Barry Ryan is a late 1960s Australian mobster who controls the Sydney gambling scene and is making huge profits from casino slot machines. His profitable venture attracts the unwanted attention of the American Mafia, who attempt to secure a piece of the action by sending in two of their henchmen: the pensive, world-weary veteran Tony and his violent, not-too-bright sidekick Sal. Ryan soon finds himself fending off the trigger-happy "yanks", outback-style, while also contending with his feisty wife, needy mistress, and a crooked cop.

In the middle of the night Trojan guards on the lookout for suspicious enemy activity sight bright fires in the Greek camp. They promptly inform Hector, who almost issues a general call to arms before Aeneas persuades him this would be ill-advised. The best course, Aeneas argues, would be to send someone to spy on the Greek camp and see what the enemy is up to. Dolon volunteers to spy on the Greeks in exchange for Achilles's horses when the war is won. Hector accepts the offer and sends him out. Dolon leaves wearing the skin of a wolf, and planning on deceiving the Greeks by walking on all fours. Next, Rhesus, the king of neighboring Thrace, arrives to assist the Trojans soon after Dolon sets out. Hector berates him for coming so many years late, but accepts his arrival; Rhesus responds that he had intended on coming from the beginning, but had been sidetracked defending his own land from an attack by Scythians.

Meanwhile, making their way to the Trojan encampment with the intention of killing Hector, Odysseus and Diomedes run into Dolon and kill him. When they reach their destination Athena guides them to Rhesus' sleeping quarters instead of Hector's, warning them that they are not destined to kill Hector. Diomedes kills Rhesus and others, and Odysseus takes his prized horses, before making their escape. Rumors spread from Rhesus' men that there had been treachery and that Hector was responsible. Hector arrives and casts blame on the sentinels, for, pointing to the sly tactics indicating that the guilty party could only be Odysseus. The mother of Rhesus, one of the nine muses, then arrives and lays blame on all those responsible: Odysseus, Diomedes, and Athena. She also announces the imminent resurrection of Rhesus, who will become immortal but will be sent to live in a cave.

This short play is most notable in comparison with the Iliad. Here, Dolon's role is pushed to the background, and much more is revealed about Rhesus and the reactions of the Trojans to his murder.

At least four plots were going on in San'a. One was headed by Lieutenant Ali Abdul al Moghny. Another one was conceived by Sallal. His plot merged into a third conspiracy prodded by the Hashid tribal confederation in revenge for Ahmad's execution of their paramount sheik and his son. A fourth plot was shaped by several young princes who sought to get rid of al-Badr but not the imamate. The only men who knew about those plots were the Egyptian chargé d'affaires, Abdul Wahad, and al-Badr himself. The day after Ahmad's death, al-Badr's minister in London, Ahmad al Shami, sent him a telegram urging him not to go to San'a to attend his father's funeral because several Egyptian officers, as well as some of his own, were plotting against him. Al-Badr's private secretary did not pass this message to him, pretending he did not understand the code. Al-Badr may have been saved by the gathering of thousands of men at the funeral. Al-Badr learned of the telegram only later.Schmidt (1968), p. 22

A day before the coup Wahad, who claimed to have information from the Egyptian intelligence service, warned al-Badr that Sallal and fifteen other officers, including Moghny, were planning a revolution. Wahad's purpose was to cover himself and Egypt in case the coup failed, to prompt the plotters into immediate action, and drive Sallal and Moghny into a single conspiracy. Sallal got imamic permission to bring in the armed forces. Then, Wahad went to Moghny, and told him that al-Badr had somehow discovered the plot, and that he must act immediately before the other officers would be arrested. He told him that if he could hold San'a, the radio and the airport for three days, the whole of Europe would recognize him.Schmidt (1968), p. 23

Sallal ordered that the military academy in San'a go on full alert — opening all armories and issuing weapons to all junior officers and troops. On the evening of September 25, Sallal gathered known leaders of the Yemeni nationalist movement and other officers who had sympathized or participated in the military protests of 1955. Each officer and cell would be given orders and would commence as soon as the shelling of al-Badr's palace began. Key areas that would be secured included Al-Bashaer palace (al-Badr's palace), Al-Wusul palace (Reception area for dignitaries), the radio station, the telephone exchange, Qasr al-Silaah (The Main Armory), and the central security headquarters (Intelligence and Internal Security).

At a back-alley abortion clinic/brothel, a reluctant woman's aborted fetus is flushed down a toilet into the sewer system where it comes into contact with toxic waste. It transforms into a giant mutated monster and goes on a killing spree in the clinic.

The film is set in Flower Capital, a land ruled by an evil queen (Qu Ying) who started hating men after her lover, High Priest Wei Liao (Daniel Wu), betrayed her. All men in the kingdom are slaves to women. However, a prophecy foretells that one day, the Star of Rex will find and wield a mythic sword, rise to power, overthrow the queen, and restore the balance of the two sexes.

At the start of the movie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Donnie Yen), a master swordsman who has made it his quest to overthrow the queen's regime, has commissioned Peachy (Edison Chen) to steal for him a certain engraved stone from the queen's palace. Peachy is successful, but the queen's soldiers and spies pursue him. Before the stone can be recaptured, it comes into the possession of Peachy's two friends Charcoal Head (Jaycee Chan) and Blockhead (Bolin Chen), who like Peachy earn a humble living by street-performing in a troupe led by their adoptive father, Blackwood.

The two set out to deliver the stone to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, along the way discovering the stone is actually a map, which they assume will lead them to riches. Before they can meet Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, they are intercepted by two lovely, but lethal, female warriors, Spring (Charlene Choi) and Blue Bird (Gillian Chung), each of whom is pursuing the pair for different reasons. The four agree to follow the map together, eventually learning that the map leads to the mythic sword and that either Charcoal Head or Blockhead is the Star of Rex. The journey takes them through dangerous terrain, culminating in an encounter with the Lord of Armour (Jackie Chan), who guards the way to the sword.

Even as the four make their way toward the sword, the queen is preparing for their destruction, using her army and her powerful magic. A final battle will decide the fate of the land.

Ray Dolezal, a bored Torrance County, New Mexico Deputy Sheriff, investigates an apparent suicide in the desert. Alongside the body of Bob Spencer is a suitcase containing $500,000. During the autopsy, they find a digested piece of paper with a phone number; Dolezal, posing as Spencer, calls the number and goes to a meeting, where he is robbed and instructed to meet Gorman Lennox at a restaurant. FBI agent Greg Meeker intercepts Dolezal and informs him that Spencer was an undercover agent. Now that Dolezal has lost the money, Meeker suggests he continue posing as Spencer to recover the money or help arrest Lennox.

Dolezal meets Lennox and his wealthy associate Lane Bodine and learns the money is to arm left-wing freedom fighters in South America. The arms dealers demo the guns for Dolezal and Lennox but demand an additional $250,000 due to unforeseen expenses. Meeker pushes the responsibility on Dolezal, who romances his way into Lane's life so she will attract rich humanitarian donors to fund the deal. Two FBI internal affairs agents suspect Dolezal of killing Spencer and stealing the money. Dolezal is forced to admit to Lane he is not really Spencer, but she agrees to help raise the money because she finds Dolezal a better alternative to the volatile Lennox.

Dolezal learns from Noreen, who had an affair with the real Spencer, that he was working with an FBI agent who likely killed him. Noreen runs away at the sight of Meeker, and the internal affairs agents grab Dolezal. Lennox runs the agents off the road; Dolezal flees and returns to Lane. He discovers Noreen shot dead and a Polaroid of her with Spencer and Meeker.

Dolezal breaks into a surveillance van outside Lane's house and beats up the FBI agent. He accuses Meeker of killing Spencer and Noreen. Meeker admits he took the $500,000 without authorization to steal it and capture Lennox at the same time, but Spencer lost his nerve and wanted out. Meeker confronted him out in the desert and convinced him to shoot himself. He tells Dolezal the Polaroid proves nothing, and no one will believe his word against that of a minority agent with a spotless record.

Lennox meets Dolezal and reveals the two internal affairs agents tied up in the trunk of his car. They drive into the desert, where Lennox says he knows Dolezal is not Spencer, because Lennox is really a CIA agent who wants the arms deal to go through, ensuring the survival of the military–industrial complex. Lennox kills the two agents and informs Dolezal that he has Lane hostage. Dolezal must find where she hid the $250,000 and meet Lennox on a deserted military base in the White Sands desert.

Dolezal uncovers the money in a briefcase buried in Lane's horse's stall. He kidnaps Meeker, takes him to White Sands, and handcuffs him to a pipe inside an abandoned building. Dolezal explains that Lennox is CIA, the FBI will be arriving soon, and Meeker can either face punishment or try to flee. Dolezal leaves a gun behind, so Meeker grabs it and hides inside a bathroom stall.

Lennox arrives and reveals that Lane is waiting at the base entrance. Dolezal placed the briefcase in the abandoned building, but when Lennox walks in, Meeker shoots and kills him. After disabling Lennox's car, Dolezal picks up Lane. He drops her off at her estate and explains that he needs to return to his family. He hands her the $250,000 she had obtained through her pseudo-fund raising event.

The FBI arrives in cars and helicopters. Meeker breaks the pipe he was cuffed to and runs through the desert with the briefcase. Dolezal left the original $500,000 he was originally suspected of stealing so the FBI will stop investigating him, but one of the agents notices footprints going out into White Sands, and they head off in pursuit. As the FBI catches up with him, Meeker stumbles and drops the briefcase, which contains nothing but sand.

Assassin Robert Rath (Sylvester Stallone) plans to retire, haunted by the memory of murdering his own mentor Nicolai several years ago. While on an assignment, Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas), another assassin, manages to eliminate Rath’s target first. Bain then reveals his plan to kill Rath and become the world’s best assassin.

As Rath tries to figure out who sent Bain, his contractor offers him a lucrative job that could allow him to retire: kill a computer hacker named Electra (Julianne Moore), the four Dutch buyers of a computer disk she possesses, and to retrieve the disk. Electra has set up CCTV cameras and an elaborate mechanism for remotely moving items between rooms in the building where she is based.

Bain finds and kills the four Dutch buyers first, who he discovers to be Interpol agents. Rath, meanwhile spares Electra, and the two escape from Bain with the disk. Rath exchanges the disk for his fee, given to him in a briefcase, which actually contains a bomb placed by his contractor in an attempt to kill him. Electra then tells him she had swapped the disk, unsure if Rath would come back. Rath demands a greatly increased fee from his contractor, this time to be wired to a bank.

The contractor then hires Bain to kill Rath. Rath and Electra travel to the bank in Puerto Rico, where Rath identifies the decrepit, abandoned hotel that Bain will use as a sniper post and plans a trap.

After Bain's apparent death, Nicolai appears, revealing that he had had a bulletproof vest on when Rath had shot him. Knowing that Nicolai would kill him too, Bain joins Rath in shooting him dead. Bain still plans to kill Rath and become number one. Electra puts on her sunglasses, allowing Rath to see Bain; Rath shoots through his own jacket to kill him. After Bain's death, Rath and Electra leave the place, take Electra's cat and say that their true names are Joseph and Anna respectively.

The novel at heart narrates the history of the family of Viktor Shtrum and the Battle of Stalingrad. It is written, despite attempting to get away from it, in the socialist realist style, which can make it seem odd in parts to western readers.

''Life and Fate'' is a multi-faceted novel, one of its themes being that the Eastern Front was the struggle between two comparable totalitarian states. The tragedy of the common people is that they have to fight both the invaders and the totalitarianism of their own state.

''Life and Fate'' is a sprawling account of life on the eastern front, with countless plotlines taking place simultaneously all across Russia and Eastern Europe. Although each story has a linear progression, the events are not necessarily presented in chronological order. Grossman will, for example, introduce a character, then ignore that character for hundreds of pages, and then return to recount events that took place the very next day. It is difficult to summarize the novel, but the plot can be boiled down to three basic plotlines: the Shtrum/Shaposhnikov family, the siege of Stalingrad, and life in the camps of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Although ''Life and Fate'' is divided into three parts, each of these plotlines is featured in each section.

Viktor Shtrum is a brilliant physicist who, with his wife, Lyudmila, and daughter, Nadya, has been evacuated from Moscow to Kazan. He is experiencing great difficulty with his work, as well as with his family. He receives a letter from his mother from inside a Jewish ghetto informing him that she is soon to be killed by the Germans. Lyudmila, meanwhile, goes to visit her son from her first marriage, Tolya, in an army hospital, but he dies before her arrival. When she returns to Kazan, she is extremely detached and seems still to be expecting Tolya's return. Viktor finds himself engaging in anti-Soviet conversations at the home of his colleague, Sokolov, partly to impress Sokolov's wife, Marya (Lyudmila's only friend). He consistently compares political situations to physics, and remarks that Fascism and Stalinism are not so different. He later regrets these discussions out of fear that he will be denounced, an indecision that plagues his decision-making throughout the novel. Suddenly, Viktor makes a huge mathematical breakthrough, solving the issues that had hindered his experiments. Viktor's colleagues are slow to respond, but eventually come to accept the genius of his discovery. After moving back to Moscow, however, the higher-ups begin to criticize his discoveries as being anti-Leninist and attacking his Jewish identity. Viktor, however, refuses to publicly repent and is forced to resign. He fears that he will be arrested, but then receives a call from Stalin himself (presumably because Stalin had sensed the military importance of nuclear research) that completely, and immediately reverses his fortune. Later, he signs a letter denouncing two innocent men and is subsequently racked by guilt. The last details about Viktor regard his unconsummated affair with Marya.

The events recounted at Stalingrad center on Yevghenia Shaposhnikova (Lyudmila's sister), Krymov (her former husband), and Novikov (her lover). After reconnecting with Novikov, Yevghenia evacuates to Kuibyshev. Novikov, the commander of a Soviet tank corps, meets General Nyeudobnov and Political Commissar Getmanov, both of whom are Party hacks. Together they begin planning the counter-assault on Stalingrad. Novikov delays the start of the assault for fear of unnecessarily sacrificing his men. Getmanov later denounces Novikov and he is summoned for trial, even though the tank attack was a complete success. Meanwhile, Krymov, a Political Commissar, is sent to investigate House 6/1, where a tiny group of soldiers have held back the Germans for weeks, even though they are completely surrounded and cut off from all supplies. Grekov, the commanding officer, refuses to send reports to HQ, and is disdainful of Krymov's rhetoric. He later wounds Krymov in his sleep, causing him to be evacuated from the house. Soon after, House 6/1 is completely leveled by German bombs. Krymov, a staunch Communist, is then accused of being a traitor (this was standard for Russian soldiers who had been trapped behind enemy lines ) and is sent to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, where he is beaten and forced to confess. Yevghenia decides not to marry Novikov and goes to Moscow to try and visit Krymov. He receives a package from her and realizes that he still loves her but may never be released from prison.

The sections that take place in the camps have few recurring characters, with the exception of Mostovskoy, an Old Bolshevik who takes part in a plot to rebel against the Germans, but is dismayed by the prevailing lack of faith in Communism. His interrogator, Liss, asserts that Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same coin, which upsets Mostovskoy greatly. He is later killed by the Germans for his part in the uprising. In one scene, Sturmbannführer Liss tells Mostovskoy that both Stalin and Hitler are the leaders of qualitatively new formation: "When we look at each other's faces, we see not only a hated face; we see the mirror reflection. ... Don't you recognize yourself, your [strong] will in us?" Grossman also focuses on Sofya Levinton, a Jewish woman on her way to a Nazi extermination camp.

As Grossman moves into Part Three of the novel, he writes with an increasingly analytic style and abandons many of the characters that he has created. The only plotlines that achieve real closure are those whose protagonists perish during the war. All of these characters, he seems to say, are part of a larger, ongoing story — that of Russia, and of mankind. The final chapter solidifies this notion of universality. The author introduces a set of characters who remain anonymous: an elderly widow observing her tenants, a wounded army officer recently discharged from hospital, his wife and their young daughter. It is heavily implied, however, that the officer returning to his family is Major Byerozkin, a recurring character from Stalingrad who is shown to be a kind man struggling to retain his humanity. In a sense, therefore, the ending is slightly uplifting – many characters have died, or experienced tragedy, but at least one fundamentally good person gets a happy ending.

Grossman describes the type of Communist Party functionaries, who blindly follow the Party line and constitute the base for the oppressive regime. One such political worker (политработник), Sagaidak, maintained that entire families and villages intentionally starved themselves to death during the collectivisation in the USSR.

The game begins with an amnesiac Edward Carnby, a paranormal investigator recovering from an exorcism performed on him by a group of occultists led by Crowley. A guard is instructed to take him to the roof for execution, only to be dragged away and slaughtered by an unseen force. He wanders the collapsing building in search of an exit; witnessing several people being killed in a similar fashion as the guard, as well as a young woman becoming possessed by a demon which claims to know of his past. After battling the entity, he meets art dealer Sarah Flores. They make their way to the basement parking garage where they meet Theophile Paddington, the occultist who performed Edward's exorcism and an old apprentice and friend of Carnby's. Theo explains the nature of the Philosopher's Stone and Crowley's desire to unleash its evil power.

Hijacking a car, they drive into New York City, finding it in the same destroyed state as the building; supernatural fissures erupting from the earth. They crash in Central Park and Theo gives Edward the Stone, telling him to find him in a room of a museum before killing himself. On the way to the museum, Edward begins to bleed out from his injuries. Making his way through the destruction, Edward learns his surname from Crowley. Later, his past medical records from an attending medic reveals that he is over a hundred years old, having disappeared in 1938. Finding Room 943 of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Theo's ghost explains more of the Stone's history. Forged by Lucifer after his fall from Heaven, the Stone tempted men with promises of mass wealth and immortality; in actuality, it merely made them vessels for the Devil's soul.

Sarah stays behind in the museum to research Paddington's notes, emailing Edward various texts as well as receiving some from Crowley, both of which reveal more of his past and the Stone. Delving deep beneath Belvedere Castle, he solves various puzzles trailing the Path of Light. Reaching a hidden chamber in the underground temple, Edward meets Hermes Treismajice, one of the alchemists who built Central Park and the holder of the other half of the Stone - rendering him effectively immortal as he waited for the Carrier of the Stone (Edward) to release him. While driving Hermes back to the museum, Sarah is kidnapped by Crowley and held hostage. In a final confrontation, Edward finally kills the mad occultist by quickly shooting him in the head while he was struggling with Flores. Treismajice then leads them to the innermost chamber.

Inside the chamber, they find a large portal between the living world and the afterlife; a gateway for Lucifer to return to a body. Needing both halves of the Stone to unlock it, Edward and Hermes reunite it on the pedestal only for the Light Bringer to begin repossessing Carnby. Sarah - unwilling to let Edward sacrifice himself - takes the Stone from him, allowing Lucifer to begin possessing her instead. The player is given a choice: to kill her and take the Light Bringer into his own body, or to let her live and allow the Devil to use her as his vessel. If he chooses the former, he becomes fully possessed by Lucifer and declares his intention to rule over humanity. If he chooses the latter, Sarah becomes possessed and the Devil mocks Edward for being so alone; to which he replies, "''I'm used to it''", before walking away in defeat.

A young man, Juvenal, is apparently able to cure the sick by the laying-on of hands. Mysterious stigmata appear from time to time on his flesh.

The former evangelist Bill Hill, tired of selling mobile homes for a living, persuades his friend Lynn Faulkner to befriend the innocent ex-monk and encourage him to aim for the big-time. But matters become complicated when the young couple falls in love, and even more complicated when fundamentalist August Murray takes exception to their relationship.

Coralee Elliott Testar's version of the story revolves around letters written by James' son to his wife and children. Harry and Davy have brought them in a box James had carved for his son many years before. Through these letters, James begins to find healing from his grief over the death of his son at the hands of Dutch soldiers in the Second Boer War in South Africa, deliverance from the hatred in his heart for neighboring Dutch farmers, and acceptance of his daughter's love for the village doctor who is also of Dutch heritage.

The movie's title refers to the discovery and rescue by Harry and Davy of the neighbor's baby briefly left unattended on a beach and their decision to hide and care for it themselves rather than risk their grandfather's harsh and unmerciful reaction to it.

The comic begins after World War III, which began in Iraq, North Korea, and Pakistan, and spread to China, climaxes with a full-scale global nuclear holocaust. Frank Castle, who years before was apprehended and incarcerated in Sing-Sing Prison, survives by taking refuge in a fallout shelter hidden in the prison's high-security block with a handful of other prisoners and prison officers. A year after the bombs fall, Frank leaves the prison and begins his journey to New York City, taking with him Paris Peters, a con-artist who expresses interest in Frank's mission to find another bomb shelter hidden deep beneath the former site of the World Trade Center.

Frank and Paris travel across upstate New York, past the ruined remains of civilization, ignoring the radiation they know will kill them. They locate the Manhattan bomb shelter and gain access, where they fall unconscious. Both awaken in the infirmary, where the doctors reveal they will die within hours of radiation poisoning. Frank murders the doctor and the guards, taking their weapons and shooting his way through the shelter's security forces, arriving in a board room filled with the Coven, a group of generals, senators, oil magnates, and computer billionaires. Frank, having learned about the Coven from a prisoner at Sing-Sing who designed their shelter, blames them for escalating the War on Terror in the name of profit and the resulting global holocaust.

As Frank is about to execute the Coven, they beg for mercy, revealing that other members, hidden in bases across the world, have self-destructed due to outbreaks of insanity. They reveal that they are the last people left on Earth - the last hope for humanity - but with the resources they control in the shelter, they can repopulate the world. But knowing that these people would doom the world again, Frank kills them all. When Paris asked why he doomed humanity, Castle says: "The human race. You've seen what that leads to". Frank then states that no mere con-artist would be in the high-security block, and Paris confesses that his crime, while planned as simple insurance fraud, also set fire to a kindergarten, killing several dozen children. Frank thus strangles him.

Frank re-emerges into the irradiated Manhattan wasteland, hair falling out in clumps, fire burning his flesh as he starts walking to New York City's Central Park. In his mind, it is 1976, and he is going to try to arrive in time to save his family from their fate.

Anne finds the manuscript and schemes against Boyd in order to teach him a lesson for his carelessness. She asks Ben Wright, the youngest son and amateur poet who was also present when Anne found the books again, to hide the novel until she would tell him to "surprisingly find" it. Jonah stops writing and changes his careless behaviour towards Anne. Since Anne very appreciates her kind of "new" husband and does not want him to get into his former rut again, she decides to leave the book in Ben's care instead of returning it to her husband. Jonah, who used to drink, again finds consolation in alcohol, which ultimately leads to his death through a car accident.

Years later, when almost nobody who knows about Boyd's novel is still alive, Ben finishes the book and publishes it under his name. Critics review Ben's ending as the best part of the novel. This way, Ben develops his own writing style and becomes a successful novelist.

When Denny finally discovers this "theft", she decides to confront Ben. Surprisingly he sees this situation as a possibility to confide with someone rather than a threat.

At last they marry and after Ben's death Denny even inherits the Wrights’ house, which plays a central part in the family's and Denny's lives and in which all the fatal events took their start.

Jane and Jefferson Blue, a wise-cracking couple of spies for an unnamed U.S. covert organization on maternity leave in New Orleans with their baby daughter whom they dote on, though they are unable to agree on whether her name should be Louise Jane or Jane Louise. With the baby's arrival, they have decided to move on to "Chapter Two" of their marriage, retiring from field assignment in an attempt to give their daughter a normal life. While they enjoy the tourism of the city and their daughter, they are the repeated targets of a low-level mugger called 'Muerte' (Tucci) who they foil with relative ease each time he tries to mug them.

Frank, their former handler from Jeff and Jane's espionage days asks the duo for one more mission in exchange for longer maternity leave and an added bonus to their salary. The two accept and learn that a former Czech Secret Police officer, Novacek whom the Blues had former run-ins before, has acquired an experimental plastic explosive called C-22. Though they cannot extradite Novacek, the two are tasked with re-acquiring the explosive and capturing Novacek. As Jeff and Jane begin looking into the C-22 explosive and those rumored to be connected to Novacek, Lieutenant Sawyer continually follows the Blues; suspecting their motives for being in New Orleans. Though they continually slip through his grasp, the Blues confide in him and his partner Sergeant Halsey why they are there and whom they are looking for.

One night, a disguised Jane has Muerte contact Novacek after Jeff had planted a tracker on him during another attempted mugging at the zoo. Jeff follows the tracker with Sawyer following close behind. Though Jeff attempts to persuade Sawyer to leave as he's way over his head, Sawyer is adamant about joining him. Jane and their daughter are soon kidnapped by Novacek's minions and brought to her hideout. As Jeff demands Jane be freed, she counters by asking Jane to give up their daughter. Jane tosses a baby-disguised explosive and the group escapes to track down Novacek and the C-22 which is in a salt mine.

Jane grapples with Novacek until the latter has the upper hand. With the C-22 in a case nearby, Jeff taunts Novacek and uses a flamethrower near the case; demanding she let Jane go. Jane breaks free and kicks Novacek aside, only for a helicopter to arrive with one of Novacek's former subordinates; ready to take Novacek away. As she boards the helicopter, Novacek is promptly handcuffed and taken away to be extradited by Frank. The Blues celebrate the victory and leave New Orleans by boat but not before Muerte attempts one last mugging. Like before, they kick Muerte off the boat and toss him a life preserver before sailing towards Cuba.

Jyouji "George" Kodama arrives in the town of Kimujuku in search of a man named Genzo Araki. Unable to find him, he learns that the town is divided in two distinct factions. Sensing that Kimujuku's residents are hiding something, Jyouji takes work from each faction, playing them against each other in an effort to uncover the secret and the whereabouts of Genzo.

The residents of the village of Frankenstein feel they are under a curse and blame all their troubles on Frankenstein's monster. The Mayor allows them to destroy Frankenstein's castle. Ygor finds the monster released from his sulfuric tomb by the explosions. The exposure to the sulfur weakened yet preserved the monster. Ygor and the monster flee the castle, and the monster is struck by a bolt of lightning. Ygor decides to find Ludwig, the second son of Henry Frankenstein, to help the monster regain his strength. Ludwig Frankenstein is a doctor who, along with his assistants Dr. Kettering and Dr. Theodore Bohmer, has a successful practice in Visaria. Bohmer was formerly Ludwig's teacher but is now his envious assistant. Ygor and the monster arrive in Visaria, where the monster befriends a young girl, Cloestine Hussman. The monster carries her onto a roof to retrieve her ball, killing two villagers who attempt to intervene. After Cloestine asks the monster to bring her back down, the monster returns the girl to her father Herr Hussman and is immediately captured by police. The town prosecutor, Erik Ernst, comes to Ludwig and asks him to examine the giant they have captured. Ygor then visits Ludwig and informs him that the giant is the monster. Ygor implores Ludwig to heal the monster's body and brain. Ludwig refuses, but Ygor threatens to reveal Ludwig's ancestry to the villagers.

At the police station, the monster is restrained with chains as a hearing is conducted to investigate the murder of the villagers. When Ludwig denies recognizing the monster, it breaks free in a fit of rage, and is led away by Ygor. Elsa, Ludwig's daughter, finds the Frankenstein journals and learns the story of the monster. She sees Ygor and the monster in the window, and after breaking into Ludwig's laboratory, the monster kills Dr. Kettering. The monster grabs Elsa, but Ludwig is able to subdue him with knockout gas. Ludwig is examining the monster when it awakens and tries to kill him. Ludwig tranquilizes the monster and then tries to enlist Bohmer's aid in dissecting him. Bohmer refuses, claiming it would be murder. While studying his family's journals, Ludwig is visited by the ghost of his father Henry Frankenstein. The spirit implores him to supply the monster with a good brain. Ludwig calls in Bohmer and Ygor and tells them that he plans to put Dr. Kettering's brain into the monster's skull. Ygor protests and asks Ludwig to use his brain, but Ludwig refuses because of Ygor's sinister nature. Elsa begs Ludwig to stop his experiments, but he chooses to operate on the monster as soon as possible. Ygor tells Bohmer that he should not be subordinate to Ludwig. Ygor promises to help the disgraced doctor if he agrees to put Ygor's brain into the monster.

The police soon arrive at Ludwig's house, searching for the monster. They find the secret room, but Ygor and the monster have fled. The monster abducts Cloestine from her home and returns with her in his arms to Ludwig's chateau. The monster conveys his desire for her brain to be placed in his head. Cloestine does not want to lose her brain, and the monster reluctantly gives her to Elsa. Ludwig then performs the surgery, not knowing that Bohmer has replaced Kettering's brain with Ygor's. In the village, Herr Hussman rouses his neighbors by telling them his daughter has been captured by the monster and that Ludwig is harboring it. Ludwig shows the monster to Erik, but when the monster rises, Ludwig is shocked to hear that it has Ygor's voice. The villagers storm the chateau and the Ygor-Monster decides to have Bohmer fill the house with gas to kill them. Ludwig tries to stop him, but the Ygor-Monster repels the attack and mortally wounds Ludwig. The Ygor-Monster suddenly goes blind. The wounded Ludwig explains that the blindness is a result of the incompatibility between the blood types of Ygor and the monster. Feeling betrayed, the Ygor-Monster then throws Bohmer onto the apparatus, electrocuting him, and inadvertently sets fire to the chateau. The Ygor-Monster becomes trapped in the burning chateau while Erik and Elsa escape, walking out into the sunrise.

Four years after the events of ''The Wolf Man'' and ''The Ghost of Frankenstein'', two men break into the Talbot family crypt on the night of a full moon to open the grave of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), seeking jewelry that was buried with him. During the robbery, the thieves remove the wolfsbane buried with Talbot, awakening him from death by the full moon shining on his uncovered body. Talbot reflexively grasps the arm of the grave robber with a fur-covered hand, as the other thief flees. Talbot is found by the police in Cardiff later that night, with a vicious head wound (administered by his father at the end of ''The Wolf Man''), and taken to a hospital where he is treated by Dr. Mannering. Talbot slowly comes to understand his situation, but during the full moon, he transforms into the Wolf Man and kills a police constable. The next morning, Mannering realizes his patient had been roaming about, and tries to reason with him, though unable to accept Talbot's explanation of his curse. Dr. Mannering allows Inspector Owen to question Talbot, who becomes violently irate, then is overcome by orderlies and bound to his bed with leather straps. Not believing his story of being a werewolf, the doctor and detective travel to the village of Llanwelly to investigate Talbot and his story. While they are away, Talbot escapes from the hospital by biting through the restraints with his teeth. Seeking a cure for the curse that causes him to transform into a werewolf with every full moon, Talbot leaves Wales and seeks the gypsy woman Maleva, who has hearsay knowledge of Dr. Frankenstein and opines he may able to help Talbot. Together they travel to the village of Vasaria, where Talbot hopes to find the notes of Dr. Frankenstein in the remains of his estate, and permanently end his own life through scientific means. The townsfolk want no part of them or their desire to meet with the deceased Frankenstein, rudely ordering them to leave.

An upset Talbot transforms into the Wolf Man and kills a young woman, causing the villagers of Vasaria to raise a mob to chase him down. Fleeing toward the ruins of the Frankenstein castle, Talbot falls through the burned-out flooring and into the frozen cellars below. Talbot recovers from his animal state, and wanders around, discovering Frankenstein's Monster (portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr. in the preceding film, but now played by Bela Lugosi) trapped within an icy chamber; using a stone, Talbot breaks the ice and helps pull the now-revived creature free. Finding that the Monster is unable to locate the notes of the long-dead doctor, Talbot poses as a potential buyer of the Frankenstein estate in order to seek out Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Ilona Massey) the daughter of Ludwig, hoping she knows their hiding place. She declines to assist Talbot, but the pair are invited to the "Festival of the New Wine" by the Burgomeister. During the festival, a performance of the life-affirming folk song ''Faro-la Faro-Li'' enrages Talbot as Dr. Mannering arrives. The doctor, having followed him across Europe, attempts to persuade Talbot to return to Wales before he has another spell. Talbot refuses to go with Mannering, and the Monster crashes the festival. With the Monster revealed, Elsa and Mannering agree to help the villagers rid themselves of Frankenstein's curse forever. The following morning, the couple, with Maleva in tow, meet with Talbot and the Monster at the ruins. Mannering is instantly fascinated by the Monster from a scientific perspective. The Baroness gives the notes to Talbot and the doctor. Mannering studies the notes and learns how to drain all life from both Talbot and the Monster, believing the laboratory can be repaired for the task.

In the meantime, the villagers are dismayed to see crates of scientific instruments arriving for Dr. Mannering. Ignorant of Mannering's plan to cure Talbot, the villagers fear another return of the Frankenstein Monster, and they grow suspicious. Vazec, the innkeeper, details a plan to destroy the dam overlooking the Frankenstein estate with dynamite and drown all within, in the hopes that this will put a final end to the attacks from both the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man. The Burgomeister dismisses the idea as nothing but a drunken notion, but Vazec is determined and puts his plan into action.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mannering begins his experimental procedure of using electricity to drain the life force from both Talbot and the Monster, but Mannering's scientific curiosity to see the monster at full strength overwhelms his logic, and to Elsa's horror, he decides to alter the machines to fully revive the monster. The experiment coincides on the night of a full moon, and Talbot transforms yet again as the Monster regains his strength (and eyesight); both escape their restraints. The Monster begins to carry Elsa away, but the Wolf Man attacks him, and she escapes from the castle with Mannering. The Wolf Man and the Monster then engage in a fight until they are both swept away in the flood that results when Vazec dynamites the dam.

Monty Bodkin, despite his wealth, needs to hold a job down for a full year so when he is sacked from his job, he jumps at a tip that his old job as secretary is available, especially on hearing that his former fiancee will be on the premises.

Hearing that Monty is on his way, and concerned about Ronnie's jealous nature, Sue heads to London, dines with Bodkin and warns him to be distant. On the train back, they both encounter Ronnie's formidable mother and claim not to know each other. Lady Julia, having seen Sue and Monty at lunch together, tells her son about their suspicious behaviour, and Ronnie is at once convinced that Sue loves Monty.

Meanwhile, Connie and Parsloe-Parsloe, unaware of these developments, task Percy Pilbeam with obtaining Galahad's manuscript, used to ensure Sue and Ronnie's marriage is permitted. Lord Tilbury, also wanting the book, visits the castle and is rebuffed. Leaving, he calls on the Empress, but is locked in a shed by Pirbright the pig-man, instructed by a suspicious Lord Emsworth to guard the pig closely. He is released by Monty Bodkin, who he persuades to steal the book by offering him a year's guaranteed employment—he is worried about his tenure at the castle, as Lord Emsworth suspects him, being the nephew of his rival Parsloe-Parsloe, of scheming to nobble his pig, the Empress.

Beach, catching Pilbeam in the act of grabbing the book, tells Galahad and is instructed to guard the book himself. When he overhears Tilbury and Bodkin plotting in the garden at the Emsworth Arms however, he sees the task is too much for him and hands the book on to Ronnie Fish. Fish is distracted by his loss of Sue's love, but once the storm breaks feels better; he sees Monty Bodkin, drenched from the rain, and is friendly towards him. However, when he sees "Sue" tattooed on Bodkin's chest, his mood turns sour once more.

Sue, having heard Ronnie's kind words, is also cheered and rushes to find Ronnie; when he is once more cold and distant, she breaks down and breaks off the engagement. Bodkin finds Ronnie and asks him a favour—to get Beach to hand over the book, explaining he needs it to marry his girl. Ronnie, inwardly furious, chivalrously hands it over. Gally sees Sue is upset, learns all and confronts Ronnie with his idiocy. He explains about Bodkin and Sue, and Ronnie forgives her. Gally then confronts his sisters, threatening them once more with his book; although Julia is at first unmoved, when Gally relates a few of the stories it contains concerning her late husband "Fishy" Fish, she is defeated.

Bodkin, having engaged Pilbeam to find the book for him, tells the detective he is no longer needed, revealing where he has hidden the manuscript. Pilbeam steals it, planning to auction it between Tilbury and the Connie-Parsloe syndicate, and hides it in a disused shed. He informs Lord Emsworth that Bodkin released Tilbury, and Bodkin is fired. Pilbeam is summoned to see Lady Constance, and primes himself with a bottle of champagne. She is insulting, and Pilbeam vows to sell the book to Tilbury, who he calls promising to deliver it, but he retires to bed first to sleep off the booze.

Lord Emsworth, having moved the Empress to her new sty for safety, finds her eating the manuscript. Pilbeam sees this, and hurries to Connie and Parsloe-Parsloe, but is denied his fee when they find the pig has eaten the book. He then rushes to the Emsworth Arms, and gets a cheque out of Lord Tilbury, telling him the book is in the pigsty. Bodkin is on hand, however, and destroys the cheque and warns Emsworth by phone that someone is heading for his sty. Later, full of remorse, he offers Pilbeam a thousand pounds to employ him for a year in his agency.

While Emsworth is being badgered by his sisters into denying Ronnie his money, a mud-spattered Lord Tilbury is brought in, captured by Pirbright. Gally and Sue then appear, informing Emsworth that Ronnie has the pig in his car and will drive off with it if denied his cash. Emsworth coughs up, and the happy couple depart, much to Gally's satisfaction.

In 2013, seeking to unify their countries' security and to combat the smuggling of drugs and weapons, and the movement of terrorists between their borders, the Canadian prime minister and U.S. President Ballantine travel to Mexico City for a summit with Mexican President Ruiz-Peña, to sign a treaty known as the North American Joint Security Agreement (NAJSA). At the same time, a Ghost team, led by Captain Scott Mitchell, is sent into the city to intercept a deal taking place and recover Guardrail IX, a device capable of disrupting wireless communications, which had been taken from a spy plane that was shot down in Nicaragua. However, complications arise when a coup d'état takes place in Mexico City, forcing Ghost commander General Joshua Keating to abort the mission so that Mitchell's team can locate and extract both Ballantine and Ruiz-Peña, who both went into hiding shortly after Mexican rebels attacked the summit, killing the Canadian prime minister in the process.

Although the Ghosts rescue both VIPs, Ballantine is forced to hold at the city's airport until hostile anti-air emplacements are eliminated. Meanwhile, an attempt by rebels to kill Ruiz-Peña at the U.S. embassy is thwarted by the Ghosts. During this time, news reports confirm that the coup is being spearheaded by a rebel special forces group called the Aguila 7, led by General Ontiveros, and his son Colonel Carlos Ontiveros. Seeking to re-establish order, Ruiz-Peña allows U.S. forces to intervene, with Mitchell ordered by Major General Martin to help clear a path into the city, whereupon he neutralizes artillery and anti-air batteries, assaults Chapultepec Castle, and eventually secures some of the M1A2 Abrams tanks given to the Mexican government to help combat rebel armor. While securing the tanks however, Aguila 7 ambush Ballantine's position and capture him, forcing Mitchell to search the city's shanty district and extract him.

Although they rescue the U.S. president, Keating orders Mitchell and the Ghosts to recover the "Football", after the rebels steal it, but are thwarted by Guardrail IX, which Lieutenant Barnes reveals is being used to monitor and disrupt communications between U.S. forces. Mitchell quickly manages to find and destroy much of the device, before assisting allied forces pushing into Zocalo Plaza, and rescuing team pilot Martin when his Black Hawk is downed. During this time, Keating informs Ballantine that the rebels are still using elements of Guardrail IX to hack into NORAD in order to gain control over the United States' ICBMs, which in turn causes China and Russia to ready their own, buying time to gain international support for the coup. Mitchell is then ordered to assist in the final push on Palacio Nacional, destroying the last elements of Guardrail IX, and eventually helping to capture General Ontiveros before he can flee, but is unable to find the "Football" with him.

Mitchell quickly learns that Carlos has the "Football", after he manages to escape and hijacks Martin's Black Hawk, killing him in the process. As Mitchell and his team fight through the U.S. embassy, they overcome the last remnants of Aguila 7, successfully kill Carlos, and recover the "Football". As the team prepare for extraction, Barnes confirms suspicion of a traitor in the U.S. Army, and reveals through news footage that a retired U.S. Army general, who was in opposition to NAJSA, was responsible for giving Ontiveros access to Guardrail IX.

Count Alucard is invited by Katherine Caldwell to the United States. Caldwell is one of the daughters of New Orleans plantation owner Colonel Caldwell. Shortly after his arrival, the Colonel dies of an apparent heart failure and leaves his wealth to his two daughters. Claire receives all his money and Katherine his estate "Dark Oaks". Katherine has been secretly dating Alucard and the two are quickly married. Her former long-time boyfriend Frank Stanley confronts the couple and tries to shoot Alucard. The bullets pass through the Count's body and hit Katherine. Assuming she is dead, a shocked Frank runs off to get Dr. Brewster to attend to her. On the doctor's arrival, he is greeted by Alucard and a living Katherine. The couple instruct him that they will be devoting their days to scientific research and only welcome visitors at night. Frank goes on to the police and confesses to the murder of Katherine. Brewster tries to convince the Sheriff that he saw Katherine alive, but the Sheriff insists on searching Dark Oaks. He finds Katherine's dead body and has her transferred to the morgue. Dr. Brewster is shown reading the novel ''Dracula''.

Meanwhile, Hungarian Professor Lazlo arrives at Brewster's house. Brewster has noticed that Alucard is Dracula spelled backwards and Lazlo suspects vampirism. A local boy brought to Brewster's house confirms this suspicion—there are bite marks on his neck. Later, the Count appears to Brewster and Lazlo but is driven away by a cross. Katherine sneaks into Frank's cell and explains that she only married Alucard (who is really Dracula himself) to obtain immortality and wants to share it with Frank. He is initially repulsed by her idea, but then yields to her. After she explains that she has already drunk some of his blood, she advises him on how to destroy Alucard. He breaks out of prison, seeks out Alucard's hiding place and burns his coffin. Without his daytime sanctuary, Alucard is destroyed when the sun rises. Brewster, Lazlo, and the Sheriff arrive at the scene to find Alucard's remains.

Meanwhile, Frank stumbles into the playroom where Katherine said she would be. He finds her coffin and gazes down at her lifeless body. Knowing he must kill the love of his life, Frank takes off his ring and puts it on Katherine's left ring finger. Once Brewster and the others reach the room, they see Frank appear at the door. He steps back allowing them to follow. As they enter the room, they see Katherine's burning coffin. They all stare, speechlessly, while Frank mourns the loss of his love.

Cover of the US mass-market paperback The action revolves around a few characters brought together by a Hollywood millionaire, Jo Stoyte. Each character represents a different attitude toward life. Stoyte, in his sixties and conscious of his mortality, is desperate to stave off death. Stoyte hires Dr. Obispo and his assistant Pete to research the secrets to long life in carp, crocodiles, and parrots. Jeremy Pordage, an English archivist and literature expert, is brought in to archive a rare collection of books. Pordage's presence highlights Stoyte's shallow attitude toward the precious works of art that he affords himself. Other characters are Virginia, Stoyte's young mistress; and Mr. Propter, a childhood acquaintance of Stoyte's who lives on a small nearby farm and works to improve the lot of the mistreated and underpaid laborers Stoyte had working for him. Mr. Propter believes:

... every individual is called on to display not only unsleeping good will but also unsleeping intelligence. And this is not all. For, if individuality is not absolute, if personalities are illusory figments of a self-will disastrously blind to the reality of a more-than-personal consciousness, of which it is the limitation and denial, then all of every human being's efforts must be directed, in the last resort, to the actualisation of that more-than-personal consciousness. So that even intelligence is not sufficient as an adjunct to good will; there must also be the recollection which seeks to transform and transcend intelligence.

This is essentially Huxley's own position. Though other characters achieve conventional success, even happiness, only Mr. Propter does so without upsetting anyone or creating evil. Propter also says, "Time and craving, craving and time--two aspects of the same thing; and that thing is the raw material of evil." For this reason, he sees any effort to extend human lifespans—the very work that Stoyte had hired Dr. Obispo and Pete to do, as nothing but "a couple of extra lifetimes of potential evil."

Dr. Obispo views science as the ultimate good and is therefore cynical and dismissive about straightforward notions or morality. Because he views himself as a man of science, he has no qualms about deriving pleasure or happiness at others' expense. According to Propter's philosophy, he is trapped in ego-based "human" behavior that prevents him from reaching enlightenment.

One evening, Obispo visits Jeremy, who reads to him from the diaries of the Fifth Earl of Gonister, written in the late eighteenth century. At the time, the Fifth Earl was extremely old and looking into the secrets of long life. He eventually concludes it can be obtained by eating raw fish guts. Obispo is at first skeptical but then realizes the Fifth Earl may be onto something. Throughout the book, Obispo repeatedly rapes Virginia, which results in Virginia's self-recrimination and feelings of sordid guilt:

It had happened again, even though she’d said no, even though she’d got mad at him, fought with him, scratched him; but he’d only laughed and gone on; and then suddenly she was too tired to fight anymore. Too tired and too miserable. He got what he wanted; and the awful thing was that it seemed to be what she wanted--or rather, what her unhappiness wanted; for the misery had been relieved for a time...

'How long do you figure it would take before a person went like that?' he said in a slow, hesitating voice. 'I mean, it wouldn't happen at once...there'd be a long time while the person...well, you know; while he wouldn't change any. And once you get over the first shock—well, they look like they're having a pretty good time. I mean in their own way, of course. Don't you think so, Dr. Obispo?' he insisted.

Dr. Obispo went on looking at him in silence; then threw back his head and started to laugh again.

In the first part, the fictional narrator is contacted by a mysterious individual, who informs him of the disappearance of a deaf and dumb boy in a shipwreck. The boy is also called Gaspard Winkler—the adult narrator of the story discovers that he took on the boy's identity after deserting the army, although at that time he believed he had been given forged identity papers.

In the second part, the fictional narrative (apparently based on a story written by Perec at the age of thirteen) recounts the founding and organisation of a remote island country called W, said to be situated near Tierra del Fuego. Life in W, seemingly modeled on the Olympic ideal, revolves around sport and competition. While at first it seems a Utopia, successive chapters gradually reveal the arbitrary and cruel rules that govern the lives of the athletes.

The final autobiographical chapter links back to the fictional narrative by a quotation from David Rousset about the Nazi death camps, where Perec's mother died: by now the reader has discovered that the story of the island is an allegory of life in the camps.

Like much of Perec's work, ''W'' is characterized by word play. The title ''W'' is a pun on "double vé/vie", referring to the two lives and two stories narrated in the text.

Dr. Gustav Niemann escapes from prison along with his hunchbacked assistant Daniel, for whom he promises to create a new, beautiful body. The two murder Professor Lampini, a traveling showman, and take over his horror exhibit. To exact revenge on Burgomaster Hussman, who had put him in prison, Niemann revives Count Dracula. Dracula seduces Hussmann's granddaughter-in-law Rita and kills Hussmann himself, but in a subsequent chase, Niemann disposes of Dracula's coffin, causing the vampire to perish in the sunlight. Niemann and Daniel move on to the flooded ruins of Castle Frankenstein in Visaria, where they find the bodies of Frankenstein's monster and Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, preserved in the frozen castle. Niemann thaws them and promises to find Talbot a cure for the curse. Niemann is more interested in reviving the monster and exacting revenge on two traitorous former associates than in keeping his promises. Talbot transforms into a werewolf and kills a man, sending the villagers into a panic.

Niemann and Daniel save a gypsy girl named Ilonka, and Daniel falls in love with her; it is unrequited, however, as Ilonka falls in love with Talbot. Daniel tells Ilonka that Talbot is a werewolf, but she is undeterred, and promises Talbot that she will help him. Events reach a crisis point when Niemann revives the monster and Talbot again turns into a werewolf. The werewolf attacks and fatally wounds Illonka, but she manages to shoot and kill Talbot with a silver bullet before she dies. Daniel blames Niemann and turns on him. The monster intervenes, throws Daniel out of the window, and carries the half-conscious Niemann outside, where the villagers chase them into the marshes. There, both the monster and Niemann drown in quicksand.

Count Dracula arrives at the castle home of Dr. Franz Edelmann and explains he has come to Visaria to find a cure for his vampirism. Dr. Edelmann agrees to help, believing a series of blood transfusions may heal him. The count agrees to this, and the doctor uses his own blood for the transfusions. Afterwards, the count has his coffin placed in the castle basement. That night, Lawrence Talbot arrives at the castle demanding to see Dr. Edelmann about a cure for his lycanthropy. Talbot is told to wait, but knowing the moon is rising, has himself incarcerated by the police. Inspector Holtz asks the doctor to see Talbot, and, as the full moon rises, they both witness his transformation into the Wolf Man. Edelmann and his assistant Milizia have him transferred to the castle the next morning. The doctor tells him he believes that moonlight does not trigger Talbot's transformations; it is pressure on the brain. He believes he can relieve the pressure and asks Talbot to wait while he gathers more spores from a plant he feels can cure him. Despondent at the thought of becoming the Wolf Man again, Talbot attempts suicide by jumping into the ocean, only to end up in a cave below the castle.

Edelmann finds Talbot in the cave, where they come across the catatonic Frankenstein's monster, still clutching the skeleton of Dr. Niemann. The humidity in the cave is perfect for propagating ''Clavaria formosa'', and a natural tunnel in the cave connects to a basement of the castle. Dr. Edelmann takes the monster back to his lab, but considers reviving him to be too dangerous. Meanwhile, the count tries to seduce Milizia and make her a vampire, but Milizia wards him off with a cross. The doctor interrupts to explain he has found strange antibodies in the count's blood, requiring another transfusion. Edelmann's assistant Nina shadows Milizia and discovers that the count casts no reflection in a mirror. She warns Edelmann of the vampire's danger to Milizia. The doctor prepares a transfusion that will destroy the vampire. During the procedure, the count uses his hypnotic powers to put Edelmann and Nina to sleep. He reverses the flow of the transfusion, sending his own blood into the doctor's veins. When they wake, the count is carrying Milizia away. They revive Talbot and force the count away with a cross; Dracula returns to his coffin as the sun is rising. Edelmann follows him and drags the open coffin into the sunlight, destroying him.

The doctor begins reacting to Dracula's blood and finds he no longer casts a reflection in a mirror. Falling unconscious, he sees strange visions of a monstrous version of himself performing unspeakable acts. Edelmann awakens and tries to perform the operation on Talbot. The doctor begins transforming into a more monstrous personality and murders his gardener. When the townspeople discover the body, they chase Edelmann, believing him to be Talbot. They follow him to the castle, where Holtz and Steinmuhl interrogate Talbot and Edelmann. Steinmuhl is convinced the doctor is the murderer and assembles a mob to execute him. The operation cures Talbot, but Edelmann again turns into his monstrous self. The doctor revives Frankenstein's monster, with the others witnessing Edelmann's transformation. Edelmann breaks Nina's neck and throws her body into the cave. Holtz and Steinmuhl lead the townspeople to the castle, where the police attack the monster, but are subdued by the creature. The doctor kills Holtz by accidental electrocution, and Talbot shoots Edelmann dead. Talbot traps the monster under fallen shelving as a fire breaks out, and the townspeople flee the burning castle. The burning roof collapses on the monster.

Victor Ajax has been sentenced to death, sitting in an electric chair. In a flashback, we learn that Victor once was a promising young technician in the employ of Trend-Odegard Security. Mr. Trend, co-owner of the company, has learned of a plan by his partner to sell the company to Renaldo "The Heel" and responds by hiring two exterminators who promise to "kill all sizes" in order to eliminate Odegard and his plan. When Victor, who has been installing security cameras in Trend's apartment building, seems about to go back to the store, Trend distracts him with a lecture about "the grand design" and sends Victor on a quest to find his dream girl.

The dream girl is found in the form of Nancy, who responds minimally to Vic but is enamored of Renaldo. Victor and several residents of the building, including Mrs. Trend, run afoul of the killers, and a seemingly random series of slapstick murders occur, for all of which Victor is ultimately blamed. Nancy inevitably becomes a target and Vic saves her and kills the exterminators after a long comical fight sequence. The flashback ends and Victor is in the electric chair, and awaits his execution while an elaborate race sequence occurs in which Nancy, accompanied by several nuns, drive manically, Nancy at the wheel, to the scene in order to prove his innocence. Before the switch is pulled however, Nancy arrives just in time and clears his name. The movie concludes with their marriage.

Young billionaire Clay Beresford, Jr. is in love with beautiful Samantha "Sam" Lockwood, his mother's personal assistant. Clay requires a heart transplant and Dr. Jack Harper is Clay's heart surgeon and friend. Clay asks Dr. Harper to arrange his elopement with Sam and they marry privately at midnight, then Clay goes to the hospital for the operation. While Clay's mother Lilith awaits completion of his surgery, Clay encounters anesthesia awareness. The surgical pain causes Clay to have a clairvoyant experience exposing Dr. Harper's plot to murder him, also revealing that Sam worked at the hospital under Dr. Harper and has conspired with him against Clay. Sam's plan was to poison the donor heart by injecting Adriamycin to cause its rejection, thus murdering Clay to collect insurance money to pay off Dr. Harper's malpractice lawsuits.

The scheme unravels and Lilith, realizing what has happened, sacrifices her own life so that Clay, who is close to death, can live: she dies by suicide so her heart can be switched for the poisoned one, and save Clay. While Sam tries to get away with what she did, Dr. Harper feels guilty and he holds onto proof so she can be arrested too. Another surgical team takes over the operation, as Clay barely clings to life and the conspirators are arrested. The new team takes Lilith's heart and transplants it into Clay's body, as Clay and Lilith have their final moments together in spirit (in an out-of-body experience).

The new head surgeon announces that Clay has come back to life, as the new team stitch Clay's wound. Clay, in spirit, is still in the afterlife with Lilith, tries to take his own life to stay with his mother. Clay makes his new heart stop beating and the surgeons have to use the defibrillator in attempt to revive Clay. As Clay resists being revived, Lilith forces Clay (in the "afterlife-world") to revisit a scene from his childhood, when Lilith accidentally killed Clay's abusive father. This scene reveals the truth for Clay and connects his childhood flashbacks. After seeing this scene, Clay gives away to revival, and before the surgeons could shock his body again, Clay allows his new heart to begin beating. Clay opens his eyes when the surgeons remove the eye tapes while Harper ends his narratings with "He is awake".

The film begins four years after the events of the first one, with George Banks telling the audience he is ready for the empty nest he'll soon receive with all of his children grown up. Shortly thereafter, Annie tells the family that she's pregnant. George begins to mildly panic, insisting he is too young to be a grandfather. He has his assistant make a list of people who are older than him, dyes his hair brown, and decides he and Nina should sell the home their children have grown up in if one more thing goes wrong with it.

Termites strike the house two weeks later. George puts the house on the market without telling Nina, and sells it to the Habibs. At dinner, after a discussion on whether the baby's last name will be hyphenated or not, George reveals the house has been sold. Nina is livid, as she and George have to be out in 10 days and have no place to go. The Banks stay at the mansion owned by Bryan's parents. As the MacKenzies are on a cruise in the Caribbean, the Banks have to deal with their vicious Dobermans, much to the chagrin of George, who is still paranoid from a previous mishap with them. Nina begins experiencing symptoms that bring up the concern of menopause. After visiting the doctor the following day, they are given the opposite news: Nina is pregnant, too.

Following the unexpected news of Nina's pregnancy, they have a chance meeting with Franck, Annie's former wedding planner, who is elated at both women expecting. As they are driving home, Nina and George have differing perspectives on the prospect of becoming new parents again. Both express how strange it will be, but begin to welcome the change. George has switched gears, now believing he is too old to be a father again. His feelings come to a head when he and Nina go to Annie's and Bryan's house to announce their news. Nina brings his insensitivity to light and tells him not to come home.

Out for a walk, George notices that the street to their old house is blocked off and sees a demolition crew with a wrecking ball at the house, learning that Mr. Habib plans to demolish it. An upset George runs in and tries to stop them as the wrecking ball is about to slam into the house. He pleads with Mr. Habib not to tear down the house since he is going to be a father again, as there is great sentimental value to it. He realizes that if he's going to have another child, he wants to raise him/her in the house his family grew up in. When George offers to buy the house back, Habib agrees on the condition that George pay him $100,000 up front. Although reluctant to pay that money, he gives in. The Banks then move back into their house. As a way to further apologize to Nina, George reluctantly hires Franck to do the baby shower. A few weeks before the baby is due Bryan is called away to an emergency meeting in Japan, leaving Annie in the care of George and Nina.

Meanwhile, Nina and Annie are moving along in their simultaneous pregnancies and need around the clock care from George. Matty takes over when his father George is away at work. Franck turns simple redecoration of Nina and George's new baby's nursery into a full-scale renovation/addition, which he affectionately calls, 'the baby's suite'. Eventually, all the stress and nights of sleep deprivation wear George out. When 'the baby's suite' is revealed, Franck offers George some sleeping pills from his native country called 'Vatsnik' after George tells him that he has not been getting enough sleep. George unknowingly takes too high of a dosage and suddenly passes out during dinner. The family becomes worried, which is only increased when Annie finally goes into labor.

Franck takes over the role of driving the family to the hospital with a barely coherent George in tow. After being mistaken for a patient in need of a prostate exam, George finally regains full consciousness and goes to see Nina when she goes into labor. George is initially cynical about the female obstetrician who fills in because their own is unavailable. Despite wanting his grandchild to be delivered by the same doctor who delivered his children, George comes to terms with the arrangement. Bryan soon returns to be with Annie, who gives birth to a baby boy, while Nina at the same moment gives birth to a baby girl, named George and Megan, respectively. As George holds his grandson and daughter in his arms, he delivers the stand-out line of the movie - "Life doesn't get any better than this". George finishes telling the story about Nina and Annie's pregnancies. Bryan and Annie then move to Boston with baby George, since Annie took a job there. The film concludes with George standing on the road in front of his house, admiring it with Megan by his side. As he completes the story, he begins walking up the driveway, telling Megan about all the basketball tricks George will teach her.

Rizka is a gypsy who lives just outside a town in a vardo and waits for the return of her gypsy father after the death of her mother. She has Big Franko looking out for her and the company of her cat Petzel. Throughout the story, she experiences numerous adventures helping out friends and folks in town as well as outwitting local town official Sharpnack, who will do anything to get rid of Rizka.

The Federation starship ''Enterprise'', under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), receives an automated message from the Sheliak: Remove the humans on planet Tau Cygni V in four days. The Sheliak are a non-humanoid species with little regard for human life and would exterminate any humans found in their path. Their message is only due to their obligation under a treaty with the Federation to notify their intention to colonize before taking further action.

There is no record of a Federation colony ship being sent there as it contains levels of hyperonic radiation lethal to humans, which doesn't explain why the Sheliak indicate otherwise. The ''Enterprise'' arrives in the system to find what looks to be a small colony on the surface. The android Second Officer, Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner), takes a shuttlecraft to the planet to coordinate the evacuation as he is the only crewmember unaffected by the radiation. Once he arrives, he finds that the sensor readings were incorrect. He is informed by local greeters Haritath (Mark L. Taylor) and Kentor (Richard Allen) that it is a colony of 15,253 people, the descendants of the wayward colony ship ''Artemis'' launched 92 years prior. The colonists' ancestors found a means to survive within the radiation but initially suffered heavy loss of life before an effective defense was found.

Although it would normally be a simple matter of beaming the colonists off the planet, hyperonic radiation renders the transporters useless. Because of this, a complete evacuation of the planet would take an estimated three weeks, and the Sheliak are not willing to give the Federation any extra time beyond the three days required by the treaty.

After explaining the situation and being rebuffed by the colony's leader, Gosheven (Grainger Hines), Data is befriended by a sympathetic colonist named Ard'rian (Eileen Seeley). She expresses interest in Data as an android and invites Data to her home, where they discuss ways to persuade the colonists to evacuate. To his puzzlement Ard'rian kisses Data. When Data explains to the colonists that they should evacuate their world before its imminent destruction and then pointing out by reverse psychology that the only result of their heroic hopeless last stand will be their total annihilation, Gosheven, speaking for the colonists, refuses to leave, insisting they will protect themselves by fighting.

With time running out, Picard and the ''Enterprise'' crew begin poring through the 500,000-word treaty in the hopes of finding something they can use to their advantage.

At a meeting at Ard'rian's home, Data talks to several of the colonists who are thinking of leaving the doomed colony; Gosheven comes in and "shocks" Data. Data recovers and reasons that if persuasion cannot work, then intimidation through a show of force should be his next option. Modifying his phaser to work in the hyperonic atmosphere, he raids the colonists' aqueduct to prove they are helpless to defend their livelihood. When Data easily overpowers/stuns the colonists guarding the aqueduct, he points out that if they can't defend against a single person with a phaser, then they aren't capable of fighting the hundreds of Sheliak, who would likely destroy them via orbital bombardment. Data then sends a phaser charge up the aqueduct system to plug up the water that is vital to the colony's survival, convincing the colonists to evacuate the world. Gosheven reluctantly relents.

Back on the ''Enterprise'', Picard exploits a loophole in the treaty. He invokes a section calling for third-party arbitration to resolve the dispute and names as arbitrators the Grizzelas, a species that is in its hibernation cycle for another six months. Picard offers the Sheliak a choice: wait six months for the Grizzelas to come out of hibernation, or give the Federation three weeks to evacuate the colony. Outmaneuvered, the Sheliak agree the three weeks.

Just as Data is about to leave the colony in his shuttle, Ard'rian comes to say goodbye. She asks Data if he has any feeling over what has just happened, and Data explains that he cannot experience feelings. To her surprise, he then kisses Ard'rian. She remarks that he "realized" she needed a kiss; Data leaves Ard'rian and returns to the ''Enterprise''.

Aboard the ''Enterprise'', Picard comments on Data's performance at a classical concert before his mission with the human colonists. Picard tells Data he performed with feeling, and Data reminds Picard that he has no feeling. Picard says that this is hard to believe, noting his fusion of two very different music styles in his performance suggests real creativity. At that, and in obvious reflection of his recent solution of the colony problem, Data concedes that he has become more creative when necessary.

Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Acting on the advice of an anonymous note, Takuro Yamashita (Kōji Yakusho) returns home early one night to find his wife in bed with another man. He kills her and then turns himself in to the police. After being released from prison, he opens a barber shop and brings along a pet eel that he talks to while mostly ignoring conversation with others. He helps save Keiko Hattori (Misa Shimizu) from a suicide attempt, resulting in her working at the shop. She starts developing romantic feelings for him, but he acts nonchalant and refuses the boxed lunches she prepares for him when he goes eel-hunting with the fisherman Jukichi Takada. Takuro recognizes the local garbageman from prison and the garbageman starts to stalk Takuro and Keiko, believing that Takuro isn't repentant enough for his crimes. He attempts to rape Keiko and leaves a letter revealing Takuro's past on the door of his barber shop, but it is removed by Takada. Keiko finds out that she is pregnant with the baby of Eiji Dojima (Tomorowo Taguchi), a loan shark, and that it is too late for an abortion. One night, the garbageman goes to Takuro's shop and lectures him, accusing him of killing his wife out of jealousy. The two get into an altercation and Takuro fends him off. Keiko goes back to her old company, where she is the vice-president, and retrieves her mother's bankbook. This results in Dojima angrily going to the barber shop, along with henchman, and accusing her of theft since he was planning to reinvest the funds into his business. Dojima's group and Keiko's fight, with the false revelation that Keiko is pregnant with Takuro's child. The police find that Keiko's mother never signed power of attorney papers for Dojima, but a parole violation meeting for Takuro causes him to be sent back to prison for a year. Takuro lets his eel go and accepts a boxed lunch from Keiko, who promises to wait for him with her baby.

In September 2151, while deploying subspace amplifiers to improve their ability to communicate with Starfleet, ''Enterprise'' is approached by an alien vessel. Captain Archer hails them, but the vessel returns to warp. He wonders why: Ensign Sato points out that the Universal Translator is far from perfect; and Sub-Commander T'Pol says that some species have motives that cannot be understood in human terms. Soon, the mysterious ship returns and scans ''Enterprise'', sending a high pitched screech through the com systems, and firing on them before again jumping to warp.

Archer notes that ''Enterprise'' is now encountering more aggressive species than anticipated, and sets course for Earth so that Jupiter Station can finish the weapons refit. Commander Tucker and Reed ask to be allowed to complete the work themselves, but Archer disagrees, though he gives them permission to begin the procedure. While doing so, the alien ship returns and disables ''Enterprise'' s warp drive and main power. Strange alien bipeds then board the ship, and assault two crew-members. They return to their ship, damaging a warp nacelle before departing again. Mayweather suggests contacting the Vulcan High Command for help, but both subspace amplifiers have been destroyed.

Two days later, ''Enterprise'' locates an uninhabited planet for a weapons test, which produces a blast yield 10 times the expected output, due to an unexpected surge. T'Pol traces the anomalous reading to Launch Bay 2, to a device tapped into internal sensors and comm channels. Archer then sends the aliens a message: he does not want a fight but will protect his ship by any means necessary. With that, he destroys the device. T'Pol detects the alien vessel again, which uses a re-edited version of Archer's earlier message to demand surrender. After the new cannons are ineffective against their attacker, Archer asks if Reed can intentionally repeat the previous overload of the cannons. Reed complies and damages the alien vessel, knocking out their shields. Reed follows up with two torpedoes before the aliens depart.

Artie Sawyer (Griffith) is a World War II veteran who has been laid off from his factory job. His relationship with his wife, Iris (Lupino), is strained as a result. He takes a job as the superintendent of an apartment building in New York. One night, when Iris is out of town, Artie goes to a bar. He meets a pretty girl named Claudine (Benton) who is looking for an apartment. He brings her to his apartment building intending to let her stay in Apartment 7A, but she seduces Artie. Artie falls for the girl, but her attentions are a ruse. Her sadistic boyfriend Billy (Brandon) and his Army buddies Riff and Virgil plan to use the apartment as a base from which to rob the bank next door. Not knowing about their plans, Artie is suspicious of them when they arrive, but they promise to leave as soon as possible. Artie allows them to stay temporarily, fearing they could expose his tryst with Claudine to Iris.

Artie's conscience gets the better of him, and he sneaks into 7A while the conspirators are away at the bank planting the bomb under a ruse of needing a large safety deposit box for wedding keepsakes while on their honeymoon from Minnesota. Unbelievably they say they've just been married for about three hours.

He discovers the plan to rob the bank. He is caught by Virgil, who holds him there until Billy and Claudine return. Billy orders Virgil and Riff to kidnap Iris, and Iris and Artie are tied up in 7A until after the robbery.

The robbery is foiled when the police surround the bank, and Virgil is killed in an exchange of gunfire. Billy blames Riff when the bomb they rigged to open the vault does not detonate on schedule. To escape the police, Billy forces Riff to plant another bomb in the elevator of the apartment building. Billy orders Iris to tell the police that he will detonate the bomb, killing everyone in the building, if the thieves are not allowed to escape.

Claudine's growing reluctance with the increasing violence and guilt for what she put Artie and Iris through forces her to openly resist Billy's plans. He ridicules her, but leaves her behind (her fate is left unknown.) Billy and Riff then take Artie with them as a hostage. In the elevator, Billy berates Riff again for the failure of the first bomb. When Riff rebuts that the second bomb is their salvation, Billy tells him that he is no longer entitled to the money and kills him with a shotgun. Billy decides to still detonate the bomb. In response, Artie jams the elevator. Billy, enraged, threatens Artie with the shotgun. Artie asks him where he placed the bomb, warning him that now he too will die with everyone else in the building when it goes off. They struggle over the gun, and Billy is shot in the shoulder, losing consciousness. Artie grabs Billy's two-way radio and climbs to the top of the elevator where the bomb is. The police are able to guide him in disarming the bomb, and Artie saves the building.

Artie confesses his indiscretion, and he and Iris reconcile their differences and embrace their relationship. With Iris' support, Artie begins taking engineering classes so that he can get a better job.

Immediately after his apparent demise at the end of the previous film, a new Tall Man emerges from his dimension fork. At the same time, after being attacked and ejected from the hearse carrying Mike and Liz, a still alive Reggie watches as the car drives on and explodes. Reggie finds Liz dead but saves Mike from the Tall Man by threatening to kill them all with a grenade. The Tall Man retreats with Liz's head but promises to return when Mike is well again.

In 1988, after spending two years comatose in a hospital, Mike has a near death experience where his deceased brother Jody appears but is interrupted by the Tall Man. Awaking abruptly, he is attacked by a demonic nurse but quickly subdues her. Reggie arrives as she dies, her scalp bursting open to reveal a cranial sphere that takes off through the window after witnessing Mike awake. At Reggie's house, the Tall Man arrives via dimensional fork, fights off Reggie, transforms Jody into a charred sphere, and draws Mike through the gate with him.

The next morning, Reggie awakens and begins traveling towards an Idaho town the Jody-sphere muttered called Holtsville. Upon arriving in the deserted town, he is captured by three looters, who lock him in the trunk of his 1970 Barracuda. Reggie is rescued by a young boy named Tim, who kills the looters when they break into his house. After they have buried the bodies in the yard, Tim tells Reggie how the Tall Man took his parents and destroyed the town. In the morning, Reggie and Tim find the three graves empty and their pink hearse gone. Reggie tries to leave Tim at an orphanage, but the boy hides in a car trunk. Reggie enters a mausoleum and is confronted by a sphere, but he is subdued by two young women, Tanesha and Rocky, before he can destroy it. Reggie tries to warn them, but Tanesha is killed by the sphere. Tim appears and destroys it with his pistol. The three join forces, come upon a convoy of hearses driven by Gravers, and decide to follow them.

At night, Jody appears to Reggie in a dream and takes him to the Tall Man's lair, where they rescue Mike. As Reggie wakes, Jody opens a portal and Mike emerges. The Tall Man tries to follow, but Reggie closes the portal, severing the Tall Man's hands. After fighting off the Tall Man's minions, including the undead looters, they enter a large mausoleum in the city of Boulton. They discover a cryonics facility and Mike remembers that the Tall Man dislikes cold. While Reggie, Rocky, and Tim are separated and attacked by the looters, Mike consults with the Jody-sphere in a psychic link. Jody explains that the Tall Man is amassing an army to conquer dimensions. As he explains, they witness him removing the brain of a newly shrunken dwarf and placing it into a sphere thus turning the body into a drone and the mind into a killer. The Tall Man soon senses their presence and recaptures Mike. Two of the looters wheel in Tim on a gurney and Mike tries to tell him of the thousands of spheres he witnessed but the Tall Man paralyzes him before he can finish.

Meanwhile, Rocky defeats her attacker and helps Reggie. Cut free by the Jody-sphere, Tim runs into the remaining looters, who are killed by the Jody-sphere and Reggie's 4-barrel shotgun. The trio crash into the embalming room, where the Tall Man is operating on Mike's head. Rocky impales the Tall Man with a spear dipped in liquid nitrogen and they lock him in the freezer. However a golden sphere breaks out of his head and attacks them. Reggie catches it in a plunger and they manage to submerge it into the nitrogen tank. Mike inspects his head wound which is bleeding yellow blood and finds a golden sphere beneath the skin. With his eyes like silver spheres and complaining of the cold, he runs away but not before telling Reggie to stay away from him. Jody imparts some cryptic words on Reggie and assures him they'll be in touch before transforming and leaving too.

Reggie suggests exploring the mortuary but Rocky declines and leaves in a hearse. Tim reports that Mike tried to warn him, but they find out too late that there are thousands of spheres waiting to attack, and Reggie is pinned to the wall by them. He tells Tim "It's all over" and to just run. Just as Tim is about to take aim with his pistol, a new Tall Man appears and says "It's never over." He watches as Tim is suddenly attacked by a zombie in the freezer and pulled through a glass window, mirroring the ending of the first film.

The film begins where the previous film left off. Mike flees from Boulton mortuary in a hearse, while Reggie is trapped inside by the Tall Man's spheres. Rather than kill Reggie, the Tall Man lets him go, saying "the final game now begins." Mike's brother Jody, still a black sphere that can occasionally resume his human form, contacts and persuades Reggie to search for Mike. On the way, Reggie survives a demon attack and rescues a woman named Jennifer from a car accident. They stay the night at an abandoned motel where Reggie tells her about The Tall Man. Jennifer is not who she seems to be. She attacks Reggie with two spheres, hidden in her breasts. Reggie smashes Jennifer's head and one sphere with a sledgehammer and uses a tuning fork on the other that managed to drill his hand. Mike tries to escape his transformation, driving through abandoned areas, recalling the last days of his youth before The Tall Man's arrival. After being spooked by visions of the elderly Fortune Teller he consulted years ago, the Tall Man appears and declares he is taking Mike somewhere "to prepare for passage." The location is Death Valley where Mike ultimately attempts suicide by hanging. However the Tall Man intercedes and shows him conflicting memories of when he and Jody attempted to kill the Tall Man in 1978. Forbidden from taking his own life, Mike sees the Tall Man offer his hand implying he wants to guide him. Refusing, Mike escapes through a dimension fork. He appears to have traveled back in time, emerging from an early version of the gateway in an 1860s era laboratory. He is greeted by a kind man named Jebediah Morningside. Mike is frightened away because not only does Jebediah appear to be the Tall Man but the Fortune Teller is mysteriously present.

In the desert, Mike realizes he is slowly developing telekinesis when he kills a dwarf with a large boulder. Jody finally appears but a distrustful Mike accuses him of having abandoned him. Mike begins working on the hearse's engine, seemingly using parts to build a makeshift sphere. Mike goes through a gate, but finds himself in a deserted city and escapes The Tall Man only with Jody's help. Meanwhile, Reggie arrives at Death Valley and fights off a group of dwarfs shortly before Mike and Jody reappear through a gate. Mike embraces Reggie and tells him not to trust Jody. Mike and Jody pass through the gate and appear in Jebediah's house. Invisible to the old man, they witness how he perfects his craft and approaches the inter-dimensional gate. Mike unsuccessfully tries to stab Jebediah, who vanishes and moments later is replaced by the Tall Man incarnation who emerges in his place. He can see Jody and Mike, forcing Mike to retreat through the gate. Jody finds Mike in a cemetery and attacks him. Awakening on an embalming slab, Mike uses the tuning fork to immobilize Jody and the Tall Man as they attempt to cut open his head with a buzz saw equipped sphere. He makes the Tall Man kill Jody with the still-running saw. The Tall Man quickly revives and telekinetically takes the fork from Mike. Again, Mike escapes through the gate back to Death Valley, this time pursued by his nemesis.

Reggie tries to shoot but is overpowered by The Tall Man. Mike then summons the sphere he built and uses it to impale The Tall Man in the neck. At this moment, Mike activates the hearse's motor, which turns out to be the true weapon, a strange inter-dimensional bomb, against the Tall Man. The Tall Man is once again supposedly vanquished. However, a new Tall Man immediately comes through the gate, revealing that The Tall Man is but one of many. The Tall Man removes the golden sphere from Mike's head and then passes through the gate. Reggie arms himself and chases after The Tall Man through the gate. Mike recalls a childhood memory of him climbing into Reggie's ice cream truck as they both drive off into the dark night. Oddly enough, both of them hear each other's last exchange of dialogue from the present before Reggie went through the gate. Reggie asks Mike if he hears the voice, but Mike brushes it off, declaring "it's just the wind."

After Mr. Burns gets teased about his old car by the kids at Springfield Elementary School, he sends Homer to pick up a brand new ''Lamborgotti Fasterossa'' car (a parody of the Lamborghini Gallardo) in Italy. The family flies over on Alitalia, and have a great time touring the country, despite Homer and Bart's mockery of the culture and history of Italy. Lisa tries to pass the family off as Canadian to avoid potential ridicule from Europeans who believe Americans make stupid choices, though this backfires when Homer brings in an American flag to smooch off the other passengers. After one huge food wheel made of mortadella lands on their car and crush the hood, they slowly push it into a small (fictional) Tuscan village nearby called Salsiccia (sausage), and are told that the mayor speaks English.

The Simpsons are shocked to find out that the mayor is none other than Sideshow Bob, who is equally shocked to see them. He explains that after he last attempted to kill Bart, he wanted a new life away from Springfield. Bob decided to get a fresh start elsewhere by using a knife and globe to "randomly" settle on a new destination, eventually choosing Italy (but only after passing over Orlando, North Korea, Shelbyville and, ironically, "Bartovia"). After a rough start, the Italians warmed up to him when he helped them crush their grapes into wine using his enormous feet. After that, they elected him as mayor of their tiny village. As a result, Bob has resisted all intentions of killing Bart, and he reveals that he has a family. He introduces them to his wife, Francesca and his son, Gino. They know nothing about his past life in America, and Bob begs the Simpsons not to tell anyone in order to have the car fixed, which they agree to.

One month later, Bob hosts a farewell party in the village for the Simpson family. However, that goes awry when Lisa gets drunk on wine and starts to spout off about him being an attempted murderer. He leads her away from the table, but as she stumbles backwards, she rips off his suit to reveal his prison uniform. The village finds out that Bob is a robber and attempted killer, and they sack him as Mayor. Bob is so angry at this that he has had enough with the rest of the family, and decides to kill not just Bart, but ''all'' of the Simpsons, swearing a vendetta on them upon deciding so. The family flees in the fixed car, but Bob follows them on a motorcycle (a Ducati 999). This leads into a high-speed chase in a highway until Homer drives into a ditch and onto a Roman aqueduct, eventually landing on top of Trajan's Column in the Roman Forum. Bob's wife and son catch up with him, and Bob, fearing her disappointment, tries promising to give up his new vendetta. Francesca professes her love and loyalty to Bob and offers to help him take revenge ''as a family''.

Meanwhile, the Simpsons are wondering what they should do next, since they are in a foreign country with no car and no money whatsoever. Lisa spots a bus with a poster advertising Krusty the Clown's performance in the opera ''Pagliacci''. They meet up with him at the Colosseum in Rome, and he puts them in as unnoticed extras. However, Bob, Francesca, and Gino find them and corner them on the stage while Krusty, who went through a trap door, flees the stage. Lisa warns the audience that the Terwilligers are about to actually kill her and the family, but Bob tricks the audience by performing the climax of ''Vesti la giubba''. Before Bob and his family can finish off the Simpsons though, Krusty's limousine picks them up; Krusty needs them to smuggle an ancient artefact back to America. The Terwilligers are disappointed at first, but then walk away plotting revenge together, with Gino chasing a butterfly and Bob grinning maliciously with Francesca.

Jack Kelso, an American ace pilot in World War I, is shot down and nursed back to health by a German nurse, Baroness Elsa von Halder. They marry and return to America after the war. After Jack is killed in a car accident, Elsa returns to Germany with their eldest son Max, who assumes the title of Baron von Halder. Harry, his identical younger (by ten minutes) brother, remains with his grandfather, millionaire Abe Kelso.

Inspired by their father's example, both brothers become ace and much decorated pilots in opposing forces. Max joins the Luftwaffe and Harry, after fighting in Finland, returns to England, joining the Royal Air Force as a 'Finn'.

The brothers rise in rank and number of 'kills', occasionally hearing of the others exploits. They actually meet again in the skies and, when Harry is shot down, Max summons an English rescue boat using his airborne radio.

Elsa continues her social climbing amongst the Nazi elite, although Max warns her of the potential danger. Harry becomes a special duties pilot and crashes in France whilst landing a French Resistance leader. He is captured by the Germans and imprisoned at a local chateau, where he and Max finally meet face to face.

Heinrich Himmler, learning of the capture of one ace, arranges for the brothers to be blackmailed. Max is to assume Harry's character, 'escape' to England and assassinate General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fearing for his Mother's life, Max is forced to agree and flies back home. Elsa tries to intervene, but is shot dead in the attempt. The brothers' plot fails, mainly because the brothers see themselves as flyers and honourable men, not assassins.

Max returns to France, rescues Harry and flies back to England, but Max is killed when they are intercepted by a Bf 109. Harry returns to flying and is killed in a later mission, late in the war.

The narrative is surrounded by a 'frame story', with a prologue and epilogue. In 1998, the author and his wife, an experienced pilot, are forced to ditch their airplane in the English Channel and are rescued by the Cold Harbour lifeboat. They learn something of what happened in Cold Harbour during the War and later meet other surviving characters.

A central character of the story is 'Tarquin', a bear wearing flying kit with both RAF and RFC insignia. He was Jack's lucky mascot, later Harry's and was lost when Harry crashed. Tarquin passed to a French family and was later bought in an English antiques shop by the author's wife, also as a flying mascot.

There are a few twist reveals in the final chapter of the story, having to do with the fate of some of the earlier characters. Also when the twins are split after their father dies, they argue over who will take possession of Tarquin, they agree the bear stays in America, Max the oldest wins the toss and stays with his grandfather as "Harry" sending Harry to Germany as "Max"...so when Himmler forces Max to become Harry, they are actually switching back to their original selves.

The book is supposedly based on a true story.

Category:1998 British novels Category:British historical novels Category:Novels by Jack Higgins Category:Novels set during World War II Category:Aviation novels Category:G. P. Putnam's Sons books

''Voyager'' s crew discovers a rare, more stable form of dilithium that they postulate could power a warp drive beyond Warp 10. This would allow ''Voyager'' to reach the Alpha Quadrant near instantaneously. Although holodeck simulations prove disastrous, Lieutenant Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) comes up with an idea after an off-the-cuff discussion with Neelix (Ethan Phillips). The next simulation is successful and a shuttlecraft, dubbed the ''Cochrane'', is prepared for a full test flight. The Doctor (Robert Picardo) identifies a rare medical condition in Lieutenant Paris indicating a 2% chance that he will suffer lethal effects from the test-flight and recommends assigning Ensign Kim (Garrett Wang) as test-pilot. Paris convinces Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to allow him to fly the shuttle despite the small risk.

Paris successfully breaks the Warp 10 barrier with the ''Cochrane'', rapidly disappearing from ''Voyager'' s sensors. The crew begins to try to track the shuttle, but soon the ''Cochrane'' reappears, Paris unconscious at the controls. Once awake, Paris explains that he had already seen everything at every point in space, and the shuttle's database similarly contains a massive amount of information about the Delta Quadrant. However, Paris starts to suffer allergic reactions, and he is raced to Sickbay, where the Doctor determines that Paris is now allergic to common water. Paris's body soon changes again, and no longer can process oxygen, forcing the Doctor to create a special environment that Paris can exist in.

Paris's body continues its strange transformations, the Doctor postulates that he is becoming a new form of life. Before the Doctor can use an "anti-proton" treatment to return Paris to his human form, Paris escapes, disrupts ''Voyager'' s internal systems, and kidnaps Janeway on the ''Cochrane''. After the crew repairs Paris' damage, the ''Cochrane'' has taken off to Warp 10. As ''Voyager'' follows the shuttle's trail, they come to a planet covered in swamps. The Doctor explains that mutation's in Paris' DNA are consistent with those of evolution. Near the shuttle, they discover two amphibian beings, with trace DNA of Paris and Janeway. The two mated and had three offspring. The crew members recover a transformed Janeway and Paris. The Doctor returns them to their human forms. The offspring are left behind.

In 1977, Piper Dellums (Shadia Simmons) is a Black girl who lives in Washington, D.C. with her father, Congressman Ron Dellums (Carl Lumbly), an outspoken opponent of the South African apartheid system and the oppression of Black South Africans, her mother Roscoe Dellums (Penny Johnson), and two younger twin brothers, Brandon (Anthony Burnett) and Erik (Travis Davis). Piper, who has been taking an interest in the different nations of Africa, begs her parents to host an African exchange student.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, Mahree Bok (Lindsey Haun) is a white South African who lives in a manor house with her parents and little brother Rian. They comfortably benefit from the system of apartheid without questioning its morality; Mahree's father, Pieter Bok, is a South African policeman who cannot hide his joy when Stephen Biko (a Black South African man fighting against apartheid) has just been captured. They also have a Black maid, Flora (Melanie Nicholls-King), whom Mahree, in her racial blindness, considers her best friend, not realizing that Flora is not satisfied with her life under apartheid. However, Mahree's observation is not entirely wrong, as Flora is a kindly woman who is indeed friendly with the Bok children, believing that gentleness and persuasion work better than agitation. Flora tells Mahree that when she was a little girl she would observe the weaver bird, which has many different styles of plumage, and its communal nest-building, which is used as a metaphor for the possibility of racial harmony that Mahree does not understand at the time. Mahree also asks her parents for permission to study in America, which is granted by her father, who believes she will either get homesick or realize that America is not a paradise.

Upon meeting each other, both Mahree and Piper have misconstrued notions about each other's countries: Mahree does not think that there are Black politicians, only knowing the patriarch of her host family is "Congressman Dellums", and although Piper is expecting a South African exchange student, she does not realize there are white residents. Mahree reacts with horror bordering on panic when confronted with this new situation, and locks herself in Piper's bedroom when she is brought to the Dellums' home. Eventually, Piper picks the lock on the door to bring Mahree some fries and a chocolate shake. Mahree is standoffish, and Piper, upset by her attitude, tells Mahree how disappointed she is in her. Stunned by this, Mahree sees how rude she's been, and agrees to stay and try to make this work. Roscoe tries to play peacemaker, chalking up Mahree's reaction to misunderstanding and culture shock, while telling Ron and Piper they have been judgmental as well.

During Mahree's stay, she and the Dellums family grow close. Mahree sees people of different races getting along and realizes how much she and Piper have in common. The two become good friends and Mahree also begins to see her host family as individuals and learns to live among them day to day. Gradually, she develops a better understanding of what life under apartheid must be like for Black South Africans.

When Stephen Biko dies under suspicious circumstances in the custody of South African police, there are mass protests around the world, including at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. In the wake of these protests, South African embassy diplomats arrive at the Dellumses' house and take Mahree to the embassy, intending to send her back to South Africa. In response, Ron goes to the South African embassy. After he threatens to tell the press that the embassy kidnapped Mahree from her host family, the embassy releases Mahree. Mahree returns to the Dellums' without fully understanding what happened to her and why, and during her discussion with Piper she makes a cold offhand comment about Biko's death. Outraged, Piper shouts at her for being blind to the racial struggle happening in South Africa. Hurt, Mahree runs outside but Ron follows her. He tells Mahree that the United States had a long, hard history of trying to overcome problems, which is what South Africa is doing now, and she finally fully grasps what the liberation fighters in South Africa stand for. She and Piper reconcile.

An epilogue-like scene at the end of the movie shows Mahree with the Dellumses at an African pride event back in America. Ron Dellums delivers a speech that includes the weaver-bird story, as told to him by "a new friend from South Africa."

Mahree leaves the United States, now a very different person. When she returns home, the first person she greets is Flora. Secretly, Mahree shows her an ANC flag sewn inside her coat, signifying her decision to side with the Black liberation movement. Flora is touched and pleased. Mahree then releases the weaver-bird.

Adventurer Burt Gummer returns to his hometown of Perfection, Nevada, after a hunt for Shriekers in El Chaco, Argentina. Since the original Graboid attacks, the town's preventative equipment for tracking Graboid activities has fallen into disrepair due to the neglect of native residents Miguel, Nancy Sterngood, and her daughter Mindy. Walter Chang's market has been taken over by his niece Jodi, and the town has gained a new resident, Jack, who creates mock-attack tours for visiting tourists. One afternoon, during one of Jack's tours, his assistant Buford is eaten by an actual Graboid. Jack, Mindy, and Jack's customers manage to escape to warn the town, and Burt determines there are three Graboids in the area.

The residents begin to take action to kill the Graboids, but they are stopped by government agents Charlie Rusk and Frank Statler and a paleontologist, Dr. Andrew Merliss who claim the Graboids are an endangered species, preventing the humans from hunting them. Jack manages to reach an agreement with the agents that if they capture one live Graboid, Burt and the residents will be allowed to kill the remaining two. Burt grudgingly agrees, and he and Jack set out to trap a Graboid while the agents go after another of their own accord. Melvin Plugg, a fellow survivor from the original attacks, approaches Burt in the hopes of buying his land and developing it into a town. After he refuses, a Graboid attacks and swallows Burt whole. Jack lures the Graboid to Burt's home, having it fatally collide with the underground concrete barriers surrounding the building. He then uses a chainsaw to free Burt from its belly.

Burt, Jack, Jodi, and Miguel later find a badly wounded Merliss; he explains that he and the government agents were ambushed by Shriekers from the Graboid they were chasing, before dying. While tracking the Shriekers, an albino Graboid — later named El Blanco, meaning "The White One" in Spanish — traps them on rocks for the night. After drawing El Blanco away, they find that the Shriekers have molted their skin, becoming winged creatures capable of jet-propelled flight. Miguel is killed by the creature, which then crashes on a metal fence, killing itself. Burt realizes that chemicals in their stomachs react explosively, enabling their flight. Finding them able to carry Graboid eggs, they surmise that they evolved to spread them through flight. Jodi dubs the new species Ass-Blasters. Meanwhile, Nancy and Mindy are attacked by an Ass-Blaster in town and hide in a freezer while distracting it with food.

Using a mattress as cover from the Ass-Blasters' infrared vision, the group gets to Burt's house, but are forced to flee when an Ass-Blaster attempts to break in. To keep it from multiplying like its predecessors, Burt rigs his house and his stash of MREs to explode, killing it; however, it is only after that they learn from Mindy that Ass-Blasters do not multiply but fall asleep after eating, as has happened to the one that attacked her and Nancy. The group flees to a junkyard, where they build a potato gun from everyday objects to ignite the combustible materials in the Ass-Blasters' stomachs. After they kill four, Burt is attacked by El Blanco and pinned down. Realizing that Burt's ultrasonic watch is repeatedly drawing El Blanco to them, Jack takes it and sticks it to the final Ass-Blaster. El Blanco devours it, saving Burt and Jodi's lives in the process.

In the aftermath, Nancy manages to sell the captive Ass-Blaster, while Jack pursues a romantic relationship with Jodi, depressing Mindy who had a crush on him. Meanwhile, Melvin tries again to approach Burt about selling his land, but Burt informs him that since El Blanco is an endangered species and illegal to hunt, and formed a mutual unspoken friendship with Burt, the residents have decided to take precautions in order to live safely alongside it, thus turning Perfection into a federally protected Graboid reserve and barring Melvin from developing a town. Burt then leaves Melvin standing on a rock with El Blanco circling below.

After drinking a bit too much with two fellow civil servants, the protagonist, Ivan Ilyich Pralinsky, expounds on his desire to embrace a philosophy based on kindness to those in lower status social positions. After leaving the initial gathering, Ivan happens upon the wedding celebration of one of his subordinates – Pseldonymov. He decides to put his philosophy into action and, to the dismay of the host and his guests, presents himself at the party. Being a non-drinker and completely out of his element, the General fails spectacularly in his quest: far from winning anyone's admiration, a series of increasingly inappropriate and scandalous events unfold. In the end he is "put to bed in the only available place – the nuptial couch."

In 1889, the inhabitants of Rejection are completely dependent on the income from a nearby silver mine. One day, a hot spring causes graboid eggs to hatch, resulting in the death of 17 miners. Hiram Gummer, great-grandfather of Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) and the mine's owner, arrives in town to fix the problem. After juvenile graboids that can shoot out of the ground (later dubbed Dirt Dragons) attack his camp one night, he is shocked by their presence. One of his companions, Juan, kills one with a pickaxe, and the pair escapes.

Inexperienced and not fond of firearms, Hiram calls for a gunfighter, Black Hand Kelly (Billy Drago). Hiram and Kelly do not get along well, though Kelly succeeds in conveying to Hiram some of his attitude towards firearms and life in general. Eventually, Kelly is eaten alive by a now fully grown graboid, but not before discovering that a total of four graboids have hatched. Hiram decides to abandon Rejection and leave the townsfolk to their fates. However, they force him to give them the silver mine, threatening to alert potential buyers to the danger if he sells it out from under them. In Carson City, Hiram receives a telegram revealing that the fully grown graboids have made it through the pass and are headed for the town. Changing his mind, he buys weapons with the last of his valuable belongings, heads back to Rejection to lead a last stand against the graboids, and helps the town ready itself.

After two graboids are killed, the third one adapts and avoids all of the traps. Hiram tricks it into coming to the surface and then attaches it by the tail to the flywheel of a steam traction engine. The graboid is reeled in and slammed against the front wheels and boiler with such force that it is explosively decapitated on impact. With the creatures dead, the town decides to keep them secret out of fear that no one would settle in the area if their existence were known, and use the proceeds from the mine to pay for their belongings. Hiram settles in Rejection (renamed Perfection), building his home in the same place where his great-grandson Burt's would one day be. He is also given a Colt 1865 Gatling gun and begins target practice, enjoying it.

Theo is traveling through Westmark, learning about the country of which he will soon be Prince Consort. He is not surprised to find great poverty: Mickle - now known as Princess Augusta - could have told him that from her years on the street. His friend Florian could have told him about the aristocracy's graft and corruption. But neither could have foreseen a loaded pistol in the practiced hand of the assassin Skeit. The echoes of that shot ring from the muskets and cannons of a Westmark suddenly at war - a war that turns simple, honest men into cold-blooded killers, Mickle into a military commander, and Theo himself into a stranger.

As set up in Westmark, Theo and Mickle are in love. A corrupt general is in a cabal with a rival country, and plans to surrender after a token resistance, allowing a country with a more aristocratic government to replace the more populist Mickle who is seen as too close to revolutionaries like Florian. However, although the general surrenders, his soldiers refuse to, and the nominal resistance becomes a full-blown war as the people fight to determine their own destiny.

Similar to how the aristocratic powers of the time invaded France to restore the aristocracy, here a foreign country is meddling in the internal affairs of Westmark. And just as France repelled the great powers with an army led by the people and of the people, the Westmark forces run by Florian, and his lieutenants, Theo — now the eponymous Kestrel — and Justin, fight to preserve the country. But becoming a general, a tradesman in blood and death, costs the artistic and conscientious Theo a great deal. He has to cut off pieces of himself in the service of a more pressing need.

Meanwhile, Mickle must run her government in exile. Musket and his master, Count Las Bombas, are dragged in to serve as her advisors. She says she wants his advice, as he used to serve with the Salamanca lancers, one of his blustery claims from Westmark. The character Las Bombas is, like the bard Fflewddur Fflam in ''The Chronicles of Prydain'', bombastic, yet of a true heart, and a solid friend.

There are sub-plots involving some gamine children, and difficulties in the cabal involving Cabbarus, the villain of the first book. In the end, good triumphs not by force, but by compromise. Constantine, the young king, was set up to be killed by his guardian, but ends up being captured. He and Mickle come to terms, and they draw up a peace treaty to benefit both countries. Mickle sets up a representative government to reign along with her, but that forces her and Theo to postpone their wedding.

1746

''Voyager'' opens on the battlefield at Culloden, where Jamie Fraser finds himself gravely wounded and his rival Jack Randall dead. Jamie is carried to a nearby farmhouse where 18 Highland soldiers have sought refuge after the battle of Culloden. Harold Grey, Earl of Melton, arrives as representative of the Duke of Cumberland and announces the survivors will be shot. As each man is led outside to be executed, Melton takes his name for the records. At Jamie's turn, Melton recognizes him as famed Jacobite “Red Jamie”, but is forbidden to execute him because Jamie spared his younger brother, Lord John Grey, during the Battle of Prestonpans, and he sends Jamie home to die of his wounds.

When the English scour the country for Jacobite rebels, Jamie hides in a cave near Lallybroch. He visits his sister, Jenny, and her family once a month to shave, wash, and hear news. By invoking a deed of sasine, Jamie signs Lallybroch over to Jenny’s eldest son, also called Jamie, to prevent the English from seizing their home as the property of a traitor. For a brown wool cap he wears to cover his distinctive red hair, Jamie becomes a Scottish legend, the “Dunbonnet”, and arranges to have himself be captured, whereby his tenants claim the reward and prevent famine among themselves. At Ardsmuir Prison, Jamie becomes the leader of the prisoners under the nickname "Mac Dubh". At Ardsmuir, Jamie meets Lord John Grey again as the new governor of the prison. Lord John's predecessor tells him that he invited Jamie to dinner once a week to discuss the other prisoners and suggests that Lord John continue the custom, which he does. John believes that Jamie knows the whereabouts of the French gold allegedly sent to Bonnie Prince Charlie. When the prison is fully renovated, the Crown transports the prisoners to America and uses the former prison as an army barracks; but John has Jamie sent to Helwater in the Lake District, the stud farm of Lord Dunsany, as a groom.

Dunsany has two daughters; the elder, Geneva, is infatuated with Jamie but is betrothed to Lord Ellesmere, an elderly man, and she blackmails Jamie into sexual relations with her. Geneva leaves Helwater and marries Lord Ellesmere. Nine months later, she gives birth to a boy and dies the next day. Ellesmere tells Lord Dunsany that the baby is not his, and threatens to kill him; but Jamie kills Ellesmere instead. The baby, called William, returns to Helwater with them. In reward for his actions, Lady Dunsany offers to ask Lord John to petition for a pardon so he can go home to Lallybroch. However, Jamie stays several more years at Helwater, until Willie's resemblance to himself becomes evident, whereupon he accepts the pardon.

1968

In the 20th century, Reverend Wakefield’s adopted son, Roger MacKenzie, offers to determine Jamie's fate. When Roger, Claire, and Claire and Jamie's daughter Brianna find evidence of Jamie writing an article printed in 1765, Claire considers returning to him, and Brianna supports her. On Halloween of 1968, Claire returns to Jamie's time.

1766

Claire finds Jamie in Edinburgh under the name of Alexander Malcolm, smuggling liquor in the guise of a printers' shop. His nephew, Young Ian, runs away from Lallybroch to “assist” his uncle in the business. Claire is reunited with her unofficial adopted son, Fergus, whom she last knew as a 10-year-old French pickpocket, and who is now in his 30s. To explain her absence, the family tells everyone that Claire was with relatives in France, believing that Jamie was killed at Culloden, and only just learned that he was alive.

After a failed smuggling run, Jamie takes Claire and Young Ian to Lallybroch, where Claire discovers that Jamie married again and has two stepdaughters, Marsali and Joan, and that Jamie's wife is Laoghaire, who, 20 years earlier, had Claire arrested and nearly burned her at the stake for witchcraft. Angry and betrayed, she leaves Lallybroch, but Young Ian brings her back, telling her that Laoghaire has shot Jamie. Upon return, Claire sees that the wound is infected and saves Jamie with antibiotics and syringes brought from the 20th century. Jamie negotiates a settlement with Laoghaire, to pay her 1,435 pounds in compensation, and to support her until she marries again. To get the money, he, Claire, and Young Ian return to the “seals’ treasure”: the Jacobite gold and jewels buried on an island not far from Ardsmuir. When they have the treasure, they plan to go to France and sell the jewels, but Young Ian is kidnapped by a strange ship. Jamie and Claire go to France, where Jamie's cousin, Jared, helps them determine the ship's identity and gives them a ship for the West Indies to rescue Ian. Laoghaire’s daughter Marsali goes with them in order to marry Fergus.

At sea, their ship is hailed by an English ship called the ''Porpoise'', looking for a surgeon. While Claire is treating the sick, the ''Porpoise'' gets under way with Claire on board, and Claire learns that the customs agent searching for Jamie is aboard the ''Porpoise'' and plans to have Jamie arrested in Jamaica. Claire escapes to Hispaniola, where she is found by a naturalist studying the island's flora, Dr. Stern, and a bizarre, drunken, defrocked priest. Jamie's ship has run aground on Hispaniola following a storm, but Claire soon learns that Jamie had left them to rescue her. He is captured briefly but escapes and is reunited with Claire.

Jamaica

Disguised as a Frenchman, Jamie attends a ball for the local governor (his old friend Lord John Grey) and leaves to speak to John privately. A young woman is murdered at the ball and the guests are detained under suspicion. Claire also speaks to John and he tells her that he gave Jamie a portrait of his son, Willie, whom Jamie has yet to tell her about. Jamie and Claire search for Young Ian at a slave market and later at the plantation of a Mrs. Abernathy, whom they identify as the former Geillis Duncan. After their stay with her, Jamie and Claire discover that Geillis has Ian captive. Jamie and his men plan to recover Ian, only to find that Geillis has left and taken Ian with her. Claire visits Geillis' workroom and finds a picture of Brianna nailed to the table, with suggestion of an intended sacrifice of her. After a struggle in a cave on Jamaica, Claire kills Geillis with an axe to the neck and she and Jamie escape with Ian. As they sail away from Jamaica, they are chased by the ''Porpoise'' again. In a storm, the British ship is lost, and the Scottish ship ''Artemis'' is blown off course, and shipwrecked in the American colony of Georgia.

Jamie and Claire, as well as Fergus, Marsali, and Ian, make their way first to Charleston, and then Wilmington, before settling in the North Carolina foothills in hopes of building a homestead. Fergus' wife Marsali stayed behind on the island of Jamaica expecting the arrival of their first child. At the same time, Brianna Ellen Randall and her suitor, historian Roger Wakefield, remain safely ensconced in the 20th century. Now orphaned by her mother's departure to the past, Brianna struggles to accept her loss and satisfy her curiosity about a father she has never met, only to discover a tragic piece of "history" that threatens her parents' happiness in the past. This discovery sends Brianna back through time on a mission to save her parents that sends Roger after her.

Claire, the heroine of ''Outlander'', figures in ''The Fiery Cross'' as a reluctant oracle and wife to Jamie Fraser, her 18th-century partner, and faces the politics and turmoil of the forthcoming American Revolution. As the preceding novel, ''Drums of Autumn'', concluded with Jamie Fraser and his wife Claire helping their daughter and new son-in-law, from the 20th century, settle into life on Fraser's Ridge, ''The Fiery Cross'' picks up the storyline exactly where it was left—with Brianna Ellen Randall Fraser and Roger Mackenzie about to make their nuptials official and baptize their son Jeremiah. With the American Revolution only a few years away and unrest brewing, Jamie is called to form a militia to put down the beginnings of rebellion in North Carolina, and risk his life for a king he knows he must betray soon. Gabaldon delivers the endings to several strands of storyline she had woven through ''Drums of Autumn''; mysterious plots and characters are revealed and by the end, the Frasers and their family are poised on the edge of war.

Claire is the wife of Jamie Fraser, her 18th century husband, and facing the politics and turmoil of the forthcoming American Revolution. The preceding novel, ''The Fiery Cross'', concluded with political unrest in the colonies beginning to boil over and the Frasers trying to peacefully live on their isolated homestead in the foothills of North Carolina. Jamie is suddenly faced with walking between the fires of loyalty to the oath he swore to the British crown and following his hope for freedom in the new world.

Restaurant supervisor Jill (Karena Lam) has a handsome boyfriend, Chi-on (Hu Bing), but she is just his backup girlfriend. She knows she is the other girl, but her hope for being his one and only has never ceased until he changes his formal girlfriend once again. All her anger goes to her co-worker, Jack (Ekin Cheng), who appears to be a womanizer but indeed shares a similar unfortunate romantic situation of being the backup boyfriend of an airhostess. Knowing that both are victims in romantic relationships, Jack and Jill no longer spar with each other and a liking between them start to develop.

In the series, King Lief must find out how to save his kingdom. Although he has defeated the enemy, Deltora is rotting away - the Shadow Lord had taken thousands of Deltorans as slaves back to the Shadowlands. Lief and his friends must re-unite three pieces of the magical Pirran Pipe - the only thing the Shadow Lord fears - to save his people.

''Cavern of the Fear''

In the beginning, King Lief leaves Del and goes to Tora, seemingly to find a bride. While he is away, Jasmine discovers the crystal Prandine used to contact the Shadow Lord with. It shows her little sister Faith, trapped in the Shadowlands. Meanwhile, the Deltoran Annals (a history of Deltora) are brought back by the chief librarian Josef when he returns from hiding and Lief learns of the Pirran Pipe, the only thing the Shadow Lord fears. What is now the Shadowlands was once the land of Pirra. It was protected by the magical music of the Pirran Pipe. But one day, the Piper died. Three people vied to become the new Piper: Plumes, Auron and Keras. Through the machinations of the evil Shadow Lord, the people of Pirra could not decide who would replace the old Piper. He suggested they divide the pipe into three. So they did; the instrument could not be played, Pirra was unprotected and the Shadow Lord could invade. The people fled to a secret underground sea. They split into three tribes and went to live on the islands of Plumes, Auron and Keras. Each tribe kept a different piece of the pipe and kept to themselves.

Before they can investigate the Pipe further, Lief and Barda learn from Jinks the acrobat. that Jasmine has run off to the Shadowlands with Glock. Lief leaves his 'bride' Marilen in Del, while he pursues Jasmine. Jasmine had read another story of a secret way to the Shadowlands through the Os-Mine Hills. She hopes to rescue her sister, as Glock hopes to rescue the remnants of his tribe. Lief and Barda follow her and, after escaping capture by the Granous (and Jinks fleeing back to Del) find a secret under-world. They discover the secret sea and are captured by the Plumes, who are also holding Jasmine and Glock captive. The Plumes come to trust them and free the four Deltorans so they can attempt to defeat the Fear (a giant squid will flood the island if not provided with sacrifices). In the fight, Glock is mortally wounded by the Fear and bestows his tribe's talisman on Jasmine. Glock dies and Lief asks the Plumes to give him the first piece of the Pipe. They tell him it was stolen by the Jalis (Glock's tribe) many years before. Jasmine looks at the talisman and it turns out to be the first piece of the Pirran Pipe.

''The Isle of Illusion''

The companions travel to the island of Auron, only to find it has been abandoned for many years, its people having taken to living on rafts instead. The other members of the tribe live within a magic dome containing an illusion of Pirra. The people who did not want to live an illusion left for the rafts, but with their magic inside the dome, the light inside the cave is fading, and the Arach (giant spiders), who dwell in darkness, have taken over the rest of the island. Swinging on ropes to get past the Arach and into the dome, they find that only one person, the old Piper Auris, has remained behind to maintain the illusion. Their denial of the illusion causes the dome to partially collapse. Now that the light is restored, the Arach seek shelter inside the remnants of the dome, and kill Auris, whose death causes the dome to collapse and the Arach to flee. The companions retrieve the second part of the Pipe and move on.

Meanwhile, in Del, Jinks tries to steal the royal jewels and flee the city, but accidentally eats poisoned food intended for Marilen. It is discovered that it was poisoned by Amarantz, Josef's friend from the resistance who was working as a cook, and that the Shadow Lord is using worms implanted in the brains of former captives to control their minds, explaining the recent attempts on Lief's life.

''The Shadowlands''

The three companions travel to the island of Keras and receive the last piece to complete the Pirran Pipe. King Lief gives the Piper of Keras the Belt of Deltora for safe-keeping, and her son Emlis goes with Lief, Barda and Jasmine to the Shadowlands. They come back up and meet a resistance gang led by Claw. They hope to surprise the Shadow Lord so they can reach the place where the slaves are being held. They go to the Factory and encounter a Vraal. They see their old friend Tira there; they also find out that the slaves are at the Shadow Arena. Lief, Barda and Jasmine sneak into the Arena just as the Shadow Lord is about to wipe the slaves' memories with worms that will control their minds. Jasmine reaches Faith only to find out her 'little sister' was an illusion used to lure Jasmine, and by extension Lief, into the Shadowlands. The Piper's son, Emlis, starts playing the Pirran Pipe and Lief, Barda, Jasmine, Claw, Emlis and all of the slaves are teleported back to the secret sea by the Keras, as the Pirran tribes can transport people between the surface and the caves, and heard the Pipe's music. The Plume, Auron and Keras peoples re-unite and the freed slaves return to Deltora.

Lief returns to Marilen in Del. It is revealed that although the descendants of Adin's first child only had one child, with Lief the only descendant of that line, Adin himself had five children, and that Marilen, a descendant of Adin's second child, was the next in line to the throne of Deltora. Lief had a fake belt made and had taken it on his journey. He had left Marilen in Del wearing the real Belt of Deltora, so that if anything had happened to him, Marilen would become Queen. The series then ends with a hinted romance between Lief and Jasmine.

Set in the near future, it tells the story of a teenage girl named Ruby Crescent who wants to become a treasure hunter, following in the footsteps of her father. Her objective is to find O-Parts: magical items hidden in ruins which grant people fantastical powers and can only be used by an O.P.T. (O-Part Tactician). She soon meets a mysterious boy named Jio Freed who, due to having a dark, lonely past, seeks to conquer the world. Jio is hostile to her at first but ends up traveling with Ruby as her bodyguard. When Ruby is attacked by an O.P.T., who claims to be Satan, Jio rushes to her rescue and a battle occurs. Initially they are on the losing side, but Jio releases his true power and is revealed to be not only an O.P.T., but the real Satan. Thus, the two continue to travel together in hopes of achieving their dreams.

Issue One

Wolverine awakens to find his lower half missing, his body having been ripped in half by the Hulk minutes earlier. Using his keen sense of smell, he finds his legs have been thrown to the top of a mountain. As he climbs up a mountain to retrieve his legs, he recalls the events leading up to his current situation.

He recounts meeting Nick Fury, Betty Ross and Jennifer Walters, and being told that the Hulk is alive and responsible for several "incidents" of mass destruction after a public "execution" by S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury gives Logan (Wolverine) the assignment to hunt down and "take care" of the Hulk. Wolverine tracks the Hulk to a small Tibetan village, where the Hulk is found lounging, surrounded by scantily clad women. Upon seeing the Hulk, Wolverine says "Hi, Bruce". (In the 2nd issue this line is delivered from another perspective as "Hello Bruce")

Issue Two

We see the events leading up to the fight between Hulk and Wolverine from Banner's point of view. The comic begins with Banner being left for dead on an off-shore ship, tied down to the deck with a bomb sitting beside him. He turns into the Hulk at the last minute, and the explosion fails to kill him. The Hulk swims to Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, transforming back into Banner as he reaches the shore.

Banner finds himself drifting from one location to the next, forced to relocate every time he loses control of his temper and becomes the Hulk. The first time, a Parisian psychologist accuses Bruce of not letting himself get angry over losing Betty, calling him impotent and driving him over the edge. The second time he is working as a farm hand and his boss mocks him for eating tofurkey, a tofu turkey substitute. The third time, Bruce musters the courage to call Betty once more, only to have a man answer the phone. He ventures to Tibet in search of the Panchen Lama, a monk along the same line of holiness as the Dalai Lama, to find an answer to his problem. The Panchen Lama turns out to be a child. Upon hearing about Bruce's troubles, he asks 'What if it is not you that changes into the Hulk, but the Hulk that changes into you?'. We then move forward to the point in which the first issue ended, where Logan says 'Hello Bruce', the first time we see the Hulk in the Ultimate Universe in a calm, rational state.

Issue Three

The issue opens with multiple flashbacks and flashforwards to various points during the series, then it shows the confrontation between Hulk and Wolverine from the end of issue #1/issue #2. Hulk and Wolverine have a conversation where Hulk states that he was cured of his anger, (even though as Hulk becomes angrier during the course of the conversation he becomes less articulate) but a parting comment Wolverine makes about Betty Ross enrages Hulk and causes him to tear Wolverine in half. At the top of the mountain, Hulk is waiting and ready to eat one of Wolverine's legs, but before that happens a new arrival is airdropped onto the mountaintop, Ultimate She-Hulk. When asked who she is, her response is simply, "I'm plan B."

Issue Four

Save for the last two pages, the issue consists of advancing flashbacks from the perspective of Betty Ross, including Bruce's attempted phone call and Wolverine's meeting with Fury, jumping to three days prior when Betty unsuccessfully attempts to convince Tony Stark and Steve Rogers to save Bruce from Logan. Two days prior, Dr. Walters has succeeded in producing a version of the Hulk serum which transforms the subject without inducing Hulk-like rage, with Betty the next day attempting to convince General Fury that Dr. Walters is seeking to sell the super-soldier serum to the Chinese. As Betty takes a S.H.I.E.L.D. jet to Tibet, Fury discovers that the Hulk serum has been stolen and angrily orders Betty taken down, but not before she injects herself with the serum and undergoes the transformation into She-Hulk. After landing and announcing "I'm Plan B", Betty reveals her identity much to the horror of Wolverine. This causes an enraged and crying Hulk to state, "Betty break Hulk's heart... now Hulk break Betty!"

Issue Five

The issue begins with Logan, in a dream state, encountering a Panda who claims that he is Logan's Spirit Animal. As the pair come to blows, the Panda says the fight between Bruce and Logan is personal. He also doesn't want Logan to tell the Hulk's last words to the people who cut off his head. Logan wakes up to find he's reduced to just a head on a tray. General Fury angrily attempts to question him on what happened. Logan initially claims he blacked out after the Hulk tore him in half, instead of admitting he was awake for Bruce and Betty's sexual encounter. He then accidentally reveals that he was awake when S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to drop a nuclear bomb on the Hulk. Fury, in an act of rage, shoots Logan in the head.

When Logan wakes up again, this time fully restored, he escapes with the aid of Forge. Instead of thanking Forge for the rescue, Logan demands the mutant make restraint collars to subdue the Hulks. He then lets slip that the Hulk is going to meet Logan again in Casablanca, unaware that Fury is listening in.

Issue Six

Wolverine goes to Casablanca with a collar that Forge created and confronts Betty, who had just taken a shower. He tells her to put it on but she refuses, turns into She-Hulk, and the two fight. She gouges out one of his eyes, but he stabs her in the spleen and kidney, and forces her to tell him where Bruce is. She agrees, and then turns back into Betty, and Logan leaves her.

Logan then gets on a plane Bruce is taking, and puts the collar on Bruce, telling him that if he turns into Hulk, it will choke him to death. Bruce asks why Logan simply won't just kill him, and Logan says that he doesn't want to kill Bruce, he wants to kill the Hulk. Bruce says that he won't change, and then jumps out of the airplane emergency exit in mid-flight. Logan jumps out after him screaming at him to turn into the Hulk or the fall will kill him. Bruce says that he will only change if Logan cuts off the collar, or else Logan will have to deal with the fact that he simply let "Bruce" and not the "Hulk" fall to his death. Logan, not wanting to be responsible for Bruce's death breaks the collar. Bruce changes to Hulk, saving himself and Logan. They both land safely in the middle of a desert.

Nick Fury shows up and Hulk, confused and angry, grabs him and threatens to kill him. Fury reveals that they now have She-Hulk in their possession, and are trying to reverse-engineer what she did to herself. As long as they have her, he knows that Bruce will not do anything against S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interests. Hulk lets Fury go and talks calmly with Logan about how they are going to get back to civilization. Logan asks if Hulk can pick him up and jump to the nearest town, and Hulk agrees.

The game is set in the year 2415, after a biological disease has wiped out Earth's population except for its one walled, protected city-state, Bregna. The city is ruled by the congress of scientists who discovered the vaccine for the disease. Æon Flux, the protagonist and top operative in the underground "Monican" rebellion, is sent on a mission to kill one of Bregna's most influential government leaders, Trevor Goodchild. Following a series of self-discoveries and revelations, Æon uncovers a world of secrets which makes her doubt her mission and question everything she thought she knew.

The game's storyline attempts to bridge the gap between the TV series and the film and explain various discrepancies, such as the appearance of the jungle outside Bregna and the differences between the movie and TV series versions of Trevor Goodchild. However, much of the game's visuals and tone skew far more dramatically toward that of the film, supplemented by the fact that the look of Æon in the game is based almost entirely on Charlize Theron's film version, and the character is also voiced by her.

In the 1940s Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Eliška is a nurse who works alongside her lover, Richard, a respected surgeon. They are part of an underground resistance network that has formed to help those in danger of persecution from the Nazis. Eliška acts as a messenger.

One night, Richard responds to an emergency call to a patient needing a risky operation. Because she has the same blood type, Eliška gives blood for the transfusion. Days later, she arrives at Richard's apartment to find their friend, Slávek, with news that the Gestapo has apprehended two of their members, putting everyone at risk of discovery. Eliška is told that Richard has emigrated, leaving papers for her to assume a new identity. Slávek says that she must leave the city with a man named Joza - the patient who had received the transfusion. Seeing no alternative, Eliška - now Hana - leaves for the countryside.

As a mountain-dweller, Joza appears uncouth and disheveled, but he is kind and considerate to her plight. He provides her with temporary refuge in a small village, where she quickly becomes the object of curiosity. Some, such as Teacher Tkáč the schoolmaster, are xenophobic and suspicious. The Nazis have killed anyone harbouring enemies. Eliška tries to leave, but the village doctor reveals that the Nazis have executed Slávek. He tells her that to remain safe, she must marry Joza and live with him in the mountain village of Želary.

Initially, Eliška is reluctant. Joza takes her to their new home, a small cottage with no electricity, dirt floor, and a fly-infested outhouse. On the day of their wedding, Eliška rebels, but relents upon Joza's explanation that the villagers will not accept a strange, single woman. So Eliška agrees, and the two are married. At the wedding, she meets most of Želary's inhabitants. Helenka is a young girl who lives near Joza and Eliška with her mother, Žeňa. Her best friend is Lipka, a boy whom the villagers treat as an outcast, but who is actually homeless due to his step-father Michal's dislike of him. He survives through the goodwill of Žeňa, Lucka the village midwife, and Old Goreik, an elderly gentleman who lives with his daughter-in-law, Marie, a victim of spousal abuse.

Eliška seems ill-suited to rural life. She finds the villagers' behavior raucous and crude, and is particularly repulsed by Michal, the drunk, who makes unwanted advances. As time passes, Joza's patience and Žeňa's gentle guidance help her to assimilate. Despite this, Eliška remains wary of her husband, until one evening when she breaks their only lamp and fears a beating. On the contrary, Joza is comforting and gives her a gift: a stack of books that she may like. One day, he takes her to his mother's grave and Eliška is moved by the love and kindness he feels. Joza falls in love with Eliška and she with him, leading to the consummation of their marriage.

Years pass and Eliška - called Hanula by the villagers and Hanulka by Joza - bears witness to a number of incidents. The Nazis, though scarce in Želary, kill an entire family for harbouring partisans, and then murder an innocent man in front of everyone. Eliška fears that the Gestapo will find her. Michal attempts to rape her at the saw mill. Helenka witnesses the attack and alerts Joza, who beats Michal and breaks his arm. His parents, the Kutinas, then force Michal's pregnant wife and Lipka's mother, Aninka, to do all the farm work, which leads to her miscarrying. Lipka alerts Eliška, Lucka, and Žeňa, but it is too late. Aninka's death destroys Michal's reputation and redeems Lipka in the eyes of the villagers.

By the spring of 1945, Eliška is a nurse again, and learns the art of herbal healing from Lucka. The old woman divulges that Marie and her father-in-law, Old Goreik, are expecting a child. Following the birth, soldiers from the Red Army arrive with news that the war is over. After a night of celebration, Joza reminds Eliška that she is free to leave (their marriage being technically invalid). Eliška replies that she wants to stay with him always, and falls asleep on the mountain in Joza's arms.

Young Goreik, furious over his father's relationship with his wife, arrives at Old Goreik's home with a drunken soldier who he persuades to rape Marie. Old Goreik arrives and shoots his son, as well as the would-be rapist, but the latter's brother arrives and shoots him. Intoxicated, the soldiers interpret the killing as the act of fascists and shoot at the villagers. With help from Lipka, many escape by crossing a swamp towards an old saw mill, where Lucka and Eliška tend to the wounded. Joza races back and forth between the haven and the village, and rescues several people - including Michal. Meanwhile, the soldiers kill the village priest and rape Žeňa. Vojta, a farmhand, comes to her aid and Joza goes back to rescue him. The next morning, they arrive at the saw mill and find soldiers heading in the same direction. The villagers are relieved, but Joza collapses (Vojta having shot him earlier after mistaking him for the enemy). Devastated, Eliška kneels beside Joza's lifeless body and weeps.

Years later, Želary is virtually abandoned due to modernisation of the town below. Eliška, now with Richard, returns to visit the mountains and the cottage that she had shared with Joza. Lucka emerges from the ruins and is shocked to see Hanula, but remembers that "nothing disappears off the mountain, there’s always tracks". Astounded, Eliška asks if it is possible that Lucka is still alive, to which Lucka responds, "I'm none too sure. I'm none too sure at all." On the top of the mountain, the women laugh.

It involves a love triangle: a straight gigolo Joe (William Baldwin), his lesbian best friend Connie (Kelly Lynch), and her former lover, an attractive bisexual woman Ellen (Sherilyn Fenn).

Connie is desperate to win Ellen back and Joe volunteers to break Ellen's heart to convince her that heterosexual relationships are inferior to lesbian ones. The hope is that the disaster will cause her to return to Connie. Neither counts on Joe having feelings for Ellen nor expects her to discover the trick.

Carlos (Mauricio Ochmann) is a 21-year-old who finds himself married to Camila (Adriana Fonseca), his 18-year-old girlfriend after dating for five years and discovering that she is pregnant.

Carlos decides to pursue married life since, he thinks, people marry every day and thus everything will work out fine. He gets a job to support his new family but does not realize the seriousness of his decisions until he discovers that his new boss (Luis Felipe Tovar) is having an affair with his secretary, Lucy (Anaís Belén), and Monica, his attractive new co-worker (Ninel Conde) is attempting to seduce him.

To complicate things even more, Camila's father does not approve of the decision that she and Carlos made. Carlos struggles to defend himself against his father-in-law and from peer-pressure to be unfaithful to his wife. The title of the film derives from Carlos' co-workers theory that -in Mexico's demographics- every man is "entitled" to seven women and a homosexual.

The Galactic Republic is decaying, even under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was elected to save the galaxy from collapsing under the forces of discontent. On the tiny but strategic planet of Ansion, a powerful faction is on the verge of joining the growing Separatist movement. The urban dwellers wish to expand into the prairies outside their cities the ancestral territory of the fierce, independent Ansion nomads. If their demands are not met, they will secede an act that could jump-start a chain reaction of withdrawal and rebellion by other worlds of the Republic.

At the Chancellor's request, the Jedi Council sends Kenobi and fellow Jedi Luminara Unduli to resolve the conflict and negotiate with the elusive nomads. Undaunted, Kenobi and Unduli, along with their Padawans Skywalker and Barriss Offee, set out across the wilderness. Many perils lie waiting to trap them. The Jedi will have to fulfill near-impossible tasks, befriend wary strangers, and influence two great armies to complete their quest, stalked all the while by an enemy sworn to see the negotiations collapse and the mission fail.

Homer forgets to pick Bart up after soccer practice. When he finally turns up, he tells his furious, silent son that they should both admit they are wrong. That night, Bart sees a commercial for Bigger Brothers, an agency that provides companions, role models, to boys who are alone. Bart immediately telephones them, saying he has no father. The following day he concocts a story of misfortune, and the interviewer pairs him up with Tom, a military test pilot, who is the ideal bigger brother. They do things that Homer would never do. Homer discovers this and, in retaliation, becomes the bigger brother of a young poor boy named Pepi.

The following day, it is Bigger Brothers day at Marine World. Homer and Tom confront each other and there is a prolonged cinematic fight between them, in several locations, both being adept at western and Asian martial arts. Homer is finally defeated. Bart feels responsible for Homer's being hurt, and they reconcile. Tom becomes Pepi's bigger brother and they walk away together into the sunset.

Lisa tries to make her own escape. She runs up an enormous telephone bill making calls to Corey, her favorite teen heartthrob. She also sneaks calls at Dr. Hibbert's office, at the Retirement Castle, and at Springfield Elementary. One day, Marge, who had a similar crush when she was young, urges her to go until midnight without calling: her addiction will be conquered if she can. And, though tempted, Lisa can do it.

A public garden colony will be demolished to make way for a superhighway. But when the excavators find a bomb (unexploded ordnance, the 'dud' bomb in the title), on the land of old man Kupke, he threatens to detonate it: "the garden colony must stay!" The tenant of the neighbouring plot, an anarchic punk named Kanzler, joins in the fight: he demands a memorial for Germany's famous student leader Rudi Dutschke. The two very different men grow closer.

The short opens to an orchestral rendition of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home", immediately setting the scene in the rural South of blackface minstrelsy. The setting is Lazy Town, perhaps the laziest place on earth. Neither the town's residents (all stereotypes of African-Americans) nor the animals can be bothered to leave their reclining positions to do anything at all. Their pastoral existence is interrupted by the arrival of a riverboat, carrying a svelte, sophisticated, light-skinned woman from Harlem (who bears a resemblance to Lena Horne), whose physical beauty inspires the entire populace of an all-black "Lazy Town" to spring into action.

The visiting urbanite admonishes one of the town's residents her mother, "Listen, Mammy. That ain't no way to wash clothes! What you all need is rhythm!" She then proceeds to sing "Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat", which the townsfolk slowly join her in performing. Thus begins a montage which is the short's centerpiece. The townsfolk are infected by the song's rhythm and proceed to go about playing instruments, and dancing suggestively. By the time the young light-skinned lady from Harlem is due to get on her riverboat and return home, she has succeeded in turning Lazy Town into a lively community of swing musicians simply by singing. The cartoon concludes with the mammy washerwoman bending over, displaying the words "The End" across her buttocks.

The first half of the book covers their stay in south-western Germany (Heidelberg, Mannheim, a trip on the Neckar river, Baden-Baden and the Black Forest). The second part describes his travels through Switzerland and eastern France (Lucerne, Interlaken, Zermatt, Chamonix and Geneva). The end of the book covers his trip through several cities in northern Italy (Milan, Venice and Rome). Several other cities are touched and described during their travels, as well as mountains such as Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, the Rigi-Kulm and Mont-Blanc.

Interleaved with the narration, Mark Twain inserted also stories not related to the trip, such as ''Bluejay Yarn'', ''The Man who put up at Gadsby's'' and others; as well as many German Legends, partly invented by the author himself.

Six appendices are included in the book. They are short essays dedicated to different topics. The role of ''The Portier'' in European hotels and how they make their living, a description of Heidelberg Castle, an essay on College Prisons in Germany, "The Awful German Language", a humorous essay on German language, a short story called "The Legend of the Castle" and finally a satirical description of German newspapers.

The Tenth Doctor welcomes the viewer into the TARDIS. He tells them that he has been watching the viewer for some time, as they have been watching him, and that he has been impressed enough to want to take the viewer to help him on his next adventure. His current companion, Rose, has been dropped off at Wembley in 1979 for an ABBA concert. He then imbues the viewer's television remote control with the power of his sonic screwdriver, allowing the viewer to take part in the proceedings.

To start, the Doctor shows his new assistant a family of six celebrating Christmas in a living room, by means of the TARDIS scanner – a family, it seems, like any other, except that one of them is an alien imposter. By alternating between two different viewpoints, namely from within the family's television set and from the handheld digicam the daughter got for Christmas, the viewer has to determine who does not belong.

The mother's eyes glow for about half a second a few seconds into the sequence, revealing her as the imposter. She is now alone with the father in the house's kitchen. A small alien transmats onto the kitchen table, where he uses a handheld device to zap the father. The Doctor tells the viewer that the alien is a Graske, a species that invades planets by replacing its population. When he is done, the Graske transmats away, leaving a changeling of the father behind to join that of the mother.

As the Doctor tracks the Graske through time, the viewer takes command of the TARDIS's controls, and activates the vortex loop, dimensional stabiliser, and vector tracker as requested. Eventually, the Graske is located about 120 years in the past, somewhere in Victorian Britain. The viewer must use a map on the TARDIS scanner to pinpoint its location, as the screen blips where the Graske's DNA is found. After zooming in to High Holborn in Holborn, central London, on Christmas 1883, the viewer takes a quick walk around a square and must then uncover the Graske from its hiding place.

Having been found behind some boxes, the Graske kidnaps a young street urchin by zapping him, and, as before, leaves a changeling in his place. Tracking the Graske, the Doctor takes the viewer to the Graske's base on Griffoth and guides them through the base. Having used three number and logic puzzles to pass through the airlocks, the viewer arrives in a room filled with various beings in stasis pods; the Graske keep the originals to sustain the copies. The viewer also learns of the Graske's ultimate intention to replace every living, sentient creature in the universe with one of their doubles.

However, the viewer is spotted and must duck to avoid a Graske's weapon fire. The blast ricochets around the room and frees a Slitheen from a stasis pod, who then proceeds to vengefully chase the Graske who imprisoned it. The viewer thus has the opportunity to make one last crucial decision — either the teleport settings can be reversed, sending all the kidnapped beings back to their proper places in space and time, or the Graske's own stasis control can be used against them, freezing the Graske and everything else in their base.

Depending on the choice the viewer makes, there are two alternative endings to the episode: If the viewer decides to freeze the entire Graske base, the Graske and all of their victims become trapped. The changeling mother and father talk mechanically with the rest of their family, and the daughter storms off to her room, believing that her parents are trying to ruin Christmas. If the decision is made to send the victims back, the viewer sees all the stasis pods being emptied, and the mother and father of the family are quickly glimpsed livening up the party at their house whilst "Another Rock And Roll Christmas" by Gary Glitter plays in the background. The universe — and the family's Christmas — are saved.

As the Doctor takes the viewer home, the programme evaluates the viewer's "score". Depending on how well they did, either the Doctor decides that his new companion is not quite ready for the job (but was not far off and should try again), or the Doctor comments on how impressed he is with the viewer, saying that perhaps one day he will call on their help to save the universe again.

In either case, the Doctor then removes the sonic powers from the viewer's remote control and bids them farewell, firing up the TARDIS to go back for Rose, but warns the viewer that "if you turn the TV over to ITV, the galaxy may implode", referencing the rivalry between ITV and BBC.

The Tenth Doctor lands in North London in 1953. While looking around the Doctor and Rose see that most of the houses have TV antennas on them, which Rose recalls should be rare in this time. They question a local merchant, Mr Magpie, about the TVs and are told that the TVs are on sale to celebrate the upcoming-coronation of Elizabeth II. The Doctor and Rose witness someone being taken from their home with a sheet over their head and driven away by the police. The Doctor and Rose question the Connollys, a local family consisting of the bullying Eddie, his timid wife Rita and their teenage son, Tommy. They are introduced to Grandma Connolly, Rita's mother, whose entire face is missing. Before the Doctor can learn more the police burst in and remove Grandma Connolly. The Doctor follows where the police are taking her while Rose investigates Magpie's shop. At the shop Rose discovers an entity calling itself "the Wire", an alien that managed to escape execution by its people by turning itself into an electrical form. The Wire seeks to consume enough minds to recreate a body (also stealing the face of the victim in the process) and plans on using the broadcast of the coronation to do so. Rose is unable to flee before falling victim to the Wire as well. Meanwhile, Tommy finds out that his father was informing the police about the faceless people, including his mother-in-law, and after Rita finds out, she kicks Eddie out of the house and tells Tommy to go with the Doctor and do some good.

The Doctor locates a holding pen where the police are keeping the victims. He speaks to Detective Inspector Bishop, and the police bring in a faceless Rose. Angered at Rose's condition, the Doctor, Tommy Connolly and Inspector Bishop confront Mr Magpie at his store. The Wire reveals herself and tries to consume them, but upon seeing the Doctor's sonic screwdriver she stops, retreats into a portable television built by Mr Magpie and escapes, heading for the Alexandra Palace television station. The Doctor and Tommy use equipment from Magpie's shop and the TARDIS to create a device to capture the Wire. The Doctor pursues Magpie as he connects his portable device to the transmitter, allowing the Wire to start to consume minds while killing Magpie. The Doctor connects his device to the transmitter, and the Wire is captured. The victims of the Wire return to normal. The Doctor shows Tommy that he has captured the Wire on a Betamax cassette. The Doctor gives Tommy the scooter he was riding throughout the episode, and he and Rose celebrate the coronation with the rest of town. Tommy is then persuaded by Rose to reconcile with his father and he goes to him.

Four Daleks, accompanied by a device known as the "Genesis Ark", have emerged from the Void ship inside the Torchwood Institute's sphere chamber. The Cybermen who took control of Torchwood confront the Daleks, offering an alliance. The Daleks decline, and after a Dalek exterminates two Cybermen, the Cyber Leader declares war on the Daleks.

A strike team from the parallel universe takes the Tenth Doctor to meet with Pete. After hearing that the parallel Earth has started warming at an unprecedented rate following the opening of the breach between the two Earths, the Doctor theorises this is the start of the process that will lead to both planets falling into the Void.

In the sphere chamber, the Doctor realises that the four Daleks are the enigmatic Cult of Skaro, and allows the Cybermen to enter and attack the Daleks. Mickey accidentally activates the Ark while escaping with the Doctor, Pete and Rose. Dalek Sec takes the Ark outside. Pete saves Jackie from the Cybermen and the two embrace. The Doctor then takes everyone to the control room. Outside, the Ark – a prison ship built by the Time Lords to imprison the Daleks – opens. Millions of Daleks pour out and begin exterminating humans and Cybermen on the ground.

The Doctor explains that if he opens the breach and reverses it, anyone who has travelled between the two separate worlds will be pulled in, including Rose, Mickey and Pete. The Doctor sends them along with Jackie to the parallel universe. Rose jumps back to help the Doctor. The Doctor and Rose open the breach and hang on to magnetic clamps as the Cybermen and Daleks are pulled into the Void, but the Cult of Skaro escapes using a temporal shift. Rose loses her grip and starts to fall towards the Void, but at the last second, Pete transports Rose back to the parallel universe as the breach is closed. She becomes extremely upset upon learning that there is no way back.

Some time later, Rose has a dream where she hears the Doctor's voice calling her. The Tylers follow the voice to a remote bay in Norway where a holographic image of the Doctor appears. He tells Rose he is using the energy of a supernova to transmit to her via one last small breach between universes. Rose breaks down in tears and tells the Doctor that she loves him; before the Doctor can finish his reply, the breach seals completely and the Doctor's image disappears. As he gets back to piloting the TARDIS, he notices a mysterious woman in a wedding dress standing inside, demanding to know where she is, leaving him baffled and confused.

A couple of newlyweds, Olga (Uta Koepke) and Michael (Ángel Caballero), are traveling along the desert and accidentally trespass on the property of Magda Urtado (Ajita Wilson), who is the director of "Sadomania", a boot camp of sorts, where the women are treated as slaves and are half naked at all times. Magda keeps Olga in captivity while Michael is free to go, but later on in the film he plans an escape for Olga. She goes to work with the other girls out in the hot desert, and the rest of the film is a series of subplots, including one in which a few of the workers are sent out to be hookers, one where a worker participates in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, and one where the impotent Governor Mendoza (Antonio Mayans, billed as Robert Foster) buys a couple of the workers to help him perform. There is also a scene where the Governor is finally able to have sex with his wife, but only while watching one of the workers being raped by a dog. Director Jesús Franco also stars in the movie as an obviously gay man.

On the surface, Ureshiko Asaba appears to be a 26-year-old housewife who helps to run a boarding house. In reality she is a magical girl from the world of Realm. When she transforms into her magical girl persona, Ureshiko is called Agnes Bell, and her job is to protect the Wonderland—an artificial town created by her mother, who protected the town in the same way many years ago.

One day another magical girl appears from Realm—Cruje Gapp has been sent to replace Ureshiko as the manager of the town, as Ureshiko has become too old. However, if Agnes relinquishes her responsibility, the town as it stands will vanish and be remade according to Cruje's wishes, which goes against all of Agnes's beliefs. Agnes refuses to hand over the Managerial Ring to Cruje, which is the only item powerful enough to begin the town's transformation. In the end, Cruje is forced to give up, and enrolls in a local middle school under the alias Sayaka Kurenai while biding her time.

However, this is not Ureshiko's only problem—she and her husband have grown distant after she refuses to kiss him after having sexual relationships, and she start to flirt with Tatsumi Kagura, a young man who is lodging in her home.

Doctor Phlox receives a letter from his Interspecies Medical Exchange counterpart, Doctor Jeremy Lucas, who is serving a term on Denobula. He begins to compose a letter back, describing his experiences with the crew, and the ways in which humans are different. Meanwhile, on the Bridge, the crew are discussing a pre-warp vessel they have encountered. The alien they speak with, a Valakian, begs them to assist with a medical emergency their species is facing. Sub-Commander T'Pol reveals that the Vulcans are unaware of the species, but she agrees with Captain Jonathan Archer to help them. Phlox continues his letter, describing the challenges of treating the disease – with over fifty million lives at stake.

''Enterprise'' arrives at the Valakian homeworld, where they are met by Esaak, the Valakian director of a clinic, and Larr, a Menk orderly. T'Pol, Phlox, Archer, and Ensign Hoshi Sato make a tour of the medical facility. Sato discovers that there is a second lesser-evolved yet unaffected race, the Menk, who live alongside the Valakians. Phlox makes the startling discovery that the Valakians are slowly dying out, not from an easily curable medical condition, but because of a genetic disease which is experiencing an accelerated rate of mutation. He also believes that the answer to a cure may lie in the Menk.

Archer, meanwhile, is debating whether to provide the Valakians with Warp drive, ultimately deciding against it. Upon further investigation, Phlox learns that the Valakians suffer from the illness because their gene pool has reached a "dead end" and that the Menk are undergoing an "awakening process." He also finds that the Valakians have been stifling and underestimating the Menk. He has found a cure, but does not believe it would be ethical to administer. Archer considers how a "Prime Directive" would be helpful, and provides the Valakians with medicine that will diminish the symptoms for a decade, anticipating the Menks' natural evolution and new levels of understanding between them.

After ''Enterprise'' drops out of warp near a gas giant, the crew detects an unexpected power signature and bio-signs in its lower atmosphere. Sub-Commander T'Pol, Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Sato take a shuttle to investigate and discover a Klingon vessel, ''Somraw'', close to being crushed by the planet's atmosphere. On board, T'Pol finds three dying Klingons on the bridge, and further scans detect residual elements of a carbon dioxide-based neurotoxin. Bu'kaH, a surviving Klingon crewmember, escapes in the away team's shuttlepod. ''Enterprise'' traps it, but not before she broadcasts a distress signal. They then attempt to descend to rescue the away-team, but the pressure is too high.

Meanwhile, Sato finds the captain's log, which states that the ship was damaged in a skirmish with the Xarantine, and that the Klingon captain ordered his ship into the gas giant's atmosphere to effect repairs. Sato also locates the port fusion-injector on a schematic, and the away team make their way to Engineering to attempt repairs. On board ''Enterprise'', Captain Archer talks to Bu'kaH in Sickbay. Doctor Phlox learns that the toxin was bonded to a molecule in Xarantine ale, which Bu'kaH confirms was part of their spoils. He convinces her to help them, citing the dishonourable deaths of her crew-mates.

On the ''Somraw'', Reed uses shock-waves from photon torpedoes in an attempt to raise the ship and lower the hull-pressure. This allows Archer and Bu'kaH, in a reinforced shuttlepod, to reach them. Archer tells Bu'kaH that his team risked their lives for her ship, and that they are not leaving until it is safe. Archer arrives back on ''Enterprise'' just as the recovered ''Somraw'' hails. The now-revived captain orders Archer to surrender as punishment for violating his ship. Archer faces him down, noting that his ship is damaged and freshly out of torpedoes. Powerless to argue, the Klingon snarls and ends the transmission.

On Pod 1, Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed are attempting to locate ''Enterprise'' in an asteroid field that Captain Archer had intended to map. Just then, Reed spots an impact crater and debris; with only one piece large enough to be identifiable as part of ''Enterprise'', they conclude that the ship has been destroyed. They are now alone, with only ten days' worth of air. Tucker orders Reed to head to Echo Three, a subspace amplifier, using the stars for reference as navigation is down. He intends to send a message to Starfleet, knowing they will not be alive when it reaches there, so that command will at least know what happened. Reed records messages to his family and friends, but Tucker becomes exasperated by Reed's pessimism.

On the ''Enterprise'', it is revealed that the debris that Reed and Tucker saw was from an explosion while a Tesnian ship was trying to dock with the Enterprise. Thirty-four Tesnian survivors are on the ''Enterprise''. Ensign Mayweather reports that their ETA at Tesnia is twenty hours, allowing enough time to return to meet the shuttlepod. Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol use a mini-shuttle to inspect the damage to the ship. Later, T'Pol presents her analysis to Archer - both ships were hit by a "micro-singularity", but he remains skeptical that such things exist.

The shuttlepod's hull is also breached by a micro-singularity. Reed and Tucker quickly seal the holes, but find that one of their oxygen cylinders was damaged, leaving them with less than two days' air. They lower the temperature to conserve power for the air recyclers. Later, the radio picks up a signal - it is Sato transmitting new rendezvous coordinates and gives an ETA of two days. Unfortunately, they only have one day's worth of air left and no way to communicate with the ship. They jettison and detonate its engine, attracting ''Enterprise'' s attention. Reed wakes up in Sickbay, relieved to see Tucker's sleeping form there as well.

Taimur Martin, the prisoner of war, spends five years analyzing and replaying his life while trapped in a single room. He has little outside contact. He occasionally exchanges words with his captors, and for a short interlude he is able to communicate with nearby prisoners using a tapped Morse code. He reads a book called ''Great Escape''. He spends most of his time thinking about his life and relationship with his girlfriend Gwen. When his story resumes after he is released, he has a child and a wife, and much time has gone by.

In the second narrative, a virtual reality machine ("The Cavern"), is being built by workers at the Realization Laboratory. The main characters are Adie Klarpol, an artist who no longer does original work; Stevie Spiegel, an engineer-turned-poet-turned-programmer; Ronan O'Reilly, an econometrician who hopes to predict the outcome of world events; and Jack "Jackdaw" Acquerelli, a young computer programming wizard. They are attempting to recreate the world inside a three-walled room. They create a completely immersing experience, but near the end Adie realizes that the technology will be used by the military. She has to reconcile with herself, but ends up creating another room which recreates the destruction and rebuilding of civilization.

The two narratives are loosely connected through the idea of what can happen in a single room, and also by themes of war and rebuilding after a war.

17-year-old Ikuro Hashizawa is kidnapped and turned into a Baoh, a bioweapon with superhuman strength and other abilities, by the Doress Laboratory. He escapes with the help of Sumire, a 9-year-old psychic girl. Professor Kasuminome, head scientist at Doress, sends various assassins and monsters to try and kill Ikuro, in means of stopping the Baoh virus from spreading and infecting the world.

''Enterprise'' is near the Arachnid Nebula when it is hailed by Captain Tavin, of the Vulcan vessel ''Vahklas'', which is in need of repair. On ''Enterprise'' Tavin says that they left Vulcan eight years previously, and their mission is to explore themselves rather than the galaxy. Sub-Commander T'Pol identifies them as ''V'tosh ka'tur'', Vulcans without logic. Captain Archer reports that the repairs will take up to four days and that they should use that time to explore the nebula. He also observes that T'Pol has been avoiding the Vulcans, encouraging her to keep an open mind. In the Mess Hall, T'Pol is joined by Tolaris, who comments that she has been affected by human society in more ways than she realizes.

T'Pol reports that a full nebula charting mission would take several weeks. However ''Vahklas'' has translinear sensors that would cut the time down significantly. On the ''Vahklas'', T'Pol expresses curiosity that the Vulcans display the likeness of Surak but reject his teachings. Tolaris has no regrets in exploring a balance of reason and emotion, and asks T'Pol not to meditate that night and to experience her dreams. Later, she does dream - she is in San Francisco, in disguise, walking around in the night. The memories then blur with thoughts of Tolaris acting provocatively towards her, ending with an image of the two of them in bed. She awakes and visits Doctor Phlox, who tells her that it would be unwise to change her routine too quickly.

Later, Tolaris asks T'Pol what her dreams were like, and he tells her about the Mind Meld, an ancient technique abandoned by Vulcans centuries ago. When she tries to end the meld, Tolaris persists, until finally she forces him away. Archer later summons Tolaris and tells him to keep away from T'Pol, who is now recovering in Sickbay. Tolaris reacts violently, so Archer orders the Vulcans to leave. Later T'Pol is meditating in her quarters when Archer tells her that ship has departed. As he turns to leave, T'Pol asks the Captain if he dreams. Archer replies that he does, sometimes even in color. T'Pol then asks the Captain if he finds it enjoyable. He replies that most nights he does. T'Pol then says "I envy you".

'''''Who Killed the Robins Family?''''' is a mystery novel in which all eight members of the Robins family are murdered or disappear throughout the story. The hardcover book provided no solutions to the murders. The books were also a contest where the person who provided the best answers to who, when, where, how, and why each murder happened won $10,000. The paperback version, released after the contest ended, revealed the answers to all the questions.

Most chapters revolved around the death of a Robins family member, though one chapter contained a murder and a disappearance, and two others involved a disappearance. Most chapters contained all the needed information to provide all five answers regarding each death, though some gave only a hint as to an answer. However, if properly understood, it only took a bit of minor research to obtain the complete answer.

The murders ranged from a classic locked-room puzzle to death by strangulation. The book also gives homage to several classic works of mystery and suspense.

As the book is a contest, liberties are taken with proper police investigation of the crimes, which would have resulted in an immediate solution. For example, when one family member is shot to death in a darkened room, nobody thinks to check for gunshot residue. In addition, while some murders have fit very neatly with the facts on a theoretical basis, the method of implementation has questionable realism.

Earthworm Jim is hit by a flying cow that sends him into a coma. Jim awakens within his own subconscious and discovers he has gone insane. His past villains have entered his subconscious and if something doesn't happen soon, Jim will be in the coma forever. His super ego has been unleashed within his subconscious to stop the madness. To restore his sanity he must find the Golden Udders of lucidity. When Jim enters his subconscious, he finds out that his four mind chambers have been taken over by his worst fears. He must collect Golden Udders to unlock the other three chambers and Green Marbles to unlock the levels within the chamber. Jim defeats four villains who took over his mind chambers, and finally faces the personification of his trauma: Earthworm Kim.

The Cherokee Kid, a notorious gunslinger, faces off in a showdown against The Undertaker in Larabee, Texas. A few unheard words are exchanged and they take their places. They both draw and the Cherokee Kid falls, much to the delight of land-grabber Bloomington. Bloomington is more than willing to give the Undertaker more than the stipulated reward, yet the Undertaker insists on allowing the Cherokee Kid to receive a proper eulogy, which will be done the next day at noon.

Several people attend the funeral, including Reverend Peel and his wife, who adopted and raised him, Nat Love and his gang, and several others. It is then that Juan Nepomuceno Cortina begins the eulogy.

The Cherokee Kid was born Isaiah Turner, he and his family lived in the Oklahoma territory. Many families in the area were being forced to sell their property for next to nothing so that the railroad could be built. When Isaiah's half-Cherokee father opposed them, he was murdered. Isaiah then followed his older brother Jedediah into the camp where the railroad men were and shot the man responsible for their father's death. When they returned home and told their mother what they did, she instantly scolded them, telling them not to mistake stupidity for courage. Their mother knew that the railroad men would come for Jedediah, and in a moment of final family bonding, she gave to the boys their father's favorite hat adorned with a distinct Cherokee feather. It was Isaiah who claimed the hat as he was placed in a woodbox while a plan to allow Jedediah to escape was put in motion in which their mother pretended to shoot him at a distance. Their mother held off the men as best as she could, until a younger Bloomington came in from the back door and shot her twice, though not before grazing his forehead with a bullet and leaving a scar. His assistant Bonner was tasked with finding Jedediah (which he never does), and fires in the air claiming he did so.

Isaiah then ran aimlessly not knowing where to go, until he wandered into the home of Reverend Peel and his wife, who decided to adopt him as they had no children. Fourteen years later, he grew into a tall, strong, yet clumsy and naïve young man who still clung to his desire for revenge. One day Isaiah saw a poster advertising Bloomington's arrival at Pinedale, where he would speak to the people as he was now running for governor. Isaiah decided to go and take revenge for the death of his family. After saying goodbye to his foster parents, and being told which way Pinedale was (Isaiah's lack of a sense of direction a running joke throughout), he sets out. Hiding out in a cabin, Isaiah gets into a comical scuffle with a man named Jake Carver in which he ends up using a turkey to accidentally kill him and inadvertently saves a prostitute from being raped. She then cooks the turkey for him out of gratitude, yet disappears the next day with all the leftovers. That day he is found by Jake Carver's gang, and after unsuccessfully passing himself off as him he then passes himself off as a childhood friend of his and claims that he had planned for them to rob a bank in Pinedale (thus tricking them into taking him there).  

Arriving at Pinedale, Isaiah walks into a bank. After making small talk with one of the tellers in which he is told of the gifts given to clients depending on how much is deposited, he then loudly announces that the gang is there to ro the bank. The tellers instantly draw guns on them, with the teller explaining to Isaiah that the gun is the last gift given for the highest amount deposited. After coming across Bonner, and comically shooting him in the buttocks, Isaiah runs off into the crowd gathered to hear Bloomington and disrupts the speech after bringing up the night in which he killed his mother and was scarred. Trying unsuccessfully to shoot him, Isaiah runs off and hides in the wagon of Otter Bob (Burt Reynolds), a lonely man of the mountains. That night, a friendship began when Isaiah reveals that he knows how to read, and Isaiah at first barters transportation to El Paso for teaching Otter Bob to read, but then also adds that Otter Bob also teach him how to be a mountain man.

For 3 months they traveled together, and Isaiah eventually learned all of Otter Bob's tricks and methods. Bonner and his men were on Isaiah's trail, and eventually caught up to Otter Bob, who ended up sacrificing himself to save Isaiah's life. Isaiah escaped with a fatally wounded Otter Bob, leaving Bonner caught in a bear trap. Isaiah then holds Otter Bob as he gives his last words, then buries him before continuing alone. Along the way, he comes across Cortina who is buried up to his neck in the sand and saves him. That night, Cortina vows to follow Isaiah (who introduces himself as Bob) until he can repay his debt by saving Isaiah's life. Reaching El Paso, Isaiah and Cortina stop at a saloon where Cortina sits at a table to play cards and Isaiah goes to the bar for a drink. Bonner who is already there and sees Isaiah from the upstairs balcony of the saloon, sets a trap for him and pays a prostitute to distract him while he and several men surround and arrest him. Isaiah is led out as Cortina watches from a distance.

In jail, Isaiah is placed in the same cell as Nat Love, a famous gunslinger, and leader of a gang. Isaiah quickly expresses his awe and admiration, saying he would love to receive whatever tutelage he could from him. Nat simply tells him to enjoy the day as Nat is scheduled to be hung the next day. Bloomington arrives to gloat at Isaiah's capture, and Isaiah vows to come back from the grave for revenge if need be. When Isaiah mentions Jedediah's name, Nat instantly tells Isaiah that he was alive, grew up to be a good man and a gunslinger in his own right, but lost a duel to the Undertaker. Isaiah then vows to also kill the Undertaker as well. That night, Cortina arrives and breaks Isaiah out of jail, with Nat also escaping. When they're about to part ways, Isaiah shoots a man that had shot and missed Cortina, thus saving his life once more. Nat steals Isaiah's horse, with Isaiah having to ride with Cortina yet constantly falling off his horse as they followed Nat back to his hideout where he's met with open arms by his gang. Isaiah then manages to convince Nat to allow them to stay for a few days, and shortly after meets the rest of his gang: Stagecoach Mary, and a group of nuns who also serve as accomplices. During their time there, Isaiah is constantly mocked and disrespected by Nat's gang as he comically and dangerously tries to practice gunslinging. Nat Love takes matters into his own hands and forces Isaiah to shoot a can off his hand at gunpoint, telling Isaiah that he would kill him if he hit him. Isaiah then makes his first successful shot and is told by Nat to plan on dying whenever he shoots as someone. Isaiah then learns to ride a horse after Nat compares riding a horse to being with a woman, and Stagecoach Mary takes his virginity to give him a basis after some mockery from the men. Isaiah continues to work on his skills and excels quickly, much to Nat's wonder and admiration. One night Nat calls for a meeting in which he declares that Isaiah needs a gunslinger name. After some mockery from some of the gang members, Nat asks Isaiah what it is that he's proud of, as a man must have a name that he can be proud of. Isaiah instantly names his half-Cherokee father, who died fighting for his convictions. It is then that he is given the name "The Cherokee Kid".

The next day after a change in wardrobe, the Cherokee Kid and Cortina follow Nat and his gang as they go to rob a bank, this being Isaiah's final lesson. During the robbery, Nat tells Isaiah to pay attention to how it's done, and Isaiah learns quickly as he shoots his way out flawlessly during the getaway. Nat returns to his hideout as Isaiah and Cortina part ways with them, with the promise that they would meet again in the future. The Cherokee Kid then sets out to rob Bloomington's banks in an effort to become his leading priority, and to humiliate him. Bloomington desperately calls for as many mercenaries and bounty hunters as he can find, including the Undertaker. Bloomington offers a bag of gold coins to whoever can kill the Cherokee Kid, and the Undertaker quickly announces that the Cherokee Kid is his, disabling one of the men who challenges him.

Arriving in Larabee, Isaiah and Cortina are graciously welcomed by the Holsopple family as they arrive at their farm looking to buy fresh horses. They are asked to stay for dinner, much to the chagrin and disgrace of Abby, the farmer's daughter. During dinner, Abby knocks out Isaiah and Cortina with a frying pan, with the intention of turning them in and collecting the reward money to use to keep their land. Abby remains untrusting of the Cherokee Kid, naively believing that they're there to rob them. After escaping their restraints, Isaiah and Cortina tell Abby they'll come back, and after Isaiah remarks that Abby may like him, she gets her rifle and shoots at them in anger, missing all four shots and claiming that it's too dark to see.

The next day, a gunslinger unsuccessfully attempts to kill the Cherokee Kid after telling him that the Undertaker is looking for him. The Cherokee Kid then tells the gunslinger to tell the Undertaker that he wants to meet him the next day on the main street. Later that day Isaiah goes to see Abby once more, and after some banter, her attraction to him becomes slightly apparent. It is here that Cortina ends his eulogy as Bonner enters with some men demanding that the Cherokee Kid be put underground per Bloomington's orders. Everyone at the funeral keeps them at bay, claiming they will carry the casket themselves, to which Bonner relents.

Outside, the Undertaker gives his recount of the duel. It is through this recount that it is revealed that the Undertaker is in fact, Jedediah Turner, Isaiah's brother. The Undertaker recognizing The Cherokee Kid as Isaiah due to their father's Cherokee feather on his hat, and The Cherokee Kid recognizing The Undertaker as Jedediah due to his quoting of their mother. The duel takes place, and Isaiah falls. The Undertaker then opens the casket to reveal a still alive Isaiah who then opens fire on Bloomington, and thus keeping his promise to "come back from the grave". A major gunfight erupts with the Cherokee Kid, Cortina, Undertaker, Abby, Nat Love and his gang against Bloomington's men as Bloomington looks for a way to escape. In the gunfight Nat is killed, and Cortina is wounded. Isaiah and Jedediah re-affirm their brotherhood, claiming that to be the best day of their lives regardless of the outcome before taking out what's left of Bloomington's men together. In the aftermath, Isaiah then looks for Bloomington, cornering him in a barn. Bloomington goes as far as to offer him a partnership in an effort to save himself. Isaiah, disgusted, turns his back to him. Bloomington then tries to shoot him but is quickly shot by Isaiah who then stands over a wounded Bloomington and executes him in the same way his mother was killed. Isaiah turns around to see Bonner aiming at him, but is shot from behind by Jedediah.

Nat Love is buried and his gang (now fully respecting Isaiah) part ways. Isaiah and Jedediah engage in some banter as they plan to go west to get to know each other better and right more wrongs, to Abby's disapproval. Abby claims that since he has already reached all his goals being the Cherokee Kid is no longer necessary, but Isaiah claims he likes being a gunslinger. Cortina attempts to go his own way, but Isaiah reminds him that he has once again saved his life and Cortina somewhat reluctantly agrees to stay. As they turn to leave, they're shot at by Abby, who insists on going with them, and they ride off.

Steve Everett, an Oakland journalist recovering from alcoholism, is assigned to cover the execution of convicted murderer Frank Beechum following the death of Everett's colleague, Michelle Ziegler, who had originally been assigned to the story.

Everett investigates the background to the case and comes to suspect that Beechum has been wrongly convicted of murdering Amy Wilson. He gets permission from his editor's boss to investigate, and is told that the top editor would call the Governor, and that would do the job, if Everett gets hard proof. He thus has a little over 12 hours to confirm his hunch and save Beechum.

Everett interviews a prosecution witness, Dale Porterhouse, who saw Beechum at the store with a gun. Everett questions Porterhouse's account, saying that, because of the layout of the store, he could not have seen a gun in Beechum's hand.

Everett confronts D.A. Cecelia Nussbaum, who reveals that, a young man, Warren, was interviewed and claimed he had stopped at the store to buy a soda and saw nothing. Everett suspects that Warren, never called as a witness, is probably the real killer. He breaks into the deceased reporter's house, suspecting that she had been onto something and finds her file on Warren. Meanwhile, Warden Luther Plunkett also starts to have doubts about Beechum's guilt.

Everett falls out with his bosses and is fired on the spot, but he points out that his contract entitles him to adequate notice. They ask him how much notice he requires, and, looking at his watch, he says 6 hours and 7 minutes. He tracks down Angela Russel, Warren's grandmother. She tells him that her grandson could not have been the murderer, and berates him for the lack of interest from the press when Warren himself was killed in a mugging two years after Amy's murder.

The prison chaplain misrepresents an exchange with Beechum as a confession to the crime. Everett hears about this on the radio and loses heart; on top of this, his wife Barbara has found out about his affair with his editor's wife and has turned him out of the house. He is about to start drinking again when he sees a piece on TV that shows a photograph of Amy wearing a locket, a locket he realizes he has seen before, being worn by Angela Russel.

Everett drives back to Angela's house. When he tells her about the locket, she realizes the truth: her grandson was the killer. Everett now has to get Angela to the Governor's house in order to persuade him to order a stay of execution. As they approach the Governor's mansion, the first of three drugs used in the execution has already been injected into Frank's bloodstream and he has lost consciousness. The Governor calls, and the doctors try to revive him, while his wife Bonnie bangs on the window calling out for him to wake up.

Six months later, a week before Christmas, Everett is out buying a stuffed hippo for his daughter, and the store's proprietor mentions that he is famous and may even win a Pulitzer. He catches sight of Frank and his family doing their Christmas shopping. Steve and Frank acknowledge each other, but Frank's daughter shouts for him to "come on," which Frank does.

Shortly after the events of ''Spider-Man'', a series of robberies led by Electro take place throughout New York City. While out on patrol, Spider-Man spots one of the robberies taking place at a building owned by BioTech. Planting a Spider-Tracer on the head thief's motorcycle, Spider-Man follows it to an abandoned warehouse where the thief is passing off a stolen briefcase to a contact. Spider-Man takes out the thugs and interrogates one of them, before being forced to fight the head thug: Shocker.

After defeating Shocker, Spider-Man follows the thug's tip and heads for an airfield, where the contact is headed towards. Along the way, he is forced to disable a bomb threat, take out a machine-gun nest, and stop a runaway airplane from crashing. As the contact escapes via helicopter, Spider-Man plants another tracer on it and tracks it to a train yard owned by Hammerhead, where he must fight through the mob-employed night staff and Sandman to stop the contact from fleeing aboard a train. Spider-Man eventually confronts the contact, the Beetle, and although the latter manages to escape with the briefcase, he unknowingly leaves behind a clue for Spider-Man: an invitation to the Science and Industry Ball.

Meanwhile, Electro explains his master plan to his accomplices: to use the Bio-Nexus Device, which can amplify one's bio-energy to power a city block, to amplify his own powers to godlike levels. The villains have acquired most of the pieces that make up the device, but they still need its power source. Believing its creator, Dr. Watts, might know where it is located, Electro sends Hammerhead and his men to kidnap her at the ball. Hammerhead takes several people hostage, but is foiled by Spider-Man, who rescues the hostages before facing and defeating Hammerhead. However, Dr. Watts is captured by Sandman during the confusion.

Looking for more information on Dr. Watts and why she is sought by the villains, Spider-Man calls Dr. Curt Connors, her colleague at BioTech, only to hear strange roars on the other end of the line. Deciding to investigate what happened to Connors, Spider-Man infiltrates BioTech and makes his way past security to reach Connors' lab, where he finds the scientist has transformed into the Lizard. After creating an antidote to restore Connors back to normal, Spider-Man learns from him about Electro's plans with the Bio-Nexus Device. He then goes to investigate Dr. Watts' lab and discovers that the device can be powered by a special sapphire. After defeating Sandman, Spider-Man sees a newspaper article about the sapphire on display at the museum, and rushes to get there before Electro.

Electro beats Spider-Man to the museum, but the latter defeats him inside the planetarium and secures the sapphire. Still holding Dr. Watts hostage, Electro coerces Spider-Man into giving him the sapphire by threatening the doctor's life. Spider-Man throws the jewel into the air as Electro releases Dr. Watts, but when the former attempts to take back the sapphire with his webs, he misses, allowing Electro to grab it. The Bio-Nexus Device complete, Electro uses it to supercharge himself into "Hyper-Electro", an all-powerful being made of pure electrical energy, and flies away in a bolt of lighting. Spider-Man follows him to the top of a nearby skyscraper where, unable to directly attack him, instead uses the tower's generators to overload the Bio-Nexus Device, destroying it and ending Electro's power play for good.

The next day, Thor is credited in the ''Daily Bugle'' with saving New York from Electro, much to Spider-Man's disappointment. In prison, Electro moans over his defeat as he shares a cell with Hammerhead and Shocker, who try to ignore him and play cards. When he gets bored of poker, Shocker decides to ask the villains from the first game, who are imprisoned in a nearby cell, if they know how to play Go Fish.

The movie opens with a small Italian village being stormed by a band of Hungarian pillagers. When the murders and rapes are over, a German knight arrives and bravely kills the bandits. However, as he is healing his wounds he is attacked by two of the surviving villagers and one of the thieves. They throw the wounded knight into a river.

The attackers try to sell the knight's armor and weapons to a miserly Jewish merchant who finds among his belongings a letter of donation by the Holy Roman Emperor, granting the knight the fief of Aurocastro, an Apulian town. The parchment is torn at the lower end, which refers to a condition the knight must fulfill to enjoy the donation.

The Hungarian bandit comes up with the idea to propose a partnership to a cadet nobleman, so the group can take possession of the aforementioned fief and enjoy its riches. The knight they find is the poor and incompetent, yet well-meaning, Brancaleone da Norcia and they tell him that a noble knight handed them the parchment before dying. Brancaleone initially refuses the plan but after a farcical defeat at a jousting tournament that promised the hand of an overlord's daughter and a wealthy fief, he is too eager to take command of this "army" (L'Armata) of underdogs and lead it towards "fortune" and "glory", in what he sees as an epic journey.

As they set up towards the fief, Brancaleone lives several grotesque adventures, inspired by the confused and cosmopolitan world of Italy during Middle Ages; each one of them more hilarious than the last. These include:

• A Byzantine knight, Teofilatto dei Leonzi (Gian Maria Volonté), who proposes to fake his capture by the band so they can demand and share a ransom from his father.
• An entire city seemingly abandoned, which they begin to pillage, until they find out that it was depopulated by plague.
• A fanatical mad monk, Zenone (Enrico Maria Salerno), who promises that those who join his army of Crusaders will be "healed" from all ills, having the band follow him to a crusade in the Holy Land. When trying to convince his followers to cross a precarious bridge by leaping upon it (crying out loud that the Lord would protect them), the monk falls down into a deep gorge - this releases the band to follow their previous quest.
• The rescue of a bride named Matelda (Catherine Spaak), who falls in love with Brancaleone, but is rejected by him due to his oath to take her to her groom; to Brancaleone's misfortune, she avenges herself by losing her virginity to the Byzantine knight (by then a member of the gang); later, while the 'army' is relaxing at her nuptial feast her husband finds out about her state and she accuses Brancaleone of deflowering her.
• giving in to Teofilatto's plan, the army arrives at his father's castle to demand a ransom. His father refuses to pay, revealing that Teofilatto is his illegitimate child. Meanwhile, a confused Brancaleone has to fend off the sadomasochistically-fueled passion of Teofilatto's aunt, just one example of the inbred Byzantine household.

When finally the band reaches the fief, they discover that the missing part of their parchment mentioned that condition for the granting of the fief was that its new ruler should have provided adequate defences against the "black scourge coming from the sea", frequent raids by Saracen corsairs. Brancaleone designs a cartoonish Rube Goldberesque trap to defeat the Saracens, but instead the band ends up trapped within. As the band is about to be executed by impalement, it is saved by the knight of the opening scenes, the rightful owner of the fief, thirsty for vengeance against his attackers.

Brancaleone (who did not know about the attack on the knight) and his army are about to be burned alive when the mad monk arrives out of the blue and saves them from the knight, "so they can fulfill their duty to go onto the Holy Land". Being deprived of his dreams of richness, Brancaleone and his band agree to go along with the monk and his followers, saving themselves. Albeit sad, when he finds his untrustworthy horse, Brancaleone mounts and regains his confidence, taking the lead from the monk. The story is continued in a follow-up film, ''Brancaleone alle Crociate'' (1970).

Frosty the Snowman travels to the town of Evergreen, which is seemingly idyllic but full of unhappy children who must follow harsh rules. Frosty tries to play with Mayor Tinkerton's son Tommy, but he is afraid of displeasing his uptight father, who keeps the family and the town on a strict schedule and favors Tommy's obedient older brother Charlie. Seeing he cannot reach Tommy yet, Frosty finds Tommy's best friend and neighbor, a nervous boy named Walter Wader, and convinces him to play in the snow with him one night. Walter has so much fun that he walks into school confidently the next day.

Word spreads about Walter breaking curfew and having fun, prompting the school's principal Hank Pankley to complain to Mr. Tinkerton. Walter gets into a food fight with Charlie at lunch, prompting Pankley to place the two in detention. Tinkerton takes a pin marked "#1" from Charlie and interrogates Walter, who replies that he was "playing with a magical snowman", causing Tinkerton to react nervously. Pankley assures Tinkerton that Walter's story is untrue, secretly desiring to take Tinkerton's job as mayor.

As school ends, Charlie mocks Walter for believing in Frosty, but Frosty arrives outside the school and the two join him. Tommy leaves to follow Sara Simple, a schoolmate he has a crush on, but instead Frosty's hat leads him to the library, where he discovers a comic book about Frosty. The comic tells of a boy whose father is a stage magician (Professor Hinkle) who denounces magic, yet the boy brings Frosty to life using his father's hat. Tommy reads that the boy spends the rest of winter looking for Frosty, but the rest of the comic's pages are blank.

An increasingly disturbed Tinkerton finds Tommy and gives him the "#1" pin, confessing that Charlie and the other children have told him the same story about a magic snowman and wanting Tommy to tell him if anything else strange happens. Tommy wears the pin to school but is shunned for being Tinkerton's new favorite. Tommy discovers his mother scrapbooking old photos of his father, revealing that the boy in the comic is Tinkerton.

Frosty continues to play with the children, including Sara, until they begin disobeying rules, appalling their parents and causing Tinkerton to break down. Pankley convinces Tinkerton to make him mayor at the next town meeting, promising to restore order. He also notices Walter feeling left out of playing with Frosty and tricks him into helping him lay a trap for Frosty. Walter goes ice skating with Frosty on a frozen pond until Frosty falls through the ice and melts, allowing Pankley to steal the hat.

As Tommy attempts to read the comic, the blank pages restore themselves. Pankley is revealed to have stolen the hat and locked it away the same winter Tinkerton was looking for Frosty, warning that Pankley will take over Evergreen completely if he is allowed to succeed. Tommy regains the trust of his friends when he shows them the complete comic, and they successfully retrieve the hat from the school and revive Frosty.

The adults notice their children's absences and head into the woods to find them dancing with Frosty despite Pankley's attempts to stop them. Tommy returns the "#1" pin to Tinkerton, apologizing for disobeying him, but Tinkerton assures his son he did the right thing and happily recognizes Frosty and his father's hat. Tinkerton reinstates himself as mayor after he realizes Pankley's treachery and Walter hits him with a snowball, leading Frosty to involve the other adults in a snowball fight.

The adults reconcile with their children and Tinkerton comes to believe in magic again, not wanting his sons to grow up without magic as he did. He also removes the rules and curfews from the town. The film's narrator is revealed to be an elderly Tommy who now lives together with Sara, hearing her call him home from the cold.

Taking place possibly a few months after ''Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro'', the game begins with Peter Parker's wife Mary Jane Watson reminding him to buy a new fishbowl for their fish. After a news report however, Peter changes to Spider-Man and tries to investigate a few criminal activities all taking place in one night, which pits him against a rogue's gallery of villains, including Rhino, Hammerhead, Big Wheel, Electro And Scorpion. They are led by the game's titular antagonist: the Master of Illusion, Mysterio. After subduing his fellow super-villains, Spider-Man defeats Mysterio himself in the final level. Mysterio escapes, but leaves his helmet behind. Peter brings it back home to Mary Jane as their new fishbowl.

The crew of Deep Space Nine are on the USS ''Defiant'', returning to Bajor with the sacred Bajoran Orb of Time, which is being returned by the Cardassian government after being stolen during the occupation. They pick up a hitchhiker, a human called Barry Waddle. Suddenly the ship finds itself more than one hundred years in the past and approximately 200 light years away from its previous location, near Deep Space Station K7 and the USS ''Enterprise''. They discover that the hitchhiker was Arne Darvin, a Klingon agent disguised as a human who was caught by Captain Kirk on ''K7'' after poisoning a shipment of grain.

Fearing that Darvin used the Orb of Time to alter the past to prevent his capture, the crew dress in period uniforms and investigate the ''Enterprise'' and K7. The ship and station are infested with tribbles, small furry creatures that reproduce rapidly. They attempt to interact with history as little as possible while investigating Darvin, but Dr. Bashir, Chief O'Brien, Worf and Odo get involved in a bar brawl between the ''Enterprise'' crew and a number of Klingons on shore leave. During the brawl, Worf and Odo spot Darvin and bring him back to the ''Defiant''. There, Darvin gloats that he has planted a bomb in a tribble to kill Kirk.

Captain Sisko and Lieutenant Commander Dax infiltrate the ''Enterprise'' bridge to scan for the bomb, and confirm it is not on the ''Enterprise''. The rapid breeding of the tribbles makes searching for the bomb on ''K7'' impractical, so they opt to shadow Kirk. They overhear him discussing the tribble infestation, and deduce that the bomb is in the grain storage compartments. They enter the compartments and begin scanning the tribbles, many of which are dead from eating the poisoned grain. Captain Kirk opens the compartment and is covered in falling tribbles. Dax and Sisko find the bomb among the tribbles still in the compartment and the ''Defiant'' transports it into space, where it explodes. The crew of the ''Defiant'' use the Bajoran Orb to travel back to their time.

Later, agents from the Department of Temporal Investigations arrive at Deep Space Nine to question Sisko about the incident. After interviewing Sisko, the agents leave, expressing optimism that the crew's actions have not seriously altered history. Once they are gone, Odo summons Sisko to DS9's Promenade, which is now covered in tribbles.

Santa Claus wakes up with a cold sometime before Christmas in the late 19th century. His doctor, who thinks nobody cares about him anymore, advises him to make some changes to his routine, so Santa decides to take a holiday instead of delivering gifts. Mrs. Claus unsuccessfully tries to convince him otherwise, so she enlists two elves named Jingle and Jangle to find proof that people still believe in Santa.

Jingle and Jangle set out with Santa's youngest reindeer Vixen, but are shot down by crossfire between the conflicting Miser Brothers: Snow Miser, who controls the world's cold weather, and Heat Miser, who controls its warm weather. Vixen saves her guardian elves from falling to their doom and they continue on their uncertain path.

Jingle, Jangle, and Vixen come upon Southtown, a small community in the southern United States. They ask a group of children, including a boy named Iggy, if they believe in Santa, but they are skeptical. To make matters worse, Vixen grows sick due to the warm weather and is sent to the local animal shelter after Jingle and Jangle disguise her as a dog. The town's police officer refers them to the town's mayor, who laughs at their story but agrees to free Vixen if they can prove they are elves by making it snow in Southtown on Christmas.

Jingle and Jangle call Mrs. Claus to pick them up. As she leaves, Santa discovers Vixen is missing and travels to Southtown himself to retrieve her while disguised as a civilian named "Klaus". While there, he meets Iggy and his family. Claus reveals his belief in Santa, and Iggy's father reveals that Santa personally visited him one Christmas, and he still believes as well. When Claus leaves to retrieve Vixen, Iggy realizes his true identity and resolves to help Jingle and Jangle.

Iggy joins Mrs. Claus when she arrives to pick up Jingle and Jangle, and together they visit the Miser Brothers. They ask Snow Miser to send snow to Southtown for a day; he is agreeable but says he cannot as it is part of Heat Miser's territory. They then ask Heat Miser, who says he will only comply if Snow Miser gives him the North Pole in exchange. The brothers begin bickering again. This causes Mrs. Claus to go over their heads and visit their mother, Mother Nature, and she convinces her sons to compromise.

As Christmas approaches, the world's children send their own presents to Santa, setting off international headlines. Touched by the outpouring of generosity and appreciation, Santa decides to make his journey after all. On Christmas Eve, he makes a public stop in Southtown during a snowfall. The next day, the children, including Iggy, are delighted to receive their presents. As the special ends, Mrs. Claus narrates that somehow, "yearly, newly, faithfully and truly", Santa always comes. Santa is shown getting out of bed to prepare himself, his reindeer, and his gift-loaded sleigh, remarking he could never imagine "a year without a Santa Claus".

As ''Enterprise'' drifts in space, the crew is unconscious. An alien cruiser scans the ship, then docks with it. Two Ferengi, Muk and Grish, board wearing breathing filters. They deactivate a gas-emitting device that the Starfleet crew brought up from the surface of a nearby moon. Unknown to the intruders, Commander Tucker is still conscious and makes his way to Engineering and uses the ship's sensors to monitor the aliens as they plunder the ship.

The Ferengi awaken Captain Archer and demand to know where he keeps his valuables. The Captain refuses to help and tells the Ferengi they have no money or latinum on board, so he is confined to a cargo bay. The aliens are unconvinced that ''Enterprise'' carries no valuable materials. They set off to find the vault themselves, leaving Krem and Archer to transfer the loot. Archer sees Tucker and sends him to the launch-bay to retrieve the Ferengi's hypospray. Doing so, Tucker revives Sub-Commander T'Pol. She deduces that the gas device was intentionally left as a 'Trojan Horse'. In Sickbay, three of the four Ferengi search for the non-existent vault, and T'Pol uses a PADD to distract and then start an argument between them.

In Engineering, Archer tries to negotiate with Krem, who is tempted when Archer says that he will throw in T'Pol. Muk goes to the launch-bay and finds Tucker, who escapes, but Ulis subdues him with his electro-whip. The Ferengi, Archer and Trip meet in the launch-bay where Archer plays along with Tucker's deception about "the vault". T'Pol assists in subduing the intruders, and the crew oversee the return of the stolen goods. Archer tells the Ferengi not to go within a light year of a human or Vulcan vessel ever again (and they indeed do not reappear until some 200 years later in the episode ''The Last Outpost'').

Captain Archer, Sub-Commander T'Pol and Commander Tucker are dining with D'Marr, a visiting trader. He tells them of a "haunted" transport vessel that has crashed on a nearby planet, and Archer orders an away team to investigate. Once on board, T'Pol hears a noise, but detects nothing with her tricorder, while Archer and Ensign Mayweather find a computer terminal and decide to take it back to ''Enterprise''. In engineering, Tucker and T'Pol discover a section of the ship protected with a dampening field. As they make their way to locate its generator, they find a chamber containing many armed crewmembers.

Two of the Kantare, Ezral and Captain Kuulan, tell the away team the ship was attacked by raiders three years ago. Archer offers assistance, which Ezral accepts. But all is not as it seems: Lieutenant Reed's analysis of the ship reveals impact damage, but no weapons signatures. Oxidation of the ship reveal it crashed nearly 22 years previously. Mayweather states that the aeroponics bay isn't big enough to feed all of the crew. Further, Reed opens an escape pod, and Tucker is amazed to see the corpse of a man he spoke to on the planet's surface only an hour before.

On the vessel, T'Pol and Tucker are suddenly taken hostage, while Archer and Reed are ordered to leave. ''Enterprise'' then plans a rescue mission. During the raid, the Kantaran crew emerge from the walls and overwhelm them. Liana, Ezral's daughter, removes some data cards from the computer and the crew disappear - all were holograms except Ezral and Liana. Ezral explains that he was the chief engineer on the ship, and due to his negligence, half the crew died in an ion storm. He later recreated his dead wife and the crew to provide a home environment for his young daughter. Accepting reality, he finally requests the repair components required to make his ship space-worthy.

The story begins with a group of Russian scientists sent in search of ore, which they find. When greed overcomes them, one of them kills the others to disguise the find. The story brings in aspects of modern-day piracy, slavery and human smuggling and how these seemingly different events are related to the Russians and Chinese with the ore mining.

Category:The Oregon Files Category:2005 American novels Category:American thriller novels Category:Novels by Clive Cussler Category:Novels by Jack Du Brul Category:Collaborative novels

Captain Archer and Ensign Mayweather wake up in a Tandaran prison. They are soon met by Major Klev, who orders them both to the office of Colonel Grat. Grat interrogates them in detail regarding their intrusion into Tandaran space and the Suliban, and says that they will have to appear before a magistrate in three days time. He also refuses to allow Archer to contact ''Enterprise'', but does so himself and apprises them of the current situation. Upon hearing this, Commander Tucker advocates a rescue attempt, but Sub-Commander T'Pol prefers to avoid provoking the Tandarans further, and orders ''Enterprise'' to Tandar Prime.

Later, Archer meets a Suliban called Danik, who tells him that they are in Detention Complex 26, an internment camp for Suliban imprisoned when the Cabal began attacking the Tandaran Sector eight years previously. In his office, Grat questions Archer in detail about the events of episode "Broken Bow", and also demands information about the Temporal Cold War. Archer wonders why innocent Suliban are being held prisoner, but Grat warns that delaying could result in Archer missing the transport to Tandar Prime. Grat contacts the ''Enterprise'' to report that the hearing has unfortunately been "delayed", allowing Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Sato to triangulate his signal and locate the prison.

That night, a communicator is beamed to Archer and Mayweather's cell. Archer tells Tucker he wants to help the Suliban escape, and Danik says his people can go to the Niburon Colonies, away from the Tandar Sector. The following morning Grat discovers the communicator and Archer is sent to isolation as punishment. Aboard ''Enterprise'', T'Pol uses torpedoes to ward off the Tandaran defense-ships before clearing Tucker to launch in a shuttle-pod. Mayweather distracts Klev, allowing a Suliban-disguised Reed to activate charges and initiate the escape. As they flee, Grat argues that the Suliban will all go to join the Cabal, but Archer says that he doesn't know the Suliban very well, despite having been in charge for a long time.

Set 800 years after a catastrophic event called the "Great Fear", the stories feature Lone Sloane, who is caught by an entity called "He Who Seeks", after his space ship is destroyed. He is thrown into a different dimension, where he becomes a space rogue and freebooter with strange powers, and finds himself caught in an intergalactic struggle between space pirates, gigantic robots, dark gods, and other-dimensional entities. Very similar to Silver Surfer and Galactus, or Ulysses and the Greek Gods, he is compelled to wander in a universe that is alien to him. It is also known for the quasi-baroque style of Druillet's artwork, which features Lovecraftian space nightmares mixed with Escherian mathematically inspired worlds.

Lt. Worf fails to report for duty, and Lieutenant Commander Data and Commander William Riker become concerned. Riker finds Worf's quarters filled with incense and burning candles while his chief of security sits before a small fire in a trance-like state. Worf later explains to Captain Picard that he was attempting to reconnect with his Klingon spiritual beliefs by summoning a vision of Kahless, the messianic warrior who founded the Klingon Empire. Picard suggests Worf immerse himself in Klingon culture, granting him leave to journey to the Temple of Boreth.

After ten days of doubt-filled rituals, Worf is approached by a physical manifestation of Kahless. Worf brings the prospective spiritual leader to the ''Enterprise'', but is troubled that Kahless does not remember how Klingon warnog tastes or what Sto-Vo-Kor, the Klingon afterlife, is like.

Klingon Chancellor Gowron arrives with a test to prove whether Kahless is genuine. Gowron is displeased with the prophet's return, convinced he is an imposter foisted by the priests to gain power. Gowron requests that the Federation genetically test the dagger he brought, stained with the blood of Kahless in antiquity. The test indicates a match.

Gowron provokes a D'k tahg duel with Kahless and wins, leaving Worf to ponder how the "greatest warrior of all" could be beaten. Worf confronts Koroth, High Priest of the Boreth Temple, who admits that Kahless is a clone of the original, noting that the legend of Kahless' return did not specify the exact manner. He feels Kahless is needed to rally the people's faith. Data advises Worf that during a crisis of his own, he made a leap of faith to assume he could evolve beyond the sum of his programming.

Gowron is outraged when Worf tells him the truth and prepares to execute the clone and priests. Worf tells Gowron he supports Kahless, explaining that he made a leap of faith. He suggests the Klingon High Council appoint Kahless to the ceremonial position of Emperor; while only a figurehead, he might unite the Klingon people. Seeing the wisdom of cooperation, Gowron offers his devotion. Departing for the Klingon homeworld Qo'noS, Kahless notes the troubled demeanor of the "Son of Mogh" and reassures him that the beliefs espoused by Kahless made the ancient Klingons what they were; his spirit lives within the hearts of all true Klingons.

Samantha is a hugely talented violinist who discovers on her 21st birthday that she was left on the steps of her parents, Marilyn and Walter's home and subsequently adopted.

She goes into a panic, asserting that everything she has believed herself to be is a lie. She abandons music just before her senior university recital. She moves in with childhood friend Henry. As she searches for her true identity she becomes oblivious to the inconvenience and suffering her search is causing the people she loves.

Ultimately she locates her birth parents, Neil and Charlotte Otto, who are emotionally cold towards her but, who are professional concert musicians, a harpist and a flautist. She realizes that her gift of music came from within, but that despite no blood-connection, her family is truly her own.

The Federation starship ''Enterprise'' arrives at a subspace communications relay station near the Klingon border on a resupply mission. However, when an away team boards the relay there is no sign of the two officers assigned there. Lieutenant Aquiel Uhnari, Lieutenant Rocha, and the station's shuttlecraft are missing. While searching the station, the away team finds the dog that belongs to Lieutenant Uhnari. The away team also finds a substance on the floor, which ''Enterprise'' Chief Medical Officer Dr. Crusher determines is a type of cellular residue.

The crew uncover evidence that a Klingon had been on the station leading Crusher and First Officer Riker to suspect that Uhnari and Rocha were the victims of a Klingon attack. Commander La Forge backs up this theory when he examines Uhnari's personal logs. He finds an entry in which Aquiel relays her fears to her sister Shianna about a Klingon named Morag. Captain Picard contacts the local Klingon governor, Torak, and learns that Morag is commander of one of the Klingon ships that patrols that section of the Klingon Empire's border. At this point, Torak refuses to cooperate further. Picard threatens to take his case to Chancellor Gowron, a threat scoffed at by Torak until Picard casually mentions that he served as Gowron's Arbiter of Succession.See the episodes "Reunion" and "Redemption". Knowing Gowron would be in Picard's debt and how the former might frown upon the disrespect shown to the latter, a nervous Torak agrees to cooperate fully.

The senior staff meets with Torak, and he produces Aquiel alive. She explains that Rocha attacked her and that her last memory was escaping from him. She doesn't remember precisely what happened. To help clarify what really occurred, Picard requests to speak to Commander Morag, the Klingon who was allegedly harassing the station. Attracted to her, La Forge befriends Aquiel, and takes her to the Ten-Forward lounge. He reveals to her that he surveyed her logs and personal correspondence as part of their investigation. Aquiel says she didn't like Rocha but did not wish to hurt him. She realizes she is a suspect in his death.

Meanwhile, Dr. Crusher continues to examine the cellular residue found on the deckplate. Riker and Lt. Worf, who are examining the shuttlecraft, come across a phaser set to kill. La Forge gives moral support to Aquiel as she is questioned again.

Commander Morag then arrives aboard the ''Enterprise'' and meets the senior staff. He admits that he was present on the station, and that he took priority Starfleet messages from its computer. La Forge returns to the station and discovers that Rocha's personal log has been tampered with. He confronts Aquiel who admits deleting messages from Rocha's log, because Rocha, as the senior officer, was going to declare her insubordinate and belligerent to Starfleet. Scared that this new evidence will condemn her as Rocha's killer, she agrees to stay aboard the ''Enterprise'' because La Forge has faith in her. He and Aquiel use an ancient method of her people to bond and share their thoughts.

While Dr. Crusher examines the DNA found on the deck plate yet again, the material moves and touches her hand. It then withdraws and forms a perfect replica of her hand. Due to this, she suspects that the real Rocha might have been killed by this strange coalescent organism, and a replica of him then attacked Aquiel in search of a new body. Believing that the organism now has Aquiel's body, Riker and Worf race to Aquiel's quarters and stop the ritual she is conducting with La Forge, believing she was about to attack him. Morag is also arrested, as it is just as likely he is the organism.

With Aquiel and Morag in the brig, the ''Enterprise'' proceeds to the nearest starbase as the crew keep a close watch on them both - in case the organism needs a new body soon. La Forge is in his quarters along with Aquiel's dog reminiscing about her. The dog transforms and attacks him, but he is able to kill it. Later, he explains to Aquiel, who has been released, that Rocha was replaced by the organism. When it attacked her, it began the takeover process (hence her lapse in memory); however, she managed to get away in time. The creature then turned to the only other life form on the station, her dog.

The episode ends with Aquiel and La Forge in Ten-Forward, where she turns down his offer to help her join the Enterprise crew. She tells him she wants to earn her way there on her own merits.

Tsui Chik (or Simon in the US version) tries to lead a quiet life as a librarian. However, he is really a former test subject for a highly secretive supersoldier project and the instructor of a special commando unit dubbed "701". The 701 squad is used for many government missions, but after one of the agents kills a team of policemen in an uncontrollable rage, the government decides to abort the project and eliminate all the subjects. Tsui Chik helped the surviving 701 agents flee the extermination attempt. Having escaped, Tsui Chik went separate ways from his team and lived in Hong Kong. Later at night he discovers that the rest of the team were responsible for a violent crime spree that was beyond the capability of the local police. He sets out to get rid of them, donning a mask and hat using the superhero alias of The Black Mask. Having lost the ability to feel pain due to the surgery performed on the super-soldiers by the military, Black Mask is almost invulnerable.

The film is about the Esquilache Riots.

The Freeling family has sent Carol Anne away from her native California to live with Diane's wealthy sister Pat and her husband Bruce Gardner in Chicago. Carol Anne has been told she is living with her aunt and uncle temporarily to attend a unique school for gifted children with emotional problems, though Pat thinks it is because Steven and Diane just wanted Carol Anne out of their house. Pat and Bruce are unaware of the events that the Freeling family had endured in the previous two films, only noting that Steven was involved in a bad land deal. Along with Donna, Bruce's daughter from his previous marriage, they live in the John Hancock Center of which Bruce is the manager.

Carol Anne has been made to discuss her experiences by her teacher/psychiatrist, Dr. Seaton. Seaton believes her to be delusional; however, the constant discussion has enabled the evil spirit of Rev. Henry Kane to locate Carol Anne and bring him back from the limbo he was sent during his previous encounter with her. Kane drains the high rise of heat and begins appearing in mirrors. Not believing in ghosts, Dr. Seaton has come to the conclusion that Carol Anne is a manipulative child with the ability to perform mass hypnosis, making people believe they were attacked by ghosts. Also during this period, Tangina Barrons realizes that Kane has found Carol Anne and travels cross-country to protect her.

That night, Kane takes possession of reflections in mirrors, causing the reflections of people to act independently of their physical counterparts. When Carol Anne is left alone that night, Kane attempts to use the mirrors in her room to capture her, but she escapes with the help of Tangina, who telepathically tells Carol Anne to break the mirror. Donna and boyfriend Scott sneak into the security office while the guard is away, intending to make sure he sees only a videotape of the swimming pool and not see the swimming pool while their friends are there. On one of the monitors, they see a frightened Carol Anne running through the high rise's parking lot and go to rescue her. Yet before they can, all three are taken to the Other Side through a puddle by Kane and his people. By this point Tangina and Dr. Seaton are both at the high rise, along with Pat and Bruce. Dr. Seaton stubbornly assumes that Carol Anne has staged the entire thing, while Tangina tries to get her back.

Scott is seemingly released from the Other Side through the pool (which appears frozen, at first) and is taken to his home with his parents. Tangina is killed by Kane disguised as Carol Anne; and Donna later reappears by bursting out of Tangina's corpse. As Dr. Seaton attempts to calm Donna, Bruce sees Carol Anne's reflection in the mirror and chases after her while Pat follows. Dr. Seaton is not far behind, and he believes he sees Carol Anne in the elevator. However, after Dr. Seaton approaches the elevator doors, Donna appears behind him and pushes him to his death down the empty elevator shaft. At this point it is revealed that what came back was not Donna, but a ghost under Kane's control, which then vanishes back into the mirror with a ghost imposter of Scott at its side.

However, even in death Tangina is still more powerful than Kane expects. She returns long enough to give Pat and Bruce her necklace and an important piece of advice. Pat and Bruce struggle to find Carol Anne, but Bruce is captured and eventually Pat is forced to prove her love for Carol Anne in a final face-off against Kane. Tangina then appears and manages to convince Kane to go into the light with her. Donna, Bruce, and Carol Anne are then returned to Pat (with the exception of Scott), leaving the other side. In the end, lightning flashes over the building and Kane's evil laughter is heard, hinting that Kane may not be gone for good.

Krusty gives a free trampoline to Homer, who places it in the Simpsons' back yard. Bart and Lisa are thrilled, but Marge frets it may be dangerous. Homer ignores her fretting and charges neighbors a fee to use it. When scores of people are injured, Homer heeds Marge's advice to get rid of the trampoline. After several failed attempts to dispose of it, Bart suggests chaining it to a pole to tempt thieves with the challenge of stealing it. Soon Snake breaks the chain and takes it.

Although he agrees Marge was right about the trampoline, Homer argues that he is at least willing to go out and try new things while she is considered a bore who nags too much. When Bart and Lisa agree with Homer's assessment, Marge is more angry and visits Patty and Selma. They show her an infomercial featuring self-help guru Brad Goodman to help conquer her chronic nagging. After Marge and Homer watch a Brad Goodman video, they learn to express their frustrations with each other using self-help language and get along better.

The Simpsons attend a Brad Goodman lecture, hoping they will learn how to curb Bart's unruly behavior. When Bart interrupts the lecture, Brad Goodman praises him as an example of a well-adjusted person and encourages the town to adopt Bart's irreverent and carefree attitude. Soon the whole town begins to act like Bart, doing whatever they please while ignoring the consequences. However, Bart becomes downhearted when he feels as if his reputation as a troublemaker has been usurped.

To celebrate their new-found attitude, the town holds a "Do What You Feel Festival". It goes awry because maintenance workers "didn't feel like" erecting the stage or installing amusement rides properly. A runaway Ferris wheel smashes the gates of a zoo, sending a stampede of wild animals through the streets. Soon a riot starts because everyone has learned to say whatever they are thinking, regardless of its effect on others. Blaming Bart for starting the whole "Do What You Feel" fiasco, a mob chases him. Using a parade float, Homer saves him. The town gives up the chase despite the float's slow speed. The Simpsons return home and conclude that everyone is fine the way they are.

In 1929 Joe E. Lewis is a successful night-club singer in Chicago while working for the Mob during the Prohibition era. His decision to work elsewhere displeases his mob employer who has his thugs assault him by slashing his face and throat, preventing him from continuing his career as a singer.

After many years he eventually recovers and turns his acerbic and witty sense of humor into an act when given a break as a stand-up comedian from singer Sophie Tucker. Soon, Lewis makes a career for himself as a comic, but heavy drinking and a self-destructive behavior leads him to question what his life has become and how he has hurt the people around him including his wife Martha and his best friend Austin.

Bored on a class trip to a box factory, Bart escapes to the nearby Channel 6 TV studio, where he encounters Krusty the Clown. Bart swipes a Danish intended for Krusty, who fires his assistant over the missing pastry. Bart steals a Danish from Kent Brockman and gives it to Krusty, who is so grateful that he makes Bart his new assistant.

The cast members treat Bart badly and he receives no credit for his work. When they use him as a gofer to deliver their lunches, lactose-intolerant Sideshow Mel becomes sick. Bart is given an opportunity to be on the show and replaces Mel in a skit, but accidentally knocks over several stage props. Dumbstruck by the cameras and onlookers, he says, "I didn't do it." The audience erupts with laughter. As Bart and Krusty are leaving the studio, they both realize Bart has instantly become famous. He is now known as "The I didn't do it kid". Krusty claims the rights to Bart and has him appear in more sketches and his catchphrase is used as marketing gimmick and a line of merchandise.

Bart at first enjoys the fame but soon he gets tired of being a one trick pony and people asking him to "just say the line". During an interview on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'', he tries to expand his repertoire, but O'Brien grows impatient and makes him repeat the catchphrase. Bart wants to quit show business, but Marge persuades him to continue performing because he makes people happy. After Bart delivers his catchphrase in another of Krusty's skits, the audience reacts with boredom, so Krusty ditches him.

Marge gives Bart a box of memorabilia to help him remember his brief fame. When Lisa is relieved he is again just her brother instead of "a one-dimensional character with a silly catchphrase", the Simpson family — joined by Barney, Mr. Burns, Ned, and Nelson — recite their respective catchphrases, prompting an unamused Lisa to go to her room.

At the Kwik-E-Mart, Apu is selling items to angry customers at outrageous prices as usual. Apu scribbles out the expiration date on a package of expired ham from 1989 and then lowers the price instead of throwing it out. Homer contracts food poisoning after eating the expired ham. When he recovers, Homer complains to Apu, who gives him a pair of five-pound buckets of expired shrimp to placate him, which he accepts and becomes ill again. While recovering at home, Homer sees the Channel 6 investigative news program ''Bite Back with Kent Brockman''. Lisa suggests asking the show's producers to investigate the Kwik-E-Mart.

Kent gives Homer a giant novelty hat containing a spy camera to expose Apu for selling expired food. Homer panics and discards the hat after Apu mistakes its electronic buzzing sound for a bee, but the camera catches Apu dropping a hot dog on the floor and returning it to the roller grill. Apu is fired by corporate headquarters — despite complying with their unsanitary food-handling policies — and is replaced by actor James Woods, who is doing research for a role in an upcoming film.

When Apu arrives at the Simpsons' house, Homer thinks he is trying to strangle him, but Apu's posture is merely the traditional form of apology in the Indian village where he was born. Apu hopes to work off his karmic debt for selling Homer expired food by performing work for the Simpsons. At first, Homer is reluctant to accept Apu's help, but soon the family appreciates his dutiful behavior.

Apu still misses his job at the Kwik-E-Mart, so Homer accompanies him to the head office in India. There they meet with the head of the Kwik-E-Mart corporation, who grants them only three questions. When Homer wastes the questions on inane banter, the man refuses to help Apu. This time an enraged Apu chokes Homer before they return home disappointed.

When Apu returns to the Kwik-E-Mart to "''face his demons''", a robber bursts into the store with a gun. He shoots at Woods, but Apu saves him by leaping in the bullet's path. At the hospital, Dr. Hibbert says Apu survived because the bullet ricocheted off another bullet lodged in his chest from a previous robbery. Grateful for Apu's heroism, Woods gives him his job back and leaves to "battle aliens on a faraway planet", which may or not be for his next movie.

In 2010, social problems have overrun the poorer suburbs of Paris. Especially Banlieue 13, commonly referred to as B13: a ghetto with a population of two million people. Unable to control B13, the authorities surround the entire area with a high wall topped by barbed tape, forcing the inhabitants within to survive without education, proper utilities or police protection. Police checkpoints stop anybody going in or out. Three years later, the district has become overrun with gangs. Leïto is a fighter of such gangs. He disposes of a case of drugs down a drain, then escapes the gang led by K2, an enforcer who has come to collect the drugs. The gang's leader, a ruthless man named Taha Ben Mahmoud is angered and executes three of K2's men until K2 suggests they kidnap Leïto's sister Lola in retaliation. Lola is captured by K2 at a supermarket. Leïto is able to rescue her and take Taha to the police station, but the police chief in charge betrays and arrests Leïto, saying they are leaving the district and are not willing to stand up to the gangs. Taha leaves with Lola. Despite the chief saying sorry, Leito is angered by the excuses and kills the chief out of frustration by breaking his neck.

Six months later, undercover policeman Damien Tomaso completes a successful operation at an underground casino in Paris, single handedly taking down or gunning down the casino's guards and arresting the pit boss. His next assignment is briefed by Kruger, a government official. Taha's gang has taken a bomb from a nuclear transport vehicle and accidentally activated it, giving it 24 hours before it wipes out the district. Posing as a prisoner, Damien infiltrates the district to disarm the bomb. Leïto immediately sees through Damien's cover, but the two reluctantly team up to save Leïto's sister as well. The pair surrenders to Taha in order to gain access to his base, where they find the bomb has been set up on a missile launcher aimed at Paris, with Lola handcuffed to it. Taha demands a high ransom to deactivate the bomb; the government refuses. After Damien gives them Taha's bank account codes, they drain his funds. Leïto and Damien escape. K2 and his men soon realize that with Taha unable to pay them, they are free from his grasp. Taha attempts to command K2 as a last resort, but K2, fed up with Taha's brutality, turns his back on his former boss and allows his men to gun down Taha. K2 takes over the gang and goes to find Leito and Damien.

After a footchase K2 catches up with Leito and Damien but calls a truce and allows Leito and Damien to disarm the bomb. Leito and Damien reach the bomb but are forced to fight a large man named Yeti who was planted by Taha to guard the bomb. After they defeat Yeti, Damien calls Kruger to receive the deactivation code. After hearing Kruger ask if the "bomb is in the exact spot" and recognizing "B13" in the code's last characters, Leïto deduces that the government has framed them, and the code will actually detonate the bomb instead of deactivating it. Damien refuses to believe that the government has set him up and he fights Leito as Damien truly believes that he is doing the right thing to disarm the bomb, but Lola is able to restrain Damien long enough for the timer on the bomb to run out. The bomb does not explode, proving Leïto right. K2 and his gang allow Leito and Damien to leave the district. The pair return to the government building with the bomb and use it to force Kruger to admit that he had planned to blow up B13 as a means to end its existence, catching it on camera and broadcasting nationally. Soon the rest of the government promises to tear down the containment wall and bring back schools and police to B13. Leïto and Damien depart as friends, and Lola kisses Damien, encouraging him to visit B13.

On December 31, 1999, a pizza delivery guy named Philip J. Fry delivers a pizza to "Applied Cryogenics" in New York City only to discover that the order was actually a prank call. Dejected and demoralized, he stops in the deserted lab to eat the pizza while outside the whole world is getting ready to celebrate the beginning of New Year, while sitting on a chair. At midnight, Fry loses his balance on the chair and falls into an open cryonic tube and is frozen as it immediately activates. He is defrosted on Tuesday, December 31, 2999, in what is now New New York City. He is taken to a fate assignment officer named Leela, a purple-haired cyclops. To his misfortune, Fry is assigned the computer-determined permanent career of delivery boy, and flees into the city when Leela tries to implant Fry's career chip designating his job. He dodges an attack from Leela and she falls into the cryonic tube that Fry fell into one thousand years ago. The timer sets itself to one thousand years. Fry escapes from Leela but reduces the timer to five minutes so that she is not trapped for long.

While trying to track down his only living relative, Professor Farnsworth, Fry befriends a suicidal robot named Bender. As they talk at a bar, Fry learns that Bender too has deserted his job of bending girders for use in constructing suicide booths. Together, they evade Leela and hide in the Head Museum, where they encounter the preserved heads of historical figures. Fry and Bender eventually find themselves underground in the ruins of Old New York.

Leela finally catches Fry, who has become depressed that everyone that he knew and loved is dead and tells her that he will accept his career as a delivery boy. Leela sympathizes with Fry—she too is alone, and hates her job—so she quits and joins Fry and Bender as job deserters. The three track down Professor Farnsworth, founder of an intergalactic delivery company called Planet Express. With the help of Professor Farnsworth, the three evade the police by launching the ''Planet Express Ship'' at the stroke of midnight amid the New Year's fireworks. As the year 3000 begins, Farnsworth hires the three as the crew of his ship. Fry inquires at what his job is, and learns that he will be traveling into space as a delivery boy. Fry, ironically, cheers at his new job, presumably because it will be for a space delivery company.

The main story of the novel is the narrative of the adventures of Adam More, a British sailor shipwrecked on a homeward voyage from Tasmania. After passing through a tunnel of volcanic origin, he finds himself in a "lost world" of prehistoric animals, plants and people sustained by volcanic heat despite the long Antarctic night.

A secondary plot of four yachtsmen who find the manuscript written by Adam More and sealed in a copper cylinder forms a frame for the central narrative. They comment on More's report, and one identifies the Kosekin language as a Semitic language, possibly derived from Hebrew.

In his strange volcanic world, More also finds a well-developed human society which in the tradition of topsy-turvy worlds of folklore and satire (compare Sir Thomas More's ''Utopia'', ''Erewhon'' by Samuel Butler, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's ''Herland'') has reversed the values of 19th century Western society: wealth is scorned and poverty is revered, death and darkness are preferred to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible.

In "The Door", a high school girl named Manatsu feels that her life is boring and meaningless. Her father left, and her mother seemed to care more about school and studying than Manatsu's feelings and needs.

While at school, Manatsu meets a bullied girl nicknamed Asparagus who cuts to relieve her pain. With Asparagus, Manatsu develops a friendship and they begin to create a suicide pact. Manatsu enjoys her time with Asparagus and begins to feel alive again, as well as taking an interest in death and the fragility of life. They raise money and order cyanide pills off the internet, but Manatsu starts to feel uncertain about dying.

After confronting Asparagus on a rooftop, planning to take the pills, Manatsu accidentally falls and grabs onto a ledge. She begs Asparagus to save her, realizing she does not want to die, but instead Asparagus decides that she will jump. The girls are saved at the last moment by civilians, and Manatsu rekindles her relationship with her mother and begins to see life differently. She later learns that Asparagus committed suicide. At her funeral, the bullies refuse to acknowledge their fault. Manatsu concludes that suicide is not brave or wondrous and realizes the pain it leaves on those alive.

A gunman shoots the passengers of a bus with a sub-machine gun, killing eight people, including Detective Åke Stenström, and wounding one. After a painstaking investigation, Detective Beck and his team come to suspect that the mass killing is designed to hide the true target, Stenström himself, who was spending his free time unofficially investigating the murder of a Portuguese prostitute sixteen years earlier in an attempt to solve the case and demonstrate his skills to his older police comrades. Beck must now complete Stenstrom's work by solving the earlier murder in order to identify Stenstrom's killer.

A busload of passengers, including off-duty police detective Dave Evans, are gunned down and killed. Evans, on his own time, has been following a man named Gus Niles in search of information linking businessman Henry Camarero to the murder of his wife, Teresa, two years earlier.

Evans was the partner of Detective Sergeant Jake Martin, a veteran but cynical member of the Homicide Detail working the bus massacre investigation. Jake originally investigated the Teresa Camarero case and has been obsessed with his failure to "make" Camarero for the murder. Jake returns to it after many dead-end leads (including a disastrous confrontation with a deranged amputee who takes hostages at gunpoint) in the bus investigation. Niles was killed on the bus as well, and it was Niles who provided the alibi that enabled Camarero to cover up his wife's murder.

The sullen Jake and enthusiastic but impulsive Inspector Leo Larsen are paired to interview suspects. Jake shuts out Larsen from his deductions, while Larsen, despite a loose-on-the-rules and brutal side, tries to understand and gain the confidence of his new partner. Defying the orders of their police superior Lt. Steiner, they seek, find and then smoke out Camarero, leading to a chase through the streets of San Francisco and a confrontation aboard another bus.

Fry has been living in the Planet Express offices, making messes, leaving food out (which attracts owls, the vermin of New New York), wasting water, and generally disrupting business. When it is discovered, however, that Fry has eaten the professor's alien mummy (mistaking it for beef jerky) which the professor was going to eat himself, he declares that Fry has to go.

Fry then moves in with Bender. Bender lives in a robot apartment, which is little more than a two-cubic meter stall, and it soon becomes clear that Bender's cramped apartment cannot meet Fry's needs. Fry cannot even sleep properly, though this is mostly due to Bender repeating "kill all humans" in his sleep. The two begin a search for a living space that will satisfy them both, only to conclude that none of the properties they viewed is remotely livable. Bender and Fry then overhear that one of Professor Farnsworth's colleagues has died, and Fry and Bender are able to lease his spacious, fully furnished apartment. Bender plans to live in the apartment's tiny closet. To the theme of ''The Odd Couple'', Fry and Bender make themselves at home.

The two hold a housewarming party, and the guests arrive with various gifts, including a miniature fruit salad tree from Leela. When the group attempts to watch ''All My Circuits'' on the apartment's gigantic television, they discover that Bender's antenna interferes with the building's satellite reception. The landlady promptly evicts Bender. Fry decides to stay, so Bender returns to his old apartment alone. He then embarks on a self-destructive sobriety binge, eventually cutting off his own antenna in the hope that he can move back in with Fry.

When Fry realizes that a robot's antenna is vital to his self-esteem, he helps Bender locate and reattach it, and then moves back in with Bender. When Fry is concerned that his miniature fruit salad tree will not get enough light in the windowless stall, Bender replies that there is a window in the closet and opens a hidden door, revealing a complete living suite more than spacious enough for Fry. To Bender's confusion, Fry happily moves into the "closet".

Nicola makes an inauspicious start to her career at Kingscote School when she drops her leaving present, a penknife, out of the train and pulls the communication cord so that she can jump out to retrieve it. She and her twin then suffer the indignity of being placed in a Remove form, when all their sisters have always been in A forms. The misery is compounded when they discover that Removes are not even allowed to play netball.

Since there is nothing else they can do, they join the school Guide Company and hope to shine there. All goes well until a hike down to the beach is planned. Nicola and Lawrie offer to take a shortcut through a farmyard in order to get the campfire lit. Unfortunately a haystack on the farm is found burned down later that afternoon and the twins are the prime suspects. Lois Sanger, their Patrol Leader, should be the one to take responsibility but instead twists the story to make herself look good. After an agonizing Court of Honour, the twins are asked to leave the company.

Halfterm with the family gives opportunity for the elder Marlows to laugh at the twins' failures. Nicola takes advice from her eldest brother, Giles (a lieutenant in the Navy), that she should concentrate on what she is good at - being bad! A few weeks later, when things are particularly miserable at school, she remembers his advice. She takes the train down to Port Wade to visit Giles and his ship. When she gets there, she realises that she has not enough money for the return ticket and that she has no idea where to find Giles. Eventually she tracks him down and, although he is singularly unimpressed with her, he does at least put her on the train back to school.

The second half of term is dominated by the fundraising efforts of the Third form. The other classes are organising a Bazaar, and offer Third Remove the Jumble and Kitchen stalls. Preferring to do their own thing, Third Remove put on a play. Tim (Thalia) Keith, niece of the Headmistress, writes a version of ''The Prince and the Pauper'' so that Nicola can be Edward VI and Lawrie can play Tom Canty, the beggar boy who looks just like the king.

The play is saved by Lois Sanger who agrees to read the narration for them, in an attempt to atone for her actions in the Guide company. Nicola is unreconciled, but acknowledges that Lois does read well. However, it is Lawrie who is the star of the show, carrying the rest of the cast with her.

Nicola, alone of Third Remove, makes a respectable showing in the end of term exams. However, the rest of the form are more than satisfied to have earned the epithet 'brilliant eccentrics' from one of the Sixth Form, if a little embarrassed to discover that through Nicola's efforts they have also won the Form Tidiness Prize.

While attending a New New York Yankees blernsball game at Madison Cube Garden, Bender is offended that humans will not let robots compete in the game. Hermes calls and tells the crew to report back to the office for a delivery mission. The delivery is to Chapek 9, a planet inhabited by human-hating robot separatists who kill humans on sight, so Bender is assigned to deliver the package. Bender claims that it is a robot holiday, Robanukah, and refuses to work. Hermes, however, insists that Bender must go, on the grounds that Bender has already used up all his time off. Upon arriving at the planet, a resentful Bender is lowered to the surface. Meanwhile, Fry and Leela decide to throw a Robanukah party for Bender to show their appreciation.

They receive a rushed message from Bender: the robot separatists found out he worked for humans, and he has been captured. In order to avoid being killed on sight, Fry and Leela disguise themselves as robots and infiltrate the robot society. Fry and Leela discover Bender is alive and playing the robots' prejudice for his own benefit, claiming he has killed billions of humans on Earth. Fry and Leela reunite with Bender in an abandoned robot porn shop, but he refuses to be rescued. Before Fry and Leela can leave, the other robots arrive, and the two are placed on trial for being human. They are immediately found guilty of the charge and are sentenced to a life of tedious robot-type labor. A trapdoor opens and they fall into a room where they meet the five Robot Elders. The Elders reveal that the trial was merely a show trial for the masses, and command Bender to kill Fry and Leela, but Bender refuses, stating that the pair are his friends, and that humans pose no threat to robots.

The Robot Elders reveal that despite being aware of this, humans provide them with a useful scapegoat to distract the population from their actual problems: lug nut shortages and an incompetent government of corrupt Robot Elders. The Robot Elders decide the three know too much and must be killed. Fry threatens to breathe fire on the Robot Elders, throwing them into a state of confusion. The crew flees, pursued by a horde of robots. As the crew escapes on the winch, the robots stack on top of each other, keeping pace with the winch. Bender remembers that he never actually delivered the package, and puts it into the hands of the robot on top. The unbalanced tower topples to the ground. The package bursts open, showering the robots in much-needed lug nuts. The robots then renounce their human-hating ways. The crew, headed back to Earth, celebrate Robanukah with Bender, who confesses the holiday is fictitious.

Faith healer Jonas Nightengale (Steve Martin) makes a living traveling across America holding tent revival meetings and conducting purported "miracles" while being helped by his friend and manager Jane Larson (Debra Winger), and an entourage of fellow con artists.

One of their trucks breaks down in the fictional town of Rustwater, Kansas. Rustwater, with its 27 percent unemployment rate, is in desperate need of rain to save its crops. Learning they will be stuck in Rustwater for four days waiting for replacement parts to come in for one of the many big trucks of their fleet, Jonas decides to hold revival meetings despite the town's small size in an effort to cut some of their losses while the truck is being repaired. Early on, Jonas meets Marva, a waitress in a local café, but she rebuffs his persistent advances.

Local sheriff Will Braverman (Liam Neeson) is skeptical and tries to prevent his townspeople from being conned out of what little money they do have. First, he engages in some legal harassment, sending all of the city and county inspectors to examine his facilities. After seeing the excessive pageantry of the first show and the counting of money by the team on Jonas' tour bus, Braverman decides to investigate Jonas' past. He learns that Jonas (claiming to have been born in a humble log cabin in the Appalachians) is in fact Jack Newton, a native of New York City who lived a life of crime in his teen years (including petty theft and drug possession). Braverman shares this information with the townspeople who have gathered for another tent revival. Jonas storms off the stage, soon returning to successfully spin Braverman's report, leaving the crowd more energized than ever, much to Braverman's exasperation.

Jonas also gives back the collections for the day, saying he could not take their money in good conscience knowing that they doubted him and that if his faith was strong God would send them a sign. He also has his crew secretly plant an additional $80 among the crowd, setting up the believers for a miracle the next day. The next morning, the huge crucifix forming the backdrop of the revival tent with Jesus' eyes normally closed is found to somehow have his eyes opened. A shocked Jonas, in front of all the townspeople and numerous television cameras from the region's network affiliates, proclaims it a miracle (even though he went in the middle of the night to change its appearance while no one was awake not even the old vigilant) which is amplified as townsfolk who had money planted on them reveal their unexplained fortunes.

Throughout all of this is a subplot involving Jane and Braverman, who find themselves falling for each other. She becomes enchanted by Braverman's simple farm life and his interest in butterflies. However, after Braverman's disclosure of Jonas' past, Jane breaks off their budding relationship. They soon, however, meet again and Jane confesses to Braverman that she is tired of manipulating people. He makes it clear he would like a permanent relationship with her if she will stay.

Meanwhile, Jonas can't understand why Marva won't date him. Marva points to her brother Boyd, who walks with crutches following an auto accident in which also killed their parents. Marva explains that doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with him, so as a last resort she took him to a faith healer who subsequently blamed it on Boyd's supposed lack of faith. Marva now detests faith healers, having had one blame her brother for his own psychosomatic disability.

Boyd comes to believe that Jonas can make him walk again. He goes to the revival and implores Jonas to heal him. Jonas finishes the show while pretending not to notice the boy but is compelled to return to the stage after the crowd begins to chant "one more."

Jonas spins the expected failure to heal Boyd by blaming Braverman, who is present, saying that if a failure occurs, it will be due to Braverman's skepticism. Boyd walks to the open-eyed crucifix and touches the feet of Jesus Christ. He drops his crutches and begins to walk unassisted. The awed crowd sweeps the stage. After the show, an enraged Jonas rails to Jane that he was conned and that Boyd upstaged him. Jane doesn't believe it was a con. The production crew are thrilled with all the money that came in as a result of Boyd being healed and want Boyd to join the show. A clearly annoyed Jonas reluctantly agrees and stalks off the bus. Jane follows him out, and they argue.

After the revival, Jonas enters the empty, darkened tent and mocks the crucifix and Christianity. Boyd walks in while Jonas is talking. Boyd thanks Jonas for healing him, but Jonas insists angrily that he did nothing. Boyd says it doesn't matter, that the job still got done. Jonas accuses Boyd of being a better con artist than he himself. Boyd wants to join Jonas on the road, telling him a lot of ways he can help out and promising to earn his keep. Jonas agrees to meet Boyd the following morning, implying Boyd can come. Then Boyd's sister Marva arrives. She sends him out of the tent, saying that people are looking for him. She thanks Jonas, who tells her that he will not be meeting her brother Boyd the next morning. He asks her to tell Boyd that "just because a person didn't show up doesn't mean that the person doesn't care about them," referencing a setup earlier in the movie where Jane defended Jonas by telling Braverman the story of a 5-year-old Jonas waiting in vain for four days for his mother to return, for many years while living in an orphanage holding steadfast to the belief that one day she indeed would. (The line is also found in the 1999 film adaptation of Graham Greene's ''The End of the Affair''.)

Jonas leaves the tent and sees the crowd that has gathered just outside it — many praying, some sleeping in groups, and others feeding the crowd that has gathered. He begins to understand that Boyd's miracle, and the faith that enabled it, are real after all. He packs a bag and departs alone under the cover of darkness, leaving behind his entire road show and most of all of the rest of everything that he owns — including his silver-sequined jacket and an envelope for Jane containing his ring that she had long coveted — and hitches a ride on the nearby interstate from which they had come to Rustwater at the start of the story. Braverman and Jane drive to Jonas' motel room and find him gone.

Jonas hitches a ride with a truck driver bound for Pensacola, Florida. When asked by the driver if he is in some kind of trouble, Jonas replies, "No sir, no sir. Probably for the first time in my life". As they continue to ride along, the drought, threatening the crop harvest that is the centerpiece of the town's economy, comes to a dramatic end with a miraculous downpour. Jonas laughs silently to himself as he realizes the truth, and the film ends as he rides off into the stormy evening, hanging out the truck window loudly thanking Jesus for the rain.

The series stars Craig Stevens as Michael Strait, a world-renowned photographer whose assignments lead him into investigating mysterious goings-on amongst the rich and glamorous and intrigue from far-flung place as Iraq, French Indo-China and Algiers. Tracy Reed co-stars in the first series.

Taking an early morning walk in a fierce storm, Peter Marlow is deliberately snubbed by one of his teachers from Dartmouth Naval College, Lewis Foley, who is spending the Easter holidays in the fishing village of St-Anne's-Byfleet. Later, he and his sister Nicola, follow an irresistible sign to a place called Mariners. Mariners turns out to be a deserted house complete with its own crow's nest and a sign to Foley's Folly Light.

Nicola discovers from one of her fishermen friends, Robert Anquetil, that Lewis had grown up in the village and that Mariners belongs to his family. Anquetil warns her not to go near the house again. However, when she returns to the hotel where the Marlows are staying, she finds that Peter has already told the others and that they are planning a trip that afternoon. Reluctantly, Nicola agrees to go along with them.

The children enter the house and go exploring. While Nicola, Peter and Lawrie go down to the cellars, Ginty agrees to keep guard. But when she hears a noise she panics and follows them down the stairs. Peter has found some microfiche which seems to show details of Naval secrets. A man enters the cellars and the girls are afraid, but Peter recognises him as Lewis Foley and starts to tell him about the secrets he has found.

Foley produces a gun and forces the children to come with him on his boat, but Lawrie manages to escape. Nicola puts sugar in the boat's engine so that Foley can't take them further out to sea. Instead he lands at the lighthouse and signals to someone to collect him there. He is ordered to dispose of the children but ignores this command.

Lawrie gets run over on her way back to the hotel and is knocked unconscious. When she recovers she tells Robert Anquetil, who turns out to be a secret agent, what happened. He is ordered not to look for the children, since capturing the traitor and his allies is more important.

Peter and Nicola make a plan to signal from the lighthouse to any passing ships. Nicola and Ginty pretend that Peter has drowned, trying to escape from the lighthouse so that he can hide without Foley coming to look for him. Foley seems genuinely upset about Peter and is kind to the girls. Later that night, they signal SOS, watching the Naval fleet go past without seeing them. However, they persevere and eventually are spotted by Anquetil. Foley comes up the stairs when they are signalling but Ginty throws her lamp at him and he is seriously injured.

The next day, a submarine emerges and men come to collect Foley and the children. Peter has taken Foley's revolver and he shoots the Admiral. But before anything else can happen, the Navy appear and the submarine is destroyed. The children are rescued and Nicola fulfils an ambition on the way home, when she is allowed onto the bridge of the destroyer. Nicola and Peter are a little disappointed that they are forbidden from telling anyone their adventures, but Ginty is glad to forget the whole thing.

After having their dreams taken over by an advertisement, the Planet Express crew takes a trip to the local shopping mall. Trying to buy the product he saw in his dreams, Fry realizes he is broke. At the same time, Bender is arrested for shoplifting. As the crew scrounges up bail money, Fry notices that the bank where he used to have an account has remained in business. He still has his ATM card and remembers his PIN code: the price of a cheese pizza and large soda at Panucci's Pizza, where he used to work. The account had contained 93 cents in 1999, but after accruing interest at 2.25% per year for 1,000 years, the balance is now $4.3 billion.

Fry goes on a massive spending spree, buying numerous 20th century artifacts, such as Ted Danson's skeleton, an antique robot toy, videotapes of past sitcoms, and the last known tin of anchovies, which were fished to extinction shortly after the Decapodians arrived on Earth in the 23rd century. Professor Farnsworth informs Fry about their extinction after Fry's attempt to order some as a pizza topping causes a robotic waiter to explode due to a circuit overload. However, he finds himself making a rival of Mom, a famous industrialist and owner of Mom's Old-Fashioned Robot Oil. She wants to acquire the anchovies for herself since they represent a potential source of oil that can permanently lubricate robots, thus putting her out of business.

Mom's sons Walt, Larry, and Igner conspire with the head of Pamela Anderson to steal Fry's ATM card and PIN. They tranquilize Fry and fool him into believing it is still the year 2000, using a crude mock-up of Panucci's to make him think he fell asleep on the job. Anderson orders a cheese pizza and a large soda, whereupon Fry inadvertently reveals his PIN as he rings up the total, which was $10.77. Walt, Larry, and Igner empty Fry's bank account, and except for the anchovies, all of his 20th century artifacts are repossessed.

Mom visits Fry with the intent of buying the anchovies, but relents upon discovering that he plans to eat them. Fry covers a pizza with the anchovies and shares it with the rest of the Planet Express employees while Dr. Zoidberg is out of the room. The others spit out the pizza in disgust as Fry explains that anchovies are an acquired taste. When Zoidberg enters the room, he smells the anchovies and greedily devours all of the remaining pizza. He goes on to demand more, flying into a rage when he learns that there are no more anchovies anywhere, nor will there ever be.

Hermes threatens to cut Bender's salary since Bender has no official duties at Planet Express. Inspired by the Neptunian TV chef Elzar, Bender decides to become the ship's cook. Professor Farnsworth then sends the crew, accompanied by Amy and Dr. Zoidberg, on a delivery to the planet Trisol. After the ship lands, Fry is assigned the task of making the delivery across the desert under the heat of the planet's three suns. When he arrives at the Trisolian palace, he finds it empty. After eating a slug and drinking salt water provided by Bender, he becomes thirsty and drinks from a bottle containing a clear liquid that is sitting on the throne. Armed Trisolians, who are revealed to be liquid-based organisms, storm the throne room, revealing that the bottle Fry drank actually contained their emperor.

Rather than being punished, Fry is declared the new emperor. The high priest informs Fry that as part of the coronation, Fry will have to recite the royal oath. The oath must be recited from memory, with the threat of death if a mistake is made. During the precoronation party, Leela informs Fry that all previous emperors were assassinated by their successors, and the average reign of a Trisolian emperor is only one week. When Fry takes no notice of her warning, Leela returns to the ship, vowing she will no longer help Fry. A Trisolian then attempts to "drink" Fry, but is unsuccessful, as Fry is solid. At the coronation, Fry recites the oath properly, due to having written it on his arm, and is sworn in as Fry the Solid. As the suns set, the Trisolians begin to glow—including the previous emperor, who is still alive inside Fry's stomach. He demands that Fry be cut open and drained. Fry, Bender, Amy, and Dr. Zoidberg take refuge from the Trisolians in the throne room while they try to find a way to extract the emperor without killing Fry.

They decide that crying is the preferable method, but soon realize that Fry is too "macho" to cry properly. Needing help, Bender calls Leela on Fry's behalf, but gets an inconclusive response. Leela ultimately decides to help Fry in spite of her vow, and fights her way past Trisolian forces to reach the palace. Bender notices what is happening and lies to Fry by telling him that Leela is dead. This saddens Fry, and he begins crying. When Leela arrives, she begins beating Fry, causing him to weep in pain, gradually extracting the emperor. Fry takes this as a sign that Leela still cares for him, and thanks her. The crew members take turns beating Fry until the emperor is out, who beats Fry, as well, while thanking him. With the emperor safely outside Fry's body, the crew is allowed to leave, while the emperor beats Fry with a chair.

Professor Farnsworth invites the crew of Planet Express to join him at the Academy of Inventors' annual symposium, where inventors display their latest creations. He will be presenting his invention, the Deathclock, which displays the date of a person's death after that person's finger is stuck into the machine. At the symposium, the crew encounter one of Farnsworth's former students, Professor Ogden Wernstrom. When he was still a student, Wernstrom received an A-minus on a pop quiz and vowed revenge, even if it took him 100 years. Just over 99 years have passed, so Farnsworth considers himself to be essentially in the clear. Wernstrom presents his invention, a reverse SCUBA suit that allows fish to breathe water while walking about on land, demonstrated by his fish, named Cinnamon. He then taunts Farnsworth over his invention from the previous year—the Deathclock.

Mortified that he had previously presented the device and forgotten about it, Farnsworth hastily begins drawing on a napkin. He presents the drawing, which depicts both a Smelloscope, a device that allows people to smell distant cosmic objects, and a doodle of himself as a cowboy. As the audience laughs, he sweats and wipes the napkin on his head by accident, blurring the picture. Wernstrom announces that the invention deserves "the worst grade imaginable: an A-minus-minus." Back at Planet Express, Farnsworth invites everybody to see the Smelloscope that he had constructed last year and also forgotten about. Fry begins smelling Jupiter, Saturn, and other objects around the solar system and quickly discovers the smelliest object in the universe. After calculating its trajectory, Farnsworth announces that the object will collide with New New York City in 72 hours, reducing it to a "stinky crater" (Bender immediately starts looting at this news).

After some research, they find a video that reveals the object to be a giant ball of garbage from Old New York, launched into space from a mob-obtained rocket in 2052. After warning Mayor Poopenmayer, a plan is hatched to destroy the garbage ball. The Planet Express crew (being the only ones who will take on such a suicidal mission) is sent on a mission to plant a bomb on a fault line next to coffee areas and deposits of AOL floppy disks on the ball. Farnsworth also reminds them that if it blew up any time later, the explosion would cause garbage to rain across the entire Earth, killing millions. Then, once set off, the bomb will be set to allow the crew twenty-five minutes to escape. When the crew lands on the ball, Fry is amazed by all of the 20th-century items on the ball. Such as: a Beanie Baby, a Mister Spock collectors plate, and Bart Simpson dolls; but Leela reminds Fry that these things were garbage, which is why they are in the garbage ball in the first place.

Unfortunately, after starting the bomb, they find out the Professor put the bomb's countdown display in upside down, and it actually only allows 52 seconds. The crew panics, and Bender throws the bomb into space to save them, where it explodes harmlessly. The crew returns to Earth in shame. The Mayor then sends for Wernstrom for help. Wernstrom demands tenure, a grant, and five research assistants, at least three of whom must be Chinese. When the mayor agrees to his conditions, Wernstrom reveals that he has no plan, declares that he is set for life, and leaves. In a last-ditch effort to redeem himself, Farnsworth comes up with a second plan to save the city: launching a second ball of garbage to bounce against the first one and sending it flying into the sun without smashing to bits. The Mayor exclaims that there has not been garbage in New New York for 500 years, so there is no way to make such a ball. Fry seizes the moment and demonstrates how to make garbage.

An announcement is made to tell the city to throw away everything. The city quickly generates a second ball of garbage, which is fired at the first garbage ball. The rocket flies into the air and hits the other garbage ball, which first slingshots around planets, then sending it into the sun, while the new ball flies out of the solar system. For saving the city from the garbage ball, Professor Farnsworth is given the inventor's award, which was confiscated from Wernstrom as punishment for him being a jackass. Wernstrom comments "I will get you for this Farnsworth, even if it takes another 100 years!" The others quickly dismiss Leela's concerns that the new garbage ball will return and destroy a future generation. Professor Farnsworth replies that it will not be for hundreds of years, presumably by the year 4000, prompting Fry to say "That's the 20th Century spirit!" Over the closing credits, the song "We'll Meet Again" plays instead of the standard ''Futurama'' theme.

After a Beastie Boys concert, Bender attends a party with his old friend, Fender, a giant guitar amp. At the party Bender and the other robots abuse electricity by "jacking on," and Bender develops an addiction. After receiving a near-lethal dose from an electrical storm, Bender realizes he has a problem and searches for help. He joins the Temple of Robotology, accepting the doctrine of eternal damnation in Robot Hell should he sin. After baptizing him in oil, the Reverend Lionel Preacherbot welds the symbol of Robotology to Bender's case. As Bender begins to annoy his co-workers with his new religion, Fry and Leela decide they want the "old Bender" back. They fake a delivery to Atlantic City, New Jersey and tempt Bender with alcohol, prostitutes and easy targets for theft. He eventually succumbs, rips off the Robotology symbol and throws it away, causing it to beep ominously.

While seducing three female robots in his Trump Trapezoid room, Bender is interrupted by a knock at his room door. He opens the door and is knocked unconscious. He awakens to see the Robot Devil and finds himself in Robot Hell. The Robot Devil reminds Bender that he agreed to be punished for sinning when he joined Robotology. After discovering Bender is missing, Fry and Leela track him down using Nibbler's sense of smell. They eventually find the entrance to Robot Hell in an abandoned amusement park. A musical number starts as the Robot Devil begins detailing Bender's punishment. As the song ends, Fry and Leela arrive and try to reason with the Robot Devil on Bender's behalf.

The Robot Devil tells them that the only way to win back Bender's soul is to beat him in a fiddle-playing contest, as required under the "Fairness in Hell Act of 2275". The Robot Devil goes first, playing Antonio Bazzini's "La Ronde des Lutins". Leela responds, having experience in playing the drums, but after a few notes it is clear Leela's fiddle-playing is pathetic, so she assaults the Robot Devil with the fiddle instead. As Fry, Leela, and Bender flee the Robot Devil's clutches, Bender steals the wings off a flying torture robot, attaches them to his back, and airlifts Fry and Leela to safety. Leela drops the heavy golden fiddle onto the Robot Devil's head, making them light enough to escape. Bender promises to never be too good or too evil, but to remain as he was before joining the Temple of Robotology. Over the closing credits, a remix of the show's theme song plays instead of the original version.

A stunt pilot trio called the "Flying Angels" (Scott Masterson, Chuck Gavin, and Beth O'Brien), are caught in a bizarre flash of light and crash, only to emerge unharmed. They are later informed by an agent of an interstellar peace-keeping agency (whose secret identity is the groundskeeper at a Pebble Beach golf course) that they have become the hosts to three warriors from the planet Altara in M78 to capture escaped monsters from the destroyed planet Sorkin who have arrived on Earth. They become the Ultra Force, headquartered within Mount Rushmore, and are assisted by a trio of robots (the pint-sized Andy, the strong Samson, and the twitchy Ulysses). Although equipped with futuristic fighter crafts, inevitably one or more of the team is required to transform into an Ultraman, a gigantic red and silver superhuman being, to battle the monsters. After destroying the most powerful Sorkin monster, the constantly growing King Maira, the Ultra Force remains together to combat further threats to Earth.

The Marlow family are staying at their cousin Jon's farm during the school holidays. Out collecting eggs early one morning, Nicola Marlow hears what she thinks is a cat caught in the top of a tree. She climbs up to rescue it, only to find that it is a bird, wearing leather thongs. Before she can make any attempt to save it, its owner climbs up beside her. He tells her that the bird is a falcon called Jael and its thongs, or jesses, have broken loose. Nicola recognises him as Patrick Merrick and tells him who she is. He asks if she would like to help with the hawks over the summer.

While they are out with the hawks that afternoon, Patrick and Nicola feel something a bit like an earthquake. When they get back, they find out that it was her cousin Jon's plane crashing and he is dead. Nicola's father inherits the farm and the family will not be returning to London. Neither Captain Marlow, nor his eldest son Giles, want to leave the Navy to run the farm. Nicola suggests by accident that her sister Rowan should do it. She offers and eventually her parents agree that she can leave school to become a farmer.

Nicola and Patrick spend most of their time with the hawks over the summer. While they are teaching Jael to catch rabbits, Peter who is out shooting rabbits, shoots Jael and kills her. Later, Regina rakes away and, although Patrick later finds her caught in some netting, she has forgotten him so he lets her go. Only Sprog, the little merlin who Patrick thinks of as a joke, is left.

The other major event of the summer is the Colebridge Festival. Nicola comes second in the singing competition, despite stopping in the middle of her song because it reminds her of Jael. Her twin Lawrie is sent out of the elocution competition for unconsciously mimicking another contestant. Later, however, she follows the adjudicator and persuades her to let her say her piece again. She agrees that Lawrie has real talent and introduces her to another actor.

Peter and Patrick compete against each other in the diving competition which, in the end, Peter wins and the two of them become friends again. For Nicola, the gymkhana is a crucial competition in which she might win enough money to enable her to keep Sprog at school. Unfortunately, the other contestants think she is Lawrie and want to get their own back at her over her antics in the elocution contest. She is knocked and bumped and falls off her horse. Later, Rowan offers her half of whatever she wins in the showjumping, but she is beaten by Patrick.

When Nicola arrives home with Patrick she is greeted by his father who has a large cheque for her from the sale of a battered sixteenth century book on hawking she bought earlier that summer at Colebridge market. Amazed, Nicola admits to Patrick that she had been worried about the money for Sprog.

Fry, Leela, and Bender hand their resignations to Professor Farnsworth after narrowly escaping another delivery with their lives, but reconsider when he announces that the Planet Express team will take a cruise on the maiden voyage of the largest space cruise ship ever built: the ''Titanic''. As they board they are stopped by Zapp Brannigan, the ship's honorary captain. Attempting to avoid Brannigan's advances, Leela claims she is engaged to Fry. Bender meets the Countess de la Roca. Amy unexpectedly runs into her parents, who attempt to set Amy up with a date. Amy claims Fry is her boyfriend, making Leela jealous.

Bender meets the Countess again and falls in love with her. She learns Bender is a broke low-life, but tells him that she is not interested in his wealth; she loves him for his personality. Hermes is urged to participate in a limbo competition, but declines, still recovering from guilt over an incident that occurred at the 2980 Olympics where a child trying to emulate him fatally broke his spine. Leela and Fry are invited to dine at the captain's table. At dinner, both Brannigan and Amy's parents are present; they demand that Fry kiss his date. Before the fake relationships are exposed, Kif calls Brannigan to the bridge; a new course Brannigan chose has endangered the ship.

Brannigan pilots the ship too close to a black hole. Realizing the danger, Brannigan promotes Kif to Captain before fleeing the ship. Fry and Leela nearly kiss before they are interrupted by the ship breaking in half. Bender heads off to save the countess while the rest of the crew head for the escape pods. An airlock door closes, blocking their escape. Zoidberg holds it open a few inches, but the door release is on the other side. Hermes limbos under the door. Arriving at the escape pods, they meet Amy's parents, who have found Amy a new boyfriend: Kif. After waiting as long as they can for Bender, the crew launches the escape pod. Bender leaps from the ''Titanic'', Countess in tow. He grabs the escape pod, but they exceed the weight limit. The Countess sacrifices herself, allowing the others to escape, upsetting Bender. Entering the pod, a heartbroken Bender says he will have her diamond bracelet to remind him of her. Hermes examines it and tells Bender that it is fake, causing him to immediately break down and cry.

Now based in London, Varela's company takes him into unusual and sometimes dangerous situations. Impeccably dressed, cigar smoking and using his wit, ingenuity, and charm, which would often involve a damsel in distress. Assisted by Chin, a resourceful Chinese manservant, and Miss Carter, an ultra-efficient secretary.

Later episodes introduced Bill Randall, a businessman, who became the boyfriend of Miss Carter and then an employee of Varela.

Sixth Happiness is about Brit, a boy born with brittle bones who never grows taller than four feet, and his sexual awakening as family life crumbles around him. It is also about the Parsi or Parsees – descendants of the Persian empire who were driven out of Persia by an Islamic invasion more than a thousand years ago and settled in western India. Parsees had a close relationship with the British during the years of the Raj. Brit is named by his mother, both after his brittle bones, and in tribute to his mother's love of Britain.

Brit's family is non-stereotypical: his parents are ardent Anglophiles with fond memories of the Raj and World War II. Brit is bright, spiky, opinionated and selfish with a razor-sharp wit, never a martyr or victim. He prefers the Kama Sutra to Shakespeare and does not allow gender or disability to come in the way of his desire for sex and love.

The main character of the novel is Brother Blacktooth "Nimmy" St. George, a monk at Leibowitz Abbey. Brother Blacktooth, a former Nomad, is fluent both in Nomadic and Churchspeak. Unsatisfied with his job as a translator of ancient texts, and haunted by his roots as a Nomad, Blacktooth becomes increasingly restless. He feels pulled between the two societies: that of the church, and that of the wanderer. Blacktooth's reputation as a misfit compels the Abbot of Leibowitz, Jarad, to seek his expulsion from the order, while Blacktooth's unique linguistic skills attract the attention of the visiting Cardinal Elia Brownpony (called the Red Deacon since he was never ordained as a priest). Brownpony requires a translator in his travels in order to deal diplomatically with unruly Nomad tribes, the Grasshoppers and Jackrabbits. Thus, Cardinal Brownpony decides to enlist Nimmy's services, saving him from disgrace at the hands of Jarad.

Brownpony and Nimmy set off to the conclave, along with Brownpony's other servants: Wooshin (aka "Axe"), a mysterious warrior from the Orient, and Chur Hongan (aka "Holy Madness"), his Nomadic driver. Soon afterward, the reigning Pope dies. A conclave of cardinals is called to elect a new one, including a Cardinal Abbess from N'Yok (New York). The Church had been exiled from the holy city of New Rome in previous decades because of an invasion by the king (or "Hannegan") of Texark. As a result, all papal affairs were conducted in the city of Valana, beyond the reach of the Texark empire.

During their journeys, the group (specifically, Holy Madness) have a divine vision. The vision is of the Night Hag, who only appears to a man in order to announce the death of someone else. It is from her appearance that Brownpony infers the death of the Pope. The Night Hag is one of the three avatars of the Nomad goddess, Open Sky. Open Sky's other two avatars are The Buzzard of Battle and the Wild Horse Woman.

Upon arriving at the settlement of Arch Hollow on the way to Valana, they are accosted by genetically handicapped Nomads. The Nomads are quickly subdued by Wooshin, an adept warrior. Among the Nomads, Nimmy has occasion to meet Ædrea, a beautiful mutant who is able to pass for healthy. The two fall in love, despite the fact that both are forbidden to fraternize: he because of his vows, she because of her genes. The group continues to Valana without her, and Nimmy is prohibited from seeing her again. Only after they have left Arch Hollow far behind does Blacktooth realize that he has left his rosary in Ædrea's possession.

At the Conclave, Brownpony surprises the assembled cardinals by openly admitting that he is of Nomad ancestry. He makes this confession in order to embarrass a Texark scholar who was then present. Unfortunately, immediately after the outburst, a sickly student marches into the auditorium and attempts to assassinate the very same Texark infiltrator. Given the timing, it is widely presumed that Brownpony was behind the assassination, so attempts are made on the lives of Blacktooth and Brownpony. The violence of the Conclave escalates to a breaking point. The citizens of Valana, impatient for a new Pope, sequester the Conclave until the rival factions of cardinals (some allied with the Church, others with Texark) elect a new Pope. Under duress, the Conclave elects Amen Specklebird, a cryptic and oracular vagrant, who doubles as a cult icon for the Valanian people. Amen's election marks the first stage in a series of events that escalate tensions between Texark and the Church.

Amen's reign as Pope proves to be short-lived. He makes an abortive attempt to return the Church to New Rome by sending a mission of Nomads and Cardinals east. The convoy is turned away by Texark guardsmen. However, the Nomadic contingent of the convoy, being hungry and unpaid, decides to split from the Papal authority and raze the countryside around New Rome. Brownpony, with his entourage, are arrested by the Hannegan, Filpeo Harq, after a tense standoff in his palace. They are soon released under a suspended sentence of death.

After the mission's failure, Amen controversially resigns as Pope and retreats to his old vagrant's cave overlooking Valana. While cardinals backed by the Hannegan declare the papacy illegitimate, a conclave of Valana clergy declare that Brownpony is Pope. Taking the name Amen II, Brownpony declares an effective crusade against the Texark Empire, leading an alliance of Nomads to recapture New Rome and excommunicating the Hannegan's cardinals.

Meanwhile, Blacktooth accompanies the Valana militia, now led by Cardinals Nauwhat and Hadala, both of whom are of dubious loyalty to Brownpony's faction. Suspicious Nomad detachments trap the militia between a Texark army and themselves, and Cardinal Nauwhat defects to the Texark camp. One of Hadala's bodyguards, one of the Pope's Yellow Guards (elite Asian swordsmen), executes Hadala when he realizes that the cardinal has betrayed Brownpony. Blacktooth rejoins Brownpony, who elevates him to the position of Cardinal and sends him to New Rome to announce the coming of the crusaders.

Blacktooth is seized by Texarks, who cast him into a New Rome dungeon. He eventually becomes aware of fires in the city, and is alerted to the fact that the Nomads have deserted Brownpony's cause and are sacking the city and countryside, while a Texark relief force approaches. He escapes the dungeon and falls into a drugged stupor, truly awakening in the damaged St. Peter's Cathedral, where he finds Brownpony and his last surviving bodyguard, Wooshin. Their reunion is disrupted by the arrival of a Nomad warrior, who informs them that the last loyal portions of the crusading army are departing. He warns them to flee, but Brownpony refuses and seats himself on the papal throne, the first Valana pope in decades to do so. When the Pope becomes aware of approaching Texark cavalry, he commits ''seppuku''. Blacktooth stops Wooshin from joining him in the ritual act of suicide, and flees the approaching horsemen.

Blacktooth renounces his cardinalship before meeting briefly with the new, Texark-sponsored Pope, who turns out to be none other than the defected Cardinal Nauwhat. Blacktooth learns that the Hannegan Filpeo Harq, too, is dead, assassinated in an act of self-sacrifice by the vengeful Wooshin. It is mentioned that Blacktooth lived out his days as a hermit, not far from where Ædrea, now called Sister Clare, lives in a nunnery.

Professional racecar driver Frank Capua (Paul Newman) meets divorcee Elora (Newman's real-life wife Joanne Woodward). After a whirlwind romance they are married. Charley (Richard Thomas), Elora's teenage son by her first husband, becomes very close to Frank, and helps him prepare his cars for his races. But Frank is so dedicated to his career that he neglects his wife, who has an affair with Frank's main rival on the race track, Luther Erding (Robert Wagner). Frank finds them in bed together and storms out. The couple separate, but Frank still sees Charley regularly. Frank's bitterness fuels his dedication to his work, and he becomes a much more aggressive driver. At the Indianapolis 500, Elora and Charley watch while Frank drives the race of his life and wins. After winning, Frank attends a victory party. He is uninterested when attractive women throw themselves at him, and he slips away. Luther finds Frank and apologizes to him for the affair, but Frank punches him. Frank visits Elora and tells her he wants to start again. Elora is unsure. The film ends with a freeze-frame as the two look uncertainly at each other.

Act I

President Wintergreen is up for reelection, but due to the continuing Great Depression, loses in a landslide to John P. Tweedledee. Wintergreen makes an unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the election results. It is also revealed that Diana Deveraux divorced Throttlebottom to marry the French Ambassador. After the end of his term, Wintergreen, Throttlebottom, and their associates start a business selling his wife Mary's blue shirts on "Union Square." At Union Square, Kruger, an agitator, is proclaiming his doctrine "Down with Everything That's Up." After talking with Kruger, Wintergreen decides that to increase shirt sales they should promise a revolution or their money back, citing the European Brown Shirts and Black Shirts. With business now booming ("Shirts by Millions"), Mary appeals to the women to join the New Blue D.A.R. ("Climb up the Social Ladder") to increase female shirt sales. Wintergreen now needs the support of the Union League Club, because General Snookfield is a member. Throttlebottom persuades them by saying that the British are attacking Bunker Hill ("Comes the Revolution Reprise"). Having secured the Union League Club support, The Blue Shirts meet with Snookfield to plan the overthrow of the government ("On and On and On"). At nine o'clock on July 4, when the Blue Shirts arrive, Snookfield will give the signal for his soldiers to seize Tweedledee. On the Fourth, at the White House grounds, Tweedledee is giving a speech, when Snookfield leaves with Trixie for a party. The Blue Shirts arrive only to find the general is missing and the soldiers don't know what to do. Tweedledee promises the army a "dollar a day which (he) may not pay." Wintergreen promises the army the war debts owed by the League of Nations, which the soldiers accept. Tweedledee is deposed, and Wintergreen declares that "the land of freedom is free once more" ("Let 'Em Eat Cake").

Act II

The White House is being painted "Blue, Blue, Blue." The Supreme Court, now in chains, are brought before Wintergreen. He decides to show leniency because the Court officiated his marriage ceremony. The Court is reorganized into a baseball team. When the League of Nations arrives to discuss repayment of the war debts, they "No Comprenez, No Capish, No Versteh" when the issue is raised; only Finland repays their debt. Kruger, now head of the army following Snookfield's disgrace, is also putting pressure on Wintergreen to remember his promise. Wintergreen offers a solution where the debts will be settled by a baseball game for double or nothing. If the League loses, they will have another conference to discuss it. Kruger accepts the League's offer of Finland's money as a side bet. Throttlebottom hesitatingly accepts an offer to be the game's umpire. On the date of the ballgame the Supreme Ball Players, the League, and Kruger's army try to influence Throttlebottom to bend the rules their way.

The United States loses the game after a controversial call by umpire Throttlebottom. The soldiers want someone to be held to account for the loss, over Wintergreen and his associates' objections ("Oyez, Oyez, Oyez"). In the "Trial of Throttlebottom" a military tribunal is underway. Kruger, the Army, and the Ball Players call for Throttlebottom's execution claiming he conspired with the enemy. Wintergreen and his associates object, until the army levels the guns at them. Kruger and the army want to know when they are going be paid ("A Hell of a Hole"). After Wintergreen offers them a share of the shirt business, the army is going to take it all (Down With Everything That's Up—Reprise). Despite pleading he tried his best to get the money ("It Isn't What You Did"), Kruger sentences Wintergreen and his cronies to death by beheading. Mary and the condemned's wives enter and proclaim they are pregnant. Kruger says this may have worked four years ago during Wintergreen's impeachment hearings, but it doesn't work with the army. Trixie, who controls the Navy, arrives and joins forces with Kruger ("First Lady and First Gent"). Kruger proclaims "Let 'em Eat Caviar."

Execution day arrives, and in their jail cell Wintergreen, Throttlebotton, and the Committee discuss how they ended up in this situation. Next, the crowds gather to watch the executions ("Hanging Throttlebottom in the Morning"). A guillotine bought from France is unveiled, and Snookfield is shown to be the executioner. Since Throttlebottom is not married, he will be executed first. After a series of mishaps with the guillotine, Mary interrupts the proceedings. She presents a "Fashion Show" with dresses that arrived on the boat that brought the guillotine. After being reminded that the color of the revolution is blue, and they cannot wear the new fashions, the women revolt. Kruger objects, but the soldiers seize him after Trixie reminds them of an upcoming party.

Wintergreen tells the soldiers to shoot Kruger. When Kruger reveals he used to be in the dress making business, Wintergreen decides to go into business with him. Wintergreen decides to leave the revolution business and restores the republic and the Supreme Court. Tweedledee shows up and Wintergreen gives his vice-president, Throttlebottom, to him, since he can't remember his. Tweedledee declines the Presidency, since he is going to be President of Cuba. Throttlebottom is now the President. After Wintergreen promised the people cake and Kruger promised them caviar, Throttlebottom promises them pistaccio ice cream, which he formerly detested.

Some time after ''Spy Troops'', Cobra sends drones to the local zoo to take DNA from the alpha predators. G.I. Joe is called in by the zoo's vet, finding a tranquilizer dart left behind. Snake-Eyes grants his students Kamakara and Jinx swords for completing their training; though Kamakara's blade refuses to be drawn unless he is in the right mindset. At the same time the Joe's senior member, General Hawk is captured by Destro and the Baroness. At Cobra's arctic base, Doctor Mindbender reveals Cobra Commander's latest scheme: mutate (or "Venomize") humans into animalistic brainwashed troopers. But they need a good general; hence Hawk's abduction for the full Venomization process.

The Joes track down the base, just as Cobra Commander blasts Hawk with a DNA mixture; however it fails, due to the full process being incomplete. Cyborg commander of the B.A.T.s, Overkill, uses a device to scrabble Hawk's DNA with the samples, causing him to transform into "Venomous Maximus"; suppressing Hawk's memory. The Joes retreat after failing to bring Hawk back to his senses. However, Maximus is proving resistant to Cobra Commander's mind control scepter; a side-effect Mindbender warned could happen if too much alpha animal DNA was used.

Cobra relocates to a missile launching facility recently stolen from the Joe's by Slash and Slice's army of B.A.T.s and Venoms. Maximus strikes a partnership with Overkill, promising to reward him with equality and respect when he takes over Cobra. The Joes launch an attack to take back the base, having developed an antidote to cure the Venoms; forcing Maximus to mutiny earlier. Mindbender, not wanting the world to devolve under Maximus's animalistic rule, helps the Joes trap him in a magnetic field to assist the antidote in curing him. It doesn't work, until Cobra Commander attempts to kill Maximus and Duke with a missile.

The impact against the magnetic field sends the missile backwards into the base; at the same time curing Hawk. To Cobra Commander's exasperation, this starts a loop of missiles backfiring into the base, which buries Overkill and allows Mindbender and the rest of Cobra to escape. Captured by the Joes, Cobra Commander attempts to bribe his way out of custody, only to be shot down by the annoyed heroes.

Nicola's merlin, the Sprog, makes off from the train when she is on her way back to school, taking a sparrow for the first time in his life. Returning to the station, she finds a new girl, Esther Frewen. Esther's parents are divorced and have sent her to boarding school because she doesn't quite fit in their new lives. She is not too worried about this, but mainly about leaving her puppy, Daks, behind.

A few weeks into term, Nicola, along with most of the school, is shocked to find that she has been left out of the Junior Netball team. In fact, this is the work of Lois Sanger, Nicola's old enemy and now school Games Captain. She is a soloist in the Christmas Play, but does not find this much consolation.

Half-term is less fun than expected, mainly because Mrs Marlow's mother is visiting. Nicola and Patrick manage to sneak off for a day to visit Wade Minster and look at the carved falcon and then enjoy a cold, dark ride back over the downs, while Patrick recites the Lyke-Wake Dirge.

Back at school, Nicola finds that she has been given the part of Shepherd Boy in the Christmas Play, the part Lawrie desperately wanted. Lawrie thinks this is treachery on a grand scale. However, when she falls and hurts her leg so that she cannot play in a netball match, she finds a possible solution. Nicola agrees to pretend to be Lawrie so that she can play in the match - which they win comfortably. Lawrie is now convinced that somehow she will be the Shepherd Boy.

On the day of the Play, Esther (who is now supposed to be singing Nicola's solos) disappears, leaving a note for Nicola. She has gone home to prevent her mother getting rid of Daks. Nicola, Lawrie, and their friends Tim and Miranda agree that Nicola should go back to singing and Lawrie will act. Miranda, despite being Jewish, agrees to fill the spare place in the procession.

There is a huge fuss at the Minster when the staff realise what has happened and there will clearly be "blood for breakfast" before too long. However, no-one can think of a better plan. Everyone, including Grandmother and Patrick, is amazed by Nicola's singing and Lawrie's acting. Ginty and Ann play Gabriel and Mary respectively, causing Mrs Marlow a certain embarrassment when she realises how much her family have dominated the production.

Category:1959 British novels Category:Novels set in England Category:British children's novels Category:Faber and Faber books Category:Novels set in boarding schools Category:1959 children's books Category:Novels by Antonia Forest Category:The Marlow Family series

'''Characters'''

• Mrs. Mooney – Determined, clever, and brave daughter of Butcher
• Butcher- Father of Mrs. Mooney
• Mr. Mooney- Husband of Mrs. Mooney and works with Butcher
• Polly Mooney- Beautiful and pretty girl, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mooney.
• Jack Mooney- Son of Mrs. and Mr. Mooney
• Mr. Doran- Highly educated officer, is in a relationship with Polly Mooney

Mrs. Mooney looks forward to her confrontation, which she intends to “win” by defending her daughter’s honor and convincing Mr. Doran to offer his hand in marriage. Waiting for the time to pass, Mrs. Mooney figures the odds are in her favor, considering that Mr. Doran, who has worked for a wine merchant for thirteen years and garnered much respect, will choose the option that least harms his career.

Meanwhile, Mr. Doran anguishes over the impending meeting with Mrs. Mooney. As he clumsily grooms himself for the appointment, he reviews the difficult confession to his priest that he made on Saturday evening, in which he was harshly reproved for his romantic affair. He knows he can either marry Polly or run away, the latter an option that would ruin his sound reputation. Convincing himself that he has been duped, Mr. Doran bemoans Polly’s unimpressive family, her ill manners, and her poor grammar, and wonders how he can remain free and unmarried. In this vexed moment Polly enters the room and threatens to end her life out of unhappiness. In her presence, Mr. Doran begins to remember how he was bewitched by Polly’s beauty and kindness, but he still wavers about his decision.

''MegaRace'' takes place in the distant future, where the player is a contestant on a fictional game show and namesake, ''MegaRace''. ''MegaRace'' is broadcast on the fictional VWBT ('''V'''irtual '''W'''orld '''B'''roadcast '''T'''elevision) television channel, where contestants compete in a live-or-die race match against Hells Angels-like speed gangs. ''MegaRace'''s host is the eccentric Lance Boyle, who was portrayed by actor Christian Erickson. He guides the player throughout the game, introducing new levels and enemies, frequently discouraging the player.

The Danaids form the chorus and serve as the protagonists. They flee a forced marriage to their Egyptian cousins. When the Danaids reach Argos from Egypt, they entreat King Pelasgus to protect them. He refuses pending the decision of the Argive people, who decide in the favour of the Danaids. Danaus rejoices the outcome, and the Danaids praise the Greek deities. Almost immediately, a herald of the Egyptians comes to attempt to force the Danaids to return to their cousins for marriage. Pelasgus arrives, threatens the herald, and urges the Danaids to remain within the walls of Argos. The play ends with the Danaids retreating into the Argive walls, protected.

The story alternates between two timelines: the world of Michael Poole in the year 2047, and that of Alia, a posthuman girl who lives approximately half a million years in the future.

Engineer Michael Poole is recovering from the death of Morag, his pregnant wife. Poole works as a consultant designing space propulsion systems, and dreams of being able to one day explore the stars. However, there are more pressing matters; humanity faces a serious bottleneck, with the Earth reeling from the effects of anthropogenic climate change and resource depletion; automobile production has all but ceased, except for hydrogen-based mass transit, and air travel is limited to the very rich. Due to climate change, the oceans have become dead zones, with rising sea levels and severe weather displacing millions.

While working in Siberia, Michael's son Tom is injured by an explosion of methane gas from previously frozen hydrates, suddenly released from the now-melting tundra. Michael begins to research whether this is an isolated incident or the beginning of something more serious. With the help of an artificial sentience named Gea, he discovers that a potential release of all such frozen greenhouse gasses could destabilise the environment enough to make the Earth untenable for human habitation, in a repeat of the Permian extinction.

Michael consults members of the Poole family, who come together to work on the problem. Tom, John, and the elderly George (a principal character of ''Coalescent'') reunite, and a maverick geoengineering company funds the project. Michael designs a subsurface refrigeration system that could stabilise the frozen hydrates. Meanwhile, Michael continues to be haunted by visions of his dead wife, apparitions he has been seeing his entire life, even before he first met her. He becomes obsessed with discovering the origin of this phenomenon, and his quest for answers drives a wedge between him and his family. Aunt Rosa Poole (from ''Coalescent''), a Catholic priest and ex-member of the Order, helps Michael research the problem, drawing on her vast knowledge, stemming in small part from her relationship with the Coalescent hive and its historical archives. The rest of the Poole family joins the investigation when Morag appears during a trial test of the engineering project. This time, everyone sees Morag, even observing drones recording the event. After the project is bombed by a terrorist group, Morag goes from being an apparition to reincarnating in physical reality. This frightens everyone, even Michael.

500,000 years in the future, the ''Nord'', a generation ship, sails through the galaxy carrying Alia, a young girl, and her family. As part of a government program called the "Redemption", Alia is obligated to witness the life of Michael Poole, from start to finish. Pressured by her family to leave the ship, Alia becomes a candidate for the Transcendence, a collective group of immortal posthumans who are attempting to evolve into a form of godhood, in effect leaving their humanity behind. After travelling the galaxy and observing several posthuman life forms, Alia travels to Earth to meet the Transcendence. Alia learns the Transcendence is attempting to redeem the past suffering of all humans, first by witnessing every single one as Alia witnessed, then by living as every single human and experiencing everything that they experienced. However, since observing is not seen as sufficient for redemption, the Transcendence ultimately desires to erase all suffering in the past, thereby ensuring that every human that could have existed does so. Lastly, if that is seen as too great a task, the Transcendence is prepared to reach back in time and stop humans from ever existing, thereby "erasing" the suffering that they intend to redeem.

Upset about the goals of the Transcendence, Alia makes her way back to the ''Nord'', only to find that it has been attacked in an attempt to get her to go back and face the Transcendence by a group who believes the Redemption is a mistake. Upon returning to the Transcendence, Alia agrees to find a human who can join the Transcendence long enough to debate the Redemption and help them find the best course of action. To do so, Alia projects herself into the past, to the time of Michael Poole. She appears to him as his dead wife, but changes into her true form, that of a different small, hairy primate, a form evolved for low gravity environments.

Alia convinces Michael to face the Transcendence. After an initial period of adjustment Michael makes contact with the Transcendence. Able to see both sides of the argument, Michael forgives the Transcendence for their meddling, but asks that they stop their efforts. Michael is returned to his own time, where he successfully completes the refrigeration project. The Kuiper anomaly, first introduced in ''Coalescent'', disappears, and is revealed to be related to Alia's connection with Michael, having first appeared in the solar system at the time of Michael's birth. In the far future, the Transcendence collapses and the Witnessing program is shut down.

As Peter prepares to leave for work, he backs his car out of the driveway, hitting Brian, who needs treatment at a hospital. Upon Brian's return, Peter makes too much of an effort to welcome him back into the family. Meanwhile, Meg makes friends with a girl named Sarah at her school, unaware that she is about to be offered a place in the Lesbian Alliance Club. After speaking with Neil Goldman, she realizes that she is now considered a lesbian by the group and prepares to drop out; however, when she realizes the effect being a member may have on her social status (finding herself more popular as a lesbian), she pretends to be one.

Meanwhile, Brian becomes depressed after the accident, but after speaking with Frank Sinatra Jr., he begins to perform with him, changing his outlook on life to that of positivity. After being told of Brian's new lifestyle, the family is impressed and encourage him to continue. However, when he is invited by Sinatra to perform with him again, their duo is interrupted by Stewie, who joins the performance. Meanwhile, Meg tells the family that she is now a lesbian, but is mocked by Lois, knowing that she is not being honest. Even as they do so, Chris and Quagmire exit Meg's closet, having attempted to film some lesbian interaction. Meanwhile, Brian and Stewie continue their performances across Quahog with Sinatra. In a drunken condition following a performance, Brian loses Stewie, which results in Stewie's ear being bitten off by a deer. Peter says that Brian will stop performing with Sinatra immediately and threatens to telephone Sinatra's "mother" Mia Farrow. Angry at Peter's bossiness, Brian bites his arm, which leaves Peter afraid of him; the next day, Brian tries to reconcile with Peter, but Peter, still scared, only pelts him with furniture, dishes and Stewie, angering Brian who storms off in a rage.

Brian, regretful of biting Peter, quits performing with Stewie and Sinatra, resorting to drinking wine from a gutter. However, Brian regains his confidence when Stewie finds him, where he tells Brian that there are things in life which are beyond his control, telling him that even though they aren't in his control, they do matter, contrary to Brian's common beliefs. Meanwhile, Meg prepares to tell Sarah that she is not a lesbian and that she only pretended to be in order to make friends; however, Sarah is in her underwear, believing Meg has come to her house to have sex with her. They are both interrupted by Quagmire and his production team filming their antics. The episode ends with Stewie, Brian and Frank Sinatra Jr. singing once more at a club until Mia Farrow (called in by Peter) intervenes, reprimanding Frank for "hanging out 'till all hours with a baby and a dog", and spanks him in front of the audience, much to his chagrin.

On board ''Enterprise'', there has been a minor diplomatic incident with the Kreetassans. As the Kreetassan vessel departs, a clear, amoeba-like entity crosses to ''Enterprise'', and systems begin to malfunction on a ship-wide basis. Crewmen Rostov and Kelly are both trapped in a cargo-hold by the entity which has now grown tendrils. Captain Archer, Commander Tucker, Lieutenant Reed and another crewman go to investigate and are all caught as well, except Reed who escapes through the cargo-hold-hatch, severing one of the tendrils in the process.

Ensign Mayweather suggests tracking the Kreetassans down to ask about the entity, while Doctor Phlox examines the severed tendril. He determines that those entrapped are becoming symbiotically linked together through the entity. Sato wants to communicate with it, but Sub-Commander T'Pol decides to neutralize it instead. Mayweather manages to find the Kreetassans, asking for any information they may have. They agree to share the location of the entity's home world, but only after Mayweather apologizes for the earlier incident. Apparently the "misunderstanding" occurred when the Kreetassans were taken to the mess-hall to find many of the crew eating in public, which they regard as highly vulgar.

T'Pol, Sato, and Reed make their way to the cargo-bay to attempt communication. Reed assembles experimental force-field-emitters, which are able to protect them from the entity's tendrils. Sato uses the Universal Translator to modulate a frequency that the entity can understand. After several attempts, the entity responds. It gives them new, more precise coordinates on its home-world, and Phlox notices that the bio-signs of the trapped personnel are stabilizing. The entity then releases the personnel, shrinking back to its original size. On the entity's planet, the organism and the severed tendril are both released and quickly re-absorbed into a larger alien body. As the shuttle-pod returns to ''Enterprise'', dawn breaks and the entire area is revealed to be covered with a single huge organism.

''Enterprise'' is on a course for Risa to take shore leave when they respond to a distress call from a ship experiencing engine problems. Its pilot, Zobral, invites Captain Archer and Commander Tucker to his home planet. Later, ''Enterprise'' is hailed from the planet by Chancellor Trellit of the Torothan government, who tells Sub-Commander T'Pol that Zobral and his men are terrorists, and that Archer and Tucker will probably never be seen again. T'Pol hails Archer to warn him, and he makes an excuse to leave. Zobral entreats them to stay, saying that after years of abuse by the oppressive Torothan government, and steadily failing attempts of resistance against it, his people are in dire need, and have been searching for outside help. He begs Archer's assistance and use of ''Enterprise'' s resources to defeat his people's oppressors. Archer tells Zobral that he doesn't know what he can do, Zobral thinks he is only being humble, and tells Archer he had recently been told by a Suliban transport captain of Archer's outstanding bravery, exceptional abilities, and recent liberation of "thousands" of Suliban prisoners from a detention camp, defeating an entire army in the process.

The Torothan government bombards the village. Archer and Tucker are led to a shelter, where they remain until the house above them is destroyed. They grab survival packs and leave on foot, heading east across the desert to a deserted building, where they take shelter from the heat and Archer tends to Tucker, who has heatstroke. Meanwhile, on ''Enterprise'', Lieutenant Reed detects weapons fire on the surface, and Ensign Sato can't hail Archer as the region is being jammed. Trellit informs T'Pol that any shuttlepod entering the area will be considered an enemy vessel and fired upon. The Torothans also erect a dispersion field to prevent ''Enterprise'' from scanning the surface.

Zobral rendezvous with ''Enterprise'' and is met by T'Pol and Reed, who inform him that the account of Archer's liberation of the Suliban prisoners was true, but wildly exaggerated. Initially angered and disappointed, Zobral turns to leave, but is eventually persuaded to help T'Pol and Reed sneak a shuttlepod past the Torothan defenses in order to locate Archer and Tucker. While searching for bio-signs, T'Pol observes a bombardment of the ruined encampment from a distant battery, and orders that a new course be set, believing the Torothans have located them. After destroying the Torothan mortar, they land and collect the pair. Aboard ''Enterprise'', Zobral prepares to leave, and Archer tells him that becoming involved in planetary conflicts is not the reason why Starfleet is exploring the galaxy. As they walk away, T'Pol tells Archer that he did the right thing, but Archer replies that he has a feeling that Zobral's cause is one worth fighting for.

Edge, a mercenary hired by the Empire, guards an excavation site filled with artifacts from the Ancient Age, a vanished advanced civilization. Fending off an ancient monster, he discovers a girl buried in a wall. The site is attacked by the mutinous Black Fleet, who seize the girl, kill Edge's companions, and shoot Edge. Edge survives, escapes with the help of a mysterious flying dragon, and swears revenge on the Black Fleet leader, Craymen.

Edge rescues Gash, a member of the Seekers, a scavenger group. Gash directs him to a nomadic caravan, where he learns the location of the Black Fleet. Edge and his dragon defeat the fleet, but learn that Craymen has already reached the Tower, an ancient structure of tremendous power. He fends off an attack by the girl from the excavation site, who has sworn allegiance to Craymen and rides an enormous dragon called Atolm.

In the town of Zoah, Edge meets Paet, an engineer who offers information about the Tower in exchange for artifacts. Searching an ancient vessel for parts, Edge is captured and tortured by imperial soldiers but rescued by Gash. Paet reveals that the Tower can be reached via the ruins of Uru; there, Edge and the dragon are attacked again by the girl and Atolm. After the battle, Edge and the girl are separated from their dragons and fall into an ancient underground facility. They form a truce to escape. The girl explains that she is an ancient bio-engineered lifeform named Azel, created in the facility and designed to interface with ancient technology. After Edge's dragon rescues them, Azel warns Edge that she will kill him if he crosses Craymen's path again; she leaves on Atolm.

Craymen surprises Edge in Zoah and requests his help fighting the Empire. Paet tells Edge he can find the Tower by deactivating Mel-Kava, an ancient machine that obscures the Tower's location with fog. For destroying an imperial base, the Zoah leader gives Edge access to an ancient artifact that grants a vision of Mel-Kava's location. Edge and the dragon destroy Mel-Kava, clearing the fog, but are attacked again by Azel and Atolm. They shoot down Atolm and rescue Azel as she falls.

The Emperor's flagship, Grig Orig, destroys Zoah, but the Black Fleet intervenes before Edge and the dragon are killed. At the Tower, Craymen tells Edge that the Tower is one of several that manufacture monsters to combat humanity's destructive forces. He needs Azel to activate the Tower and destroy the Empire before they can use it for themselves. Imperials arrive and capture Edge and Craymen. After the Emperor forces Azel to activate the Tower, monsters emerge and kill Craymen, the Emperor, and their men. Edge and Azel escape on Edge's dragon. At the Seeker stronghold, Gash explains that the Tower will destroy humanity if it is not deactivated. He believes Edge's dragon is the prophesied Divine Visitor who will be humanity's salvation. Edge and the dragon battle rampaging monsters and destroy the infested Grig Orig.

Edge rescues Azel from monsters in the Uru facility, where she has returned to contemplate her purpose. They infiltrate the Tower, and Azel prepares to transfer Edge and the dragon into Sestren, the AI network that controls the towers. She confesses her love for Edge and he promises to return. Inside Sestren, Edge and the dragon defeat the network's "anti-dragon" programs. The dragon reveals that it is not the Divine Visitor but the Heresy Program, a rogue Sestren AI; the real Divine Visitor is "the one from the outside world" who has guided Edge, and must now destroy Sestren to free humanity from the Ancient Age. Edge and the dragon vanish. Gash awaits Edge in a desert. Azel, searching for Edge, asks directions across treacherous land.

Geordi La Forge’s friend and former crewmate, Lieutenant Commander Susanna Leijten, has come aboard the ''Enterprise''-D. She is concerned because of a previous mission, in which she, Geordi, and three crewmates from the USS ''Victory'' were part of an away mission to the planet Tarchannen III; their crewmates have all deserted their posts, stolen shuttlecrafts and attempted to return, leaving Leijten and La Forge as the only ones unaffected. Picard orders the ship to Tarchannen III; there, they find one of the stolen craft, operated by Lt. Hickman, attempting to land. The ''Enterprise'' is unable to establish communication with Hickman, and the craft is incinerated during atmospheric entry.

On the surface, Leijten and La Forge discover another shuttlecraft, empty; strange footprints are seen near it. Leijten starts feeling ill, and they return to the ''Enterprise''. Leijten improves immediately, but Dr. Crusher finds evidence of alien skin in Leijten's body, not indigenous to the planet. While reviewing the data on the original ''Victory'' away team, Leijten becomes jittery, insists they return to the planet, and starts exhibiting bright blue veins across her body, three of her fingers fusing together on either hand and her nails becoming claws. In Sick Bay, Dr. Crusher restrains Leijten, determines she is mutating into another species, and worried that this fate will also befall La Forge. La Forge continues to study the data and discovers an anomaly in the original mission recording. He notices a shadow that does not appear to belong to anyone on the mission. Starting to feel the same effects as Leijten, La Forge has the computer utilise the mission data to recreate the scene in the holodeck. By eliminating members of the mission from the scene he manages to discover that their team was in the presence of an invisible alien humanoid creature that created the shadow. It resembles what Leijten was mutating into. He suddenly goes into convulsions and soon mutates into an alien creature himself. Due to his newfound invisibility, Geordi easily evades the ''Enterprise'' sensors and transports to the surface.

Dr. Crusher discovers that Leijten's metamorphosis was triggered by an alien parasite that was capable of overwriting its host's DNA; removing the parasite quickly returns Leijten to normal. Leijten tells Dr. Crusher that placing the parasite in the host is the aliens' method of reproduction. Leijten joins the away team on the surface searching for La Forge, because (having previously suffered the metamorphosis) she will be able to track him. Using ultraviolet light, they discover a number of the creatures, all mutated members of the colony and the former ''Victory'' crewmembers. Leijten recognizes one as La Forge, and is able to coax him away and take him back to the ship where he is similarly cured. However, the other crewmen have been mutated far too long to be saved, and they are left behind on the planet; Picard orders warning beacons placed in orbit to protect the creatures (and prevent more victims from being mutated).

Harold J. Finley, an unassuming college professor, develops a device that, once implanted in the brain, can manipulate objects through mind power. Although disregarded as talentless by his family and coworkers, Finley makes an impact with a U.S. space agency in the hopes that he can assist them in retrieving unreachable, space-bound, element-laden asteroids. However, as the professor becomes more familiar with his device, he learns that his subconscious mind has been taking involuntary revenge on those who demean him, including his harping wife, whom he almost kills. As his invention is scheduled to be implanted into the brain of an ambitious astronaut with questionable motives, Finley becomes alarmed, and is determined to stop the procedure. He enters the operating theater just as the surgeon is preparing to implant the device, and destroys him and the head of the asteroid project, along with himself.

After arriving at planet Risa, half of the ''Enterprise'' s crew prepare for shore leave, and Captain Archer organizes lots. Winning a vacation himself, Archer boards a shuttlepod along with Commander Tucker, Lieutenant Reed, and Ensigns Mayweather and Sato. Once the shuttlepod lands on Risa, the crew go their separate ways. Archer notices a beautiful alien woman and her dog on the balcony just below his. Later, he strikes up a conversation, learning her name is Keyla. She claims that the Suliban massacred her entire family. He also learns that she is Tandaran, and when he confronts her with this discovery and asks what she wants, she knocks him out with a shot, and leaves.

Meanwhile, Sato is approached by a handsome alien called Ravis, and the two hit it off. She asks him to teach her his complex native language, and he invites her to the exotic steam pools. The next morning, she awakens happy with Ravis in bed beside her. Elsewhere, Tucker and Reed are in a noisy nightclub filled with exotic female aliens. Two women join them for a drink and invite them to view some nearby subterranean gardens, but when they reach the basement underneath the bar, the "females" suddenly morph into male aliens. Tucker and Reed are helpless as the aliens rob them and knock them out. Waking up the next morning, they escape the club in their underwear.

Meanwhile, in Sickbay, Doctor Phlox prepares to take his annual six-day hibernation, but he informs Sub-Commander T'Pol that two days should be sufficient. Some time later, Mayweather contacts ''Enterprise'' after a rock-climbing accident, and is unnerved by Phlox's absence, but Crewman Cutler reassures him that she can handle his broken leg. He later has some trouble breathing, forcing Cutler and T'Pol to awaken Phlox. Though disoriented and incoherent, he still manages to formulate a suitable antidote, and collapses back into hibernation. On Risa the next morning, the ''Enterprise'' crew travel together in the shuttlepod back to their ship, each with an interesting story to tell, but with none willing to divulge any details.

Part I

While visiting an alien mining colony on Paraagan II, a shuttle accidentally sets fire to the large amounts of tetrazine in the atmosphere, instantly incinerating the 3,600 colonists on the surface. Despite Lieutenant Reed's precautions, Captain Archer personally puts full blame on himself for all the deaths caused. He doesn't argue with Starfleet's Admiral Forrest when ''Enterprise'' s mission is officially cancelled, and the ship is ordered to return home (on the advice of Vulcan Ambassador Soval).

Later, Archer is suddenly transported back 10 months in the past. He then encounters Crewman Daniels who warns him that the Suliban are trying to sabotage ''Enterprise'' s mission. He wants to help Archer discover the truth, because events must go on to preserve the timeline. Using information from Daniels, Reed finds a cloaked Suliban device on the shuttlepod's engine manifold, and Archer directs Commander Tucker to build advanced quantum beacon detectors. ''Enterprise'' then travels back to an asteroid field near Paraagan II where a Suliban ship is hiding. They quickly cripple and board the ship, finding computer memory chips with proof of the Suliban's plan.

As ''Enterprise'' makes its escape, they are able to prove that the explosion wasn't their fault. Sub-Commander T'Pol is still skeptical about the time travel explanation, as Vulcan scientists say time travel it is impossible. Later the ship starts experiencing warp field problems, and soon detects 20 or 30 Suliban cell ships in pursuit. The ships decloak, and Silik orders Archer to surrender himself. Archer puts T'Pol in command, but he never makes it to the Suliban shuttle, as he is time transported again, this time to a derelict 31st century building overlooking a devastated cityscape. Daniels appears behind him telling him that bringing him into the future to protect him caused this dramatic change in the timeline. Archer asks to be sent back to repair the damage, but since all the time travel equipment is gone, they are both trapped.

Part II

With Archer gone, T'Pol chooses to surrender the ship to the Suliban to let them verify his disappearance. They do not find any trace of Archer, but they retrieve their data disks and detect a temporal signature in the turbolift. Meanwhile, in the 31st century, Daniels realizes that there is no available technology to send Archer back and, because of this, the timeline has been disrupted. Archer gives Daniels his communicator and scanner, allowing Daniels to make a device able to contact ''Enterprise''.

The Suliban take ''Enterprise'' to a nearby helix, and Silik interrogates T'Pol to learn where Archer has gone, but she knows little. When T'Pol is returned to her quarters, Archer contacts her and gives her instructions on how to bring him back. Meanwhile, Tucker is able to set up a communication link between the senior staff, and they plan an escape. The plan begins when two Suliban find T'Pol acting strangely, and are knocked out by Reed and Ensign Mayweather. Reed then goes to Daniels's quarters to retrieve a futuristic device, but is caught by the Suliban. During interrogation, he tells Silik that Archer gave him orders to destroy the device, to prevent him from using it to get in touch with the Suliban's contact from the future.

Silik then tries to contact his master but he only succeeds in bringing Archer back, Daniels and Archer having managed to set up a device that allows them to return Archer to his time using the communication device as a 'target'. Meanwhile, on ''Enterprise'', a faked warp core breach is initiated, forcing the Suliban to evacuate the ship. As soon as they are freed, ''Enterprise'' goes to warp, pursued by Suliban ships. Archer destroys Daniels's device and, having taken Silik hostage, secures their escape. The reunited crew finally present their proof to Starfleet Command and the Vulcans. Soval still recommends cancellation of the mission, but Archer promises that humanity will learn from their mistakes. T'Pol supports him, adding that the Vulcans should learn from their mistakes as well. Soval exits, and it is decided that ''Enterprise'' s mission will continue for now.

In 1377 A.D. England, a 13-year-old boy, known only as Asta's Son, lives as a peasant in the village of Stromford. The village is part of the territory of the feudal Lord Furnival, which, in Furnival's absence, is under the control of the steward, John Aycliffe. When his mother dies, Asta's Son is left alone, as he has no other known relatives. Shortly afterwards, Aycliffe falsely accuses him of theft, and declares him a Wolf's Head, which means he is not considered human anymore and anyone may kill him. Aycliffe also offers a large reward (one pound) for his death.

Asta's Son turns to the village priest, Father Quinel, his only friend. He shows Father Quinel a lead cross that his mother gave him before death. Father Quinel reveals that his true name is Crispin. He promises to reveal the truth to Crispin of who his father was the next night, but before he can, Aycliffe's men murder him. Aycliffe then sends a boy, Cerdic, to lead Crispin into an ambush, forcing Crispin to flee the village by himself. While fleeing from Aycliffe and his men, Crispin comes across an abandoned village, vanquished by the Black Death, where he meets Orson Hrothgar, but people call him Bear, because of his body and strength. Bear claims Crispin for himself, as according to the law, if someone runs away from his master unlawfully, the next free man who finds him may become that person's master. He learns of Crispin's lead cross and notices the writing on it. While Bear does not tell Crispin what the words say, Crispin realizes that the cross and its words are important. Bear is rough with Crispin, but during their travels together, a true bond of friendship develops between them. Bear eventually asks Crispin if he would like to become his apprentice, and Crispin happily agrees.

Posing as father and son, the two travel towards the city of Great Wexly, the capital city of Lord Furnival's lands. Bear insists that he has important business to complete there. When they arrive, they find troubles waiting for them. Lord Furnival has died and John Aycliffe has arrived. Bear and Crispin stay at The Green Man tavern. In the room, there is a false-wall, which Bear tells Crispin will be his hiding place if things go badly. Bear meets with John Ball, a priest in the city. Soldiers come and raid the secret meeting place of Bear and John Ball, taking Bear, who manages to save everyone else, with them. John Aycliffe had been looking for Crispin, who is hiding. Depressed, Crispin discovers that he is Lord Furnival's son. Crispin tries to get the help of "The Brotherhood", an organization Bear is a member of, and headed by John Ball. When they refuse to aid Crispin in trying to find Bear, Crispin takes it upon himself to break into Furnival's Palace and find Bear himself.

Crispin finds a dagger in one of the hallways and keeps it under his cloak. He goes into a great room and sees a picture of Lord Furnival, who looks a lot like him. When he finds Aycliffe, Crispin pins him to the ground and puts the dagger to his neck, but instead of killing him, makes him vow under oath that he (Crispin) and Bear will be able to leave Great Wexly unharmed never to return in exchange for Crispin's cross of lead. Crispin is led to Bear, who is being kept in the palace's cellar and has been tortured. Though weakened, Bear manages to walk out of the palace on his own. Aycliffe and a band of soldiers escort them to the city gates, where he reneges on his oath and is intent on killing Crispin. A fight ensues between Aycliffe and Bear, who is given the dagger Crispin found at the palace, as the soldiers surround them with their swords drawn. After a back and forth battle, Bear eventually squeezes Aycliffe from behind, causing him to drop his sword and dagger. As Bear hurls Aycliffe into the line of soldiers, Aycliffe is punctured in multiple places by the soldiers' swords and dies. Crispin leaves the cross of lead on Aycliffe's bleeding chest as he and Bear exit the Great Wexly gates. Outside the gate, Bear and Crispin play music and sing, and Bear frees Crispin. Crispin mentions that for the first time he feels like himself instead of merely Asta's Son.

University of Wittenberg scholar Faustus earns his doctorate, but his insatiable craving for knowledge and power leads Faustus to try his hand at necromancy in an attempt to conjure Mephistopheles out of hell. Faustus bargains his soul to Lucifer in exchange for 24 living years where Mephistopheles is his slave. Signing the pact in his own blood, Mephistopheles proceeds to reveal to Faustus the works and doings of the Devil.

Uncle Fyodor is a very independent city boy, "a boy on his own". After his mother forbids him from keeping his talking cat Matroskin, Uncle Fyodor runs away from home to live on his own. Uncle Fyodor and the cat arrive at the village Prostokvashino, where they meet the local dog Sharik. The three settle in an abandoned house.

Uncle Fyodor's parents became very agitated at the loss of their son, and even put out a missing persons notice in the paper... Such a notice couldn't pass the nose of the extremely curious postman Pechkin, who right then and there declared his hopes to earn a reward for the boy's safe return — a new bicycle.

By the end of the movie, the family is reunited, and the mailman receives his reward for notifying the parents. The parents tell the animals that they are welcome to come back to the city with them, but they decide to stay in Prostokvashino to make a summer house (dacha) for Fyodor.

A civilian analyst in the Confederation of Human Worlds' Development Control Division of the Department of Colonial Development, Population Control, and Xenobiological Studies notices a peculiar series of incidents on the colony world called Maugham's Station and flags it as having possible military interest. The military does find it of interest—it looks like the work of Skinks, the alien race responsible for an invasion of the planet Kingdom (described in the earlier novels Kingdom's Swords and Kingdom's Fury). The 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team (FIST) is dispatched to investigate the situation on Maugham's Station and, if necessary, drive the Skinks from the planet. Soon the 34th FIST soon finds that the supposed Skinks related attacks are in fact aggressive botanical life that uses natural weapons having an uncanny resemblance to the acid guns of the Skinks.

In other goings on, the space navy of the planet We're Here!, have discovered a surreptitious mining operation taking place on a planet in a neighboring star system, one that they have a claim on. The commander of We're Here!'s navy is delighted to have a chance to make war, and he acts without notifying the civilian government.

Player characters in the game are genetically enhanced ex-mercenaries who were given superpowers by reverse engineered genetic technology recovered from the UFO crash. They are given extensive genetic modifications (called "boosting"). Then after being decanted they work as augmented mercenaries (called "Boosts") for any one of several private armies operated by giant corporations, fighting in small wars around the world.

This is paired with psychological conditioning (the Bushmiller Process) in the form of a Virtual Reality simulation (called "Dreamland") that teaches them how to handle and use their new powers. The virtual world looks just like a "four-color" Silver Age superhero comic book, except it's ultra-violent and merciless to simulate combat conditions and desensitize the recruits to violence. Subjects are made to believe that their fictional life in the virtual world was real, then are later deprogrammed and normalized into accepting mundane reality after their discharge.

A Player Character begins as he's discharged from service as a genetically-enhanced warrior who had been conditioned to think of himself as an ultraviolent superhero with a bizarre origin story and a dramatic past. They tend to see the world in the uncompromising black-and-white ethos of superhero comics filtered through the mental illnesses and phobias triggered by the process that grants them their powers. They are dumped in the decaying ruins of an American culture with civilians who fear and hate them and a corrupt and totalitarian government that ignores them (an intentional reference to the state of Vietnam veterans coming home after the Vietnam War). The fact that they were brainwashed by the corporations that employed them and were betrayed by the governments that hired them often makes them distrustful of authority. It is presumed that the player characters join and form various "Underground" movements to oppose the government, giant corporations, or other tyrannical forces in the world.

When Rainbow Brite (Bettina Bush) and her magical horse, Starlite (Andre Stojka), go to Earth to start spring, they meet Stormy (Marissa Mendenhall), another magical girl who controls Winter with her horse, Skydancer (Peter Cullen). She, however, does not want to end her winter fun, so Rainbow battles her for control over the season. She proves to be no match for Rainbow and Starlite, who outrun her and head off to Earth. When they arrive, they meet up with Brian (Scott Menville), the only boy on Earth who can "see" them. Once Rainbow tries to start spring, however, her power weakens and Winter remains. Brian becomes worried that Spring will never come and senses that all of humanity is losing hope. Even Rainbow is confused. Reassuring Brian that they will do what they can to return Spring, Rainbow and Starlite return to Rainbowland.

Rainbow is paid a visit by On-X (Pat Fraley), a strange robotic horse with rockets for legs. On-X delivers a message that the leader of Spectra, Orin, has gone missing. Rainbow takes the mission to find Orin and later learns that Spectra is dimming as the result of a massive net being woven around its surface. The net is being made so that a selfish princess (Rhonda Aldrich), known only as the "Dark Princess", can steal Spectra, "the greatest diamond in all the universe," for herself, and tow it back to her world with her massive spaceship. The native Sprites of Spectra, enslaved by Glitterbots under the princess' control, are being forced to weave the net. Now Rainbow must stop the princess' plan before all life on Earth is frozen solid by an endless Winter.

Helping Rainbow and Starlite is Krys (David Mendenhall), a boy from Spectra who believes he can take on the princess and save his home world by himself without the help of a "dumb girl." When they meet Orin, he tries to make them work together to stop the princess. He tells them that they can only destroy her by combining their own powers against her.

Getting in the way of their mission is the sinister Murky Dismal (Peter Cullen) and his bumbling assistant, Lurky (Pat Fraley), who, as usual, are lavishing in the new gloom created by the darkening of Spectra, as well as trying to steal Rainbow's magical color belt. After dodging Murky, Rainbow and Krys enter the princess' castle and try to convince her that what she is doing will destroy the universe, but she is determined to have Spectra for herself and traps them instead after she takes Rainbow's belt. They escape the dungeon when Starlite retrieves Rainbow's belt. However, the Dark Princess, now enraged, uses her powerful crystal to create a vortex to send Rainbow, Krys, Starlite and On-X to a prison planet. Sargeant Zombo (David Workman) captures Starlite, while Rainbow was attacked by humanoid lizard creatures whose takes Krys and On-X to Zombo’s castle.

Rainbow meets Orin there who explains that Krys and Rainbow must destroy the Princess' crystal—as that is the source of her powers. They find an unguarded entrance to the palace and find the Princess in her throne room. In the midst of a duel with the Princess, Murky and Lurky crash their ship into the throne room. This distracts the Princess long enough for Rainbow and Krys to destroy her power crystal. The defeated Princess runs to her spaceship with the intention of crashing into Spectra to destroy it, however Rainbow uses her rainbow to deflect the spacecraft away from the diamond planet, prompting it to explode.

The enslaved Sprites are freed and immediately destroy the net so that Spectra radiates its magical light once again. On Earth, a warm spring finally arrives as life returns there and Rainbow returns to Rainbowland, finding her friends are back to normal.

The play begins at the altar of Zeus at Marathon. The herald Copreus, in the employ of King Eurystheus of Mycenae, attempts to seize the children of Heracles, together with Heracles's old friend, Iolaus. When King Demophon, son of Theseus, insists that Iolaus and Heracles's children are under his protection, Copreus threatens to return with an army. Demophon is prepared to protect the children even at the cost of fighting a war against Eurystheus, but after consulting the oracles, he learns that the Athenians will be victorious only if they sacrifice a maiden of noble birth to Persephone. Demophon tells Iolaus that as much as he would like to help, he will not sacrifice his own child or force any of the Athenians to do so. Iolaus, realizing that he and the children will have to leave Athens and seek refuge elsewhere, despairs.

When Macaria, a daughter of Heracles, hears about the oracle's pronouncement and realizes her family's predicament, she offers herself as the victim, refusing a lottery. Bidding farewell to her siblings and to Iolaus, she leaves to be sacrificed. At the same time, Hyllus arrives with reinforcements. Although Iolaus is old and feeble, he insists on going out to the battle. Once there, he miraculously regains his youth and captures Eurystheus. A debate about executing him follows. Alcmene, Heracles's aged mother, insists that Eurystheus be executed at once, though such an execution is against Athenian law. Finally, Eurystheus tells them a prophecy of how his spirit will protect the city from the descendants of Heracles's children if they slay and bury him, and so it is done.

Kept in a school run on devout Christian lines, at age 18 Ned is free to leave. His mission in life is to find and kill his rogue father Henry. On visiting his mother, Fay, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism, she cannot tell him her husband's whereabouts and suggests he contacts her brother Simon, who is a writer in New York. Also anxious to see Simon is a penniless postgraduate named Susan, who wants to write about his work. Learning that his father was last heard of working in Seattle, Ned rushes off to the airport. Susan follows him, because she has her own reasons for wanting to find Henry, and Ned reluctantly teams up with her, though he keeps refusing a romance with her.

In Seattle, he learns that his father has lost his mind and is being kept in a special clinic. In fact, Henry shams madness in order to enjoy a quiet life among good books (as Fay does too, though not by choice). Ned abducts his willing father, planning to shoot him in open country, but discovers that Susan has found his revolver and removed its ammunition. She then makes off with Ned's father, money, and gun. Reaching a motel near Spokane, she reveals that she was the 13-year-old girl whose parents burst in just as she had lured Henry to her bed. For that, he got seven years. Now they can carry on legally and their night of passion disturbs the whole motel. Ned meanwhile has traced the pair and in the morning is waiting outside for them to emerge. Susan, having completed her unfinished business with Henry, shoots him dead. Ned bursts in, and in a struggle with Susan accidentally stabs her to death. Outside, armed police are waiting for him.

An American freighter ship carrying sensitive cargo en route to Taiwan is hijacked by North Korean pirates led by Sin (Jang Dong-gun), a terrorist set on destroying the Korean Peninsula. The sensitive cargo is weapons technology for a military satellite, secretly made by the U.S. in reaction to strengthening Chinese/Russian relations. Having stolen the technology, Sin attempts to attain highly radioactive waste from Russia through the black market. His plan is to detonate a fleet of helium balloons loaded with radioactive waste over the Korean Peninsula.

To investigate the hijacking, the South Korean government sends Sejong (Lee Jung-jae), a South Korean Naval Intelligence Service officer, to meet a black market contact in Thailand who knows about the hijacking. Sejong's meeting with the contact goes sour but he learns about Sin and tracks his location in the Russian district of Busan, South Korea. In Busan, Sin meets with Russian mob members who take him to a political seminar, where he stabs Park Wan-sik, the South Korean counsel general in New York, in the men's bathroom. In a flashback that Park was partly responsible for the death and murder of Sin's family.

Sin's family were North Korean refugees who requested embassy in South Korea. At the time, the South Korean government was trying to strengthen relations with China and they were forced to reject the family's request. Park Wansik was sent by the South Korean government in order to make arrangements for the family's disposal. The family ended up being killed by North Korean authorities. The only survivors were Sin and his older sister (Lee Mi-yeon), who managed to escape but where stranded in the wilderness between the borders of North Korea and China. After enduring hardship, starvation, and rape, they managed to cross over to a train station in China where the two were tragically separated. Sin goes down his own path and lives the life of a criminal and a modern-day pirate in South East Asia, where his bitterness and hatred grows, and he plots revenge against his betrayers. His anger expands and he decides to destroy the entire Korean Peninsula.

Sin is embittered towards the North Korean government for the murder of his family and at the South Korean government for abandoning them. He decides to hatch a plan to unleash uranium onto the clouds of a typhoon so that radioactive rain will shower onto the Korean Peninsula, effectively destroying it. He sets out with his group of South East Asian pirates, but he encounters Sejong. In an attempt to lure Sin into their hands, Sejong sets up an appointment for Sin to reunite with his sister. Sin, who had assumed his sister to be dead, believes it to be a farce to lure him out, but he goes anyway. Sin takes the bait and enters the meeting, but Sejong soon discovers that Sin and his sister are more prepared than he had thought. Sin has a sniper set up, who effectively takes out part of Sejong's elite team, though Sin's sister is caught in the crossfire and suffers a bullet wound.

After escaping, Sin sets out to execute his plans of mass destruction. He embarks on a freight carrier that he names "Typhoon" that is filled with balloons carrying canisters filled with uranium. Meanwhile, in a last-ditch effort to save the Korean Peninsula, Sejong gathers a South Korean UDT/SEAL team, and helicopters out to sea. He makes a point of picking single men, stating that death is likely. They fly through the impending typhoon to the freight carrier, encountering Sin and his pirates. There is a bloody skirmish and both sides suffer casualties.

Sin is in the lower cabins through most of the fighting, spending time with his sister during her last breaths. The bullet wound is too much and she is about to die. They agree to meet again in the afterlife. Dazed, Sin heads out after she dies and he begins to release his uranium balloons. Having to manually open the hatch to release them, he is able to crank it open a few feet, allowing a few balloons to escape. Before he can activate the balloons with his remote control, Sejong makes his appearance. He is the last man standing, except for Sin, and all the rest of the Special Forces soldiers and Pirates are dead. Sin and Sejong struggle in a fight to the death, which culminates in Sin's death.

In his last sentiments, Sejong sends a letter to his mother. He believes that in the end, Sin never intended to destroy Korea and that he was just a desperate man who was a product of a tragedy. He is regretful of Sin's death, and says he wouldn't have minded befriending Sin in another life. Sin then carries his sister onto a boat to cross the river of the dead, and they cross over into the afterlife together.

The narrator, V., is absorbed in the composition of his first literary work, a biography of his half-brother, the Russian-born English novelist Sebastian Knight (1899–1936). In the course of his quest he tracks down Sebastian's contemporaries at Cambridge and interviews other friends and acquaintances. In the course of his work V. also surveys Sebastian's books (see below) and attempts to refute the views of the "misleading" ''The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight'', a biography by Knight's former secretary Mr. Goodman, who maintains that Knight was too aloof and cut off from real life.

V. concludes that, after a long-running romantic relationship with Clare Bishop, Sebastian's final years were embittered by a love affair with another woman — a Russian whom he presumably met at a hotel in Blauberg, where Sebastian spent time recuperating from a heart ailment in June 1929. V. leaves for Blauberg, where, with the help of a private detective, he acquires a list of the names of four women who were staying at the hotel at the same time as Sebastian and tracks down each to interview them. After dismissing the possibility of Helene Grinstein in Berlin, his search leads him to Paris and the list narrows to two candidates: Mme de Rechnoy and Mme von Graun.

V. first suspects Mme de Rechnoy of being the mystery woman, based on a compelling description from her ex-husband, Pahl Palich Rechnoy. Mme de Rechnoy has left her husband and cannot be located, leaving V. unsatisfied. However, after meeting Mme von Graun's friend, Mme Nina Lecerf, and hearing stories of von Graun's unflattering affair with a Russian, V. becomes convinced that Helene von Graun is the woman in question. Nina invites V. to visit her in the country, where Helene von Graun will be staying with her. Finding that Helene has not yet arrived, V. mentions to Nina a letter introducing himself to Mme von Graun, which angers her. By chance, V. learns that it is Nina Lecerf herself, and not Helene, who was Sebastian's final romance. Nina was, in fact, the Mme de Rechnoy whom V. had originally suspected but never met.

The final chapters of the narration deal with ''The Doubtful Asphodel'', Sebastian's final novel, which is centered on a dying man and his slow decay. V.'s description of the novel reveals similarities and coincidence not only with Sebastian's life, but with V.'s own investigative adventures. V. tries to account for Sebastian's final years, including a last letter from Sebastian asking V. to visit him at a hospital outside Paris. As V. makes the trip (from Marseilles, where he is temporarily stationed by his firm), his ties to his own life become increasingly visible for their tenuousness: his employer hampers his ability to travel, he struggles to remember necessary details such as the hospital name, he even lacks sufficient money to travel efficiently. V. finally arrives at the hospital and listens to his sleeping brother's breathing from a separate room, only to discover that the sleeping man is not his brother, but another man. Sebastian Knight had died the night before.

The novel concludes with a philosophical reconciliation of Sebastian's life and a final implication that V. himself is Sebastian Knight, or at least his incarnation.

''Titanic'' opens in the Titanic's dining room, where the Tammurais (Richard, Victoria, and their son Teddy) are seated. Pondering why they haven't been seated at the captain's table, Richard suggests that the "snub" may be a result of Victoria's less-than-noble past growing up on a pig farm in Indiana. Victoria in turn announces that she wants a divorce and further reveals that Teddy is not Richard's natural son, which prompts Richard to claim that their unseen daughter Annabella is not Victoria's natural daughter. From here, there is a comedic blur between three characters: Annabella, Harriet Lindsey, and Lidia, the latter of whom is confusingly (but amusingly) the captain's daughter...or is she?

With Victoria and Richard at odds, Lidia—who keeps and feeds a variety of animals in her vagina—befriends Teddy and coerces him into non-consensual bondage scenarios. Meanwhile, Victoria begins a lurid affair with the passionate captain while Richard ravenously pursues and humiliates Higgins, a young sailor. On several occasions, it appears that the vessel has struck that fabled iceberg and is sinking (a fate Annabella, Harriet/Lidia desperately desires), but the sounds of catastrophe are always followed by an announcement that it was merely the captain's wife broadcasting from a sound effects record—a practical joke that ultimately prompts the captain to execute his wife. Following her funeral, the characters decide a wedding is in order—Victoria will marry Annabella/Harriet Lindsey, and Richard will marry Teddy (who he has by now begun to call Dorothy). In the final scene, we return to the Titanic's dining room where Teddy and Annabella/Harriet/Lidia exact deadly revenge on Richard and Victoria, just before it appears once more that the ship has struck an iceberg...but has it?

Notable actors who have appeared in ''Titanic''

Christine Estabrook – Lidia Richard Bey – Higgins, the Sailor *Sigourney Weaver – Lidia

Mr. Burns almost drowns while taking a bath after Smithers puts a sponge on his head, weighing down his puny body. Realizing that no one will carry on his legacy when he dies, Mr. Burns decides to find an heir to inherit his vast fortune. After years of devotion, Smithers thinks he should inherit his wealth. Burns believes he will receive a "far greater reward" by being buried alive with his boss to which Smithers agrees.

Burns auditions several boys for his heir, including Nelson, Martin, and Milhouse. Bart and Lisa also audition and fail: Burns disqualifies Lisa because she is a girl and Bart because he dislikes the poorly worded proposal Homer makes him read aloud, which isn’t helped by Homer misspelling “Burns” as “Kurns”. The audition ends with Burns kicking him in the butt with a mechanical boot, much to Homer’s amusement. Homer then tells both Bart and Lisa to "never try". Bart gets revenge by vandalizing his mansion. Burns is impressed by Bart's malevolence and accepts him as his heir, although he initially liked Nelson for a similar reason.

Homer and Marge sign a legal document that officially names Bart as Burns' heir. Marge suggests that Bart spend time with the lonely old man because he stands to inherit his fortune. Initially repelled by Burns' coldness, Bart warms to him after he promises to give him anything he wants. Soon Bart abandons his family because Burns allows him to do whatever he likes (including getting Krusty the Clown delivering him pizza while his show airs a rerun when Falkland islands were invaded). Bart's parents sue to get their son back, but after they hire Lionel Hutz as their lawyer, the court decides that Burns is "clearly the boy's biological father." The Simpsons hire a deprogrammer to kidnap Bart, but he abducts Hans Moleman by mistake and brainwashes him into thinking he is the Simpsons' son.

When Bart grows lonely and wants to go home, Burns tricks him into thinking his family no longer loves him by staging a fake video with actors portraying the Simpsons. Bart decides that Burns is his true father and they celebrate by randomly firing Springfield Nuclear Power Plant employees by dropping them through a trapdoor. Lenny is the first employee to suffer this fate. When Homer enters the office (through tracking a trail of donuts), Burns tries to completely sever Bart's family ties by forcing him to fire his father. Instead, Bart "fires" Burns by dropping him through the trapdoor. Smithers quickly jumps into the shaft and implores his boss to "land on Leonard's carcass" to cushion his fall. Bart moves home after realizing that he loves his family.

In 2050, an old priest named Father Clifford Daniels (Martin Short) catches a boy named Roger (Ben Savage) planning to run away after not being allowed to play on a basketball team. He persuades him to change his ways by telling him a story of his own youth.

As a 10-year-old back in 1990, Clifford is an obnoxious and eccentric boy who never lets go of a toy dinosaur named Steffen and wants to visit Dinosaur World, a theme park in Los Angeles, California. His workaholic parents Julian (Richard Kind) and Theodora (Jennifer Savidge) never have time for it. While flying with his parents to Honolulu on Julian's business trip, Clifford intentionally causes the pilot to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles.

Father Clifford takes this moment to tell Roger about his father Julian's estranged brother Martin (Charles Grodin) who is an engineer working for Gerald Ellis (Dabney Coleman). Martin wants to marry his co-worker Sarah Davis (Mary Steenburgen), though Sarah wants to have kids with him.

Because Clifford is now banned from the flight, Julian phones Martin to have Clifford stay with him temporarily. Martin thinks that this is the perfect opportunity to prove to Sarah how well he interacts with Clifford despite not seeing him since his baptism and is completely unaware of Clifford's antics.

Upon their reunion, Martin reveals to Clifford that he designed Larry the Scary Rex (a Dinosaur World attraction) and can get into the park free of charge which only strengthens Clifford's obsession to visit. Martin promises to take him there, but is ultimately forced to break his promise the next day as his boss Gerald wants him to redesign LA's public transit system – one of Martin's biggest dreams – in two days. At a gas station, Clifford attempts to sneak away by posing as someone else's son in a dinosaur costume, but he's caught by Martin who cancels the trip.

During the 35th anniversary of Parker (G.D. Spradlin) and Annabelle Davis (Anne Jeffreys) at their mansion, Clifford embarrasses Martin in front of Sarah's family with several pranks. Martin is arrested after Clifford calls in a fake bomb threat in city hall, which Clifford made out of mixing audios of Martin's scolding of Clifford with his answering machine.

After being released on bail, Martin scolds Clifford again claiming that he now has a criminal record, wants him to write a confession to the police, and mentions his own experiences of being denied his own visit to the theme park Riverview in Chicago before it was ultimately demolished in 1967.

Clifford later misleads Martin in catching a train to San Francisco where Sarah travels on the request of Mr. Ellis who attempts to move in on her and Martin can't find him before the train departs.

Back at Martin's home, Clifford throws a party in exchange for a trip to Dinosaur World. Martin gradually perceives Clifford as a threat. When he returns home, he traps Clifford by boarding up the door and windows to his room. Sarah later releases Clifford and takes Clifford with her stating "you need help". As Martin arrives late to Ellis's presentation of Martin's transit system, the Los Angeles city model explodes, costing Martin his job.

Martin later kidnaps Clifford from Sarah's house and finally takes him to Dinosaur World after closing hours and makes him ride Larry the Scary Rex. After going through it once, Clifford seems to enjoy himself, so Martin increases the ride's speed repeatedly. When set to hyper speed, the ride malfunctions and Clifford's cart crashes, leaving him dangling above the jaws of the malfunctioning Larry. Clifford begs Martin to save him, but Martin rants about what Clifford's mischief cost him. Ultimately, he risks his own life and rescues Clifford. Clifford finally apologizes, but Martin won't hear it and calls him "this destructive thing that eventually everyone just gets to hate".

Father Clifford tells Roger that "if you destroy everyone in the way of your dreams, you will end up alone, with no dreams at all." He had sent 287 apology letters to Martin which were returned unopened. When Roger asks about what happened to Sarah, he reveals that Sarah invited him to her wedding to Martin as the ring bearer. Through a gesture from Sarah who is now officially Clifford's aunt, Martin finally forgives Clifford while giving him a kiss on the head.

Moved by the tale, Roger decides to write 287 letters asking for forgiveness. Father Clifford then takes Steffen out of his pocket saying "Mission accomplished, old friend."

The film is a series of vignettes following the daily lives of the Yamada family: Takashi and Matsuko (the father and mother), Shige (Matsuko's mother), Noboru (aged approximately 13, the son), Nonoko (aged approximately 7, the daughter), and Pochi (the family dog).

Each of the vignettes is preceded by a title such as "Father as Role Model", "A Family Torn Apart" or "Patriarchal Supremacy Restored". These vignettes cover such issues as losing a child in a department store, the relationships between father and son, or husband and wife, the wisdom of age, meeting one's first girlfriend and many more. Each is presented with humour, presenting a very believable picture of family life which crosses cultural boundaries. The relationships between Matsuko, Takashi and Shige are particularly well observed, with Shige giving advice and proverbs to all the family members, and having a great strength of character. Takashi and Matsuko's relationship is often the focus of the episodes, their rivalries, such as arguing about who has control of the television, their frustrations and their difficulties, but the overriding theme is their love for one another despite their flaws, and their desire to be the best parents possible for their children.

The series first begin with some realistic and interesting civil cases such as custody battles, divorce settlements, and a case featuring a severed finger. The four lawyers work brilliantly on these cases and at the same time, grows closer to each other.

A divorce case brings Homer and Jessica's aunt Angela, another well-known lawyer, heads on as the two defend their own genders in an amusing case of banter. It is revealed the two of them used to be together. Homer, however, now has a wife and throughout the show is frequently seen as easily intimidated by Angela.

During a custody battle case, Ching-Ling learns that her mother was not her biological mother. By the time she learned of this, her real mother had died. Furious at being denied the chance to ever meet her real mother, she leaves home and starts living with Jessica instead. Her personal feelings interferes with her case performance, causing her to lose, but the parents were so moved by her words the child was allowed to see both parents.

In a case dealing with corporations trying to take more money from their customers, Vincent and Jessica work together and he teaches her to be more confident and sure of herself. When they win the case, Jessica wants to give Vincent a hug, but when he holds out his hands for a high-five instead she accepts it.

Ben gets a similar case where his parents are pressured by a company to sign a contract they never wanted, Ben helps them take the case to court. He first intended to play the role of a son and not a lawyer, but after a while could not resist pointing out to the judge several laws that could work to his family's favour. The judge, amused, ends the case in Ben's favour.

For a real mystery, the case of the severed finger is given. Vincent and Ben are called up by Homer in the middle of a night to a street, where they find Homer's friend throwing up. All he could say was 'water bottle', and when Ben picks it up, he sees to his horror a severed finger in it. They convince the innocent man not to flee and instead report to the police - headed by none other than Vincent's father. All four lawyers, with help from Homer himself, try to find out more information and in the end, even finds the real culprit.

The possible romance is already hinted as it is revealed that Jessica has been in love with Vincent for a while, much to the teasing of Ben. However, due to a series of hilarious misunderstandings, the firm believes that Jessica and Ben are together. Meanwhile, Ben falls for Ching-Ling, but he holds back when it is revealed that she is starting a relationship with Vincent. Vincent figured out Ben harboured feelings for Ching-Ling, but Ben promised not to interfere. Vincent and Ching-Ling seem like the 'ideal' couple, and neither Ben or Jessica was willing to ruin it.

Vincent's ambitions and Ching-Ling's sense of justice soon came to a clash when he illegally disturbed the prosecution witnesses in the hopes of winning his own cases. It didn't help that his father and Ben were also involved. Ben's client was accused of murder, but he wasn't responsible because at that time, he was helping smuggle drugs. The sole witness: A police officer who chased him for several streets. The police officer: Vincent's father, who had used the drugs Ben's client threw away to frame a drug dealer.

Ben wanted Vincent's father to testify so that his client could be cleared, but Vincent objected. If his father testified and admitted he went against police protocol by framing the dealer, his father could go to jail. In Vincent's eyes, drug smugglers were the scum of society and nowhere as important as a police officers, so he couldn't see why Ben was so intent on helping them. Just as Ben's and Vincent's friendship looked as if it were being placed on its limits, Vincent's father voluntarily confesses everything in court. Ben's client was cleared, but now Vincent's father had to go through the court system. Vincent tried defending his father, but it was a lost case, and Vincent's father was sentenced to jail.

The unhappy Vincent then got himself drunk and encountered Ching-Ling at that state. She, however, was disappointed and disgusted with him and his methods, and refused to be with him any longer. In a sick twist, Ben arrived at the scene and witnessed the whole thing. Vincent then accused him of stealing Ching-Ling away, revealing to her that Ben had feelings towards her. Furious at what she thought were false accusations to Vincent's best friend, she leaves with Ben.

Later, Vincent asked for a vacation and momentarily leaves the firm. Homer granted it to him, deciding he needed some time to recover from losing both a father and love interest. Ben, in a move showing his deep friendship with Vincent, tells Ching-Ling not to be angry at Vincent for he did harbour feelings for her. However, he knows not to pursue on them, and she accepts this.

After a few more cases, Vincent returns. On the surface, he had recovered and was once again friendly towards his co-workers. This quickly turned out to be a front, for now he was using any possible means to win his new cases. This contrasted with his friends, who always tried to help anyone who was wronged. Vincent was now helping those with money, unconcerned whether they were guilty or not. He disappointed everyone, those in the law firm, his father, and his friends. Only Jessica openly remained supportive of him.

Ching-Ling soon starts having feelings for Ben, but the timing could not have been anymore cruel. Ben's friend, who was in jail, had called him due to new evidence. Ben arrived, and it is revealed that one of the reasons Ben became a lawyer was because seven years ago his friend was wrongly prosecuted and sentenced to jail for a crime he did not commit. The inmate told Ben that he heard from one of the other prisoners that a man named 'Saw-Pao' (Literally 'Crazy Leopard') was responsible for the crime he was imprisoned for. The crime was the stabbing of a girl in a park. With Jessica's help, Ben reviews over the case, and sees that the sole witness to the crime was Ching-Ling herself.

For appeal grounds, Ben shows how there was evidence of a third party due to blood found on the crime scene that did not belong to anyone identified. Then, he and Jessica track Saw-Pao down and takes some of his blood to be tested for DNA.

Ching-Ling knew nothing about this. So when Ben asked to meet her, she thought he was going to ask her whether they could try starting a relationship. When Ben informs her he plans to reopen the case, she is furious and emotionally upset. Her own reason for becoming a lawyer was also because of this case, the cruel murder of her best friend, hence her earlier sensitivity to any cases related to violence against woman. It was obvious that once again, Ben and Ching-Ling were denied a chance to be together.

The next time they met was in court. Ben, the defense lawyer, asked Ching-Ling, the witness, why she was so sure the defendant was guilty. She says that he was always following her friend around, but was constantly rejected. Ben pointed out that the crime occurred at night and there were no lights around so she couldn't have seen the face of the culprit. Ching-Ling counters she saw the abnormally large nose and that was enough for her to know who the murderer was. Ben then holds up several photos, all of them completely covered except for their noses. He asks her to identify which nose belonged to the culprit. When she chooses one of pictures, he lifts the cover off to show Saw-Pao's face, and announces to the court Saw-Pao's blood was also found on the crime scene seven years ago. The court and Ching-Ling realized that they had sentenced the wrong person, and Ben's friend was finally released.

Following the case's ending, a new one began as Saw-Pao now has to go through court. He hired his own lawyer: Vincent. His friends were dismayed, and tried to tell him not to accept the case. Not only did he refuse to listen to them, but he pursued the case like it was a way of revenge. He questioned Ben's credibility and described gave Ching-Ling a poor impression to the court. Not wanting to sink to his level, Ben tried to look for more evidence, and soon found a driver that could testify Saw-Pao was present on the day of the crime. Ben and Ching-Ling were happy, for the case looked as if it were going to finish quickly and smoothly.

What the two didn't expect was Vincent's now cruel cunning. Vincent had figured out Ben's feelings for Ching-Ling earlier, but now he had also figured out Jessica's feelings for him. So he charmed her to tell him Ben's progress with the case, and found out about the driver. He confronted Saw-Pao about it, telling him this can make things unpleasant. Saw-Pao then gives Vincent a cheque and told him to give it to a certain person at a bar. Vincent did as told, not suspecting what the cheque was for. Later, in the middle of a trial, the news was out that the driver had been killed 'in a fire', the trial ended with Saw-Pao walking away free.

At last, Jessica gave up on him. She slapped Vincent on the face and yelled at him, telling him he was no more than a dog of Saw-Pao now. Vincent never meant for things to go this far, but it appeared now that not only was everyone in the law firm disappointed in him, they were disgusted with him. Things were only made worst when Saw-Pao cornered Ching-Ling and graphically described how he killed her best friend, traumatizing her. Vincent told him to stop, but Saw-Pao was no friend of his and reminded Vincent that Saw-Pao was practically his only companion now. To seal Vincent's losses, in his next visit to his father he is told how disappointed his father is with him, and tells Vincent that unless he can go back to the right path, don't ever visit him again.

Solemn, Vincent wanders out aimlessly and nearly gets hit by a car. Ben pulls him away and when Vincent asks him why, Ben answers that he wouldn't give up hope so easily when it comes to his friends. Now given a spark of hope, Vincent decides to amend for his mistakes, and goes to the bar that he had given the cheque away to. He never met the man again, and instead it is Saw-Pao who greets him.

Saw-Pao starts talking of how worthless and incapable Vincent now was. The words deeply affected Vincent is his state, and Saw-Pao decides to go further. He places a gun on the table and tells Vincent to shoot him, and when Vincent hesitated Saw-Pao points out how weak Vincent was. He then talks of how he had some lackeys of his to go kidnap Jessica, the one whom Saw-Pao had figured Vincent cared for. Vincent watched as Saw-Pao picked up his cell phone and started talking about how his lackeys should treat Jessica. Frightened and enraged, Vincent picks up the gun and shoots Saw-Pao in the head - right in front of the bartender.

As it turns out, Jessica was not kidnapped or harmed at all, Saw-Pao was simply lying to blackmail Vincent. Yet now that Vincent had killed someone, he has to go to court. He chooses Ben as his defense lawyer, and when the latter asks why Vincent chose him, Vincent tells him he was hoping what Ben said was true - that he wouldn't give up on friends so easily. Ben took the case, and during trial Vincent saw that everyone was present. The trial ended in Vincent's favour, and he was released.

The four returned to being friends, but it quickly turned into something more. Ben finally got together with Ching-Ling and the same thing occurred between Vincent and Jessica.

Minty accidentally breaks the "Here Comes Christmas Candy Cane", which apparently guides Santa Claus to Ponyville. To try to make up for doing this, Minty gives each pony one of her socks (she hangs them like stockings on the other ponies' fireplaces). When Pinkie Pie finds out what Minty has done, Minty states that the sock giving is a bad idea, and then decides she should go to the North Pole herself to set things right. Minty is terrible at balloon flying, so the chase is on to save her in the process of saving Christmas.

In 1979, Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb and his 14-year-old son Joe, mourn wife and mother Elizabeth, killed in a workplace accident. Jack blames Louis Dainard, whose shift she was covering as he showed up drunk. Joe clings to her memory in the form of a locket.

Four months later Joe's friend Charles is making a zombie movie for a Super 8 film competition. He enlists Joe's help along with friends Preston, Martin, and Cary, as well as Dainard's daughter, Alice. Though their fathers are opposed to their friendship, Joe and Alice become close.

While filming at a train depot at midnight, a train approaches and a pickup truck rams the train head-on, derailing it and destroying the depot. The children are separated in the chaos. Joe sees the door of a train wagon violently thrown off. The kids regroup and find crates of strange white cubes amid the wreckage before discovering the truck driver to be their biology teacher Dr. Woodward. Gravely injured, he warns them at gunpoint to forget what they have seen. They flee, as a convoy from the local Air Force base, led by Col. Nelec, arrives. Nelec finds an empty super 8 film box.

In the following days the town experiences strange events; dogs run away, several townspeople go missing, the electrical power fluctuates, and electronic items are stolen. Jack approaches Nelec but Nelec arrests him. Nelec orders flamethrowers to start a wildfire as an excuse to evacuate the residents to the base. Joe and Charles watch their derailment footage and see that a large creature escaped the train. Nelec confronts Woodward in a military hospital, seeking information about the creature, but when Woodward rebukes him, Nelec has him killed.

Alice's father tells Joe the creature has abducted her. Joe, Charles, Martin, and Cary persuade Jen, Charles' older sister, to flirt with Donny so he can get them into town to rescue Alice. Breaking into Dr. Woodward's trailer they find documents and a film from his time as a government researcher.

The film and tape recorder reveal that in 1958, the Air Force captured an alien when it crash-landed. They experimented on the alien, while withholding its space craft, composed of the strange white cubes, which allowed the craft to shape-shift. The alien had established a psychic connection with Woodward, convincing him to help it escape Earth, but Nelec sabotaged, discredited, and discharged Woodward. While the kids are watching Nelec captures them but the alien kills Nelec and the airmen, allowing the kids to escape. Jack escapes and agrees with Louis to put their differences aside to save their kids.

The military attacks the alien but their hardware goes haywire in its presence, resulting in significant collateral damage. Joe and Cary find a massive tunnel system under the town. The missing townfolk, including Alice, are hanging unconscious from the ceiling of a cavern. Here, the alien is creating a device, constructed from the missing electronics, and attached to the base of the water tower. Using firecrackers as a distraction, Joe frees Alice and the others. The alien grabs Joe, who quietly speaks to it. Establishing an emotional connection between the two of them, the alien allows them to return to the surface.

Everyone watches as metal objects from the town are pulled to the top of the tower by an unknown force. The white cubes reassemble to create a spaceship and, as the alien enters it, the locket in Joe's pocket is drawn toward the tower. After a moment, he lets it go, completing the ship. As the ship rises into space, Joe takes Alice's hand.

The detective-zombie short film the children were making in Super 8 rolls runs at the end of the movie beside the credit roll. In it, Charles asks for his short film "The Case" to be picked for a local film festival before being attacked by Alice as a zombie.

A 17-year-old Manhattan student, Lisa Cohen, shopping on the Upper West Side, interacts with bus driver Gerald Maretti as she runs alongside his moving bus; he allows himself to become distracted, leading to a fatal accident by missing a red light, in which a pedestrian, Monica Patterson, is hit by the bus and subsequently dies in Lisa's arms. Initially, Lisa reports to the police that the driver had a green traffic signal, but later, out of remorse, changes her story. She confronts Maretti, who first pretends to have forgotten the details of the accident, and then reveals to her in anger that he does remember them, but believes he did nothing wrong, causing Lisa to pursue his firing from the company with passion. In collaboration with Monica's best friend, Emily, and cousin, Abigail, Lisa ultimately becomes involved in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transit Authority, seeking the dismissal of the driver (who is revealed to have caused two previous accidents), as well as monetary damages, which would be awarded to Abigail as the victim's next of kin. Meanwhile, Lisa's life takes various turns, including a flirtation with her math teacher, Aaron Caije, her decision to lose her virginity to a classmate, Paul Hirsch, and various vehement debates with classmates about politics and terrorism.

Lisa and her actress mother have a rocky relationship, with sporadic fighting and Lisa expressing ambivalence toward her mother's boyfriend Ramon. An after-show dinner, attended by Lisa, her mother, Emily and Ramon, ends with Ramon making a remark perceived as anti-Semitic toward Emily. Ramon dies of a heart attack not long after. Lisa has sex with Caije, then later confronts Caije, telling him, in the presence of another teacher, that she has had an abortion. She expresses doubt about who the father was and mentions that there are several possibilities.

The lawsuit reaches a conclusion, with an award of $350,000, but the MTA refuses to fire Maretti, out of concern that it would inflame a labor dispute. Abigail claims the settlement offer, revealing the monetary settlement to have been her primary motivation; this causes Lisa to become very upset and disillusioned with the outcome of the case.

Lisa and her mother plan to attend an opera that Ramon and she were to see before his death. On the way, Lisa sees Maretti driving the same bus that had killed the pedestrian and there is a brief moment where the two see each other. During the opera performance, Lisa's accumulated emotion from the sequence of events bursts out and she and her mother affectionately reconnect, crying together and holding each other as the opera goes on.

Paul Crewe is a former NFL quarterback who was accused of shaving points, though it was never proven. Nevertheless, he was placed on federal probation for five years. One night, he gets drunk during a party and goes joyriding through San Diego in the Bentley of his girlfriend Lena, causing a police chase and the car to crash. His probation is revoked and he is sentenced to three years in prison as a result.

Using his influence and contacts, Texas warden Rudolph Hazen, an avid football fan, manages to have Crewe transferred into his prison as he wishes to use him as a coach for his personal football team composed of his prison guards to boost his reputation for future elections as State Governor. Using a week in a hot box to coerce him, Crewe recommends that the Guards, led by head guard Captain Knauer, play a tune-up game, a game between the Guards and a team that they easily slaughter to boost morale. Hazen tasks Crewe with forming a team composed of the prison inmates, believing that he will be unable to unite the unruly prisoners, thus not only achieving his goals, but also exerting his power over the inmates.

Crewe befriends Caretaker, who helps organize tryouts but finds a mostly inept roster due to Crewe's legacy. Seeing the team forming attracts former college football star Nate Scarborough, who decides to help coach the team by gathering several intimidating inmates, most of whom join in order to exact revenge against the abusive guards, bolstering his defense. Caretaker implores Crewe to seek out assistance from the black inmates to gain some much needed offensive strength and speed. Crewe challenges their leader, Deacon Moss, to a one-on-one basketball game but refuses to call any fouls on Deacon, despite them being blatant. Deacon wins and refuses to offer help, but Earl Megget is impressed by Crewe's resilience and joins as his running back.

As the team gains strength, Hazen and the guards hinder Crewe's team in several ways, such as taunting Megget into attacking a guard by verbally harassing him at the library with ethnic slurs; Megget, however, does not retaliate. Deacon and the other black inmates witness this and decide to join Crewe's team to exact revenge. Meanwhile, inmate Unger spies on the activities of the inmates for the guards and is implored to use his "talents" to weaken their team. Unger rigs an incendiary explosive into the radio in Crewe's cell, which Caretaker accidentally sets off and is sealed within Crewe's cell by Unger, preventing anyone from rescuing him.

On game day, the inmates are revitalized in the wake of Caretaker's murder when they find he used his connections to his cousin at Reebok to supply the inmates with quality uniforms and gear as well as giving them the team name Mean Machine. Crewe deals with some difficulty getting the inmates to focus on winning the game during opening play, stating that a loss to them would be a far bigger mark of shame to the guards than any physical brutality they could inflict on them. Though the guards take an early lead, even having the referees call bogus fouls on them (which Crewe quickly amends by firing the football into the referee's crotch), by the end of the first half, the Mean Machines tie the game.

Hazen corners Crewe during half-time, during which he reveals that Unger killed Caretaker, and threatens to increase his prison sentence and pin Caretaker's death on him if he doesn't allow the guards a two-touchdown lead. Reluctantly, Crewe agrees. Hazen then orders Knauer to "inflict as much damage as possible" on the inmates once they get the lead. During the opening of the second half, Crewe deliberately throws the game and abandons his teammates despite their efforts to catch up in scoring. After earning a two touchdown lead on the Mean Machines, the Guards begin to brutally injure the inmates, spurring Crewe to re-enter the field. The inmates initially refuse to help him, allowing him to be sacked twice, but on 4th Down and long, Crewe completes a 1st Down on his own. Crewe confesses that he had threw the game that got him cut from the NFL, citing he owed debts to “worse people”. Informing the team of Hazen's threats, he declares that he would rather stay with the inmates than betray Caretaker's memory. The Mean Machines rally behind Crewe once more and with a decisive two-point conversion, they win the game by a one-point margin.

Knauer, having newfound respect for Crewe, congratulates him for the win and informs Crewe that he is aware that he had nothing to do with Caretaker's murder and would defend him. Hazen admonishes Knauer for losing a fixed game and notices that Crewe is heading towards the exit. Eagerly implying Crewe is trying to escape, Hazen orders that Crewe be shot. Knauer hesitates and at the last moment realizes, and scornfully informs Hazen, that Crewe is only picking up the game football. Crewe returns it to Hazen, telling him to "stick it in [his] trophy case". Deacon and Battle then dump Gatorade on Hazen, while Crewe and Scarbrough go to get information on where Unger is so that Switowski can deal with him.

With the exception of the opening and final scenes, which depict the 1941 suicide by drowning of Virginia Woolf in the River Ouse, the film takes place within the span of a single day in three different decades and alternates between them following three women: Virginia Woolf in 1923, Laura Brown in 1951, and Clarissa Vaughan in 2001. The following plot summary has been simplified and is in chronological order, not the order as presented in the film.

1923

Virginia Woolf has begun writing the book ''Mrs Dalloway'' in her home in the town of Richmond outside London. Virginia has experienced several nervous breakdowns and suffers from depression. She is constantly under the eye of her servants and her husband, Leonard, who has begun a publishing business at home, Hogarth Press, to stay close to her. Virginia's sister, Vanessa, and her children, Julian, Quentin, and Angelica, come over for an afternoon visit. She and Virginia talk about Vanessa's life in London and Virginia's mental condition. She longs for a life similar to Vanessa, living in London. Vanessa's children find a dead bird. Virginia and Angelica make a funeral for the bird. Virginia lies down beside the bird and looks into its eyes. She sees herself in the dead bird, suffering and dying in her circumstances. Everyone goes back inside and Virginia continues writing her book. She says that she was going to kill her heroine but instead chooses to kill another character in the book. Before Vanessa leaves, Virginia passionately kisses her sister. It is clear Virginia wants them to stay and wants her sister's life. After their departure, Virginia flees to the train station, where she is awaiting a train to London. Leonard arrives to stop her, and they argue. He tells her that Richmond was intended to soothe her mental illness and that he lives in constant fear that she will take her own life. She replies that she also lives with that fear but argues that she has the right to choose her own destiny and that she would prefer London, even if it means her death, to remaining stifled in Richmond. Leonard mournfully concedes, and they return home, where Virginia begins writing again. Leonard questions her as to why someone has to die. Virginia says “In order that the rest of us should value life more.” Leonard asks who will die and Virginia says "The poet will die, the visionary.”

1951

Pregnant with her second child, Laura Brown spends her days in her tract home in Los Angeles with her young son, Richie, and escapes from her conventional life by reading ''Mrs Dalloway''. She married her husband, Dan, soon after World War II. On the surface they are living the American Dream, but she is nonetheless deeply unhappy. She and Richie make a cake for Dan's birthday, but it is a disaster. Her neighbor Kitty drops in to ask her if she can feed her dog while she's in the hospital for a procedure. Kitty reveals that the procedure is related to the fact that she has been unable to conceive, and may portend permanent infertility, and that she really feels that a woman is not complete until she is a mother. Kitty tries to stay upbeat, but Laura senses her sadness and fear and embraces her. Laura escalates this comforting gesture into a passionate kiss; Kitty then leaves, politely refusing to acknowledge the kiss. Laura and Richie successfully make another cake and clean up, and then she takes Richie to stay with a babysitter, Mrs. Latch. Richie runs after his mother in anguish as she drives away, fearing that she will never come back. Laura checks in to a hotel, where she intends to commit suicide. Laura removes several bottles of pills and ''Mrs Dalloway'' from her purse and begins to read it. She drifts off to sleep and dreams the hotel room is flooded. She awakens with a change of heart and caresses her belly. She picks up Richie and kisses him, and they return home to celebrate Dan's birthday. Dan gratefully says the dream of this domestic happiness is what kept him going during the war, seemingly oblivious to Laura's dissatisfaction.

2001

Clarissa Vaughan, a literary editor in New York City, shares a first name with the novel's title character. She spends the day preparing to host a party in honor of her friend and ex-lover Richard, a moody poet and author living with AIDS who is to receive a major literary award. Clarissa was in a relationship with Richard during their college years, but has spent the past 10 years living with a female partner, Sally Lester, while also caring for Richard during his illness. Richard tells Clarissa that he has only stayed alive for her sake and that the award is meaningless, given more to acknowledge his illness than for the work itself. She tries reassuring him. Richard often refers to Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway" – her namesake – because she distracts herself from her own life the way that the Woolf character does. Clarissa returns home, surprised to meet Richard's ex-lover Louis Waters, who has returned for the festivities. Louis and Clarissa discuss Richard's use of their real lives in his novel and Clarissa's feelings of "unraveling." Clarissa's daughter, Julia, comes home to help her prepare, and listens while Clarissa admits that her life feels trivial and false in comparison to her youthful happiness. When Clarissa goes to bring Richard to his party, editing reveals that Richard is the young boy from 1951. Deeply distraught, he tells Clarissa that he cannot bear to face "the hours" that will make up the rest of his life, then commits suicide in front of her by falling from a window. Later that night, Richard's mother, Laura Brown, arrives at Clarissa's apartment. Laura is aware that her abandonment of her family was deeply traumatic for Richard, but Laura reveals that it was a better decision for her to leave the family after the birth of her daughter than to commit suicide. She does not apologize for the hurt that she caused to her family and suggests that it's not possible to feel regret for something over which she had no choice. She acknowledges that no one will forgive her, but she offers an explanation: "It was death. I chose life."

The film ends with Virginia's suicide by drowning with a voice-over in which Virginia thanks Leonard for loving her: "Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."

Emmett Foley is an American hero of the Korean War who attempts to commit suicide, first by provoking local police and then by shooting himself in the chest. After his recovery, he is sent to the Florida State Hospital, an institution in Chattahoochee, Florida, where he fights against doctors and staff who are terrorizing and torturing their patients. His efforts eventually led to sweeping reforms in the Florida mental health system.

In 1965, outside the rural Georgia town of Pleasant Valley, two local rednecks named Rufus and Lester use detour signs to lure six motorists from Northern states - Terry Adams, Tom White, and married couples John and Bea Miller and David and Beverly Wells - into town. On the main street, they are greeted by a bluegrass trio and crowds of townsfolk cheering and waving Confederate army flags. They meet Rufus, Lester, town mayor Earl Buckman, local shop owner Harper and his girlfriend, Betsy, who coerce them into staying for the weekend to be the "guests of honor" for their centennial celebration. The six are hesitant to stay, especially Tom, who had been on his way to a convention in Atlanta before his car broke down and he was picked up by Terry. The mayor is reluctant to give details about the centennial, but he offers to put them up in complimentary hotel rooms and promises them free food and entertainment throughout the celebration, and the visitors eventually give in.

That afternoon, John receives a phone call in his hotel room from Betsy, who offers to show him around town. Bea is leery of John when he tells her that Mayor Buckman was calling to see him, since they are both prone to extramarital affairs. After John leaves, Bea gets a call from Harper, who invites her to take a walk with him. She accepts the invitation and he leads her into the woods nearby, where he shows her his pocket knife and uses it to slice off her right thumb. Harper then takes an hysterical Bea to the mayor's office where she is accosted by Rufus, Lester, and Mayor Buckman. As the other three hold her down on a desk, Rufus chops off her right arm with an axe while they laugh maniacally.

Meanwhile, Tom meets with Terry to discuss the strange goings on in town. He tries to make a long distance call to the convention from Terry's room, but the hotel's phone operator tells him that the outside lines are down. He then tries to use a payphone outside and leaves a message for one of his colleagues, not realizing that the person on the other end of the line is Mayor Buckman.

At a barbecue that evening, Bea's arm is slowly roasted to ashes on a spit. Although the guests are unaware of what is being cooked, Terry has her suspicions. Mayor Buckman also grows suspicious when Tom is nowhere to be found, so he takes Rufus and Lester to search for him. When they leave, Tom sneaks back to the gathering and quietly draws Terry away to a plaque he found in the woods. It marks the spot where, at the end of the Civil War in 1865, a group of renegade Union soldiers laid waste to the town of Pleasant Valley. The plaque goes on to state that it stands in memoriam to the townspeople killed in the attack and as a "testament to the vengeance pledged in their memory." They realize that this "centennial" is really an act of revenge for the destruction of the town one hundred years ago, and that they are the intended victims. Mayor Buckman, Rufus, and Lester spot the two from a distance and run after them, but Terry and Tom make it back to town and shake the pursuit in an alley.

Back at the festivities, Betsy gets John drunk on moonshine while David and Beverly watch from across the barbecue pit. After Harper escorts the couple back to the hotel, the townspeople surround John and make him participate in the "horse race." Too inebriated to resist, John has his arms and legs each roped to four horses that are sent running in different directions, dismembering him. The crowd goes silent and looks on in apparent regret, until Lester has the bluegrass band strike up a rousing chorus of ''Dixie.''

The next morning, the Wells' are awakened by the band playing outside their window. They begin to suspect that they are being separated from the others and David tries to call John, but is told by the operator that he has already gone out with Bea. Meanwhile, in the mayor's office, Buckman learns from Rufus and Lester that Tom returned to his room after he and Terry escaped the night before. The mayor tells them to keep an eye on Tom and make sure that he stays in his room for the time being. Outside the hotel, the Wells' are greeted by Harper and Betsy, who tell them that the Miller's have gone on a "boat ride." Elsewhere, two local teenagers take Bea and John's remains on a boat and dispose of them in a lake.

Betsy takes David to a gathering on a hill near the lake for first event of the day, the "barrel roll." Rufus and another man force David into a barrel, and Mayor Buckman embeds it with nails and rolls it down the hill, killing David. Rufus exclaims that this is the best centennial anyone ever had, and David's body is also dumped in the lake.

At the hotel, Tom tries to leave his room but is met by a man sitting outside his door. He climbs out the window and gets into Terry's room. She calls the guard outside Tom's door into her room and Tom knocks him out. They sneak out of a back door, but Harper sees them and gives chase. They run through a nearby swamp, where Harper get stuck in a pool of quicksand and sinks.

Lester brings Beverly to the town square to be the judge for the next event, "Ol' Teeterin' Rock." Another cheering crowd is gathered around a wooden platform raised in the middle of the square, over which a large boulder is precariously balanced on a smaller platform tied to a dunk tank target. Beverly grows increasingly upset as it dawns on her what will happen, and Lester explains that Beverly must judge when the boulder will fall. She is tied down to the platform and the crowd take turns throwing rocks at the target, and Mayor Buckman tells Beverly to say "it ain't fallin' yet" every time the townsfolk miss. Lester finally takes a softball and hits the target, causing the boulder to topple and crush Beverly while the crowd silently nods in approval.

Meanwhile, Tom and Terry return to town to locate Terry's car. With the help of a little boy named Billy, they find the car in a garage. As Mayor Buckman and a horde of townsmen approach, they take Billy hostage and speed away. They are chased by a truck, but Terry and Tom make it to the main road, where they release Billy and escape. They drive to the nearest police station and tell the chief their bizarre tale, but the sheriff is skeptical.

Returning to town, Rufus and Lester lament the fact that they only managed to kill four of the six Yankees, but Mayor Buckman deems the centennial a success anyway. He orders his people to take down the centennial banner and declares the celebration over.

Tom and Terry return to Pleasant Valley with the police chief, only to find that the town has vanished. The chief continues to doubt their story about the murderous townspeople, and Terry begins to question her sanity. The chief then recalls a local legend: a hundred years ago, as the Civil War was drawing to an end, a group of rogue Union troops raided a small town called Pleasant Valley, massacring the entire population and burning the town to the ground. It was said that the spirits of those killed in the attack still haunted the woods and clearing where the town once stood, waiting for the day when they could exact their revenge. They drive away, and as Terry and Tom reach the state line, Terry still wonders whether it was all just a nightmare, until Tom finds a small noose left in the backseat by Billy.

The film ends with the ghosts of Rufus and Lester sitting by the roadside, reminiscing about their centennial and looking forward to the next one in 2065. They call out to Harper, who emerges from the quicksand pit, and the three head for the woods and disappear into a gathering mist.

"In a universe that had been ravaged by a thousand years of interplanetary warfare between the star-shattering Romaghins and the equally voracious Setessins, there seemed now but one thing that might bring the destruction to an end. That would be the right catalyst in the hands of the right people. The right catalyst could well be the individualist rebel, Tohm... he who had once been a simple peasant and who had been forcibly changed into a fearfully armored instrument of mechanical warfare—the man-tank Jumbo Ten. But the right people? Could they possibly be the hated driftwood of biological warfare—those monsters of a cosmic no-man's land—the Muties?"

Story

The story stars a quiet, 16 year old boy named Ari who lived a peaceful life in the town of Tenel until one day his grandfather comes to his house with an ancient bottle, and to save his sister from a curse inflicted to her by a ghost, they perform a ritual summoning an ancient evil, Lord Stanley Hihat Trinidad XIV, or "Stan" for short, who merges with Ari's shadow. They then embark on a journey to defeat the fake Evil Kings who stole Stan's powers and take over the world.

Characters

• : The main protagonist of the game. A quiet, 16-year-old boy with an overshadowed destiny. His shadow is so thin, that most people ignore him and it is what enables Stan to take him as his slave. Seems to be without note, but he reluctantly takes on the responsibility of being enslaved by the Evil King Stan in order to save his sister from the ghost's curse—and once that's done, to save the world from the Fake Evil Kings and restore Stan's true power. In the beginning of the story, his weapon is a branch. He obtains a sword, which is upgradable, as he progresses through the game. In the Japanese version, his eyes are wide open. They were toned down in the US version.
• , better known as Evil King Stan, or just Stan, possesses Ari's shadow to appear in this world. He is short-tempered and has a childish personality, but has moments where he picks up on things that even the other group members miss. He has built his identity on being evil and desires to be feared by the world as the Great Evil King. He claims to be the reincarnation of, and therefore the heir to, the Great Evil King Gohma, who was defeated by the Great Hero Hopkins three hundred years previous to the story. Hopkins also sealed Stan away into a bottle, which is found by Ari's father.
• is the cheerful ghost butler to the Evil King Stan. He is seen quite a few times in the game, mostly with just info on things you should know about, but he is often too preoccupied with something (or someone) else to follow his "almighty" master's orders.
• is a 22-year-old heroine, a master of the rapier and the reluctant devotee of the parasol. She and Stan have a history of conflict which began upon releasing him from his bottle three years previous to the game's beginning; Stan took over her shadow for just long enough to insult her figure and her to threaten to kill herself (thus killing him), before he retreated back into the bottle.
  Rosalyn used to be an elite hero and was at the top of her class, but ever since her shadow became pink she has been a laughing stock and forced to hide her shameful shadow under a parasol. She never forgave Stan for this mockery and has been hunting for him since. She feels she needs to prove her strength and skill as an expert swordswoman and caster of spells. She is also a magnet for ghosts.
• : As a spoiled princess, she is snobbish and pompous before truly getting to know Ari and his family. Later in the game the player finds out that the Marlene they know is actually a doll, and that the real Marlene's body is trapped elsewhere in the world of her father's creation. She also seems to be Ari's love interest, as they areseen holding hands in the ending.
• : An extremely eccentric scientist who has devoted his life to the ghost research, while enjoying such hobbies as stalking pretty girls and collecting toenail clippings. Upon meeting the party, he is enticed by Rosalyn's ability to attract ghosts and joins the quest without a single party member's approval. Despite his behavior, the 45-year-old Kisling seems to be quite intelligent, and he wields powerful offensive magic.
• : Formerly the "Big Bull Evil King", a fighter with great physical strength who loves exercise and battle. He excitedly joins Ari's party to help defeat the other evil kings after he, himself, is defeated. His dream is to someday open his own athletic gym. His idiotic and unwitting personality disagrees with Rosalyn and Stan but he's too cheerful and loving of the party to notice or care. He has a crush on Linda.
• : She is an aspiring singer from Madril who unfortunately lacks talent so later uses Stan's stolen power to become the "Teen Idol Evil King" and loved by her brainwashed fans. Though she is somewhat subdued when Ari first meets her, after she joins the party her truly cheery and very bubbly personality comes out. initially, she seemed to have a crush on Ari, but it is later discovered that she actually had a crush on Stan who just happened to have the "dorky" "doll", Ari, attached to him. Further down the line, Linda's crush on Stan seems to fade in favor of one blossoming for the reluctant Epros. She attacks using her microphone as a weapon and supports the party with magical chants.
• : Using Stan's power, he is known as the "Phantom Evil King" and throws playing cards and casts magic to attack his enemies. He is sophisticated and well dressed, though his interests in magic and the "truth" of the world, as well as his ability to float about and his strange speech pattern make him as peculiar as the rest of the cast. He always speaks in rhyme and with Shakespearean words, which confuses the team and annoys Stan to no end. Like the other "Evil King" party members, Epros joins the group after he is defeated, late in the game. Epros is the main love interest of Linda, but only after she gets over Stan.

The history of the Butcher (who's given no other name) is narrated through voice-over and a montage of still photographs. Orphaned at a young age, he was sexually abused by a priest. As a teenager, unable to have the opportunity to study and learn the profession of his choice, he reluctantly embraces the career of a butcher specializing in horse meat, a job already frowned upon at the time in France.

After several years of hard work, he finally opens his own butcher shop while his girlfriend gives birth to a daughter. When the woman realizes the infant isn't a boy, she leaves the young father alone with the child. Embracing it as fate, the Butcher decides to take care of his daughter alone. As loneliness grows on the single father, he becomes overprotective and develops incestuous feelings for his child. When he sees blood on her skirt, he stabs the man who he thinks raped his daughter. He later understands that the stains were only menstrual blood. He is sentenced to prison and forced to sell his shop to a Muslim butcher while his troubled daughter is sent to an institution.

In prison, the Butcher has sex with a cellmate and (upon his release) he vows to forget it all happened. He finds a job working as a bartender for the woman who owns the tavern where he was a regular customer. They begin dating and soon she becomes pregnant. As they start making plans for their future together, she sells her business and they move to northern France, where she said she would buy a butcher shop for him.

There, however, she backs out of their promise, which forces him to take up a job as a night watchman at a nursing home. During his job, he meets a young and caring nurse who's the complete opposite of his old and icy mistress. After he and the nurse witness the death of an elderly patient, the Butcher thinks back about the lack of affection throughout his life, from the orphanage to a life with an uncaring mistress who abuses the power she has over him because of her money. When his mistress unjustly accuses him of having an affair with the nurse, he snaps and punches her in the belly several times, very likely killing their unborn child, then steals a pistol and flees.

He decides to return to Paris, where he rents the same flophouse room where he conceived his daughter, and begins looking for a job as a horse meat butcher. Unfortunately, due to the changing tastes of customers during his time in prison, the market for horse meat winds up collapsing. Despite his patience, his job interviews consistently end up with rejection. He broadens his job search but is considered unskilled in terms of general butchery, forcing him to have to start all over again at the very bottom.

He starts looking outside his branch, but the more he broadens his searches, the more humiliating the job interviews become. He remains polite, but the more desperate he becomes, the more quickly he's rejected by managers. When he turns to his old friends for advice, they all reject him. After being turned away at a slaughterhouse that once did business with his shop, the Butcher decides to kill the slaughterhouse manager. He plots the murder at a local tavern, but is ejected from the bar at gunpoint after squabbling with the owner's son. The Butcher finds that he has only three bullets in his gun, and begins assigning them to the men he feels have humiliated him the most.

More and more isolated, he decides to look for the only person he feels has ever loved him: His daughter. After meeting her at the asylum in which she is a patient, he takes her back to his room where he is prey to opposite feelings towards her. As he is about to lose his sanity, he contemplates having sex with his daughter before killing her. After the representation of this fantasy, the movie returns to the moment of the Butcher's hesitation. He decides to put the gun away, resolving to be good, and tearfully embraces his daughter. But he starts again to contemplate having sex with her in the same manner he did with her mother.

Standing at a window, he unzips his daughter's jacket and begins fondling her. As he starts to abuse his daughter, the Butcher, between more and more incoherent thoughts, tries to justify his act by asserting that the world condemns his love for his daughter, surely not because it is evil but because it is too powerful.

The film follows the exploits of film actor Jack Noah, who is filming in the small, fictional South American country of Parador when Paradorian President Alfonse Simms, a dictator, invites him and the cast and crew to the film at their palace. Simms seems delighted at Jack's imitation of him.

Suddenly, Alfonse Simms dies of a heart attack. Not wanting to lose his position in power, the president's right-hand man, Roberto Strausmann, forces Jack to take the 'role of a lifetime'—that of the dead president, as the two men look so much alike. Jack accepts, eventually winning over the people and even the dead president's mistress, Madonna (Braga). For over a year, the two bond, and she shows Jack how the people are suffering under the dictatorship, particularly at the iron hand of Roberto (the real power behind the scene) against the rebels.

Jack creates a plan where, in the middle of a show featuring Sammy Davis Jr, he (as Simms) is apparently gunned down by an assassin. Before dying, "Simms" accuses Roberto as the true enemy, leading to his death at the hands of the crowd. Inside a van, Jack escapes. Months later, he is telling the story to his friends, who do not believe him. Jack is happy to learn that Madonna led a revolution and is now the elected president of Parador.

During their fight against the Foot Clan, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet a new turtle named Venus de Milo who uses her skills to defeat Shredder and disband the Foot Clan. Afterward, she helps the Turtles when the Rank led by Dragon Lord escape from their enchanted mirror in a plot to take over the Earth.

Set around the Pont Neuf, Paris's oldest bridge, while it was closed for repairs, ''Les Amants du Pont-Neuf'' depicts a love story between two young vagrants Alex (Denis Lavant) and Michèle (Juliette Binoche). Alex is a street performer addicted to alcohol and sedatives and Michèle a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and a disease which is slowly destroying her sight. The film portrays their harsh existence living on the bridge with Hans (Klaus Michael Grüber), an older vagrant. As her vision deteriorates Michèle becomes increasingly dependent on Alex. When a possible treatment becomes available, Michèle's family use street posters and radio appeals to trace her. Fearing that she will leave him if she receives the treatment, Alex tries to keep Michèle from becoming aware of her family's attempts to find her. The streets, skies and waterways of Paris are used as a backdrop for the story in a series of set-pieces set during the French Bicentennial celebrations in 1989.

John Henry "Jack" Armstrong (Anthony Mackie) is a financially successful and upwardly mobile executive at a biotechnology firm who, following the suicide of a colleague, Dr. Herman Schiller, is falsely accused of securities fraud by his superior, Leland Powell (Woody Harrelson). Armstrong's assets are frozen, and he finds himself unable to maintain his quality of life.

In order to make ends meet, he becomes a sperm donor, initially by acquiescing to the desires of Fatima Goodrich (Kerry Washington), his ex-fiancée who came out as a lesbian and now wants a child. Although there is still unresolved bitterness and tension between them over Armstrong and Goodrich's prior relationship (as before coming out, Armstrong discovered her cheating on him with another woman), she and her girlfriend, Alex Guerrero (Dania Ramirez), offer him a substantial sum of money to impregnate them both. This leads to Goodrich goading Armstrong into establishing a business in which groups of lesbians come over to his house and pay him $10,000 each to have sex with them in order to become pregnant. This business becomes a success, along with many of the women enjoying the intercourse with him.

One of the women whom Armstrong impregnates is the daughter of a mafia boss, Don Angelo Bonasera (played by John Turturro). Armstrong's employers learn of his impregnation business, and they use it in their campaign to sully his image in order to deflect attention from their own criminal business activities. Conflict is also depicted in the turbulent relationship between Armstrong's mother and his dependent diabetic father (Jim Brown).

At the film's climax, Armstrong's situation is portrayed as a ''cause célèbre'', with protests being held in support of or against him, and the news media interviewing people on the street with respect to his sexual activities. Armstrong is called before a committee of the United States Senate investigating his alleged securities fraud, where both his services to lesbians and his relationship to the "Bonasera crime family" are raised.

Armstrong's situation is compared, both by cutaway scenes and by direct reference in dialogue, to the plight of Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the break-in that led to the Watergate scandal, which brought down President Nixon. He eventually wins the case and is seen with nineteen of the children he helped his lesbian acquaintances make at the end.

By the end of the film, Armstrong and Goodrich have come to terms with their lingering feelings for one another, and with the mutual attraction they share for Guerrero. They then begin a three-way polyamorous relationship, and Armstrong apparently maintains a friendship with all of the eighteen women who became pregnant by him.

Fresh out of pharmacy school, young Eddy Duchin travels to New York in the 1920s to take a job playing piano for bandleader Leo Reisman's orchestra. But upon arrival, Eddy learns there is no such job.

A wealthy socialite, Marjorie Oelrichs, overhears his playing and takes a personal interest in Eddy. When he is invited to the home of her wealthy aunt and uncle, the Wadsworths, for a party, Eddy is disappointed to discover that he has been asked there merely to entertain.

Having fallen in love, Marjorie goes so far as to propose marriage to Eddy rather than the other way around. She has secret fears that she expresses on their wedding night, and tragedy strikes when Marjorie dies giving birth to their child.

An anguished Eddy abandons his baby boy, Peter, leaving him in the Wadsworths' care, and goes away from New York for many years. He serves on a warship in the war. Finally persuaded to visit his son, he meets Peter's governess, a British woman named Chiquita, who grows on him after an uneasy start. Peter is learning to play the piano.

Eddy has an engagement at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, but his hand freezes while at the keyboard. He eventually is diagnosed with a fatal illness and has no more than a year to live. After he marries Chiquita, he can't bring himself to tell Peter about his illness, so he simply says that soon he'll be "going away." Peter ultimately learns the truth.

Largely an autobiographical tale, the novel revolves around Timothy "Dildo" Dunphy, a ne'er-do-well from the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, which borders Providence. After Dunphy falls in with a bad element at home, his father, a widower, exiles him to the fictional Cornwall Academy (a thin guise for Kent School located near Kent, Connecticut).

Over time, Dunphy struggles with issues including class structure, loyalty, first love, and his ongoing issues with his father. Dunphy finds that his fellow prep-school students merely represent a wealthier, more polished class of delinquent than the friends he has left at home.

The novel was Farrelly's fledgling effort, and served as his thesis when he graduated from the creative writing program at Columbia University.

Le Queux's novel depicts Britain being invaded by coalition forces led by France and Russia, who make several early advances, but the brave English patriots fight on and eventually manage to turn the tide, especially after Germany enters the war on the side of the British.

By the end of the story, the invasion goes the other way as the victors divide the spoils: Britain seizes Algeria and Russian Central Asia, thus decisively winning The Great Game, and Germany annexes more of mainland France in addition to Alsace-Lorraine, thus leaving the enemies crushed and both the British and German empires the dominant forces of Europe.

In the year 2090 AD, the use of time machines (called interkrons) is regulated by officers of the Temporal Corps. There is a strict prohibition against travel into the past, because of its potentially disastrous effects on the timestream and the catastrophic consequences for current civilization.

Zeke S. Vettenmyer, a Lieutenant in the Temporal Corps, has stolen an interkron, traveled back into the past, and subtly altered historical situations so that the outcomes of these events will be changed. The world as we know it will be destroyed as the effects of these changes ripple forward towards the present and cause massive disruptions in the timestream.

You are a private in the Temporal Corps. You have been selected to travel into the past and untangle Vettenmyer's twisted plot. You must pursue Vettenmyer across 3,000 years of history, going to the times and places that he has visited and reversing the changes that he has made which are currently threatening the future that defines your very existence.

Sub-Commander T'Pol receives a covert mission from the Vulcan High Command, and informs Captain Archer that Admiral Forrest will be contacting him later about it. She remains tight lipped despite Archer's enquiries as to the exact nature of the expected diversion, but later meets privately with Archer and asks that he come as well, since she needs someone she trusts. In conversation with Archer, she later reveals that she was trained 17 (Earth) years earlier in reconnaissance retrieval, and now she is to capture the only one of six surgically altered, rogue Vulcan secret agents to have evaded her.

Archer, T'Pol, and Ensign Mayweather, easily track the fugitive, Menos, to a cantina on the icy Pernaia Prime moon. After a brief phase-pistol fight, they capture him, but are unable to leave due to a build up of acidic ice. Menos starts to play on T'Pol's sense of fairness and honor. He has a good life, sustaining his family with an honest job, but apparently he is dying. T'Pol, trying to disprove his story, searches for biotoxins in his ship, finding none. Meanwhile, on ''Enterprise'', Commander Tucker finds the continual interruptions of command more than he expected. It gets worse when a Vulcan ship arrives, and he impersonates Archer so as not to let the Vulcans know the Captain is away.

T'Pol also relates to Archer that she's been having recent flashbacks to her previous hunt, where she shot another fugitive called Jossen. Because of the Vulcan ramifications on killing, she received "fullara" treatment on P'Jem,planet seen in ''Ent'': "The Andorian Incident" where her memory and emotions of the incident were fully repressed. Back on the planet, Menos organizes an escape by starting a fire, but is recaptured by the away team when his cloaked hiding space is detected, confirming that he was indeed smuggling biotoxins as the Vulcan High Command had indicated. On ''Enterprise'', T'Pol offers her support to Archer should he ever be in need of it.

Danny Quinn (Donnie Wahlberg) is a former "street kid" from South Boston, colloquially known as "Southie," who returns home from New York City after three years away. He finds his mother (Anne Meara) overwhelmed with worry as her other three kids are caught up in the madness of the hardscrabble neighborhood in which drinking, sex, and fighting is the way of life. Danny tracks down his brothers only to find out they're deeply embedded in the Irish mob in Boston and in debt to local mobster Colie Powers (Lawrence Tierney). His younger sister Kathy (Rose McGowan), meanwhile, became a barfly in Danny's absence.

Danny must get his hands on some quick cash in order to stop his brothers from getting their legs broken and his sister off the streets. In his pursuit to help his ailing mother and right his family's name on the streets of Southie, Danny tracks down his old girlfriend from the neighborhood, Marianne (Amanda Peet), finding that the love he left behind still remains. She tells how she heard about the gunfight he was in with Joey Ward (Jimmy Cummings) and wants to know if that's why he left town. Danny confesses that real reason he left town was that he needed to stop drinking if he were to become the man that she would want him to be.

Unable to find legitimate work and banned from union jobs due to a scuffle at a wedding, Danny becomes desperate for money. Two of his old pals know Danny needs money and offer him an opportunity to be a partner in an underground gambling club, though, they neglect to tell Danny that their silent partner is his old nemesis, Joey Ward. It doesn't take long before Danny finds out and he and Joey are face to face. In Danny's absence from the neighborhood, Joey's father Butchie has declared war on Colie Powers and without knowing this Danny finds himself caught up in the middle of their war as it looks like he's in business with the Wards. The mob war eventually comes to Danny's front door, and the stress of an attempted murder in front of his house kills Danny's mother.

''Illusions'' revolves around two barnstorming pilots who meet in a field in the Midwestern United States. The two main characters enter into a teacher-student relationship that explains the concept that the world that we inhabit is illusory, as well as the underlying reality behind it:

Donald William Shimoda is a messiah who quits his job after deciding that people value the showbiz-like performance of miracles and want to be entertained by those miracles more than to understand the message behind them. He meets Richard, a fellow barnstorming pilot. Both are in the business of providing short rides—for a few dollars each—in vintage biplanes to passengers from farmers' fields they find during their travels. Donald initially captures Richard's attention when a grandfather and granddaughter pair arrive at the makeshift airstrip. Ordinarily it is elders who are cautious and the youngsters who are keen to fly. In this case, however, the grandfather wants to fly but the granddaughter is afraid of flying. Donald explains to the granddaughter that her fear of flying comes from a traumatic experience in a past life, and this calms her fears and she is ready to fly. Observing this greatly intrigues Richard, so Donald begins to pass on his knowledge to him, even teaching Richard to perform "miracles" of his own.

The novel features quotes from the ''Messiah's Handbook'', owned by Shimoda, which Richard later takes as his own. An unusual aspect of this handbook is that it has no page numbers. The reason for this, as Shimoda explains to Richard, is that the book will open to the page on which the reader may find guidance or the answers to doubts and questions in his mind. It is not a magical book; Shimoda explains that one can do this with any sort of text. The ''Messiah's Handbook'' was released as its own title by Hampton Roads Publishing Company. It mimics the one described in ''Illusions'', with new quotes based on the philosophies in the novel.

Set in the summer of 1903, a series of unexplained events occur across the Eastern United States, caused by objects moving with such great speed that they are nearly invisible. The first-person narrator, John Strock, 'Head inspector in the federal police department' in Washington, DC, travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to investigate. He discovers that all the phenomena are being caused by Robur, a brilliant inventor. (He was previously featured as a character in Verne's ''Robur the Conqueror.'')

Robur has perfected a new machine, which he has dubbed the ''Terror.'' It is a ten-meter long vehicle, capable of operating as a speedboat, submarine, automobile, or aircraft. It can travel at the (then) unheard of speed of 150 miles per hour on land and at more than 200 mph when flying.

Strock tries to capture the ''Terror'' but instead is captured himself. Robur drives the strange craft to elude his pursuers, heading to the Caribbean and into a thunderstorm. The ''Terror'' is struck by lightning, breaks apart, and falls into the ocean. Strock is rescued from the vehicle's wreckage, but Robur's body is never found. The reader is left to decide whether or not he has died.

The eponymous character is Arthur "Artie" Kipps, an illegitimate orphan. In Book I, "The Making of Kipps", he is raised by his aged aunt and uncle, who keep a little shop in New Romney on the southeastern coast of Kent. He attends the Cavendish Academy, "a middle-class school", not a "board school",) in Hastings in East Sussex. "By inherent nature he had a sociable disposition", and he befriends Sid Pornick, the son of a neighbour. Kipps also falls in love with Sid's younger sister, Ann. Ann gives him half a sixpence as a token of their love when, at 14, he is apprenticed to the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, run by Mr Shalford.

The Pornicks move away and Kipps forgets Ann. He becomes infatuated with Helen Walshingham, who teaches a woodcarving class on Thursday nights. Chitterlow, an actor and aspiring playwright, meets Kipps by running into him with his bicycle, and they have a drunken evening together that leads to Kipps being "swapped" (dismissed) from his job. Chitterlow then brings to his attention a newspaper advertisement that leads to an unexpected inheritance for Kipps from his grandfather of a house and 26,000 pounds.

In Book II, "Mr Coote the Chaperon", Kipps fails in his attempt to adapt to his new position in the social hierarchy of Folkestone. By chance he meets a Mr Coote, who undertakes his social education. That leads to renewed contact with Helen Walshingham, and they become engaged. However, the process of bettering himself alienates Kipps more and more, especially since Helen makes it clear that she wants to take advantage of Kipps's fortune to establish herself and her brother in London society. Chance meetings with Sid, who has become a socialist, and then with Ann, who is now a housemaid, lead Kipps to abandon social conventions and his engagement to Helen, and marry his childhood sweetheart.

In Book III, "Kippses", the attempt to find a house suitable to his new status precipitates Kipps back into a struggle with the "complex and difficult" English social system. Kipps and Ann quarrel. Then they learn that Helen's brother, a solicitor, has lost most of their fortune through speculation. That leads to a happier situation when Kipps opens a branch of the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union (Limited) in Hythe and they have a son. The success of Chitterlow's play, in which Kipps has invested 2,000 pounds, restores their fortune, but they are content to remain shopkeepers in a small coastal town.

The book is set in and around the author's home town of Concord, Massachusetts and in the realm of Nyeusigrube. The book centers around Risika who born in 1684 as Rachel Weatere, a God-fearing seventeen-year-old who lived with her father, half-sister, Lynette, and her twin brother, Alexander. Alexander lives in fear as he believes he is of the Devil as he is able to hear people's thoughts and cause things to happen, including manipulating fire, causing him to inadvertently burn his sister Lynette. Aware of her twin brother's powers and his dislike for them, Rachel tries to do her best to comfort him. One day, an unknown stranger appears at their home, who is later revealed as Aubrey and gives Rachel a black rose, which pricks her finger, drawing blood. That night, Rachel hears her twin creep past her room and she follows him to find him confronting two vampires, Ather and Aubrey, who had come to transform Rachel against her will into a vampire to get back at Alexander for interfering with Ather when she tried to feed on Lynette. In an attempt to stop Ather from harming her brother, Rachel confronts Ather but Aubrey grabs her brother and drags him off, while exposing a knife. Rachel tries to go after them but Ather grabs her instead and begins her transformation into a vampire.

Three hundred years later, Rachel, now calling herself Risika, has a run-in with Aubrey after accidentally trespassing onto his territory in an attempt to feed, he leaves her another black rose and a note stating, "Stay in your place, Risika." Fearing Aubrey, but not letting it on, she burns the note and leaves it where Aubrey can find it, and does not visit the Bengal tiger which she has named Tora, in fear that Aubrey would use Tora to hurt her. Eventually Aubrey learns of Tora's existence and in an attempt to get Risika to lay low, he kills the tiger. Wounded once more, Risika takes on the tiger's stripes in her hair and finds a note with the name "Rachel" written on it and covered with tears. Enraged and thinking the note a joke, she calls out to whoever left the note but no one answers. She then takes off, transforming into a hawk, to confront Aubrey, and a fight breaks out between the two and Risika realizes she can defeat him and transforms herself into a Bengal tiger and pins Aubrey to the ground. In desperation and not wanting to die, Aubrey offers Risika his blood, which opens his mind to Risika. Accepting this, Risika transforms back to herself and takes Aubrey's blood but before allowing him to leave she takes the knife he carries, which she had found out nearly 300 years ago contains magic from one of the witch's clans, and slashes him in his collarbone, avenging the scar he had left on her not too long after she had been transformed and tells him to remember the events of that day and warns him that even though she has taken his blood it did not make up for the death of Tora or Alexander. After Aubrey leaves, Alexander reveals to Risika that he is still alive and that he was the one who had left her the note. He reveals that the reason Ather changed her was out of revenge against Alexander for having interrupting her trying feed on Lynette. Believing he could help his sister, Risika informs him that she is happy as she is and the story ends.

After returning from an exploratory away mission to a pre-warp society on the brink of war, Lieutenant Reed is unable to locate his communicator. A search of the shuttle bay area proves fruitless, so Captain Archer and Reed return to the planet to try to find it, so as not to leave a contaminant within the culture. Unfortunately, they then manage to walk into a trap set by the local military, who have already found the communicator. With their capture, the local commander, General Gosis, also possesses 'contaminant' scanners and a phase pistol.

Becoming desperate to locate the away team, Sub-Commander T'Pol's attempt at contact actually divulges the Captain's identity, and Archer and Reed are physically interrogated. After a mild beating, it is discovered that not only are Archer’s and Reed's forehead morphology not the same as the locals', but they also have iron-based red blood, and vastly different internal organs. In response, Archer and Reed improvise a story about being genetically-altered prototypes (with prototype equipment) from an opposing faction known as the Alliance. While allaying suspicion that they are aliens, the military commander decides to hang Archer and Reed so that autopsies can be performed to discover more about their "enhancements".

Meanwhile, on ''Enterprise'', a rescue mission is planned by Commander Tucker using the captured Suliban cell ship (as seen in episode "Broken Bow"), but problems arise with its cloak. In their cell, Archer and Reed contemplate the irony of their adherence to an early version of Starfleet's Prime Directive. As they are about to be hanged, the cloaked Suliban ship with T'Pol, Tucker, and Ensign Mayweather arrives, enabling Archer and Reed to escape with their shuttle-pod and captured technology. Later, back on ''Enterprise'', Archer reflects on the consequences of their actions even in the absence of foreign artifacts, and T'Pol is impressed that Archer was willing to sacrifice himself in the line of duty.

Stan, Cartman, Kyle and Ike attend karate class while Stan's dad Randy goes for a couple of drinks. In the class, the instructor admonishes Cartman for his lack of discipline ("rack" of "disiprin"), and tells the class that true discipline comes from within.

After class, an inebriated Randy drives the boys home, but he gets pulled over and arrested for drunk driving. Randy gets his license revoked and is ordered to perform community service and to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, where he's introduced to the twelve-step program, which leads him to believe he is powerless to control his drinking and that alcoholism is a disease. Randy, whom Stan describes as a "hypochondriac", then begins to drink more, since he has decided that he is in fact powerless to control it and cannot stop. Meanwhile, a statue of the Virgin Mary starts to bleed "out its ass" and people begin to flock around it to find a cure for their diseases. Randy believes it can cure his disease.

Randy has Stan drive him to the church where the statue is, and after cutting in line, arguing that his "disease" is worse than that of others, he is drenched in the holy blood. He jumps up and declares that he will not drink any more, and abstains from alcohol for five days.

Pope Benedict XVI comes to investigate, and discovers that the blood is not actually coming from the statue's anus, but from its vagina. Since "chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time", this is no miracle. Randy, disappointed, realizes that God did not "heal" him. At first he again declares himself powerless, and most of the other recovering alcoholics agree and rush to the bar. But Stan follows Randy and convinces him that if God did not help him, then he must have managed to stop by himself.

Randy declares that he will never drink again. Stan objects to this too, claiming that if Randy completely avoids drinking, then drinking is still controlling his life and he needs to figure out how to live in moderation. Randy puts Stan on his shoulders and walks off into the sunset while the two discuss how much drinking would be proper.

It is August 14, 2152, and ''Enterprise'' decides to explore a unique black hole nestled within a trinary star system. Cruising at impulse, it will take a few days to get there, freeing the crew up for other activities. Captain Archer uses the chance to work on the preface for a book about his father, and also asks Commander Tucker to look at the Captain's chair on the bridge. Meanwhile, Ensign Sato volunteers to help in the galley, Lieutenant Reed begins works on some new ship wide security protocols, and Doctor Phlox examines Ensign Mayweather's headache.

Over the next few days the crew starts obsessing about their selected tasks. Their behavior is also affecting their interactions — Reed and Tucker nearly come to blows, and Phlox sedates a frustrated and non-consenting Mayweather to perform an invasive medical test. The situation becomes so acute that Sub-Commander T'Pol, who remains unaffected, easily notices that everyone else is behaving oddly. Her investigation into the cause reveals that a peculiar form of radiation emitted from the black hole is the underlying cause. It will take two days to reverse course and leave the radiation field, and while she was determining this, everyone else on board has fallen unconscious.

There is an alternate path, but it will require piloting ''Enterprise'' closer to the dangerous black hole and she cannot navigate the treacherous field and pilot at the same time. T'Pol rouses the groggy captain with a cold shower and hot coffee, enough that he is able to man the helm. His ability to fly is sluggish, and as they near the exit, a large crumbling asteroid blocks ''Enterprise's'' path. Reed’s obsession created an automatic "Tactical Alert" that automatically kicks in and brings all defensive systems fully online, thus allowing T'Pol to blast the asteroids with the fully charged phase cannon. Once clear, things on-board soon return to normal, with the exception of the captain's improved chair and Reed's newly proven security protocol.

The player is transported to the land of make believe by the magical dragon Bookwyrm, who needs their help unknotting the mess that has become of five famous fairy tales (Cinderella, ''Beauty and the Beast'', Bremen Town Musicians, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Snow White) thanks to the machinations of a spiteful troll named Bookend. For instance, the prince cannot find Cinderella because her glass slipper was stolen, Jack's axe is missing so he cannot chop down the beanstalk, Snow White is lost and needs help finding the seven dwarves' house, etc. Bookwyrm, who had the book all the stories were recorded in, may be consulted by the player for advice at any time.

Ensign Sato and Commander Tucker are on an away mission, taking pictures and gathering data and samples from an ancient set of ruins. Their mission is cut short, however, when a diamagnetic storm approaches, but before they can make it back to the shuttlepod they are forced to use the transporter instead. Sato is reluctant to use it, so Tucker goes back first. After the incident, aboard ''Enterprise'', Sato feels that things are not right, particularly being the first time she used a transporter. After a visit to Doctor Phlox, she goes to sleep, hoping to feel better in the morning.

She is wakened by an emergency call from the bridge having apparently overslept by three hours. On the bridge, Captain Archer informs her that Tucker and Ensign Mayweather have been taken hostage on the planet while retrieving the shuttlepod. Sato is unable to help, failing to understand the "simple bi-modal syntax" of the aliens. She is ordered to return to her quarters, where she sees her reflection in the mirror fade away and water passing through her hands when she takes a shower. Phlox still cannot find anything wrong, attributing Sato's experience to transporter anxiety. But only a little while later, she completely dematerializes.

The crew begin to search for her, and she observes Phlox and Tucker scanning the ship for her cellular residue. She watches Archer speak with her father to inform him of her "death". In her wanderings, she hears and later encounters two strange aliens who are planting and arming suspicious devices throughout the ship. She attempts to disrupt a circuit in Capt. Archer's cabin, in the hopes an S.O.S. Morse code flashing signal will alert Archer's notice. T'Pol dismisses it as a malfunction and suggests Archer needs rest after the difficult day they've all had (due to Hoshi's passing.) Unable to warn anyone, she endeavors to interrupt the explosive devices, reaching in and switching them off as they're activated, unseen by the treacherous reptilian aliens. This eventually leads her onto the escaping aliens' transporting device, only to rematerialize in the ''Enterprise'' transporter room. She is disoriented, and concerned about the aliens, warning that the ship is about to be blown up, but Lieutenant Reed explains to her that she has been trapped for only 8.3 seconds in the pattern buffer because of the storm and that her recent experiences could only have been her own mind's anxiety hallucinations; in effect, a dream.

Allen Payne plays a basketball player who becomes involved in a sex scandal.

Firek Goff, the captain of a Retellian cargo vessel, docks and asks Captain Archer for help; a passenger-carrying stasis pod is malfunctioning. Archer then offers Trip's services, while also extending an offer of ''Enterprise'' hospitality to both the captain and his brother, Plinn. When Tucker enters the cargo hold inside Goff's ship, he notices a beautiful female alien beneath the stasis canopy. Goff tells him that she is a passenger traveling home from a planet where she was studying medicine. He explains that because his ship can't travel over warp 2.2, she has to be kept in stasis because there is not enough food to support them all.

As Tucker starts working on the stasis pod, it begins to fail, and fearing that the occupant will suffocate, he releases her. Tucker is then knocked unconscious by Goff, who then flees from the faster ''Enterprise'' by disabling her engines and ionizing its warp trail, but Plinn is left behind. The female passenger, Kaitaama, is initially hostile. Tucker uses the translator Ensign Sato left with him, and he learns she is a high-ranking soon-to-be First Monarch being held for ransom. Tucker has a plan for escape, and though she believes that her status will keep her safe, she joins Tucker in an escape pod.

Meanwhile, Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol use a ruse similar to "good cop/bad cop" to persuade Plinn to tell them how to locate Goff's ship. The plan works and Plinn reveals the warp core's signature frequency. After finding an island on the planet, Tucker and Kaitaama soon set up camp in a swamp, and their mutual antipathy eventually gives way to burgeoning sexual tension. Goff soon locates them using the homing beacon on the escape pod. Tucker and Goff fight until the latter is subdued by Kaitaama, just as an ''Enterprise'' rescue team also arrives. Kaitaama is later collected by a battle cruiser from her home world of Krios Prime, and suggests she will invite Tucker to visit her in the future when she is in power.

''Enterprise'' is hailed by a trio of aliens, who warn that a deadly neutronic wavefront, many light years across, is approaching at a speed close to warp 7. Since the ship is only capable of warp 5 and cannot outrun the storm, everyone must shelter in order to survive the storm's radiation. The one heavily shielded place on board that might suffice for the eight-day ordeal is the catwalk, a maintenance shaft that runs the length of each nacelle. Commander Tucker must take the main reactor offline, as the temperatures on the catwalk can reach degrees (572 degrees F) when online.

With only hours to prepare, everyone evacuates to the catwalk. The crew entertain themselves watching old western films, gathered around a small screen. The storm envelops the ship, and as the days wear on, nerves fray, particularly with the alien guests who start up a barbecue near a flammable conduit. Tucker and Archer discover a problem as the injectors have started to come online. Tucker must return to Engineering to shut them down again, and his EV suit will only protect him for 22 minutes. He discovers an alien ship has docked and intruders are interfering with the ship's systems. Doctor Phlox deduces that the aliens must be immune to the storm's radiation.

When confronted, the trio confesses that the other aliens are looking for them, explaining they deserted from the Takret Militia when they learned their commanders were capturing other ships and killing all onboard. T'Pol and Reed work to shut down the warp reactor, while Archer hails the alien leader, pretending to be the sole surviving crewmember. He demands they leave and threatens to destroy the Enterprise rather than let it be taken, and sends the ship straight for a plasma eddy. As the reactor shuts down, the intruders abandon ship. When the Enterprise clears the storm and the crew return to their quarters, Tucker invites T'Pol to join their movie night every Tuesday. The trio of alien visitors apologize for the trouble they brought and depart.

"A seemingly-untroubled adolescent carries disturbing secrets that compel a psychiatrist to unearth the patient's gruesome past."

Psychiatrist Michael Hunter and his wife are watching their daughter Shelly's school play. Their son Kyle, who is suffering from depression, stays at home, because he can not stand being among people as he says. While the parents are applauding Shelly, Kyle commits suicide in family's garage.

Several years later the family has fallen apart because of their loss. Michael retreats, writes books, holds speeches for University students, but he no longer treats patients. When his former student, Barbara Wagner, approaches him asking for help with a case he initially refuses, but then gives in to taking over the case of 17-year-old Thomas "Tommy" Caffey, who witnessed his father murder his mother. It is Michael's job to decide if the teenager can leave the psychiatric facility when he turns 18. But while working with Tommy, Michael realizes how much the boy reminds him of his own son Kyle and feelings of guilt arise in the psychologist.

In flashbacks and conversations, the viewer receives background information of Kyle's suicide. Michael had his son see a therapist—an old university friend named Harry Quinlan—instead of taking medication. In his son's suicide letter, Michael finds out that Kyle was sexually abused by Quinlan. When Michael tries to confront Quinlan, the therapist won't unlock the front door. Michael goes to the glass back door, through which he sees Quinlan pull a gun out of a drawer. As Quinlan places the barrel in his mouth, Michael angrily yells at him to shoot himself, which the therapist does.

Tommy kills Chloe, a girl on ecstasy, at a party because she forced him to have sex. At the same party, Tommy befriends Shelly and they become closer. Shelly tells Tommy about Kyle. From then on, Tommy uses the information in therapy sessions and manipulates Michael, who more and more sees his own son in him.

When Michael visits Tommy's father in prison he finds out that Tommy's mother misused her son as a lover and slept with him regularly. This is the reason why his father, who came home early one day, bludgeoned her to death, and why Tommy severely injures/kills women who try to have physical contact with him. However, Mr. Caffey had always said it was because he found out his wife had a lover, running away, and tells Michael he'll deny all of that if he repeats that.

In the last part of the movie, Tommy tries to make Barbara release him to an independent life. When she refuses and touches him, he pushes her through a glass window. After she crawls to a telephone and attempts to call police, Tommy beats her with the handset. He flees in a stolen car and, armed with a weapon, picks up Shelly from her mother's house and speeds away. Michael finds the severely wounded Barbara in her apartment. As she is being treated, Barbara warns Michael about Tommy's plan. Michael races to his ex-wife's house, narrowly missing the boy, whom he chases. The boy's flight comes to an end near train tracks, where he holds Shelly at gunpoint. Michael confronts Tommy with what his mother did and Tommy surrenders the girl and the gun. When a train approaches, Tommy tears loose from Michael's embrace and runs onto the tracks. At the last second, Tommy stops on the tracks, throws up his arms, and awaits impact. Michael grabs Tommy and they fall away from the locomotive.

In the closing scene, Michael and Tommy light-heartedly play handball at a mental institution.

Top Hollywood talent agent Jack Giamoro (Ben Affleck) seems to have it all: a successful career, a lot of money, a nice car, a beautiful wife, etc. However, while pursuing success, he somehow lost himself and neglected his marriage. He decides to take a journal writing class to do some self-searching. Jack's seemingly perfect world starts to unravel when he learns that his wife, Nina (Rebecca Romijn), is cheating on him with his most important client. Things get worse when Barbi (Bai Ling), an ambitious journalist, steals Jack's journal, which contains secrets that could ruin him personally and professionally. Jack is forced to fight for everything he has worked so hard to achieve and in doing so, he attains the self-insight he was looking for. By realizing that there is more to life than work, he begins to focus on what's most important in his life.

When B.O.B. crashes his dad's space car on the way to pick up his date, he finds himself stranded on a hostile asteroid filled with enemies. By collecting Thiagotch's and using fast reflexes, B.O.B. tries to find his way off the asteroid and to his date. B.O.B. fights his way through three strange worlds in total, encountering several particularly enormous or swift enemies (bosses) along the way, and participating in several cart-race levels. There were several different types of setting for each level, including domed space colony cities, large alien hive-type areas, strange biomechanical facilities, ancient (and apparently haunted) temples and cavernous magma chambers. Some of these settings only appeared on certain worlds.

At the end of each world, B.O.B manages to discover a new space-car to allow him to continue on his journey. The first two both fail him under comical circumstances, resulting in him becoming trapped on an entirely new alien world. With the final car, B.O.B. is at last able to meet up with his date, who is revealed to be a large, blue female robot with a huge mouth, who harshly berates B.O.B. for his tardiness. As she is yelling at him, a slender red female robot flies past them on a space surfboard. B.O.B., frustrated with his obnoxious date, declares "That's the girl for me!" and drives off in pursuit of the red female. The game ends with a shot of B.O.B. and his new date sitting on a small asteroid together, staring out at the beauty of the cosmos in silence. Behind them, B.O.B.'s car (in the backseat of which his date had stashed her surfboard) stalls and drifts off into space, presumably leaving them stranded together but neither of the lovers seem to notice.

Lenny invites his friends in Springfield to a party at his apartment, where has bought a brand new plasma screen high-definition television. Homer immediately falls in love with its HD picture, and begins to spend all his time at Lenny's home watching HDTV. Marge sends over Bart and Lisa to convince him to come back but they too become enthralled.

After a few days, Homer is kicked out by Lenny, and when he returns home he no longer enjoys watching his regular CRT TV, so Marge enters the family in a contest where first-place prize is a plasma HDTV. They later manage to win the third-place prize: a trip to the studios of Fox Broadcasting Company. There, Homer learns of a reality show called ''Mother Flippers'' in which the mothers of two families switch places. The grand prize happens to be enough money to buy a new plasma HDTV, so the family signs up for the show.

Marge is traded to a nice, easygoing man named Charles Heathbar and his perfect son Ben, while Homer gets Charles' strict wife Verity. Charles dislikes his wife, especially for constantly telling him what to do, so he is surprised to see that Marge is understanding and kind. As Marge enjoys her time with Charles, he begins to develop an infatuation for her. Meanwhile, Homer, Bart, and Lisa are having major troubles with Verity, who disciplines them and objects to everything they do. At one point, Verity makes Bart and Homer write reports on Itchy and Scratchy and CSI: Miami.

Charles proclaims his love for Marge by song, but she explains to him that she loves Homer, and that he should tell his wife how he feels about her. He agrees, and decides to take Marge back to Homer and then get rid of Verity. When the two arrive in Springfield, however, Verity has already decided to leave Charles and found a new partner, Patty Bouvier, brought together by their hatred for Homer. That night Homer plays a guitar and expresses his undying love for his newly bought plasma HDTV and (to a lesser extent) Marge.

''Dalagang Bukid'' is a story about a young flower vendor named Angelita (Atang de la Rama), who is forced by her parents to marry a loan shark, Don Silvestre, despite her love for Cipriano, a law student. Angelita's parents are blind to her reciprocated love for Cipriano, as their shortage of money and consumption by various vices (gambling and cockfighting) make Don Silvestre's offer of marriage attractive. With her siblings, Angelita shines shoes at a church to provide income to her parents. Meanwhile, Angelita's parents give Don Silvestre permission to marry their daughter after he arranged for her to win a beauty contest. Before going to Angelita's coronation, Cipriano and Angelita get married in secret. At the coronation, Don Silvestre faints after learning about Angelita and Cipriano's wedding.

Jo Jones works in an airplane factory and longs for the day when she will see her husband again. The couple have a heart wrenching farewell at the train station before he leaves for overseas duty in the war. With their husbands off fighting in World War II, Jo and her co-workers struggle to pay living expenses. Dissatisfied, they decide to pool their money and rent a house together. Soon after which they hire a German immigrant housekeeper, Manya. Jo discovers she is pregnant and ends up having a son whom she names Chris, after his father. The women are overjoyed when Doris's husband comes home, but the same day Jo receives a telegram informing her that her husband has been killed. She hides her grief and descends the stairs in order to rejoin the homecoming celebration.

In the book Troost described how he and his girlfriend Sylvia adjusted to life on the remote small island in the South Pacific, and built a life for themselves there. Troost described the unusual people they lived with, and bizarre and unfamiliar local customs, as well as the local people's reaction to Troost's own behaviour that they regarded as unusual.

In those two years, the author adjusted to an over-whelming fish-based diet, extreme heat, and an ineffective government, which the author describes as "Coconut Stalinism - though Stalin, at least, got something done." He described frequent electrical and water shortages, along with many other idiosyncrasies of living on such a small and remote island.

At the same time, Troost also challenges American complacency toward its own history, by doing so little to remember the many troops who died in the Battle of Tarawa during World War II, and the many foreign aid workers and consultants, who failed to consider the islanders' real needs or local culture.

After being kicked out of her former school, Jenny Humphrey enrolls at the posh Waverly Academy located in Upstate New York. Jenny hopes to leave her unsophisticated past behind and reinvent herself. She meets her new roommates Callie Vernon and Brett Messerschmidt, two of the most popular girls on campus. Jenny occupies the third bed in the triple that used to belong to Tinsley Carmichael, who was expelled the previous year for getting caught with Ecstasy on campus.

Jenny attends the first party of the year, unaware of the gossip already swirling about her. She accepts an invitation from charmingly sloppy Heath Ferro to go into the school chapel alone. Jenny allows Heath to kiss her, but is dismayed when he passes out in her lap. Jenny walks him to his dorm and leaves, but the next day, Heath brags about having had sex with her in the chapel.

Callie's relationship with her boyfriend Easy Walsh has hit a rut. Callie invites him to her room, unaware Jenny is also there, trying to sleep. Jenny is discovered and a frustrated Callie leaves to go to the bathroom. Easy is surprised at his attraction to Jenny, but their conversation is interrupted by the dorm supervisor's husband, Mr. Pardee. Realizing she could be expelled for having Easy in her room, Callie convinces Mr. Pardee that Easy was visiting Jenny and not her. Easy and Jenny are each called in separately to meet with their student advisor, Eric Dalton, who decides the matter will be resolved in a disciplinary hearing.

Co-captain of the field hockey team Celine Colista pressures Callie to select Jenny to be the target of the year's hazing ritual at the field hockey match against St. Lucius. Initially mortified when she realizes the prank, Jenny quickly turns the cheer around and becomes one of the most popular girls in the school. Later, at Heath Ferro's party, Easy and Jenny admit their feelings for each other.

The next day, the girls are forced to play a scrimmage, despite being hungover and tired from the party. Callie and Brett almost get into a fight over who sold Tinsley out before realizing Tinsley took all the blame herself. Brett and Eric begin an affair and Brett ends her relationship with her boyfriend Jeremiah.

Sensing Easy's affections waning, Callie attempts to seduce him in the rare book room in the library but becomes frustrated when Easy does not reciprocate. Easy becomes frustrated when Callie tries to grill him on his future comments at the upcoming disciplinary hearing. The two fight and Easy breaks up with Callie.

The next day, at the disciplinary hearing, Easy is found guilty but is let off easy, as he is a legacy child. As Jenny and her roommates celebrate, Dean Marymount interrupts, announcing Tinsley Carmichael's return.von Ziegesar, Cecily (2005). ''The It Girl''. New York: Little Brown.

The story is set in the fictional town of Mossville, which is inhabited by civilized anthropomorphic animals, such as mice, rabbits, toads and so on. As the book begins, Abel, a mouse, is enjoying a picnic with his wife Amanda, but they are interrupted by a fierce rainstorm and are forced to take shelter in a cave nearby. The two are separated when Abel braves the storm to retrieve Amanda's scarf, blown away by a gust of wind. The storm washes Abel into a river and he is swept downstream until he is stranded on an island.

Abel attempts to escape the island several times, but fails, and finally realizes that he must survive on the island by himself. He finds a log and makes it his home in the winter. To ease his loneliness, he creates his family out of clay and talks to them. Poor Abel has to live through the hardest times, including battling an owl and surviving through a harsh winter.

Later in the novel, another stranded victim from the river, a frog named Gower, comes and befriends Abel. Later, he leaves promising that he will send for help when he gets back home. However, weeks pass and no one comes. Gower either forgot (due to his lack of memory) or never made it back. Abel then decides to swim against the fierce river after the water level has dropped sufficiently. Abel eventually makes the hard trip back and returns to Mossville.

The deaths of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, and victory at the Battle of Endor by no means spelled the end of the Empire. In the aftermath, the New Republic has faced a constant struggle to survive and grow. And now a new threat looms: a masterpiece of Alderaanian art, lost in transit after the planet's destruction, has resurfaced on the black market. Offered at auction, it will command a handsome price . . . but its greatest value lies in the vital secret it conceals—the key to a code used to communicate with New Republic agents deep undercover within the Empire. Discovery of the key by Imperial forces would spell certain disaster. The only option is recovery—and Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, Chewbacca, and C-3PO have been dispatched to Tatooine to infiltrate the auction.

But trouble is waiting when they arrive: an Imperial Star Destroyer is orbiting Tatooine on the lookout for Rebels; a mysterious stranger at the auction seems to recognize Leia; and an Imperial officer's aggressive bidding for the Alderaanian painting could foil the Solos’ mission. When a dispute erupts into violence, and the painting vanishes in the chaos, Han and Leia are thrust into a desperate race to reclaim it before Imperial troops or a band of unsavory treasure-peddlers get there first.

Dangerous as the chase is, for Leia it leads into especially dark territory. Already haunted by the specter of her infamous father, and fearful that his evil may infect future generations, she has suffered a disturbing Force vision of Luke turning to the dark side. As she battles beside Han against marauding TIE fighters, encroaching stormtroopers, and Tatooine's savage Tusken Raiders, Leia's struggle with the warring emotions inside her culminates in the discovery of an extraordinary link to the past. And as long-buried secrets and truths at last emerge, she faces a moment of reckoning that will forever alter her destiny . . . and that of the New Republic.

Meek high school student Jerry Mitchell and his sister Brei have the house to themselves while their parents are on vacation. Jerry's day begins badly when he wakes late and gets worse when he nearly wrecks his car while driving his sister and his school friend Franny to Weaver High School. The students this morning are gossiping about the new student Buddy Revell, a violent delinquent who has just transferred to Weaver from a continuation high school.

Jerry's first hour is spent at the school newspaper, where his best friend, Vincent Costello, is the editor. Their journalism teacher has the idea of doing an article about Buddy to welcome the "new kid", and she assigns Jerry to do an interview. Jerry sees Buddy in the restroom and clumsily attempts to introduce himself, bringing up the article idea. Through a series of poorly chosen statements, Jerry realizes he is only making Buddy angry and decides to cut his losses, telling Buddy "...Why don’t we just forget this whole thing and pretend this never happened", giving Buddy a friendly tap on the arm. Buddy, who does not like to be touched by anyone, responds by tossing Jerry against a wall and stating that he has made him mad and he now needs to do something to “work it off” and tells Jerry the two will now fight after school at 3 o'clock in the parking lot.Buddy also tells Jerry that running away or reporting the incident to a teacher will only make the situation worse.

With little more than six hours to go, Jerry tries different strategies to avoid the fight. Trying to reason with Buddy doesn't work. Vincent suggests that he plant a switchblade in Buddy's locker to get him kicked out of school; Brei advises him to simply skip school, but when Jerry tries to leave, he finds the switchblade he planted now stuck in his car's steering wheel, and his ignition wires cut. Trying to run, Jerry is caught by overzealous school security guard, Duke, who finds the switchblade and takes Jerry to the office of Mr. Dolinski, the Dean of Discipline. Seeing an otherwise perfectly clean record, the suspicious Mr. Dolinski tells Jerry that he will be keeping his eye on him from now on, and lets him go.

Jerry makes several other attempts to avoid the fight: he steals money from the school's student store, which he manages, and uses it to pay an upperclassman to "take care of" Buddy; he tries to get thrown into detention by making a pass at his English teacher; he lets Buddy cheat by copying Jerry's answers during a math quiz. All attempts fail, and the clock continues to tick down.

After Buddy rebuffs Jerry's plea to "just be friends", he offers him the stolen cash to call off the fight. Buddy accepts, but Jerry still fails to earn Buddy’s respect as he scornfully tells Jerry "You’re the biggest pussy I ever met in my life". Jerry, now seized with self-loathing and anger, decides to confront Buddy, and demands the money back. When Buddy refuses, Jerry insists that he is no coward and declares that their fight is back on.

The clock finally reaches the appointed hour, and the fight begins with hundreds of eager students looking on. Principal O'Rourke, Mr. Dolinski, Duke, Franny, and even the guilt-plagued Vincent attempt to intervene, but Buddy easily disposes of them. Jerry, though out-matched, stands his ground while being knocked down. His sister picks up Buddy's dropped brass knuckles and slips them to Jerry. He uses them in a desperate move to stun and knock-out Buddy; during the excitement that follows, Buddy vanishes.

The next day, many students show their admiration and support to Jerry for such a great fight. They begin buying individual sheets of paper for $1 from the school store to help Jerry make up the store's missing cash. Buddy suddenly shows up, silencing the crowd. He openly returns the $350 to Jerry, begrudgingly showing his respect. Weaver High is now filled with new gossip, as Jerry replaces Buddy as the school's hot discussion topic, with rumors having a wide and humorous range from the actual truth.

Prior to the beginning of the story, in the 23rd century, the Earth has shattered into billions of pieces which orbit around a central core. In this new world, named Skyland, an evolved form of human has appeared: Seijins, who absorb energy from sunlight and use it to fuel special abilities such as telekinesis, telepathy, mental control, astral projection, energy balls or blasts, and electric rays.

The Skyland is ruled by the Sphere: an organization which controls the water supplies, and maintains its power by Guardians, Seijins indoctrinated and trained from childhood. This dictatorship is fought by pirates. After the capture of their mother by the Sphere, protagonists Mahad and Lena, a young Seijin still learning to control her powers, are rescued by a group of pirates, and join the pirate rebellion.

The basic plot of the game was that the player had to fulfill the task of a runner, by venturing into the Mad One's Maze and enlist the help of a wizard at the lowest level. The maze had three levels total, and different levels had their own set of characters, related puzzles, and storyline.

Introduction

The player takes on the role of a boy from the rural community of Weith Village. Wellan, the Village Elder, explains to the player that The Mad One has returned, and his influence continues to grow stronger over Weith Village; with the MadMaze threatening to engulf the village. The player is tasked by Wellan to travel to the center of the MadMaze and recruit the help of a wizard named Moraziel, on the pretext that only with his help can the Mad One be defeated.

One of the interesting things about the setting is that a different flavor of fantasy campaign can be had depending on which region of Yrth one uses. Araterre, for instance, is a seafaring nation inhabited by the descendants of those brought to Yrth from France in the 16th century. Light or no armor, swashbuckling, and courtly intrigue are the rule of the day. Sahud is the Asian mish-mash country, and would be suitable for a wuxia style game, or even something akin to Legend of the Five Rings. Some countries are almost entirely human-dominated, and others are mixed, while there are still some area completely under the control of Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, or Reptile Men.

After being run off the edge of the cliff, Wile E. Coyote begins his typical plotting of various methods to catch the bird. First, Wile E. tries to trip the Road Runner with his own foot, only to have it flattened by a passing delivery truck. Taking higher ground, Wile E. uses a bow and arrow to skewer the Road Runner, only to have the bow hit him in the nose instead. He tries to trap the Road Runner in a manhole, which the Road Runner uses as a portable hole. Other traps include a rocket-powered flying suit (which explodes), a box of "ACME Iron Bird Seed" and a big magnet (which pulls him into the path of a train), a spring-loaded block of pavement (which ends up crushing him), a pair of machine guns connected by a trip wire (which the Roadrunner cuts), and an ACME Rocket-Sled Kit (which blasts off too early).

A man sings "Brazil" as the opening credits fade to the disembarkation of a ship, SS Brazil. As the exotic goods are netted off the ship the camera pans down to the archetypal exotic fruit hat on Carmen Miranda who reprises the song.

Wealthy businessman Andrew J. "A. J." Mason Sr. takes his nervous partner, Peyton Potter, to the Club New Yorker for a celebratory evening with his son, Sgt. Andrew J. Mason Jr., who is about to report for active duty in the Army. A. J. and Andy enjoy the show, which features master of ceremonies Phil Baker and dancer Tony De Marco, while Potter worries about what his wife Blossom would say if she knew he was there. While Potter is trapped into dancing with Brazilian sensation Dorita, Andy becomes intrigued by entertainer Eadie Allen. Phil warns Andy that because Eadie dances at the Broadway Canteen between shows, she will not go out on a date with him, but Andy follows her to the canteen and tells her that his name is Sgt. Pat Casey so that she will not be intimidated by his wealth. Despite her insistence that she cannot date servicemen outside the canteen, Eadie is charmed by Andy and agrees to meet him later when he pursues her to the nightclub. Eadie and Andy spend the evening talking and falling in love, and the next day, Eadie bids him farewell at the train station and promises to write every day.

Andy distinguishes himself in battle in the South Pacific, and is granted a furlough after being awarded a medal. A. J. is thrilled and plans to throw a welcome home party for Andy at the Club New Yorker. Phil cannot accommodate his plans, however, as the club is closed for two weeks while the company rehearses a new show. Munificent as always, A. J. invites the performers to rehearse at his and Potter's homes, where they can throw a lavish garden party and war bond rally to welcome Andy. Potter is perturbed about the arrangements when he learns that Blossom knows Phil from her former days as an entertainer, and his chagrin grows when Tony's partner cannot perform and he asks Potter's daughter Vivian to dance with him. Hoping to persuade the stodgy Potter to allow Vivian to perform, Blossom tells him that Phil has threatened to reveal her wild past if Vivian is not in the show. Potter acquiesces, but his problems grow when he is pursued by the romantic-minded Dorita. When not chasing Potter, Dorita learns that Vivian has a boyfriend named Andy, and that he and Eadie's "Casey" are the same man.

Complications arise as Dorita tries to keep Vivian and Eadie from discovering Andy's deception. When Andy and the real Pat Casey arrive at the club, however, Eadie learns the truth. Andy proclaims that he wants to marry her and not Vivian, but Eadie insists on breaking off their relationship, as she believes that Vivian really cares for him. During the show, however, Vivian tells Eadie that she is going to Broadway to perform as Tony's permanent partner, and reveals that she and Andy were never truly in love. As the show comes to a close, Eadie and Andy reconcile, and everyone joins in the final song.

After becoming familiar with Wetherton, his carefulness towards danger reveals itself. Everything he comes across is dealt with in a watchful, meticulous manner. For example, when he discovers the batholith, “his innate caution takes hold, and he draws back to examine it at greater length”. Only after he inspects it does he begin to remove gold. Soon following his study of the rock, he continues in his guarded manner, and he constructs a supported path for a swift retreat, in the situation that the massive structure collapses. Even when removing the gold from the stone, he refrains from swinging the pickaxe; he painstakingly removes pieces using the pick as a bar to prevent structural damage. Apparently, his life is driven by his nature to warily review his surroundings.

Even though he is alert in personality, he quickly becomes blinded by riches. He swiftly develops recklessness in his dealings with the immense rock. For instance, he observes that “the tilt of the outer wall is obvious and it can stand no more without toppling”. In spite of this finding, he is lured by an irresistible force that is beyond rational thinking and he returns once more to retrieve the hidden wealth. Furthermore, he revisits day after day, although he sees fissures in the surface and hears it shudder and creak. Continually the reader finds Wetherton unsatisfied with his haul; he persistently yearns for just one more sack.

While his lust for money may hold true, the reader looks deeper and discovers the motivation: a love for his family. Every moment he risks his life for gold is driven by his devotion to his loved ones. As he begins to work, one realizes that “the gold he [is] extracting from [the] rock [is] for [his family], and not for himself”. Evidently, he holds his wife's and son's lives above his own. Not only does he begin his search for them, but he chooses to stop out of commitment to them as well. Just when the circumstances climax to extreme danger (when the batholith is foreshadowing collapse) Wetherton realizes that seeing his family again is more valuable than any amount of gold. By gambling with his life for his spouse and his child, his heartfelt loyalty emerges. He becomes happy by discovering this mine in the outback.

The rock eventually falls, but Wetherton is safely out of the way of the falling batholith, and he escapes with his life.

It is lucid that Louis L ‘Amour’s short story, “Trap of Gold”, envelops a very complex character in the adventurer, Wetherton. Within the plot progression, the reader uncovers his personality, primarily through his openness to possible problems, an almost unyielding desire for valuables, and a moving passion for his family.

The story revolves around Kouya Marino, a fifth grade boy who loves Gear Fighting. His older brother, Yuhya Marino happens to be the Asia Cup Gear Fighter Champion and is qualified in the World Cup tournament when he died four years ago because of an accident.

Kouya's skills are nowhere near his brother's, and is nearly disqualified after arriving late for an elimination match in the Tobita Club. Most of the team members shift into the Manganji Club – a team created by the club's former member, Takeshi Manganji – causing his brother's Crush Gear club facing the threat of extinction from the rival team.

Refusing to give up, Kouya offers up a challenge to Takeshi. Kouya has to find a way to reinstate the club back to its former glory.

New York City society matron Millicent Jordan is overjoyed when she receives word that Lord and Lady Ferncliffe, the richest couple in England, have accepted her invitation to her upcoming dinner party. However, her husband Oliver, a shipping magnate, finds Lord Ferncliffe a bore. Their daughter, Paula, is preoccupied with the impending return of her fiancé, Ernest DeGraff, from Europe.

Oliver asks Millicent to invite legendary stage actress Carlotta Vance, who has just arrived from Europe. A former lover of Oliver's, Carlotta confesses to him that she is nearly penniless and is interested in selling her stock in the Jordan Shipping Line, but he lacks the funds, as his business has been severely affected by the Great Depression.

''Nouveau riche'' magnate Dan Packard, a former miner, agrees to consider helping Oliver, but later brags to his young, gold-digger wife, Kitty, that he plans to take over the Jordan Shipping Line through crooked stock purchases. Oliver convinces Millicent to invite the Packards. While Kitty eagerly accepts the invitation, Dan refuses to go, but changes his mind when he learns that Lord Ferncliffe will be in attendance.

On the morning of her dinner, Millicent loses the "extra man" she found for Carlotta. She telephones Larry Renault, a washed-up silent film star, and extends a last-minute invitation, unaware that Paula is in his hotel room. Larry and Paula have been having an affair for a month, but he wants to end it, citing their age difference (he is 47 and she is 19) and the fact that he is a three-time divorcé. Paula insists that she loves him, planning to tell her family and Ernest about their affair. Carlotta, who is staying in the same hotel, sees Paula leave Larry's room.

Larry, a hardened alcoholic, is on the brink of physical and economic collapse. His agent, Max Kane, tells him that the stage play he was set to star in has a new producer, Jo Stengel. Stengel decided to cast another actor in the lead role, but is willing to consider Larry in a bit part.

The Jordans' physician and friend Dr. Wayne Talbot has been having an affair with Kitty on the pretext of tending to her feigned illnesses. On the day of the dinner, his wife, Lucy, catches him in a compromising telephone call with Kitty. Talbot admits that he is a serial adulterer and vows to overcome his impulses. Lucy is surprisingly understanding, and the two kiss. Talbot receives a visit from an ailing Oliver, who is diagnosed with terminal thrombosis of the coronary arteries. At home, Oliver tries to tell Millicent that he needs to rest, but she is too hysterical to pay attention to him because, among several domestic disasters, the Ferncliffes have canceled.

During a vicious fight, Kitty spitefully reveals to Dan that she is having an affair. When threatened with divorce, she demands that he back down from his takeover of the Jordan Line and treat her with more respect, or else she will sabotage his potential Cabinet appointment by exposing his crooked deals. Defeated, Dan storms off.

Before he leaves for the dinner, Larry is visited by Max and Stengel. Upon discovering that the role being offered to him is that of a dead man, Larry drunkenly insults Stengel, who leaves in haste. Frustrated, Max forces Larry to face reality by bluntly asserting that he has no future in show business, before leaving. To make matters worse, the hotel manager tells Larry he has until the next day to leave. Larry, in utter despair, commits suicide by turning on his gas fireplace.

The dinner guests arrive at the Jordans' mansion. Carlotta informs Paula that Larry has killed himself, consoling the young woman as she breaks down in tears. Millicent learns about Oliver's health and financial setbacks. Realizing her own selfishness, Millicent tells Oliver that she is willing to adopt a more frugal lifestyle. As the guests are about to go in to dinner, Kitty pressures Dan to tell Oliver that he has saved the Jordan Line.

The series, based on a sequence of novels by Edgar Wallace including a 1905 novel titled ''The Four Just Men'', presents the adventures of four men who first meet while Allied soldiers in Italy during the Second World War. The men later meet again, and decide to fight for justice and against tyranny, using money donated for the purpose by their late commanding officer. They operate from different countries: Jeff Ryder is a professor of law at Columbia University in New York City, Tim Collier is an American reporter based in Paris, Ben Manfred is a crusading independent MP who works from London, and Ricco Poccari is an Italian hotelier based in Rome. Their reputation as the "Four Just Men" is well known.

The series is unusual in having the four main actors appear alternately (except in the first episode); one or occasionally two makes a brief appearance in each other's episode, often using a telephone.