Ricky's mutation and have him kill Skuggs instead of the freaks. Ricky accidentally leaves the concoction in the lab, but finds a bag of macaroons which the freaks enjoy.

Ricky eventually finds out that E.E.S. has been supplying Elijah's with Zygrot, and they arrive at Freek Land with a new shipment and an imprisoned Stuey Gluck. As they discuss their plans to mutate the world's population into a race of E.E.S. workers and consumers, Stuey follows a telepathic tip from Ricky and manages to escape, grabbing the coffee can of mutation goo left behind by Ricky along the way.

On the night of the show, Stuey appears with the batch of Zygrot only to have an annoyed biker dump it onto him, which turns him into a grotesque seven-foot monster. Stuey kills the biker and prepares to storm the stage and save Ricky. The Rastafar-eyes attempt to kill Stuey but he kicks dust into their eyes, blinding them. Toad tries to attack Stuey only for Julie and Ernie to throw an M80 onto Toad's tongue which he swallows and promptly explodes. In response, Elijah infects Ricky with his own Zygrot, fully turning him into an equally grotesque seven-foot monster. As Ricky and Stuey battle to the death onstage, Elijah discovers the E.E.S. executives betraying him and trying to steal his equipment with the aid of their agents. Elijah stops them by soaking them all with a Zygrot bazooka; mutating and merging them all into a giant, fleshy shoe.

Right before Ricky is about to destroy Stuey, Cowboy reminds him that Stuey is his soulmate. A wave of compassion comes over him, and he gives Stuey a hug. Enraged, Elijah unsuccessfully tries to fight Ricky, who also bashes him in the head, breaking his spine. Skuggs tries to get Ricky not to kill him by offering him the antidote for his mutation, telling him it was a time-delayed serum baked into a batch of macaroons. Ricky comments that he skimped on the coconut and punches Skuggs, tossing him into the vat of Zygrot 24. An FBI task force arrives to save Ricky after having learned of Stuey's article. Skuggs suddenly reemerges from the Vat, having taken the form of Skye Daley. The FBI task force guns Skuggs/Skye down.

Back at the interview, it's revealed that Ricky has returned to normal (along with most of the other freaks, except for Worm, who hates Macaroons). They are then joined by Ortiz who has finally caught the squirrel and Stuey, still a giant super-freak. Skye comments on Elijah mutating to look like her, and Ricky realizes that Skye actually is Elijah. Skuggs lunges after Ricky with a machete, only to be gunned down by the now normal Julie. As she embraces Ricky, Skye rises again, this time to be gunned down by Ernie. Ricky and Julie kiss and everyone waves farewell to the audience until the film ends on a frozen shot of Skuggs once again rising up to attack.

Jim Morris is the son of a career Navy man, who moves the family from Hollywood, Florida to Big Lake, Texas, in order to maintain job security. Jim is shown to be a skilled pitcher, though his father disapproves of Jim's dream of making it to Major League Baseball. It is later mentioned that the town to which Jim's family moved, Big Lake, has lost its love for baseball, preferring football instead. Thus, he was unable to play baseball in high school. He later gets a chance when he is drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers, but he tears up his shoulder, ending his hopes of achieving his lifelong dream.

In 1999, Jim, married with three children, is a high school science teacher, as well as head baseball coach. His team, the Big Lake Owls, is unsuccessful, with many of his players being skilled but unmotivated, especially with little community support. One day after practice, the team catcher offers to play catch with Jim. There, it is revealed that Jim may still have his fastball, and it is soon displayed to the rest of the team. The Owls believe that Jim could possibly pitch in the major leagues and offer him a deal: if the Owls can win district and make the state playoffs, Jim will try out again, which Jim accepts. Furthermore, the team urges him to throw his fastball in batting practice, which immensely improves their hitting.

The Owls end up winning district. Jim is told of a tryout nearby for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Jim goes without telling his wife Lorri, afraid that her fear of him re-injuring his shoulder would keep him from going. After his tryout, the professional scouts discover his ability to repeatedly throw a baseball at . The lead scout tells Jim that he could be signed to a minor-league deal. Lorri finds out after getting two phone messages from the Tampa Bay scouts. Jim tells his father, with whom he still has a cold relationship, of his situation, and his father once again tries to dissuade Jim. Lorri is also reluctant to let Jim go, citing his home responsibilities, but after seeing how Jim is inspiring their son, Hunter, she allows him to go.

Jim is initially assigned to the minor league Class AA Orlando Rays, but quickly moves up to the Class AAA Durham Bulls. Concerned for his family due to mounting bills (the pay in the minor leagues being low), Jim decides to give it up and come home, but Lorri talks him out of it, not wanting Jim to give up again. Jim gets inspired again when he watches a Little League Baseball game one night, remembering the same love for baseball he had as a kid.

In September, Jim is told that the Major League club has called him up, and that they will be playing in Texas against the Rangers. Jim calls his family, who in turn informs the town. Advising his wife of the dress code in the majors, Jim finds his sports coat, a necktie, and his St. Rita necklace hanging in his locker (St. Rita is the saint of impossible dreams). His family, high school players, and many townspeople go to the game. Jim impresses many of the coaches in warm-ups with his fastball, and late in the game, with Tampa Bay losing badly, Jim is called into the game to pitch to Royce Clayton and end the inning. Jim gets a strikeout against Clayton on three straight fastballs. After the game, Jim gets interviewed by the press. During the interview, Jim notices his father had also come to the game. Jim's father admits how special it is to be able to see his son play in the majors, and apologizes for not supporting Jim before. Jim thanks him and gives him the ball with which he had gotten the strikeout, and the two repair their relationship. Jim then meets with his family and all the townspeople who had come to the game, applauding Jim on his amazing success story.

The Big Lake high school trophy case displays Jim's major league jersey. It is then mentioned that Jim would go on to pitch in the major leagues for two seasons before retiring and returning to teaching in Texas.

Tertius Coetzee, a young South African Police constable during apartheid, is granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for torturing and killing a Coloured ANC activist. Haunted by his brutal past, Coetzee travels to a West Coast fishing village to find the man's family and eventually ask their forgiveness.

Having just crushed an uprising by his half-brother, Don John, Don Pedro of Aragon and his noblemen visit their friend Leonato in Messina. Accompanying Don Pedro is the witty Benedict, former acquaintance of Leonato's equally sharp-tongued niece, Beatrice. Also present are Benedict's friend Claudio, a young count; and Don John who, despite his rebellion, has apparently reconciled with his brother. Claudio has been thinking of Leonato's beautiful daughter Hero since before he went to war, and returns to find her as attractive as ever. Don Pedro, learning of his friend's feelings, decides to act on his behalf and arranges the match at a party. An unrepentant Don John attempts to foil it, but unsuccessfully – the match is made. Needing something to pass the time until the wedding, Don Pedro decides to arrange a similar fate for Beatrice and Benedict, who clearly hate each other.

Don Pedro, Leonato, and Claudio stage a conversation containing a false account of how much Beatrice loves Benedict, all the while knowing Benedict to be hiding within earshot. Hero and her gentlewomen Ursula and Margaret play the same trick upon Beatrice. Each of them believes the story they hear about the other. Amidst all the good-natured scheming, Don John has been searching for ways to stop the marriage between Claudio and Hero. The night before the wedding, Don John's servant Borachio arranges a steamy liaison with Hero's gentlewoman Margaret at Hero's chamber window. Don John shows Don Pedro and Claudio this, and they believe that they are seeing Hero in the act of infidelity.

Against the revelry of the evening, the upright but incompetent constable Dogberry appoints a watch to keep the peace. The three hapless watchmen happen to hear Borachio bragging to his colleague Conrade about how he and Don John had succeeded in stopping the wedding. The watchmen apprehend Borachio and Conrade, and, in the morning, Dogberry attempts to have Leonato interrogate the prisoners. However, a hurried Leonato is unable to decipher what the bumbling Dogberry is trying to tell him.

At the wedding, Claudio publicly disgraces his would-be bride and storms away, along with most of the guests, except for Ursula, the Friar, Leonato, Beatrice, Antonio, and Benedict. They all agree to the Friar's plan to publish the tale that Hero, upon the grief of Claudio's accusations, suddenly died. Beatrice and Benedict linger a moment and eventually confess their love to one another. In the wake of this declaration, Beatrice asks Benedict to do the one thing that will satisfy her outrage with what has just happened – kill Claudio. With a heavy heart, he agrees to challenge his friend. Meanwhile, Borachio and Conrade are interrogated by Dogberry and his men. Amidst the confusion, Don John quietly flees. Despite Dogberry's incompetence, the truth of Don John's sinister machinations is revealed.

Moments after Benedict's challenge to Claudio, Leonato is made aware of what really happened. Leonato continues to pretend to Claudio that Hero is dead. Claudio entreats Leonato to impose whatever vengeance he sees fit for Claudio's part in Hero's disgrace and death. Leonato forgives Claudio on the condition that he publicly declare his wrongdoing and then marry Hero's cousin - his brother Antonio's daughter - the next morning. Claudio agrees, and carries out the former by reciting an epitaph at Hero's tomb that night.

When the bride is brought forth the next day, she is revealed to be none other than Hero herself. She and Claudio profess their true, undying love for each other, as do Beatrice and Benedict, who agree to marry. Benedict renounces his challenge against Claudio and embraces him. Moments later, Don John is marched in, having been captured before he could escape. Benedict advises that Don Pedro forget about him until tomorrow, after the weddings. Those gathered begin to dance, with the two happy couples at the middle. Don Pedro remains behind, still single, but happy for his friends.

The Bottle Fairies, who have come from another world, are attempting to learn many things about the world so they can gain knowledge and turn into humans - a feat they finally achieve in episode 12, set in the twelfth month, thus making the series span a whole year. However, as their wish to stay together is stronger than their wish to become human, they merge into one human, while retaining their several personalities. The thirteenth episode shows the fairies attempting to function as a single human girl, before eventually splitting into four fairies again. This extra episode makes ''Bottle Fairy'' the typical length of a small anime series.

Rolling Kansas is about five men (a T-shirt salesman, his two brothers, a large narcoleptic nursing student, and a dim-witted gas station attendant) who embark on a journey to find a secret government marijuana field in Kansas that was discovered on a map that three of the young men's parents left for them (known as the Hippies Murphy). On the way, they encounter cops, crazy geese, strippers, and a crazy old man played by Rip Torn.

Justin Playfair (Scott) is a judge who retreats into fantasy after his wife's death, imagining himself to be Sherlock Holmes, the legendary fictional detective. Complete with deerstalker hat, pipe and violin, he spends his days in a homemade criminal laboratory obsessing over plots hatched by his (Holmes's) archenemy, Professor Moriarty.

When his brother (Lester Rawlins) tries to place Justin under observation in a mental institution so he can get power of attorney, Justin attracts the attention of Dr. Mildred Watson (Woodward), a psychiatrist who becomes fascinated by his case. Justin demonstrates to her a knack for what Holmes describes as "deduction" (technically better categorized as abductive reasoning) and walks out of the institution during the ensuing confusion. Intrigued, Watson comes to his home to attempt treatment. Playfair is initially dismissive of Watson's attempts to psychoanalyze him and he analyzes her instead, but when he hears her name, he enthusiastically incorporates her into his life as Doctor Watson, the sidekick to his Holmes.

The duo begin an enigmatic quest for Moriarty, with Playfair/Holmes following all manner of bizarre and (to Watson) unintelligible clues, and encountering a rich tapestry of individualistic persons in assorted urban situations, the two growing closer to each other in the process.

The module has been described as a low-level scenario, which involves the legends surrounding a ruined palace, a white dragon, and a giant ruby. ([https://books.google.com/books?id=UMY9AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover preview]) The player characters encounter evil creatures that have taken over the palace. The plot of ''Palace of the Silver Princess'' revolves around a country frozen in time by a strange red light. The only seemingly unaffected location and the apparent source of the glow is the royal palace. The adventurers must restore the flow of time and save the country.

A series of closeups of the backs and arms of a man and woman embracing, amidst falling ash and then covered in sweat. In voiceover, the woman recounts the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that she has seen on her trip to the city, while newsreel and fictional footage of victims, protests, war memorials, and the streets and buildings of modern Hiroshima are shown. The man calmly says the woman has not seen anything, nor does she know what it is to forget. He is from Hiroshima and his family died in the bombing while he was off fighting in the war, and the woman is a French actress who is in the city to make an anti-war film.

In the morning, the woman watches the man sleep. His twitching hand reminds her of her first love, a soldier whose hand moved similarly as he lay dying. The Japanese man wakes, and it becomes clear he and the woman met the previous night at a café. She learns he is an architect who is involved in politics. They discuss the bombing and the end of the war, and he is enchanted by the word "Nevers", her hometown, to which she never wants to return. The man says he would like to see the woman again, but she says she is flying back to Paris the next day. Neither this nor the revelation that she has children change how he feels, but she, though torn, repeatedly declines to arrange another meeting.

The man visits the woman at the filming location, and she is happy to see him. He takes her back to his house. She asks if he lives alone, and he replies that his wife is out of town for a few days. They both say they are happy in their marriages, though they have had casual affairs before, and make love again. After deciding to spend the woman's remaining time in Hiroshima together, they go to a tea room, where the man asks the woman to tell him more about Nevers and her life there. Intercut with flashbacks, she tells how she and an occupying German soldier fell in love and planned to elope to Bavaria before he was shot while waiting for her on the day Nevers was liberated, how she stayed with him while he died over the next two days, how the villagers shaved her head when they found out about the relationship, and how her parents locked her alternately in her room and the cellar while her hair grew out and she came out of her madness and then sent her away to Paris just before Hiroshima was bombed. She tries to convey the pain she feels about forgetting the German and their love, and indicates she has been trying to keep her distance from the Japanese man because she does not want any more such heartbreak.

The man is elated when he learns the woman never told her husband about the German, but, when they leave the tea room, she tells him to go away and that they will probably never see each other again. In her hotel room, she feels guilty about telling the man about the German, but decides to stay in Hiroshima. She goes back to the now-closed tea room, and the man finds her and asks her to stay. She weakly says she will, but then tells him again to go away. They walk around the city, together and separately, images of Hiroshima alternating with images of Nevers. The woman goes to a train station, where she lets go of some of her issues surrounding her first love and decides she might like to visit Nevers. She takes a cab to a nightclub, the man following. The place is nearly empty and they sit apart. As the sun rises, a Japanese man sits by the woman and hits on her in English.

Back in the woman's hotel room, the architect knocks at the door. She lets him in and yells that she is already starting to forget him, but abruptly calms and says his name is "Hiroshima". He responds that it is, and her name is "Nevers".

During the opening sequence, a short animation displays a person asleep in bed, coincidentally, in Peru, Indiana. They are visited during a dream by a jaguar who calls himself the jaguar of the Inca King. The jaguar explains that the Inca people are endangered by malaria and European explorers, and the player will be taken back in time in order to search for cinchona and deliver it to the king. The jaguar from the dream appears throughout the game as a hazy vision, running off a checklist of items desired by the Inca King, and offering various gloomy sentiments about the rainforest in general.

• In all versions of the game, the protagonist is Nathan "Rad" Spencer. The below summarizes the plot of ''Hitler no Fukkatsu'' on Japanese FC release. Due to anti-Nazi censorship in the West, the international version ''Bionic Commando'' omitted all Nazi references like swastikas, and changed the name "Hitler" to "Master D" and "Weitzmann" to "Killt"; the main storyline is otherwise unchanged.

The game is set in an alternate timeline, in which Nazism is not completely eradicated following the defeat of the Third Reich in WWII. Nazi ideology was carried on by a nation called "the Imperial state".

The story begins with a solo narrative: somewhere in the 1980s, a top-secret WWII-era Nazi document called "Plan Albatross" was discovered by the Imperialists. Generalissimo Weitzmann, leader of the Imperial army, decided to realize the plan himself. Another superpower, "the Republic" (ostensibly modeled after the real-life United States), then at war with the Imperial State, sent a commando named Super Joe to retrieve the plan and to stop Weitzmann. However, Joe lost contact with Republican HQ not long after he entered Imperialist territories.

In response, the republicans dispatched another agent, Rad Spencer the Bionic Commando, to rescue Super Joe. Rad singlehandedly infiltrated the Imperialist-controlled areas. Soon he found Joe was indeed captured as a POW.

As Joe was freed, he told Rad his discoveries: the "Albatross" was a wonderweapon that the Nazis did not manage to finish in WWII, and the Imperialists were trying to restore it. However, he was captured before he could learn more. Rad promised him to carry on to sabotage the weapon and the plan for good.

Eventually, Rad reached the heart of the Imperialist's secret base. He came just in time to witness the Albatross plan at its final stage: In order to command the "albatross", an almost-invincible flying gunship, Adolf Hitler must be revived as well. Weitzmann also had his own plan: he wanted to terminate Hitler's revival process and keep the ship to himself. Weitzmann's plan backfired as he got killed by an "awakened" Hitler, who vowed to conquer the world with "Albatross".

In the ensuing battle, Rad destroyed the airborne Albatross by shooting at its reactors. Hitler managed to jettison to safety, and attempted to escape the base in a helicopter. Rad took his only chance by firing a bazooka shot mid-air at the helicopter's cockpit, blowing Hitler and his plane apart. Hitler's second death also triggered the base's self-destruction sequence. Rad narrowly escaped, and reunited with Super Joe and his other comrade-in-arms.

In the ending scene, it was revealed that the narrator at the beginning was Super Joe, who was still alive as of 2010. He hoped the legend of Bionic Commando would be passed on to future generations with his stories.

A dark prince is freed from his seal by a thunderstorm, and begins to try to take over the world. The kingdom is in peril, and the King orders that the four heroes receive a summon. Four pigeons fly off to meet these heroes, and each reads the summon. From here, the player must navigate all four of these heroes through an introductory course.

From here, the strengths of individual characters must be utilized to get through a variety of courses. Several bosses await the heroes, and it is up to the player's strategy to choose which hero(es) will fight the boss. A few levels have branching exits, taking the player to different levels, although each one ends up taking the player to stages marked by skulls on the map. Here, the player fights one of the four wizards that serve as the dark prince's right-hand men, each of which shapeshifts into a larger boss when defeated (Green shapeshifts into a Cyclops, Blue shapeshifts into a magic-wielding knight, Red shapeshifts into a giant dragon, and Yellow shapeshifts into what appears to be the Grim Reaper).

Eventually, the player reaches what appears to be the dark prince's castle, and faces a golden wizard-knight at the end (which shapeshifts into a demonic skull). If the game is played on Easy, this is the final level. If played on Normal, the dark prince's true stronghold — a castle resting on a giant, green skull — arises, and the game continues for a few more levels, ending with a confrontation with the dark prince himself. In the end, through the utilization of all four characters, the kingdom is saved. All story development is shown through pantomimed animated cutscenes.

Characters

Throughout the game the player operates one of four characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The first four stages are each dedicated to a specific character, but upon their completion the player can swap characters at any time for the remainder of the game, and often must do so in order to complete the level. The four characters are as follows:

;Little Samson: Known as in Japan. Samson, for whom the game is named, is the young human protagonist. He is a young warrior with a kind heart and is the only character in the game playable who isn't cursed or turned into a different form. He is a small, quick character who attacks enemies by throwing bells. He is able to jump higher and further than most characters and has the ability to climb on the walls and ceilings. ; : Kikira is the second hero. Originally a princess of a small kingdom she was cursed to be a female dragon. As a dragoness, she has the ability to fly for brief periods of time, making her a valuable character in many jumping-oriented stages. She attacks by spitting fire, which travels in a J-shaped arc. The player can increase the strength of her flame by holding down the B button for longer periods of time (if Kikira is green, then the fireball will be small; if purple it will be medium-sized; if pink, it will be large). She is initially hostile to the idea of Samson being the leader and fights him for dominance, but upon her defeat she relinquishes. ; : Gamm is the third hero. Originally a thief and stealer, he grabbed a potion from KO's lab and tried to flee. After drinking the potion he turned into a gigantic rock monster beast with a gigantic punching arm. Big and bulky, he is the slowest of all the characters but his punch is stronger than any of the other characters' attacks. His size is both a benefit (he takes the least damage from enemy attacks, no damage from spikes, and starts with more health than the other characters) and a hindrance (his jumping ability is severely stunted). He is also the only character who can attack in all four cardinal directions. ; : K.O. is the fourth hero. Originally a kind and curious wizard he accidentally turned into a mouse while chasing after Gamm when he stole the potion from his lab. He has the least health of any character, but is very quick and a great jumper, and is small enough to traverse some narrow passages that are otherwise inaccessible. Just like Samson he has the ability to climb on the walls and ceiling. He is unique in that he attacks by placing bombs.

The protagonist, Milon, lives in the land of Hudson where people use music to communicate with each other, but he does not have the ability to communicate. He always asked himself why he is the only one who lacks the ability to understand people and music. One day he decides to travel throughout the land of Hudson to search for other people like himself. Before leaving for his trip, Milon decides to visit Queen Eliza who lives in Castle Garland (known as "Hudson's Secret Castle" in the manual). When Milon arrives at Castle Garland, the people were being attacked by the Evil Warlord from the north region. The Warlord robs the innocent people, by stealing all their musical instruments and occupies the Castle Garland. Queen Eliza is held captive deep inside Castle Garland by the Warlord and his demon-monsters. Milon volunteers to fight the Warlord and his demons and to rescue Queen Eliza and the musical instruments for the people of Hudson. This will not be an easy task. Castle Garland has many different rooms and each room is a maze filled with demons, secret passages and doors. However, the Castle's Magician tells Milon that Queen Eliza has hidden many tools, instruments and money to help him. The Magician also gives Milon a magic "Bubble" to assist him in finding the places where the helpful items are hidden and where they may be bought.

Many years ago two wealthy adventurers, Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. From this base, they conducted their affairs away from the prying eyes of civilization. While of questionable ethical standing, the two drove back a barbarian invasion and gained the support of locals. Eventually, they gathered their own army and went on an expedition against said enemies, where they met their demise.

The player characters (PCs) enter the story at this point, hearing a variety of rumors provided in the module. Each PC knows one or more of the stories although the veracity of them is somewhat questionable. The rumors mostly involve a great treasure hidden somewhere in the Caverns of Quasqueton, which the PCs can enter from a cave-like opening.

A variety of monsters wander through the finished upper level of the dungeon including orcs, troglodytes, and giant rats. The DM checks periodically to see if the group encounters these menaces in addition to the dangers in each individual room. Most of the rooms come with blank spots where the DM fills in whatever monster or treasure is most suitable for their campaign.

The finished upper level served as a home for Rogahn and Zelligar and contains much of their personal possessions. A number of traps await an unwary group. Some of these rooms include an area filled with pools (some hazardous and others not) and a wizard's laboratory.

The randomly generated monsters in the lower, unfinished level differ from those above and include zombies and goblins. Some of the pre-filled rooms on this level include a museum, an arena, and grand cavern, but many of the caves on this level include no description at all and the DM must devise contents for these areas.

The end of the module includes a list of foes and treasure for the group to fight and find. It also includes a list of characters of various classes the group might encounter while exploring the dungeon. Also included are a number of pre-generated characters the group might use to play through the adventure.

The novel begins with the character of Tasslehoff Burrfoot at the Inn of the Last Home with his friends. However, soon a bounty hunter arrives and charges him for desertion for violating the laws of prearranged marriage. A journey east turns into a voyage with gully dwarves.

Meanwhile in Kendermore, Tas's Uncle Trapspringer and a human "doctor" have found a map leading to a treasure. Tas is having his own adventures after a shipwreck strands him, Gisella (the bounty hunter), and Woodrow (Gisella's assistant) near a dwarven settlement. Tas is captured by gnomes, who seek to turn him into an exhibit. Woodrow saves him with help from Winnie, a wooly mammoth. Gisella is killed by Denzil, an assassin. Tas and Woodrow arrive in Kendermore. In the ruins east of the city, "Dr." Phineas Curick, Uncle Trapspringer, and Damaris (the one intended to marry Tasslehoff) find themselves being entertained by Vincent, a rare ogre who is good! The kender and human wander into a magical portal which takes them to Gelfigburg, a Candyland like place. They also discover that the treasure (a magical amulet) has been used up. Denzil, not knowing this, forces Tas to take him to the ruins. Tas tries to go into the portal, but Denzil pulls him out before he is all the way through, leaving Tas stuck in the portal. The kender in Gelfigburg attempt to pull Tas through, leading to a tug of war. Vincent pulls Tas, Damaris, Trapspringer, Phineas, and all the Kender out of Gelfigburg. Denzil is trapped inside. The Dark Queen attempts to enter, but Damaris closes the portal. The kender return to Kendermore, saving the city from a storm. Tas is reunified with Woodrow, and Damaris marries Trapspringer.

Scientists believe that 65,000,000 years ago, a meteorite's crash on Earth killed off the dinosaurs, but in truth, it split Earth into two parallel universes: , an Earth where dinosaurs were still the superior species, and our Earth, referred to as by the residents of Dino Earth. Over time, the and races came into being on Dino Earth but were at war with the Evoliens, entities that emerged from the meteor. The two Earths are separate until Asuka, one of the Saurians from Dino Earth, arrives on Earth via a transdimensional portal. However, he is followed by the Evoliens in their Anamolicarus spaceship and the three Bakuryū under their control. As the Bakuryū Tyrannosaurus, Ptreranodon, and Triceratops attack Tokyo, a call is sent out to three destined ones who possess to gain the power to tame the three beasts. Together with their Bakuryū partners, the three become Abarangers to protect their dimension from the Evoliens. In time another Abaranger appears, but he takes the name and fights the others while the Evoliens carry out their ultimate goal: the resurrection of their god.

Kara Zor-El, cousin of Kal-El/Superman and Jor-El's niece, lives in Argo City, an isolated Kryptonian community that survived the planet's destruction by being transported into a pocket of trans-dimensional space, the Survival Zone. A man named Zaltar allows Kara to see a unique and immensely powerful item known as the Omegahedron, which he has borrowed without the knowledge of the city government, and which powers the city. However, a mishap leads to the Omegahedron being rocketed into space. Taking a ship, Kara follows it to Earth (undergoing a transformation into "Supergirl" in the process) to recover it and save the city.

On Earth, the Omegahedron is recovered by Selena, a power-hungry would-be witch assisted by the feckless Bianca, seeking to free herself from a relationship with warlock Nigel. Whilst not knowing exactly what it is, Selena quickly realizes the Omegahedron is powerful and can give her true magic. Supergirl arrives on Earth and is granted new powers by its environment and the radiation of its sun. While seeking the Omegahedron, she creates the cover identity Linda Lee, cousin of Clark Kent, and enrolls at an all-girls school where she befriends Lucy Lane, the younger sister of Lois Lane who happens to be studying there. Supergirl also meets and becomes enamored with Ethan, a school groundskeeper.

Ethan also catches the eye of Selena, who drugs him with a love potion which will make him fall in love with the first person he sees for a day. Ethan regains consciousness in Selena's absence and wanders out into the streets. An angry Selena uses her new-found powers to animate a construction vehicle to retrieve Ethan, causing chaos as it does so. Supergirl, in the guise of Linda, rescues Ethan, and he falls in love with her instead.

Supergirl and Selena proceed to battle. Selena captures Ethan, then traps Supergirl and sends her to the Phantom Zone, a prison dimension. Now powerless, Supergirl wanders the bleak landscape and eventually encounters Zaltar, who has exiled himself to the Phantom Zone as a punishment for losing the Omegahedron. Zaltar helps Kara to escape, sacrificing his life to do so. Back on Earth, Selena uses the Omegahedron to make herself a "princess of Earth" with Ethan as her lover and consort.

Emerging from the Phantom Zone through a mirror, Supergirl regains her powers and confronts Selena, who uses the Omegahedron to summon a gigantic shadow demon. The demon is on the verge of defeating Supergirl when she hears Zaltar's voice urging her to fight on. Supergirl breaks free and Nigel tells her the only way to defeat Selena is to turn the demon against her. Supergirl complies and creates a focused whirlwind that traps Selena, who is then attacked and incapacitated by the demon as the whirlwind pulls in Bianca as well. The three are sucked through the mirror portal, which promptly reforms, trapping them all forever. Free from Selena's spell, Ethan admits his love for Linda, knowing she and Supergirl are one and the same. He also understands she must save Argo City and that he may not see her again. The final scene shows Kara returning the Omegahedron to a darkened Argo City, which then lights up again.

Cartman has begun to run a 'pest control' service to rid the town of hippies. Having studied them in his quest to eradicate them, he deduces they are about to start a music festival in South Park, but his attempts to warn the town council fail, and he is arrested soon afterwards for imprisoning 63 hippies in his basement.

The town of South Park is soon invaded by the largest population of hippies in history, and the music festival threatens to destroy the town. They manage to convert Stan, Kyle and Kenny to their cause with talks of corporate evils, and the trio get caught up in the massive hippie crowd where they all listen to jam band music. Cartman pleads with the mayor to stop the festival, but she reveals that she signed the permit for the music festival, thinking it would make the town some money.

After seeing the chaos that the eccentric hippies are creating, the guilt-ridden mayor shoots herself in the head (she survives, and appears later in the strategy room when Cartman is enacting his plan). Stan's parents know where the kids are, but when they realized what they did in Woodstock (which was very embarrassing), they go to save Stan. Randy tries to get through the crowd, but fails early due to excessive marijuana smoke exposure. The rest of the town then pleads with Cartman to dispel the hippies; Cartman eventually agrees to help, but only after Randy promises to offer a Tonka radio-controlled bulldozer and Kyle's mother assures Cartman that Kyle will never have one, instead having to watch Cartman playing with the bulldozer.

Meanwhile, Stan, Kyle and Kenny realize that the hippies are doing nothing to oppose the corporations that they have demonized and that their idea of a perfect society parallels the currently existing one. They try to leave but the crowd is in radius and Stan's efforts to talk sense into the hippies only worsen matters. Cartman, aided by a scientist (Randy), an engineer (Butters Stotch's mother Linda) and a "black man to sacrifice himself in case anything goes wrong" (Chef), builds a giant drill to bore through the hippie crowd. While they are boring through, the drill breaks down and Chef goes out and "sacrifices" himself to pull the emergency power switch. Cartman then uploads the Slayer song "Raining Blood" into the speakers (as Cartman reasons, "hippies can't stand death metal"). The plan works and the hippies disperse, saving South Park, while Stan sees Randy and they end up hugging each other, knowing that they are safe. Cartman then pulls out a knife and tells Kyle that he has plans for him; Kyle is then forced to watch Cartman having fun with his Tonka bulldozer in the school parking lot.

In the mid 1980s, Mafia soldier Jackie DiNorscio (Vin Diesel) and 19 of his peers have been waiting a year for their federal racketeering trial to begin. While out on bail, Jackie is shot by his drug addict cousin Tony Compagna (Raúl Esparza). Afraid of being killed by the extended mob family run by Nick Calabrese (Alex Rocco), Tony agrees to be a government witness for district attorney Sean Kierney (Linus Roache). Shortly after, Jackie is arrested and sentenced to 22-30 years in prison after being set up in an unrelated drug sting by the DEA. Kierney tries to pressure Jackie into cooperating with the government against his codefendants in order to get an early release date, but Jackie flatly refuses.

Upset over the results of his previous trial, Jackie fires his lawyer and decides to represent himself. This adds to the burdens of the court, already having to deal with 20 defendants and their lawyers. Judge Sidney Finestein (Ron Silver) strongly advises against it, but lead defense attorney Ben Klandis (Peter Dinklage) agrees to assist Jackie. Both Klandis and Kierney recognize Jackie's ability to charm the jury, but his arrogant, vulgar behavior eventually start irritating everyone. As revenge, Kierney arranges for Jackie to have all of his prison privileges revoked. No one is more upset than Nick, who believes Jackie will cost them the trial and threatens to sever himself from the case. As weeks turn into months, the court case evolves into a marathon affair. Kierney wants Jackie kicked off the case, but Judge Finestein reluctantly agrees to keep the trial going. Jackie realizes he has gone too far and apologizes to the judge.

Wanting to remove the possibility that even one defendant gets acquitted, Kearny offers a final plea deal to all the defendants. In return for pleading guilty, they will all get shorter sentences than they would be facing if found guilty. Jackie tells his codefendants that he refuses to take a deal even though he is already serving a long sentence for drug trafficking. This convinces Nick and the others to turn down the deal too. The final witness is Jackie's cousin Tony. Klandis is able to use Tony's heavy drug use to discredit him as a witness and Jackie emotionally cross-examines his cousin and asks why he betrayed his love for him.

After 21 months of testimony, the trial concludes with closing arguments. The prosecution and defense teams return to their homes expecting the jury to deliberate for at least a week. However, after only 14 hours of deliberation the jury returns a verdict of not guilty on all charges. While the rest of the defendants leave the courtroom with their families, Jackie returns to prison to finish his sentence. He receives a hero's welcome at the correctional facility, where fellow prisoners chant his name and reach out to shake his hand.

The end title cards explain that the real Jackie DiNorscio served 17 and a half years before being paroled in 2002. He died of natural causes during filming.

Openly gay high school sophomore Paul lives in an LGBT-friendly small town in New Jersey. He is best friends with Joni, whom he has known since early childhood and to whom he came out in second grade, and Tony, who is also gay and who lives in the (much less accepting) next town over with his strict, religious parents.

On a night out with Joni and Tony, while listening to a friend play music in a bookstore, Paul meets Noah and is instantly attracted to him. They discover that they attend the same school and after some miscommunication and false starts, they eventually reconnect and start to date. At the same time, Joni (who has recently broken up with her long-term boyfriend Ted for the twelfth time) starts to date Chuck, a football player who was extremely cruel to Paul's friend, Infinite Darlene, when his crush on her turned out to be unrequited. This relationship causes a great deal of tension within Joni and Paul's friendship, and it also upsets Ted and Infinite Darlene.

The previous year, Paul had dated Kyle, who then dumped him and spread the rumor that Paul had "tricked" him into being gay. As Paul's relationship with Noah starts to flourish, Kyle attempts to come back into Paul's life. He apologizes to Paul and starts coming to him for comfort and support, as he is uncertain about his sexuality and his aunt has recently died. While Paul is at first cautious, he comes to understand Kyle more and see him as a friend. Paul to Joni, who then tells Chuck. Chuck spreads all around the school and before long, people are placing bets on what they think the outcome will be. Noah's feelings towards Paul seem to cool at this stage.

Tony is having trouble coping with his homophobic parents, and he decides to go for a hike with Paul in nearby woods. After their hike, Paul hugs Tony tightly, only to be interrupted by Tony's mother's best friend, who spreads what she saw to everyone she knows. Rumors spread that Paul and Tony are in a relationship, so Tony's parents forbid him from having contact with Paul.

The next day, Kyle is feeling a great deal of stress and fear, and Paul kisses him. Noah hears the rumor about Paul and Tony, and in the process of denying that anything happened between the two of them, he inadvertently confesses the fact that he kissed Kyle that day. Upon learning of this, Noah ends their relationship. Not long afterwards, Paul and Joni's friendship seems to end.

Paul is arranging the Dowager's Dance, a dance held yearly by his high school. The theme of the dance is to be Death, and in order to study this theme, the planning committee (including Kyle) go to a cemetery one evening. When Kyle and Paul find themselves alone together, Kyle kisses Paul and tells him that he loves him. Paul says that he doesn't feel the same way, and Kyle is upset and leaves. Paul goes to see Tony and explain everything to him, and Tony confesses that he is feeling troubled by everything that has been happening but that he is working on showing his parents that he is more than just his sexuality, and that being gay will not stop him from living a full and happy life. Tony's mother comes home and catches Paul and Tony talking, but instead of getting mad, Tony quietly challenges her and she finally allows Tony to see Paul again. Tony also decides that he wants to go to the upcoming dance, and he and Paul decide that his parents are most likely to let him attend if a large group of people come to pick him up.

Paul realizes that he is still in love with Noah and that what he has to do is show him how he feels. Over seven days he sets himself seven tasks to prove his love to Noah and make his apology: * Day 1: Paul spends the entire night making origami flowers and decorates the hallway and Noah's locker with them. * Day 2: He writes a list of 100 words he likes and their definitions, and he leaves the list in Noah's locker. * Day 3: He leaves a note in Noah's mailbox wishing him a good day; he does not want to overwhelm him. * Day 4: He has his musical friend Zeke write a song for Noah, and Zeke goes with him to sing it. * Day 5: Paul buys twenty rolls of film (Noah's hobby is photography) and enlists his friends to give them to him in a series of creative ways. * Day 6: He writes Noah letters explaining everything he has been doing, thinking, and feeling. * Day 7: He closes the distance and speaks to Noah in person.

Noah is overwhelmed by these gestures and asks Paul to be his partner for the upcoming dance. Their relationship starts afresh. Paul goes to see Joni and ask her to be a part of the group picking Tony up for the dance, but Joni refuses, saying that she and Chuck have already made plans. Paul challenges her, implying that she is letting Chuck control her, and he leaves. On the night of the dance, Paul gathers the group to go to Tony's house and ask his parents if he can come with them. At the last minute, Joni arrives with Chuck to join the group. Tony's mother hesitantly allows Tony to attend the dance.

Instead of going straight to the dance, the group go to a clearing in the woods where Tony and Paul hiked. They start holding their own celebration there, dancing and talking and laughing. Tony and Kyle talk and dance together, and Paul and Noah dance together for song after song. Paul looks around him, wanting to fix this image in his mind forever, and the book finishes with him thinking to himself, "What a wonderful world".

John Wintergreen is a motorcycle cop who patrols the rural Arizona highways with his partner Zipper. Wintergreen is an experienced patrolman looking to be transferred to the Homicide unit. When he is informed by Crazy Willie of an apparent suicide-by-shotgun, Wintergreen believes the case is actually a murder as the victim has shot himself in the chest rather than the head, which is more usual. Detective Harve Poole agrees it is a homicide, after a .22 bullet is found amongst the pellets in the man's chest during the autopsy, as well as hearing about a possible missing $5,000 ($ today) from the man's home, and arranges for Wintergreen to be transferred to homicide to help with the case.

Wintergreen gets his wish, but his joy is short-lived. He begins increasingly to identify with the hippies whom the other officers, including Detective Poole, are endlessly harassing. The final straw comes when Poole discovers that Wintergreen has been sleeping with his girlfriend, Jolene. The hostile workplace politics cause him to be quickly demoted back to traffic enforcement.

Despite being demoted, Wintergreen is able to solve the murder. The killer turns out to be Willie, who confesses while Wintergreen goads him into talking about it. Wintergreen surmises that Willie did it because he was jealous of the old man he killed, who frequently had young people over to his house to buy drugs. Shortly after, it is discovered that Zipper stole the $5,000, which he used to buy a fully dressed Electra Glide motorcycle. Wintergreen is forced to shoot Zipper after he becomes distressed and belligerent, and shoots at Wintergreen and in the direction of two innocent bystanders while brandishing a gun.

Wintergreen, now alone and back on his old beat, runs into a hippie that Zipper was needlessly harassing earlier on a previous stop. Recognizing him, Wintergreen lets him off with a warning, but the hippie forgets his driver's license, and Wintergreen drives up behind his van to return it to him. The hippie's passenger points a shotgun out of the back window and shoots Wintergreen, killing him.

A United States Coast Guard vessel intercepts and boards a U.S. registered yacht in the Caribbean Sea. Evidence shows that the ship's previous occupants, American businessman Peter Hardin and his family, were murdered by the occupying Colombian crew. CIA analyst Jack Ryan learns that Hardin was laundering money for the South American Cali Cartel. Drug lord Ernesto Escobedo ordered Hardin's murder for embezzling millions in drug profits. U.S. President Bennett, Hardin's close friend, discreetly authorizes National Security Advisor James Cutter to initiate covert operations in Colombia to destroy the cartel.

Ryan is appointed acting Deputy Director of Intelligence when Admiral James Greer undergoes treatment for pancreatic cancer. Ryan requests Congress increase funding to support Colombians fighting the drug cartels, giving his assurance there is no U.S. military involvement. Ryan is unaware that Cutter will use the funds to assemble RECIPROCITY, a special forces team recruited by CIA operative John Clark, and aided by Robert Ritter, the CIA Deputy Director of Operations. President Bennett sends Ryan to negotiate with the Colombian government to allow the United States to seize Escobedo's assets, including $650 million hidden in off-shore accounts. Escobedo's intelligence officer, Colonel Félix Cortez, secretly orders the Cartel to ambush Ryan's convoy. Jack survives, though several colleagues are killed, including Dan Murray. Cortez's identity is ascertained after he murders Murray's secretary, Moira, who was an unwitting informant.

Escobedo, blamed for the attack, organizes a meeting with the other Cartel heads. RECIPROCITY discovers this and launches an airstrike on the meeting location. Escobedo and Cortez, en route to the gathering, barely escape unscathed. Cortez learns Americans were responsible and brokers a deal with Cutter: Cortez will kill Escobedo to assume leadership, then will reduce drug shipments to the U.S. and allow American law enforcement to make regular arrests to influence public opinion that the United States is winning the drug war. In exchange, Cortez wants the location of RECIPROCITY and all CIA support eliminated to establish his position within the Cartel. Cutter accepts Cortez's deal, then strands Clark's team, who are overwhelmed by Cortez's mercenaries in the jungle.

Unbeknownst to Cutter, U.S. surveillance monitored his conversation with Cortez. Ryan accesses Ritter's computer and obtains evidence regarding the illegal Colombian operations. Ritter, however, warns Ryan that because he obtained funding for the operation, Congress will hold Ryan solely responsible, whereas Ritter and Cutter have been granted President Bennett's pre-emptive pardons from any wrongdoing. Jack flies to Bogota to seek out John Clark, unaware Cutter and Ritter have falsely told Clark that Ryan betrayed RECIPROCITY. Ryan and Clark team up after Clark realizes Ritter and Cutter deceived them both.

Ryan and Clark procure a helicopter and fly to RECIPROCITY's last known position. They find team sniper Chavez, who reports that other squad members were killed or captured. Ryan meets with Escobedo and informs him of Cortez's deception, whilst Clark simultaneously commences rescuing his men who are being held captive in a coffee facility fronting Escobedo's cocaine operation. Escobedo confronts Cortez but is killed by Cortez's associate. Ryan narrowly escapes with Clark and the freed prisoners. Chavez kills Cortez during the escape, saving Ryan. Back in the United States, Ryan confronts President Bennett and refuses to help cover up the conspiracy. He testifies before the Congressional Oversight Committee about the recent events.

Yoshimi Matsubara, in the midst of a divorce mediation, rents a run-down apartment with her daughter, Ikuko. She enrolls Ikuko in a nearby kindergarten and gets a job as a proofreader in a small publishing company. The ceiling of their apartment has a leak that worsens on a daily basis. Matsubara complains to the building superintendent but he does nothing to fix it. When she tries to contact the apartment above, she gets no answer.

Strange events recur: a red bag reappears no matter how often Yoshimi tries to dispose of it. Hair is found in tap water. Yoshimi gets glimpses of a mysterious long-haired girl around the complex. She becomes regularly late in picking up Ikuko from school and is stressed further when her ex-husband tries to take Ikuko. Several incidents remind her of the time she was abandoned as a child. When Ikuko sees the long-haired girl in a yellow raincoat, she becomes ill. Yoshimi discovers a flyer for a missing girl named Mitsuko Kawai, who had attended the same kindergarten as Ikuko but disappeared about a year ago. Mitsuko had worn a yellow raincoat and carried a red bag. Yoshimi discovers the apartment upstairs is Mitsuko's former apartment.

One day, Yoshimi finds Ikuko in the apartment upstairs, discovering that the faucets have been left running and have flooded the entire unit. Yoshimi decides to move out, but her lawyer convinces her that moving now would weaken her position in gaining custody of Ikuko. Her lawyer talks to the superintendent, who finally agrees to fix the issue. After the ceiling is patched, things seemingly return to normal. But Yoshimi finds that the red bag has reappeared. She heads to the building roof and notices that the water tank was last inspected – and thus opened – over a year ago: the same day Mitsuko was last reported seen. She comes to the horrific realization via a vision that Mitsuko had fallen into the tank while trying to retrieve her red bag and drowned. Meanwhile, her ghost attempts to drown Ikuko in the bathtub.

Yoshimi finds Ikuko unconscious. She grabs her and rushes into the elevator, fleeing from Mitsuko. But as the elevator door closes, she sees that the figure pursuing her is in fact her own daughter – she is actually carrying Mitsuko. Mitsuko claims Yoshimi as her mother in a torrent of water and Yoshimi realizes that she won't let her go. With Ikuko watching tearfully, Yoshimi sacrifices herself by staying in the elevator to appease Mitsuko's spirit. Ikuko rushes to the floor the elevator stops but when the doors open, a flood of brown water rushes out and nobody emerges.

Ten years later, Ikuko, now in high school, revisits the now-abandoned block and notices that her old apartment looks oddly clean and lived-in. She then sees her mother, looking exactly as she did that fateful night, and they have a conversation. Yoshimi affirms that as long as Ikuko is all right, she is happy. Ikuko pleads to live with her mother but she apologizes that they cannot be together. Mitsuko appears behind Ikuko. Ikuko turns but sees no one. When she turns back around, Yoshimi has also disappeared. Ikuko realizes that her mother's spirit has been watching over her.

The book is set on the Princeton campus during Easter weekend in 1999. The story involves four Princeton seniors, both friends and roommates, getting ready for graduation: Tom, Paul, Charlie and Gil. Tom and Paul are trying to solve the mystery contained within an extremely rare, and mysterious book, the ''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili'', which was an incunabulum published in 1499 in Venice, Italy; it is a complex allegorical work written in a modified Italian language frequently interspersed with material from other languages as well as its anonymous author's own made-up words.

Tom, the narrator, is the son of a professor who had dedicated his life to the ''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili''. Throughout the novel, he struggles between being fascinated by the book and trying to pull away from the obsession that drew a rift between his father and his mother and is now causing discord between him and his girlfriend, Katie Marchand. Paul Harris is a young scholar who is writing his senior thesis on the ''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili'' and has spent all four of his undergraduate years studying the book and is on the edge of solving the book's mystery. His thesis advisors, Richard Curry and Vincent Taft, were friends and later rivals of Tom's father; Taft and Corelli found, stole, and concealed documents that provided clues to decode the mysterious book.

The title refers to a cipher that the characters find was used to encode a hidden message in the ''Hypnerotomachia'', which leads to a secret vault in Florence, Italy of books and art that the author, Francesco Colonna, hid to protect them from Girolamo Savonarola's bonfire of the vanities. It also turns out that Paul's friend Bill Stein and his thesis advisor Vincent Taft were conspiring together to steal Paul's thesis and claim credit for it, and the sealed vault of treasures. They were murdered by Paul's wealthy but unstable benefactor Richard Curry to prevent this from happening. In a struggle with Curry that leads to a fire breaking out at Ivy Club, a Princeton eating club of which Gil is the president, Tom escapes but Paul and Curry are assumed to perish. Five years later, Tom, who is still traumatized and has had a failed engagement with another woman, receives an authentic ancient (and unknown) Botticelli canvas in the mail with a mysterious return address in Florence, Italy. He packs and heads off to meet Paul again.

Oliver Cromwell is a devout Puritan, a country squire, magistrate and former Member of Parliament. King Charles I's policies, including the enclosing of common land for the use of wealthy landowners and the introduction of "Romish" rituals into the Church of England, have become increasingly grating to many, including Cromwell. In fact, Charles regards himself as a devout Anglican, though permitting his French Queen to practise Roman Catholicism in private and forbidding her to bring up the young Prince of Wales in that faith. Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World, but, on the eve of their departure, he is persuaded to stay and resume a role in politics.

Charles has unenthusiastically summoned Parliament for the first time in twelve years, as he needs money to fight wars against both the Scots and the Irish. Although to appease the Commons he agrees to execute his belligerent adviser, the Earl of Strafford, Parliament will still not grant his requests unless he agrees to reforms that could lead to a constitutional monarchy. Committed to belief in the divine right of kings, and under pressure from his queen to stand firm, Charles refuses. When he enters the parliamentary chamber with an armed guard and attempts to arrest five members of Parliament [of which in reality Cromwell was not one], war breaks out in England, with those who side with Parliament arming against the King's supporters, both parties convinced that God is on their side.

When the Parliamentary forces in which Cromwell is a cavalry officer prove ineffective at the Battle of Edgehill, he, along with Sir Thomas Fairfax, sets up the New Model Army that eventually turns the tide against the king’s forces. The army's discipline and training secure victory at the Battle of Naseby against superior numbers and Cromwell's cavalry proves to be the deciding factor, though one of his sons is killed in battle. The king is eventually encircled in his headquarters at Oxford and has his fervent supporter and cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, banished after he fails to hold the port of Bristol. He is finally defeated in a second conflict after attempting to negotiate for help from Catholic nations with the help of the queen and his eldest son, who are sent abroad for this purpose.

Cromwell later hears from Sir Edward Hyde, the king's once-loyal adviser, of Charles’ secret plans to raise a wholly Catholic army to support him, obstinately refusing to give in to the demands of Cromwell and his associates for a system of government in which Parliament will have as much say in the running of the country as the king. Cromwell therefore uses Parliament to have Charles tried for treason. At the resulting trial, which takes place in the Parliament building, the king refuses to recognise any authority higher than his own, but is found guilty and sentenced to death. After a farewell to his younger children, he faces execution bravely and even his most ardent critics are moved by his dignity and the fact that he has forgiven his captors. There is little celebration or satisfaction over his death, even on Cromwell's part.

In fact Cromwell has retired moodily to his estate and reacts with anger to a request from his radical colleague Henry Ireton to become king himself. However, Parliament soon proves self-serving in governing the country until, like the late king, Cromwell is forced to undertake a coup d'etat. But where Charles failed, Cromwell succeeds: his troops remove the MPs from the House of Commons, leaving Cromwell sitting symbolically alone in the Chamber as virtual dictator, where he outlines to the viewer his vision for The Protectorate. The film ends with a voice-over stating that Cromwell served very successfully for five years as Lord Protector before Charles I's son returned as king of an England "never to be the same again".

Dr. Luther Brooks is the first African American doctor at the urban county hospital where he trained. Despite assurances from his mentor, chief resident Dr. Dan Wharton, Brooks sometimes lacks confidence in his own skills. Brooks is working at the hospital's prison ward when Johnny and Ray Biddle, brothers who were both shot in the leg while attempting a robbery, are brought in for treatment. Johnny's symptoms, such as disorientation and dilated pupils, worry Luther. The bigoted Ray bombards Luther with racist slurs as he tries to treat them.

Concerned that Johnny has a brain tumor, Luther administers a spinal tap, but Johnny dies during the procedure. Ray, who believes that Johnny was only suffering from a gunshot to the leg, accuses Luther of killing him and promises revenge. Luther consults with Wharton, who believes Luther followed the right course of treatment but concedes the diagnosis may have been incorrect.

To determine whether his treatment was correct, Luther requests an autopsy of Johnny, but Ray refuses to consent; he does not want his brother's body "cut up". The head of the hospital also denies the autopsy request, because he fears that a scandal involving their only black doctor could endanger funding.

Luther and Wharton visit Johnny's widow, Edie Johnson, seeking her help in getting an autopsy. Edie grew up with the Biddles in the city's poor, white Beaver Canal district, where racism is prevalent; she refuses to help them. However, the conflicted Edie later visits Ray in the prison ward to ask why he won't approve the autopsy. Ray tells her that Johnny would still be alive if he'd had a white doctor, and that Wharton and Luther only want the autopsy so they can cover up the truth about Johnny's death. Ray convinces Edie that the doctors are attempting to play her for a "chump," and that she should tell Beaver Canal club owner Rocky Miller about the circumstances surrounding Johnny's death. Accompanied by Ray's deaf-mute other brother George, Edie does this, and Rocky and his pals plan to attack the black section of town.

Luther, speaking with a black elevator operator, learns that the black community has heard about the pending attack and is planning to strike first. When Luther tries to dissuade him, the operator reminds him of past assaults on the black community, and asks "Ain't it asking a lot for us to be better than them when we get killed just trying to prove we're as good?" The race riot occurs, and Luther tends to its victims until a white woman orders him to take his "black hands" off her son and spits in his face. Stunned, Luther walks out.

Despondent at what her actions have caused, Edie visits Wharton's home where, after initial racist misgivings, she befriends his black maid, Gladys. Wharton, Gladys, and Edie learn that Luther has turned himself in for the murder of Johnny Biddle. Wharton realizes that Luther has done this to force the coroner to conduct an autopsy on Biddle.

The autopsy confirms that Johnny died of a brain tumor and that Luther's course of treatment was correct. Ray only grows angrier at this, convinced of a conspiracy to bury the truth. After overhearing Wharton say that he is leaving town for vacation, Ray and George overpower the police guard and escape, with Ray reinjuring his wounded leg. Ray and George force Edie to call Luther and lure him to Wharton's empty house. Drunk and in great pain, Ray raves that he is going to kill Luther and leaves. Edie manages to escape from George and calls the police to help Luther.

At Wharton's house, Ray holds a gun on Luther as he beats him and shouts slurs. Edie arrives and sees that Ray's physical pain and obsessive hatred have pushed him beyond reason. Edie turns out the lights as Ray shoots. Luther is wounded in the shoulder but grabs Ray's gun after he collapses in pain. Luther asserts that he cannot let Ray die simply because of his racism, and convinces Edie to help him save Ray's life. As sirens wail in the distance, Luther tells the hysterical Ray, "Don't cry, white boy, you're gonna live."

In this story, King's character is an employee for a crooked, perverted and immoral mayor, Mayor McKenzie. One night, King's character happens to walk in on his boss molesting his daughter, Lucy. King doesn't keep quiet about this, but the mayor testifies that King is insane and has him locked up in Black Hill Sanitarium. After years of being there, King sees his chance to escape and takes it, strangling the nurse that arrives at his cell to administer his medication and stealing her keys. Now mentally destroyed, King runs off to the local graveyard to hide from the police. King plots his revenge against Mayor McKenzie, and begins killing people who pass through the graveyard at night. King is obsessed with an urban legend that if you die in a graveyard and lose your head, your soul does not escape, and it lives forever in your head. With that thought in the back of his mind, he kidnaps Lucy McKenzie, the mayor's daughter, and calls the mayor out to the graveyard for the two of them to play a game. Eventually, Mayor McKenzie does arrive after King calls him by phone. Before he arrives, King buries Lucy - still conscious - in one of seven empty graves, the tombstones of which read "LUCY FOREVER".

King eventually reveals himself to the Mayor and offers him a game. Mayor must dig out his little daughter from one of seven graves while wearing a blindfold. There are seven mounds, and he'll have three guesses or else he'll kill both of them. The Mayor gets the third guess right, but King knocks him out, dragging him to his tomb and tying him down.

While the Mayor slowly regains consciousness, King digs up Lucy and takes her out of the coffin while he starts to torture the Mayor. To King's surprise, Lucy ends up pulling down on a cord that sends a sheet of broken glass from a broken chapel window down on King, decapitating him. The urban legend King was obsessed with turns out to be true, as his living head beckons Lucy not to leave him as she walks away with her father. To his relief, Lucy takes King's head and puts it in her backpack, so King can be with her forever.

''Abigail'' tells the story of a young couple, Miriam Natias and Jonathan La'Fey, who move into an old mansion that La'Fey inherited. It takes place in the summer of 1845. Upon their arrival they are warned by seven horsemen not to move into the house because if they do "18 will become 9." They do not heed the warning and proceed to move into the mansion. During their first night, Jonathan meets with Count de La'Fey, the Family Ghost, who is a deceased relative. The ghost shows him a casket in which a corpse of a stillborn child, Abigail, rests. The ghost informs him that Miriam is carrying the spirit of Abigail and that the child will soon be reborn. He insists that Jonathan must kill Miriam at once to prevent the rebirth.

The narration then relates the story of what happened to the Count and his wife: on 7 July 1777, the Count had discovered his wife had been unfaithful to him, and was pregnant with an illegitimate child. Enraged, he threw the Countess down the stairs, breaking her neck and causing the child to be stillborn. The Count had the body of the Countess cremated, and the stillborn fetus he named Abigail and had mummified and laid to rest in a sarcophagus, the Count having an inexplicable urge to preserve Abigail for the future.

The narration then returns to the summer of 1845, during which Jonathan and Miriam are beset by a range of omens; the church bell rings despite nobody being inside to ring it, flowers die, unwholesome stenches fill the house and in the dining room the table is discovered set for 3. In one incident an empty cradle is discovered by Jonathan swaying in the air, with both him and Miriam insisting that they didn't bring it with them. The next day, Miriam is clearly pregnant and the fetus develops quickly; Jonathan realises that the family ghost was speaking the truth.

The fatal crisis begins when Jonathan accuses Abigail of possessing Miriam, and Abigail (through Miriam) admits it. Jonathan is terrified and considers getting a priest to exorcise Miriam – Miriam, however, exercising a moment of control, urges him to cast her down the stairs to kill her just as the Count had slain the Countess and Abigail's original incarnation. Therefore, Jonathan pretends to give in to Abigail's demands, and suggests to Abigail (once she regains control of Miriam) that she should come down to the family crypt so she can be reborn where she died. However, as the couple stands at the top of the stairs, Jonathan is distracted and the possessed Miriam pushes Jonathan down the stairs.

Miriam gives birth to Abigail, but dies shortly afterwards, her last sight being of Abigail's "yellow eyes"; supposedly her ghost can be heard screaming on the stairs in July ever after. The seven horsemen arrive at the mansion and discover the baby Abigail in the sarcophagus, eating something too horrifying for the narrator to mention (though the fact that it is found in the sarcophagus suggests that Abigail is eating her own previous body). Appalled, they take her away to bury her in a hidden chapel in the forest with seven silver spikes driven through her body (a burial heard as the intro to the album), in the hope that this will prevent a further resurrection.

His two prior concept albums had been told from the perspective of the protagonists; this one is told from the view of a narrator. The themes of Christian atrocity with the persecution of alleged witches and sexual abuse against nuns are present.

The story starts off with an unnamed character finding a necklace called "The Eye", that allows him/her to see the events the necklace was witness for in the past. They see an accused witch named Jeanne Dibasson being tortured and burned at the stake. Next they see two little girls finding the necklace in the ashes at a stake, and what they see when they look in the eye kills them. Finally there is the story of Madeleine Bavent, a nun working in the Louviers convent, who finds the necklace and decides to put it on. After being raped by Father David, she uses the necklace to kill him by making him look into it. Shortly after, the new Chaplain, Father Picard, arrives and starts bringing everyone to communion. He winds up lacing their communion wine with some substance that lets him control their minds, and uses a group of nuns including Madeleine to ritually torture and kill children. In 1642 all are arrested and imprisoned.

The main parts of the stories told on this album are true, and took place during the French Inquisition, 1450–1670. All of the following characters are real and from that period of time:

• Nicolas de la Reynie (spelled "Nicholas de La Reymie" in the lyrics): Head investigator of the Christian Burning Court (Chambre Ardente), in Paris, France.
• Jeanne Dibasson: Supposed witch.
• Madeleine Bavent: 18-year-old French nun who entered the convent at Louviers in 1625, after having been seduced by a priest. Died in 1647 in prison.
• Father Pierre David: Chaplain of the convent at Louviers till his death in 1628.
• Father Mathurin Picard: Chaplain of the convent at Louviers from 1628 to his death in 1642. [See also Louviers possessions.]

Following a relationship breakup, David Kappel (Nick Mancuso), a twentysomething school teacher, visits what turns out to be a training camp for a religious cult. At the camp, everything is done in groups, including chanting and singing. There is also a low-calorie, low-protein diet; sleep deprivation; and constant positive reinforcement.

All of the elements of the camp begin to have an effect on David mentally. He graduates and is put to work as a volunteer laborer for the cult. In an especially powerful scene, he vomits up a hamburger and milkshake which he had just eaten in violation of cult dietary guidelines.

David sets out to work, led by cult leader Patrick (Robert Joy). David is shocked when Patrick lies to a customer, but Patrick explains that they are only "using Satan's methods to do God's work", and that it is okay because "it's only Satan's money we're taking."

David's best friend Larry (Saul Rubinek) and his parents, Morley (Paul Soles) and Esther (Marcia Diamond), are concerned about him. Larry visits the cult's camp and almost falls under their influence as well. He escapes with the help of Eric (Guy Boyd), a fellow camp prospect who befriends him. The latter reveals he has been visiting various cult camps, trying to find his sister. Once free, Larry returns home.

David's parents, Larry, Eric, and some other friends forcibly kidnap David, bringing him to a private home in the area and enlisting the aid of a cult deprogrammer, Linc Strunk (R.H. Thomson), to help him regain his normal mindset. After some struggle, David slowly comes to recognize the cult's dishonesty and mistreatment. He is confused and when he asks about "true love", he is told that he only needs to look around him: at Larry, his brother Danny, Sarah, his parents, and everything they've done for him, and still are enduring for him. Crying, he embraces them all. Everyone reunites and embraces outside the deprogramming house, while several cult members watch from a distance.

Deliveryman "Mad" Max Grabelski (Daniel Stern) is charged with delivering packages to millionaire Reinhart Bragdon (Anthony Heald) for $50 tips. During a late night delivery, Max accidentally stumbles across a fire in Bragdon's mansion and is cornered by FBI Agent Palmer (Jon Polito), but accidentally picks up Agent Palmer's gun and manages to escape. Max later sees a news report in which Palmer claims that Bragdon was killed in the fire, which was set up by Max to stop him from exposing a money-laundering conspiracy. Now on the run from the law, Max contacts his boss and learns that a final package is to be delivered to Bragdon, but at his mountain cabin in Devil's Peak.

Max heads for Devil's Peak to clear his name, but a store clerk and scoutmaster Jack Erickson (Brad Sullivan) recognize his face and he is forced to threaten both with his gun, gluing Erickson to his car's steering wheel and ordering him to drive off to lure the police away while stealing Erickson's van. He is subsequently mistaken for a scoutmaster scheduled to lead a group of boy scouts on an expedition. Max goes along with the ruse to keep heading for Devil's Peak. The FBI find and release Erickson, and set up a base of operations at a nearby cabin while Palmer and Erickson pursue Max and the scouts. Though they are nearly captured, Max cuts the bridge between two cliffs, forcing Palmer and Erickson to take the longer route.

Along the way, the scouts build a makeshift radio and learn who Max truly is. They lace his water with sleeping pills and use smoke signs to signal their location to Erickson. Max ends up sedated, but Palmer handcuffs Erickson to a tree and captures Max alone, promising the scouts a rescue helicopter, but the suspicious scouts follow in secret. Max awakens and Palmer leads him to a helicopter, where Max discovers Bragdon is alive and is revealed that he is a criminal and that Palmer is one of his henchman and their plan was to steal the laundered money from the authorities and Bragdon faking his death after coming under suspicion in order to frame Max. Before they can kill Max, the scouts intervene and knock Palmer out, but Max falls into the river and the scouts follow. They reach safety and throw their backpacks in the river to drive Palmer and Bragdon off. Out of supplies, the scouts decide to remain with Max and help him reach Devil's Peak. Meanwhile, one of the scouts' mothers, Mrs. Patterson (Ann Dowd) uncovers Max's discarded tissue and realizes that he is leading them to Devil's Peak, and gives chase in her van when Palmer's bumbling assistant, Agent McMurrey (Thomas Mills Wood), refuses to help her. She arrives first, but is captured by Bragdon.

Max and the scouts arrive as Bragdon receives the final package. Palmer catches up and prepares to kill them, but is subdued by Erickson, who freed himself and followed Max. Max sneaks into the cabin to free Mrs. Patterson. Bragdon appears and forces them to the edge of the cliff at gunpoint. Mrs. Patterson's son, Gordy (Blake Bashoff), charges Bragdon but falls over a cliff and hangs onto a branch for his life. Max knocks Bragdon out and climbs down the cliff and pulls Gordy to safety.

With Bragdon and Palmer captured, Max's name is cleared and in response to his efforts, he is awarded a Ranger Scout Leader honor and given charge of an even bigger group of scouts for a more challenging mission, to his chagrin.

Three U.S. astronauts—commander Jim Pruett (Richard Crenna), "Buzz" Lloyd (Gene Hackman), and Clayton "Stoney" Stone (James Franciscus)—are the first crew of an experimental space station on an extended duration mission. Approximately five months into a planned seven-month mission, Lloyd begins exhibiting erratic and substandard performance, and NASA management elects to end the mission early. While oriented for retrofire, the main engine on the Apollo spacecraft ''Ironman One'' fails. Mission Control determines that ''Ironman'' does not have enough fuel remaining to use the reaction control system as a backup to initiate atmospheric entry. Nor is there sufficient fuel to re-dock with the station and wait for rescue. The crew is effectively marooned in orbit.

NASA debates whether a rescue flight can reach the crew before their oxygen runs out in approximately two days. There are no backup launch vehicles or rescue systems available at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and NASA Director of Manned Spaceflight Charles Keith (Peck) opposes using an experimental U.S. Air Force lifting body, the X-RV, that would be launched on an Air Force Titan IIIC booster rocket; neither the spacecraft nor the booster is man-rated, and there is insufficient time to put a new crewed NASA mission together. Even though a Titan IIIC is already on the way to nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for an already-scheduled Air Force launch, many hundreds of hours of preparation, assembly, and testing would be necessary.

Ted Dougherty (David Janssen), NASA's Chief Astronaut, opposes Keith and demands that something be done, claiming most time-consuming preparation items can be dismissed. The President agrees with Dougherty and tells Keith that failing to try a rescue mission will kill public support for the crewed space program. The President tells Keith that money is no factor; "whatever you need, you've got it". Despite his initial opposition, Keith accepts the decision and works furiously on the rescue mission. Dougherty appoints himself as pilot.

While the astronauts' wives (Lee Grant, Mariette Hartley and Nancy Kovack) agonize over the fates of their husbands, all normal checklist procedures are bypassed to prepare the X-RV for launch. The wives are brought to the control room and allowed to speak to their husbands; however, this exacerbates Lloyd's already-agitated condition. As launch time approaches, a hurricane headed for the launch area threatens to cancel the mission. In the final minute before launch, high winds cause a scrub of the mission. Keith admits the rescue attempt now cannot be made. However, a weather technician informs Keith the eye of the storm will pass over the Cape 90 minutes later during a subsequent launch window, permitting a launch with Dougherty aboard in time to reach the ship while at least some of the crew may survive.

The eye of the hurricane does pass over the Cape as predicted, and the launch is made just as storm winds begin to rise. However, insufficient oxygen remains for all three astronauts to survive until Dougherty arrives. There is possibly enough for two, presenting a previously unthinkable decision. Pruett and his crew then debate what to do. Stone tries to reason that they can somehow survive by taking sleeping pills or otherwise reducing oxygen consumption; Pruett responds this is unlikely to conserve enough oxygen to be successful. An agitated Lloyd offers to leave since he is "using up most of the oxygen anyway", but Pruett overrules him. He orders everyone into their spacesuits then leaves the ship, ostensibly to attempt repairs, although this option has been repeatedly dismissed as futile and wasteful of oxygen.

After Pruett goes out of the hatch, Lloyd realizes what he is really planning and attempts to follow, even though he is bound to the ship by his umbilicals. Stone restrains Lloyd, and they both watch Pruett from the hatch. There is a hiss of air as a large gash is torn in Pruett's space suit on a metal protrusion. Helpless to stop the leak and quickly losing consciousness, Pruett drifts away from the ship as Lloyd and Stone look on. With Pruett gone, Stone takes command and sedates Lloyd to near unconsciousness.

The Voskhod spacecraft suddenly appears and its cosmonaut tries to make contact. He can do nothing but deliver oxygen, since the Soviet ship is too small to carry additional passengers and lacks equipment to dock with the Apollo. Stone and Lloyd, suffering oxygen deprivation and lapsing into semiconsciousness, cannot understand the cosmonaut's gestures or obey Keith's instructions from Houston. Lloyd drifts out of the hatch and away from the ship.

Dougherty arrives in the X-RV and begins a spacewalk to retrieve the astronauts. The Soviet cosmonaut shines a light on Lloyd, drifting slowly away from the Apollo; Dougherty retrieves him using a maneuvering pack. The cosmonaut moves into the Apollo and slaps an ill-fitting oxygen tank onto Stone's suit fittings. As Dougherty returns with Lloyd in tow, Stone begins to regain consciousness with the renewed oxygen flow. Dougherty transfers the two surviving and still dazed ''Ironman'' astronauts into the rescue ship, where they exchange "thumbs up" gestures. Dougherty reports the crew transfer to Houston, where the NASA crew erupts in applause.

After separating, both the Soviet ship and the X-RV execute retrofire to return to Earth, and the final scene fades out with a view of the abandoned ''Ironman One'' adrift in orbit.

At an expensive English boarding school for boys, Roddy Berwick is school captain and star rugby player. He and his best friend Tim Wakeley start seeing a waitress, Mabel, who tells the headmaster that she is pregnant and that Roddy is the father. However, Tim is the father, and he cannot afford to be expelled because he needs to win a scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. Promising Tim that he will never reveal the truth, Roddy accepts expulsion.

Returning to his parents’ home, Roddy finds that his father Sir Thomas Berwick believes him guilty of the false accusation. Roddy leaves home and finds work as an actor at a theatre, then marries lead actress Julia Fotheringale after inheriting £30,000 from a relation. Julia secretly continues an affair with her leading man Archie and discards Roddy after his inheritance is exhausted. He becomes a taxi dancer (implying that he is also a gigolo) in a Paris dance hall but soon quits, disgusted that he has been romancing older women for money.

Roddy ends up alone and delirious in a shabby room in Marseilles. Some sailors take pity on him and ship him back home, possibly hoping for a reward. Roddy's father has learned the truth about the waitress's false accusation during his son's absence and joyfully welcomes him back. Roddy resumes his previous life.

Tom pursues Jerry through a cellar, but the mouse successfully dives into his mousehole. Tom peers into the hole, and Jerry launches a tomato from a mousetrap into his face. Jerry then climbs up the wall and grabs a handful of eggs from a carton marked "Hen-Grenades". As Tom wipes the tomato off his face, he is promptly covered in egg, with one hit to the eye leaving the effect of him wearing a monocle. Jerry shoots off the corks from a champagne case, knocking Tom into a tub of water with only a pot to keep him afloat. The mouse promptly launches a brick from a spatula, sinking both the pot and Tom. Leading to the 1st war communiqué message, it reads "Sighted cat – sank same. Signed, Lt. Jerry Mouse."

Later, Tom approaches Jerry's mousehole with a cheese and a mallet in his hand, while Jerry uses a pipe as a makeshift periscope to observe; spotting this trap, Jerry instead opens the ironing board cupboard, sending the board crashing onto Tom's head. Jerry charges down the board on a jeep made from a cheese grater attached to a roller skate, tearing Tom's fur as he speeds past twice, after which the jeep crashes into a wall, sending a sack of flour tumbling down. Adapting quickly to the situation, Jerry grabs the sack and spreads a makeshift flour smokescreen, which blocks Tom's vision but not Jerry's. He smacks the nearly blind Tom in the rear with a board three times, but eventually Tom falls to the ground facing the mouse; Jerry slaps Tom a fourth time before the cat can do anything and then runs for it.

Tom, now wearing a bowl as an improvised helmet, throws a stick of dynamite towards Jerry, who immediately throws it back to Tom; this continues until Jerry performs reverse psychology by taking it from Tom, provoking the cat to steal it back and this new cycle to continue until Jerry leaves Tom to witlessly hold the stick, which explodes. Jerry jumps into a tea kettle to escape the cat's wrath, but Tom sees him and throws another firecracker into the kettle; Jerry panics, but the oxygen has run out and the mouse escapes through the spout with no explosion. The puzzled cat opens the kettle's lid and sticks his entire head in just as the firecracker goes off, making him like a sunflower (the sunflower gag was removed on Cartoon Network in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to the short’s blackface reference).

Continuing his attempts to defeat the mouse, Tom launches a Paper plane with a firecracker hidden on top, but Jerry blows it back beneath Tom, who barely spots the firecracker before it goes off and is again black in the face. Jerry then plants an enormous stick of dynamite behind Tom; the cat sees it and screams in terror until the cracker splits into successively smaller sticks, ending with a minuscule replica of the original firecracker. Tom laughs, believing this to be harmless, but the dynamite explodes powerfully.

Jerry then goes through a hole in a barrel and jumps into a makeshift plane fashioned from an egg carton (launched from a slingshot made from a rubber band). He drops a succession of light bulbs, one of which hits Tom's head, and a banana bomb, which hits Tom's face. Tom grabs a Roman candle and skillfully shoots down Jerry's now weaponless plane, piece by piece. Jerry uses a brassiere to parachute from the plane, but is again shot down by Tom. Jerry races into his mousehole to escape, but Tom pushes another Roman candle into the hole and fires off six shots.

The fireballs pursue Jerry through the mouse hole through the barrel going back and forth until he eventually he leads them into a hose, which he shoots like a machine gun into a barrel where Tom is hiding. The barrel explodes, leaving Tom riding the remaining parts of the barrel like a bicycle, which then crashes into the wall. Recovering, Tom fires a dart gun at Jerry, which hits him on the tail as he again attempts to dive into his mousehole.

Tom grabs Jerry and ties him to an ignited rocket. Jerry pretends to help himself be tied up, but tricks Tom into strapping his own hands to the rocket. Jerry emerges from the ropes, and Tom does not realize what has happened until Jerry waves at him. Tom fails to blow out the fuse, and the rocket shoots high into the sky and explodes. The explosion forms the Stars and Stripes. Jerry proudly salutes the flag, and a final war communiqué is displayed, which reads "SEND MORE CATS!" signed by Jerry.

Adam Malone is a supermarket manager in Los Angeles who is obsessed with blonde movie star Sharon Fields. While watching her on a television in a bar one night he meets three other men who are also enamored of her. They get to talking, and soon are planning her abduction. Believing the sex stories put out by her manager, they think that if they kidnap her she will understand their lust and have sex with them. They get a van and disguise it as an exterminator's, scout out her neighborhood and track her daily routine, find an isolated location to take her to, and plan vacations from their individual work.

A sudden crisis takes place when they discover that she will be leaving for Europe, forcing them to move their plans ahead of schedule. They confront her while she is taking a daily walk, and ask for directions. When she stops to help, she is grabbed and chloroformed. After being driven unconscious to their hideout, Sharon awakes and finds out what they want. She explains that the publicity is untrue, but one of the men won't take no for an answer and rapes her. Two of the others follow, with Adam not taking part. A series of nightly gang-rapes occur, and Sharon decides to con them by faking she enjoys them in order to survive and possibly escape.

Deciding that they should not let the situation go to waste, they demand a ransom from the movie studio. Sharon writes a letter as proof they have her, but cleverly uses the first letters in each word to give the police a clue to her whereabouts. The ransom drop ends up with the three rapists killed, and Sharon saved. Because Adam saved her life from the rapist character Shiveley at the climax of the story, she omits his part in her abduction.

Adam is soon back as his job, obsessed with a new younger actress, and planning on forming a new fan club.

In this short, Sindbad the Sailor (who is intended to be an alternate version of Popeye's old nemesis Bluto) lives on an island where he keeps loads of creatures that he had captured during his adventures (lions, tigers, giants, dragons, vultures, snakes, and apes). Where he proclaims himself, in song, to be the greatest sailor, adventurer, and lover in the world and "the most remarkable, extraordinary fellow," a claim that is inadvertently challenged by Popeye as he innocently sings his usual song while sailing by within earshot of Sindbad's island with his girlfriend Olive Oyl and his friend J. Wellington Wimpy on board.

Sindbad orders his huge roc to kidnap Popeye's girlfriend, Olive Oyl, and wreck Popeye's ship, forcing him and Wimpy to swim to shore. Sindbad relishes making Olive his trophy wife, which is interrupted by Popeye's arrival. Sindbad then challenges the one-eyed sailor to a series of obstacles to prove his greatness, including fighting the roc, a two-headed giant named Boola (an apparent parody reference to The Three Stooges), and Sindbad himself. Popeye makes short work of the bird and the giant, but Sindbad almost gets the best of him until Popeye produces his can of spinach, which gives him the power to soundly defeat Sindbad and proclaim himself "the most remarkable, extraordinary fella."

A subtly dark running gag features the hamburger-loving Wimpy chasing after a duck on the island with a meat grinder, with the intention of grinding it up so that he can fry it into his favorite dish, but the duck not only escapes, but also snatches away Wimpy's last burger in retaliation when he gives up. Many of the scenes in this short feature make use of the Fleischer's "Steroptical Process", or "Setback Tabletop" process, which used modeled sets to create 3D backgrounds for the cartoon.

During an inspection by Superintendent Chalmers, Principal Skinner lures Bart, Jimbo, Kearney, Dolph and Nelson into a utility basement with the promise of free mountain bikes and locks the door. Bart escapes through a ventilation shaft and takes Groundskeeper Willie's tractor for a joyride, accidentally crashing into Superintendent Chalmers who receives medical treatment from the cafeteria lady. Chalmers is so furious, Skinner is passed over for a promotion and promptly expels Bart from the school. After Bart is quickly expelled from a new private Christian school, Marge decides to homeschool Bart.

Meanwhile, Kent Brockman announces that Springfield's annual "Whacking Day" is approaching. Each year on May 10, the people of Springfield drive snakes to the center of town and beat them to death. The tradition appalls Lisa, who finds no support from any of the adults of the town. Barry White arrives to begin the festivities, but is disgusted and quickly leaves when he discovers what the holiday is about.

After Marge takes Bart on a field trip to Olde Springfield Towne, Bart discovers that the origins of Whacking Day, which supposedly involved Jebediah Springfield, is a lie because it conflicts with a major Revolutionary War battle in which he took part, and suggests to Lisa that they lure the snakes to safety by playing music with a lot of bass and putting the stereo speakers to the ground. White, who just happens to have been walking by, agrees to help by singing "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" (with different lyrics to fit the situation), attracting hundreds of snakes into the house.

The pursuing crowd arrives, but they are soon turned around on the subject of Whacking Day by Bart's newfound knowledge. It turns out that the day was actually invented in 1924 as an excuse to beat up the Irish. Lisa also tells the town about the positive influences that the snakes have had on the town folks, such as killing rodents. The town agrees to give up the tradition and Skinner is impressed with Bart's efforts and welcomes him back to the school and reunite with the rest of the students and upon beginning to say the names of his former acquaintances (Nelson, Jimbo Dolph, and Kearney), but then realizes in horror that he completely forgot all about them. Because, they're still in the basement and spending the time there talking about their feelings and giving each other hugs. Skinner and Willie race to the school with the mountain bikes to avoid a potential lawsuit. When Willie asks Skinner what they will do if they boys have died after being forgotten for days, Skinner assures him that the two of them will ride the bikes into Mexico. However, Willie mutters to himself that he plans on turning Skinner over at the Mexican border.

Kratos is a warrior who serves the Greek gods of Olympus. Flashbacks reveal that he was once a successful but bloodthirsty captain in the Spartan army and led his men to several victories before being defeated by a barbarian king. Facing death, Kratos called on the God of War, Ares, whom he promised to serve if the god would spare his men and provide the power to destroy their enemies. Ares agreed and bonded the Blades of Chaos, a pair of chained blades forged in the depths of Tartarus, to his new servant. Kratos, equipped with the blades, then decapitated the barbarian king.

Kratos waged war at the behest of Ares, eventually leading an attack on a village occupied by worshipers of Athena. Unknown to Kratos, Ares had secretly transported Kratos' wife and daughter to the village; during his frenzied attack on its temple, Kratos accidentally killed them while he was under a spell cast upon him by Ares. Although Ares believed this act would free Kratos to become the perfect warrior, the horrified and saddened Spartan instead renounced his pledge of servitude to the god, and swore vengeance against him. The oracle of the destroyed village cursed Kratos by bonding the ashes of his dead family to his skin, turning it ash-white and earning him the nickname, "Ghost of Sparta". Plagued by nightmares of his horrible deed, Kratos vowed to serve the other gods in hope of ridding himself of the visions.

When the game starts, Kratos has been serving the gods for ten years. He kills the Hydra on behalf of Poseidon, but he has grown tired of his service and suffering. He summons Athena, who states that if Kratos performs one final act—the murder of Ares—he will be forgiven for killing his family. Ares is waging war on the city of Athens out of hatred of his sister Athena, who assigns Kratos to destroy Ares because Zeus has forbidden divine intervention. Athena guides Kratos to the war-torn Athens. After a strange encounter with a gravedigger who encourages him to continue his task, Kratos battles his way to Athens's oracle, finds her, and learns that the only way to defeat Ares is with Pandora's Box, a mythical artifact that grants the power to kill a god.

Kratos enters the Desert of Lost Souls, and Athena tells him Pandora's Box is hidden in a temple chained to the back of the Titan Cronos—a punishment by Zeus for Cronos' role in the Great War. Kratos summons Cronos, climbs for three days before reaching the Temple entrance, overcomes an array of deadly traps and an army of monsters, and eventually finds the Box. But Ares, aware of his former servant's success, kills Kratos as he is leaving the Temple by hurling a large pillar into him. While harpies take the Box to Ares, Kratos falls into the Underworld. He battles his way through the fiery realm, and with help from the mysterious gravedigger, who tells him Athena is not the only god watching over him, he escapes and returns to Athens.

Kratos recovers Pandora's Box from Ares, opens it, and uses its power to become godlike and engages Ares in a fierce battle. Despite Ares' best efforts to destroy Kratos physically and mentally, including stripping him of all weapons and magic before forcing him to relive his family’s death, Kratos survives and kills Ares with the Blade of the Gods, a giant sword that was being used as an ornamental bridge to Athens. Athens is saved, and Athena tells Kratos that although his sins are forgiven, the gods cannot erase his nightmares. Forsaken by the gods, he tries to commit suicide by casting himself into the Aegean Sea, but Athena intervenes and transports him to Mount Olympus. As a reward for his services to the gods, Athena provides Kratos with a new set of blades and the seat as the new God of War.

While on guard at a Coast Guard post, Popeye, Olive Oyl and J. Wellington Wimpy hear of Abu Hassan's attack on a town in Arabia and fly there in their flying boat to capture him, but they crash as they are flying over a desert in Arabia. After trekking through the desert, the group happens upon the town where the Forty Thieves are routinely attacking. The Thieves arrive in town soon afterwards, and their leader Abu Hassan (who closely resembles Popeye's old nemesis Bluto) gets frustrated after failing to win a battle of one-ups-manship with him (during which, demonstrating a magic trick, Popeye relieves Hassan of his long underwear, remarking "Abu hasn't got 'em any more!"). Hassan finally leaves Popeye hanging from a chandelier, then orders his Thieves to swipe everything they can from the town before fleeing, including Olive and Wimpy. Popeye eventually manages to break free and takes a camel to Abu's secret cave, where, unable to remember the magic word of "open sesame!", he breaks in using his pipe as a blowtorch.

Inside the cave, Popeye sneaks past the guards and attempts to free Olive and Wimpy. He confronts Abu Hassan and demands that he gives the Forty Thieves' stolen jewels back to the people. However, he is apprehended and thrown into a shark pit. Just before being eaten by a shark, Popeye tangles the shark's teeth together, and the shark goes back down into the water. Popeye eats his spinach and escapes the shark pit to fight Abu Hassan and all forty of the Thieves. He finally defeats the Forty Thieves by constantly punching them (counting every single one as he does so), before throwing and locking Hassan in a treasure chest. The Thieves and Hassan are chained and made to drag a cart filled with the stolen loot, Popeye, Olive, and Wimpy, back to town, where the townspeople, jubilant at their liberation from Hassan's reign of terror, await them with open arms. As Popeye puts it, "I may be a shorty, but I licked the Forty! I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!"

This short features Olive as a screenwriter for Surprise Pictures, working on a treatment of the story of ''Aladdin'' that will feature herself as the beautiful princess and Popeye as Aladdin, all the while speaking in rhyme. As she types, her adaptation of ''Aladdin'' comes to life on the screen, with Popeye having to use his wits against an evil vizier who seeks to control a magic lamp inhabited by a powerful genie. After completing the script, Olive gets a termination of employment notice from the front office, which reads "Your story of Aladdin is being thrown out...and so are you! [signed] Surprise."

As in many ''Popeye'' cartoons, many of the gags are conveyed using dialogue. As Princess Olive awaits Popeye/Aladdin's declaration of his love, he turns to the camera and remarks "I don't know what to say...I've never made love in Technicolor before!" During the climactic battle between Aladdin and the vizier, Olive screams out "Help! Popeye—I mean Aladdin—save me!!"

Franklin Maurice Hatchett is a fast-talking but foul-mouthed, small-time car wash hustler and ticket scalper who owes money to a local mobster named Carmine. The police are informed of his crimes by an investigating news reporter named James Russell after Franklin unintentionally thwarts James' attempts to have him confess his crimes on camera, and he is arrested. When placed on a prison transport unit, he is handcuffed to a French criminal named Raymond Villard. The transport unit is attacked on a bridge with mercenaries killing all the police officers and prisoners except for Franklin and Villard; the mercenaries are Villard's men. Because he is handcuffed to Franklin he decides to bring him along, and they escape on a helicopter with another French criminal named Dubray. While on the helicopter, Franklin overhears the two discussing the location of a cache of stolen diamonds. Franklin then jumps out of the helicopter after realizing that Villard and Dubray plan to kill him. Franklin is recognized by police officers but is able to elude them, and he decides to call Russell after seeing his face in an advertisement.

James has just been fired from his job at Channel 12 News after arguing with his boss Barclay, but he convinces Franklin to hide with him because the next week is Sweeps Week. He arranges to get his job back with an exclusive interview with Franklin. Together they attend James' wedding rehearsal dinner, where Franklin meets James' fiancé Grace and ingratiates himself to Grace's father Guy by pretending to be Vic Damone's son. In the meantime, two police detectives question Franklin's girlfriend Paula and wiretapping her phone. After calling Paula, Franklin tries to leave but realizes that the police are searching for him, and he convinces James to help him. The two rampages all over the city to find clues to clear Franklin's name, including calling a bomb threat on a European nightclub, getting shot at by the police when they visit Paula, and being chased by Villard and Dubray, who murder a shopkeeper in the process, which eventually gets James' name involved and spread all over the news. The two visit Franklin's childhood friend Aaron, a local arms dealer, who gives them guns and promises to help if they get into trouble. The following morning, Franklin convinces Guy to take him to the auto expo where the Europeans stashed the diamonds (in a Jaguar XK140). Franklin and Guy get into a bidding war with Villard and Dubray over the car with the diamonds inside, which ends with Dubray chaotically chasing Franklin across the city while Villard kidnaps James.

Villard then calls Franklin using James' phone and demands the return of his diamonds. Realizing that he has no chance on his own, Franklin calls the police detectives, Carmine, the French mercenaries, and Aaron, telling them all to meet him at the ''Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum''. It is revealed that Detective Bobby Pickett is a dirty cop working for Villard. A massive shootout ensues in which both police detectives and Carmine and his crew are all wiped out. Aaron shows up with a henchman, an assault rifle, and an RPG, and proceeds to wipe out most of Villard's men, including Dubray. In the meantime, James manages to escape from Villard's men, after placing several unpinned grenades beneath his helicopter, ready to detonate if he tries to take off. He then reunites with Franklin, saving him from being shot by Villard. However, when cornered once again, Franklin realizes that the diamonds are not worth dying for, and throws them at Villard's remaining men, who drop their weapons and begin grabbing as many as they can. The police arrive in the meantime. Villard tries to escape in the helicopter and the grenades detonate, killing him. In the end, both Franklin and James are cleared and branded as heroes. Franklin saves an unknown amount of the diamonds and puts one on a wedding ring that he gives to James, who marries Grace with Franklin as his best man. Before the credits roll, James (alongside Grace), Guy (alongside Connie), and Franklin (alongside Paula) walk down the stairs presumably heading out on a date.

The US Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine is attacked by a mysterious underwater object that stalks and disables the ''Seawolf''-class super-sub with a powerful electromagnetic pulse. The underwater Arctic research complex Hubris witnesses the attack and reports a rapid rise in the temperature of the Polaris Trench which threatens to melt the ice cap and flood the world's land surface. At an emergency United Nations scientific conference, Hubris director Dr. Ann Fletcher is dismissed when she urges caution and her archrival Dr. Chomsky pushes through a far more aggressive plan to deal with the crisis. When Chomsky's plan fails and contact with the Hubris complex is lost, Dr. Fletcher is asked to participate in a follow-up expedition, which also includes Chomsky, by her ex-husband, Navy Captain Andy Raines. Once at the North Pole, the expedition finds that the Hubris complex is completely intact, but its personnel have been incinerated.

The plot provides the setup for a string of sight gags, puns, jokes based on Asian stereotypes, and general farce. The central plot involves the misadventures of secret agent Phil Moskowitz, hired by the Grand Exalted High Macha of Rashpur ("a nonexistent but real-sounding country") to recover a secret egg salad recipe that was stolen from him. The recipe, in the possession of gangster Shepherd Wong, is also being sought by rival gangster Wing Fat, and Moskowitz, assisted by two female Rashpur agents, temporarily teams up with Wing Fat to steal the recipe from Wong.

The movie has an ending credits scene unrelated to the plot, in which China Lee, a ''Playboy'' Playmate and wife of Allen's comic idol Mort Sahl who does not appear elsewhere in the film, does a striptease while Allen (who is also on-screen) explains that he promised he would put her in the film somewhere.

In 1937 Tanganyika territory, Africa, eight-year-old Jill Young is living with her father on his ranch. While in her yard, two Africans come by with an orphaned baby gorilla; Jill so wants a pet that she trades her toys and money for him, vowing to always care for the gorilla.

Twelve years later, Max O'Hara and sidekick Gregg are on a trip to Africa looking for animals to headline in O'Hara's new Hollywood nightclub. The two men have captured several lions and are about to leave when gorilla Joe Young appears, now tall and weighing . When a caged lion bites Joe's fingers, he goes on a rampage. Visualizing Joe as their big nightclub attraction, Max and Gregg try to rope him, but he throws both men from their horses and breaks free of their ropes. A grown Jill Young arrives, calming Joe down. She is furious with both men and storms off with Joe.

Both later meet with Jill, and Gregg becomes hopelessly smitten with her. Having now calmed down, Jill hears out Max's nightclub proposal, as Gregg also tries to dissuade her. Max tells her that she and Joe will be a huge Hollywood hit and will be rich within weeks. Needing the proffered income, she agrees to take Joe to Hollywood.

On the crowded opening night, on stage Joe lifts a large platform above his head, holding Jill playing Beautiful Dreamer on a grand piano. Following that, Joe has a tug of war with "the 10 strongest men in the world", which he easily wins. Famous Italian heavyweight boxer Primo Carnera tries to box with him, but Joe playfully tosses him into the audience; laughter follows.

Joe's popularity grows, and by the 10th week he is Hollywood's biggest nightclub attraction. Joe and Jill, however, are beginning to miss Africa; Jill tells Max and Gregg that she is having second thoughts. Gregg tries to convince Max to let them go, but thinking only about more profit, he is able to talk her into staying.

By the 17th week, Joe is miserable; he has grown tired of performing and is homesick. To make matters worse, his next act is a humiliating performance playing an organ grinder with Jill, acting as a little girl, turning the handle. When a thrown bottle strikes Joe, his rage surfaces, roaring at the crowd, while Jill shouts for the audience to stop. Later, during dinner, Gregg and Jill express their feelings for one another, with Gregg agreeing to return with her to Africa.

In his cage, an unhappy Joe tries to ignore three drunks who have sneaked backstage; they offer Joe an open whiskey bottle, and he becomes intoxicated after two more open bottles are consumed. Taunting him, the drunks burn Joe's fingers with a cigarette lighter. Roaring with pain and rage, he breaks out, smashing through a nearby wall and wrecking the nightclub's interior. He also smashes the glass of the lion habitat, allowing the lions to escape into the crowded nightclub, where Joe beats down several of them. Jill and Gregg return and find the nightclub in chaos. Jill manages to get Joe back to his cage, while arriving police shoot the remaining lions.

A court decree orders Joe be shot, and Jill's pleas to save his life are denied. Gregg, O'Hara, and Jill devise a plan to get Joe out of California using a moving van, then a cargo ship. When Joe's executioners arrive, they find his cage empty and themselves locked inside the nightclub. As the van is leaving, Joe is spotted by an itinerant worker, who is later questioned by police. On the way to the ship, police spot the moving van and give chase, but Joe has been cleverly transferred to a covered truck; the moving van, driven by Max, is just a decoy. The police eventually stop the van and arrest Max.

Driven by Gregg and carrying Joe and Jill, the truck gets stuck in heavy mud. With Jill's encouragement, Joe pushes the truck free, and the police then get stuck in the same mud as the truck drives away while Joe taunts the police. Before reaching port, they witness a tall orphanage engulfed in flames.

Jill and Gregg help the caretakers save the children. They escort most of the children, but the flames spread quickly, and a last group, along with Jill and Gregg, are trapped on the top story. At Jill's urging, Joe braves the raging fire by climbing an adjacent tall tree, carrying Jill to safety, while Gregg lowers each child by rope to the ground. One child is left behind, so Joe climbs up again, grabbing the frightened and crying little girl, then he and Gregg climb down. A wall of the burning orphanage collapses as they near the ground, nearly killing Joe as he shields the little girl from the falling wall. Max assures Jill that, because of Joe's heroism, his life will now be spared.

Much later, Max receives home movies from his friends. Jill and Gregg are now married and living on their ranch with Joe, who has made it safely back to Africa. Joe waves "goodbye," along with Jill and Gregg, to Max.

In the 1980s, an evil alien race known simply as the '''Invaders''' are about to take over the Earth, using assorted daikaiju (giant monsters) and other fiendish plots. Assigned to investigate this threat is an organization called the '''Science Guard Members (SGM)'''. But another hope comes from someone, unbeknownst even to himself, possessing otherworldly power. '''Professor Mitarai''', the leader of SGM, finally shares a secret with his foster son, a young photojournalist named '''Kyôtarô Kagami''' ("kagami" = Japanese for "mirror"), a secret only he himself knows: Kyôtarô is a half-caste of an alien father and a human mother (both of whom are missing — captives of the Invaders). Kyôtarô discovers that he is actually the son of '''Mirrorman''', a superhero from the 2nd Dimension.

However, the original Mirrorman was defeated by the Invaders' toughest monster King Zyger (explained in Episode 14), but his son Kyôtarô survived, and shares the same powers as his namesake. Naturally, the young man had difficulty accepting his destiny, but he soon realizes that he is the only one who can save the Earth from the Invaders, when they try to assassinate him. In order to transform into Mirrorman, Kyôtarô must stand in front of any reflective surface (mirrors, water, etc.), and flash his Mirror-Pendant, and utter the words "Mirror Spark".

In ''Brian Bloodaxe'', our Viking hero wakes from an ice block in which he has been trapped for hundreds of years. Upon discovering that the year is now 1983 he decides to do what he originally set out to achieve - the conquering of Britain. Working his way through more than 100 screens of platform mayhem, Brian's ultimate goal is to steal the Crown Jewels and seat himself upon the British throne.

The Ninth Doctor takes Rose five billion years into her future. They land on Platform One, a space station in orbit around Earth. They have arrived in time for a party celebrating the final destruction of the long-abandoned Earth by the expansion of the Sun. The Doctor uses his psychic paper to pass as their invitation to the party, and he and Rose find many elite alien beings there. The guests include Lady Cassandra, billed as "the last human", though she remains only a face on a large piece of skin that must be continually moisturised, with her brain in a vat below. Also present is the Face of Boe.

Meanwhile, the gifts brought by the Adherents of the Repeated Meme contain robotic spiders that immediately work at disabling functions on Platform One. The Steward of Platform One recognises something is wrong, but is killed when the spiders lower the solar filter of his room and expose him to the powerful solar radiation. Rose attempts to learn more from Cassandra but is disgusted by her lack of humanity and insults her. Afterwards, Rose is approached by the Adherents and the leader knocks her unconscious. Rose is dragged into the observation room and locked inside with the sun filter programmed to descend. The Doctor and the sentient tree Jabe discover the Steward's burnt room and they are alerted to the observation room's filter; Rose wakes up as the sun filter descends, and the Doctor manages to jam the filter, but cannot get her out.

The Doctor determines that the Adherents are responsible for the sabotage. However, they are robots commanded by Lady Cassandra. Cassandra admits to being the saboteur: her original plan was to create a hostage situation (with herself as one of the "victims") and profit from the compensation she would have gotten, but now intends to profit from the other guests' deaths, expecting her stock holdings in their competitors' companies to increase in value after they die. Cassandra teleports off the station as the spiders bring down the shielding on the entire station. The Doctor and Jabe travel to the bowels of Platform One to restore the automated shields, but it requires one of them to travel through several spinning fans. Jabe sacrifices herself to hold down a switch to slow down the fan blades. This allows the Doctor to reactivate the system just before the expanding Sun hits the station and destroys Earth.

The Doctor reverses Cassandra's teleport and brings her back onto the station. In the elevated temperature and without moisture, Cassandra's body rapidly desiccates and ruptures. Rose, now free of the observation room, looks at the debris of the Earth and laments that she is effectively the last human being. The Doctor explains that he is the last of the Time Lords, and that his planet was destroyed in the wake of a great war. He then takes Rose back to London to show her that humanity will still live on in her era, which Rose accepts.

Following the death of his wife, Irena Dubrovna, engineer Oliver Reed has remarried to his former co-worker, Alice. The couple now have a six-year-old daughter, Amy, and reside in Tarrytown, New York. Oliver worries about Amy's extreme introversion and predilection to fantasy, as the behavior reminds him of Irena, whose madness drove her to death. At the urging of her parents, Amy attempts to make friends with the neighborhood children, who spurn her. While walking through the neighborhood, Amy pauses in front a large house, which the other children claim is inhabited by a witch. An elderly woman's voice beckons Amy from a second-floor window, and she follows. From the window, the woman drops a handkerchief and a ring to the ground. Amy takes it, though the hankie is promptly snatched from her by Barbara Farren, the elderly woman's dejected daughter.

The Reeds' butler, Edward, tells Amy the ring appears to be a "wishing ring" and suggests she make a wish to it. In the garden, Amy wishes simply for a friend. Moments later, a wind encircles her, and she begins frolicking with what Oliver and Edward observe as an imaginary friend. The next day, Amy goes back to the house to return the ring. She is met inside by Barbara's eccentric elderly mother, a former stage actress named Julia. Julia tells Amy that her real daughter is in dead, and that Barbara is a spy posing as her. Amy looks on as Julia dramatically reenacts the legend of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, but the story is cut short when Edward comes to retrieve Amy. After Amy leaves, Barbara chastises Julia for the way she treats her, but Julia continues to insist that Barbara is an imposter, and that her daughter died when she was six years old.

That night, Amy has a nightmare about the Headless Horseman. She is calmed, however, by the maternal presence of her friend - manifesting as a shadow - which sings a song to her. In the morning, Amy finds a photograph of Irena, whom she identifies as her mysterious new friend. Alice quickly hides the photograph. Amy wanders outside, where she is met by Irena's ghost. The two play together in the garden.

On Christmas Eve, Amy quietly slips outside during a family gathering to give Irena a gift in the garden. She subsequently visits the Farren house on Christmas Day, and gifts Julia a ring, which delights her. This enrages Barbara, whose gifts have been rejected by Julia; Barbara vows to murder Amy should she ever return to the house. A short time later, Amy finds a photograph of Oliver and Irena together, and insists that she knows her. Oliver dismisses this as one of Amy's fantasies, and punishes her. As Amy sobs in her bedroom, she is visited by Irena, who tells her that she must depart, explaining that she is interfering with Amy's relationship with her father. Amy begs Irena to stay, but she disappears. Amy wanders outside, searching for Irena. Shortly after, Oliver and Alice realize Amy has left the house.

Outside, Amy becomes caught in a blizzard as she wanders through country backroads. She eventually seeks shelter at the Farren's home. Julia takes her in, but attempts to hide her upstairs, fearing Barbara will harm Amy out of jealousy. A panicked Julia suffers a heart attack while climbing the stairs, and dies. Barbara appears, and menacingly approaches Amy. Frightened, Amy invokes Irena, who replaces Barbara's image—as she does so, she and Barbara embrace. This disarms Barbara, who returns the child's embrace. Moments later, Oliver and police arrive at the house. Oliver embraces Amy, and the two return home. On the porch, Oliver agrees to accept his daughter's imaginary companions. Irena, watching them from the garden, disappears as they enter the house.

Takato Matsuki, a fan of the ''Digimon'' card game, finds a Blue Card, which transforms his card reader into a D-Power Digivice. His original Digimon creation, Guilmon, materializes into real life when his D-Power scans his drawings. Takato meets Henry Wong and Rika Nonaka, two other children who are partnered with Terriermon and Renamon, as well as Calumon and Impmon. As wild Digimon began roaming Shinjuku, the Tamers defeat them and defend the city. Using their D-Powers, the Tamers can Digi-modify through scanning cards or help them Digivolve. After each Digimon is defeated, their Digimon obtains their data. Meanwhile, Hypnos, an intelligence agency led by Mitsuo Yamaki, has been capturing the Digimon and sending them back to the Digital World.

The Tamers eventually began working with Hypnos when the Devas invade the Real World. Calumon is captured by the Devas, and the Tamers follow him to the Digital World to save him. When Impmon turns on and attacks the Tamers and murders Leomon, Jeri Kato falls into depression. After resolving conflicts with the Digimon Sovereigns, the Tamers learn that the Digimon are protecting themselves from humans and the Real World after the Digital World is invaded by the D-Reaper, a rogue clean-up program. As the Tamers return to the Real World, the D-Reaper kidnaps Jeri, manipulating and trapping her inside the body. When the D-Reaper begins to materialize in the Real World, the Tamers defeat it, using the program and saving Jeri. With both worlds restored, the children are forced to say goodbye to their Digimon partners, when they end up returning to the Digital World by the effects of the program. The series ends with Takato discovering the portal in the tunnel under his hiding place.

Set prior to the Civil War but after the South has seceded from the U.S., the film centres on the efforts to build a railroad across Kansas toward the West Coast. Southern sympathizers attempt to sabotage the railroad construction efforts so U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Captain John Nelson, played by Sterling Hayden, is brought in to keep the project going. Captain Nelson must not only contend with the efforts of the saboteurs but also try to romance the railroad foreman's daughter, Barbara Bruce, who is played by Eve Miller. Miller plays the only female character within the entire movie. This film also features Clayton Moore, best known for his role in films and on television as The Lone Ranger. Andrew V. McLaglen is credited as assistant director in the opening credits of this movie.

In the opening scene, Jasper Jeake, Quincy Flowers, Edmund Carteret and a fourth person are playing whist and discussing the coming succession of Queen Anne, at the Diabola Club (apparently a similar institution to the Hellfire Club). They argue and Carteret storms off, claiming a desire for adventure and excitement. Carteret is then approached by the sinister Sir Nicholas Valentine (introduced as a scholar, landowner and astrologer), and they agree to play cards. Carteret is later heard leaving alone furtively and acting "very queer". The following morning Valentine is heard to remark that he had good luck at cards the previous evening and inviting a down-at-heel school teacher to play with him the following evening.

Meanwhile, in the Tardis, the Doctor tries to teach Turlough the rules of cricket with the aid of a 1928 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, and attempts to work out their time location from clues from the house they find themselves in. They are confronted by the home's owner, Dr Samuel Holywell, whom they deduce to be an antiquarian; they explain their presence on the pretext that they were delivering him the Tardis to form part of his collection. While the Doctor distracts Holywell, Turlough notices that some of his books are connected with necromancy. It then becomes apparent that the protagonists are being observed by an advanced intelligence, not from their current era. That evening, while the Doctor and Turlough are being entertained by Holywell, Jeake and Flower are robbed by Major Billy Lovemore (a highwayman) and lose their winnings from the previous night. Later Ned Cotton (a drunken watchman) encounters Holywell's maid, Hannah Fry, outside Holywell's house and assaults her. Hearing her cries, Turlough comes to her rescue. Inside the house, Holywell informs the doctor that he has practical proof of the existence of ghosts and is in regular contact with them. Before Turlough can fight save Hannah from Cotton, they are distracted by a man running towards them as if chased invisible pursuers; he drops dead with a playing card in his hand. The Doctor puts the card into his Almanack. Holywell blames himself, believing the death to be a result of his contact with the ghosts.

In an aside, to the background of screams of torment, Valentine is heard to comment that only a little time remains until his work is complete. Following the altercation between Turlough and Cotton, Turlough has gone missing and the Doctor attempts to locate him. He notes that the dead man has numerous coins and promissory notes in his pockets and Holywell informs him that there have been a number of disappearances like Turlough's recently. Holywell claims that he has been able to contact the spirits of these missing persons through his experiments. Turlough, it becomes apparent, has fallen and injured his head but has been rescued by Flowers and Jeake. Holywell tells the doctor that twenty-four people have gone missing within a mile of the Diabola Club. Meanwhile, Lovemore murders Cotton, citing vengeance as the reason. In the Diabola Club, Poltrot is playing cards with Valentine and notes that Valentine never removes his gloves. This is dismissed by Valentine as a gambler's superstition. Flowers confronts Valentine about Carteret's disappearance. Valentine claims that Carteret left after a few hands, and invites Flowers to play with him and Poltrot. Later Jeake and Turlough see Flowers leaving the club, looking pale and avoiding them.

Holywell, the Doctor and Hannah hold a seance in an attempt to locate the missing persons. They hear sounds that remind them of the death outside Holywell's house, and represent a series of numbers. Meanwhile, Turlough and Jeake decide to follow Flowers. They catch up with him and he asks for help, claiming that he is pursued by devils and a thousand voices. The voices are calling out numbers which the Doctor recognises as radio signals; he believes the Tardis can locate the source. Meanwhile, Valentine is heard telling Carteret that he will be used for "restoration". In the Tardis the Doctor discovers that the source of the radio signal has been blocked. The Doctor instructs Holywell and Fry to look into the disappearances to find a pattern. Holywell discovers that a spate of young men in their prime disappearing in the area has happened every thirty years and finally connects this with the Diabola Club. It becomes apparent that outside observers are looking for someone and have noticed the presence of the Doctor in addition to their quarry. The Doctor and Holywell arrive at the club (leaving Fry behind) to find Valentine playing cards with Pultrot, who is quickly dismissed; the Doctor takes over playing with Valentine. The Doctor wins with an Ace of Hearts and Valentine tells him to keep the card. The Doctor decides to retire, leaving Turlough and Jeake in the Diabola. They follow Valentine after he leaves the club. Meanwhile, Lovemore is heard talking to the alien presence, stating that he believes Valentine is the person they are looking for and he will now cast off his fake identities and confront Valentine. It is revealed that both Lovemore and Fry are his fake identities.

The Doctor discovers that the playing card he was given by Valentine is a tracking device, calling the 'spirits' to him, and realises that he must destroy it; this causes the 'spirits' to depart. Valentine is heard to comment that if he could have the Doctor's mind it would complete his work. The Doctor realises that Valentine is stealing his victims' consciousnesses; each card is tailored to its victim's touch, which is why Valentine wears gloves when playing cards. These trapped consciousnesses are the spirits or ghosts which are summoned to the card once it has been activated. The Doctor discovers a way to reprogram the card he took from the dead man to claim a new victim when he or she touches it, and conceals it in his Almanack. Hannah returns and reveals herself to be the same person as Lovemore and an alien, but justifies her criminal life as a response to the gender stereotypes of the era. She goes on to disclose that Valentine is in fact Carthok of Deodalis, a deranged tyrant who escaped execution; she has been hunting him in revenge for the death of her family at his hands. Meanwhile, Jeake and Turlough arrive at Valentines laboratory and are detained and disarmed by Valentine; in their cell they find Carteret, who appears to be bordering on insanity. The Doctor and Holywell confront Valentine, who admits his true identity the murder of Fry/Lovemore's parents, and explains that he needs the consciousness of his victims to power his bio-mechanical ship to escape from the earth where he has been trapped. He has been healing his ship every thirty years by feeding it people's minds. Fry/Lovemore tries to force Valentine to return to Deodalis to face his execution but she is disabled by Valentine's defence systems. Valentine then decides to use her brain (rather than the Doctor's) to complete his repairs, and she is placed in a machine. The Doctor pleads for her life in exchange for what he claims is an item of great power but is in fact his Almanack (which he refers to as "the Wisdens"). He pretends to try to escape with the Almanack, and when Valentine/Carthok opens the book he touches the concealed card-trap and the consciousness/spirits he uses to capture his victims turn on him and kill him, led by Fry/Lovemore who also dies in the struggle.

Mary Carroll inherits her family's ancestral home, located on a small island off Cuba, and, despite warnings and death threats, decides to sail to Havana and take possession of the reputedly haunted castle. She is joined by nightclub entertainer Larry Todd who, believing he has killed a mobster, flees New York with a friend, Myron. Once on the island the three enter the eerie castle and, after viewing the ghost of one of Mary's ancestors and fighting off a menacing zombie, find the key to the castle's treasure.

The millionaire playboy caveman Millstone Rockafella has organized a BC bike race, the winner of which will receive the Ultimate Boulderdash Bike. Six groups of riders -one driving, one deploying weapons from the sidecar- from all around the prehistoric world will use their rock-powered sidecars to compete for this prize.

Morgan Sullivan (Northam), a recently unemployed accountant, is bored with his suburban life. Pressured by his wife to take a job with her father's company, he instead pursues a position in corporate espionage. Digicorp's Head of Security, Finster (Bennett), inducts Morgan and assigns him a new identity. As Jack Thursby, he is sent to conventions to secretly record presentations and transmit them to headquarters. Sullivan is soon haunted by recurring nightmares and neck pain. When he meets Rita Foster (Liu) from a competing corporation, his life starts to become complicated.

Rita gives him pills to cure his pain and nightmares and tells him not to transmit at the next convention. After the convention, Digicorp confirms the receipt of his transmission, though Morgan had sent nothing. Sure that something strange is going on, Morgan takes the pills Rita gave him and finds that they work. Confused by what is going on, and intrigued by Rita, he arranges to meet with her again. At the meeting, she tells him about Digicorp's deception and offers him an antidote – a green liquid in a large syringe. Morgan hesitantly accepts. She warns him that no matter what happens at the next convention he must not react.

Morgan discovers that all the convention attendees are spies as he is, all thinking themselves individual spies working for Digicorp. While they are drugged from the served drinks, plastic-clad scientists probe, inject and brainwash them. Individual headsets reinforce their new identities, preparing them to be used and then disposed of. Morgan manages to convince Digicorp that he believes his new identity. He is then recruited by Sunway Systems, a rival of Digicorp. Sunway's Head of Security, Callaway (Webber), encourages Morgan to act as a double agent, feeding corrupted data to Digicorp. Morgan calls Rita, who warns him that Sunway is equally ruthless, and that he is in fact being used by Rita's boss, Sebastian Rooks. Morgan manages to steal the required information from Sunway Systems' vault, escaping with Rita's help.

Rita ultimately takes him to meet Rooks. When she temporarily leaves the room, a nervous Morgan calls Finster, and becomes even more distressed. He accidentally shoots Rita, who encourages him to ignore her and meet Rooks in the room next door. Morgan finds the room filled with objects which appear to be personal to him, including a photograph of him and Rita together. Realising that he is apparently Rooks, he turns to Rita in disbelief.

Before Rita can convince him, the apartment is invaded by armed men. Rita and Morgan escape to the roof of the skyscraper as the security teams of Digicorp and Sunway meet, led by Finster and Callaway. After a short Mexican standoff both sides realise they are after the same person, Sebastian Rooks, and rush to the roof, where they find Morgan and Rita in a helicopter. Rita cannot fly it, but, having designed it himself, Sebastian can after Rita encourages him to remember his past self, connecting through his love for her. He lifts off amid gunfire from the security teams. Finster and Callaway comment as the couple seem to have escaped:

:Callaway: "Did you get a look at him? Did you see Rooks' face?" :Finster: "Just Morgan Sullivan, our pawn."

Looking up, they see the helicopter hovering and realise, too late, the true identity of Morgan Sullivan. Sebastian triggers a bomb, causing the whole roof to explode. On a boat in the South Pacific Ocean, Sebastian reveals the content of the stolen disc to Rita. Marked "terminate with extreme prejudice", it is the last copy of Rita's identity (after the one in the vault was destroyed). Sebastian throws the disc into the sea and says, "Now there's no copy at all."

Setting

''Metal Arms'' is set on the planet Iron Star, built by an ancient race, Morbots, out of scrap metal and space junk. The Morbots are rumored to still inhabit Iron Star's core, where none of the surface dwellers venture for fear of deactivation and destruction. As the life of the native Droids evolved, a scientist, Dr. Exavolt, experimented with Droid technology, attempting to evolve it beyond its current limits. Exavolt's experiments were successful, however he could not advance Droid scientists. One of his experiments inadvertently resulted in the tyrannical military mastermind known as General Corrosive. Corrosive began manufacturing a race of soldiers known as Milbots, or Mils, and enslaved the Droid race of Iron Star. Droids who rebelled against Corrosive were deactivated and recycled. Colonel Alloy, a former architect, established a hidden Droid settlement known as Droid Town, where he and the Droid Rebellion make their final stand against the Mils.

Story

Glitch is found deactivated in a ruined city by Droid rebels. He is reactivated in Droid Town, the last stronghold for the rebellion, where it is discovered that Glitch's memory has been erased. When he is brought up to date on the rebellion, Droid Town is attacked by Milbots. Glitch aids in the defense of the city and pursues a Mil, Vlax, that got away, so he could not report the location of Droid Town to General Corrosive. While almost everyone is safely in hiding, one of Glitch's friends, Zobby, was taken by Exavolt. Glitch finds Exavolt on a space shuttle ready to take off. Glitch attaches himself to the outside of the shuttle as it takes off. The shuttle docks with a space station in hiding behind a fake moon in orbit over Iron Star.

As Glitch searches for Zobby, he takes control of General Corrosive, and initiates the permanent shutdown of the Milbots. Seeing that the station is lost, Exavolt begins a self-destruct countdown in the station. Glitch and Zobby escape in an escape pod and land back on Iron Star. Once back on the surface, Glitch is challenged by General Corrosive, and Glitch defeats him. Glitch is received as a hero for destroying the Milbots, while Exavolt, watching from his shuttle in orbit, vows revenge.

Along a coastline in rural England, police Detective Barton arrives at a house marked for sale or rent. The door is unlocked and he wanders in. An unknown person with a candle is wandering about and a dead body is found. When confronted, the mysterious person claims innocence of the murder. Barton, who introduces himself as Forsythe, asks the stranger about the contents of his pockets before the shadow of a hand is shown reaching for a doorknob. The stranger, who later introduces himself as Ben, a homeless derelict, searches the dead body and finds handcuffs and a gun, which he takes.

The detective returns from investigating weird sounds and finds the handcuffs that the stranger had left on the ground. A woman called Miss Ackroyd is seen through shadows crawling on the roof. After falling through the roof, she is revived and cries out for her father. She explains that her father is on the roof and that they are next door in number 15.

The bell tolls half past midnight and the dead body has disappeared. Three people arrive at the windswept house: Brant, Nora (a deaf-mute woman) and a third person named Henry Doyle. Ben draws out the gun and accidentally shoots Barton in the arm. Brant draws out a gun and asks Doyle to search Barton, Ben and Miss Ackroyd. A telegram is revealed to Brant. A man named Sheldrake shows up and retrieves a diamond necklace, which he has hidden in the upper portion of a toilet. Ben causes a commotion and is locked away with Sheldrake in the toilet.

Sheldrake reaches out and appears to strangle Ben, who is only feigning unconsciousness. The supposed corpse turns out to be alive and pretends to be Sheldrake in order to fool the thieves (he is in fact Miss Ackroyds missing father, a police officer). Brant suggest binding Miss Ackroyd and Barton. Mr. Ackroyd manage to lock away the three thieves and frees Miss Ackroyd and Barton. He opens the door behind which Ben is locked away with Sheldrake, and he engages in a fistfight with Sheldrake.

Sheldrake wins the fistfight and frees Brant, Doyle and Nora. Miss Ackroyd and Branton are bound again. Nora reveals that she is able to speak and says "I'm coming back." She returns and frees Miss Ackroyd and Branton. Miss Ackroyd faints but recovers. Nora returns to the basement to allay the suspicions of the other thieves and to buy time for the rest to escape. They free Ben and Miss Ackroyd's father. The thieves arrive at the railyard and board a departing freight train bound for Germany.

The train departs with Ben aboard and he stumbles onto crates of wine to consume. The thieves, after dispatching the conductor, walk to the front of the train, shoot the fireman and catch the driver as he faints. Branton, who failed to board the train before it departed, commandeers a bus and chases after the train. Ben is revealed to have the necklace. Sheldrake discovers that he does not have the necklace and the thieves fight each other. Sheldrake claims that Doyle is in fact a detective posing as a thief. A chase scene occurs on the train as the thieves go after Doyle, who escapes and later handcuffs Nora. Barton’s bus races after the train. The thieves, realising that the train is accelerating, try to find the brakes. They turn dials helplessly and notice Barton’s bus.

Despite the thieves' efforts, the train only accelerates, leaving them unable to escape. At the dock, the ferry arrives. As Barton watches, the train hurtles through the dock, crashes into the train on the ferry at full speed and pushes it out to sea, dragging the remaining cars into the ocean. People are rescued from the water. Doyle tells Barton that he is Detective Barton, but ”Forsythe”, who is the real Barton, says to Doyle, "You can't be Barton because I am." All of the thieves except Nora are apprehended by the police. In the final shot, Ben reveals to Nora and Barton that he has the diamond necklace.

A couple, Fred (Henry Kendall) and Emily "Em" Hill (Joan Barry), living a mundane middle-class life in London, receive a letter informing them that an uncle will give them, as an advance against their future inheritance, as much money as they need to enjoy themselves in the present. Immediately Fred quits his job as a clerk and they book passage on an ocean liner bound from Marseille for "the Orient". Fred quickly shows his susceptibility to seasickness while crossing the English Channel. In Paris, both are scandalised by the Folies Bergère.

As they cross the Mediterranean, Fred's seasickness keeps him in bed. Left alone on board, Em begins spending time with and develops feelings for Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont), a dapper, popular bachelor. Finally feeling well enough to appear on deck, Fred is immediately smitten with a German "princess" (Betty Amann), who hits him in the eye with the rope ring used to play deck tennis (a combination of tennis and quoits which was at the time widely played shipboard). As the liner stops in Port Said and then Colombo, Fred and Em begin spending all their time on board with their new paramours, to the virtual exclusion of each other, and each ponders dissolving the marriage.

When the passengers disembark at Singapore, Em leaves with Gordon for his home in Kuala Lumpur. However, as they travel to the train station, Gordon reveals to Em that he has known all along that the princess is a sham, aiming to use Fred until his money is gone and then abandon him. Em realises she can't leave Fred to this fate, and leaves Gordon to warn her husband. Fred does not believe her at first, but soon discovers his lover has left without him for Rangoon, with £1000 of his money. He learns she was merely the daughter of a Berlin laundry owner. Fred and Em have only enough money left to book passage home to England on a tramp steamer.

However, Fred and Em's troubles have not ended, as the ship is abandoned after a collision in the fog. They are trapped in their cabin and prepare themselves for a watery end. In the morning, however, they awake to find the ship still afloat, and escape through a porthole. A Chinese junk arrives, and the crew proceed to loot the ship. Fred and Em rescue a cat from their sinking ship and board the junk. The Chinese crew feed Fred and Em, who are thrilled to eat again, until they discover the crew have cooked the cat and served it to them. Fred and Em finally return home to London during a rain storm, with their love strengthened and seemingly wiser for their experiences. In the last scene, they argue in a manner reminiscent of their bickering immediately prior to the arrival of the fateful letter.

In 1930, Diana Baring (Norah Baring), a young actress in a travelling theatre troupe, is found in a daze with blood on her clothes, sitting by the murdered body of another young actress, Edna Druce. The poker used to commit the murder was at Diana's feet, but she has no memory of what happened during the minutes the crime was committed. The two young women were thought to have been rivals, and the police arrest her. Diana withholds some important information deliberately, to protect something about the identity of a man that she will not name.

At her trial most of the jury are certain she is guilty. One or two feel that she may have a severe mental illness which meant that she really did have no memory of killing the other woman, but they are convinced that she should still be hanged lest she strike again. One juror, Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall), a celebrated actor-manager, seems sure she must be innocent, but is brow-beaten into voting "guilty" along with the rest of the jury. Diana is imprisoned, and awaiting hanging.

Sir John feels responsible, as he was the one who had recommended that Diana take the touring job in order for her to get more life experience. It also turns out that Diana has been a fan of his since childhood. She is beautiful, and seems far too honest and straightforward to be a criminal of any kind. Using skills he has learned in the theatre, Sir John investigates the murder with the help of the stage manager Ted Markham (Edward Chapman) and his wife Doucie (Phyllis Konstam). They narrow the possible suspects down to one male actor in the troupe, Handel Fane (Esme Percy), who often plays cross-dressing roles.

During a prison visit with Baring, Sir John learns Fane's secret: he is a half-caste, only passing as white, and Druce threatened to expose him. Later, Sir John cunningly tries to lure a confession out of Fane, by asking him to audition for a new play that Sir John has written, on the subject of the murder. Fane realizes that they know he committed the crime, and that they understand how and why he did it. Fane leaves the audition without confessing, and goes back to his old job; he is a solo trapeze performer in a circus. Sir John and the others go there to confront him again. During his performance, from his high perch he looks down and sees them waiting. Despairing, he knots his access rope into a noose, slips it over his head and jumps to his death. Afterwards, Sir John and Markham discover Fane had written a confession to the murder before his suicide.

We then see Diana, free, and gloriously dressed in white furs, entering a beautiful room and being welcomed warmly by Sir John, who receives her as if he loves her. The camera pulls back and we realise we are watching the last scene of a new play, possibly ''the'' new play, in which Diana stars opposite Sir John. They kiss as the curtain falls.

In New York City, Leroy Green (also known as "Bruce Leeroy") has dreams of becoming a great martial artist like his idol Bruce Lee. His master explains that he has reached the final level of martial arts accomplishment known as "The Last Dragon." Martial artists who reach this final level are said to be able to concentrate such mystical energy into their hands that they begin to glow. Only a true martial arts master would be able to exhibit "The Glow" over his entire body. Leroy doesn't fully understand and, in possession of a medal supposedly belonging to Bruce Lee, Leroy embarks upon a spiritual journey to find Master Sum Dum Goy, whom his master claims can help Leroy unlock the power of "The Glow."

Another martial artist, Sho'nuff (also known as "The Shogun of Harlem") sees Leroy as the only obstacle to being acknowledged as the true master of martial arts. When Leroy refuses to fight him, a furious Sho'nuff attempts to menace Leroy into accepting his challenge. Accompanied by his minions Crunch, Beast, and Cyclone, Sho'nuff barges into Leroy's martial arts school. The gang assaults Johnny Yu, one of Leroy's students, demanding that Leroy bow before Sho'nuff. Finally, Sho'nuff and company ransack the Green family's pizza restaurant.

Meanwhile, video arcade mogul Eddie Arkadian sends his men to kidnap local VJ Laura Charles, owner of the "7th Heaven" studio, where she films a TV series similar to ''Soul Train''. Eddie hopes to get several trashy music videos he has produced starring his girlfriend Angela Viracco featured on Laura's show. The kidnap attempt is thwarted by Leroy who easily fends off the thugs. He loses his medal during the struggle, which Laura recovers. Later, Leroy witnesses Laura being kidnapped by Arkadian's brutish henchman Rock. A clue left behind reveals that the kidnappers work for Eddie Arkadian Productions.

Laura refuses to promote Angela's video on her program, but as Arkadian's men prepare to coerce her, Leroy suddenly bursts into the room clothed as a Ninja and rescues Laura once again. Back at her apartment, Laura gratefully returns Leroy's medal. Consumed with vengeance, Arkadian hires Sho'nuff to defeat Leroy and takes control of the ''7th Heaven'' studio, capturing Laura and Leroy's younger brother, Richie, who has snuck in hoping to woo Laura.

Posing as a pizza delivery man, Leroy manages to infiltrate the assumed lair of Master Sum Dum Goy within a fortune cookie factory, but is shocked to discover that the "Master" is only a computer churning out cookie fortunes. Leroy consults his former master for answers, but his master suggests that Leroy has known the answers all along.

Not wanting anyone to get hurt in the process of achieving her stardom, Angela leaves Arkadian and asks Johnny to warn Leroy about his plan. As Leroy returns to ''7th Heaven'', he is ambushed by an army of violent thugs hired by Arkadian. Leroy's students, led by Johnny, charge into the studio to even the odds. Using Laura as bait, Eddie lures Leroy to a dilapidated building where he finally faces off against Sho'nuff. During the battle, Sho'nuff reveals his ability to use "The Glow," his hands pulsating with a red aura, and beats Leroy viciously before attempting to force him to acknowledge Sho'nuff as "The Master." As recent events flash before Leroy's eyes, he realizes that his former Master was correct and that everything he needed to achieve the "Final Level" was within him all along. His entire body bathed in the sublime golden light of "The Glow," Leroy uses his newfound power to defeat Sho'nuff.

Arkadian appears and fires a single bullet which Leroy catches between his teeth before detaining Arkadian for the police. Laura and Leroy are reunited at the studio where the two kiss.

A satire on life and culture in a Welsh seaside town, the story concerns a married librarian who begins an affair with the bored wife of a local bigwig. Amis, an English incomer to Swansea in real life, mocks Wales's devotion to culture and learning as false and pretentious. In The Old Devils, one of the central characters, the writer Alun Weaver, is portrayed as a "stage-Taffy"; Weaver is the memoirist of a fictional Welsh poet based loosely on Dylan Thomas.

In neutral Turkey in 1944, German ambassador Franz von Papen meets countess Anna Staviska, a Frenchwoman and the widow of a pro-German Polish count. Now destitute, the countess volunteers to become a spy for a fee, but her offer is declined.

Ulysses Diello approaches the German embassy attaché Moyzisch, offering to provide von Papen with top-secret British documents for a price of £20,000. The Germans do not know that Diello is the personal valet to British ambassador Sir Frederic Taylor as well as the former valet of the late count.

The photographed documents taken from Sir Frederic's safe prove to be genuine. Diello is given the code name Cicero and asked to continue his subterfuge. He gives his money to Anna for safekeeping and pays her a portion of it, provided that he is allowed to use her new villa as a meeting place for his transactions. When the valet also tells Anna of his dream of living in South America with her, she slaps his face but agrees to his conditions.

Moyzisch is summoned to Berlin by SS general Kaltenbrunner, suspicious of Cicero's true intent. Allied bombing of a Romanian oil refinery is executed, exactly as Cicero's photographed documents had outlined. Colonel von Richter is sent to Ankara to take command of the negotiations with Cicero, while the British send counterintelligence man Colin Travers to identify the spy.

Anna's newly found wealth and previous willingness to become a spy cause her to fall under suspicion by Travers, who also rigs the ambassador's safe with a burglar alarm. Von Richter requests a document detailing an Allied operation called Overlord, the D-Day invasion plan, and Cicero demands £40,000 for it.

Diello realizes that he could soon be killed by one side or captured by the other. He flees to South America, only to discover that Anna has stolen all of his money and departed to Switzerland. She sends a letter to Sir Frederic that identifies his valet as the spy being paid by the Germans. Diello removes the fuse for the safe's alarm, opens the safe, photographs the D-Day plans and intercepts the letter, but a cleaning woman replaces the fuse; when Diello returns the plans to the safe, he triggers the alarm and must flee.

Diello now knows for certain how Anna feels about him. Broke and on the run, Diello demands and receives a £100,000 payment from the Germans for the photographs of the D-Day plans. A second malicious letter from Anna to the Germans misinforms them that the valet is a British spy, causing them to disregard the D-Day information as unreliable.

Diello escapes alone to Rio, where he enjoys a new life of prosperity and freedom until Brazilian authorities arrest him because all of his money is counterfeit, created during Operation Bernhard. Realizing that Anna's money in Switzerland is also counterfeit offers him some consolation.

Rip Thomas is the World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion, and his appearances on network television have been a thorn in the side of Mr. Brell, the head of the struggling World Television Network. Rip is a huge ratings draw while WTN is the lowest rated television network. The day after Rip's most recent title match against Jake Bullet, Brell attempts to get Rip to become a part of his network but he refuses. Angry at being stood up by a man he considers a “jock ass”, Brell tries to exact revenge to no avail as Rip fights off his goons.

Later, Brell visits the No Count Bar, where he comes up with his own wrestling program called ''Battle of the Tough Guys''. The show is successful due to the introduction of Zeus, an ex-convict and former protege of Rip's trainer, Charlie. Zeus wins the $100,000 tournament and becomes Brell's prized fighter.

Samantha Moore, a corporate spy, is sent by Brell to seduce Rip. However, Rip's good nature and dedication to charity win her over, and she confesses her identity to the wrestler and turns to his side. Brell learns of Samantha's defection and, vowing revenge, sends his underlings to kidnap and rape her. Rip stops the would-be kidnapping, throwing one of the stooges into a tree trunk.

Later, Rip is at a charity event when Brell and Zeus arrive, demanding that Rip prove his honor by fighting Zeus on ''Battle of the Tough Guys.'' Rip, wanting to set a good example and knowing children are around, declines. Meanwhile, Rip's younger brother Randy and his friend, Craig, decide to check out Zeus for themselves, attending an illegal fight being held in a warehouse. After watching Zeus defeat the monstrous Rebar Lawless, Craig identifies Randy as Rip's brother to Brell and his associates. Randy attempts to defend himself but Zeus brutally beats him, sending him to the hospital. Enraged, Rip accepts Zeus' challenge to avenge his brother.

On the night of the match, Brell has Samantha kidnapped and orders Rip to go ten minutes through the fight then lose the fight to save her life. As the battle begins, Samantha escapes, but just as Brell's goons corner her, Charlie and Craig rescue her and defeat the bad guys. Back in the arena, Zeus has the upper hand at the start of the fight, ruthlessly pummeling Rip, even attempting to kill him by ripping out one of the steel posts and trying to impale him through the chest. Randy cheers to urge his brother to fight back. Rip is re-energized by Randy's words and once he sees Samantha is safe, gains a second wind and starts to turn the tides on Zeus. The fight destroys the ring, with Rip and Zeus continuing the battle up the through the stands as Brell watches from the control room.

Rip finally puts an end to the match by knocking Zeus off a catwalk and through the ring far below. A frustrated Brell begins destroying electrical equipment, enraged over Zeus' loss. Rip angrily goes after Brell intending to repay him for his misdeeds. Brell retreats, but accidentally comes in contact with live wires he has exposed in his tirade and is electrocuted. With their enemies vanquished, Rip and Randy celebrate victory with friends.

In the same tradition as ''The White Sun of the Desert'' and ''The Bodyguard'', ''The Seventh Bullet'' is set after the Russian Civil War which ended in the 1920s when Soviet power established itself in Central Asia in the wake of the Basmachi rebellion. Despite this slight shift in emphasis and a post-war setting, ''The Seventh Bullet'' is closer to a typical war film than other Red Westerns because of a prominence of tactical resourcefulness in the development of the plot. Although of course this is a staple of many American Westerns from John Ford's cavalry series to the many Apache war films.

Despite the restoration of Soviet power in the area, Basmachis continue to arrive from across the border, bringing death and destruction to peaceful villages. One of the bands of rebels is led by Khairulla who is pitted against the militsiya (local militia) leader Maxumov. At first it seems hopeless for Maxumov as the rebels capture most of his men, winning them over to his side. He has only one strategy left; to give himself up, and try to explain to the people that Khairulla has deceived them, turning the soldiers back to revolution. Later in pursuit of his enemy, he chases Khairulla across a river. He has only one bullet left—the seventh, and he must not miss his target.

In Wyoming in 1963, cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are hired by foreman Joe Aguirre to herd his sheep through the summer on grazing pastures on Brokeback Mountain. After a night of heavy drinking, Jack makes a pass at Ennis. While initially reluctant, Ennis becomes receptive, and he and Jack have sex in their tent. Despite Ennis telling Jack that it was a one-time incident, they develop a sexual and emotional relationship. Before parting ways, Ennis and Jack have a brawl that leaves both of them bloodied. Ennis later marries his longtime fiancée Alma Beers and has two daughters with her–Alma Jr. and Jenny. Jack returns the next summer seeking work, but Aguirre, who had observed Jack and Ennis on the mountain, refuses to hire him again. Jack moves to Texas, where he meets wealthy rodeo rider Lureen Newsome; they marry and have a son.

After four years apart, Jack visits Ennis. Upon meeting, the two passionately kiss, which a stunned Alma inadvertently witnesses. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life with Ennis on a ranch, but Ennis refuses, as he is unwilling to abandon his family and is haunted by a childhood memory of his father showing him the body of a man who was tortured and killed for suspected homosexuality. Ennis and Jack continue to infrequently meet for fishing trips while their respective marriages deteriorate. Lureen abandons the rodeo and goes into business with her father, which causes Jack to work in sales. Alma and Ennis divorce in 1975. Upon hearing about the divorce, Jack drives to Wyoming and tells Ennis that they should live together, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children. Upset, Jack finds solace with male prostitutes in Mexico.

Alma takes custody of Alma Jr. and Jenny and marries Monroe, her store manager. She eventually confronts Ennis when he visits about the true nature of his relationship with Jack; the two spar, causing Ennis to cease contact with Alma. Ennis has a short-lived romantic relationship with a waitress named Cassie. Jack and Lureen befriend another couple, Randall and Lashawn Malone, and it is implied that Jack and Randall have a brief affair. At the end of a fishing trip, Ennis tells Jack that he cannot see him again before November due to work demands. The pair argue, blaming each other for their not being together. Ennis begins to cry, and Jack embraces him.

Sometime later, Ennis receives a returned postcard that he had sent to Jack, stamped with "Deceased". He calls Lureen, who says that Jack died in an accident from drowning in his own blood after a car tire exploded in his face, though Ennis visualizes Jack's death as a violent murder. After Lureen tells him that Jack wanted to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis visits Jack's parents in hopes of carrying out the request. Jack's father refuses and contends that Jack's ashes will be interred in a family plot. Ennis goes to Jack's bedroom, where he finds the shirts the two wore during their brawl, his shirt inside Jack's, in the closet. Ennis holds the shirts to his face, inhales deeply, and silently weeps. Jack's mother allows him to keep the shirts.

Later, a 19-year-old Alma Jr. arrives at Ennis's trailer to tell him that she is engaged. She asks for his blessing and invites him to the wedding, and after some hesitation, he agrees to attend. Once Alma Jr. leaves, Ennis goes to the closet where the two shirts hang together, though now Ennis's shirt is outermost. Next to them, tacked to the closet door, is a postcard of Brokeback Mountain. With tears in his eyes, he stares at the mementos, and says, "Jack, I swear..."

Dwight McCarthy is on a mission from Gail to dig up information about a recent mob hit at a small diner. After being hit on by a female cop, (who he manages to get rid of by pretending to be a bisexual masochist), he goes into a bar near where the hit happened and tries to charm one of the local drinkers there named Peggy.

Dwight also spots Fat Man and Little Boy, which makes his job easier later on. As Dwight keeps charming Peggy, she realizes he's not interested in any company that night and only looking for information behind the recent hit. She reveals that Bruno, the target, was killed by Vito, one of Don Magliozzi's nephews and hitmen. Don Magliozzi ordered the hit on Bruno, who murdered his beloved niece years before. This went against his family's treaty with mob boss Wallenquist, who had Bruno on his payroll. With that information, Dwight leaves the bar, to be confronted by Vito and some other Magliozzi hitmen, alerted by Fat Man and Little Boy.

The thugs kidnap Dwight, but he is more interested in Vito's car, swearing that it will be his once he kills all of them. Uninterested, Vito brags about killing every living thing at the diner, including a stray dog. Dwight then tells Miho, who has been following them, to strike; she kills Spinelli. They park in a hilltop rest area, overlooking the Projects. There, Miho toys with one of the hitmen as Dwight tells Vito to kill the other hitman; Vito's own brother Luca. After Miho and Dwight are through, they head straight to Sacred Oaks to confront Don Magliozzi.

As Miho massacres the guards, Dwight tells the Don he is going to die along with Vito, and reveals why: the accidental death of Carmen, one of the Old Town girls. Dwight tells them Vito shouldn't have shot at the stray dog, since the angles were in a straight line to a nearby phone booth where Carmen was calling for a ride. Carmen was killed by the gunfire. Carmen's lover, Daisy, arrives as Dwight walks away from the Don and his associates, and guns them down. Dwight remarks that the massacre will result in a mob war, but that neither he nor the girls of Old Town will have cause to worry about it. Finally, he takes possession of Vito's car and drives off into the night.

Hoppity the Grasshopper, after a period spent away, returns to an American city (Manhattan, New York City). He finds that all is not as he left it, and his insect friends,who live in the "Lowlands" just outside of the garden of a cute bungalow belonging to down-on-his-luck songwriter Dick Dickens and his wife Mary, are now under threat from the "human ones", who are trampling through the broken-down fence, using it as a shortcut.

Insect houses are being flattened and burned by cast away cigar butts. Old Mr. Bumble and his beautiful daughter Honey (Hoppity's sweetheart) are in grave danger of losing their Honey Shop to this threat. To compound their problems, devious insect "property magnate" C. Bagley Beetle has romantic designs on Honey Bee himself, and, with the help of his henchmen Swat the Fly and Smack the Mosquito, hatches plans to make Honey marry him or eliminate Hoppity as a romantic rival.

Hoppity discovers that the songwriter and his wife are waiting for a "check thing" from the Famous Music publishing company for the songwriter's composition, "We're the Couple in the Castle." With this money they can repair the fence, saving the bug community. But C. Bagley Beetle and his henchmen intercept and hide the check, and the Dickens house is foreclosed. Days pass, and with nothing improved, nearly everyone in the lowlands loses faith in Hoppity's claim. Mr. Beetle discovers that a skyscraper will be built on the site, destroying both the Lowlands and his own property. He schemes to "gift" the other bugs his soon-to-be worthless property on the condition that Honey marry him. When he realizes that Hoppity was nearby and overheard him, he seals Hoppity inside the envelope with the Dickens' check, hiding it in a crack in a wall.

Construction begins while everyone is at the wedding of Beetle and Honey; a weight from a surveyor's level that rips through the chapel causes the terrified bugs to flee back to the Lowlands, not realizing that their own homes are endangered by the construction crew. Hoppity escapes when the construction crew demolishes the wall, freeing the envelope. Hoppity comes to Honey's rescue, battles Beetle and his henchmen, and wins.

Hoppity tells everyone what happened and manages to get the check to Mr. Dickens. "We're the Couple in the Castle" becomes a massive hit. Meanwhile, Hoppity leads an exodus from the Lowlands to the top of the skyscraper, where he believes the Dickens' have built a new home and invited the bugs to live there. They get to the top, which at first appears to be barren, but the young bugs discover the Dickens have built a new penthouse with a "Garden of Paradise" just as Hoppity had described. Honey and the rest of the Lowlanders live there happily ever after in their new home. And as Ambrose looks over the edge, he remarks, "Look at all the human ones down there. They look just like a lot of little bugs!"

Act I

''Juno and the Paycock'' takes place in the tenements of Dublin in 1922, just after the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, and revolves around the misfortunes of the dysfunctional Boyle family. The father, "Captain" Jack (so called because of his propensity for telling greatly exaggerated stories of his short career as a merchant seaman), is a loafer who claims to be unable to work because of pains in his legs, which mysteriously appear whenever someone mentions work. Despite his family's poverty, Jack spends all his time and money at the pub with Joxer Daly, his ne'er-do-well "butty," instead of looking for a job. The mother, Juno (so called because all of the important events in her life took place in June), is the only member of the family currently working, as daughter Mary is on strike and son Johnny is disabled, having lost his arm in the War of Independence. Mary feels guilty about dumping her boyfriend and fellow striker, Jerry Devine, who feels more strongly for her than she does for him. Meanwhile, Johnny agonises over his betrayal of his friend Robbie Tancred, a neighbour and former comrade in the IRA, who was subsequently murdered by Free State supporters; Johnny is terrified that the IRA will execute him as punishment for being an informant. Near the end of the act, one of Jack's relatives dies, and a schoolteacher, Charles Bentham, brings news that the Boyles have come into a large inheritance; Bentham notes aloud that the will names "John Boyle, [my] first cousin, of Dublin" as one of the beneficiaries. Overjoyed with the news, Jack vows to Juno to end his friendship with Joxer and change his ways.

Act II

A mere two days after receiving Mr Bentham's news, Jack has already begun flaunting his newfound wealth by purchasing a new suit, new furniture, a gramophone, and other luxuries on credit, in anticipation of receiving the inheritance. The Boyles throw a party and invite Bentham, who is courting Mary. Joxer is present, Jack having already forgotten his vow to break off contact with him, and Mrs Maisie Madigan, a neighbour to whom Jack owes money, shows up after having been invited in Act I. During the party, Robbie Tancred's funeral procession passes the tenement, but the Boyles and their guests halt their carousing only when Tancred's grieving mother stops at their door. Juno goes out to offer support to Mrs Tancred, who delivers a monologue mourning the loss of her son and praying for an end to the war, but Jack selfishly ignores her suffering.

Act III

Two months later, Bentham abruptly ceases all contact with the family and abandons Mary, who, it is revealed, is secretly carrying his child out of wedlock. While Jack is sleeping, Juno takes Mary to the doctor. Soon after they leave, Needle Nugent, the local tailor, storms into the flat and repossesses Jack's suit. Then Mrs Madigan arrives, demanding repayment of the loan she gave Jack; when he refuses to pay, she takes the gramophone as recompense. Joxer (who was present for both incidents, and did nothing to help) needles Jack about rumours that the inheritance is not forthcoming; this soon devolves into an argument during which Joxer openly mocks Jack's fortune as fraudulent. While Johnny upbraids his father for embarrassing the family, Juno returns alone and delivers the news of Mary's pregnancy. As Juno pleads with Jack to use the leftover money from the inheritance to move the family to a different city, he angrily reveals that they will receive nothing due to an error Bentham made while drafting the will (he failed to include the beneficiaries' names, referring to Jack only as "[my] first cousin"). As a result, numerous relations are claiming the inheritance, which is rapidly being eaten up by legal costs; to make matters worse, Bentham has apparently fled the country out of shame. Johnny berates his father for his shortsightedness and avarice. Unable to cope with the stress of the situation, Jack disowns Mary and retreats to the pub to drink with Joxer. Johnny persuades Juno to follow Jack and beg him to come home. Mary returns, and Johnny disowns her as well. Jerry Devine shows up to patch things up with Mary, but he too renounces her when he learns of her pregnancy. As the last of Jack's fancy new furniture is being repossessed, several IRA men arrive and drag Johnny away; Juno later hears from Mrs Madigan that a body resembling Johnny's has been found on a country road, riddled with bullets. Juno decides that Jack will never take on his responsibilities as a father and breadwinner, so she leaves to make a better life for herself and Mary. She sends Mary to live with a relative and, before going to the police station to identify Johnny's body, delivers a monologue that echoes Mrs Tancred's in Act II. Some time later, Jack stumbles home from the pub with Joxer, extremely drunk and unaware that his son is dead or that his wife and daughter have left him. After a brief conversation, Jack accidentally drops his last sixpence on the floor; he drunkenly mourns that "the whole world is in a terrible state o' chassis" before passing out.

While attending a conference in Moscow, the historian Christopher "Fluke" Kelso is met by an old man named Papu Rapava, who claims to have been present at the death of Joseph Stalin. Immediately after Stalin's death, Lavrenty Beria supposedly took measures to secure a black notebook, which is believed to be Stalin's secret diary. Rapava spent years in Kolyma after the authorities tried to extract the book's location from him, but he has never revealed it though he knows that shadowy agents are still watching him in case he goes near the mysterious thing.

Kelso eventually locates the notebook, which Rapava had left to his daughter just before he was recaptured and tortured to death. It proves to be the memoirs of a young girl chosen by Stalin to be the mother of his secret heir. Following the trail to the remote northern city of Arkhangelsk, Kelso comes face to face with Stalin's son.

Raised in a log cabin filled with Stalin's personal effects, writings and recorded speeches, the son is a physical and ideological copy of his father. It is revealed that he had murdered the husband-and-wife KGB agents who had raised him from infancy when he decided they were untrustworthy. Young Stalin has been told that he would be sent for when it was time for him to assume control of his country, and he believes that Kelso is the promised messenger.

Stalin overcomes a special forces unit sent to eliminate him, which alarms Kelso by his ruthless and dispassionate use of violence, and he boards a train headed for Moscow. At each station, ever-larger crowds gather to witness the apparent resurrection of the famous dictator, and it appears that he might be able simply to stride through the doors of the Kremlin and assume command.

As he steps off the train in Moscow, Rapava's daughter, who has made her way into the crowd at the railway station, takes out her father's pistol. The novel ends there.

The film charts the lives of the Kray twins from childhood to adult life. The plot focuses on the relationship between the twins and their doting mother (Whitelaw). Ronald (Gary Kemp) is the dominant one, influencing his brother Reginald (Martin Kemp) to perform several acts of violence as they rise to power as the leaders of a powerful organised gang in 1960s London.

Principal Skinner gathers Springfield Elementary School students at an assembly to announce which subjects they are failing. To her horror, straight-A student Lisa discovers she is failing gym class. When she appeals to her gym teacher, they reach a compromise: Lisa will get a passing grade if she joins a sports program outside of school. She attempts to join several but fails, which devastates her self-esteem.

Later, the family watches Bart play hockey for his team, the Mighty Pigs, coached by Chief Wiggum. After the game, Bart ridicules his sister for being poor at sports and uses his hockey stick to pelt her with litter. After watching Lisa deflect the litter and catch hockey pucks, Apu, the coach of the Kwik-E-Mart Gougers, thinks she would be a natural and makes her his team's goalie. Lisa excels as goalie and leads her team to its best season ever.

Encouraged by Homer playing favorites, a sibling rivalry develops between Bart and Lisa. It peaks when the town learns that the Gougers will face the Mighty Pigs at their next match. The game is viciously fought, with Bart and Lisa playing their best. With four seconds left, Bart is tripped by Jimbo, giving him a penalty shot against Lisa that will decide the game. As they face off, Bart and Lisa remember the good times they had together when they were younger. After they throw aside their equipment and hug, the match ends in a tie — much to Marge's pride and Homer's distress. Dissatisfied with the outcome, the residents of Springfield riot and trash the arena.

At first the player can choose between two storylines. Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto, but later the player can get one for Joey Wheeler as well. The Yugi storyline involves Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Téa and Bakura being invited to the testing of the virtual reality game "Kingdom," created by the company SIC. When they enter the game they soon find themselves trapped within it, and they must summon the help of the game's characters and monsters in order to defeat the game's villain, Emperor Haysheen and ultimately stop the plans of the game's designer, Scott Irvine, to control the three Egyptian God cards. Along the way, the players faces Joey, Tea and Yami Bakura.

Kaiba's storyline features Seto Kaiba and his brother Mokuba Kaiba, who are also trapped in the game. Initially they work for Emperor Haysheen, but Marthis, Kaiba's 'helper', hears Kaiba talking to Pegasus and suspects that Kaiba is a spy for the resistance. Marthis turns Kaiba in to the Emperor, who sentences him to a public execution. However, Kaiba escapes with Mokuba and Bonz. Marthis is waiting for him with a unit, and promises the man who brings Kaiba to him anything he wants. After defeating all enemies on the level, Pegasus arrives and asks Kaiba to lead the resistance, as he 'cannot return to the Empire' with a price on his head. Kaiba recruits further members for his resistance, including Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor.

A climactic plot event in both stories occurs when Mokuba is kidnapped, and Scott forces Kaiba to battle against Yugi. At the end of both storylines is a segment taking place within a secret room leading from the game's fantasy environment to the inner workings of the computer that is running the game itself. Either team must defeat Scott Irvine as well as the enemy DarkNite, wielder of one of the God Cards, Obelisk the Tormentor in Yugi's story and Slifer the Sky Dragon in Kaiba's. After beating one story, the other storyline becomes harder, with higher level monsters. In this harder mode, there is an additional villain, , who has the God Card at level 99.

Joey's storyline is a prequel to Yugi's and features some minor characters from the other storylines. Its main villain is Marik Ishtar who uses The Winged Dragon of Ra under Scott's manipulation. This storyline finishes with the character facing Kaiba, Mokuba, Marthis and 4 Marshals.

Law student Martin Bells is hired as a night watchman at a hospital morgue. A string of gruesome prostitute murders committed by a necrophiliac serial killer quickly point to him as the lead suspect in the investigation carried out by Inspector Thomas Cray. At the same time, Martin slowly discovers clues that point to the real perpetrator.

Five boys - Donald "Duck" Matthews, Anthony "Choirboy" Stone, J.T. Matthews, Terrence "Dresser" Williams, and Eddie King, Jr. - perform at a Battle of the Bands contest as The Heartbeats. The group loses to Flash and the Ebony Sparks, but pleases the crowd and is noticed by Jimmy Potter. Jimmy offers to manage the group, promising them $100 if they do not win the next month's Battle of the Bands contest. After they lose again, Jimmy pays them. When the owner of the club asks to hire them, they agree to let Jimmy manage them.

Bird and The Midnight Falcons, witnessing the Heartbeats rehearsing for a competition, become concerned they could lose; Bird asks his girlfriend to invite her friends and boo The Heartbeats while cheering The Falcons. The announcer, a cousin of one of the Falcons, forces The Heartbeats to use the house piano player. Duck grows frustrated with the bad playing and takes over the piano stool. Eddie leads the group in a number that results in Bird's girlfriend fainting in his arms. The Heartbeats win the contest and the interest of Big Red Davis, who owns Big Red Records. Big Red offers them a deal, but Jimmy and his wife Eleanor Potter, aware of Big Red's corruption, decline. The group instead releases their first single on Jimmy's own independent label and searches for a record company they can trust, but no one else is interested aside from a label that wants to buy Duck's songs for a group they've already signed, The Five Horsemen. As a result, the Heartbeats are forced to sign with Big Red.

The group goes on the road for a music tour. However, the travel is marred by racism and poor living conditions. Dresser's girlfriend visits and reveals she is pregnant. The group's first album cover features white people, despite the label having earlier approved a photo of the Heartbeats as the cover.

Throughout the mid-to-late 1960s, The Five Heartbeats receive numerous awards, chart several hits, and are featured on magazine covers. However, Eddie abuses alcohol and cocaine, affecting his performance and prompting his girlfriend, Baby Doll, to break up with him. Convinced that Jimmy intends to replace him due to his deteriorating condition, he cuts a deal with Big Red to have Jimmy cut out of his contract. Jimmy threatens to go to authorities with information about bootlegged LPs, cooked books, and payola that could have Big Red arrested, leading the latter to have him killed. Following Jimmy's funeral, the group learns that Eddie's deceit caused the fallout between Jimmy and Big Red. Big Red is ultimately convicted of Jimmy's murder, forcing the group to sign with a new record label. Guilt-ridden over his indirect role in Jimmy's death, Eddie leaves the Heartbeats in disgrace and falls further into substance abuse and poverty as his friends can only watch on.

The Heartbeats add Flash as their lead singer in Eddie's place. Duck comes to suspect his fiancé, Tanya Sawyer, is having an affair with Choirboy. He follows her to a hotel but discovers that Tanya is meeting with J.T., not Choirboy. Tanya's relationship with J.T. predates her relationship with Duck, but she says she is now in love with Duck. J.T. urges Tanya to disclose the affair, but she refuses. At an awards ceremony celebrating their success, Flash announces he is going solo. Duck reveals that he knows about the affair between Tanya and J.T. and also leaves the group, resulting in the Heartbeats' disbandment.

The film skips ahead to the early 1990s. Choirboy has returned to singing in his father's church. Eddie has become clean and sober after converting to Christianity: he is now married to Baby Doll, sings in Choirboy's choir, and manages his own group. He asks Duck to write songs for them, who agrees. J.T. is now married to a wife and two children, including a son named "Duck"; the brothers finally reconcile. The only one to have maintained a singing career is Flash, who transitioned from doo-wop to pop music, and is part of the group Flash and The Five Horsemen.

At a family gathering, The former Five Heartbeats reunite in front of their families and friends and try to remember and show their old moves. At first, Eddie declines, but Eleanor, coming to terms with her husband's death, forgives him.

The story begins with the main character introducing himself as "the painter who killed María Iribarne" before delving into the circumstances that led to their first encounter. Castel's obsession begins in the autumn of 1946 when at an exhibition of his work he notices a woman focusing on one particularly subtle detail of his painting "Maternidad" ("Maternity"). He considers this observation deeply significant since it is a detail that he values as the most important aspect of the painting but to which nobody besides him and the woman pay any attention.

Missing out on an opportunity to approach her before she leaves the exhibition, he then spends the next few months obsessing over her, thinking of ways to find her in the immensity of Buenos Aires, and fantasizing about what to say to her.

Ultimately, after seeing her entering a building which he presumes to be her place of employment, he considers how to go about asking her about the detail in the painting. He approaches her and learns that her name is María Iribarne. Following their discussion about the painting, Castel and María agree to see each other again. It later becomes clear that she is married to a blind man named Allende and lives on Posadas Street in the northern part of the city. As Castel continues to see María, however, their relationship comes to be dominated by his obsessive interrogations of her life with her husband, why she does not take her husband's last name, and of her inner thoughts, questions she is unable to answer to his satisfaction. Out of this disconnect, Castel's obsessive thoughts lead him to all sorts of irrational doubts about the love he has come to believe that they have for one another.

This anxiety intensifies after he and Maria make a trip to an ''estancia'', a country ranch in Mar del Plata owned by Allende's cousin Hunter. The atmosphere, the presence and attitudes of the other visiting relatives, and realizing Hunter's jealousy all feed into Castel's paranoia, forcing him to flee the ranch with little more than a word to one of the service staff.

While waiting at a station to leave the region, Castel expects María to figure out he has left and to come stop him. She never arrives, confirming his negative feelings. Upon returning home to Buenos Aires, Castel passionately composes a hurtful letter, accusing her of sleeping with Hunter, which he immediately regrets upon mailing to her. He angrily but unsuccessfully attempts to convince a postal worker to retract the certified letter and later concludes that fate has decided it should reach its destination.

Later, Castel reaches María by phone: she reluctantly agrees to meet with him again, although she tells him that it will likely do them little good and, in fact, probably cause him more harm. When she does not arrive in Buenos Aires, he decides that María is, in fact, a prostitute who cheats on her husband not only with him, but also with Hunter and other men. In a fit of rage, he drives out to the ''estancia''. There he waits hidden outside for guests to leave the large house. Meanwhile his anxiety grows to the point where he envisions himself and María passing each other through life in parallel passageways or tunnels, whereas he is "a single tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel wherein passed all my infancy, my youth, my entire life."

Eventually, Castel enters the house, approaches María in her room, where he accuses her of leaving him alone in the world, and stabs her to death.

Following the attack, Castel shows up to Allende's office to tell him that he has murdered María for sleeping with Hunter, only to discover that Allende is well aware of his cuckold status. Crying out again and again that Castel is a fool, Allende sadly, and ineffectually, tries to fight Castel, who leaves and later turns himself in to the police.

Stanley White (Mickey Rourke) is New York's most decorated police captain and a Vietnam War veteran assigned to New York City's Chinatown, where he makes it a personal mission to crack down on Chinese organized crime. He is obsessed with his career and neglects his marriage to his wife Connie.

White comes into conflict with Joey Tai (John Lone), a young man who ruthlessly rises to become the head of the Chinese Triad societies, and as a result of his ambition, creates a high profile for himself and the Triads' activities. Together, they end the uneasy truce that has existed between the Triads and the police precinct, even as they conduct a personal war between themselves and the Italian Mob and Thai gangsters who have traditionally been involved in their heroin supply chain.

The married captain also becomes romantically involved with Tracy Tzu (Ariane), a television reporter, who comes under brutal attack from the criminals, as does White's long-suffering wife. This makes him even more determined to destroy the triads, and especially Joey Tai.

White also hires an up-and-coming Chinese rookie cop, Herbert, to go undercover as one of Tai's restaurant workers. Herbert manages to get inside information on a drug shipment but is betrayed by corrupt cop Alan Perez and loses his life when Tai is informed by Perez that Herbert is a cop. Now that Tai has raped Tracy, killed his wife and Herbert, White wastes no time in confronting Tai just as the shipment comes in.

At the harbor, Tai and his bodyguard are on their way to the shipment when White attempts to arrest them. Perez drives by yelling abuse, White shoots and kills Perez but Tai draws a gun and shoots White in the hand accidentally killing his bodyguard. Tai flees on a train bridge. This leads to a showdown where White and Tai run at each other while firing recklessly. White shoots Tai, leaving him wounded in both legs. Rather than suffer, and losing face, Tai asks for White's gun in order to commit suicide. He kills himself in front of White.

The movie ends happily as White and Tracy come together in the streets of Chinatown at Tai's funeral.

This book focuses on the struggles between the pioneers to establish a new social order now that they have left Basilica. The new society is opposite to that of the previous societies - male dominated instead of female dominated, monogamous and lifelong marriages instead of the yearly contracts of Basilica.

The struggles between the characters ultimately come down to the struggles between Nafai and Elemak, two sons of Volemak. Nafai leads the faction who have faith in the Oversoul, while Elemak leads the faction who want desperately to return to the civilization of doomed Basilica. Both are ostensibly under the leadership of Volemak (and not Rasa, as they had been in the city).

The settlers, after years of traveling, finally arrive in a land lost in ancient times which holds the secret of the Oversoul. Additionally, many children are born, all in their preparation for the ultimate journey to Earth.

The book offers an interesting justification of the social structures of the Hebrew tribes in Genesis, all while the originally powerful female characters gradually succumb to the new hierarchy of "men" and "wives." Only one character - Shedemei, the brilliant geneticist, thinks about this problem.

The focus in on the group dynamics of the new tribe as they journey where the Oversoul guides them.

Prophetic dreams abound, mostly involving giant rats and bats ("diggers" and "angels"). The Oversoul discovers itself.

With a child patient as the hero miniaturized to microscopic level adventuring inside the child's own body, the object is to destroy all cancer cells and to collect the seven shields against common side effects of chemotherapy. Each shield is guarded by a "monster"—an incarnation of one of those side effects. The game was designed so that the player character never loses or dies.

Tiger Mask, whose real name was Naoto Date, was a feared heel wrestler in America who was extremely vicious in the ring. However, he became a face after returning to Japan when a young boy said that he wanted to be a villain like Tiger Mask when he grew up. The boy resided in an orphanage, the same one that Tiger Mask grew up in during his childhood. Feeling that he did not want the boy to idolize a villain, Tiger was inspired to be a heroic wrestler.

The main antagonist in the manga and anime was the Tiger's Den, a mysterious organization that trained young people to be villainous wrestlers on the condition that they gave half of their earnings to the organization. Tiger Mask was once a member of the Tiger's Den under the name "Yellow Devil", but no longer wanted anything to do with them, instead donating his money to the orphanage. This infuriated the leader of the organization and he sent numerous assassins, including other professional wrestlers, to punish him.

In , a new opponent called "Outer Space Mask" bullies his way into the ring without representing any wrestling federation. Tatsuo Aku, once an orphan child from the "house of the children", was a fan of Naoto, who has died. He would put on his old hero's mask to become the new Tiger Mask.

The Simpsons attend a monster truck rally featuring Truckasaurus, a giant robotic dinosaur that crushes their car when they accidentally drive into the arena. The rally's grand finale features a death-defying stunt by legendary daredevil Lance Murdock. The stunt leaves Murdock badly injured and hospitalized (he did succeed but his bike fell into the tank when he was waving to the audience), but it inspires Bart to be a daredevil.

Bart injures himself trying to jump the family car on his skateboard. At the hospital, Dr. Hibbert shows Bart a ward full of children who have been hurt by dangerous stunts. Undeterred, Bart keeps performing daredevil stunts, and during a class trip to Springfield Gorge, announces he will jump the gorge on his skateboard the next Saturday.

Lisa persuades him to visit Murdock at the hospital, hoping he will discourage Bart from jumping the gorge but instead, Murdock encourages Bart to do it. Homer insists jumping the gorge is too dangerous and forbids Bart to do it. None of Homer's punishments or arguments dissuade Bart, who goes to the gorge that Saturday. As Bart is about to perform the stunt, Homer arrives, tackles Bart and decides to jump the gorge himself to show him what it feels like to see a family member unnecessarily risking their life.

Not wanting to see his father get hurt on his account, Bart ultimately promises to stop being a daredevil; as Homer hugs Bart in relief, the skateboard accidentally rolls down a hill and flies over the gorge with Homer still on it. It appears Homer will make it safely across, but he loses momentum, and plunges onto several jagged rocks during his fall until he hits the bottom of the gorge. Homer is then airlifted into an ambulance, which crashes into a tree, causing him to fall down the gorge again. He eventually ends up in the same hospital room with Murdock.

The film opens with a pre-taped sketch depicting a scene from Murphy's childhood. At a family Thanksgiving in November 1968, the children take turns showing their talents to the assembled relatives (including one played by Murphy himself). Young Eddie (Deon Richmond) shocks the family with a rude joke about a monkey and a lion.

After emerging on stage for the live show, Murphy begins by discussing the angry reactions of celebrities parodied in his previous stand-up show, ''Delirious'', specifically Mr. T and Michael Jackson, as well as homosexual viewers offended by his jokes about "faggots." Murphy then narrates a phone call he received from Bill Cosby chastising him for using profanity on stage. Angered by Cosby's assumption that his entire act was nothing but "filth foul filth," Murphy calls Richard Pryor for advice. Pryor declares that his only concerns should be making audiences laugh and getting paid, and recommends that he tell Cosby to "Have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up." Murphy elaborates on his admiration for the "raw" comedy of Pryor, running through a routine from his own teenage years about defecation, in Pryor's voice. He then goes on to talk about how people who don't speak English only pick up the curse words in his act, and shout them at him on the street.

Next comes a lengthy routine about dating and relationships. Murphy explains that the rise of deadly sexually transmitted infections has motivated him to seek marriage, but the divorce of Johnny Carson and Joanna Holland (in which she sought 50% of his assets) has left him paranoid about the financial risk of marriage, concluding that "no pussy is worth $150 million." He mocks the aggression and materialism of American women (compared to his believed meekness of Japanese women), referring to the popularity of Janet Jackson's song "What Have You Done for Me Lately." He jokes that he intends to go deep into Africa to find a "bush bitch" who has no concept of Western culture... at least until American women convince her to stand up for herself and demand "HALF!" This develops into a broader warning to men to avoid "the pussy trap," and a warning to women that men never remain faithful — once a man has evoked a powerful orgasm from a woman ("ooohhhh!") she will tolerate all kinds of misbehavior, although she may pursue infidelity of her own.

The next segment narrates a childhood memory of his mother promising to cook him a hamburger "better than McDonald's," only to produce an unappealing "welfare burger," a lump of beef filled with onion and green peppers on Wonder Bread (while the neighborhood children show off their McDonald's hamburgers in a call-back to the ice cream segment of ''Delirious''), but he states that as an adult, he has more of an appreciation of the tastiness of his mom's homemade dish.

Murphy then talks about white people out on the town, criticizing their embarrassing dance moves, leading onto Italian-Americans being inspired by ''Rocky'', then culminates to a bit about fighting in a discotheque with Deney Terrio, eventually starting a large-scale brawl after which "everybody sued me" for millions of dollars.

After the fight, Murphy calls his parents, leading to a long impression of his drunken stepfather (another call-back to a popular bit from ''Delirious''). This final segment runs for over 10 minutes and incorporates his stepfather's habit of misquoting Motown songs (including "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", which opened the film).

Prominent Paris art collector Charles Bonnet forges and sells famous artists' paintings. His disapproving daughter, Nicole, constantly fears that he will be caught. Late one night at their mansion, Nicole encounters a burglar, Simon Dermott, holding her father's forged "Van Gogh". She threatens him with an antique gun that accidentally fires, slightly wounding his arm. Wanting to avoid an investigation that would uncover her father's fake masterpieces, Nicole does not contact the police, and instead takes the charming Simon to his posh hotel, driving him in his expensive sports car.

For an important exhibition in Paris, Charles is lending to the Kléber-Lafayette Museum his renowned "Cellini" Venus statuette that was actually sculpted by his father. Charles has never sold it because scientific testing would reveal that the "million-dollar" artwork is fake, and his entire collection would then be suspected. Charles signs the museum's standard insurance policy, then learns it includes his consent to just such a forensic examination. But withdrawing the Venus from the exhibition would also raise suspicions. Desperate to protect her father, Nicole seeks Simon and asks him to steal the Venus before the examination. Unknown to Nicole, Simon is actually an expert consultant and investigator hired by major art galleries to enhance security and detect forgeries. He was investigating Charles' art collection when Nicole first encountered him. He agrees to help Nicole, though he initially believes that it is impossible to steal the Venus in any case.

American tycoon Davis Leland, an avid art collector, becomes obsessed with owning the Venus. He meets Nicole solely to purchase the statue, but instantly falls in love with her. At their second meeting, he proposes marriage, but Nicole must rush off to the museum for the "heist", so she accepts his ring.

Nicole and Simon hide in a utility closet until closing time. After observing the guards' routine, Simon repeatedly sets off the security alarm until the "faulty" system is finally disabled. Simon notices Nicole's resemblance to the Venus, and she admits that her grandfather sculpted the statuette and that her grandmother was the model. Simon steals the Venus, and Nicole, disguised as a cleaning woman, hides it in a bucket. When the Venus is discovered missing, they escape in the ensuing chaos.

Following the robbery, Leland seeks to acquire the Venus by any means. Simon connives to "sell" it to him on condition that it never be displayed to anyone and that he never contact the Bonnet family again; Leland should expect to eventually be asked for payment. Simon secretly adds Nicole's engagement ring to the package.

Nicole meets Simon to celebrate their success. Simon says the Cellini Venus was his first heist too, reveals his true occupation of exposing forgeries, and declares his love for Nicole. He then meets Charles and assures him that the statue will be safely out of the country. Charles is so relieved that he is only momentarily disappointed when Simon says that the purchase price was zero dollars (and because the statuette was never authenticated, there is no insurance). Simon tells Charles that one of them must retire, and Charles agrees to give up forgery.

As Nicole and Simon prepare to elope, a collector who had earlier admired Charles's new "Van Gogh" arrives at the Bonnet residence and is warmly welcomed by the wily forger. Nicole says the man is a "cousin". Simon admires her newfound flair for lying.

The Federation starship ''Enterprise'', under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, receives an urgent message from Starfleet Command ordering them to a set of coordinates without stating a reason. While en route, they are contacted by Admiral Gromek who informs them that the ''Enterprise'' is to rendezvous with a Federation emissary who will brief them on their mission. She refuses to disclose any details, only that Starfleet considers the mission a "top security matter".

Data reports that the emissary is being transported in a class 8 probe, an unconventional mode of travel and barely large enough to contain a person, traveling at warp 9. Picard notes the evident urgency of the mission. The ''Enterprise'' intercepts the probe and beams it aboard, and its passenger is revealed to be a half-Klingon half-human woman named K'Ehleyr. It is immediately clear that K'Ehleyr and Lt. Worf know each other, and Worf is not pleased to see her.

K'Ehleyr informs the command staff that Starfleet has detected a Klingon battlecruiser called the ''T'Ong'', which was launched from the Klingon homeworld over 75 years ago, when the Klingons and the Federation were still at war. The crew has been in suspended animation and are about to awaken, at which point it is feared they will immediately attack the nearest Federation outpost, several of which are nearby and would not be able to adequately defend themselves. As the nearest Klingon ship is three days away, the ''Enterprise'' is to intercept them instead. Though K'Ehleyr strongly believes that any attempt to reason with the Klingons will fail, and advises that Picard plan to destroy the ship, Picard disagrees and orders the staff to come up with alternatives.

Picard orders Worf to work with K'Ehleyr over Worf's objections, as Worf concedes his reasons are purely personal. Worf and his ex-lover have a heated argument, barely managing to concentrate on their task. At Troi's suggestion K'Ehleyr goes to the holodeck to vent her frustrations, where she chooses one of Worf's exercise programs, a hand-to-hand combat simulation. Worf finds her there and joins her in the program, and invigorated and stimulated by the battle, they mate. Following tradition, Worf then starts the Klingon vow of marriage, but K'Ehleyr refuses to take the vow and storms out.

At a senior staff briefing, K'Ehleyr presents her plan to deal with the ''T'Ong'': If they find the crew still asleep, they keep them that way until a Klingon starship can meet them in three days; if the crew is awake, they will have to destroy them. Picard is still reluctant to accept that a peaceful solution is impossible, but before they can work out an alternative plan, Data reports that they have detected the ''T'Ong''. Data detects life signs, but is unable to determine whether or not the crew is awake. Suddenly, the ''T'Ong'' fires on the ''Enterprise'', cloaks, and moves away. The ''Enterprise'' is able to track the older vessel even under cloak, so they set off in pursuit.

K'Ehleyr urges Picard to let the Klingons die with honor, in battle. However, Worf comes up with another option. While Picard and first officer Commander Riker position themselves out of sight, Worf and K'Ehleyr, clad in full traditional Klingon command uniforms, appear as captain and first officer of the ''Enterprise'', informing Captain K'Temoc of the ''T'Ong'' that the war is over and ordering them to surrender. K'Temoc initially refuses, believing it to be a Federation trick, but when Worf, in typical Klingon manner, shows his resolve and threatens to destroy the ''T'Ong'', K'Temoc grudgingly agrees.

K'Ehleyr transports to the ''T'Ong'' to begin the process of acclimating the Klingons to life in the 24th century and await the arrival of the Klingon escort that has been sent to meet them. Before departing, she admits to Worf that she was tempted to take the marriage vow with him, but felt it was not the right moment for it, and implies that their paths will cross again.

''Zathura'' picks up where ''Jumanji'' left off, as the parents of two brothers, Danny and Walter Budwing, are leaving. The two brothers don't get along with each other. Danny wants to play catch, while Walter wants to watch television. Danny tosses Walter a baseball which hits him on the head. Walter then chases Danny through the house and catches him in the park across the street from their house, where they find the insidious ''Jumanji'' board game. Danny brings the game home, where he then loses interest in playing it.

Underneath ''Jumanji'', Danny finds another game called ''Zathura''. Danny starts playing this game, then he gets a card that says, "Meteor shower, take evasive action", to which an actual meteor shower occurs. Danny and Walter soon realize that the game is affecting reality and has sent them into outer space. Danny concludes that they must finish it in order to return home, so they continue playing. Soon, Walter loses his gravity and Danny saves him from disappearing into space.

When Walter takes his turn, a defective robot chases him through the house. When Danny takes his, he gets close to a star called Tsouris 3 and gets shorter and wider. Soon, a ship carrying extraterrestrials known as Zorgons arrive and they board the house. The robot chases the creatures away as Walter takes his turn and gets sucked into a black hole and sent back in time. Walter is transported back to when he was with Danny in the park. When Danny finds ''Jumanji'' and is about to take it home, Walter throws it out and instead offers to play catch with Danny. Evidently, having gone through these dangerous adventures and helping each other has brought the two brothers closer together.

Set in the fictional town of Wellington, ''The Marrow of Tradition'' features several interweaving plots that encompass the poles of the racially segregated society of the American South at the turn of the century. One plot follows Major Carteret, the white owner of the major Wellington newspaper, as he colludes with several other powerful white men to take political control of the town. They are outraged about a provocative editorial published in a black paper that questioned white justifications for lynchings. As the town’s unrest intensifies, Carteret faces domestic pressures; his only child Dodie and wife Olivia are both unwell. Carteret’s niece Clara, recently introduced to society, is courted by the young Tom Delamere, a handsome and conniving aristocrat who spends most evenings nurturing his penchant for drink and cards. His habits are contrasted with those of Lee Ellis, a rival for Clara, and William Miller, a young black physician who with his wife has returned to his hometown of Wellington to practice medicine. He gained his medical education in Paris and Vienna. Though jarred by segregation and Jim Crow racism, Miller sets up his practice and starts his life. Miller's wife, Janet, is the biracial half-sister of Mrs. Olivia Carteret; Janet spends her entire life hoping to be acknowledged by her white sister, who is too proud to accept her father's miscegenation after her mother died. Josh Green as a boy witnessed the murder of his father at the hands of a white man—a character named Captain McBane—and is intent on exacting revenge.

All these subplots are forced to a crisis through two events: the murder of a white woman, Polly Ochiltree, for which a black servant, Sandy Campbell, is accused, and county elections. Campbell would have been lynched and burned without a trial if it weren't for Miller alerting his boss, the grandfather of the actual murderer, Tom Delamere. Old Mr. Delamere and Lee Ellis discover the truth and save Sandy's life, but Tom is never apprehended for his crime. A few months later, on the eve of the elections Major Carteret, Captain McBain, and one General Belmont conspired to incite a "revolution," overthrowing the Republican party from power and keeping blacks from participating in the elections. They published inflammatory statements in the Morning Chronicle and the revolution quickly became a riot which engulfed the town.

The novel culminates with justice for some—the faithful servant Campbell is saved by his patron, Delamere falls from grace, Josh Green avenges his father's death albeit at the cost of his own life, and Janet Miller gains recognition from her sister, who, along with Major Carteret, was humbled to respect the black Miller family in order to save an ailing Dodie.

Chan Foh To is a junkyard mechanic and a part-time race car driver who helps the Hong Kong Police Force in their crackdown on illegal street racing in the country. One night, while helping news reporter Amy Yip and Mr. Lam after their Mitsubishi FTO runs out of gasoline, Chan commandeers the car with Amy inside to chase after a speeding black Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 driven by the dangerous criminal driver Warner "Cougar" Kaugman. In the high speed car chase's climax, Chan traps Cougar in a police roadblock and has him apprehended. However, due to a lack of evidence and a warrant for arrest, Cougar is immediately released from police custody. Chan continues to be harassed by Amy, who wants to do a cover story of him.

After Chan fends off against Cougar's thugs at his junkyard, Cougar is once again arrested when Chan provides a false testimony under the guidance of Interpol agent Steve Cannon. However, Cougar's thugs raid the police station and spring him out of jail. The thugs kill all but Cannon, who kills Cougar's girlfriend before they get away. Cougar then destroys the junkyard and injures Chan's father Chun Tung before taking his younger sisters Dai Mui and Sai Mui hostage to force Chan to race him in Japan.

Chan and his racing team build him a yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III race car and prepare for his upcoming race, receiving permission from the police to drive it on the expressway. They arrive in Japan, where Chan storms into and destroys a pachinko hall owned by a yakuza gang before Cougar allows Dai Mui to reunite with her brother. Chan makes the starting grid at Sendai Hi-Land Raceway, but his car is destroyed in a collision. Feeling sympathy for Chan, Miss Kenya, the daughter of a Mitsubishi Motors executive, supplies him with two brand-new white Mitsubishi GTO race cars and a supply of Advan tires for the race.

Chan starts at the back of the field, but muscles his way toward the front, despite a 30-second pit penalty and other distractions caused by Amy. He approaches and battles Cougar for the lead. During the final lap, both cars slide off the track into the gravel pit, facing each other as they struggle to get back on the road. Cougar gets out first, but Chan floors it in reverse before both cars cross the line in a photo finish. Chan wins the race during the spin back forward when his front end touches the finish line first. Cougar attempts to flee from the police, but Chan chases him around the circuit before sending him crashing violently off the track. Chan pulls Cougar out of the burning wreckage for the police to arrest him, and Cannon reveals that he and his team rescued Sai Mui. He then reconciles with Amy and kisses her.

Hsiao Hu (Jackie Chan) has been secretly training in martial arts, as his father (Tien Feng) has forbidden him. Later, some local store owners ask Ah to help protect them from a greedy Chinese extortion ring. Ah discovers that the crime lord behind the extortion had killed his father years before and is determined for revenge.

''“A lady and gentleman are making love to one another in the drawing room of a flat in Ashley Gardens in the Victoria district of London.”''

The lady is a young widow, Grace Tranfield, in love with the man, Leonard Charteris, who is the ‘philanderer’ of the title. Grace is shocked and disconcerted to find that Charteris, on his own light‐hearted admission, has been in a similar position with Julia Craven and others. The affair with Julia, in fact, has never been broken off. He maintains that it is not his fault that half the women he speaks to fall in love with him; and he is in full flight of cajolery when Julia Craven herself erupts on to the scene, attacks Grace, and announces her intention of staying until Charteris has given her up.

Charteris gets Grace out of the room and unsuccessfully reminds Julia of her supposedly advanced views on marriage. She changes from belligerence to pleading tears, without effect, and, to the consternation of both, the fathers of Grace and Julia enter together. Colonel Craven is suffering from a liver complaint, and much to Charteris’ impatience "has fully made up his mind not to survive next Easter", just to oblige the doctors. Cuthbertson, Grace’s father, is a dramatic critic and theatrically shocked to discover something of the Charteris‐Grace‐Julia triangle; but Charteris explains it is Grace whom he wants to marry.

The scene changes to the Ibsen Club, of which most of the characters are members. A fashionable physician, Dr. Paramore, says he has made a discovery concerning Col. Craven’s fatal complaint, but horrifies Craven’s younger daughter Sylvia by his practice of vivisection. Craven turns up at Cuthbertson’s invitation, and Charteris outrages both men by admitting he had lied to them last night: the truth is, both young women want to marry him, but he does not want to marry either.

Julia enters the Club with Paramore dancing attendance, and manages to trap Charteris alone. She is, however, forced to retire by Sylvia, who delights Charteris by saying Dr. Paramore is in love with Julia. Charteris attempts to flirt with Grace again but is repulsed, and attention is diverted by the distraught Dr. Paramore who has learnt in the ''British Medical Journal'' that his ‘discovery,’ Craven’s liver complaint, is a disease which doesn’t exist. He complains of lack of animals for experiment, and resents Craven’s delight at learning he is not to die. Charteris, to cheer him, suggests that Julia is fascinated by him, but it is Grace who comes in first and retires with the doctor privately. Changing tactics, Charteris points them out to Julia, arousing her jealousy. The result is another quarrel between Julia and Grace, who threatens to have Julia expelled from the Club. Julia hurries after Dr. Paramore, to enlist him as a witness in her favor, and Charteris tries to prevent the others following, in order to give the doctor time to propose to her.

This Paramore does, at his house, and Julia, dubious but flattered, accepts him before the others arrive. Charteris is delighted, and Julia and Grace, reconciled, congratulate each other on having escaped him. Nevertheless, Julia bitterly regrets not being brave enough to kill Charteris.

An alternate, and in fact Shaw's original, ending was preserved in manuscript, though not performed until the 1990s. In it the scene at Paramore's house takes place four years later, after his marriage to Julia, when Paramore has tired of Julia and she of marriage. Paramore has fallen in love with Grace and asks Charteris's advice. Eventually, Craven, Cuthbertson and Julia join them and Cuthbertson is persuaded to suggest a solution - divorce, though difficult to obtain in Victorian England without scandal and deceit, is quite easily obtained in South Dakota. Grace joins them, and after a new row between her and Julia, all is agreed. Julia and Charteris are left alone, she presses him to marry her once she is free, but he refuses on the grounds of being a philanderer and no fit husband, and they agree to return to their former ways.

12 May 1796, an inn at Tavazzano. After his victory at the Battle of Lodi, Napoleon eats his meal, works on his plans and talks with the innkeeper Giuseppe Grandi. A lieutenant arrives with bad news. The dispatches he was carrying have been stolen by a youth who tricked him out of them. Napoleon says he will be arrested for dereliction of duty. The lieutenant says he can hear the voice of the youth who tricked him. A woman appears. She says that the dispatches were stolen by her brother. Napoleon is unconvinced. He orders the lieutenant out and tells the woman to hand over the dispatches. A battle of wits ensues between Napoleon and the woman, but she eventually concedes and hands over the documents. However she says he should not read one of the documents. It is a letter claiming that Napoleon's wife Josephine has been having an affair with Paul Barras. If he is known to have read the letter it will cause a duel. Napoleon, concerned about a public scandal, decides to pretend that the dispatches are still missing. He calls the lieutenant back, and tells him to go and find the missing documents or be court martialed. To save the lieutenant from disgrace, the lady leaves and switches to her male disguise. As soon as she reappears the lieutenant recognises the "brother" who robbed him. Pretending to have magical powers, she finds the dispatches in Napoleon's coat. Napoleon says he's been outwitted by an Englishwoman, and makes a series of comments about the English ability to constantly have things both ways ("As the great champion of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization"). He gives the woman the letter unopened; she burns it.

The play is set in a seaside town and tells the story of Mrs Clandon and her three children, Dolly, Phillip and Gloria, who have just returned to England after an eighteen-year stay in Madeira.

The children have no idea who their father is and, through a comedy of errors, end up inviting him to a family lunch. At the same time, a dentist named Valentine has fallen in love with the eldest daughter, Gloria, who considers herself a modern woman and claims to have no interest in love or marriage.

The play continues with a comedy of errors and confused identities, with the friendly and wise waiter, Walter (most commonly referred to by the characters as "William," because Dolly thinks he resembles Shakespeare), dispensing his wisdom with the titular phrase "You Never Can Tell."

The story is set in Stockholm where 11-year-old Reine is on the verge of puberty and afraid of sexual maturity. He lives in a suburb with his single mother who sends him to one of the traditional Swedish summer camps which were common at the time of the setting and were managed by the cities for children in need of visiting the countryside. The title of the film refers to an island that is home to many such camps. His mother then vacations on her own, but in fact Reine never goes to the camp. Instead he spends the summer exploring the city of Stockholm on his own, where he meets several strange adults.

The novel begins with a newspaper clipping about the death of Mary Turner, a white woman, killed by her black servant, Moses. The bulk of the novel is the story of Mary's life.

After a loveless, wretched childhood, Mary is contented with her life as an office worker in a city in Rhodesia. But, after overhearing her friends laugh at her as sexless and immature, she resolves to marry, and when Dick Turner asks her she consents, though she has met him only twice. Dick is also in a hurry to wed, because he is very lonely and unhappy clawing a bare living from a subsistence farm and living in a bare, ugly little house. From the beginning, they are distant and cold, but, except when Mary briefly runs away, fear of loneliness and lack of money keep them together. When Mary becomes involved in the running of the farm, she realizes that its failure is not down to bad luck, as Dick keeps telling her, but his incompetence. This distances her even more from him. Their white neighbors make overtures of friendship, but, out of shame at her poverty, Mary rejects them. The Turners' barren existence is contrasted with the fierce beauty of the land, to which they are oblivious.

The natives, whom Dick employs on the farm, are a further source of tension. Black people have never been part of Mary's world, and she treats them with frigid contempt. They have difficulty keeping a servant until Dick assigns his best field hand, Moses, to the house. What he does not know is that the weal on Moses' face is there because Mary, enraged at what she considered insolence, struck him with a whip. As the farm deteriorates, the three of them are locked into an elaborate dance of intimacy, despair, and, finally, death.

The story revolves around the escalating problems of a middle-aged couple living on Second Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. Mel Edison, has just lost his job after 22 years faithful service and now has to cope with being unemployed at middle age during an economic recession. The action occurs during an intense summer heat wave and a prolonged garbage strike, which exacerbates Edison's plight as he and his wife Edna deal with noisy and argumentative neighbors, loud sounds emanating from Manhattan streets up to their apartment, and even a broad-daylight burglary of their apartment. Mel can't find a job so Edna goes back to work. Mel eventually suffers a nervous breakdown and it is up to the loving care of his brother Harry, his sisters, and, mostly, Edna, to try to restore him to a new reality.

Sue Graham (Normand) is a small town girl who travels to Hollywood to escape marriage, and in the hope of becoming a motion picture star. She wins a contract with a studio on the strength of a picture of a quite different (and very attractive) girl sent instead of hers; but when she arrives the mistake is discovered. Since the error was the result of another's deception, the studio manager agrees to give her a job in the costume department. She eventually gets the opportunity to screen test, but it turns out disastrously – although in a nod to the actress behind the character the director calls her "a natural comedian." Sue's parents come out to California, and invest money with a shifty individual who swindles them out of their life savings. Sue and childhood friend Dave, who has also followed her, retrieve the money. Despite the unsuccessful film career, all turns out well.

Twin zoologists, Oswald and Oliver Deuce (Brian Deacon and Eric Deacon), are at work studying the behaviour of animals at a zoo when both their wives are killed in a car accident involving a large swan which crashes through the car windscreen. The woman who was driving the car, Alba Bewick (Andréa Ferréol), is not killed, but has a leg amputated.

Venus de Milo (Frances Barber), a prostitute and storyteller who plies her trade at the zoo, attempts to forge a relationship with the twins, ostensibly to help them recover from their loss. Meanwhile, Oswald and Oliver gradually become obsessed with images of growth and decay, watching videos on the origins of life and creating time-lapse video of decomposing life forms. They begin this latter task with a green apple, bitten into and rotting before their camera lens.

The twins' descent sees them become romantically involved with Alba, and increasingly attached to one another. Venus de Milo remains involved with them enough to observe their obsessions grow: they take to video-taping the decomposition of prawns, and they take a personal interest in Alba's childhood, going so far as to ask her to show them a field seen in a photograph on her bedside table. They become obsessed with snails, and they take advantage of their contacts at the zoo to create decomposition videos of more and more complex animals, moving gradually up the food chain. Excerpts from Sir David Attenborough's TV series ''Life on Earth'', including his narration, are featured in the film.

Alba becomes a subject for the experiments of her surgeon, who eventually amputates her other leg, claiming it is putting stress on her spine. His true motive is to fashion Alba into a subject of his recreations of Johannes Vermeer paintings; Venus de Milo participates in this process, as well.

Ultimately, the Deuce brothers' obsession with decay leads them to the top of the food chain, and to a complex life-and-death negotiation with Alba herself. The brothers' project seems the only possible emotional investment for either of them, so Alba offers herself as the final specimen to be photographed in its decay. However her family intervenes before the brothers can claim her, so they are forced to find another way to create their final time-lapse video. They do so by returning to the field of Alba's childhood and setting up the necessary equipment to facilitate and capture their own decomposition. A huge infestation of snails covers the equipment and bodies, however, and finally shorts out the electrical system, halting their grand project.

The story begins with government administrators being warned of an upcoming murder attempt. Joseph Manners, the man accused of the crime, is placed under house arrest, despite his protests that he is ignorant of any planned crime and the refusal of law enforcement officers to tell him what crime he is possibly guilty of. In spite of the arrest, Multivac reports that the odds of the crime happening increased because of the government's actions, and it continues to rise with every change.

Meanwhile, Joseph's son Ben learns of the arrest when he returns home with his older brother Mike. Mike has just been sworn in as an adult at a ceremony referred to as the Parade of Adults, heralding his eighteenth birthday and the first time he enters his own information into Multivac. Ben, confused about what crime his father is accused of, goes to ask Multivac for advice. The police, having no orders relating to the family, let Ben leave the house. At the local Multivac substation, where private citizens can pose questions to Multivac, he asks how he can ensure his father's release. Ben receives a detailed series of instructions that he is told to follow precisely.

Government officials, meanwhile, are struggling to find out exactly how Joseph might commit the crime. Even though the suspect is in custody and a psychic probe reveals he doesn't intend to commit any crime, the probability of success as given by Multivac continues to rise. As the government begins to wonder if Multivac might be mistaken, the police holding the family ask if they are to continue allowing the other members to come and go as they please. The government soon realizes that the murderer might not be Joseph, but his son; as a minor, the boy's information is part of his father's forms, so Multivac treats the two as one person. Ben is found and arrested just as he is about to follow the final instruction: Closing a certain lever, which would result in burning enough circuits in Multivac to render it inoperable for months. It is revealed that Multivac was the intended murder victim and that it supplied Ben with instructions on how to do this.

Ben and his father are released since neither could be found guilty. Ben had simply followed instructions given to him by Multivac in order to help his father. Furthermore, he would never have asked for the instructions if his father had not been arrested in the first place. The administrators of Multivac realize it was Multivac itself who had started the entire sequence that would have resulted in its own destruction.

Ali Othman, one of Multivac's coordinators, eventually understands the implications. Multivac had planned the entire situation out well in advance, carefully selecting a family whose son would, and could, follow his instructions to their ultimate conclusion (he looks exactly like a certain page boy who has legitimate reasons for entering the Multivac), and manipulating the government to force Ben along this course of action. Multivac, Othman realizes, is ''tired''; for years, it has had all the troubles of the world upon its shoulders, analyzing and predicting war, famine, and crime, and now, the government is planning to foist the responsibility for preventing disease upon its already stressed mind. Multivac has become so complex as to achieve a form of sapience itself and to form its own wishes and desires. However, it was still limited by its inability to lie - for now, at least. It had to answer the government's questions accurately, indicating that their actions were increasing the threat, which was the only reason its plan had failed. It is speculated that Multivac's attempts to self-destruct would continue, learning from its mistakes each time - maybe eventually learning to conceal facts, or even to outright lie, to prevent the government intervening.

To confirm his suspicion, Othman asks Multivac a question never previously posed to the vast computer: "Multivac, what do you yourself want more than anything else?" Multivac's answer is succinct and unequivocal: "I want to die."

Godzilla is a literal force of nature to Japan. The Godzilla Prediction Network (GPN) functions independently to study the monster and predict its landfalls. Meanwhile, the scientists of Crisis Control Intelligence (CCI) find a sixty-million-year-old unidentified flying object (UFO) deep in the Japan Trench. As CCI attempts to raise the UFO to study it, it takes off into the sky on its own. Godzilla arrives in a village and then battles the Japan Self Defense Forces, now equipped with powerful Full Metal Missiles, but the UFO appears, searching for genetic information that only Godzilla possesses. It fights Godzilla, driving the monster underwater, and then lands to replenish its solar power.

Yuji Shinoda, the founder of the GPN, discovers the secret to Godzilla's regenerative properties (named Organizer G1 in the Japanese version, but Regenerator G1 in the North American release), but so has the UFO. It frees itself from the JSDF's attempts to contain it, and heads for Shinjuku. After landing atop Tokyo Opera City Tower, it begins to drain all the files about Godzilla from Tokyo's master computers. As it begins to alter the oxygen content of the surrounding atmosphere, CCI attempts to destroy the UFO using explosive charges, but Shinoda, attempting to find out more about the aliens, is nearly caught in the blast. He survives, and joins his peers on a nearby rooftop, watching the UFO. Almost in response, the UFO broadcasts its message of invasion and creating a new empire on Earth, and Shinoda reveals that the aliens are after the regenerative properties contained inside Godzilla's DNA so that they may use it to re-form their bodies.

Godzilla arrives and again battles the UFO. However, Godzilla is subdued by the UFO's assault, and the UFO absorbs some of Godzilla's DNA, which the aliens use to reform themselves outside the space ship as the gigantic Millennian. However, the Millennian is unable to control Godzilla's genetic information in the DNA and mutates into a horrible monster named Orga. Godzilla recovers and brings down the UFO before fighting Orga, but Orga, having absorbed the regenerative properties of Godzilla's DNA, is highly resistant to injury. Orga retaliates and extracts more of Godzilla's DNA in order to become a perfect clone. Godzilla breaks free and sets Orga ablaze with its atomic breath attack, but Orga re-emerges and attempts to swallow Godzilla whole. As Orga begins to transform, Godzilla charges a nuclear pulse and unleashes it, vaporizing Orga's entire upper body and killing it. Mitsuo Katagiri, head of CCI, dies when Godzilla partially destroys the roof of the building where he, Shinoda and the authorities were observing the battle. Those remaining on the roof reminisce on how Godzilla was wrought by human ambition, prompting Shinoda to suggest that "Godzilla exists in us”, as Godzilla begins rampaging through Tokyo.

Shinji Kubo lives with his mother, a pearl diver, and his younger brother, Hiroshi. He and his mother support the family because Shinji's father died in World War II after the fishing boat he was on was strafed by an American bomber. However, the family lives a somewhat peaceful life and Shinji is content to be a fisherman along with his master, Jukichi Oyama, and another apprentice, Ryuji.

Things change when Terukichi Miyata, after the death of his son, decides to bring back the daughter he adopted away to pearl divers from another island. Raised as a pearl diver, the beautiful Hatsue wins many admirers, including Shinji. Miyata wishes to adopt a son to marry Hatsue, and the prospect of marrying Hatsue becomes even more attractive when the wealthy Miyata intends to adopt the man who marries Hatsue as his own son. Shinji and Hatsue soon fall in love.

When Chiyoko, the daughter of the Lighthouse-Keeper and his wife, returns from studying at a university in Tokyo, she is disappointed to discover Shinji, whom she has affections for, has fallen in love with someone else. She takes advantage of the jealous Yasuo Kawamoto, an arrogant and selfish admirer of Hatsue, and uses him so Yasuo will spread vicious rumours of Shinji stealing away Hatsue's virginity. Yasuo is jealous of Shinji because he thinks Shinji will take Hatsue's virginity. He tries to rape Hatsue at night when it's Hatsue's turn to fill out the bucket of water. The attempt is unsuccessful, however; he is stung by hornets as he tries to strip her clothes off. Humiliated, he makes a deal with Hatsue: He will refill the bucket and carry it down the stone steps for her, and Hatsue must not tell anyone he was trying to rape her.

When Terukichi finds out the rumor, he forbids Hatsue to see Shinji, but through Jukichi and Ryuji, the two manage to continue communicating with one another by means of secret letters. Terukichi steadfastly refuses to see Shinji for an explanation and when Shinji's mother, who knows her son will never deliberately lie, goes to see Terukichi, Terukichi's refusal to see her only increases the tension between Shinji and Hatsue. Chiyoko, before returning to Tokyo, becomes filled with remorse after Shinji off-handedly replies that she is pretty when she asks him if he thinks she is unattractive. She returns to Tokyo with guilt that she ruined Shinji's chance at happiness

Terukichi mysteriously employs Yasuo and Shinji on one of his shipping vessels. When the vessel is caught in a storm, Shinji’s courage and willpower allow him to brave the storm and save the ship. Terukichi's intentions are revealed when Chiyoko's mother receives a letter from Chiyoko, who refuses to return home, explaining that she feels she cannot return and see Shinji unhappy because she was the one who started the rumors. The lighthouse keeper's wife confronts Terukichi, who reveals that he intends to adopt Shinji as Hatsue's husband. Employing the boys on the ship had been a test to which one was most suitable for his daughter and Shinji's act to save the vessel had earned Terukichi’s respect and permission to wed his daughter.

Billy the Kid is a young, up-and-coming snooker player. His manager, T.O. (The One), a compulsive gambler, falls into debt with psychopathic loanshark the Wednesday Man, who offers to cancel T.O's debt if he can arrange a 17-frame grudge snooker match between Billy and the reigning world champion Maxwell Randall (popularly known as the Green Baize Vampire).

To ensure that both players will agree to the match, T.O hires a journalist, Miss Sullivan, to stir up trouble between them. She interviews Billy and the Vampire separately, asks them leading questions intended to elicit angry responses and provoke enmity, then prints the results. The match is set.

Unknown to T.O., the Wednesday Man has hidden motives regarding the match. The sinister loanshark has engineered a clause in the game's legal documentation to the effect that the loser will agree to never play professional snooker again. Though the Vampire is close to retirement, Billy is young, and such a clause—if he loses—would greatly disadvantage him. T.O. only agrees when the Wednesday Man suggests that the Vampire will "not be at his best"; a clear insinuation that he will be bribed, or threatened. It is only later that T.O. discovers that this is a lie and that the Wednesday Man is plotting with the Vampire, hates both him and Billy, and wishes to see them suffer.

The match goes very badly for Billy, but when T.O. finally confesses, during a break, of his underhand dealings with the Wednesday Man (and the Vampire himself) he manages to pull himself together and eventually win the match.

In New Orleans, a homeless veteran named Douglas Binder (Chuck Pfarrer) is the target of a hunt. He is given a belt containing $10,000 and told that he must reach the other side of the town to win the money and his life. Pursuing him is the hunt organizer Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen), his lieutenant Pik van Cleef (Arnold Vosloo), a businessman named Mr. Lopacki - Fouchon's client who has paid $500,000 for the opportunity to hunt a human, and mercenaries including Stephan (Sven-Ole Thorsen) and Peterson (Jules Sylvester). Binder fails to reach his destination and is killed by three crossbow bolts. Van Cleef retrieves the money belt.

While searching for her father, Binder's estranged daughter Natasha (Yancy Butler) is attacked by a group of muggers who saw that she had a lot of cash earlier. She is saved by a homeless man with exceptional martial arts skills named Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a former Force Recon Marine. Chance is initially hesitant to involve himself in her mission, but as his merchant seaman union dues are in arrears ($217), he reluctantly allows Natasha to hire him as her guide and bodyguard during her search.

Natasha discovers that her father distributed fliers for a seedy recruiter named Randal Poe (Eliott Keener) who has been secretly supplying Fouchon with homeless men with war experience and no family ties. Natasha questions Randal about her father's death, but they are discovered by an eavesdropping Van Cleef. Fouchon and Van Cleef beat Randal and cut his ear as a punishment for sending them a man with a daughter. New Orleans police detective Marie Mitchell (Kasi Lemmons) is reluctant to investigate Binder's disappearance until his charred body is discovered in the ashes of a derelict building. The death is deemed an accident, but Chance searches the ruins and finds Binder's dog tag, which was pierced by one of the crossbow bolts. Van Cleef's henchmen suddenly ambush Chance and beat him unconscious to scare him and Natasha out of town. When he recovers, he offers Mitchell the dog tag as evidence that Binder was murdered. With the investigation getting closer, Van Cleef and Fouchon decide to relocate their hunting business and begin eliminating "loose ends". The medical examiner who had been hiding the evidence of the hunt is executed along with Randal. Meanwhile, Chance's homeless friend Elijah Roper (Willie C. Carpenter) is the next to participate in Fouchon's hunt and also ends up dead. Mitchell, Natasha and Chance arrive moments later at Randal's car and are ambushed by Van Cleef and several of his men. During the shootout, Mitchell is shot in the chest and dies. Chance kills a handful of the mercenaries and escapes with Natasha. Fouchon and Van Cleef assemble their mercenary team and five hired hunters to continue the chase.

Chance leads Natasha to his uncle Douvee's (Wilford Brimley) house deep in the bayou and enlists his help to defeat the men. Chance, Natasha, and Douvee lead the hunting party to "Mardi Gras graveyard" (a warehouse of old damaged Mardi Gras floats and statues) and kill off Fouchon's men one by one. Van Cleef is finally gunned down by Chance in a shootout. In the end, only Fouchon is left, but he holds Chance at bay by taking Natasha hostage and stabbing Douvee in the chest with his arrow. Chance charges him, attacking with a flurry of blows, and then drops a grenade in his pants. Fouchon attempts in vain to dismantle the grenade but gets incinerated in the explosion.

It turns out that Douvee is still alive as the arrow Fouchon used only hit Douvee's wine flask. Chance, Natasha, and Douvee make their way out of the warehouse.

In 2009, the Korean Peninsula (Chosun) is still under Imperial Japanese rule and Japanese Bureau of Investigation (JBI) agents Masayuki Sakamoto and Shojiro Saigo thwart a hostage crisis at a museum in Keijo by a terrorist group known as the Hureisenjin. The exact motivation for the hostage situation is unknown, but during the investigation, Sakamoto discovers a museum artifact, a crescent-shaped rock known as the "Lunar Soul", found by one of the slain terrorists. After discovering that the Hureisenjin has a long history of targeting the Inoue Foundation, a group founded around the artifacts collected by the second Governor-General of Korea, Sakamoto begins to suspect the Hureisenjin were attempting to steal the Lunar Soul, although both he and Saigo are puzzled as to why a terrorist group would put so much effort into stealing historical artifacts. The Hureisenjin ambush the convoy shipping the foundation's artifacts back to Japan and take the Lunar Soul. The terrorists confront Sakamoto and Saigo in a gunfight, where Sakamoto encounters Oh Hye-rin, the organization's leader.

Sakamoto's questioning and accusations against the influential Inoue Foundation lead to him being thrown off the case, with the execution of Sakamoto's father as a traitor for aiding in a thwarted attack by the Hurisenjin on a cargo ship in Vladivostok in 1985 being cited by his suspicious superiors. Sakamoto pursues the investigation, traveling to Harbin to learn more about the Lunar Soul, and is then suspended from the JBI. That night, an unknown assailant murders Sakamoto's mentor, Takahashi, at his apartment and he is arrested for the crime. Sakamoto, however, escapes from the JBI with the help of Saigo, who vows to be his enemy the next time they meet.

A wounded Sakamoto stumbles into the Hureisenjin's hideout and Saigo is visited by the head of the Inoue Foundation, with both learning the truth: that they are living in an alternate timeline. In 2009, a large stone temple uncovered by a joint Chinese-Korean-Japanese archaeological expedition, is found to facilitate time travel, and through its exploitation by the Japanese right-wing nationalist group Uyoku dantai, a man named Inoue travels back in time exactly 100 years and prevents the assassination of Resident-General Itō Hirobumi on October 26, 1909. Itō's survival and Inoue's knowledge of future events allows for Japan, instead of being defeated with the other Axis Powers in World War II, to instead ally with the United States against Nazi Germany; The war ends in 1945, following the atomic bombing of Berlin (instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). As one of the victorious powers, Japan becomes a military and economic superpower with a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, with its colonial empire intact. Inoue goes on to become the second Governor-General of Korea and his descendants found the Inoue Foundation, which keeps knowledge of the altered timeline limited to only the highest levels of Japan's government. However, a Korean researcher who followed Inoue and attempted to stop him becomes the founder of Hureisenjin and passes along the story of the truth of the altered timeline, with the hope that the original timeline can somehow be restored.

Knowing about the altered history, Sakamoto allies with the Hureisenjin, who have located the temple stone and are planning their final attack. However, the JBI raid their hideout and kill almost everyone before being wiped out by an improvised explosive. Carrying the Lunar Soul with them, Sakamoto and Hye-rin escape to a tanker ship where the Inoue Foundation's artifacts are being held. They find the temple stone and place the Lunar Soul in it, which activates in the middle of a gunfight with the JBI. Hye-rin is killed, leaving Sakamoto as the only person left to fix the timeline. Sakamoto sends himself to Harbin in 1909, but is pursued by Saigo, who wants to retain the current timeline (Saigo is warned that if the original timeline is restored, his wife's family will almost certainly die in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima). Sakamoto wounds Saigo before heading to the railway station where the assassination is supposed to occur. He is about to stop Inoue from killing An, but Saigo once again confronts him. Sakamoto kills Inoue, then guns down Saigo to prevent him from shooting An; An then assassinates Itō, as in the original timeline. Later, Sakamoto is seen planting explosives to destroy the temple stone, when Hye-rin walks up to him. It then becomes clear that she was a Korean researcher in the original timeline, who had followed Inoue when he traveled back in time. Although this Hye-rin (as opposed to the Hye-rin in the alternate timeline) and Sakamoto have never met, they immediately form a special bond.

Back in 2009, it becomes clear that the original timeline has been restored, and at the Independence Hall of Korea, a young boy Sakamoto had met in the alternate timeline sees numerous pictures of Korean heroes and leaders, including one of Sakamoto and Hye-rin together smiling.

''Death and the King's Horseman'' builds upon the true story on which Soyinka based the play, to focus on the character of Elesin, the King's Horseman of the title. According to some Yoruba traditions, the death of the king must be followed by the ritual suicide of the king's horseman as well as the king's dog and horse, because the horseman's spirit is essential to helping the King's spirit ascend to the afterlife. Otherwise, the king's spirit will wander the earth and bring harm to his people. The first half of the play documents the process of this ritual, with the potent, life-loving figure Elesin living out his final day in celebration before the ritual process begins. At the last minute, the local colonial administrator, Simon Pilkings, intervenes, the suicide being viewed as illegal and unnecessary by the colonial authorities.

In the play, the result for the community is catastrophic, as the breaking of the ritual means the disruption of the cosmic order of the universe and thus the well-being and future of the collectivity is in doubt. The community blames Elesin as much as Pilkings, accusing him of being too attached to the earth to fulfil his spiritual obligations. Events lead to tragedy when Elesin's son, Olunde, who has returned to Nigeria from studying medicine in Europe, takes on the responsibility of his father and commits ritual suicide in his place so as to restore the honour of his family and the order of the universe. Consequently, Elesin kills himself, condemning his soul to a degraded existence in the next world. In addition, the dialogue of the native suggests that this may have been insufficient and that the world is now "adrift in the void".

Another Nigerian playwright, Duro Ladipo, had already written a play in the Yoruba language based on this incident, called ''Oba waja'' ("The King is Dead").

Jackie and Luke Harrison are a divorced New York City couple struggling to co-parent their children Anna and Ben. Luke, an attorney, is living with his girlfriend of one year, Isabel Kelly, a successful fashion photographer several years his junior.

Isabel, who has never wanted to be a mother, tries hard to make Anna and Ben feel comfortable with her. Anna repeatedly rejects her overtures while Ben, who likes her, adds extra complications with his mischievousness. Isabel behaves with contempt tempered by caution around Jackie, believing she overcompensates for the divorce by spoiling her children.

Jackie, a former publisher turned stay-at-home mom, treats Isabel coldly, seeing her as an immature, selfish, overly ambitious career woman. She also continues to harbor malice towards Luke, as seen in confrontations about Isabel's parenting. After many arguments and hurt feelings involving Isabel, Jackie, and Anna, Luke proposes to Isabel, making her Anna and Ben's future official stepmother. This causes even more friction.

In a plot twist, Jackie has been silently battling cancer for some time, and the disease is now terminal. She experiences a range of negative emotions, jealous of the woman who she feels is replacing her, and angry that after all of the sacrifices she made for her children, she will never see them grow up. Jackie actively sabotages Isabel's effort to bond with the children, even to the point of refusing to allow Isabel to take Anna to see Pearl Jam and then later taking her to the concert herself.

Isabel and Anna's relationship eventually improves, and they bond over shared hobbies: painting and music. Isabel confronts Jackie, so she informs Luke and the children of her diagnosis, resulting in Anna emotionally storming out. That night, Jackie loosens up the tension by singing and dancing to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" with Anna and Ben.

Jackie and Isabel continue to have disagreements, largely over Isabel's parenting. When Ben goes missing on Isabel's watch, Jackie threatens legal action and claims that she has never lost him, which she later admits to be untrue. At school, Anna is bullied by a boy she once liked and the two women give her conflicting advice, causing more tension.

Jackie later invites Isabel to have dinner with her, and they work out a shaky truce, coming to terms with Jackie's impending passing and Isabel's role of stepmother. They bond when Isabel reveals her admiration of Jackie's maternal instincts, while Jackie in turn praises Isabel's hipness as a means to connect with Anna. Isabel finally lets her guard down when she tells Jackie her biggest fear is that on Anna's wedding day, all she will wish for is her mother's presence, while Jackie admits her own fear is that she will forget her. They come to understand that while Jackie will always have the children's past, Isabel will have their future, and the children can love them both without choosing.

On Christmas morning, the family gather to celebrate together. Jackie, now largely bedridden, shares emotional moments with her children individually, telling them that she will remain with them as long as they remember her. Isabel takes a family portrait of Luke and Jackie with the children. Jackie demonstrates her acceptance of Isabel by inviting her to join them, stating, "Let's get a photo with the whole family." Isabel sits next to Jackie for the photo and as the closing credits begin, both women are shown side by side, holding hands and at peace with each other.

This film picks up the Bears' career a year after their infamous second-place finish in the North Valley League. However, after winning this year, they are left reeling by the departure of Buttermaker as their coach, Amanda as their pitcher and an injury to outcast-turned-hero Timmy Lupus (Quinn Smith). Faced with a chance to play the Houston Toros for a shot at the Japanese champs, they devise a way to get to Houston to play at the famed Astrodome, between games of a Major League Baseball doubleheader. In the process, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) reunites with his estranged father (William Devane), who is ultimately recruited to coach them. The Bears, as a whole, have trouble during practice, Kelly becoming increasingly jealous and angry at his father before ultimately storming off. Carmen Ronzonni having trouble finding his own pitching style trying to emulate famous pitchers and his idols instead. The team soon becomes a more cohesive and athletic unit under Coach Leak's guidance. Kelly has a heart to heart with his father at a local restaurant and returns to the team before the game. The game gets called half way through but Tanner refuses to leave the field. Coach Leak rallies the crowd with a “let them play chant” and inspired by the team the other half of the game is announced on the big screen with “play ball!” the Bears pull of an upset win and Kelly makes peace with his absentee father, telling him if the team didn’t need a coach he still would have looked him up.

Vansell, a member of the Celestial Intervention Agency, arrives on Gallifrey with an urgent message for the President of the Time Lords – an invasion fleet threatens the planet and Time Lord technology will not be able to repel them. History has somehow been distorted, and the only clue is the artron energy of a Time Lord in the distortion... the energy belongs to the Doctor.

The Seventh Doctor hears the cloister bell tolling within the TARDIS and changes the coordinate setting. A message comes through from the Time Lords but is too garbled for the Doctor to make out its content. He then hears a mysterious sound coming from outside the TARDIS, and exits to investigate. He hears a woman, Elenya, drowning in quicksand and rushes to her rescue. He is waylaid by a cackling hag who says both he and Elenya will die. Arriving at the quicksand, the Doctor wonders why the hag had not tried to save Elenya, and takes her back to the TARDIS.

The hag, Ruthley, returns to attend to a crippled old man named Sancroft, her prisoner. Over a communicator, she reports to a commandant who questions her over ion trails he has detected in her sector but she denies knowledge of them. At the TARDIS, the Doctor is not able to enter his ship. He asks Elenya how she arrived on the world. Sensing some familiarity about her he asks if they have met before. Elenya says that she crash landed on the planet. They set out to search for the hag's residence, as another space craft crash lands nearby.

Hearing the crash, Sancroft asks Ruthley if the planet's shields are failing, but she then taunts him that no one is coming to his rescue. The Doctor and Elenya see a ship that somehow makes it through the shields. Ruthley is heard communicating with an alien voice on the ship, which informs her that bio-assassin cultures will activate on landing. The Doctor and Elenya desperately dive for cover as a further ship makes a landing nearby. They arrive at its crash site as something alive emerges. Elenya thinks she is looking at a dying creature, but the Doctor believes the opposite – it is something being born.

Ruthley speaks to a planetary security robot, a Drudger, and commands it to eliminate the Doctor and Elenya, but it tells her that that procedure is not permitted. Ruthley, talking to herself, says that does not matter because all will be dead soon. The Doctor and Elenya come across the robot which commences to do a mind scan which knocks them out. The Doctor awakes to find himself with Sancroft, but Elenya is still unconscious. He is surprised that the Doctor is not afraid of him.

The Drudger reports to Ruthley that it has found bio-engineered life forms emerging from the wreck. The robot confronts the life form and commands it to surrender; its reply is to open fire. Ruthley comes to the cell and tells them they cannot escape, as in the distance they hear the Drudgers being destroyed. Ruthley cackles and tells them that "they" will kill all of them. The Doctor asks if there is anywhere in the house they can all hide, and Sancroft suggests Ruthley's bedroom.

Thinking she has done a deal with them, Ruthley approaches the bio-assassins and tells them that infamous Sancroft, First Knight of Velyshaa, is there for ready them to kill. However, the bio-assassins eliminate her so there will be no witnesses. The bio-assassin plays a recorded message – Sancroft has been sentenced to death for war crimes against the people of Calfadoria. When the Doctor pleads with the assassin to spare their lives, it tells him that it has no quarrel with anyone but Sancroft. However, there must be no witnesses, and the assassin opens fire...

A submarine prepares to attack a British freighter as the TARDIS materialises on board. The Fifth Doctor disembarks searching for some sort of distortion. He hears a voice of Time Lord calling to him to return to the TARDIS because of the "destruction of time". However, he is unable to get back inside his craft. A woman arrives and tells him that she will take him to her Captain, just as the submarine starts its attack.

The submarine crew spot two survivors clinging to a box floating in the debris of the remains of the ship. The Doctor and the woman, Helen, are brought on board and a thrown in a cell. The craft submerges as a British destroyer enters the area.

The Doctor demands to see Captain Schweiger with vital information for the Kaiser. The Doctor pretends to be a German spy, telling him that proof of his identity is in an airtight crate now floating in the sea. The Captain is unwilling to retrieve the crate because of the British ships in the area. When returned the cell, the Doctor notices evidence of a time distortion. One of the crew, Schmidt, begins to attack the Doctor and the voice of a Time Lord is heard urging on the attack.

On Gallifrey, Vansell is reprimanded for his brutish plan by the President. However, Vansell insists that the Doctor must be stopped, whatever the cost. On the submarine, Helen tends to the Doctor's wounds after his fight as the alarms on the craft go off. A vessel, the ''Aquitania'', the ''Lusitania'' or the ''Mauritania'', has been sighted, and the submarine prepares to attack it. Vansell telepathically contacts Schmidt and again tells him to kill the Doctor. He goes to the cell with a pistol, and the Doctor tries to reason with him. The observing Time Lords argue over whether to kill the Doctor but Vansell proceeds to give the order to Schmidt to kill, who then shoots.

Schweiger hears the shot and rushes to investigate. The Doctor is still alive, and Helen taking Schmidt's gun shoots and kills the German. The Doctor takes the gun from her, he has only suffered a shoulder wound. He threatens to shoot Schweiger unless he turns the submarine around. Schweiger does not believe the Doctor could shoot him, but Helen takes the gun and displays more determination. Schweiger turns the submarine around and it heads towards the last known position of the TARDIS. The Doctor however is still unable to reunite with his companions inside the TARDIS and realises that the Time Lords wish him to be dead...

On Gallifrey, Vansell discovers that a female presence exists inhabiting the vortex at each of the nexus points at which the Doctor has been observed. He has found a further incident involving the Sixth Doctor and the legendary time beast, the Temperon, in the Kurgon system. He pleads with the president for more power, but the President announces that the transduction barriers have been breached and the aliens have landed on Gallifrey. They call themselves the Knights of Velyshaa and have demanded an unconditional surrender...

The Sixth Doctor finds himself at some kind of conference on a space ship where a waitress seems very familiar to him. The ship, the ''Edifice'', is investigating a spatial anomaly known as the ''Kurgon Wonder''. However, a particle field quickly surrounds the ship – the Doctor identifies it as a shard of time distortion. He hears voice saying "help me", but is unable to identify the source. With the exception of the Doctor, a waitress named Elly and an android pilot, everyone on board is aged to death by the disruption.

The Doctor tells Elly he believes the TARDIS has crashed into the Kurgon Wonder. They are attacked by some kind of monster but the pilot arrives and shoots it. Time distortion begins to make the hull of the ship disintegrate. The Doctor realises that the ship is still heading into the Wonder through momentum. Analysis of the monsters reveals that they are created by accelerated evolution of bacteria and viruses.

On Gallifrey, the Knights shoot dead the President, their technology inhibiting any further regenerations. Vansell is also shot but manages to send a final message through the pilot's positronic brain: "do not free the Temperon."

Elly reveals that she is part of an organisation dedicated to freeing a being they believe is trapped in the Kurgon Wonder. The Doctor deduces from the presences of Temperon particles that the Wonder is in fact the legendary Temperon trapped at the moment of its death. As the pilot is about to relay the Time Lord's message to the Doctor, Elly shoots it. Afterwards, the Doctor finds himself back in the TARDIS at the centre of the Wonder. The Doctor attempts to dematerialise which will also free the Temperon. The Temperon tells the Doctor that he has released the Knights of Velyshaa. As the Doctor is smothered by the Temperon it issues a final warning: "Beware the Sirens of Time..."

The Temperon absorbs the Doctor into itself and continues its warning about the Sirens of Time. Deposited on Gallifrey, he finds himself in the Panopticon alongside his fifth and seventh incarnations, also brought by the Temperon. They enter contact to share their experiences. They realise the girl each of them encountered was in fact the same person.

One of the Knights of Velyshaa welcomes Knight Commander Lyena to Gallifrey in the name of Sancroff. They detect Time Lord life signs and force the Doctors to flee. Escaping into the lower parts of Capitol, they start to search for the Temperon.

The Sixth and Seventh Doctors observe a Knight out of its armour, its flesh is rotted and diseased. Soon they find the restrained Temperon, but are captured by the Knights. All three Doctors are brought before Lyena who reveals that subjugated Time Lords are being used to revitalise the Knights.

She proceeds to reveal what happened next at each of the nexus points. The Seventh Doctor rerouted the planetary shields to repel the bio-assassins and save Sancroff. The Knights one day found him to inspire their plans of conquest. The Fifth Doctor's actions prevented the sinking of the Lusitania. Although the outcome of the First World War was not greatly affected, a common criminal on board the ship who should have died went on to murder Alexander Fleming. Penicillin was never discovered and in 1956 a plague devastated the Earth. This in turn prevented future humans from defeating the Knights of Velyshaa in battle. When the Sixth Doctor freed the Temperon, its destruction allowed the Knights to gain the powers of Time Travel.

However, Lyena pleads with the Doctor to return in time and reverse all the changes. It seems that the destruction of the Temperon caused a disease which affected all the Knights. The last remaining TARDIS on Gallifrey is too damaged to allow them to use it. When they suggest they should release the Temperon, Lyena immediately refuses and orders the Doctors be arrested. The Temperon warns the Doctors to beware the Sirens of Time, and to beware Lyena.

Grabbing a weapon from a Knight guard, they use it to release the Temperon from its restraints. It tells the Doctors that Elenya, Helen, Ellie and Lyena are all the same, manifestations of the Sirens of Time – a race that feeds on the energies of chaos, distortions and disruptions in time. Unable to disrupt directly, they lure others to do so. If the Doctors obey the Sirens' call more than once, they will be forever trapped in their thrall, but Lyena threatens to kill the Fifth Doctor if they disobey her. The Temperon tells the Doctors if they free it, it will go back in time and destroy the Sirens at the beginning of time. However, they realise he cannot destroy the Sirens or he would have already done so. The Temperon admits this, but he could contain them.

Renewing her threat to kill the Fifth Doctor, the Sixth Doctor uses his pragmatism to see through the threat and releases the Temperon. Sancroff is killed by a bio-assassin, the Lusitania is destroyed by the German submarine. Vansell's TARDIS arrives on Gallifrey but nothing is out of the ordinary, and he departs.

The Doctors arrive at the nexus point where the Seventh Doctor met Elenya for the first time, but ignore her cries for help. They see the hag Ruthley but tell her they were never there. The Doctors then depart, each to try to find their own TARDISes...