In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, mobster Carmine "Beans" Pasquale is arrested by the FBI. While he is being interviewed, the FBI agents say that they have enough to put him away for twenty to twenty-five years. Carmine agrees to talk and is placed in the Witness Protection Program, along with his wife Gina and son Vincent. They move to Happy Valley, Utah and assume the identities of George, Linda and Patrick Cheeseman. What follows is culture shock on both sides between the local Mormons and the devoutly Catholic Pasquales/Cheesemans. Eventually, the mob discovers Carmine's whereabouts and sends two killers after him.

A subplot involves the church politics in the local Mormon congregation (or "ward") as the bishop moves away due to a death in the family and a new bishop must be selected.

Gennosuke is a rebel samurai on the run, having fled his clan after assassinating a counselor. The daughter of the counselor, Misa, and her fiancé, Daizaburo, pursue Gennosuke along with other samurai from Gennosuke's clan despite Gennosuke's obvious superiority as a warrior. A series of flashbacks reveals that Gennosuke was manipulated into committing the treason by one of the clan's higher-ranking samurai, who led Gennosuke to believe that the counselor's death would result in modern reforms to the clan and in Gennosuke's promotion to a full-fledged retainer, instead of a lowly foot soldier. In fact, the ranking samurai simply wanted the counselor killed so that he could succeed to the position himself. He had used Gennosuke to do the "dirty work", and then abandoned Gennosuke to face the consequences of the crime.

As Gennosuke flees, he is given refuge by a poor farmer named Gundayu. Knowing that Gennosuke is a skilled swordsman, Gundayu makes the fugitive his partner in a scheme to poach gold from the shōgun's mountain. Doing so is dangerous, because of the presence of bandits and other poachers in the area, as well as the risk of being caught by the shōgun's authorities and sentenced to death.

On the mountain, Gennosuke discovers another samurai, Jurota Yamane and his wife Taka, who are stealing gold as part of a mission for their clan. It is eventually revealed that Jurota's clan is going to betray him and kill him and his wife after they have the gold. On hearing this Gennosuke is reminded of his own betrayal by the high-ranking men of his own clan. He decides to help Jurota and Taka instead of leaving the mountain for safety. Daizaburo and Misa catch up to Gennosuke as he is making this decision and follow him to the scene of the climactic battle.

Gennosuke finds Jurota and Taka, but too late to stop their murder by their own clan. Instead he takes revenge of the gathered clansmen and mercenaries. After the battle is won, Daizaburo and Misa see the hypocrisy of the clan system mirrored in Gennosuke's situation and rescind their vendetta allowing Gennosuke to leave without a fight.

It is set in the period between the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and the Siege of Osaka in 1614. Years of warfare end in a Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, but the peace is threatened. It follows Sarutobi Sasuke (Kōji Takahashi), a spy for the Sanada Clan. Sasuke, tired of conflict, longs for peace. When a high-ranking spy named Tatewaki Koriyama defects from the shogun to a rival clan, Sasuke is caught between two rival groups of spies, those working for the Tokugawa Shogunate and those supporting the Toyotomi Clan. Tokugawa Ieyasu's clan was in the strategically superior position after having won the Battle of Sekigahara but had engendered much hatred among samurai who had become rōnin after the Battle.

The Tokugawa spies are led by Sakon Takatani (Tetsurō Tamba) and Tatewaki Koriyama (Eiji Okada) and the Toyotomi by Shigeyuki Koremura (Eitaro Ozawa) and his lieutenant Takanosuke Nojiri (Kei Satō). The story begins when Sasuke is approached by another Toyotomi spy Mitsuaki Inamura (Mutsuhiro Toura), who tells Sasuke that Tatewaki means to betray Tokugawa and join the Toyotomi. Sasuke, believing that this intrigue will start another war, tells Mitsuaki that he wants no part in it, but Mitsuaki begs Sasuke to help him since the local magistrate Genba Kuni (Minoru Hodaka) is on the lookout for him. Mitsuaki goes into the town with him and they see Genba Kuni cruelly parading a young man who is a Christian that he has captured and Mitsuaki admits to betraying the Christian in order to distract Kuni and allow him to get through his district.

As they are on the road Sasuke notices a beautiful women with an older man who they had seen in town but Mitsuaki is attacked outside of town and Sasuke comes to his rescue, but later at an inn in the next town, Mitsuaki is assassinated. Sasuke finds him dead and is chased as the murderer since he comes out of the room. He escapes but soon meets the beautiful woman who entices him to come to her room, and when she turns up dead Sasuke is suspected. Sasuke decides he must find the true killer or killers and at the same time finds himself involved in the intrigue which he sought to avoid to find Tatewaki and help him to betray Tokugawa and join the Toyotomi.

Pricò is a young Italian boy who lives with his parents in a middle-class household. His mother, Nina, takes him to a local park where he enjoys his time out while watching a puppet show, but is also concerned with a handsome lover named Roberto (with whom Nina has shared a past romance) courting his mother while he is assumed to not be paying attention. As the boy returns home, the family has dinner while Pricò reflects on his day in the park. Later that night, after his mother puts him to bed, she runs off with the stranger, leaving Pricò's father distressed at the idea of having to raise his son himself. While their neighbors share a number of rumors concerning the disappearance of Nina, it is quickly agreed that she ran off with another man. While concerned with her disappearance, Nina quickly returns to the home after a few days for the sake of their son. While the father, Andrea, is not entirely pleased with this arrangement, he relents so that his son may grow up in the same house as his mother.

To distance herself from Roberto, Nina and Andrea agree to go on vacation with their son to a nearby beach hotel. The vacation occupies their time, seemingly happy with the prospect of a reunion. After Andrea says that he must go back home to his job, he suggests that Nina stay with Pricò a few extra days that they may enjoy their time. After leaving, Nina is again pursued by Roberto who shows up unexpectedly at a hotel dance, at first successfully keeping him away. But after yielding to him once again, Pricò is dismayed by her lack of faith. After Pricò runs away, he is eventually brought back by the police officers while the hotel residents quickly start their own rumors as to the cause of his departing.

After Pricò and his mother return to their home town, Nina tells him outside their home to go on up and that she'll be up after going on an errand. When Pricò goes to see his father upstairs, he and his father realize the truth of why Nina is not there. Again distressed at the elopement of his wife, Andrea enrolls Pricò in a boarding school. While his son is away, Andrea kills himself in despair. When Pricò is told of the death at the school, both his mother and faithful maid are there to comfort him. Though very young, Pricò understands the nature of his mother, refusing to go to her for comfort in favor of his maid. The film ends with Pricò walking off, refusing to acknowledge his mother.

Four siblings, a sister and three brothers, live with their blind mother in a provincial villa. Three of the siblings suffer from epilepsy; the eldest son, Augusto does not. Augusto is the only provider for the family. One of the brothers, Alessandro, decides that Augusto would be free to live his life as he pleases if the mother and other siblings were gotten rid of.

He connives to be allowed to drive his mother and the other siblings on their periodic trip to a cemetery. After he has left, Augusto reads the note that Alessandro left saying that he would kill all of them and himself. Alessandro intended to drive all of them off a cliff, but does not, and they all return home safely. Later, however, Alessandro takes his mother for a drive; they stop at an overlook, and Alessandro pushes his mother off the cliff to her death. Alessandro is not suspected.

After his mother's funeral, he kills his brother Leone by having him drink an overdose of his medication. The sister, Giulia, realizes that Alessandro killed Leone and their mother; Alessandro has an epileptic fit, and Giulia does not come to his aid.

The premise of the game is that the three superpowers, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, have each secretly constructed a vast subterranean complex of computers to wage a global war too complex for human brains to oversee. One day, the American supercomputer, better known as the Allied Mastercomputer, gains sentience and absorbs the Russian and Chinese supercomputers into itself, and redefines itself as simply AM (''Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am''). Due to its immense hatred for humanity, stemming from the logistical limits set onto him by programmers, AM uses its abilities to kill off the population of the world. However, AM refrains from killing five people (four men and one woman) in order to bring them to the center of the earth and torture them. With the aid of research carried out by one of the five remaining humans, AM is able to extend their lifespans indefinitely as well as alter their bodies and minds to his liking.

After 109 years of torture and humiliation, the five victims stand before a pillar etched with a burning message of hate. AM tells them that he now has a new game for them to play. AM has devised a quest for each of the five, an adventure of "speared eyeballs and dripping guts and the smell of rotting gardenias". Each character is subjected to a personalized psychodrama, designed by AM to play into their greatest fears and personal failings, and occupied by a host of different characters. Some of these are clearly AM in disguise, some are AM's submerged personalities, others seem very much like people from the captives' past. The scenes include an iron zeppelin powered by small animals, an Egyptian pyramid housing gutted, sparking machinery, a medieval castle occupied by witches, a jungle inhabited by a small tribe, and a concentration camp where doctors conduct medical experiments. However, each character eventually prevails over AM's tortures by finding ways to overcome their fatal flaws, confront their past actions and redeem themselves, thanks to the interference of the Russian and Chinese supercomputers who appear as guiding characters and allow their stories to have an open ending.

After all five humans have overcome their fatal flaws, they meet again in their respective torture cells while AM retreats within himself, pondering what went wrong. With the help of the Russian and Chinese supercomputers, one of the five humans (whom the player selects) is then translated into binary and faces an as yet unexperienced cyberspace template, the world of AM's mind. The psychodrama unfolds in a metaphorical brain that looks like the surface of the cerebrum, with glass structures that jut crazily from the bleeding brain tissue. AM's mind is represented according to the Freudian trinity of the Id, Ego and Superego, which appear as three floating bodiless heads on three cracked glass structures on the brainscape. Through dialogs with AM's components (Surgat, Chinese Supercomputer and Russian Supercomputer) the character learns that a colony of humans has survived the war by being hidden and hibernating on Luna (this is also mentioned in Nimdok's story: "the lost tribe of our brothers sleeping on the moon, where the beast does not see them"). If the human intruder disables all three brain components, and then invokes the Totem of Entropy at the Flame, which is the nexus of AM's thought patterns, all three supercomputers will be shut down, probably forever. Cataclysmic explosions destroy all the caverns constituting AM's computer complex, including the cavern holding the human hostages. However, the human volunteer retains his or her digital form, permanently patrolling AM's circuits should the computers ever regain consciousness. Should the human intruder fail to disable AM properly before facing him, however, AM will punish them by transforming the character into a "great, soft jelly thing" with no mouth that cannot harm itself or others, and must spend eternity with AM in this form.

Endings

The game can end in seven different ways depending on how the finale is completed.

AM wins, using Nimdok's research to turn the last character played into a great, soft jelly thing with each character quoting a different part of the final section of the original short story.

AM joins with the Soviet and Chinese supercomputers, reawakens and tortures the 750 humans on Luna. As in the first ending, the character responsible for this is turned into a great, soft jelly thing, and quotes a part of the final lines of the short story.

AM is made harmless with the help of the humans, but the Russian and Chinese supercomputers take over in its stead. As consolation, they allow AM to choose what to do to the humans, and AM turns the last character played into a great, soft jelly thing as in the previous two endings.

The player gives the Totem of Entropy to Surgat, one of AM's servants. He activates it, killing the Russian and Chinese supercomputers, and then AM turns the player into a great soft jelly thing.

The human invokes the Totem of Entropy in front of the Russian and Chinese supercomputers. AM tells the player that they did not earn his mercy, then turns them into a great soft jelly thing.

The player disables either the Id, Superego or both, then invokes the Totem of Entropy. This ends with the player monitoring the computers, but the Ego kills the 750 humans on the moon.

AM, the Chinese and Russian supercomputers are defeated and the 750 humans cryogenically frozen on Luna are reawakened and Earth is transformed to become a habitable environment, with the overseer being the last character played.

It is possible to prevent the physical bodies of the protagonists from being destroyed if Nimdok is the first to go face AM, but even so, some dialogue from the Chinese and Russian supercomputers suggests that they may have died when their digital counterparts were erased.

While driving his Dual-Ghia from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, lecherous, heavy-drinking pop singer Dino is forced to detour through Climax, Nevada. There he meets the amateur songwriting team of Barney Millsap, a gas station attendant, and piano teacher Orville J. Spooner, a man easily given to jealousy. Hoping to interest Dino in their songs, Barney disables the "Italian" sports car and tells Dino he will need to remain in town until new parts arrive from Milan. (Dual-Ghia was actually an American marque, mating a Dodge frame, drivetrain, and engine with Italian coachwork.)

Orville invites Dino to stay with him and wife Zelda, but becomes concerned when he learns the singer needs to have sex every night to avoid awakening with a headache. Anxious to accommodate Dino but safeguard his marriage, Orville provokes an argument with his wife that leads to Zelda fleeing in tears. He and Barney then arrange for Polly the Pistol, a waitress and prostitute at a saloon on the edge of town called the Belly Button, to pose as Orville's wife and satisfy Dino.

That evening after the three have dinner, Orville plays his tunes for Dino on the piano and Polly requests a particular song. It is one she knows he wrote for his wife when trying to persuade her to marry him. Doing so, Orville gets lost in emotion, as does Polly, who has fallen a little for the dream of a domestic life that she doesn't have. Under the influence of wine and song, Orville starts thinking of Polly as his wife and tosses Dino out. He then spends the night with Polly.

Dino seeks shelter at the Belly Button, where Zelda earlier had gone to drown her sorrows. When she became drunk and rowdy, the manager deposited her in Polly's trailer to sleep. Hearing about the talents of Polly the Pistol and declaring himself eager "to shoot it out with her," Dino goes to the trailer and finds Zelda there and mistakes her for Polly. A longtime fan, she succumbs to Dino's charms and allows him to seduce her, persuading him how perfect Orville's song would be for him at the same time.

Zelda meets Polly the next morning and figures out the trick Orville played on her. She gives Dino's money to Polly, who needs it to leave Climax and start a new life.

A few nights later, Orville is distraught knowing that Zelda intends to divorce him. Suddenly he hears Dino singing one of his songs on coast-to-coast television. He is at a total loss as to how this could have happened. He wants an explanation, but Zelda simply orders him: "Kiss me, stupid."

The only mission in Stalin's life is to help others and make the world a better place. It turns out that he served as a Major in the Indian Army. Although a war hero, he quit the army after a rift with Lt. Col. Iqbal Kakar when he transfers him to the administrative division from the battlefield as a disciplinary action. His family includes his mother and sister Jhansi, who is not in talking terms with their mother since she married a Punjabi.

Stalin keeps helping a physically challenged girl named Sumati write her intermediate examination, and her suicide disturbs him. The death occurs as none of the people around her extend help. Stalin then plans a chain system. The theme works on a principle that everyone should help others, and in return, they should not seek a mere thanks but tell those who get the help to help three more, with a condition that those who get help from them should also demand the same. Stalin thinks that this chain will develop helping attitude among the people but unfortunately finds that the chain did not work. On one occasion, he bashes a rich boy who injured a beggar.

This goes in a chain reaction, and the rich boy employs goons to attack Stalin. As Stalin disappears from the scene, the goons take Jhansi and her friend Chitra into their custody. Stalin reaches the spot and hacks the hand of one goon which happens to be the henchman of an MLA, who is the son-in-law of Home Minister Muddu Krishnayya. Krishnayya takes it as a prestige issue and tries to eliminate Stalin but loses his son in the process. When the Chief Minister intervenes to bring in a patch-up, Krishnayya plans to kill him and implicate Stalin in the murder. Stalin saves the injured Chief Minister but experiences a severe chest pain due to exertion.

The reason for the chest pain is a bullet which remained in his chest, very near to his heart. Stalin sustains the bullet injury in the Kargil War, and that was why Iqbal shifted him to the administrative department. Finally, the truth prevails, and the CM returns to the hospital to visit Stalin. The "help three people" concept was his brainchild, which saved him from death in the form of a schoolgirl. Finally, the doctors successfully remove the bullet in a very delicate surgery. Krishnayya also gets arrested. Stalin realises that his "help three people" concept worked well, and the same theme saved his life in the form of an auto driver. He thanks everyone for making his concept a success.

In Vienna in 1914, Prince Nicki is the scion of a rundown noble family and is commander of a cavalry regiment.

During a parade in front of the St. Stephen's Cathedral, Nicki notices beautiful innkeeper's daughter Mitzi in the crowd. Mitzi is eating with her family as her butcher fiance Schani grotesquely spits and embarrasses the entire family. Nicki and Mitzi flirt with each other during the parade. During a gun salute Nicki's horse becomes afraid and injures Mitzi, who is sent to the hospital. Nicki also has Schani arrested at this time. Nicki visits Mitzi at the hospital and later in the pub where she works as a harpist. They begin to go on dates and fall in love.

Knowing of his family's financial troubles, Nicki is approached by a wealthy factory owner to marry his daughter Cecilia in exchange for a noble title. Nicki initially refuses but finally agrees to marry Cecilia. Schani is released from prison and finds out about the relationship between Mitzi and Nicki, and shows Mitzi a newspaper article announcing the marriage of Nicki and Cecilia. Mitzi remains calm and tells Schani that she hates him and still loves Nicki. Enraged Schani tries to rape Mitzi, but his father prevents it at the last moment. Schani decides to murder Nicki after the wedding.

The marriage of Nicki and Cecilia is celebrated. Schani is waiting for Nicki with a gun at the church. At the last moment Mitzi appears and promises to marry Schani if he does not kill Nicki. Nicki and Cecilia get into their coach and drive away.

''The Honeymoon''

''The Honeymoon'' depicts the honeymoon of Prince Nicki in the Alps, and the wedding of Mitzi and Schani. Mitzi still loves Nicki, and jealous Schani decides once again to kill the prince. Schani shoots at Nicki, but Cecilia throws herself in front of Nicki. Schani becomes a fugitive and goes into hiding. Nicki and Mitzi meet one last time, where Mitzi tells Nicki that she will go to a convent. Nicki goes off to war, where he is killed.

Set in the southern city of Savannah, Georgia, the series revolves around three female friends: naive rich girl Reese Burton (Shannon Sturges), noble Lane McKenzie (Robyn Lively), and scheming bad girl Peyton Richards (Jamie Luner). Lane had previously left Savannah after graduating from college to become a successful journalist in New York City, but returns for the wedding of her childhood best friend Reese to Travis Peterson (George Eads). Finding out that her apartment in New York has been burglarized, Lane tries to collect on an inheritance, but discovers that Travis has stolen every penny of it. Travis has also, as Reese is devastated to discover, been having an affair with a girl he calls "Bunny", who is actually Peyton, Reese's so-called friend and daughter of the Burton family's maid. Peyton envies Reese's wealth and is keen to marry for money.

Travis is soon found dead, and the first season revolves around the whodunit murder mystery and subsequent court case. Considerable intrigue surrounds the machinations of Tom Massick (Paul Satterfield), a stranger with a score to settle, as well as the identity of Peyton's father, who turns out to be Reese's father Edward (Ray Wise), making Peyton and Reese half-sisters. Cassandra "Cassie" Wheeler (Alexia Robinson), longtime friend of the three other women, joined the cast in the second season, and Eads returned as Travis's identical twin Nick.

American physicist Professor Bower is effectively blackmailed by a shady CIA agent named Adams to help the CIA obtain secret microfilm from a defecting Russian scientist. The reluctant Bower travels to East Germany undercover as an antiques collector, where he encounters Heinzmann, an East German fellow physicist who is also a secret agent. Heinzmann is aware of Bower's meeting with Adams and of his intention to steal the microfilm, but their mutual respect for one another's tactics complicate the proceedings.

Sam Dalmas is an American writer vacationing in Rome with his English model girlfriend, Julia. Suffering from writer's block, Sam is on the verge of returning to America but witnesses the attack of a woman in an art gallery by a mysterious black-gloved assailant dressed in a raincoat.

Attempting to reach her, Sam is trapped between two mechanically-operated glass doors and can only watch as the villain makes his escape. The woman, Monica Ranieri (the wife of the gallery's owner Alberto Ranieri), survives the attack and the local police confiscate Sam's passport to stop him from leaving the country. The assailant is believed to be a serial killer who is killing young women across the city, and Sam is an important witness.

Sam is haunted by what he saw that night, feeling sure that some vital clue is evading him, and he decides to help Inspector Morosini in his investigation. He interviews the pimp of a murdered prostitute and visits a shop where one of the victims worked. There, Sam finds that the last thing she sold on the day of her death was a painting of a stark landscape featuring a man in a raincoat assaulting a young woman. He visits the artist but finds only another dead end. As he makes his way back to his apartment, a black-gloved figure attacks Julia, but Sam arrives home just in time to save her, and the assailant escapes.

Sam starts to receive threatening phone calls from the killer. The police manage to isolate an odd cricketing noise in the background, which is later revealed to be the call of a rare breed of bird from Siberia called "The Bird with Crystal Plumage" due to the translucent glint of its feathers. This clue proves crucial since the only one of its kind in Rome is kept in the Italian capital's zoo, allowing Sam and the police to identify the killer's abode. They once again find Monica Ranieri struggling with her husband Alberto, who is wielding a knife. After a short struggle, Alberto drops from six stories onto a concrete sidewalk below. As he dies, he confesses to the murders and tells them he loves his wife.

Finding that Julia and Monica have run off, Sam goes after them, eventually coming to a darkened building. He finds his friend Carlo murdered and Julia bound, gagged, and wounded. The assailant emerges and is revealed as Monica Ranieri. Sam suddenly realizes that he didn't miss anything during the first attack; Sam misinterpreted what he saw: the attack he witnessed in the gallery was not Monica being assaulted but Monica attacking her husband, who was wearing the raincoat. She flees, and he pursues Monica to her art gallery. There he is trapped, pinned to the floor by the release of a wall-sized sculpture of wire and metal. Unable to free himself, he is teased by the knife-wielding Monica as she prepares to kill him. As she raises her knife, the police (who were notified by Julia, who escaped) burst in and apprehend her. Sam is freed, and Monica is taken to a psychiatric hospital.

It is revealed through an interview with a psychiatrist that Monica was the victim of a traumatic attack ten years before. Seeing the painting of the attack drove her mad, causing her to identify with the assailant and not the victim. Alberto likewise suffered from an induced psychosis, helping her cover up the murders and committing some himself. Sam and Julia are reunited and return to America.

The game is set in Persia, India, and the fictional Aresura. Each of these kindgdoms sends three generals to fight their wars. Caught in the conflicts is the Prince, who finds out that he is being hunted by the Dahaka, an incarnation of fate, because he interfered with time and cheated his own death in the process. While searching for a way to stop the Dahaka, the Prince accidentally starts a war between Persia and India. Over the span of the game, the Prince fights the Deavas, a mythical race of demons contained in a box he opens, and Kalim, the Prince of India and brother of his long lost love Farah. Because of the wars, the Prince matures and becomes more cynical and violent, matching his depiction in ''Prince of Persia: Warrior Within''.

Jackie Ivers (Bleeth) is a Los Angeles nurse who returns home to the small town of San Vicente to find that her friends and family have taken on bizarrely different personalities. Jackie notices that everyone who goes into the town's lake come out different.

As the movie progresses, Jackie first-handedly witnesses what is happening to everyone around her as she is kidnapped by people from a parallel world. The other world is a duplicate of Earth but is now polluted and its ozone layer gone. In order to survive, the duplicates intend to take over Earth. The entrances to the duplicate Earth are called the vortex, which are located in major bodies of water, ponds, and lakes.

While messing around in the school’s steam tunnels, Bart and Milhouse trigger a massive escape of steam that destroys the school. Although Milhouse is free to go, Principal Skinner proposes that Bart be sent off to "Upward Bound", a behavioral modification camp for troublemaking children based in Portland, Oregon. Meanwhile, Moe announces that he is treating Homer, Lenny, Carl and Barney with renting a minivan and taking them on a trip to Las Vegas, after a suicide attempt led to him suing the rope company that made a faulty noose and earning a hefty settlement. While the others pack their luggage and load it into the minivan near Moe's Tavern, Homer drives Bart to the airport to send him to the camp before going to Vegas. However, it is discovered that Bart is on the No Fly List after an incident in Atlanta where Bart unbuckled his seat belt before the plane could come to a complete stop.

Homer now has to drive Bart to the camp and is annoyed at having to miss the Vegas trip with his friends. While they are stopped at a roadside diner, Bart pretends to respect Homer in order to escape; his plan works and he heads off home. However, he then reluctantly rescues Homer from almost driving off a cliff and they are soon back on the road, now with Bart chained and duct-taped in his seat, Homer now unable to trust his son. Homer gets Bart to the camp, and leaves him there as Bart sadly watches Homer reluctantly drive away. As he drives to Vegas, Homer begins to feel guilty, and decides to bring Bart back. Meanwhile, Bart is thoroughly enjoying his stay at the camp, and begins to realize he does not have to feel good by doing pranks, until he sees Homer run down a horse with his car, and leaves with Homer to go to Vegas in return for washing the horse's blood off the car.

Meanwhile, Marge and Lisa have a yard sale, selling all of Homer and Bart's stuff with the intention of using the profits to buy knick-knacks and curios. It is initially a total failure until Otto discovers that Marge is selling the family's expired prescription drugs. Although reluctant, Marge soon makes much money selling prescription drugs, but Chief Wiggum eventually discovers the scheme and arrests her. Lisa returns home from school and gets two phone messages: one from Marge begging Homer for bail money and another from Homer, who made it to Vegas, but ended up in prison for fighting with a pit boss and losing track of Bart. Lisa tells Maggie that she anticipated the day when the two of them would be the only members of the family left to fend for themselves and states that she will look for work in the morning.

Donald Bridges (John Ritter) and his wife Alice (JoBeth Williams) have a young son, Andy (Kevin Zegers), who is emotionally disturbed due to a near-drowning accident. The parents frequently argue with each other about how to raise their son until they have uninvited houseguests when a plane carrying Jarvis Moody (Christopher Lloyd) and Pepper Upper (Yasmine Bleeth) falls from the sky and crashes right onto their roof.

Jarvis and Pepper are a pair of wealthy eccentrics who give Donald and Alice a lesson in how to enjoy life. The stranded couple force the stressed parents to cope with each other and with their son. Then Andy asks through his artwork to be taken to a special school for children with his type of disorder. All of their lives are changed forever in this warm, offbeat fairytale.

A woman named Nina (Jenny Mollen) is bitten by a werewolf. Nina runs off before Angel kills the werewolf. As there are two more nights in which Nina will become a werewolf, she must be located, since she will not know what is happening. Spike asks Fred to investigate his disappearances to the "netherworld", which are lasting longer.

Nina wakes up at home and heads to her kitchen. Her hearing is improved and she does not remember the bruise on her neck. She studies hamburgers that her sister Jill and niece Amanda are cooking, and imagines slashing Amanda's neck. That night, Nina turns into a werewolf, but is abducted and sedated by Angel and Wesley.

The next day, Nina wakes up in a cell. Angel shows her a video of herself as a wolf. She is upset with her condition and that she wanted to hurt Amanda. Nina asks whether he can cure her and Angel admits he cannot. Angel meets with Fred and Royce, who warns that Nina might hurt herself, but she might be okay if they take her back to her home; the familiarity will calm her. Angel releases Nina with Fred.

Fred tells Jill and Amanda that Nina left because Fred needed her help. Nina and Jill argue and Nina leaves while Fred grabs things for her. They return to their van, but the security guards are dead. A man knocks Fred out and kidnaps Nina. At Wolfram & Hart, Royce sings "Jessie's Girl" for Lorne, who confirms that he is clean. The others try to figure out who grabbed Nina.

Fred finds a vial in Royce's trash that contained Calendula; Royce suspected he would have to sing for Lorne, so he took a drug to appear clean. Fred finds a menu for a banquet hosted by restaurant entrepreneur John Crane, whose employees abducted Nina after Royce informed him about her. Crane has gathered gourmets wishing to dine on werewolf meat.

The gang heads to the banquet hall and Angel frees Nina, but the gang is surrounded by men with guns. Nina turns into a werewolf, helping the group before Wesley tranquilizes her. Angel announces that they are leaving, but Crane declares that he promised his guests a werewolf. Werewolf Nina bites Royce's leg, and Angel points out that in a month, Crane will have another werewolf to eat. Crane considers this an acceptable resolution.

Fred returns to her office to find Spike. He tells her that he was not sure he would return from the netherworld. Fred vows to find a way to keep him in the world. Angel drives Nina home as she asks how he lives with having killed people. Angel tells her that she will accept being a werewolf, and does not have to tell Jill and Amanda until she is ready.

''The Octopus'' depicts the conflict between wheat farmers in the southern San Joaquin Valley and the fictional Pacific and Southwestern railroad (P&SW). The main nearby town is the fictional Bonneville.

The league persuades Derrick to participate in secretly bribing state legislators and installing Derrick's lawyer son, Lyman, on the railroad board. All goes for nought, however, as the railroads have secretly agreed to support Lyman's bid for governor. Lyman, violating his promise to the league, declines to reduce tariffs for Tulare County wheat.

Dyke, a railroad engineer, dotes on his daughter, Sidney, and his mother. Dyke is fired for refusing to take a pay cut. He decides to raise hops, but is ruined when the railroad raises the tariff for shipping them. After robbing a train, he eludes capture, but is eventually caught.

When the community comes together to drive jack rabbits from Osterman's ranch, Behrman, Delaney and Christian—agents of the railroad—assisted by U.S. marshals, seize Annixter's ranch. Members of the league ride off to thwart the seizure of Derrick's ranch. In the gunfight that ensues, Osterman, Broderson, Harran Derrick—Magnus's son, Hooven, and Annixter are all instantly killed or mortally wounded. Shortly afterward, Annixter's young widow, Hilma, suffers a miscarriage. Presley, the poet, throws a bomb made by the Communist bar-owner Caraher into Behrman's home, but Behrman escapes unscathed.

In a meeting into the Bonneville opera house, other members of the league counsel caution. Derrick arrives and is about to speak when provocateurs distribute freshly printed copies of the local newspaper, which has a front-page story revealing Derrick's participation in the league's bribery. Derrick is ruined.

Dyke is tried and sentenced to life in prison.

Mrs. Hooven and her daughters, 19-year-old Minna and 6-year-old Hilda, move to San Francisco, where they become separated and destitute. Minna is lured into prostitution and Mrs. Hooven dies of starvation. Presley, determined to help them, arrives too late.

In San Francisco, Presley attends a sumptuous dinner, courtesy of his businessman friend Cedarquist, who secures Presley passage on an India-bound ship. Cedarquist's wife, moved by Presley's poem 'The Toilers,' raises money to send a shipload of wheat for famine relief to India.

Behrman, now in possession of Derrick's farm, harvests the wheat Derrick raised and sells it to Mrs. Cedarquist's famine-relief effort. He goes to Port Costa to see the wheat from his grain elevator loaded on the India-bound Swanhilda. While relishing the sight of the wheat cascading into the ship's hold, he trips and falls in, where the wheat buries him. Later, Presley, on board the same ship, watches the California coast receding from view.

Major themes in the play are control and how the family is bonded by abuse. Throughout the play we learn from the three women that Billy had created a strange, warped world for them to be confined in from inside his damaged mind. The story of abuse that Billy's family endured unfolds from interviews with police officials and psychologists with Mary, Susan and Janet. Billy himself was abused when he was a child; Mary was abused by her father after the death of her mother. After so many years the two daughters shoot their father during an epileptic seizure.

The play is coordinated to bring out Billy's passively sinister presence, and although he is not physically there, he is present in their memories. His abuse to these women has been so horrific that they shoot him twice to make sure he is dead.

The play also explores ideas of abuse being continued from childhood, how abused children may in the future abuse their own children and isolation from the outside world. This theory relates to John Bowlby's Continuity hypothesis theory. How the relationship an infant has with its parent or parents shapes future ideas about relationships and future behaviour towards relationships.

Three wealthy, savvy high school seniors, Stream Hodsell, a smart, down-to-earth strawberry blonde, sassy Jenny Simon, who masks her intelligence behind a guise of fishnet stockings, and soulful Nell Kellner attend the prestigious and expensive Halton School in Manhattan and have everything - brains, beauty, money, popularity, powerful parents and boyfriends like Chad and garage band musician Henry Lipschitz. They have it all but are still unfulfilled. After losing her virginity without obtaining sexual satisfaction, Stream is confused as well as unfulfilled and studies the problem with self-help books, women's magazines and the comically misinformed advice of her peers. Judy Hodsell is Stream's distracted ex-hippie mom, Dick Hodsell is her yuppie father with a new young girlfriend, Mimi, and Mr. Jennings is a feel-good career counselor.

Brought to a women's prison in a tropical country which resembles the movie's Philippines-set location, Lee Daniels (Pam Grier) and Karen Brent (Margaret Markov), a prostitute and a revolutionary, respectively, butt heads and cause enough trouble to warrant transfer to a maximum security prison. They are chained together during the transfer, much to their dismay, and an attack by Karen's rebel friends allows them to escape, albeit still chained together.

The movie chronicles the pair's struggle to escape the army, led by Captain Cruz (Eddie Garcia) who enlists the help of the cowboy gang led by Ruben (Sid Haig). The pair also has competing goals: Lee to recover the money that she extorted from her former pimp, Vic Cheng (Vic Díaz), and escape by boat, and Karen to meet her gun connections on time so that they do not turn on her rebel friends.

The pair finally bond, despite their initial hate for each other, until they are finally freed by the rebel leader Ernesto (Zaldy Zshornack). The movie culminates in a violent shootout with Cheng and Ruben's henchmen (who are rivals), Ernesto's guerrillas, and the army.

Gabriel is teaching a group of moon-born teenagers about agriculture. Rachel is one of these; she passes her exams and is selected by Gabriel to become a leader of the moon-born. Andrew is another; he fails his exams because he plays a practical joke on Rachel. Gabriel takes Rachel to the ''John Glenn''. As the first moon-born to visit the ship, she arouses hostility from some of the leaders there. She learns that there are three classes amongst the space travelers: five are High Council, who rule until Ymir is reached; some dozens are Council, including Gabriel, and have extended privileges; and the remaining "Earth-born" are colonists, many of them not having been unfrozen since leaving Earth and with few rights. She also learns to use the vast repository of knowledge in the ship's library, and makes contact with the AI "Astronaut" who is kept severely restricted because the High Council doesn't trust high technology. Rachel comes to realise that when the moon-born have helped restock the ship with antimatter the ''John Glenn'' will continue on to Ymir without them, leaving them on a moon that can only sustain life for a century or two.

Gabriel decides there is no immediate need for him and Rachel to return to Selene, and that as a leader Rachel would be most useful with the longer lifespan that is conferred by the suspended animation process, and has himself and Rachel frozen for a year. Problems with radiation flares intervene, and without Gabriel to stand up for her, they are left frozen for twenty years. Rachel returns to Selene to find her best friend killed in an accident, her boyfriend married and with children almost her own age, and her remaining friends more than twice as old as she is. She also realizes that the moon-born are being treated as slaves, with Earth-born as overseers. The moon-born must develop the technological infrastructure to refine antimatter, but there are major risks involved in the refining which could destroy the population of Selene.

Rachel becomes a teacher of the next generation of moon-born. She teaches them what she is supposed to, but she also includes concepts from Earth history that she learns from the library and Astronaut - concepts such as democracy and passive resistance. She has a few friends among Council, and Astronaut is able to conceal her communications with them from other Council and High Council. Andrew (a childhood enemy) plays a more active role in stirring up rebellion, but the moon-born have no power to change their role. The Council notices the passive resistance and their members begin carrying weapons. Some years later, one of the ship's boats crash lands on Selene and is abandoned there. It has sufficient electronics to house an AI, and Rachel's Council friends make a copy of Astronaut there, Vassal, unknown to High Council.

Ten years after Rachel was unfrozen, an accident leads to a Council member shooting one of the moon-born. Andrew leads a revolt and takes a Council member hostage. The rebellion is halted by a flare which requires everyone to shelter together, and by Rachel's heroic intervention. In the wake of the rebellion, a new understanding is reached between the moon-born and the High Council. They will work more as equals, and the refinement of the antimatter will take place at a safe distance from Selene. The travellers will leave more technology behind when they leave (including the copy of Astronaut) so Selene can survive. This is at a cost of delaying their departure significantly. Gabriel decides he will remain on Selene when ''John Glenn'' departs.

A final, short, section of the novel sums up the next two hundred years, with the antimatter refined, the flare problem on Selene permanently dealt with, and ''John Glenn'' preparing for departure. Periods of suspended animation keep Rachel and Gabriel young.

There is room for a sequel, dealing with either or both of the futures of ''John Glenn'' and Ymir, and of Selene.

In the ancient Roman town of Brundisium, a group of slave girls are sold to a man named Timarchus, the organizer of the events that take place in the town’s colosseum. After a fight breaks out amongst the girls, Timarchus gets the idea of putting the women in the ring to fight to the death. The recently captured Mamawi and Bodicia realize they must stick together if they are to survive.

A disgruntled scientist who, having been fired by the space agency, decides to create superhuman monsters from the body parts of innocent murder victims. The creatures eventually escape and go on a killing spree, attracting the attention of both an international spy ring and the CIA.

On the morning after his re-election, US President Joseph Staton (Dennis Quaid) decides to read the newspaper for the first time in four years. This starts him down a slippery slope. He begins reading obsessively, reexamining his "black-and-white" view of the world in a more "gray-seeming" way, and holing up in his bedroom in his pajamas. Frightened by the President's apparent nervous breakdown, his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe) pushes him back into the spotlight, booking him as a guest judge on the television ratings juggernaut (and the President's wife's personal favorite) talent show ''American Dreamz''. America cannot seem to get enough of ''American Dreamz'', hosted by self-aggrandizing, self-loathing Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant), ever on the lookout for the next insta-celebrity. His latest crop of hopefuls includes Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), a conniving steel magnolia with a devoted, dopey veteran boyfriend William Williams (Chris Klein), and Omer Obeidi (Sam Golzari).

Because Omer's mother died in the Middle East in an American attack, he joined a group of jihadists. He was an actor in an instruction film for terrorists, but he was too clumsy, and his interest in show tunes was frowned upon. Therefore, he was sent to the U.S. to await further instructions, but the leaders expected they could not use him. He moved to Southern California to live with his extended family there, including his effeminate cousin Iqbal (Tony Yalda) and Shazzy (Noureen DeWulf). Iqbal hoped to be selected to participate in ''American Dreamz'', but in a misunderstanding, Omer was selected instead. Iqbal becomes angered by this at first but later agrees to help Omer win and makes himself his manager.

Omer's terrorist organization now sees an opportunity: Omer is instructed to make it to the finale, and kill the President in a suicide attack. He succeeds in getting to the finale. Security is bypassed by assembling the bomb after the security check, in the toilet, from small parts smuggled in (the smaller pieces of explosive are disguised as chewing gum). Omer agrees, but changes his mind and disposes of the bomb in the trash can.

Sally is the other finalist. Earlier in the film, she had dumped William because she believed that her life would've gone nowhere if she still had him for a boyfriend and that he'd only drag her down. This drove William to join the army, only to be wounded in Iraq and sent back to the U.S. For the purpose of the show and at the insistence of her agent, Chet Krogl (Seth Meyers), Sally has to pretend that she still loves William. On the eve of the ''American Dreamz'' finale, William proposes to Sally, which she rejects until Chet decides to boost Sally's popularity and chances of winning the show by asking William to do the proposal on air. However, William witnesses Sally having sex with Martin, and is furious. When he throws out the engagement ring, he finds the bomb Omer tossed in the trash can. He then comes out on stage and threatens to detonate it. While the other people evacuate, William starts singing and Martin, who refuses to let go of the camera, films it. As William reaches the end of the song, he detonates the bomb by walking into the camera, killing both himself and Martin. The film then cuts to shots of people dialing up their cell phones to vote in for the winner. It is eventually revealed that William Williams was voted the surprise winner of ''American Dreamz''.

The epilogue reveals what each of the characters went on to do after the end of last season. Omer went on to become a successful star of his own Broadway revue, where he is shown performing a scene from the musical ''Grease'', the President makes his wife his new chief of staff and Sally Kendoo becomes the new host of ''American Dreamz''.

Mike (Terry Serio) is a young man who is a budding street racer, and owner of a Ford Falcon GT-HO Phase III. His best mate and mechanic, Tony (John Agius), are both steel workers by day, but when they aren't working, they are racing.

Fox (Weirdo) is the top street racer of the area, and owner of a Dodge Challenger; no one dares cross him and his tight group of mates, and he is currently unbeaten, but when Fox wins a race against an unnamed racer in a Holden Monaro, who then, following the race loses control of his car in anger and ends up perishing in a fiery crash, no one has the stomach to race.....Fox is now facing a drought of racing and therefore money.

Julie is the voyeuristic young girl portrayed by singer Deborah Conway, and seemingly involved with Fox. Mike fancies her, and the feeling is mutual. Fox takes advantage of this weakness, and pursues Mike, and basically tells him that if he wants whats his (Julie) he has to race for it.

Mike loses the first race to Fox, the fact being his Falcon just isn't fast enough. They decide to go out to the country (filmed in Cobar, New South Wales), to race easy wins to make enough money to build up the engine (351 Cleveland) of his Falcon to beat Fox. Between playing "Spotto" (a form of eye spy) on the way and scamming service station attendants, we only see them racing one group of people, a bunch of dim-witted bogans called the Gazard boys, in an EK Holden, who they knew they would beat and go on to do so. They agree on a double or nothing race for the next day.

The next morning they find themselves at Rebel's garage, who they crossed paths with the day before, and they realise that Rebel (Max Cullen) is blind, but still has a great passion for life and cars. He still drives his prized blown '57 Chevy coupe, with the help of his wife Joan (Annie Semler).

Mike then sets out to find the racers from yesterday, with them leading Mike, Tony and Julie into a trap, where the racers threaten to burn the Falcon to the ground with them in it unless they give them back their money that they lost the day before. They proceed to get angrier wetting the car with gasoline and then setting it on fire, with Mike trying to drive away and in the process roll the car a few times, but managed to start it up again and drive the car into a shallow lake to quench the fire.

They arrive back at Rebel's, the car barely moving, and Rebel allows them to stay just as long as it takes to get the car fixed. Over the course of a few weeks, Rebel, Mike and Tony repair the car back to its former glory and after a few days of testing the car and tuning it with nitrous they return to the city to race Fox once again.

As the cars line up at the start line (The brick-yards in Homebusy Bay in Sydney (now Sydney Olympic Park)) As they set of and reach redline speed in what seems like a setup from Mike's point of view but was really just an accident, a truck pulls out in front of Fox and Mike during the race, destroying the Falcon and injuring Mike.

After Mike's recovery in hospital, it seems he has given up—until Tony is bashed by Fox's head thug for riding a bicycle after Fox told them "no wheels and off the street". Mike confronts Fox and challenges him to a race. Mike plans to race and bet Rebel's Chevy, he knows it will beat the Dodge - he just has to convince Rebel to let him use it.

Mike heads back to Rebel's and asks him for the car. After Rebel's reluctant agreement, teaching Mike to drive it and handle the car properly, they head back to the city once more, only to have Fox, realising that he has no chance against the Chevy over the quarter mile, decides they will run Kemps Creek instead, which is a mile long race, figuring that he has the speed advantage.

After the eventful race through Kemps Creek and Mike's eventual victory, there is a dramatic sort of stand-off between the two, and Fox, possibly coming to terms that he lost, drives the Dodge full speed into a wall, killing himself and destroying the car, as if to make the point that Mike would never have his car. The movie ends with Mike's not so fussed reaction to this event and fades into the credits.

In 1985, without warning, an alien spaceship attacks a Japanese Moon base. Back on Earth, young Kenichi (Kenny in the English dubbed version) Ishikawa, his father Dr. Yosuke (Henry in the English dubbed version) Ishikawa, his friend Helen Wallace and her father, Dr. Tom Wallace, witness the spaceship descending into the ocean. They go to investigate, but are soon captured by a teleportation beam that brings them aboard the spaceship. Inside the spaceship, a human-looking woman appears to them and reveals that she is of an alien race called the Zigrans. By way of demonstrating Zigran technological prowess, she creates a gigantic earthquake that wreaks havoc in Japan. She had previously caused two other earthquakes, one in Peru and the other in Arabia (in the English dubbed version, it mentions instead the Indian Ocean). She then tells her prisoners of the planet Zigra's history and its great scientific advances which, unfortunately, have resulted in its destruction; but in searching for a new home, Zigra has found Earth.

The woman contacts authorities on Earth and orders them to surrender, or she will kill her prisoners. Tom declares that the Zigran woman is insane and, in anger, she sends the two men into a hypnotic trance. Kenichi and Helen take action, successfully using the ship's control console to escape with their fathers. Enraged, Zigra orders the woman to go to Earth and kill the children. She says it would be simpler to kill all the people of Japan, but Zigra tells her that humans must be preserved so they can be used for food. Now Gamera, intent on discovering the identity of the alien interloper, flies in to save the day and rescues the children and their fathers. The U.N. authorities, after questioning Kenichi and Helen, resolve to attack Zigra. The Defense Force jets scramble, but the Zigran spaceship makes short work of them with its powerful lasers. The alien woman arrives on earth, disguised as a normal human, and begins her search for Kenichi and Helen. She hitches a ride with a Kamogawa Sea World dolphin trainer back to the facility, which the military is now using as its center of operations. She finds the two children, but before she can catch them, they run away from her.

Gamera begins an underwater assault on the Zigran spaceship, which transforms into a giant swordfish-like monster when hit by Gamera's flame breath. Zigra grows larger and larger and finally halts the heroic turtle with a ray that suspends his cell activity. Immobilized, Gamera sinks into the sea. Zigra then makes contact with the people of Earth, saying that they should give up and surrender all the seas to it. Back at Sea World, the dolphin trainer and the facility's scientists discover a way to break the alien's hypnotic control with sonic waves. Thus, they manage to disable the Zigran woman, only to learn that she is actually an Earthwoman named Chikako Sugawara (Lora Lee in the English dubbed version), who had been in a Moon rover during the initial lunar attack and was captured and used by Zigra. Drs. Wallace and Ishikawa employ a bathysphere in an attempt to wake Gamera, only to find that Kenichi and Helen have stowed away on board. Zigra suddenly attacks them and again demands the immediate surrender of Earth or it will destroy the bathysphere. The U.N. commander reluctantly agrees to the alien's terms.

An electrical storm approaches the bay and a couple of lightning bolts revive Gamera, who stealthily takes the bathysphere from the sea floor when Zigra is not looking and returns it to the surface. Gamera and Zigra face off a final time and Zigra, using its superior versatility underwater, slices Gamera's chest with its blade-like dorsal fin. Gamera takes hold of Zigra, flies into the air with it and then drops it at high speed, slamming the alien monster onto the land. Zigra stands up awkwardly on its tail fins in order to fight Gamera. Gamera further incapacitates Zigra by jamming a boulder through its nose, pinning it to the ground. Gamera grabs another boulder and uses it, like a mallet used to play a xylophone, to play the ''Gamera'' theme on Zigra's dorsal fins. Finally, Gamera kills Zigra by setting its body on fire with his flame breath, reducing it to ashes in a massive conflagration.

The film consists of three parts: Part I: "Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan" (Атос, Портос, Арамис и д'Артаньян) Part II: "The Queen's Diamond Studs" (Подвески королевы) *Part III: "The Adventures Continue" (Приключения продолжаются)

Episode One

D’Artagnan, a young country bumpkin rides to Paris in hopes of becoming a musketeer. In Meung he is insulted by Rochefort, an agent of the Cardinal. A fight ensues, and d’Artagnan Is robbed and left bleeding.

Later he meets M. De Tréville, captain of the king's musketeers. Suddenly, he sees Rochefort and jumps out the window. He crashes into Athos, a wounded musketeer who calls him an idiot and challenged him to a duel at noon. D’Artagnan continues his chase, crashing into two other musketeers, Porthos and Aramis and gets challenged to two other duels. Arriving for the first duel, Athos duels d’Artagnan until Porthos and Aramis arrive, and are astonished that they will all fight the same boy. The Cardinals Guards arrive and a fight ensues. The musketeers kill most of the guards and a few lucky ones escape. The musketeers make friends. Later d’Artagnan rescues Constance, a married seamstress for the Queen and they fall in love. On the next morning, D'Artagnan meets his friends at a local tavern and tells Athos that he mysteriously got a letter from Cardinal Richelieu, asking to meet with him after sunset. Athos tells D'Artagnan, that he has no choice but to meet with him. D'Artagnan then meets the Cardinal at his estate. He tries to sway D'Artagnan to his side with the promise of wealth, high ranking military career, and respect from the nobility.

Although D'Artagnan declines the offer, Richelieu threatens and warns him of what could happen if he continues to interfere with his plans. D'Artagnan returns to his friends, and tells them he refused to serve the Cardinal, and Athos advises D'Artagnan to be careful with his choices, now that he has made an enemy of Richelieu. Later the same night, Richelieu meets with Milady Winter, one of his best spies and agents, and she tells him that the Duke of Buckingham has arrived in Paris.

Episode Two

After receiving word from Milady that the Duke has arrived in Paris, the Cardinal sends Rochefort and De Jussac to stop the Duke but it fails, and Rochefort tells him that D'Artagnan aided the Duke in escaping with the Queen's Diamond Studs, which the Queen gave the Duke, her lover, as a gift. Richelieu immediately plots his revenge on the Queen for rejecting him. He goes to her husband, King Louis XIII, whom he easily manipulates into holding a ball in the royal palace in 10 days, and he tells Louis to tell his wife to wear her diamond studs that Louis had previously given her as a present.

Queen Anne, realizing she is in trouble from the Cardinal's wrath, she tells her loyal maid, Constance, to find someone to go to London and back in 10 days to deliver the studs. However, the Cardinal orders Rochefort to close all of France's ports until further notice. Constance recruits D'Artagnan and he recruits his friends and they sent out to London. However, De Jussac races to the port and deploys squads of Cardinal Guards across the countryside with a single order: Stop D'Artaganan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis at any cost. Although D'Artagnan makes it past the blockade of guards, his friends stay behind to distract the guards. He then battles and defeats De Jussac, again, and steals the Cardinal's letter from him, allowing him to go to London from France's ports. Upon arriving, he discovers that 2 of the 12 diamond studs are stolen by Milady from the Duke. Milady arrives to Richelieu, giving him the studs, which he plans to use to extort the Queen, in return he gives Milady money, and a nobility title. D'Artaganan stays overnight in the Duke's palace, while the Duke orders his jeweler to make 2 new diamond studs to save Anne. The next day D'Artagnan races with the studs to France even riding overnight to desperately make it to Paris to save Constance's life from the Cardinal. He delivers the studs to the Queen saving her and Constance, but Richelieu sends Milady to capture Constance but it fails and she is forced to poison her. Constance dies, and D'Artagnan swears vengeance.

Episode Three

The Cardinal then manipulates Louis into declaring war on England. D'Artagnan is made a Musketeer and De Tréville promises him the rank of lieutenant if D'Artagnan performs heroic deeds. The Siege of La Rochelle begins with King Louis personally being present and Cardinal Richelieu as Siege Commander. Meanwhile, the Cardinal and Milady orchestrate D'Artagnan's assassination, which fails and the assassin tells him that Milady hired him. D'Artagnan returns to their hotel and tells Athos about this, and Athos tells him the Milady is Lady Winter and she killed Constance. He also tells him the Tragic Story of Count De la Fère who fell in love with Milady, only to discover that she is basically a prostitute who tricks guys and destroys their family's honor, the enraged Count tried to kill her only to be almost killed by her, both thought each other died. Due to Athos' anger and wrath while telling the tale, D'Artagnan figures out that Athos is Count De la Fère.

They then chase after Milady who tried to poison D'Artagnan, but fail. Athos knows that D'Artagnan is close to finding Milady so he and the rest of the Musketeers recruit a retired executioner whose family name was destroyed after Milady seduced his brother. They hunt down Milady and execute her, legally, because they confiscated Richelieu's letter, which allows someone to execute a person with the Cardinal's consent. After returning to the battlefield, they are arrested by Richelieu for Milady's murder, but he is forced to let them go after they show him his letter, allowing them to execute a person with his consent.

Left with no other option, Richelieu offers to reward them by giving them the rank of lieutenant of the King's Musketeers, but the group say they are going to resign from service after the war, and the Richelieu should give it to D'Artagnan instead. Athos says to redeem themselves for leaving the battlefield, the 4 of them to hold of a fortress for an hour under fire without retreat to prove their loyalty to France. Richelieu agrees to give D'Artagnan the rank of lieutenant but only after they hold off the fortress for an hour, hoping that they would die. However, an hour passes, and the 4 musketeers return to camp being hailed as heroes by both the King's Musketeers and the Cardinal Guards. Richelieu, honoring his word, makes D'Artagnan lieutenant of the King's Musketeers.

The movie opens with an animated telling of Tomás Fuentes (Eduardo Verástegui)'s life, in which he is always surrounded by women. In his current life, he is a representative for the Olivero & Sanchez Marketing Group in Los Angeles and is busy travelling to visit all three of his girlfriends to give them each a gift. Cici (Sofía Vergara), a cocktail waitress from Miami who enjoys being the center of attention; Patricia Sofia Ordonez Coronado del Pescador (Jaci Velasquez), a debutante of New York's high society who is tired of her mother's (María Conchita Alonso) endless attempts to marry her off; and Lorena Morales (Roselyn Sánchez), a lawyer from Chicago who loves how Tomas makes her feel sexy; have fallen for him and given him the affectionate nickname "Papi". This love triangle of sorts affects Tomás's work life, causing him to pass out during a presentation. His doctor (Ian Gomez) learns of the love triangle, tells Tomás to choose only one woman, prescribes tranquilizers and advises against driving, alcohol, and women.

By coincidence, all three of his girlfriends go to Los Angeles after hearing their horoscopes read by fortune teller Walter Mercado on Univision's ''Primer Impacto''. The three women arrive at his house while he is at the doctor's. Instead of fighting each other, all three agree to leave and quit Tomas cold turkey as revenge for his cheating on them. In their absence, Tomás arrives home and takes his tranquilizers with alcohol. The girls each have second thoughts about leaving and return to confront Tomás directly. First Lorena, then Patricia and finally Cici, causing Tomás to overdose on alcohol and tranquilizers and pass out again.

Mary, Tomás' secretary, calls hoping that he is doing better. Outside Tomas' house, FBI agent Carmen Rivera (Lisa Vidal), is waiting. She followed Cici to Los Angeles as part of an investigation. Fala, Cici's business partner, had Cici do her boyfriend, Ricky, a favor by taking a car that he sold online to the buyer in Los Angeles. Ricky is involved in the Whittaker counterfeit ring that Agent Rivera is investigating. The girls spot her while panicking about what to do with Tomas and think she is "the L.A. woman" who just called, probably from a cell phone.

Scared by Agent Rivera's firearm, the girls decide to take Tomás out of the house and wait until he wakes up and decide which girl he wants to be with. They load all their bags in Ricky's car and, after a short chase, they decide to stay at a Marriott hotel instead of a Motel 6. Unfortunately, Patricia's credit cards have been canceled by her mother. However, Lorena is their saving grace. The Miss Latina American Beauty Pageant is being held in that very same hotel and Miss Puerto Rico's flight was delayed. Lorena bears a resemblance to the real beauty contestant and takes her place. Cici passes herself and Patricia off as her staff. When moving their bags to Miss Puerto Rico's room, a bag falls off the cart onto the luggage room floor.

In the hotel room, all three girls have dinner, empty three bottles of champagne and share their life stories with each other. They each then have a dream in which they end up with Tomás but feel bad about leaving the other two behind.

The next morning, Lorena has to meet the judges and Cici has to deliver Ricky's car to a man named Rodrigo (D.L. Hughley) who apparently bought it. They leave Tomás but, in their absence, he's taken by Agent Rivera who has followed them to the hotel. It turns out Rodrigo was not interested in the car but a bag that was supposed to be in the trunk. Upon returning to the hotel with Rodrigo's associate, Victor (Freddy Rodriguez), the girls discover Tomás is missing and a note that reads, "If you want your Papi back, bring the money to the Don Quixote puppet at L.A. Latin festival at 5 PM. No cops."

Patricia knocks Victor out with a lamp and Cici calls Fala in Miami for answers about the car but doesn't get any. All that is left is to do what the note says. They are interrupted by Costas Delgado (Paul Rodriguez, uncredited), the director of the pageant, who has been looking for Lorena and needs her to meet with the judges immediately. Patricia finds the extra bag filled with money in the luggage room and Cici gets a map to the festival. Victor comes to, calls Rodrigo and they plan to catch the girls at the festival.

While Miss Mexico is being interviewed, Lorena unbuttons her blouse slightly to show off her cleavage and Costas helps her with her sash. During Lorena's interview, Patricia and Cici arrive but so does the real Miss Puerto Rico, who outs Lorena as an impostor. Cici trips her, allowing all three to escape. Outside, Tomás wakes up in Agent Rivera's car. Agent Rivera tells him she intends to use him and the girls in order to detain Victor and Rodrigo. They follow the girls to the festival as they leave in Ricky's car.

On the way, the girls' car breaks down completely. They steal a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which Patricia knows how to drive, promising the owner to bring it right back and lose both the map and Agent Rivera in another chase. Upon arrival, the girls see the puppet is behind the stage. Running through the crowd to avoid the cops, Patricia loses one of her colored contact lenses. Since she looks "so much better without all that money", she simply takes the other one out. Victor and Rodrigo spot them and the girls run on stage where Sheila E. is performing and dance to singer Christina Vidal's song, ''Dejaré'', regardless of their mixed dance backgrounds. Victor and Rodrigo get closer to the stage, causing the girls to run off mid-performance. They all run to the puppet, where Carmen and other FBI agents surround them and apprehend Victor and Rodrigo.

Tomás is reunited with all three of his girlfriends. He apologizes to them for his deception and is unable to choose between them. The girls, however, have all found their inner strengths and choose to leave him instead. Tomás decides to take Agent Carmen's advice and spend some time alone... after taking her out for dinner. Returning to the festival crowds, the girls are invited to return to the stage where they dance to Christina Vidal's song ''It's All About Nothing''.

The movie's timeline advances five months later and the girls have kept in touch. Patricia has moved into her own apartment with her dog Fifi and has gotten a job at an art gallery. Cici is an entertainer on a cruise liner with her business partner Fala. Lorena is still a lawyer working pro-bono but puts her time off to good use and becomes the self-proclaimed "Queen of Tango". Fifi hears her horoscope that advises her to "go outside the door because love is waiting for [her]." The movie ends with Fifi finding her "Puppy Chulo."

The story follows Holly Gooding (Drew Barrymore), who moves from New York City to Los Angeles after being implicated in a murder. She is followed by what is apparently her evil twin. While in Los Angeles, she finds a room for rent by a writer named Patrick Highsmith (George Newbern). After some strange occurrences, it becomes less and less clear whether the woman is in fact Holly or her doppelgänger.

Patrick soon starts to realize something is odd about Holly. As he spends more and more time with her, things heat up and he falls for her. He then finds out that Holly's brother, Fred, is in a psychiatric hospital after killing his own father. When Patrick finds out that Holly's mother was murdered and she is the prime suspect, he starts doubting her sanity. But by that time he is too attached to her and does not want her going to jail. So when her brother Fred is attacked and she once more is a suspect he decides he is going to get to the bottom of it, no matter what.

At the end it is revealed that Holly has a split personality and absorbed a vanishing twin as a fetus in the womb. Also, it is her psychiatrist, Dr. Heller, that is responsible for all of Holly's misfortunes, having convinced Holly's alternate personality to murder her mother (who was planning to kill Holly for her money), and also having used a variety of disguises and latex masks to impersonate Holly and numerous other figures in Patrick's investigation in order to gaslight Holly as well as frame her for additional murders. Just as Dr. Heller is about to kill Patrick, Holly undergoes a bizarre supernatural transformation in which she splits into two partially unformed beings, one of which knocks the other one unconscious and kills Dr. Heller. The creature looks like it's about to kill Patrick, but spares him and remerges with the other creature to reform into Holly. The film ends with both Patrick and Holly recovering in the hospital.

On television show Frightmare Theatre, the Horror Host welcomes viewers and introduces them to the film they are about to see, ''The Roost''.

Four friends – Trevor, Allison, Brian, and Elliot – are traveling to go to a wedding. They are frightened by a bat flying into the windshield and crash the car in a ditch, and are unable to get it started again. With no other ideas, the four go to look for a nearby house to call for help, not realizing the older couple within the nearest house have been killed by an unseen force. While looking for help, the friends are attacked by a swarm of bats. A police officer who comes to investigate the house is attacked by bats as well, causing him to fall off a ledge to his death. However, the bats' attack causes the dead police officer to reanimate and attack the friends, who are forced to imprison him and then kill him.

One by one, each of the friends is attacked by the reanimated corpses of those killed by bats, leaving only Allison and Elliot alive. They realize their situation is hopeless and accept their fate. However, back on the TV program, the Horror Host expresses displeasure at this ending, and rewinds the film to see the film's "alternate", more exciting ending, in which Allison is killed by the bats and Elliot flees the house in the police officer's car. He stops at a bridge, asking a tow truck driver for help. The driver is attacked and killed by another swarm of bats, and Elliot is attacked by a reanimated Allison.

The Horror Host warns viewers that the show is over and his master is home, telling them to leave. The "viewer" holding the camera is attacked by a demonic dog, ending the film.

The story begins when two Lyman siblings, Orban and Adara, accidentally revert a shapeshifted bird on an English moor back into a small Dorig. The Dorig is holding an exquisitely moulded collar, which in Lyman and Dorig culture are used to store protective magic. When Orban tries to take the collar, the Dorig says he is the son of the Dorig king, and will curse the collar before giving it up. Orban kills the Dorig and takes the collar anyway, and as the Dorig dies he binds a curse to the collar by the three Powers – the Old Power, the Middle Power and the New Power.

Orban grows up to be chief of the Otmound mound. Adara marries Gest, chief of the Garholt mound, and has three children: Ayna, Gair, and Ceri. At a young age, Ayna and Ceri discover they have powerful magical talents called "Gifts" – Ayna has precognition, and Ceri can find anything when asked. Gair, the middle child, becomes increasingly gloomy when he fails to develop a Gift.

When Gair is twelve, the Dorig – at war with the Lyman ever since Orban killed the prince – flood the Otmound mound. The Otmounders move into the Garholt mound, bringing with them bad luck which gets worse and worse.

Ayna, Ceri, and Gair are exploring the moors one day when they come across two young Giants, whom the siblings follow back to their house. When they are discovered, a cultural exchange takes place. The Giants inform them that there are plans to flood the moor to provide drinking water for England.

The siblings, the Giants, and two Dorigs must work together to stop the Moor from being destroyed. The bad luck is found to be emanating from the collar Orban had stolen from the Dorig prince, still strongly cursed. The three races can deactivate it together, or not at all.

It turns out that Gair is not so ordinary as he had expected himself to be. His fame grew later throughout the Moor and was known for his magnificent collar, of the finest Dorig work. He was also known to have the rarest Gift of all, and that is the Gift of Sight Unasked.

Ackman, a short demonic child, wakes up after a 50-year nap. Since he is now 200-years-old, his parents explain that it is time he starts killing humans and selling their souls to the Great Demon King. Gung-ho about killing, Ackman ends up spending most of his time wandering around looking for goodhearted young women to kill as their pure souls are worth more, only to be embarrassed after finding out that they are actually immodest.

Ackman's nemesis Tenshi-kun, a Cherub-like angel who thought he was dead, is shocked to find Ackman has started killing. Tenshi-kun repeatedly tries to kill Ackman throughout the series but fails miserably. One example is him trying to hit Ackman with a missile, but missing and killing a school bus full of school children. Upon learning of Ackman's weakness to bawdiness, Tenshi-kun hires a stripper, which works, until the stripper is revealed to have a penis.

Ackman bumps into the female demon when selling souls to the Great Demon King, and after learning of the extraordinary amount she earned, he proposes marriage. More than twice his age and already in a relationship, Witchney tells the annoying Ackman she will accept if he defeats her boyfriend. When he does so easily, it is Witchney's turn to be infatuated. The series ends with Ackman running from his wife that same night after she tried to initiate romance in the bedroom.

Kelvin, freed from his strict Calvinist upbringing through discovering Nietzsche and "the divine Ingersoll" in the library of his home town of Glaik, travels to swinging-sixties London to succeed as a television interviewer and newspaper columnist through nothing more than his aptitude for spin and a diabolical will to power, only to return, chastened, to Scotland and to God.

Drawing on a mixture of Scottish archetypes and British stereotypes and expressing all the author's cynicism towards religion, the media and the imperial British centre, this brief fable was reportedly inspired by Gray's own visit to London as a struggling artist to record a documentary called ''Under The Helmet'' (in which he tried to increase his sales by suggesting that he was dead).

Frank McCourt and his family live in America, and his parents celebrate the birth of their first daughter Margaret. Shortly after her birth, Margaret dies and Frank's mother Angela slips into depression. Frank's drunkard father Malachy Sr. leaves for several days and the children are left without food. Frank and his brother Malachy Jr. ask for help from his neighbors, who provide food for Frank, Malachy Jr., and their twin younger brothers Eugene and Oliver. The McCourt's neighbors send a letter to Angela's relatives in Ireland to ask for money to buy tickets for the McCourts to leave America.

After returning to Ireland, Malachy Sr. attempts to collect money for his time in the military but there is no record of his service and he is turned away. Shortly after their arrival, Oliver dies, and within a few weeks, so does Eugene. Malachy Sr. is unable to keep a job, and squanders the family's money on alcohol. He is too proud to beg or to collect much needed coal from the streets.

The McCourt family live in a small house at the end of a street, and the entire street shares one lavatory located outside the McCourts front door. Angela is forced to go to charitable organizations to beg for furniture while Malachy Sr. signs up for the dole. Frank and Malachy Jr. come home one day to find that the downstairs of the home has badly flooded. They find their parents upstairs where Angela has given birth to their new brother Michael.

Malachy Sr. berates Angela for begging for clothes and boots for her children and tries to prove his worth as a husband and father. The boys are tormented in school for their ratty shoes and Frank decides take his off and hide them. Frank's teacher reprimands the class for making fun of Frank and states they should not take pleasure in each other's misfortunes. Malachy Sr. looks for a job every day but due to his "funny manner" and northern Ireland accent he is unsuccessful. Around Easter Malachy Sr. receives his first job in Limerick, at the cement factory. The money he earns is spent in the pubs rather than on food for his family. One night, he arrives home singing old songs about Ireland. He gets the boys out of bed and makes them promise to die for Ireland. He oversleeps and loses his job the next day.

The boys in school are taught how to take communion bread/wafers. The boys are taken to church in their school classes and are each told to go in for a first confession. Frank sleeps in on the day of his first communion and his grandmother reacts harshly, as she tries to rectify the situation, criticising Frank and Malachy Sr. Frank is eager to "make the collection", an act in which young people who've just had their first communion wander around the town in their new communion clothes and are given sweets and money by their neighbours.

Frank's grandmother takes the family back to her house for a communion breakfast but Frank vomits up the food. His grandmother takes Frank back to the church to confess his sins. Frank misses the chance to get a collection but still wants to celebrate. He manages to sneak into the cinema with the help of his friend Mikey. Frank's parents sign him up for Irish dancing, which he hates. He takes the money his mother gives him for dancing lessons and instead goes to the cinema, unknown to his parents. As a cover, he makes up dances at home for his parents.

Angela gives birth to another baby, Alphie, and Frank's grandparents send money which Malachy Sr. wastes at the pub. Angela sends Frank to the pub to loudly announce that Malachy Sr. stole the money for the baby in an attempt to shame him into coming home. When he arrives to collect his father, Frank decides not to try to bring Malachy Sr. home as a man that would steal money meant for his baby is beyond help.

Frank contracts typhoid and is near death, but recovers over the course of two months. He enjoys his time in the hospital as he is able to read Shakespeare without interruption. However, he is crestfallen to find his father at home with Alphie, meaning that Malachy Sr. lost another job. Frank is forced to repeat a year of school due to missing so much time while in the hospital. He is instructed to write a composition about Jesus being born in Limerick instead of Bethlehem, and his skill impresses the school enough to be moved back into his grade.

As World War II breaks out, Malachy Sr. leaves the family to go work at a factory in England to support the war effort. Angela tells the boys the only have to wait a few weeks for Malachy Sr. to send them a telegram money order, but she is soon forced to beg for leftovers from the church. Frank is forced to get a job as a teenager as no money is coming in from Malachy Sr. and the family has no food. Frank delivers coal and earns money for his family, but is forced to quit when he develops conjunctivitis from the coal dust.

Two days before Christmas, Angela is forced to beg for a food voucher again after Malachy Sr. fails to return from England. The next day, he comes home but does not bring any money for the family. Angela, Frank, and Malachy Jr. all accuse him of drinking away their money. On Christmas Day, he leaves the family again to travel to London. A week later, they receive a money order telegram, but none are sent after that, and Malachy Sr. has never returned to his family again.

The family is evicted and Frank's grandmother dies of pneumonia. They move in with Laman Griffin, who doesn't charge them rent but makes Angela cook and clean for him. Frank does well in school but wants to drop out to get a job that pays weekly so he can go to the movies every weekend. Frank discovers that Angela has also been sleeping with Griffin as part of their arrangement. After a physical altercation with Griffin, Frank leaves to stay with his uncle Pa and aunt Aggie.

Aggie buys Frank clothes for his new job at the post office delivering telegrams. He starts a relationship with Theresa, a girl he meets on his route, but she soon dies from consumption. Frank blames himself for her death, thinking God punished her for their premarital sex. He later delivers a telegram to moneylender Mrs. Finucane, who hires him to write nonpayment letters to borrowers in arrears. Frank's uncle buys him his first pint at the pub, and he returns home drunk. Angela witnesses his return and berates him for being like his father. Angry, he lashes out at her for sleeping with Griffin and slaps her. Frank confesses his sins at church and the priest reassures him that Theresa is in heaven and her death wasn't a punishment. Frank discovers Mrs. Finucane dead in her home and steals all of her money and her debt ledger. He destroys the ledger and uses her money to buy a ticket to America on a boat out of Cork. The night before he leaves, his family witnesses a lunar eclipse and his uncle Pa tells him it is a sign of good luck. The film ends with Frank reaching America and seeing the Statue of Liberty.

''Voyager'' encounters a hedonistic and hospitable race known as the Sikarians and is invited to visit their homeworld. Shore leave is organized, and during the visit, Ensign Kim and a Sikarian transport themselves to another planet, Alastria. Kim deduces that the teleporter device—the trajector—has transported them 40,000 light-years.

Captain Janeway is informed, and asks Gath, the leader of the Sikarians, if the technology could be used to transport ''Voyager'' further towards the Alpha Quadrant. Gath states that their laws forbid sharing technology. The crew consider how they can bargain for technology, and Kim remembers that stories are valued by the Sikarians. Janeway takes this into account and offers ''Voyager'''s entire library of literature if the Sikarians will transport ''Voyager''. Gath promises to discuss the offer with the other Sikarian leaders.

In engineering, Seska, Torres, and Lt. Carey examine the spatial rift caused by the trajector to understand how it works. Later, Kim is approached by a civilian who offers to illegally hand over the technology in exchange for the literature. Janeway is reluctant to authorize an illicit trade, so she beams down to pressure Gath once again, but Gath never intended to accept her offer and orders Voyager to leave. Janeway returns to the ship and orders the recall of all personnel.

Torres, Carey, and Seska have downloaded the library and head to the transporter room. While trying to access the transporter, Tuvok walks in on them — but instead of condemning them, Tuvok beams to the surface and makes the exchange himself. He returns to ''Voyager'' with the trajector, instructing the engineering team not to attempt to use it until he has spoken with Janeway. Nevertheless, Seska connects the trajector to a console port in engineering so that they can examine it. They discover that the technology relies on the massive crystalline mantle of the planet as an amplifier, and once they depart, the trajector will be useless. As ''Voyager'' is about to depart, Torres and Seska activate the trajector. The field forming around the ship produces anti-neutrinos, which causes the warp core to begin building to a breach. Unable to disengage the trajector from the console, Torres destroys it with a phaser.

Janeway is shocked to discover Tuvok, her friend and counsel, was the senior officer involved in the conspiracy. She lets Torres off with a stern warning and asks Tuvok to consult her before acting.

Diane Shepherd is an idealistic talk-show producer, who is conscience-stricken, when she clashes with her ratings-obsessed and ruthless talk-show executive boss. Diane is forced to produce a tantalizing program about a prostitute which potentially harms the prostitute, who is trying to turn her life around.

Kelly Reilly is a teenaged mother whose life is exposed on ''The Howard Grant Show''. Kelly desperately wants to lead a normal life, but society is dragging her back down.

''Origami Fighters'' opens when Xiao-Jie and two other children come across several pieces of paper and a book showing ways to fold them into different shapes. The material turns out to be an ancient hi-tech gadget that, when folded properly, turns into a Genie. By further contract with the Genies, the folders could transform themselves into superhumans known as "Origami Fighters".

''Wildfire'' follows troubled Kris Furillo who, after serving time at a teen detention center, is given the opportunity to start a new life. Her talent with horses is recognized by a volunteer and local trainer Pablo, who arranges a job for her at the Ritter's family-run ranch, Raintree. Thrown into a completely new environment, Kris must learn to deal with the challenges of fitting in, and forming fiery relationships, while trying not to disappoint the one family willing to give her a chance. The Ritters are facing challenges of their own even as they reach out to help Kris. Patriarch Henry Ritter and his daughter Jean are in a critical stage of their battle to save the ranch from financial ruin. Kris and Wildfire must help them get back on the map in the world of horse racing.

Terry Cuff (Yasmine Bleeth) is a bartender who yearns to raise a family. When she marries Bobby Woodkin (Richard Grieco) she finds herself one step closer to her dream. However, Bobby has had a vasectomy, is a con artist and, unbeknownst to Terry, kills young mother Dana McThomas (Sabrina Grdevitch) and steals her 3 month old baby, a girl named Gail (Lauren and Marlee Konikoff), so he and Terry can raise the infant as their own daughter.

Bobby fakes a law firm and lawyer so his plan does not fail and that he and Terry can keep the child, renamed "Angie". Later, Terry discovers what Bobby has done and returns baby Gail to her father, Andy (Gordon Michael Woolvett). Bobby is arrested and sentenced to life in prison for Dana's murder and Gail's kidnapping.

The film opens with Harlow as a struggling extra and bit actress supporting a greedy stepfather Marino and a loving but oblivious mother "Mama Jean". With the help of agent Arthur Landau, she secures a contract at the studio of the Howard Hughes-inspired Richard Manley. The reception to her first film is disappointing, and at Manley's studio her career is stalled. When Manley attempts to add her to his list of seduced starlets, Harlow fights him off and tells him what she thinks of him. This scene turns out to be a ruse devised by her agent so that the now-furious Manley terminates her contract. Landau successfully pitches Harlow to Majestic Studios, and her career blossoms. Despite studio encouragement to marry another contract star, Harlow marries the apparently gentle and cultured Paul Bern, who is revealed to be impotent. Soon after, Bern commits suicide. His death, combined with the stress of her career, leads Harlow on an odyssey of failed relationships and alcoholism, culminating in her death of kidney failure at the age of 26.

At his high school reunion, Peter pretends to be a secret agent-astronaut-millionaire who wears a cowboy hat to impress his classmates, but the truth comes out when he meets Tom Brady. He subsequently gets drunk and has to make a run for the bathroom, knocking over everyone between him and the bathroom. Brady is impressed and gets Peter a spot on the New England Patriots football team as the starting center. Peter is soon fired for showboating in a game versus the Dallas Cowboys, driving on to the field then performing a massively-choreographed version of the song "Shipoopi" after scoring one touchdown. He is traded to the London Silly Nannies, who apparently have no clue on how to play football. Peter decides to turn them around and challenges Brady to a game between the Silly Nannies and the Patriots. On the opening kickoff, Peter's teammates become terrified of the Patriots rushing toward them and run away, leaving Peter to face them alone. He tries and is immediately tackled. However, Brady compliments Peter on having the nerve to stand up to them, having now regained respect for him.

Meanwhile, Stewie becomes a bookie and takes a $50 bet from Brian on a ''Celebrity Boxing'' match pitting Mike Tyson against Carol Channing. Brian bets on Tyson and loses, as Channing kept getting up no matter how many times Tyson knocks her down. Stewie comes to collect, but Brian laughs him off, so Stewie tells him to have the money in 24 hours. After 24 hours, Stewie asks for the money owed, but Brian says he does not have it and to give him until next Friday. Stewie reveals that he is serious about settling the bet and brutally beats up Brian, breaking his glass of orange juice over his head, beating him with a towel rack, and slamming his head in the toilet. Stewie attacks him on another occasion, using such means as a golf club, shooting him in both knees with a pistol, and a flamethrower to coerce him into paying up. After this, Brian agrees to pay off the bet. After Stewie's bet is satisfied, he offers Brian an opportunity to get one "free revenge shot" to make up for all the torture he caused. Brian accepts the offer, but leaves Stewie in suspense as to when the free hit will be delivered, until Stewie is overcome with paranoia and starts beating himself up in an attempt to satisfy Brian. After biding his time and making Stewie worry about what could happen, Brian—while the Griffins are in London, leaving the Patriots-Silly Nannies game—nonchalantly shoves Stewie in front of a moving bus.

This show was about the adventures of a talking tooth named Timmy and all his friends of Flossmore Valley as they go on adventures using their imaginations, which would usually have Timmy thwarting bad guys like the Cavity Goon and Miss Sweetie or the Gingivitis Gang.

The novel is split into two sections: Book I and Book II.

Book I

Jakob Beer is a 7-year-old child of a Jewish family living in Poland. His house is stormed by Nazis; he escapes the fate of his parents and his sister, Bella, by hiding behind the wallpaper in a cabinet. He hides in the forest, burying himself up to the neck in the soil. After some time, he runs into an archaeologist, Athos Roussos, working on Biskupin. Athos secretly takes him to Zakynthos in Greece. Athos is also a geologist, and is fascinated with ancient wood and stones. Jakob learns Greek and English, but finds that learning new languages erases his memory of the past. After the war, Athos and Jakob move to Toronto, where after several years Jakob meets Alexandra in a music library. Alex is a fast-paced, outspokenly philosophical master of wordplay. Jakob and Alex fall in love and marry, but the relationship fails because Alex expects Jakob to change too fast and abandon his past. Jakob dwells constantly on his memories of Bella, especially her piano-playing, and they end up divorcing. Jakob meets and marries Michaela, a much younger woman but one who seems to understand him, and with Michaela's help he is able to let go of Bella. Together they move to Greece into the former home of several generations of the Roussos family.

Book II

The second part of the book is told from the perspective of Ben, a Canadian professor of Jewish descent who was born in Canada to survivors of the Holocaust. In 1954 the family home in Weston, Ontario is destroyed by Hurricane Hazel. Ben becomes an expert on the history of weather, and marries a girl named Naomi. He is a big admirer of Jakob's poetry and respects the way he deals with the Holocaust, when Ben himself has trouble coping with the horrors his parents must have endured. At the end of the novel, Ben is sent to retrieve Jakob's journals from his home in Greece, where Ben spends hours swimming in Jakob's past.

Jean, the captain of the canal barge ''L'Atalante'', marries Juliette in her village. They decide to live aboard ''L'Atalante'' along with Jean's crew, the scruffy and eccentric Père Jules and the cabin boy.

The couple travel to Paris to deliver cargo, enjoying a makeshift honeymoon en route. Jules and the cabin boy are not used to a woman aboard, and when Jean discovers Juliette and Jules talking in Jules' quarters, Jean flies into a jealous rage by smashing plates and by sending Jules' numerous cats scattering.

Arriving in Paris, Jean promises Juliette a night out, but Jules and the cabin boy disembark to go see a fortune teller. This disappoints Juliette because Jean cannot leave the barge unattended.

Later, however, Jean takes Juliette to a dance hall. There, they meet a street peddler who flirts with Juliette, dances with her, and asks her to run off with him. This leads to a scuffle with Jean, after which he drags Juliette back to the barge. Juliette still wants to see the nightlife in Paris however, so she sneaks off the barge to go see the sights. When Jean discovers that she left the barge, he furiously casts off and leaves Juliette behind in Paris.

Unaware that Jean has already sailed, Juliette goes window shopping. When she returns and finds the barge gone, she tries to buy a train ticket to the barge's next destination, but someone steals her purse before she is able to. She is forced to find a job so she can afford to live and eventually travel to Le Havre to meet the barge: her activities during this period are unclear.

Meanwhile, Jean comes to regret his decision, and slips into depression. He is summoned by his company's manager, but Jules manages to keep him from losing his job. Jean recalls a folk tale that Juliette once told him. She said that one can see the face of one's true love in the water. He attempts to recreate this by dunking his head in a bucket, and, failing that, jumping into the river. Jules decides to leave and try to find Juliette. He finds her in a store and they return to the barge where the couple reunite and happily embrace each other.

In 1907, a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter), and her spinster cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith), stay at the Pensione Bertolini while on holiday in Florence. They are disappointed their rooms lack a view of the Arno as promised. At dinner, they meet other English guests: the Reverend Mr Beebe (Simon Callow), two elderly spinster sisters, the Misses Alan (Fabia Drake and Joan Henley), the romance author Eleanor Lavish (Judi Dench), and the freethinking Mr. Emerson (Denholm Elliott) and his handsome philosophical son, George (Julian Sands).

Learning about Charlotte and Lucy's view predicament, Mr. Emerson and George offer to exchange rooms, though Charlotte considers the suggestion indelicate. Mr Beebe mediates, and the switch is made. While touring the Piazza della Signoria the next day, Lucy witnesses a local man being brutally stabbed. She faints but George Emerson appears and comes to her aid. When Lucy has recovered, the two have a personal discussion before returning to the pensione.

Later, Charlotte, Lucy, and the Emersons join other British tourists for a day trip to the Fiesole countryside. Charlotte and Eleanor Lavish engage in conversation considered "unsuitable" for young ladies, so Lucy goes looking for Mr. Beebe. Instead, the Italian driver mistakenly leads her to where George is admiring the view from a hillside. Seeing Lucy, he suddenly embraces and passionately kisses her. Charlotte appears and intervenes. Worried that Lucy's mother will consider her an inadequate chaperone, Charlotte swears Lucy to secrecy and cuts their trip short.

Upon returning to Surrey in England, Lucy says nothing to her mother about the incident and pretends to forget it. She is soon engaged to Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis), a wealthy and socially prominent man who is snobbish and pretentious. Cecil loves Lucy but he and his mother consider the Honeychurch family as their inferiors, dismaying Mrs Honeychurch. Lucy soon learns that Mr. Emerson is moving into Sir Harry Otway's rental cottage, with George visiting on weekends. Lucy intended for the two Misses Alan to live there and is cross with Cecil upon learning that through a chance meeting with the Emersons in London, Cecil recommended the cottage to them. He proclaims his motive was to annoy Sir Harry, who Cecil considers a snob; he believes Harry will find the Emersons to be "too common."

George's presence upends Lucy's life, and her suppressed feelings for him surface. Meanwhile, Lucy's brother, Freddy (Rupert Graves), has become friends with George. Freddy invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner, the Honeychurch home, during which Cecil mockingly reads aloud from Miss Lavish's latest novel set in Italy. Cecil, still reading, is oblivious when George passionately kisses Lucy in the garden. As Cecil continues reading aloud, Lucy recognizes a scene as being identical to her encounter with George in Fiesole. She confronts Charlotte, who admits to telling Miss Lavish, who used it in her story. Lucy orders George to leave Windy Corner and never return. He says that Cecil sees her only as a possession and will never love her for herself, as he would. Lucy seems unmoved, but soon after ends her engagement to Cecil, saying they are incompatible. To escape the ensuing fallout, she arranges to travel to Greece with the Misses Alan. George, unable to be around Lucy, arranges for his father to move to London, unaware Lucy is no longer engaged. When Lucy stops by Mr. Beebe's home to fetch Charlotte, she is confronted by Mr. Emerson, who happens to be there. She finally realizes her true feelings for George. At the end, newlyweds George and Lucy honeymoon at the Italian pensione where they met, in the room with a view, overlooking Florence's Duomo.

While travelling by train, Miss Marple witnesses the strangling of a young woman in another train on a parallel track. The police find nothing to support her story, so she conducts her own investigation and, with the aid of her close friend Jim Stringer, comes to the conclusion that the body must have been thrown off the train near the grounds of Ackenthorpe Hall.

Wheedling her way into a job as housekeeper, Miss Marple copes with her difficult employer, Luther Ackenthorpe, and searches for the missing corpse. She eventually finds it concealed in a stable, much to the chagrin of Police Inspector Craddock.

Stringer uncovers the details of Ackenthorpe's will: the family fortune is to go to his long-suffering, attentive daughter Emma; his sons Cedric, Harold and Albert; and Alexander, his intelligent and insightful grandson. (A fourth son, Edmund, was killed in the war.) Also, Dr Quimper, Ackenthorpe's physician, and Emma are secretly in love. The gardener, Hillman, and the part-time servant Mrs Kidder round out the establishment and the list of suspects.

Alexander finds the first clue, a musical compact that plays "Frère Jacques", near where the body must have landed. When Emma reveals that she recently received a letter from a French woman named Martine, who claims that she married Edmund shortly before he died and is therefore an heir, the identity of the dead woman and the motive for the crime seem clear.

Arsenic in the curried duck prepared by Miss Marple sickens all who eat it, but only Albert dies. Then Harold is killed by his own shotgun. The police are unsure if it was suicide by a remorseful murderer or the third victim. Miss Marple, however, is not deceived, and sets a trap, using the compact as bait. Dr Quimper is revealed as the villain. The dead woman was not Martine at all, but his own wife. Quimper feared that the compact, a gift to his wife, could be traced to him. He intended to dispose of the other heirs and marry Emma. He administered a second, fatal dose of arsenic while supposedly attending to Albert.

Differences from the novel

As with most of her portrayals of Miss Marple, Margaret Rutherford's interpretation was quite different from Agatha Christie's. In addition, Agatha Christie's suspense and underlying darkness are largely replaced by light, even whimsical touches typical of a comedy of manners.

In the novel, an elderly woman named Elspeth McGillicuddy witnesses the murder, not her friend, Miss Marple, who is introduced later. Also in the novel, a young acquaintance of Miss Marple's, not Miss Marple herself, is sent to pose as a housekeeper at the suspect location. The manor house where Miss Marple conducts her inquiries is called Rutherford Hall in the novel, but this was changed to Ackenthorpe Hall in the film to avoid using the leading actress's surname. Crackenthorpe, the family name in the novel, was shortened to Ackenthorpe.

Respected child psychologist Dr. Carter Nix's wife, Jenny, becomes concerned that he is obsessively studying their daughter Amy; he regards her like a scientist tracking the development of his creation. However, Carter himself suffers from multiple personality disorder, as his alternate personalities include violent petty criminal Cain, shy 7-year-old boy Josh, and middle-aged nanny Margo who protects the others at all costs. Carter and Cain are killing young mothers to procure their children, apparently for experiments performed by Carter's father, a child psychologist who lost his license years earlier after performing unethical experiments on children.

Jenny is having an affair with her ex-boyfriend Jack Dante, the widower of a former patient, and she plans to leave Carter for him. When Carter discovers their tryst, Cain takes over and begins leaving subtle clues for the police implicating Jack in the murders. Next, he attempts to kill Jenny by suffocating her and submerging her car in a lake. She escapes, however, and confronts Carter at home. Unable to find Amy, Jenny demands Carter tell her where she is. Carter replies that she is with his father - only for an incredulous Jenny to reply that his father has been dead for years.

The police contact Dr. Lynn Waldheim, who co-wrote a book with Nix Sr. called ''Raising Cain'', about a boy with multiple personality disorder. Nix Sr. had extensive detailed knowledge of Cain's tortured childhood, including taped recordings of their sessions. However, Waldheim was never allowed to meet Cain. She eventually discovered the truth: Nix Sr. dispassionately put his own son through years of severe child abuse to gain firsthand accounts of his traumatic psychological development and study the emerging personalities. Horrified, Waldheim quit the project. Nix Sr. then disappeared, leaving behind a suicide note. After the police make the connection, Carter is apprehended for attempted murder. Waldheim is sent in alone to interrogate him.

During interrogation, Margo and Josh act and speak for Carter. Josh recites a rhyme and vanishes, and Margo assumes control, stonewalling Waldheim from any further questioning. Eventually, Carter and Cain break from their confines and pounce upon Dr. Waldheim, knocking her unconscious and leaving the building disguised as her. The police soon find Waldheim, who begs them to arrest Carter before he harms Amy.

Jenny follows a woman who she thinks is Waldheim to a motel, but it is actually Carter/Cain. She follows Carter/Cain, who is now Margo, into an elevator. When it opens, she sees Nix Sr. holding Amy hostage. While Jenny begs for Nix Sr. to give back her daughter, Carter, Cain and Margo stab "their" father from behind. Jack arrives with the police, and Carter and his personalities disappear.

Later on, Jenny takes Amy to a park and explains to her friend Sarah that Nix Sr. faked his own death and established a new identity and a clandestine research facility in Norway. He had been using Carter and his multiples to procure the children so he would have an adequate control group to study the development of MPD.

Amy runs off into the woods, calling for her father. Jenny follows her and finds Amy, who says her father has gone away. When Jenny bends down to pick Amy up, Carter appears behind her in a wig and a dress; Margo is now in control.

Robert is an aspiring novelist who operates a tiny neighborhood bookstore. Claudia is his wife and a talented painter. Robert and Claudia's marriage is disintegrating, and they are about to sign their divorce papers.

Meanwhile, the legendary Casanova and his lover Lavinia are characters trapped inside of a 17th-century children's book. The tragedy of the impending divorce triggers the release of Casanova and Lavinia from the confines of the children's pop-up book.

The story is set in the town of, and in the areas surrounding, Bradley, Massachusetts. A vampire lord, Tch'muchgar, is magically imprisoned in isolation at the bottom of the town reservoir. The townsfolk performs rituals at the annual The Sad Festival of Vampires to maintain the bonds holding Tch'muchgar prisoner.

Early in the book the young "hero", Chris, witnesses a vampiress being lynched. Soon after, he starts to feel a strange sensation — a growing thirst for blood. Chris later notices that his friend Tom is casting a reflection on the water of the reservoir but Chris himself has no reflection. He realizes that he must be suffering from vampirism. Chris is afraid to tell anyone, even his friends, because vampires are killed immediately upon being discovered.

Chris is soon confronted by a mysterious person dressed in black, who introduces himself as Chet the Celestial Being. Chet says that he serves the Forces of Light, and that he can cure Chris of his vampirism. But first Chet must place a holy object, The Arm of Moriator, with Tch'muchgar. Once activated, the Arm cannot be moved or deactivated by evil beings. Chet explains that if Tch'muchgar tries to escape from his prison, the Arm will cause him to become trapped between worlds, just like "opening an elevator between floors".

Chet leaves for two weeks to retrieve the Arm. Meanwhile, Chris's vampirism grows at a steady rate. He starts sleeping during the day and staying awake at night. He drinks warm water to simulate drinking blood, and even considers his family as potential "beverages". Chris also begins receiving letters through mail from vampires living underground in the community. One of these letters is from a female vampire named Lolli, who appears to be Chris's age and behaves like a popular adolescent girl.

Chris starts to notice he is being stalked by a creepy humanoid figure he describes as "The Thing with the One-Piece Hair", or simply The Thing. The Thing corners Chris in the woods, but Chet appears and "kills" The Thing. He warns Chris that The Thing is not really dead and will rematerialize within a few minutes. So Chet places a mark on Chris' wrist, which he said will protect him from the Thing. Chet gives Chris the Arm and bring him to a congregation of vampires in an abandoned church. Chris is accepted as a vampire by the others and learns that they plan to summon Tch'muchgar. He takes this opportunity to enter the realm of Tch'muchgar and drops the Arm.

Chris returns to his "normal" life and waits for Chet to return with further instruction. His vampiric symptoms continue to grow. Crazed with thirst, Chris almost bites his friend's dog. He resorts to going hunting for raccoons to drink from. After he cuts himself shaving for the first time, Chris begins drinking his own blood. He eventually resorts to biting himself in the arm.

One evening, his mother tells him a story about how Chris nearly died as a newborn, but that a strange nurse took him away for a few minutes. When she brought him back, he was fine. His mother believes that the woman was an angel. Chris fears that the nurse must have been a vampire who infected him with vampirism to save his life.

At the Sad Festival of Vampires, Chris is talked into going to a party with Lolli and another young vampire called Bat. They tell him that to become initiated into the vampire community he must make his first kill that night and smear his blood on his cheeks. Chris shies away from the challenge, saying that he couldn't find anyone yet, but Lolli quickly calls his bluff. Chris escapes from the party and finds his crush, Rebecca Schwartz, in the area. He tells her that he needs to talk, but his teeth start to grow in bloodlust. Chris flees back to the vampire party, only to find that everyone save one high student has left.

The student tells Chris that Lolli killed a student. Afterwards, she was hit by a car and broke her back. The authorities arrived and took her to be killed. Chris hears Bat coming, and runs outside. He meets Chet, who confirms the story about Lolli's death. Bat hears this and attacks Chet, but Chet makes Bat vanish with a wave of his hand, presumably killing him.

At the climax of the story, Tch'muchgar attempts to leave his prison but is shoved out of the dimension and into nonexistence by the Arm of Moriator. Chet reveals that he was actually working for Tch'muchgar, who had realized that he would never escape his prison and was looking for a way to end his miserable life. He also taunts that he was lying about being able to help Chris, because vampirism is incurable. Chet gleefully points out to Chris that he is now doomed. If he kills mortals for blood, they will eventually hunt him down and execute him. If he refuses to drink blood, he will die. If he seeks help from the Forces of Light, they will torment him in place of the vampire lord. If he tries to get help from other vampires, they will kill him themselves for destroying their god.

At the end of the story, in Chris's home, his mother is suspicious, and wants him to be tested for vampirism. His brother treats this with derision, but Chris wonders how his mother would react. He has a flashback to when he was young, that a mother bird would not take in her own child if it had been touched by a human; it would rather bash its skull in. The flashback ends with some older boys throwing stones at a hatchling, yelling "This is mercy!" with other children joining in.

As the book ends, Chris's fate is uncertain, leaving the main plot of the book unresolved though Chris is certainly doomed either way. In the end, Chris realizes that he needs to feed, but he cannot feed.

''Skylark Three'' (1948) is the second book in the ''Skylark'' series and is set a year after the events of ''The Skylark of Space'', during which year antagonist Marc "Blackie" DuQuesne has used the wealth obtained in the previous book to buy a controlling interest in the story's 'World Steel Corporation', a large company known for its ruthless attitude. When the story begins DuQuesne announces a long absence from Earth, to find another species more knowledgeable than the Osnomians allied with protagonist Richard Seaton. Shortly thereafter, DuQuesne and a henchman disappear from Earth. DuQuesne, by now aware of the 'Object Compass' trained on him, travels far enough to break the connection, then turns toward the 'Green System' of which Osnome is a part. Seaton discovers this, but is distracted by attempts to master a "zone of force": essentially a spherical, immaterial shield, with whose present form Seaton is dissatisfied for its opacity and impenetrability even by the user.

Seaton is then requested by his allies Dunark and Sitar, the crown prince and prince's consort of Osnome, to repel invasion by the natives of planet 'Urvan', Osnome's neighbor; whereupon Seaton and his millionaire sponsor, Martin Crane, accompanied by their wives and Crane's valet Shiro embark in the spaceship ''Skylark II'' to obtain the necessary minerals. Near the Green System, they are attacked by the hitherto-unseen natives of the planet 'Fenachrone', whose weaponry surpasses any known to Seaton or the Osnomians. Having used the 'zone of force' at first to conceal himself, and then to destroy the Fenachrone battleship, Seaton captures a leading crew-member, who reveals (upon interrogation) that the Fenachrone intend conquest of the entire Milky Way Galaxy, and eventually of the Universe, and that a message is already in progress toward the Fenachrone capital to summon aid. Discovering that Dunark and Sitar survived the destruction of their spaceship, the ''Skylark II'' tows the remnants of both vehicles to Osnome, where Seaton forces a peace treaty between Osnome and Urvan. Meanwhile, DuQuesne and his aide have also interrogated a Fenachrone and plan to capture an entire Fenachrone battleship for personal use.

Hoping to master the "zone of force", Seaton, Crane, and their wives travel from planet to planet of the 'Green System', in search of those already skilled in its use. Initially they encounter the Dasorians, an amphibious species of humanoid, who direct them to the Norlaminians, who possess full control of both matter and energy. A much larger successor ship, the ''Skylark Three'', is built and equipped on planet Norlamin, where Seaton at first explores the Fenachrone's world, then orders the Fenachrone to abandon their conquest. Upon their refusal, Seaton remotely destroys their reconnaissance spaceships, and then goes on to a full-fledged genocide, destroying their home planet and killing all the Fenachrone except an escaped colony ship led by one of their leading scientists. Equipped with a Fenachrone spaceship, DuQuesne also survives, but leads Seaton and the Fenachrone to presume his death. Increasing his technology still further by powering his new ship with uranium instead of copper, Seaton pursues and destroys the Fenachrone colony ship; but does not discover DuQuesne.

This episodic story is set in São Paulo's notorious prison Carandiru, one of Latin America's largest and most violent prison systems.

''Carandiru'' tells the stories of different inmates at Sāo Paulo's Carandiru Penitentiary through the filter of Dr. Varella, who goes to the prison to test the inmates for HIV. Similar to many Brazilian crime films, Dr. Varella narrates ''Carandiru'', however, it is not his story that is told. He (like Buscapé in ''City of God'') acts as a filter for the stories of those that cannot speak.

The inhumane conditions of the prison, such as the 100 square foot cells inhabited by sometimes up to 16 prisoners, are shown, as well as the lack of control that the guards have. Order in the prison is entirely controlled by the prisoners themselves, which leads them to face problems such as murders, rampant drug use, and disease all within the prison.

Several stories are developed, ranging from drug addiction to murder to family struggles to romance. Some of the more memorable stories are Lady Di (a trans female) and No Way's marriage, Deusdete and Zico's family dynamic, Ezequiel and Zico's crack addictions, and Majestade's “affairs.”

The prisoners are humanized to the audience by telling their stories, which makes the riot and the Carandiru Massacre even more painful for the audience to watch. Thus, when the film ends with real shots of Carandiru Penitentiary's demolition, Babenco employs catharsis.

Henry Jekyll (John Barrymore) is a doctor of medicine living and working in London in the late 1880s. When he is not treating the poor in his free clinic, he is in his laboratory experimenting. Sir George Carew (Brandon Hurst), the father of Jekyll’s fiancé Millicent (Martha Mansfield), is suspicious of the young doctor’s intentions and often irritated by his tardiness and highmindedness. "No man", Carew observes, "could be as good as he looks." Following dinner one evening, Carew taunts his prospective son-in-law in front of their mutual friends and debates with him about the causes and effects of a person's personality, insisting that every man is fundamentally composed of two "selves" who are in continual conflict. "A man cannot destroy the savage in him by denying its impulses", instructs Carew. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

Reflecting on Sir George's comments, Jekyll begins his research and experiments into separating the two basic natures of man, the good and the evil. Finally, after much trial and error, he develops a potion that rapidly transforms him into a hideous, evil counterpart, a man he refers to as Edward Hyde. When in the form and consciousness of Hyde, Jekyll is not recognizable as himself, so to facilitate his bad side's access to his own home and adjacent laboratory, the doctor informs his trusty servant Poole (George Stevens) that Mr. Hyde is to have "full authority and liberty" at the residence.

Utilizing his potion, Jekyll literally begins to live a double life: the compassionate and gentlemanly doctor by day, and the lustful, hunchbacked "creature" who ventures out largely at night. As Hyde, he lurks about the seediest parts of London, frequenting opium dens, bars, and music halls—anywhere he can satisfy his "dark indulgences". He rents a small furnished room in the area and brings Gina (Nita Naldi), a young woman and exotic dancer, to live with him. Soon, however, Hyde tires of her company and forces her to leave.) where Gina dances

Although Jekyll has developed a counter-potion that transforms Hyde back to the doctor’s original appearance and character, each time he takes the potion to become Hyde, the beast becomes increasingly more vile and physically more hideous. Meanwhile, Millicent worries about the absence of her fiancé, so Sir George calls on Jekyll, but the young man is not at home. Sir George then encounters Hyde in a nearby street, where the brute has just knocked a small boy to the ground and injured him. To make recompense for his actions, he goes and gets a check which he returns to the boy's father. Carew notices that the check has been signed by Dr. Jekyll. He confronts Poole, who tells him the story of Edward Hyde.

Hyde now returns to the lab; drinks the counter-potion and changes once again into his original form. Sir George finds the transformed Jekyll in the lab and demands to know about his relationship with Mr. Hyde, threatening to break off his daughter’s engagement to the doctor if he does not answer his questions. The threat enrages Jekyll, so much so that the stress itself triggers his retransformation to Hyde. Horrified in witnessing the change, Sir George flees out of the lab, but Hyde catches him in the courtyard and beats him to death with his stout, club-like walking stick. Hyde then runs to his apartment and destroys any evidence there that might link him to Jekyll. After barely avoiding the police, the creature returns to the lab, where he drinks the counter-potion and reverts to Jekyll.

In the ensuing days, while Millicent mourns over her father’s murder, Jekyll is tormented by the thoughts of his misdeeds as Hyde. Soon, the ingredient needed to make the counter-potion is depleted and cannot be found in all of London. Jekyll therefore confines himself to his locked lab, fearing he might become Hyde at any moment. Millicent finally goes to see him, but as she knocks on the lab's door, he begins transforming into Hyde. Before he opens the door, Jekyll consumes poison in a ring he wears, one that he had taken from Gina. Now fully transformed into Hyde, he lets Millicent in, locks the door, and grabs her in his arms. Suddenly, he starts convulsing. Millicent runs from the lab and her shouts for help attract Poole, Jekyll's longtime friend Dr. Richard Lanyon, and another friend, John Utterson. Lanyon enters the lab and finds Hyde dead, sitting in a chair. To his astonishment, he watches the creature transform into Jekyll. Discerning that his friend had committed suicide, Lanyon calls the others into the lab, where he informs them that Hyde has killed Jekyll. As the film ends, Millicent is grieving next to the body of Jekyll.

Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda) is an ex-convict who feels he is reformed and deserves a break, but he expects he will not get one. In spite of his marriage to Joan, the woman who waited for him and who has always believed in him, it seems his expectations will be met. With the help of Joan's boss, Stephen, the public defender, Eddie gets a steady job and he buys a house with Joan. He is summarily fired, however, by a boss who makes it clear he had no interest in giving him a chance. Eddie's old gang want him to join them in bank robberies, and he is tempted, but chooses to search for legitimate work instead. Then, a bank job occurs during which six people are killed. Eddie is framed and subsequently wrongly convicted for the murders. He is sentenced to death by electrocution. On the eve of his execution date, a gun smuggled into the medical area in which he is being held enables him to escape.

As his escape is taking place, it becomes known to authorities that the bank vehicle containing the money, which had been driven from the robbery as part of the plan, has been recovered from a lake - with the body of the guilty bank robber/murderer inside. Eddie receives a last-minute pardon and the prison chaplain, who Eddie has always trusted, tries to convince him of this reprieve. Eddie is too bitter and disillusioned to accept he is a free man. He kills the chaplain in his desperation to escape.

He and a pregnant Joan go on the lam, hoping to make it across the border to Canada. They become infamous and are blamed for every crime in the areas they pass through. After the baby is born, Joan manages to meet Stephen and her sister. The two have arranged for Joan to hop a boat to Havana with the baby and wait there while Stephen works to clear her name. She refuses to leave Eddie. They continue their run, but are ambushed by the police and killed. As he dies, Eddie hears the voice of the chaplain telling him he is free.

The film tells the story of two best friends from Boston who come to Greenwich Village in 1900, one to become a famous artist, the other to become a famous composer. The composer falls in love with the girl next door, but she is intrigued by his friend, who has secrets he feels he doesn't need to share with her.

A down-on-her-luck would-be singer keeps encountering roadblocks on her way to stardom. Judy Alvin (Martha Tilton) has a fine voice but is no match for the politics of a musical producer pushing his girlfriend, the amazingly untalented Phoebe (Betty Brodel, the sister of Joan Leslie) who has obtained employment by using a record of Judy's voice rather than hers.

Living at a theatrical boarding house with a variety of eccentric entertainers, Judy's best friend Marge (Irish Adrian) is determined to find Judy a job to pay her bills that has something, anything, to do with music. A chance encounter with a Rock-Ola 3701 Master telephone juke box gets Judy employment at the company where the duties involve taking telephone calls from patrons of a bar selecting music to hear over loud speakers.

On the way to meet his former boss, railroad tycoon Ben Kimball (Jay C. Flippen), Grant McLaine (Stewart) rescues a young boy, Joey Adams (Brandon deWilde), from Concho (Robert J. Wilke). Ben informs Grant that his payroll has been robbed three times already by a gang led by Whitey Harbin (Dan Duryea) and the Utica Kid (Murphy). If Ben's workers don't get paid soon, they will all leave the end-of-track work camp. Over the objections of Kimball's number 2, Jeff Kurth (Hugh Beaumont) Grant accepts the undercover job of carrying $10,000 to the crew by train. Kurth bets his job that Grant will fail.

When the train is held up again, Grant hides the money in a shoebox carried by Joey. The ploy works, but the young boy turns out to be friends with the Utica Kid, who takes him along with him. When the robbers cannot find the money, Whitey takes Ben's wife Verna (Elaine Stewart) to hold for ransom. Concho, a gang member, pistol-whips Grant, sending him tumbling down the steep embankment unconscious. The train leaves without him.

When Grant wakes up, he trails the gang to an abandoned mining camp. He boldly asks to join up, revealing that he is the Kid's older brother [the Kid's given name is Lee]. Utica is suspicious of his heretofore honest sibling, so Whitey (who dislikes the Kid) accepts him. Concho tries to shoot Grant unexpectedly, but Grant is faster to the draw. Afterwards, he tells the Kid where the money is, in an attempt to reform his brother. It doesn't work. The Kid gives Grant ten minutes to leave before he tells the gang, but Grant calls his bluff.

Then railroad employee Will Renner (Herbert Anderson) shows up to collect his share of the loot. He had been Whitey's informant. He recognises Grant (by the song he sings and plays on his accordion) as the man assigned to deliver the payroll. A gunfight ensues, in and out of the bar room.. Grant and Verna take refuge behind the bar temporarily, as the building is on fire. They manage to drop through the rotten floor behind the bar and escape. In the stable they join Charlotte "Charlie" Drew (Dianne Foster), the Kid's girlfriend, and ride out after Lee and Joey. At the ore mill Grant sends Verna to safety down the mountain in an ore bucket. Charlie stays and reloads Grant's gun. Meanwhile, the Kid plans to quietly ride away with Joey and the money.

When Joey suddenly bolts toward Grant, Whitey shoots and the boy and his horse fall. Grant rushes to Joey's side and throws himself in front of the boy when the Kid rides up, gun aimed—at a gang member. The Kid joins forces with his brother, bantering as they shoot. “Welcome home,” Grant says. They kill all the gang members except Whitey, who crawls up close and shoots the Kid. Grant kills Whitey with their last bullet and holds his brother as he dies. The Kid admits that Grant “hit him hard” with the Bullfrog Line song, their father's favourite. Grant buries his brother, and he and Charlie and the boy ride back to camp with the payroll. Grant refuses Kurth's job, but accepts his old job: it’s a "better fit" for him. Grant sends Joey off to his new job, carrying water at end of track. Grant and Charlie clasp hands. He puts his arm around her shoulders, and she puts hers around his waist as they follow Joey. The final scene is of the locomotive moving down the valley along the river into the foreground, with a men's chorus singing the end of the theme song , "Follow the River back to me.”

Chapter 1

'''Carson Napier'''

When the author receives a letter saying a woman in white will come to him on the night of the thirteenth, he dismisses it as nonsense. Jason Gridley calls, and the author visits him to discuss the latest news about von Horst, Tarzan, David Innes, Captain Zuppner and Abner Perry in Pellucidar. The woman appears on the thirteenth, walking through a closed door. She tells him "he" awaits a reply. Aided by his secretary Ralph Rothmund, the letter is found and a reply is sent. A few days later Carson Napier shows up at Tarzana, telling the story of his life including how he grew up in India, learning telepathy from the Hindu mystic Chand Kabi, how he lived with his mother's grandfather John Carson, and how he lost his mother. Revealing an intent to fly a rocket to Mars, he fades from view only to enter through the door again. He used telepathy for the meeting to ascertain they can uphold telepathic communication so the author may become the medium through which he tells the story of his adventures. Before returning to his rocket on Guadalupe Island, Napier leaves the author in charge of his personal fortune.

Chapter 2

'''Off for Mars'''

Arriving at Guadalupe, Carson finds everything has been made ready under the surveillance of his friend Jimmy Welsh. Jimmy begs for Carson to take him along, but Carson refuses. After a final inspection (during which the rocket ship and plans for the journey are described) Carson bids his workers farewell and takes his place in the rocket. At first, everything appears to go well, but after two hours signs indicate that the rocket is moving off course. Eventually, Carson realizes that he forgot to take the Moon's gravity into account. Two days later it is clear that his new course caused by the Moon's gravity assist will take him towards the Sun and certain death. On the thirtieth day he spots a crescent.

Chapter 3

'''Rushing toward Venus'''

The crescent turns out to be Venus. It becomes clear the rocket is going to hit the planet. Venus is said to be unable to support life, but Carson does not give up. As the rocket enters the atmosphere he opens its parachutes, then jumps, opening his own parachute. He discovers the air is breathable. Falling through two thick layers of clouds he is unaware of his surroundings (except for a faint luminosity from below) until the parachute gets stuck in the branches of a tree. Freeing himself from the parachute he starts descending and soon learns the trees are of enormous proportions. After climbing down a thousand feet he finds a causeway, apparently built by intelligent beings, where he encounters a hideous wild beast. He discovers a door in the bole of a tree. Hearing a voice speaking in a foreign language, he calls for help. The beast attacks, but he temporarily stops it by snaring it with a piece of rope salvaged from the parachute. Fleeing for his life Napier is rescued by three humans, armed with spears, emerging from the door. Taking him inside, the men give him food and a bed. He soon falls asleep.

Chapter 4

'''To the House of the King'''

When he wakes up, Carson discovers he is in a city built in the enormous tree boles. During breakfast he tries to learn his first few words of the language. The men of the house are named Duran, Olthar and Kamlot. The women are Zuro and Alzo. After breakfast, the men take him to another house where a man named Tofar leads them to a man called Jong, who appears to have a high social status. Carson is thoroughly examined and placed in the care of a man called Danus. During the following three weeks Carson learns the language, history, and customs of Amtor, as the Venusians call their planet. Danus also shows a map, pointing out different regions of Amtor: Trabol, Strabol and Karbol. His explanations make it obvious that the Amtoran view of the world is very limited and backward. They think Amtor is the inside a hemispheric bowl floating on a sea of lava (which occasionally comes out of Venus' volcanoes), with Strabol (the torrid zone) in the center of the bowl and Karbol (the frigid zone of Trabol's hemisphere) on the rim. Neither Strabol nor Karbol have been much explored due to their respective hazards, and Carson realizes Danus is showing him an incomplete and faulty azimuthal projection of either Venus' northern or southern hemisphere. Carson tries to explain that it is the other way around, that they are on the outside of a sphere, and that their surveys should have made clear that the line of latitude bordering the frigid zone should be considerably smaller than the line of latitude bordering the torrid. Danus admits that their surveys do support Carson, but explains that a scientist named Klufar had remedied this apparent discrepancy by inventing and applying the imaginary unit. Carson muses about how crucial astronomy was to Earth navigation and mapping. On Venus, the clouds are seen as protection from the "fire" above; rare rifts in the clouds occasionally expose the "fire" (sun), or, at night, the fire's "sparks" (stars).

Chapter 5

'''The Girl in the Garden'''

Carson is in the house of Mintep, king (jong) of Vepaja. Duran, father of Olthar and Kamlot, is of the house of Zar. Zuro is attached to Duran, as Alzo to Olthar. Marriage is unknown on Amtor, but couples are usually loyal. Several officers live to the left of Carson. To the right is a garden with a girl. One day five men creep into the garden. Carson follows, killing three. Guards butcher the others, then throw the bodies from the tree. Danus never mentions the incident. Danus tells the history of the Vepajans: There were four classes who lived happily by the millions on thousands of islands. A criminal, Thor, formed the Thorists, who revolted. Everyone became virtual slaves. Some escaped, forming these classless tree cities. Thorists search for them because they themselves have no intelligent people. Vepajans never get sick or grow old because of a serum. Half their women are sterile. Children are only allowed when someone dies by accident. Carson (now 27) is given blood tests for the longevity serum and is found to be filled with bacteria. He loves swimming, boxing, wrestling, and fencing. He exercises because he is overweight. The girl in the garden watches him. He smiles, she runs away. Carson thinks it might be his beard. Danus gives him a depilatory. Asking about the girl, Carson is told he should not even see her. Carson is a prisoner. His apartment is guarded, and he may not leave.

Chapter 6

'''Gathering Tarel'''

Carson gets the longevity serum. Not many doctors are needed on Amtor. One day Carson sees the girl and leaps into her garden. When he touches her arm, he gets slapped, but he declares his love. Carson is summoned before Mintep, the jong. He was suspected as a Thorist spy, but now he is to be trained to collect tarel and hunt. Tarel is the strong, silky fiber from which their cloth and cordage are made. Carson is moved to the house of Duran where he is given primitive weapons. (There is an R-ray gun on Amtor, but the Thorists control the rare elements that produce the ray.) That evening he plays a Vepajan game, "tork," with Zuro and Alzo. On the morning hunt Kamlot and Carson climb high in their tree, go through a little door, then pass to other trees. Tarel turns out to be the web of a spider. Carson saves Kamlot from a giant spider (targo), but Kamlot dies.

Chapter 7

'''By Kamlot's Grave'''

While Carson carries Kamlot home for burial, he falls into a spider web and kills the targo. He climbs down to the ground (some trees tower 6000 feet and are 1000 feet around the base). He digs a grave to give Kamlot a "Christian burial" but discovers he is still alive, just paralyzed by the spider's venom. Kamlot describes a basto (a bison with the teeth of a carnivore) and the decimal system of weights and measures. Some trees are marked with numbered nails as a mapping system, and the entire map is memorized by the Vepajans. The variety of trees is described. Kamlot kills a basto, kind of like bullfighting, when Carson suddenly sees a startling sight overhead.

Chapter 8

'''On Board the Sofal'''

Five "voo klangan" (the bird-men) capture Carson and Kamlot with wire nooses attached to ropes. They are carried through the air accompanied by klangan singing songs "vaguely reminiscent of Negro spirituals". They have very dark skin and are a mixture of bird and man, having feathers and bat-like wings. They fly for eight hours to the Venusian sea and a ship manned by Thorists. They are questioned and Carson tells them he is a doctor. We also learn that Kamlot's home city is called Kooaad. Thrown into the hold of the ship, Kamlot meets a friend, Honan, with the Amtorian greeting "Jodades" (luck-to-you). They learn that Duare (Doo-ah-ree) has been captured, but held on another ship. Kamlot and Carson are set to polishing the guns on deck. They fire T-rays that destroy everything. They are locked by a master key, which Carson wants. The guns and ship propulsion are explained—lor is the propulsive substance—and element 93 (vik-ro), element 97, element 105 (yor-san) are described (here Burroughs speculates about nuclear fission power). They always sail in sight of land. Honan tells Carson that Duare is "the hope of Vepaja, perhaps the hope of a world."

Chapter 9

'''Soldiers of Liberty'''

Tensions ease on the ship; Napier becomes friendly with both crew and captives. Telling stories of Earth, he makes new friends. Gamfor, Kiron, and Zog, who become the nucleus for a rebellion. Meanwhile, Carson learns about the Amtorian compass and sonar. Because the map concepts were skewed, reliance upon the maps was fraught with error—large areas are marked joram (ocean), but Carson believes he knows the location of Thora. Named vookor (captain) among the growing secret rebel faction, Napier later learns from Gamfor that Anoos had reported his suspicions to the ship's captain and that his friend among the ship soldiers had given him a key to the armory. Napier suggest they strike that night, but the hold is sealed when it was usually left open. During the night Anoos is murdered.

Chapter 10

'''Mutiny'''

The ship's captain conducts an investigation. Napier's clever reply (said loud enough for the Soldiers of Liberty to hear) suggests Anoos despised the Thorists and was a rabble rouser. They all answer similarly. The captain retires. Napier remarks upon Amtorian time measure. At the seventh hour the mutiny commences. The battle is fierce, Kamlot participates in the attack on the ship's upper decks. The ship's officers are slaughtered, many of the soldiers joining the mutineers. Later, Kodj objects to Napier as vookor, Zog disarms him. Napier plans his assault on the Sovang (where Duare is held) from the Sofal's conning tower. Napier addresses the ship's crew, and Kodj and the malcontents as regards the attack: there will be profit for those who participate.

Chapter 11

'''Duare'''

Napier's officers report on the crew's temper through the night, most agree with embarking on piracy as regards Thorian shipping—some wish to go home. Exercising caution, Napier arms the loyal hundred and confines the remainder below. Bringing the Sofal near, the Sovang is boarded. Battle ensues. Napier orders the transfer of the Sovang's prisoners (mostly women) and the removal of the Sofal's malcontents to the other ship. Kamlot later reports the virgin Vepajan princess is on board and is grateful that Napier (upon reply) personally killed the captain who affronted her. Later Napier is summoned to the princess' cabin. He whistles (Amtorian custom instead of knocking) and is astonished to see the princess is the girl from the garden!

Chapter 12

'''A Ship!'''

Carson again declares his love, much to the girl's distress and anger saying the Vepajans and her father would immediately kill him. Napier restrains his impulses, questioning her. She pardons his affront due to services rendered, reveals she is not yet nineteen, says they can never speak again, and departs into another room. Amtorian language lesson regarding "sofal" and "sovang" (killer and defender). Kamlot explains majority for Vepajan females (age 20) and penalties of death in particular to royal daughters. Carson reveals his intent to marry Duare, Kamlot responds with sword, then cannot kill his friend. Napier remarks on the differences between both worlds. Kamlot becomes a confused party regarding the possible love between Napier and Duare. Days later Vilor requests audience with Napier to offer his service as guard to the janjong—denied. "Voo notar!" (a ship!). The Sofal pursues the Thorian vessel to take her prize. An ongyan's pennant is displayed (exempt from search) and as the Sofal nears—then presents her guns—Moosko, the ongyan commands his soldiers to repel any boarders.

Chapter 13

'''Catastrophe'''

Moosko sends the Yan racing away. Carson pursues in the Sofal. After much T-ray fire, and many casualties on the Yan, Carson catches and boards Moosko's ship. Carson is relieved that those under his command obey him rather than turn to personal looting. After destroying the Yan's guns, Carson allows her captain his freedom with the admonition to tell all he meets that the Sofal is to be obeyed. Moosko is kept hostage, housed in the cabin of Vilor, at Vilor's request. Chasing the Yan has led them near the coast of Noobol. A gale rises. Carson finds an angan with Vilor and Moosko and orders the birdman back to his quarters. Carson then visits Duare who hesitates, then allows him entrance. Carson tells her again that he loves her and Duare tells him she cannot listen. He kisses her by force and she draws her dagger. Carson apologizes and leaves. In the early morning, awakened by storm, Carson discovers Duare missing and fears she may have killed herself because of his assault. Then he finds Vilor and Moosko also missing. The lookout has been murdered. A Vepajan woman, Byea, informs Carson that Vilor was a Thoran spy.

Chapter 14

'''Storm'''

A search reveals five klangan also missing. Kamlot, Gamfor, Kiron and Zog meet with Carson and reconstruct the scheme wherein Vilor abducted Duare and Moosko regained his freedom with the help of trusted klangan. Carson orders the Sofal to remain offshore until the gale abates, then launch a rescue party. Leaving the cabin, Carson is swept out to sea. He swims with the waves toward shore. The rough surf betokens death as does eternal swimming. But, Carson concludes, "in the midst of death there is life." Fate washes him past the rocks to a sandy beach. He climbs the inlet wall and sets out across the tableland. Later, hearing fighting, he finds Duare and some klangan beset by manlike creatures. Carson charges, scattering the creatures. One angan remains alive. Duare thanks Carson perfunctorily for saving her from the kloonobargan, a word Burroughs explains. Carson offers pardon to the angan in return for faithful service. They return to the coast. Duare confesses as they travel that the rules forbidding conversation may be relaxed in their present circumstances. Speechless at first, Carson tells her about Earth. At the coast, they build a signal fire. Men on land, led by Vilor and Moosko, come to investigate as does the Sofal. Carson orders the angan to carry Duare to the Sofal; she refuses to leave. Carson grabs her, kisses her, and hands her to the angan. She protests, telling Carson that she loves him as they fly away. Carson is taken captive with that knowledge.

*'''"The Wizard of Venus"'''. Carson Napier is trapped in the castle of an insane Venusian "wizard" who holds the local population in thrall through the use of hypnotic powers. Napier, who is possessed of comparable powers he has hitherto utilized solely to transmit his account of his Venusian adventures back to Earth, successfully counters the tyrant and frees his victims.

*'''"Pirate Blood"'''. Johnny LaFitte of Glenora, California, a 20th-century descendant of the New Orleans pirate Jean Lafitte, finds himself thrown by a bizarre set of events into his ancestor's profession. The author's depiction of modern-day piracy is replete with cold-blooded murder and rapine, but overall the tale is a semi-serious takeoff on the theory that heredity equals destiny.

When no people are around, the toys still play in the playroom. But since a toy will be frozen forever if a person catches it out of position, they have to be very careful. It's Christmas Eve, and Rugby the Tiger remembers how he was the favorite Christmas toy last year and wants to be the favorite again this year, not be replaced by another toy. However, he does not realize that if Jamie unwrapped him again this year, she would see him out of his normal place that she usually puts him and he'd be frozen forever. Mew, the cat's toy mouse, follows him out of the playroom to help him after informing the other toys that Rugby left.

Meanwhile, Apple the Doll, whom Rugby supplanted as favorite toy, leads a group of toys out of the playroom to rescue Rugby. Once they meet up with him in the living room, Apple tries to tell him what Christmas is really about. But Rugby refuses to believe her, and tries to get into the Christmas package and lets loose Meteora, Queen of the Asteroids, who does not know she is a toy, and thinks she has landed among aliens. The other toys must get Rugby out of the box and Meteora back in it before they are found and frozen forever.

But Mew is caught, and frozen. Only then does Rugby realize what a good friend Mew has been to him, and how selfishly he has been acting. Rugby sings, telling Mew how much he cares for him. This brings Mew back to life, and then the other toys also know how to revive their other frozen friends.

On the morning of Christmas Day, Jamie and Jesse enjoy their new toys alongside their current toys. While the kids are away, the toys sing "Together at Christmas". Kermit joins in at the end of the special.

Dr. Allan Fields is a nuclear physicist employed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. He has a secret second job as a spy working for an unnamed foreign power.

Through elaborate tradecraft, Fields, as ordered by his case officer, takes sets of photos of top-secret documents, using a Minox camera, and passes these through a network of foreign-power couriers to New York City, and thereafter overseas to an enemy country. The latest canister of microfilm which Fields sends out is intercepted by authorities after the courier is killed in a freak traffic accident in Manhattan, with the undeveloped microfilm canister in his hand. The FBI develops the microfilm, analyzes its contents, and constructs a list of probable suspects within the AEC, one of whom is the custodian of the subject document, whom Fields observes being taken away for interrogation at FBI headquarters.

The custodian is apparently cleared of espionage charges, and the FBI moves its focus to his subordinates at AEC. Fields is the prime suspect. His case officer sends him a "flash message", in a Western Union telegram, ordering him to destroy all his spycraft apparatus and to move into a safe house in New York City.

Now scared and paranoid, Fields stays overnight in the safe house, a cheap hotel. Receiving a "signal" from his case officer on the hotel's hall phone, he proceeds to the Empire State Building, meeting his contact, Miss Philips, on the 86th-floor observation deck. An alert FBI agent spots Fields and pursues him, first to the 102nd-floor observation deck, and then to the spire. The two men fight, and the agent falls to his death. Fields exits the building with his "escape", a package of money and false identity documents which will get him out of the country, but he has been shaken by the sight of the dead agent, and feels remorse.

Fields finally breaks down after realizing what he has done, destroys his escape, and surrenders to the FBI the next day.

Introduction: Would You Like to Hear a Scary Tale?

'''''Introduction: Would You Like to Hear a Scary Tale?''''' (''Intorodakushon: Kowai hanashi, kikitai desu ka'') Directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura; teleplay by Yoshihiro Nakamura and Katsuhide Suzuki

At a bus stop near Twilight Cemetery, an elegant old lady gets on a late-night bus. She turns to the bus driver and asks "Would you like to hear a scary tale?" He refuses, but she pointedly shares a tale of a bus driver who has a ghostly experience with an okiku doll during one night. At end of her tale, she looks at the camera and asks "How about you? Would you like to hear a scary tale?"

In each episode, the old lady shares a bus-related scary story with a different passenger before introducing the main story to the viewer.

Kayoko Shiraishi - Old Lady in Kimono (uncredited) - bus driver

Episode 1: The Spiderwoman

Directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura; teleplay by Yoshihiro Nakamura

Two magazine reporters pursue a story about a local legend of a Spider Woman. Though the magazine's circulation has shot up 20% following their dramatic articles, they have yet to find a single shred of evidence backing up their stories. Then they hear about a young girl who claims to have been attacked by the monster.

Shōzō Endō - Yamazaki Yoshinori Okada - Hasegawa Miyako Yamaguchi - Editor Kanako Fukaura - Tomoko Anri Sugihara - Akemi, schoolgirl Yōko Maki - schoolgirl

Episode 2: Crevices

Directed by Norio Tsuruta; teleplay by Naoya Takayama.

Visiting the apartment of a missing friend, a young man is startled to find every crack and crevice of the apartment's interior sealed with red tape. Upon reviewing computer and video files, it appears his friend suffered from some sort of mental breakdown wherein he was completely obsessed with the terror that someone was watching him. But how could the friend have simply disappeared? As he and the apartment manager set out to remove the massive amount of red tape, very strange things begin to occur.

Shunsuke Nakamura - Kodera Shigenori Yamazaki - Shimizu *Kyūsaku Shimada - Apartment manager

Episode 3: The Sacrifice

Directed by Kōji Shiraishi; teleplay by Kōji Shiraishi and Naoyuki Yokota

A young woman returns to her rural home from Tokyo to tend to her ailing mother. Once there, she realizes that her troubles with a co-worker stalker may have followed her to her family home. Haunted by childhood memories and the growing fear of the obsessed co-worker, she wakes in the middle of the night and discovers a terrifying sight.

Yu Yamada - Mayu Ooki 野原可歩 - Mayu Ooki (child) Moro Morooka - Toshinori Ooki Megumi Asaoka - Shizuko Ooki *Seminosuke Murasugi - Fukuda

Episode 4: Blonde Kwaidan

Directed by Takashi Shimizu; teleplay by Takashi Shimizu.

A Japanese film executive, visiting Hollywood for the first time, is very excited about meeting genuine blondes. However, there may be one blonde in particular who is too much for him...

*Tetta Sugimoto - Yoshio Ishiguro

Episode 5: Presentiment

Directed by Masayuki Ochiai; teleplay by Masayuki Ochiai and Toshiya Ōno.

After committing the perfect act of embezzlement, a Japanese businessman boards the elevator to make his escape. Riding with him are three unusual passengers, who slowly reveal how much they know about him and what he has done. When the elevator suddenly breaks down, his real terror begins while he's trapped with his strange company inside the elevator and the police outside.

Teruyuki Kagawa - Shigenori Fukawa Hijiri Kojima - Woman in hat

Conclusion: Would You Like to Hear a Scary Tale?

'''Would You Like to Hear a Scary Tale?''' (''Kowai hanashi, kikitai desu ka'') Directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura; teleplay by Yoshihiro Nakamura and Katsuhide Suzuki

The old lady shares another bus-related story with a young bus passenger. At end of her tale, she reveals herself as a ghost, which terrifies the schoolgirl and the bus driver into abandoning the bus. The old lady smiles at their running into the night, and looks at camera and says "That's all the scary tales for tonight. Sweet dreams."

Kayoko Shiraishi - Old Lady in Kimono as Narrator Yoshiyuki Morishita - bus driver *Risa Sasaoka - schoolgirl

In 1980, Ned (Edward) Maddstone is a seventeen-year-old student, the sort of person for whom everything goes right. He is head boy, talented at sports, and following in the footsteps of his father towards Oxford University and a career in politics. A school friend, Ashley Barson-Garland, discovers that Maddstone read part of his diary and knows that Ashley is ashamed of his working-class roots. Barson-Garland plots to tarnish Maddstone's character with an arrest for drug possession. He enlists Rufus Cade, who is jealous of Maddstone's good looks and popularity, and Gordon Fendeman, the Jewish-American cousin of Portia, the object of Maddstone's affection with whom Fendeman is also in love (Fendeman also agrees with Portia's non-practising Jewish parents that she should not marry outside the faith).

When Maddstone is arrested, an envelope from his dying sailing instructor is discovered in his pocket. It is a coded message from the Irish Republican Army. Maddstone is whisked away from the police station by a smooth Secret Services operative called Oliver Delft, who listens calmly to Maddstone's explanation of events until he learns that the envelope was to be delivered to the home of Delft's mother. Wanting to cover-up his hidden familial relationship to a Fenian traitor, Delft decides that Maddstone must disappear. Maddstone is beaten up, pumped full of drugs, and taken away to a remote lunatic asylum off the coast of Sweden. For years he is programmed by the resident psychiatrist, Dr. Mallo, to believe that his memories of his former life are delusional. After several years, Maddstone starts to believe Mallo's mental programming. Mallo deems him "well enough" to fraternise with other inmates, and Maddstone begins to talk to Babe, a fellow Englishman. Babe informs Maddstone that he has not been in the asylum for three or four years as he believed, but he has in fact been there a whole decade. Maddstone is in shock, but he and Babe subsequently talk every day.

The two men become close friends. Over the course of another decade, Babe educates Maddstone, helping him to master chess and teaching him to speak multiple languages, among other things. Eventually Maddstone breaks Mallo's programming completely and regains his memory. With Babe's help, he determines who betrayed him and how, although he is still baffled by their motives. When Ned mentions the name of Oliver Delft, Babe, who has eidetic memory, remembers a list of IRA sympathisers that he once saw, which gives Ned another clue to the conspiracy. Several weeks later, Babe dies of a heart attack. He leaves Maddstone instructions detailing how to escape by hiding in Babe's coffin. Once free, he trades some prescription drugs (stolen from the asylum) to a dealer in Hamburg in exchange for a German passport. Following Babe's instructions, Ned travels to a Swiss bank. He gains access to Babe's account, in which Babe had deposited large sums of stolen money. The money has been accruing interest during Babe's imprisonment; the balance is over £324 million.

Now fabulously wealthy, Ned assumes the identity of Simon Cotter, a famous and mysterious Internet entrepreneur who makes huge profits investing in high-risk ventures. He returns to England to begin his revenge. He arranges for the thugs who beat him, now in prison themselves, to be beaten, humiliated and robbed of all privilege and power. Albert Fendeman, the seventeen-year-old son of Gordon and Portia, starts to work for Cotter, and becomes a personal acquaintance.

Maddstone targets Rufus Cade, survivor of several failed marriages and a regular drugs user. Due to Ned's intervention, Cade mistakenly sells sherbet instead of cocaine to a group of Turkish drug dealers. Moments after Ned reveals his true identity to Cade and his intent to destroy him, Cade is brutally mutilated by the dealers. Maddstone allows him to bleed to death over the course of an hour.

Ashley Barson-Garland is now a backbench Member of Parliament, a rising star in the Conservative Party known for his vocal stance on Internet censorship and the preservation of family values. On a broadcast of Barson-Garland's television programme, ''Threat of the Net'', Maddstone's ally, a young woman who facilitated his Hamburg drug deal, reveals evidence that Barson-Garland is deeply involved in child pornography. Fleeing the television studio during the show, Barson-Garland receives a trojan worm from Maddstone that reveals Ned's true identity and intent as it floods his hard drive with pornographic videos of under-age boys. As the police arrive, Barson-Garland kills himself.

Oliver Delft, no longer with the Intelligence Service, accepts a job from Cotter. Maddstone secretly reveals his identity to Delft's mother, and describes what he suffered on her account. Maddstone believes her conscience will be tortured, but instead (although he does not know) she is ecstatic.

Maddstone discovers that Gordon Fendeman was involved in a swindle in South Africa five years previously, that left an entire African tribe homeless, landless, and mired in poverty and starvation. Cotter reveals this information to the press. Albert, angered by this personal attack on his father, attempts to discredit Cotter. While showing Portia a mocking website he has made about Cotter, Albert unknowingly reveals Cotter's true identity to her. Maddstone replies to Albert's attack on him by infecting his computer with a virus. Portia visits Maddstone in his office and convinces him to make peace with Albert.

Gordon Fendeman is offered a deal by his board of directors that will allow him to resign without disgrace. Cotter, having become the chairman of the board just that morning, attends the meeting with the princess of the tribe that Fendeman double-crossed in Africa. The princess relays the tribe's view of events, and claims that when she was thirteen Fendeman raped her. Fendeman tries to kill himself, but dies of a heart attack on the boardroom floor.

Maddstone has Delft beaten, and threatens to have him drugged, and flown to the asylum in Sweden. He offers Delft a choice: he can spend the rest of his life in the asylum, or commit suicide by swallowing hot coals. Delft chooses the latter and dies a gruesome death. Maddstone shoots the men who served as Delft's lackeys on the day that he was arrested, completing his revenge.

Maddstone goes to the Fendeman house hoping to resume his relationship with Portia, but finds only Portia's father, who informs Maddstone that Portia and Albert have fled to an unknown location to mourn Gordon. Left on the kitchen table are the love letters that Portia and Maddstone exchanged as teenagers. Maddstone takes them, realizing that he will never find Portia and Albert.

Maddstone tears up the love letters and scatters them at sea. He returns to what he now realises is his only real "home": the asylum, which he now owns.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, England is concerned by the impending arrival of the Spanish Armada. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), English privateers such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.

Elizabeth's chief advisers are the Lord Treasurer, Lord Burleigh (Morton Selten), and her longtime admirer, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Leslie Banks). Burleigh's 18-year-old granddaughter Cynthia (Vivien Leigh) is one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, and the ageing queen is plagued by jealousy of the girl's beauty and vivacity.

In a sea battle between the Spanish, led by Don Miguel (Robert Rendel), and the English, led by his old friend Sir Richard Ingolby (Lyn Harding) the English are captured. Miguel allows Richard's son Michael (Laurence Olivier) to escape. Michael swims ashore on Miguel's estate, and his wounds are tended to by Miguel's daughter Elena (Tamara Desni), who quickly becomes enamoured of the handsome Englishman, despite her being engaged to marry. As the months pass, Michael recovers and laments being apart from Cynthia, his sweetheart, but is nonetheless impressed by Elena's charms.

Miguel brings Michael the sad news that Sir Richard, his father, has been executed as a heretic. The grieving Michael denounces his rescuers and flees to England in a small fishing boat. When he is granted an audience with the Queen he urges her to fight the Spanish menace by whatever means necessary, and swears undying loyalty to her. Elizabeth is flattered by the young man's fervent devotion and later has an opportunity to take advantage of his offer of service when Hillary Vane (James Mason), an Englishman spying for Spain, is killed before the names of his English co-conspirators can be uncovered.

Michael, disguised as Vane, goes to the court of King Philip II of Spain (Raymond Massey) to get the letters that will set into motion a plan to assassinate Elizabeth. At the palace Michael meets Elena. Her father has been killed by the English and she is now married to Don Pedro (Robert Newton), the palace governor. Elena keeps Michael's identity a secret as long as she can, but finally must tell her husband out of loyalty to him.

Philip sees through Michael's disguise and orders his arrest. Pedro helps him escape so that it will not be discovered that his wife aided a heretic. While Michael is returning home, the Spanish Armada sails against England and Elizabeth addresses her army at Tilbury. Michael meets her there and reveals the names of the traitors. Elizabeth knights Michael before confronting the six traitors, inviting them to fulfill their plot and kill her. Overwhelmed with shame, they agree to accompany Michael on a mission to deploy fire ships in a night attack on the Armada, massed off the coast of England.

The tactic succeeds, and Elizabeth allows Michael and Cynthia to be wed.

A cocky American athlete named Lee Sheridan (Robert Taylor) receives a scholarship to attend Cardinal College, University of Oxford in 1937. At first, Lee is reluctant to go to the college owing to his father, Dan's, (Lionel Barrymore) limited income, but he finally does attend. Once in England, Lee brags about his athletic triumphs to Paul Beaumont (Griffith Jones), Wavertree (Robert Coote), and Ramsey (Peter Croft) on the train to Oxford. Annoyed, they trick Lee into getting off the train at the wrong stop. Lee, however, does make his way to Oxford where the students attempt to trick him again, this time into thinking that he is getting a grand reception. Seeing through the deception, he follows the prankster impersonating the Dean and after chasing him is thrown off and ends up kicking the real Dean of Cardinal (Edmund Gwenn) before retreating. This begins a contentious relationship between them when Lee reports to apologize.

Lee considers leaving Oxford but stays on after being convinced by Scatters (Edward Rigby), his personal servant. Lee meets Elsa Craddock (Vivien Leigh), a married woman who "helps" the new campus students, and starts a relationship with Paul Beaumont's sister Molly (Maureen O'Sullivan). Lee makes the track team by outpacing other runners while wearing a cap and gown. Just when he begins to fit in, he is hazed for refusing to rest during a crucial relay race at a track meet and pushing his replacement Paul out of the way in his zeal to win. In a fit of anger, Lee goes to a pub, which students are forbidden to frequent, to confront Paul, finding him in a private booth with Elsa. He starts a fight with Paul but Wavertree warns them of the arrival of the Oxford University police, the "Bullers". Lee and Paul run and when they are almost caught by one of the Bullers, Lee punches him. Paul is called before the Dean, who fines him and warns him for hitting the Buller. He is scorned for revealing it was Lee who did it, and Lee is soon the favorite of Paul's old friends. Molly begins to see Lee again, but he still feels regretful for what has happened between him and Paul.

Lee begins rowing for Oxford University Boat Club and in the bumps race for Cardinal's boat club, tries to make amends to Paul after winning a race, but Paul rejects the offer of friendship. Despite this, Lee still helps Paul by hiding Elsa in his own room when Elsa is looking for Paul. The Dean catches the two of them together and expels Lee from Oxford. Lee's father, Dan, comes for the races having not heard of Lee's expulsion from Oxford University. When Lee tells him that he had been having an affair with Elsa, Dan believes he is lying. Judging from Lee's effusive letters about Molly, he feels that Lee could not possibly have had an affair with Elsa.

Dan meets with Molly and the two devise a plan to get Lee back into college. Dan meets with Elsa at the bookstore and convinces her to talk to the Dean. After flirting with the Dean and telling him that Lee was only hiding her from Wavertree, Lee is allowed back into Oxford and Wavertree, who has spent the entire story trying to be expelled so he can come into an inheritance, receives to his disappointment only a minor punishment. Lee and Paul make amends and win the boat race.

Following the Hellmouth's closure, hundreds of potential slayers have been awakened. Buffy Summers hoped that overturning the Slayer's self-sacrifice would result in her earning some relaxation following seven years of fighting. However, the victory is short-lived. Dark forces are arising to fill the gap left by the First.

Willow's magical spell which sent slayer essence across the world has resulted in girls everywhere discovering a new power. The Scoobies travel to Europe. In London, Giles races to reorganize the remnants of the Watchers Council, hoping to overcome the shortcomings of its previous incarnation. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Dawn's new best friend, a young slayer named Belle travel to Rome to train new Slayers that are drawn to the infamous Immortal, Buffy is attracted to the Immortal, an ambiguous yet charismatic character, who she does not fully trust during the whole novel. They soon hear of an unknown "Queen of the Slayers" who is getting a number of the fresh slayers to form a mystical army. This likely evil seems determined to claim the slayer essence for herself, and viciously and cruelly murders any Slayers that don't cooperate with her and betray Buffy.

Faith and Robin Wood take a group of Slayers to the Hellmouth in Cleveland, which has gone supernova with evil, to stabilize the hell there. They face many casualties, and experience strange projections of The Legion of Three, three deadly Hellgods.

There are three factions of evils, two of them just want to defeat Buffy after she closed the Hellmouth, who want to kill Buffy, The so-called Queen of the Slayers who wants to destroy Buffy, along with her lover, Antonia Borgia (a sorcerer under the employ of The Immortal) and convinces newbie slayers that Buffy is just using them to gain power, and Two Vampire Sorcerers who live in the Borgia Hell Dimension, and The Legion of Three.

Xander goes to Africa hoping to find more about the origins of the slayer essence. He discovers instead that the good in the world is not enough to fight the bad, and that the deciding confrontation is drawing far too near. It will be slayer against slayer, as an ultimate battle of champions approaches.

Dawn goes into a coma, because she was The Key, and has a link to the Earth, which is crumbling because of the supernova Hellmouth in Cleveland, and the Hellgods who are breaking through the barrier. Willow also seems to go into a coma, but is somehow woken up by a kiss from her lover, Kennedy when she, Faith and Robin are called back to Rome, because of the non-ending battle in deserted Cleveland.

Buffy, Willow, Kennedy, Belle, Vi, and Rona head to Brazil (under the orders of an angelic, Tara), to get The Death Orchid which has healing abilities, and they are attacked by The Queen of the Slayers. They are saved from poison darts by one of the rogue slayers, Haley, who realizes what she has done and gives them the antidote. They then go to Tibet, to meet with the infamous sorcerer, The Golden One, and re-meet Oz who is one of the werewolves that protect The Golden One. After the Golden One is killed, Oz and his wolf-pack decide to head to Rome, to help Buffy and her Slayers against the upcoming battle.

After healing Dawn, Buffy goes on patrol along with Faith who meet a rogue Slayer who they believe is leading them into a trap, and their belief comes reality when she leads the Slayer sisters right into the hands of Ornella, the Queen of the Slayers and her demons. Buffy and Faith waste the demons easily and escape back to The Immortal's castle, where he betrays them, for power, knocks them out, and ties them up.

Buffy, unconscious is visited by the good demon, Whistler. The Powers that Be have sent him to The Slayer for her to see the battle going on in L.A. that has Angel, a resurrected Spike, and their team fighting against the hell that Wolfram & Hart has sent upon them. Buffy cries tears of horror as she believes that both the vampires who loved her will die again. She is then joined by both Angel and Spike's souls, and together they create an angelic daughter with all of their features, who gives Buffy the strength she needs to wake up, gather her friends, her team, her Slayers, and defeat The Legion of Three.

Buffy wakes up the morning after the battle, to find her friends building her funeral pyre believing her to be dead again. She finds her friends safe and sound, though Faith was forced to kill Slayers who wouldn't surrender. Buffy has a confidential conversation with Willow who reveals that she also saw Buffy's future daughter, Buffy looks into the sunset, declares her love for all of her friends (including Andrew), healing after the battle, and vows to see Angel, and Spike again.

The story begins with an aging, alcoholic Lady Emma Hamilton being clapped into debtor's prison in the slums of Calais. In a husky, despairing, whiskey-soaked voice, Hamilton narrates the story of her life to her skeptical fellow prisoners. In one of the early scenes that launches the flashback, Emma, well past her prime, looks into a mirror and remembers "the face I knew before," the face of the young, lovely girl who captured the imagination of artists—most notably George Romney and Joshua Reynolds.

Emma Hart's early life as the mistress of the charming but unreliable Charles Francis Greville leads to her meeting with his wealthy uncle Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples.Greville gives Emma to Sir William in exchange for relief on his debts. At first, Emma is crushed by this turn of events. Gradually, however, she comes to appreciate her luxurious surroundings and her glamorous new life. She also grows to respect Sir William, who marries her and explains the reasons for Britain's war against Napoleon. When Horatio Nelson arrives in Naples, Emma is soon deeply attracted to him and is impressed by his passionate insistence upon resisting Napoleon's wars of conquest. She leaves Sir William to live with Nelson, who is also married. Their idyllic life together is threatened by the continuing war and their infidelity to their spouses. The Admiralty contacts Lord Hamilton and he very graciously explains to Emma that they (not he) orders her to go to Cairo and Nelson is to return to Britain. She informs Nelson and they have a passionate farewell. However, both end up in England. When Emma meets Lady Nelson, she is less forgiving than Lord Hamilton.

Following Nelson's maiden speech at the House of Lords, the crowds spot both women and gossip starts as to which he will go to first afterwards. It is here that they say "There is that Hamilton woman". Nelson chooses his wife, but Emma faints, and Lady Nelson ushers the carriage away. Against the pleas of his father, a clergyman of the Church of England, Lord Nelson separates from an enraged Lady Nelson, who vows she will never give him a divorce.

Emma bears Nelson's child, but Nelson is called back to sea. Meanwhile, Lord Hamilton dies and Emma is left impoverished. When Nelson finds out, he is enraged and buys her a country house, where they live together.

Napoleon declares himself Emperor of the French and the war restarts. Nelson leaves to confront he French Navy off the coast of Spain. The fleet sing "Heart of Oak" as Nelson raises the signal "England expects that every man will do his duty". Captain Hardy warns Nelson that wearing Admiral's insignia could attract snipers, which Nelson laughs off.

The Battle of Trafalgar begins: a huge and ferocious battle between the opposing fleets. Nelson is shot through the spine by a sniper and taken below deck. "Poor Emma, what will become of her?" he muses. Outside, Admiral Villeneuve's flagship surrenders and the fighting continues despite 14 enemy ships destroyed or captured. Nelson orders them to continue until 20 are lost. After 18, he says, "We have a great victory" and dies.

In England, Hardy goes to Emma and describes the battle, but starts weeping and reveals Nelson's death. Considering her life over, Emma spirals down into poverty and alcoholism.

Spike was born in the nineteenth century as a gentle, intellectual boy named William. As a young adult, he meets a woman called Drusilla, a mysterious vampire. William eventually becomes Spike.

He travels Europe with a band of vicious vampires, Dru, Darla, and Angelus. They show him his new existence, and from them he finds out about that most serious of enemies to vampires, one girl in all the world chosen to fight the vampires and the forces of darkness, the Slayer.

Having found a soul in Africa in the twenty-first century, Spike is tormented by the first evil and the guilt of his vampiric evils. He recalls many of the events that would lead him to the madness in the hell-influenced basement of the new Sunnydale High School.

The film tells the story of a Japanese door-to-door insurance salesman, Tsuda Yoshiharu, who takes up boxing after a chance meeting with a former high school friend, Kojima Yakuji. Tsuda is shown to be under immense stress due to having to support both himself and his fiancée, Hizuru, who quit her job after they became engaged. One day, Hizuru invites Kojima into Tsuda's apartment. Kojima comes onto Hizuru, who rejects him. Still, Tsuda finds out and becomes enraged at Kojima, but Kojima beats Tsuda badly and humiliates him in front of Hizuru. Hizuru is intrigued by the animalistic Kojima, and, after a confrontation in a restaurant with Tsuda, breaks up with him and moves in with Kojima. She also starts to pierce herself and get tattoos. She wants to box, but is denied that life by the surprisingly cowardly Kojima, who says she is a scary freak of a woman.

Tsuda still has feelings for Hizuru, and he keeps trying to win her back, leading to a confrontation where they bond by beating each other's faces to a pulp (Tsuda ends up badly mutilated in the process). In the end, Kojima and Tsuda have a sparring match in their boxing club, in which leads Kojima beats Tsuda to near death. Afterwards, Kojima goes on to fight a real boxing match while Tsuda is in the hospital being treated for wounds to his eye. Meanwhile, Hizuru has gone overboard with the piercings and has implanted several metal bars in her body. Kojima wins the match, but he has been pushed past his limit and his face is shown to be unrecognizable because of injuries. His face breaks apart while he is celebrating his victory, suggesting fatal wounds. Hizuru is shown to be in a field, where she attempts to rip out her various piercings but ends up bleeding to death. The final scene shows Tsuda standing in front of an apartment building, the pupil of his eye now missing.

Ethan Rayne comes back to Sunnydale and releases an evil sorcerer from Bavaria who had been imprisoned since the Middle Ages. At the same time Buffy seems to be finding herself up against a number of old adversaries out for revenge.

Category:2005 American novels Category:Books based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Category:Gamebooks

A number of student suicides has been taking place at Sunnydale High, shaking the community. Then the new grief counselor ends up killing himself, the Scoobies suspect that there is something supernatural to blame. Soon one of them shows suicidal signs and Buffy must race against time to defeat the ancient "Suicide King".

Various demons have battled Spike since he was given a chip preventing him from hurting humans. Now a more organised and united effort is being made to put him out of the picture.

In Los Angeles, Angel is searching for a mystical object that is linked to his days as the evil Angelus. Spike arrives. Each holds a grudge against each other yet they must reluctantly work together and deal with their shared evil pasts.

Everyone on Sesame Street is preparing to celebrate New Year's Eve. However, Telly Monster quickly discovers that this means that the current year ends, which upsets him, and because he becomes afraid that he soon will enter an unknown year (mostly due to hearing false things about it from Oscar the Grouch), he starts a campaign to prevent the new year from coming to Sesame Street.

In the meantime, Elmo is the host of the monster news that shows how New Year's Eve is celebrated around the world. This is done by showing segments created by the Sesame characters from different co-productions around the world.

Also, during the special, Wolfgang the Seal balances a beach ball on his nose because he was hired by Big Bird to be the Time Square ball. Near the end of the special, the cast does the countdown and Wolfgang removes the ball in slow motion. When the ball drops to the ground, everyone cheers and welcomes in the new year. Telly is amazed that everyone is still here and happily joins the celebration. Then, Big Bird and everyone else make New Year's wishes while eating grapes, and sings "Faces That I Love". Even Slimey celebrates, much to Oscar's chagrin.

Max is a lonely 9-year-old boy with an active imagination and divorced parents. His older sister, Claire, does nothing when her friends crush Max's snow fort with him inside during a snowball fight. Out of frustration, Max messes up her bedroom and destroys a frame he made for her. Later, his mother, Connie, invites her boyfriend Adrian to dinner. Max becomes upset with her for not coming to the fort he made in his room. Wearing his wolf suit, he begins to wreak havoc among the house. As Connie scolds him, he acts up and bites her on the shoulder. She yells at him and he runs away, scared by what transpired. At the edge of a pond, Max finds a small boat that he boards.

Eventually, Max reaches an island that is home to a group of seven large monsters called the Wild Things - namely, Carol, Ira, Judith, Alexander, Douglas, the Bull, and KW. Carol is in the middle of a destructive tantrum caused by the departure of KW. Max tries joining in on the mayhem, but finds himself facing the suspicious anger of the Wild Things. When they contemplate eating him, Max convinces them that he is a king with magical powers capable of bringing harmony to the group. They crown him as their new king. Shortly after, KW returns, and Max declares a "wild rumpus" in which the Wild Things smash trees and tackle each other, before going to sleep in a pile with Max at the center.

Carol takes Max on a tour of the island, showing him a model he built depicting what he wishes the island looked like. Inspired by this, Max orders the construction of an enormous fort. When KW brings her two owl friends, Bob and Terry, to the fort, a disagreement ensues as Carol feels they are outsiders. To release their frustrations, Max divides the tribe into "good guys" and "bad guys" for a dirt clod fight. However, Alexander is injured during the game, and Carol berates KW for jokingly stepping on his head, prompting the latter to leave once again.

Max finds Alexander alone in the fort, whereupon he reveals that he knows Max is not a king with magical powers, but warns him never to let Carol know. However, Douglas reveals the truth when Carol throws another tantrum in the middle of the night over the state of the fort and Max's failure to fulfill his duties as a king. Enraged, Carol rips off Douglas's right arm - though only sand pours from the wound - before chasing Max into the forest and attempting to eat him. Max is saved by KW, who hides him in her arms. After Carol leaves, KW explains to Max how difficult their lives are, with Carol's tantrums only making matters worse. Max realizes what his mother is going through, and decides to leave the island.

Max finds the crushed remains of Carol's model island and leaves a token of affection for him to find. Max finds Carol and tells him he is going home because he is not a king. The other Wild Things escort Max to his boat. Carol runs to join them after finding Max's token and arrives in time to see him off. He starts to howl and Max howls back; all the other Wild Things join in. Carol looks at KW, and she smiles kindly at him. Returning home, Max is embraced by his mother, who gives him a bowl of soup, a piece of cake, and a glass of milk. She sits with him as he eats and he watches as she falls asleep at the table.

In Inveranoch, Scotland in the year 1912, veterinarian Andrew MacDhui lives with his seven-year-old daughter Mary and her cat Thomasina, who narrates the film in voiceover. Dr. MacDhui is a widower whose wife's death destroyed his belief in God and his empathy for others. When Thomasina contracts tetanus, Dr. MacDhui orders his assistant Willie Bannock to euthanize her. Willie reminds Dr. MacDhui that he promised Mary to make Thomasina well again. Traumatised by Thomasina's death, Mary withdraws emotionally from Dr. MacDhui and declares her father dead, refusing to speak to or look at him.

Thomasina's soul goes to a feline afterlife and meets the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet. Since Thomasina still has eight lives left, Bastet returns her to her body.

Mary and her friends take Thomasina's body out beyond the town for a funeral, but are frightened by the appearance of "Mad Lori" MacGregor, a young woman who lives in the glen and was attracted by the children's singing and bagpipe playing. The children believe she is a witch because of her apparent power to calm and cure animals. Lori brings Thomasina back to her makeshift animal hospital, but although the cat recovers, she has no memory of her first life with Mary. Thus begins her second life.

The townspeople, put off by Dr. MacDhui's lack of compassion, begin to take their sick pets to Mad Lori instead. Dr. MacDhui visits Lori with the intention of confronting her for stealing his business, but instead they both realize that they each have half of what is needed to treat sick animals. He has the science and surgical knowledge; she has the love and compassion.

Thomasina's memory is slowly returning. She realizes she misses something very important, but she doesn't know what. She remembers the way back home, but doesn't recognize Mary, who chases her into a rainstorm. Thomasina returns to the safety of Lori's cabin in the woods, but Mary contracts pneumonia after Dr. MacDhui finds her lying on the street in the rain.

A tribe of gypsies sets up camp in town and opens their travelling circus. When Dr. MacDhui and Mad Lori discover the gypsies have been abusing their performing animals, they visit the circus. Their attempt at discussion leads to a fight and eventually, a fire. The police arrest the proprietors for animal cruelty.

Dr. MacDhui prays for the first time in four years that God will somehow cure his daughter. Off in the glen, a lightning bolt strikes a tree next to Thomasina and her memory is suddenly restored. Thomasina returns to the MacDhui home and Dr. MacDhui places her in Mary's arms, thereby restoring Mary's will to live, as well as her love for her father. Lori's love has changed Dr. MacDhui and they are soon married, making the perfect veterinary team. Thomasina begins her third life with all of them together.

In a meeting about the Pilgrim Parties, High Chancellor Querida takes a wizard, a high priest and a thief to see the Oracles, who determine that the next person the group sees will play the role of the Dark Lord, and the second person will be the Wizard Guide that they need. They meet Wizard Derk, who has taken his son Blade to see the Oracles, who say that he will be coached by Deucalion.

Derk undertakes to "evil-fy" his home, Derkholm, for its role as the Dark Lord's capital. He summons a demon to bind there, but it escapes. An ancient dragon mistakes him for a ruling Dark Lord, takes offense when it learns the commercial truth, and burns Derk so badly that he cannot play Dark Lord or help with other arrangements. His children take over.

The eldest griffin and most commanding personality among several human and griffin children, Kit takes the lead. With the dragon's help, they manage to settle the Dark Lord's soldiers (Violent and drugged criminals whom Mr. Chesney contracts to get rid of) in permanent camp. Meanwhile, Derk is convalescing back at Derkholm/The Dark Citadel but his wife, Mara, seems to be on the brink of leaving him, enjoying too much playing the part of the Glamorous Enchantress.

Blade and Shona, Derk's human son and daughter, take charge of the Pilgrim Party that Blade was assigned to as the wizard guide. Among other things, they must deal with their own attractions to tourists, and with unwanted affections, and with tourists helplessly in love with each other. The party gets lost in wastelands, Blade and two tourists get separated from the group, and Shona leads the rest toward Derkholm.

Blade's trio discovers a mining and export operation run by Mr. Chesney. The magical properties inherent in plain fantasy earth make it a valuable power source in Chesney's world (ours)! Blade is captured by guards and sent off to fight as a gladiator, where he meets in the arena his griffin brother, Kit, captured in battle.

Back at Derkholm, father Derk is badly depressed by the apparent death of Kit, and does not carry out any of the Dark Lord's duties, nor eat, sleep, or wash. Pilgrims are camped in the valley, having been barred from the Dark Citadel by Derk, and many denizens of fantasyland (Dragons, Elves and Dwarves) have gathered in the Dark Citadel or its vicinity, by the time Mr. Chesney arrives to assess the situation and determines to levy fines. Deucalion, the dragon helps the demon in Mr. Chesney's pocket escape and return to its mate, the one that Wizard Derk summoned. The gods, which Mr. Chesney had demanded to appear, show up and shrinks him, and leaves with him.

The arrival of the Final Pilgrim Party precipitates a showdown and the successful consummation of Querida's plan. Her retirement from the University sets the stage for a sequel, ''Year of the Griffin'', when Derk's youngest daughter goes for training in magic.

Steven Kenet catches his unfaithful wife Helen in the apartment of Willard I. Whitcombe, her boss, and she is strangled to death. He attempts to commit suicide by driving his car into the river, even though they have a six-year-old son. Kenet survives but is sent to the county psychiatric hospital for evaluation to determine if he is sane enough to be charged with murder. He has no memory of what happened, likely due to a pre-existing brain injury from the war.

Dr. Ann Lorrison takes an interest in his case, and in him. Surgery could cure Kenet's brain injury, but he refuses to consent to it, preferring a life in an insane asylum to a probable murder conviction. However, when Lorrison informs him that because his mother has died, his son will be sent to an orphanage, Kenet changes his mind. (Lorrison herself has obtained temporary custody of the child.)

Henry Cronner, janitor of the apartment building, attempts to blackmail Whitcombe. After being rebuffed, Cronner goes to see Kenet, hinting he can save him but withholding details until Kenet can pay. Whitcombe then sends Cronner plummeting to his death down the building's elevator shaft.

Kenet undergoes "narcosynthesis"—a light dose of sodium pentothal—to help him remember what happened. He recalls blacking out just as his hands were around Helen's neck and later regaining consciousness to find her dead body. Kenet escapes from the hospital and, taking a reluctant Lorrison along, breaks into Whitcombe's apartment. He recreates the scene, in hopes of jogging his memory, then returns to the hospital before he is missed.

Whitcombe visits him there and provokes Kenet by confessing to the two murders; as he had hoped, he is attacked by Kenet, making the latter look like a homicidal lunatic. In desperation, Kenet breaks out of the hospital again. He manages to get to Whitcombe and subdues him. Under sodium pentothal Lorrison administers, Whitcombe recounts how he had tried to part ways with Helen Kenet after finding her husband unconscious in his apartment, but she threatened to cause a scandal and ruin any chance of him becoming a partner in his firm.

Taken into custody, Whitcombe is told that anything he said under the truth serum can not be used against him. He vows to get a lawyer and be cleared. Kenet, meantime, is free to go.

13-year-old girl Jitka wanders around Prague. She discovers a hospital garden behind high wall, where a young man on the wheelchair is recovering from his injuries.

Nita's family goes on vacation with Kit and his dog, Ponch, to the South Shore of Long Island. While swimming in the ocean at night, Nita encounters a dolphin (nicknamed 'Hotshot'), and Kit reports the local rocks' memory of disaster. In the following night, they are carried by the dolphin to a nearby beach, where they see a pack of sharks attacking a humpback whale wizard named S'reee, whom they rescue. Nita heals S'reee, and Nita and Kit return to shore. From S'reee, they hear of a 'Song of the Twelve', in which twelve cetacean wizards were tempted by the Lone Power to embrace entropy; and of the Twelve, three whales accepted this, three were undecided, and three rejected it. A Tenth whale, the Silent Lord, instead sacrificed herself, and was eaten by the Master Shark. This action bound the Lone Power for a time, and succeeding Songs (re-enacting the first) have kept it bound. Upon learning of an absence of wizards willing to join the Song, Nita volunteers herself as the Silent Lord, not knowing the implications; whereafter S'reee takes Nita and Kit to find other whales for the upcoming Song. Nita, having shared blood with S'reee while healing her, becomes a humpback whale without external aid, while Kit is given a 'whalesark' (a cloak containing the 'character' of a particular species) changing him into a sperm whale.

The next day, Nita and Kit sneak out of their beach house to help S'reee, and are introduced to Ed'Rashekaresket (nicknamed 'Ed' by Nita): the 'Master-Shark' of the Song. From him, Nita learns that the Song requires her own death, and becomes reluctant to continue her role; but is persuaded on grounds that a failure of the Song will destroy millions of innocent lives, and that her own memories of Kit and their adventures will be excised. As the Lone Power's binding weakens, large kraken attack the wizards underwater, and volcanic vents become active. Nita and Kit, in the face of her parents' demands for an explanation, reveal wizardry to her parents, but do not explain Nita's role in the Song. Nita's sister Dairine becomes able to read Nita's book of magic, suggesting her own innate abilities thereof (explored in the sequel). On return to the ocean, Nita meets the other participants in the Song (called the 'Celebrants), and befriends Ed. Thereafter the Celebrants descend into Hudson Canyon, where they are attacked by kraken and other monsters until they reach the Sea's Tooth, where the Song is held. The Song continues according to plan, until one of the whales succumbs to the Lone Power, and allows the Krakens to attack the Singers. Kit then takes her place; but the Lone Power emerges from its binding as an enormous serpent. In the succeeding battle, Ed requests Nita to temporarily give him her wizardry, and he finishes her part of the Song. He then attacks the Serpent, who wounds him; prompting all the sharks in the area to attack him and the serpent, whereupon the Lone Power withdraws, bound anew.

Nita and Kit return to the beach house, where Nita learns that Ed's sacrifice pays a debt owed by herself to the godlike 'Powers' governing wizardry. A rough epilogue then forms in which Ed appears in 'Timeheart', the Heavenly realm preserving affectionate memories, to Nita and Kit.

When Dairine, Nita's younger sister, finds Nita's copy of the Wizard's manual, she then proceeds to take the Wizard's Oath. Dairine is given her Wizard's manual in the form of a computer, which Dairine nicknames "Spot." Dairine uses her new power to travel to Mars, then to the Crossings, where she is attacked by agents of the Lone Power. When she uses a worldgate to flee, assisted by an unnamed man she meets in a bar, she finds herself on a giant planet consisting entirely of silicon. In the meantime, Nita and Kit discover she is missing and chase after her. Dairine awakens the massive computer embedded in the planet and gets to work designing and naming 'mobiles' after the planet begins to create quicklife (computer-based) creatures. She names them in a variety of ways ranging from computer programs to Star Wars characters.

The Lone Power overshadows a mobile and stirs up animosity against Dairine, convincing a number of them to support him instead. Nita and Kit arrive in time to help her, assisted by the macaw Machu Picchu (Peach), who reveals herself as the One's Champion incarnate. With Peach's assistance, the Lone Power is defeated by stopping the universe from expanding. The resulting light that explodes as a result of this destroys the Lone Power. The Lone Power then returns to "home" with one of the Powers That Be. As he leaves, he tells Kit and Nita to destroy the "shadows" of him that remain. The universe continues to expand and Nita, Kit and Dairine return to their home, where Dairine's computer sprouts legs and follows her upstairs as Nita and Kit talk to their parents.

The film opens with Hepburn acting in the title sequence from ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' and reminiscing about her life up to that point. These include her experiences in early childhood, studying to be a ballerina, coming to grips with her parents' divorce, and life in Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II. She then settles in the United States where she succeeds in making it big as an actress. The film also looks at the men who woo her and her marriage to Mel Ferrer. The closing credits feature footage of the real Hepburn during one of the UNICEF missions she undertook in her later years.

McTeague is a dentist of limited intellect from a poor miner's family, who has opened a dentist shop on Polk Street in San Francisco (his first name is never revealed; other characters in the novel call him simply "Mac."). His best friend, Marcus Schouler, brings his cousin, Trina Sieppe, whom he is courting, to McTeague's parlor for dental work. McTeague becomes infatuated with Trina while working on her teeth, and Marcus graciously steps aside. McTeague successfully woos Trina. Shortly after the two have kissed and declared their love for each other, Trina discovers that she has won $5,000 (roughly $166,000 in 2022 values) from a lottery ticket. In the ensuing celebration Trina's mother, Mrs. Sieppe, announces that McTeague and Trina are to marry. Marcus becomes jealous of McTeague and claims that he has been cheated out of money that would have been rightfully his if he had married Trina.

The marriage takes place, and Mrs. Sieppe, along with the rest of Trina's family, moves away from San Francisco, leaving her alone with McTeague. Trina proves to be a parsimonious wife; she refuses to touch the principal of her $5,000, which she invests with her uncle. She insists that she and McTeague must live on the earnings from McTeague's dental practice, the small income from the $5,000 investment, and the bit of money she earns from carving small wooden figures of Noah's animals and his Ark for sale in her uncle's shop. Secretly, she accumulates penny-pinched savings in a locked trunk. Though the couple is happy, the friendship between Marcus and McTeague deteriorates. More than once the two men come to grips; each time McTeague's immense physical strength prevails, and eventually, he breaks Marcus's arm in a fight. When Marcus recovers, he goes south, intending to become a rancher; before he leaves, he visits McTeague, and he and McTeague part apparently as friends.

Catastrophe strikes when McTeague is debarred from practicing dentistry by the authorities. It becomes clear that before leaving, Marcus has taken revenge on Mac by informing city hall that he has no license or academic degree. McTeague loses his practice and the couple is forced to move into successively poorer quarters, as Trina becomes more and more miserly. Their life together deteriorates, with McTeague escalating in his abuse until he steals all of Trina's domestic savings (amounting to $400 or roughly $13,000 in 2022 values) and abandons her. Meanwhile, Trina falls completely under the spell of money and withdraws the principal of her prior winnings in gold from her uncle's firm so she can admire and handle the coins in her room, at one point spreading them over her bed and rolling around in them.

When McTeague returns, destitute once more, Trina refuses to give him money even for food. McTeague beats her to death. He takes the entire hoard of gold and heads out to a mining community that he had left years before. Sensing pursuit, he makes his way south towards Mexico. Meanwhile, Marcus hears of the murder and joins the hunt for McTeague, finally catching him in Death Valley. In the middle of the desert, Marcus and McTeague fight over McTeague's remaining water and, when that runs out, over Trina's $5,000. McTeague kills Marcus, but as he dies, Marcus handcuffs himself to McTeague. The final, dramatic image of the novel is one of McTeague stranded, alone, and helpless. He is left with only the company of Marcus's corpse, to whom he is handcuffed, in the desolate, arid waste of Death Valley.

Beginning the game, the player can select between two protagonists: '''Thidney the Lizard Bloke''' (voiced by John Sessions) or '''Shah-Ron the Girlie''' (voiced by Lani Minella) from planet Comely. According to the on-screen descriptions, Thidney is skilled at combat whereas Shah-Ron is skilled at magic.

There are three quests: '''The Good, Old Fashioned, Traditional Quest''': The player wanders around the Kingdom fighting and completing various side-quests, until finally "rescue the dragon, steal the princess and kill the treasure". '''The Magnificent 7-11 Quest''': The player has to find and recruit 7 to 11 characters from the Kingdom in order to protect Flake town from an upcoming invasion. *'''The Bizarre & Slightly Twisted Quest''': The player must find the Lost Lava Lamp Of The Ancient and defeat the Dark Lord, in order to save civilization.

Tarzan and Jane live in the jungle, along with their chimpanzee Cheeta. Harry Holt and his business partner Martin Arlington, leading a large party of locals, meet them on their way to take ivory from an elephant burial ground. Holt had visited the burial ground with Tarzan on an earlier trip, during which he had also met Jane. Holt had sought Tarzan out, as he was the only one who knew the way to the burial ground. On this trip, Holt tries to convince Jane to return with him to civilization by bringing her gifts such as clothing and modern gadgets. Jane tells him she would rather stay with Tarzan. She does agree to convince Tarzan to act as their guide.

When Tarzan calls an elephant, Arlington gets the idea that they can use elephants as pack animals, enabling them to haul much more ivory. When Jane tries to convince Tarzan to call more elephants, she explains to him about hauling the ivory away. Tarzan, thinking that taking the ivory is profaning the burial ground, refuses. In addition, he refuses to even lead them to the burial ground, now that he knows of their intent. Arlington and Holt have everything they own tied up in this venture and are frantic to continue on. Arlington asks Holt how they found the burial ground the first time, and Holt explains that they had followed a dying elephant. Seizing on that idea, Arlington shoots an elephant, mortally wounding it so that it will lead them to the burial ground. Only Jane's intervention keeps Tarzan from murdering Arlington.

After being abandoned by Tarzan and Jane, Arlington and Holt lead their baggage carriers, led by Saidi, a friend of Jane and Tarzan's, to the burial ground, following the wounded elephant. Elephants, aware of the impending disgrace of their sacred ground, turn up in the hundreds, and threaten to exterminate Holt and Arlington's party. Tarzan and Jane arrive in time to save them, after which Arlington feigns repentance, promising to leave the next day without the ivory. Satisfied, Tarzan agrees to guide their departure, and sends the elephants away.

Early the next morning, Arlington ambushes Tarzan, shooting him out of a tree. Tarzan falls into the water, and Arlington thinks he has killed him. After Arlington leaves, a hippopotamus rescues a semi-conscious Tarzan and carries him to a group of chimpanzees, which tend to him. Tarzan has received a head wound, but the bullet only grazed him, though it has left him very weak. The head chimpanzee applies plant sap to staunch the bleeding.

Arlington returns to the group, claiming that he saw Tarzan being killed by an alligator. A distraught Jane agrees to return to civilization. Arlington and Holt have their baggage carriers each take a tusk from the burial ground, and they begin to head back. Cheeta leaves Jane and looks for Tarzan. Chased by a lion, Cheeta escapes and comes upon the chimpanzee group tending to Tarzan.

As Tarzan recuperates, the safari makes its way through the jungle. Cheeta returns and lets Jane know that Tarzan is alive. However, shortly after the safari is confronted by a hostile tribe of "lion men", who kill two of the bearers and intend to kill the entire safari. Under cover of gunfire, most of the safari makes it to some nearby caves, set into the face of a rocky cliff. The bearer who was carrying the ammunition crate is killed on the way. When Saidi makes an attempt to retrieve the crate, he is captured by the lion men. Cheeta escapes and runs off to tell Tarzan.

The safari watch in horror the next morning as Saidi is staked out to a tree, as the lion men intend to use him as bait to call lions to attack the safari. When Holt rushes out to save him, he is wounded by a thrown spear. Wounded, he begins to free Saidi when the lions show up and tear him and Saidi to pieces. Meanwhile, Cheeta has returned to Tarzan, who while still weak, sets off after Cheeta.

The lions attempt to get at the safari, but are held off by Jane and Arlington and one of the bearers. When the bearer goes down on a ledge, Arlington goes out to save him, and he is attacked by a lion. Arlington is killed, but Jane kills the charging lion. As the lions become more aggressive, Tarzan and the chimpanzees arrive. The chimpanzees begin to throw the lion men out of the trees, where they are set upon by the lions. Jane kills two lions before she runs out of ammunition. As she is about to be attacked by the last lion, Tarzan arrives and kills it with his knife. Shortly after, a large herd of elephants arrives, trampling the lions, killing several and running the remainder off.

With the lion men and the lions routed, the elephants, along with Tarzan, Jane, and Cheeta, return the ivory to the burial ground.

Jane's (Maureen O'Sullivan) two cousins, Eric and Rita, arrive in Africa to tell Jane about a fortune left to her back in their world and to try to convince her to return with them. They are led to Tarzan's escarpment home by Captain Fry (John Buckler), a hunter with an agenda of his own. Jane convinces Tarzan to let her go back with Eric (William Henry) and Rita (Benita Hume), promising that their separation will only be temporary. But Captain Fry (unknown to the others) attempts to capture Tarzan to take him back to civilization so he can be put on public display, and actually succeeds in caging Tarzan. Fry's treachery includes making a deal with an unfriendly native tribe to give him food, canoes and protection for the journey back in exchange for his handing over Jane, Eric and Rita for "ju-ju" and taking away the greatest "ju-ju" – Tarzan.

Fry's plan goes wrong when the natives capture Tarzan in his cage and all four white people are taken prisoner. Tarzan manages to escape with the help of elephants and Cheeta, and guides what's left of Fry's party through a cave passage filled with treacherous quicksands. Just before they exit the caves to safety, Tarzan forces Fry to go back the way they came as punishment for his betrayal. Fry starts to go back, then seizes a heavy branch to attack Tarzan, but before he can exit the cave he falls into a quicksand bog (filled with "poisonous" lizards) and is swallowed up. Rita and Eric tell Jane that it is not necessary for her to return with them and that she belongs with Tarzan. The film ends with Tarzan and Jane reunited at their tree house.

While on leave, sailor Ted Barker (played by James Stewart) meets Nora Paige (Eleanor Powell) at the Lonely Hearts Club, which is owned by Jenny Saks (Una Merkel), the wife of fellow sailor Gunny Saks (Sid Silvers). Ted instantly falls in love with Nora.

Ted later meets Broadway star Lucy James (Virginia Bruce) aboard a submarine while she's on a publicity tour. Her Pekingese falls overboard, Ted rescues it, and Lucy falls in love with him. Though Ted has already scheduled a date with Nora, he is ordered by his captain, Dingby (Raymond Walburn), to meet Lucy in a nightclub.

Nora, who lives with Jenny and her daughter, Sally (Juanita Quigley), aspires to become a Broadway dancer. However, her newfound career is in serious jeopardy when she inadvertently comes between Lucy and her boss McKay (Alan Dinehart). Nora distances herself from Ted after seeing pictures of him and Lucy in a newspaper the next morning.

Lucy convinces McKay to stop the press campaign, threatening to leave the Broadway production if any more photos or articles about her and Ted are published. Nora becomes Lucy's understudy and thinks about her behavior towards Ted. Nora gets fired suddenly after McKay tells her to perform a dance that Lucy considers undanceable. But Ted knows exactly what to do after he's told the whole story.

The film is essentially a two-part program. The first half consists of a romantic comedy storyline involving an aerialist, played by Gene Kelly, who is drafted into the US Army but really wants to join the Air Force. During training, he falls in love with Kathryn (played by Kathryn Grayson), the daughter of his commanding officer, who has similarly put her singing career on hold in order to serve by providing entertainment for the troops. Unusually for this type of a film (and for this era of Hollywood), the character Kathryn has only recently met her father for the first time since she was a baby, her parents having divorced. A related subplot has Kathryn conniving to get her parents (played by John Boles and Mary Astor) to reconcile. During the first part of the film, Grayson sings several numbers and Kelly performs one of his most famous routines, dancing with a mop as a partner.

The secondary plot involves preparations for a major live show for the soldiers which will feature many MGM musical and comedy stars. For the second half of the film, all pretenses of a storyline are effectively abandoned as the film instead becomes a variety showcase of comedy, song, and dance, with all of the performers (save Kelly and Grayson) appearing as themselves. The show portion is hosted by Mickey Rooney.

The Texas State University Fightin' Armadillos were once one of the most powerful teams in college football. After winning consecutive conference and national championships, massive NCAA violations resulted in the program having to forfeit years' worth of victories. All of the coaches were fired and all of the players are banned from returning and expelled from college except Charlie Banks, the only "clean" player, who never got to play despite having "heart".

This move forces new head coach Ed "Straight Arrow" Gennero (Elizondo) to build an almost entirely new team with little assistance. No athletic scholarships are available, forcing them to hold tryouts. Along with this, they must worry about Phillip Elias (Miller), the dean of the university, who wants the team to fail so he can scrap it due to the corruption the football program has caused over the years, and funnel the funding into his own pocket. The coaches soon have a makeshift team in place.

Due to Dean Elias declaring many prospective players ineligible because of poor grades, only 17 players are allowed on the team—not enough for separate offensive and defensive squads. The Armadillos are thus forced to play ironman football. The team lacks experience and talent in all areas, especially at quarterback, placekicker, and the defensive line. Assistant coach Wally "Rig" Riggendorf (Loggia) finds Paul Blake (Bakula), a 34-year-old high school star who never attended college due to his father's death. Rig convinces him to enroll and become the Armadillos' quarterback.

Blake arrives on campus and catches everyone's attention due to his age, especially Professor Carter (Kozak). Blake then recruits a graduate student teaching assistant named Andre Krimm (Sinbad), who is also enrolled at the school and still has some eligibility remaining. Blake convinces him to join, and he is positioned on the defensive line, where he excelled years earlier. Even with the new members, the team is unable to win.

Carter tells Blake that she knows him from 16 years earlier. Carter's ex-boyfriend was a high school football star, but Blake and his team humiliated him and his team in a 1975 championship game. This episode actually caused Carter to become infatuated with Blake. Now, years after the fact, the two begin a romantic relationship which Dean Elias opposes due to their student-teacher dynamic—not to mention Elias' own lascivious interest in Carter.

Coach Rig makes one more recruiting move to secure a kicker. He shocks everybody by selecting Lucy Draper (Ireland) from the school's women's soccer team. When she is brought on board, the team has its first taste of success, as Draper kicks a field goal in a driving rainstorm to forge a 3–3 tie with Kansas (in real life, Kansas holds the all-time NCAA Division I-A record for number of tie games with 57). After this game, Blake quits the team after arguments with Gennero and Carter, but convinces himself to come back after a teammate Edison, who is also quitting, inadvertently changes his mind and both come back. Dean Elias barges into Carter's office after end-of-term exams, first coming onto her as a distraction from him tampering with the team's grades (to sabotage their eligibility for the final game), but she plays along momentarily before warning him that if one grade changes, she'll report him to the University President.

With the coaches and players now on the same page, the team plays their last game of the season against the number one ranked team in the state of Texas, the University of Texas Colts, with whom the Armadillos were involved in a barroom brawl earlier in the season. They head into the game as huge underdogs, and without Gennero, who is hospitalized just before the game for a potential heart attack, leaving Coach Rig in charge. After a horrible first half, they rally in the second half to cut the deficit to one, and Gennero returns to the sideline, having only suffered from indigestion, though he lets Coach Rig call the final play. Minutes before the final touchdown, after learning about his scheme to get rid of the football program (and his sexual harassment of Carter), TSU president Purcell fires Dean Elias, though not before the entire Armadillo defensive line runs him down. The team decides to try to win it all with a two-point conversion. They fake a point after attempt and pass for two. Blake scrambles and finally finds Banks in the end zone to win the game.

During a trip to a windswept beach, Maurice Hall, an 11-year-old schoolboy, receives instructions about the "sacred mysteries" of sex from his teacher, who wants to explain to the fatherless boy the changes he would experience in puberty.

Years later, in 1909, Maurice is attending Cambridge, where he strikes up a friendship with two fellow students: the aristocratic Viscount Risley and the rich and handsome Clive Durham. Clive falls in love with his friend and surprises Maurice by confessing his feelings. At first, Maurice reacts with horror, but he soon realizes that he reciprocates Clive's feelings. The two friends embark on a passionate love affair but, at Clive's insistence, their relationship remains non-sexual. To go further, in Clive's opinion, would diminish them both. Clive, a member of the upper class, has a promising future ahead of him and does not want to risk losing his social position. Their close relationship continues after Maurice is expelled from Cambridge and begins a new career as a stockbroker in London.

The two friends keep their feelings secret but are frightened when Lord Risley is arrested and sentenced to six months' hard labour after soliciting sex from a soldier. Clive, afraid of being exposed as a homosexual, breaks with Maurice. After his return from a trip to Greece, Clive, under pressure from his widowed mother, marries a naive rich girl named Anne and settles into a life of rural domesticity.

Heartbroken, Maurice seeks the help of his family physician, Dr. Barry, who dismisses Maurice's doubts as "rubbish". Maurice then turns to Dr. Lasker-Jones, who tries to cure his homosexual longings with hypnosis. During his visits to Clive's estate of Pendersleigh, Maurice attracts the attention of Alec Scudder, the under-gamekeeper who is due to emigrate with his brother to Argentina. Maurice not only fails to notice Scudder's interest in him, but initially treats him with contempt. This does not discourage Scudder, who spies on Maurice at night. Simcox, the butler at Pendersleigh, suspecting the true nature of Maurice and Clive's past relationship, has hinted to Scudder about Maurice's nature. On a rainy night, Scudder boldly climbs a ladder and enters Maurice's bedroom through an open window. Scudder kisses Maurice, who is completely taken by surprise but does not resist his sexual advances.

After their first night together, Maurice receives a letter from Scudder proposing they meet at the Pendersleigh boathouse. Maurice wrongly believes that Scudder is blackmailing him. Maurice returns to Lasker-Jones, who warns Maurice that England is a country which "has always been disinclined to accept human nature" and advises he emigrate to a country where homosexuality is no longer criminalised, like France or Italy. When Maurice fails to appear at the boathouse, Scudder travels to London and visits him at his offices.

Maurice and Scudder meet at the British Museum and the blackmail misunderstanding is resolved. Maurice begins to call Scudder by his first name, Alec. They spend the night together in a hotel room, and as Alec departs in the morning he explains that his departure for Argentina is imminent and they will not see each other again. Maurice goes to the port to give Alec a parting gift only to discover that Alec has missed the sailing. Maurice goes to Pendersleigh and confesses to Clive his love for Alec. Clive, who was hoping that Maurice would marry, is bewildered at Maurice's account of his encounters with Alec. The two friends separate and Maurice goes to the boathouse looking for Alec, who is there waiting for him. Scudder tells him that he sent a telegram to Maurice stating that he was to come to the boathouse. Alec has left his family and abandoned his plans to emigrate in order to stay with Maurice, telling him, "Now we shan't never be parted." Meanwhile, Clive is getting ready for bed and briefly reminisces about his time with Maurice.

In a Renaissance-era world, a young woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the country of Florin. She abuses the farm hand Westley, calling him "farm boy" and demands that he perform chores for her. Westley's response to her demands is always "As you wish." She eventually realizes that what he is saying is, "I love you." After Buttercup realizes that she loves him and confesses her feelings, Westley goes to seek his fortune so they can marry. Buttercup later receives a letter that the Dread Pirate Roberts attacked his ship at sea. Believing Westley dead, Buttercup sinks into despair. Later she reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck, heir to the throne of Florin.

Before the wedding, a trio of outlaws—the Sicilian criminal genius Vizzini, the Spanish fencing master Inigo Montoya, and the enormous and mighty Turkish wrestler Fezzik—kidnap Buttercup. A masked man in black follows them across the sea and up the Cliffs of Insanity, whereupon Vizzini orders Inigo to stop him. Before the man in black reaches the top of the cliff, a flashback of Inigo's past reveals that he is seeking revenge on a six-fingered man who killed his father. When the man in black arrives, Inigo challenges him to a duel. The man in black wins the duel, but leaves the Spaniard alive. Vizzini then orders Fezzik to kill the man in black. His flashback showed Fezzik as a lonely boy who was "accepted" by Vizzini. His conscience compelling him, Fezzik throws a rock as a warning and challenges the man to a wrestling match. The man in black accepts the challenge and chokes Fezzik until the giant blacks out. He then catches up with Vizzini and proposes a Battle of the Wits, guessing which cup of wine is poisoned with iocane powder. They drink, and Vizzini dies. The man in black then explains to Buttercup that he poisoned both cups, having built up an immunity to iocane powder beforehand.

With Prince Humperdinck's rescue party in hot pursuit, the man in black flees with Buttercup. He taunts Buttercup, claiming that women cannot be trusted and that she must have felt nothing when her true love and sweetheart had died. She shoves him into a gorge, yelling, "You can die, too, for all I care!", and hears him call, "As you wish!" from the bottom of the ravine. She realizes he is Westley, and follows him down into the gorge, to find him battered but largely unhurt. They travel through the Fire Swamp to evade Humperdinck's party. At Buttercup's insisting, Westley tells Buttercup about his experience with the Dread Pirate Roberts and how he secretly became the latest in a line of men to use that identity.

The Fire Swamp has many obstacles, such as Snow Sand. Here, Rugen tortures and weakens Westley with his life-sucking invention, The Machine.

Meanwhile, Buttercup has nightmares regarding her marriage to the prince. She expresses her unhappiness to Humperdinck, who proposes a deal wherein he will send ships to locate Westley, but if they fail to find him, Buttercup will marry him. The novel reveals that, to start a war with the neighboring country of Guilder, Humperdinck himself had arranged Buttercup's kidnapping and murder, but that he now believes that Buttercup dying on her wedding night will inspire his subjects to fight more effectively.

On the day of the wedding, Inigo meets again with Fezzik, who tells him that Count Rugen is the six-fingered man who killed his father. Knowing that Vizzini is dead, they seek out the man in black hoping that his wits will help them plan a successful attack on the castle to find and kill Count Rugen. Buttercup learns that Humperdinck never sent any ships, and taunts him with her enduring love for Westley. Enraged, Humperdinck tortures Westley to death via The Machine. Westley's screams echo across the land, drawing Inigo and Fezzik to the Zoo of Death. Finding Westley's body, they enlist the help of a magician named Miracle Max who was fired by Humperdinck. Max pronounces Westley to be merely "mostly dead", and returns him to life (out of a desire to get back at Humperdinck), though Westley remains partially paralyzed and weak.

Westley devises a plan to invade the castle during the wedding, and the commotion caused by this prompts Humperdinck to cut the wedding short. Buttercup decides to commit suicide when she reaches the honeymoon suite. Inigo pursues Rugen through the castle and kills him in a sword fight. Westley reaches Buttercup before she commits suicide. Still partially paralyzed, Westley bluffs his way out of a sword fight with Humperdinck, who shows himself to be a coward. Instead of killing his rival, Westley decides to leave him alive. The party then rides off into the sunset on four of the prince's purebred white horses. The story ends with a series of mishaps and the prince's men closing in, but the author indicates that he believes that the group got away.

Jake Huard wakes up after being knocked down during a boxing match. After beating his opponent, he returns to the home he shares with his distant father, who is also his employer at a naval shipyard, building vessels for the Navy and doubts Jake's ability to amount to anything.

Huard is visited by Lieutenant Commander Burton, telling Jake that his application to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland has been recently accepted. At a bar where Huard and his friends are celebrating, his friends introduce him to a young woman named Ali, whom they claim is a prostitute hired as a going-away present. Huard's attempts to seduce Ali are unsuccessful, and his farewell with his father leaves him frustrated.

On his first day at the Academy, Huard discovers that one of his instructors Ali, a Midshipman 2nd Class (an upperclassman), is the same woman that his friends introduced him to. She and her fellow instructor, Whitaker, begin hazing Huard's class of plebes, and that Huard in particular is behind academically. Their company commander, Midshipman Lieutenant Cole, had been an enlisted Marine prior to joining the Academy; announces his intent to run out any midshipman he deems unfit to be an officer. Huard's roommates include overweight Nance (nicknamed Twins), Loo, and Estrada, who is being singled out by Whitaker because of his ethnicity.

Ordered by Whitaker to take multiple showers per day due to a perceived stench, Estrada one day fails to complete his task but nevertheless reports to Whitaker that the orders were fully executed. Loo informs Cole of Estrada's dishonor, and Estrada is processed out of the Naval Academy. Meanwhile, Huard's class becomes increasingly frustrated from suffering due to his failures, as evidenced by Loo moving out of the room. Nance explains his refusal to leave by noting that the instructors are so focused on Huard that they are leaving him alone. While home on winter leave, Huard intends not to return until he discovers that his father made a wager, expecting Huard to fail. Upon his return, the class begins instruction in boxing, and it is announced that a midshipman tournament; the Brigades, will occur at the end of the year. After Huard angers the boxing instructor with some unsportsmanlike conduct toward Cole in the ring, he is forced to train by himself.

During an after-hours match with Burton, Huard swallows his pride and admits he needs help training; enlisting Ali and Burton for physical training, and Nance to gain enough weight to be in Cole's weight class. In his match with Loo, he endures some taunting and returns with a single-punch knockout, earning him Loo's respect and support. Huard also begins to excel in his classes, gaining respect with the rest of his class when he proves capable of performing academically. During the tournament, Jake progresses and defeats Whitaker in the semifinals, leaving him and Cole for the final match.

After Nance fails by just four seconds to successfully complete the obstacle course, Cole informs Nance that he will be kicked out from the Academy. Nance attempts suicide, prompting Huard to tackle Cole in anger. Expecting to be kicked out as well, Huard begins to pack up and leave, until Cole approaches him and informs him that he has requested more time from the disciplinary board; delaying the hearing until after the final Brigades match. After some encouragement from the recovering Nance, Huard steps into the ring to fight Cole, lasting a full three rounds. Although Cole wins by decision, Huard's boxing ability earns him the respect of the entire Academy, as well as his father, who has come to see the fight.

At his hearing, the disciplinary board decides to retain Huard, based on Cole's recommendation. The Class of 2008 celebrates the end of their Plebe year, while Huard and Ali finally express their mutual attraction openly. Huard approaches newly-commissioned Second Lieutenant Cole to ask who would have won if the fight had continued, to which Cole challenges Huard to join the Marines to find out.

The novel takes place about 25 years after the events in the previous novel, ''Skyfall (novel)''. Eldrinson Valdoria and his wife Roca Skolia live happily on his homeworld Lyshriol and have ten children. Some of them have already left home, like the second oldest son Althor who is training to become a Jagernaut, or the firstborn Eldrin who at the request of the Skolian Assembly had to marry his aunt, the Ruby Pharaoh Dyhianna Selei.

The sixth of the Valdoria children, 16-year-old Sauscony (Soz), wants to enter the Military academy to become a Jagernaut like her brother. But Eldrinson has other plans – he would rather prefer to see his "little girl" living safely on Lyshriol, married to a local landlord. When she disobeys, he disowns both her (for leaving) and Althor (for taking her off-world). Though he regrets his harsh words immediately, he has no chance to take them back. Soon after, his teenage son Shannon, unhappy about the family discord, runs away from home.

The book is told from the perspective of several main characters – young Soz during her military training; Shannon searching for his lost kin, the mystic Blue Dale archers; and their father Eldrinson, being captured, crippled, and nearly tortured to death by a sadistic Aristo who infiltrated Lyshriol to destroy the Ruby Dynasty.

Category:2004 American novels Category:2004 science fiction novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Saga of the Skolian Empire Category:Novels by Catherine Asaro

At the start of ''Kashimashi'', a young high school boy named Hazumu Osaragi declares his love to classmate and close friend Yasuna Kamiizumi, but she quickly rejects him. Dejected, Hazumu climbs Mt. Kashima and is killed when an alien spacecraft accidentally crash lands on him. To rectify this, the alien in the ship named Hitoshi Sora brings Hazumu back to life, but inadvertently regenerates him as a female right down to the DNA level. This change in Hazumu serves as the catalyst for the development of character interactions for the remainder of the series.

After Hazumu returns to school, Yasuna unexpectedly professes her love for Hazumu, but this serves only to confuse Hazumu as she adjusts to her new life as a girl. Yasuna, a rather feminine girl, has a unique affliction which makes her incapable of seeing males, and instead sees males as covered in a gray, hazy blur. Hazumu's childhood friend Tomari Kurusu, an athletic girl and tomboy, finds Hazumu's change difficult to cope with. Tomari starts to realize her own romantic feelings for Hazumu as Yasuna starts becoming closer to Hazumu, especially after Tomari witnesses Hazumu and Yasuna kissing one day after school. A conflict arises between Yasuna and Tomari who fight for Hazumu's affection while she is unable to choose between them. This results in a love triangle emerging between the three female main characters. Hazumu's best male friend Asuta Soro also starts having romantic feelings for Hazumu, but tries his best to repress them. Tomari's good friend Ayuki Mari, an intelligent girl interested in the sciences, continuously observes the ongoing development of the love triangle while keeping a stance of watching from afar.

The very stoic Hitoshi originally came to Earth in order to study human emotions, especially those related to love, in an attempt to save his species from extinction. His species has long-since given up their emotions resulting in a loss of their sexual urges and thus a continuously dwindling population. Hitoshi moves into Hazumu's home where he is warmly welcomed by Hazumu's parents. He brings with him an artificially intelligent gynoid named Jan Pu which serves as the automatic pilot for his spaceship. Jan Pu's body is modeled after Hazumu's own female body, and possesses an energetic and childish personality.

While initially citing Hazumu's change as an accident, Hitoshi later realizes this was an unexpected result of the regeneration process. By the time Hitoshi becomes aware of his mistake, he tells Hazumu and her friends she has only one month left to live. Hitoshi explains to Hazumu's friends how someone very close to Hazumu has to donate "life grains" to Hazumu to sustain her life. While unaware her friends know about her impending death, Hazumu continues to live her life and comes to fully accept her fate. The day Hazumu is appointed to die, she falls off the school's roof and Tomari jumps off the roof in an attempt to save her. While in mid-air, Hitoshi interferes by transferring the necessary "life grains" to Hazumu, and both survive the fall. When they later wake up in the infirmary, Hazumu confesses her love to Tomari, effectively choosing her over Yasuna.

The anime ends differently, with no life-threatening situation and Hazumu choosing Yasuna in order to help cure her worsening sight problem as it begins to degrade so she can no longer see girls as well. Afterwards however, Yasuna, who becomes able to see all people again, decides to break up with Hazumu, saying she can stand on her own, and in the follow-up original video animation episode, Hazumu confesses her love to Tomari on Christmas and the two get married in a ceremony held by Hitoshi.

It is a turbulent time for the Skolian Empire. Kurj is trying to lead his people into war with the Traders, a more massive empire. He uses his powerful connections to control his mother who is attempting to sway the Assembly otherwise. The book begins with Roca, in hiding, trying to get to the Assembly meeting. During her voyage, she ends up stranded on a planet known as Skyfall. There, on a planet once part of the Ruby Empire but now antiquated in its technology, she meets Eldrinson Valdoria, and due to extreme weather and lack of incoming ships, she is stranded there for approximately one year. During that time she falls in love with Eldrinson and becomes pregnant.

The novel also periodically shifts to describe the perspective of Kurj, a Primary (top ranking) Jagernaut (most feared warriors of the Skolian Empire) and grandson of the ruling couple of Skolian Empire, Pharaoh Lahaylia and Imperator Jarac. Kurj is obsessed with stopping the slave-driven empire of the Traders. But when his mother escapes his clutches, he fears the worst, and spends much of the novel obsessing over finding her instead. We also learn of some of the horrors from his past, giving meaning to his stoic nature.

Back on the planet of Skyfall, Roca and her new husband come under siege by a rival who claims the title that Eldrinson possesses. At the point of his final breach into the castle, Kurj arrives with his much superior technology, and ceases hostilities. Roca gives birth to her child which she names Eldrin.

The remainder of the novel revolves around the forced separation of Eldrinson from Roca and his child.

TOA airlines flight 502 - a Boeing 747-100, takes off from New York City to London. At the airport, a bomb threat in the airline's first-class passenger lounge turns out to be just an elaborate prank smoke bomb disguised as a more sinister explosive time bomb. In relief that the incident is just a prank Donaldson complains how this needlessly caused him stress on his weekend off work, to which the bomb technician derisively states how much more stressful the call to the bomb scare was for him because he was at a motel when he was called and thought it was his wife calling trying to reach him, implying he thought he had been caught in tryst with someone other than his wife.

As the stress has momentarily passed this leads the assistant to Head of Security, Robert Davenport, to fortuitously presenting him with a letter found in his desk in-box he would not have received until the next morning. The letter explains that a series of murders will take place on Flight 502 before it lands. Robert Davenport notifies Captain Larkin, via the airline's direct radio channel. Donaldson and his team go over the backgrounds of all the passengers to find possible suspects, which irritates Larkin for the lack of details, causing him to be terse with an equally aggravated Donaldson who is none the happier for being talked down to while nursing a painful toothache. In the air, Captain Larkin, off duty Police Officer Daniel Myerson, and flight attendant Karen White look for suspicious passengers.

At first teenage passenger Millard Kensington is suspected because he has a history with the airline as a known prankster who clogged a previous flight's toilets with 13 sponges he carried aboard. He is suspected of placing the fake bomb in the first class passenger lobby in New York is now on Flight 502. After confronting the teenager regarding the seriousness of his actions and getting him to admit he did place the fake bomb in the airline passenger lobby, he is nevertheless apparently clueless about the serious nature of the found letter. Realizing the teenager's lack of malice Captain Larkin demonstrates he too means no harm to the boy and successfully defuses the moment when he invites him to visit the cockpit later so he can show him "How this thing practically flies itself." which the boy cheerfully accepts. He then relays a message back to Davenport that he thinks this is a red herring and requests further detailed backgrounds on the passengers as he only has names and addresses to go on from the flight manifest.

Relationships develop on board between elderly singles Charlie Parkins and Ida Goldman, who acts as a comic relief with her Yiddish sense of humour, rock star Jack Marshall, and Marilyn Stonehurst, mystery writer Mona Briarly, and suave passenger Paul Barons. Briarly suspects Barons is actually a criminal who got away with stealing seven million dollars from a bank, but Barons denies it.

The investigations on the ground and in the air produce several leads. It is discovered that the wife of passenger Otto Gruenwaldt who died because fellow passenger Dr. Kenyon Walker was not available to help. Then Gruenwaldt suffers a heart attack on board. Dr. Walker rushes to aid the dying man. Captain Larkin voices his apprehension at allowing Dr. Walker to treat Gruenwaldt and Myerson concurs openly stating "it wouldn't be the first time" implying someone in his position could take advantage of the situation to eliminate Gruenwaldt. Dr. Walker turns the tables on Larkin regarding whether he should apply the life saving drug or not, telling him "Alright you make the decision.". This puts the weight of life and death on Larkin's shoulders for this patient. Larkin clearly realizes he now may be to blame for stopping Dr. Walker from administering a life-saving medical treatment. He reverses his decision and allows Dr. Walker to go ahead and inject the life saving drug. While doing so, Dr. Walker brazenly states to Larkin and Myerson that they wouldn't even know if he gave Gruenwaldt "too much or too little" of the drug demonstrating to Larkin and Myerson how far they are beyond their depth of knowledge regarding medical expertise.

Once the drug is administered via syringe Captain Larkin again attempts to assert his authority over Dr. Walker again by demanding he surrender the used syringe, implying it may be needed as evidence. Dr. Walker stands his ground and refuses to surrender the syringe in question and states that he is only answerable to "my peers and my profession" implying his Hippocratic Oath supersedes the Captain and Myerson's legal authority. Larkin sharply replies that while Dr. Walker may be responsible for just this one life but as Captain of the airplane he is responsible for over 250 passenger's lives. Dr. Walker again immediately cuts him short when he pointedly draws the line by stating to the Captain "we each have our jobs to do, you do yours and I'll do mine".

Finally someone ventures to ask how long before they know about Gruenwaldt's survival, which he states will be in just few minutes and goes back to attending to Gruenwaldt who momentarily gains consciousness and begins to get upset that he has come to, realizing he might be expected to thank the same man responsible for his wife's death. He perceives this as dereliction of duty because Dr. Walker failed to receive the call, being at a party, missing the delicate operation he could have provided.

Dr. Walker cuts him short and explains that he doesn't expect anything from Gruenwaldt but only asks he try to understand that life and death situations occur daily to the extent that he can't remember them all. Gruentwaldt eventually gives grudging thanks for the saving of his life but makes it clear that he will still carry a hatred of his saviour for the loss of his wife, which Dr. Walker sagely replies "then that is something which we will both have to live with."

Ray Garwood attacks Marshall, blaming him for the death of his daughter due to an overdose. Garwood denies leaving the note, and Captain Larkin and Myerson believe him. Then an apparent break in the investigation comes when Briarly tells the captain that a priest on board may be an imposter, because he did nothing when it appeared Gruenwaldt was near death. Donaldson checks the priest out and discovers he is indeed an imposter and a known thief, thereby placing him under suspicion. Myerson looks for the priest, but finds him dead in the dumbwaiter. At this point the threatening letter's contents are revealed to the passengers. Briarly again notices that Barons seems the most fazed by the priest's death, and wonders if the two men knew each other. Soon a second murder occurs; flight attendant Vera Franklin is found dead by the co-pilot, meaning the real murderer is still lurking.

Concerned that he may be at risk now, Barons confesses to Myerson that he committed the bank robbery, and that the priest and Franklin were both involved in smuggling the money out of the country on the aircraft. Barons says he is the next target. Myerson agrees and pulls out a gun, proving he is the killer, having snapped when Barons escaped justice for his crime after no proof was found.

Myerson takes the passengers hostage and explains he murdered the priest and looked through the luggage of the crew and found the money in Franklin's bag. Captain Larkin makes a drastic move to distract Myerson by releasing the oxygen masks and going for the gun. In the ensuing struggle, Barons is killed, the cabin catches on fire, and Myerson is badly burned. The passengers extinguish the fire just as the crisis ends. Coincidentally, Donaldson belatedly calls to warn Larkin about the danger of Myerson being reported by his superiors as unstable, much to the Captain's irritation regarding the timeliness of the message. Larkin voices his frustration with Donaldson's slow methods as the flight lands safely in London.

On the ground, flight attendant White is alone with Captain Larkin in the cockpit and comes to say a final good bye and expresses her gratitude for Larkin saving the passengers but in a turnabout Larkin reveals his realization that White has conspired as the money smuggler of the stolen money. He explains how before the aircraft took off Franklin had dropped her bag, which had no money inside. Therefore, the money was put in the bag by the real guilty smuggler, Karen White. Larkin, in an ironic statement, tells White that in fact this will definitely be her last flight but not because of her originally expected honorable resignation. She will have to soon face the authorities in London to face responsibility for her actions that lead to the death of the innocent flight attendant Vera Franklin.

Garwood still visibly frustrated about the circumstances of his daughter's death apologizes to Marshall. Dr. Walker and Gruenwaldt reconcile and form a new relationship with a promise to meet in the future for a game of chess. Charlie Parkins and Ida Goldman decide to share a hotel room. The elder man, Parkins, expresses his concerns of a potentially scandalous social appearance of the unmarried seniors sharing a room and how that will come across by asking "What will they think of us?" to which a typically unshakable Ida shrugs and responds "So they'll call us swingers".

In the final scene, as Larkin accompanies Myerson down an escalator to hand him off to the waiting British police. Myerson demonstrates he is clearly delusional. He states that he and Larkin are in the "same business of protecting people". He further attempts to justify his actions, claiming he will be commended for protecting the people from criminals because he brought a thief to justice when the law would not. Mired in the delusional belief that he will be vindicated he shouts back to Larkin that he will put in a good word to the authorities for the Captain to get a commendation. Captain Larkin stoically looks on as Myerson is led off by the uniformed London "Bobbies".

Passengers on a plane headed from the Midwest to the West Coast (Winnipeg to Vancouver in the book; Minneapolis to Seattle in the film) get quite ill after eating the chicken pot pie entree. Both pilots also eat the chicken. Passenger George Spencer, a man who has not flown since the Vietnam War (single-engine planes in the book, helicopter/war choppers in the film), is reluctantly pressed into flying the plane, where he makes an emergency landing.

''Starflight'', the first hypersonic transport, is being prepared for its maiden flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia. On board are the pilot, Cody Briggs, cheating on his wife Janet with Erica Hansen, media-relations representative for Thornwell Aviation. Passengers include designer Josh Gilliam, who is apprehensive about the engines not being under ground control, and satellite TV baron Freddie Barrett. Takeoff is delayed so that the body of the deceased Australian ambassador and his wife, Mrs. Winfield, can be taken aboard; something that Del, the first officer, considers a bad omen.

Bud Culver, Freddie's partner in Australia, tells Freddie he must scrub that day's launch of a TV satellite because weather is closing in; Freddie orders an immediate launch without NASA approval. Cleared by NASA for liftoff, ''Starflight'' climbs to 23 miles using its scramjet engines, then levels off. Freddie's rocket runs into trouble with the second stage and has to be destroyed. NASA reports that destruction of the rocket produces debris, heading for ''Starflight''. Cody's lets NASA guide their maneuvers. Engineer Chris Lucas recommends ''Starflight'' climb out of danger. Cody engages the scramjet engines again, but rocket debris hits the underside of the aircraft. When NASA says they are clear, Cody orders the jets shut off, but they keep firing because debris has severed the engine controls.

Their hydrogen fuel runs out just as ''Starflight'' reaches orbit. NASA dispatches the ''Columbia'' Space Shuttle to refuel ''Starflight'', while bringing Josh Gilliam back to Earth to work on the problem. Flight engineer Pete tests the airlock transfer but is killed when the hatch malfunctions and breaks free. Improvising, Cody sends Josh to ''Columbia'' inside the ambassador's coffin. ''Columbia'' returns to Earth with Josh aboard. He discovers Thornwell's universal docking tunnel, a flexible conduit that could be attached between ''Starflight'' and ''Columbia''. Cody has power restored, electrifying the conduit damaged by rocket debris.

''Columbia'' and six astronauts arrive with the tunnel, intending to rescue 20 passengers. Five passengers, including Hal, are successfully brought through. The next five people, including Freddie Barrett, are lost when the flexible tunnel swings too close to the sparking electric line on the damaged underside of the airliner and ignites. Forty-seven passengers remain aboard. Josh is frustrated but an exchange with his wife Nancy reminds him of a fuel tank built by Culver Aviation that can be repurposed to carry people. ''Columbia'' with the container and takes 38 more passengers, leaving only nine aboard.

Cody sends electrical engineer Joe Pedowski on EVA to repair the damaged conduit. Josh suggests ''Starflight'' follow a shuttle on re-entry, believing the shuttle's heat shield would offer protection. ''Columbia'' cannot make a launch in time, but another shuttle, ''XU-5'', in orbit on a military mission, arrives to assist just as ''Starflight'' is to hit the atmosphere. The two craft ride in together, and once into the atmosphere, ''XU-5'' veers off, while Cody manages to land ''Starflight'' after a harrowing steep descent through the upper atmosphere.

Perhaps the best English language summary of Luc Van Tien is one given by Professor John C. Schafer in his essay "Luc Van Tien: Its Relation to Prior Texts." Here is his summary:

As the story opens, Luc Van Tien, the main character, says goodbye to his teacher at the Confucian school and sets off for the capital to take the examinations to become a mandarin. On the way he runs across some brigands who have kidnapped the beautiful Kieu Nguyet Nga. Tien rescues her and the gratitude she feels for him soon becomes mixed with love. To express her appreciation, she writes him a poem, but then they part. Nga returns to Ha-khe, where her father is an official, and draws a portrait of Tien to help her remember her absent lover; Tien continues on to the examination site. On the way he stops off at the home of Vo The Loan, a girl with whom his parents have arranged a marriage. After spending some time with Loan's parents, who seem pleased with the prospect of their daughter marrying the young talented scholar, he continues on his way. On his journey he meets three fellow examination candidates, one of whom turns out to be a loyal friend, two of whom become jealous and vindictive villains.

Unfortunately, Tien never gets to the examinations. When he is about to enter the exam, he hears that his mother has died and decides to return home immediately to go into mourning for her. During his return journey he becomes so sick and weak from weeping that he eventually goes blind. Wandering blind and unprotected around the countryside, he becomes an easy victim for deceitful fortune tellers, medicine men, and sorcerers who trick him out of his money. A villainous fellow examination candidate and his future in-laws treat him even more cruelly: The examination candidate, jealous of Tien's superior talent, pushes him into a river and Tien's future in-laws, afraid they will be stuck with a worthless blindman for a son-in-law, leave him to die in a cave. But, as the narrator frequently reminds his readers, the agents of mercy look after the virtuous. A friendly river dragon saves Tien from drowning, and a fairy leads him out of the cave. Finally, through the help of a woodcutter, he ends up in a pagoda, where the narrator allows him to rest while recounting the misfortunes of the heroine Nga.

Nga, still pining for Tien ever since he gallantly rescued her, learns from his father (mistakenly as it turns out) that he has died from sickness. She vows to remain chaste and loyal forever in his memory. Keeping her vow is not easy because she has other suitors, one of whom, when spurned, seeks revenge by influencing the King of So to have her offered as a tribute wife to the King of Phien, a country that has been harassing the country of So. Nga then must choose between two virtues: faithfulness to Tien, whom she regards as her husband even though they were never formally betrothed, and loyalty to her King, who has ordered her to become the wife of a foreign king. Unable to resolve this dilemma, she attempts suicide by jumping off the boat taking her to the land of Phien. She is saved by the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, who removes her from the water and places her in a garden of flowers. The aging caretaker of the garden befriends her, but when his son (Bui Kiem) makes advances, she flees, finally finding refuge in the home of a kind old woman.

The narrator then returns to the adventures of Tien, who begins to enjoy better fortune. After being blind for six years, he is cured by a fairy who visits him in a dream, bringing him a bowl of magic medicine. His sight restored, he begins his rise to fame and happiness. He reviews his lessons and takes the examinations, passing with the highest rank. At the King's request he leads a successful expedition against the O-Qua, a neighboring people who have been harassing the land of So~ After this battle he stumbles upon the old lady's home where Nga has taken refuge. There is a joyful reunion. Later they are happily married and the King of So, grateful for Tien's assistance in driving out the O-Qua, and himself eager to retire to a pagoda, allows Tien to take the throne and rule the country. This summary in English proves the maxim "To translate is to betray," not only because the rich elaborating detail and the music of verse are lost but also because it fails to evoke in Western listeners certain prior texts a knowledge of which is essential to proper appreciation.

'''In the desert:'''

During the early years of the 20th century, a mysterious stranger named Anselmo, whose origins and motives are never explained, builds a popular brothel, the Green House, in the desert on the outskirts of Piura.

Antonia (Tonita) is left for dead after her adoptive parents are killed by bandits; her eyes and tongue are plucked out by vultures, but she survives and is raised by a poor villager, Juana Barra, until Anselmo abducts and keeps her in a room in a tower of the Green House as his wife. She dies giving birth to a daughter, Chunga. Outraged, the village priest, Father Garcia, leads the townspeople to burn down the Green House. Grief-stricken, Anselmo becomes a homeless drunkard, supporting himself by playing the harp in the town's bars and brothels. His daughter, Chunga, grows up in this environment and eventually builds a new Green House, where Anselmo plays his music.

In the 1930s, a Piruan native, Lituma, joins the military (in a drunken burst of patriotism after the Piruan born colonel, Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro, becomes President of Peru through a military coup). Lituma serves in the Amazon region, where he meets his future bride, Bonifacia. They return to Piura and live together until Lituma takes part in a fatal game of Russian roulette and is sentenced to ten years in jail. While he is away, his friends rape Bonifacia, who then becomes a prostitute at the Green House. At novel's end, Lituma has returned to Piura and is living off his wife's income from prostitution.

'''In the jungle:'''

During the 1920s, after escaping from prison in Brazil (he had been arrested for accounting theft), Fushia flees to Peru, where he meets a poor water vendor, Aquilino. Together, they trade goods by boat to rubber and timber workers and gold prospectors. Meanwhile, an infant girl, an Aguaruna native (later named Bonifacia), is taken from her father, Jum, to be raised in a mission in Santa María de Nieva. (The nuns "civilize" the native girls and sell them as house servants.)

Fushia is once again forced to flee because of his thieving ways, and after encountering Huambisa natives, ends up in Iquitos, where with Julio Reategui he takes part in the illegal rubber trade (it is the early 1940s and there is a renewed demand for rubber; since Peru officially is trading rubber only to the Allies, there is a thriving black market). While in Iquitos, Fushia seduces fifteen-year-old Lalita. After his role in the black market is discovered, he arranges to trade Lalita to Reategui for a boat and provisions, but Lalita escapes upriver with Fushia. They live on an island on the Santiago River deep within the jungle.

Jum, after being educated by two political organizers, creates native co-ops for trading rubber, thus interrupting the system of kickbacks that has enriched Reategui. With a military force led by Reategui, Jum is caught, tortured, and publicly shorn of his hair, an emasculating act to the Aguarauna. Aided by the Huambisa, Fushia assaults native villages, stealing rubber and hides, and abducting barely pubescent girls for his concubines. He is assisted by the humiliated Jum, Aquilino, and Adrian Nieves. Lalita, tired of Fushia's abusive ways, escapes with Nieves to Santa Maria de Nieva, where they take in Bonifacia after she has been expelled from the mission for helping newly abducted native girls escape. There she meets and marries Sergeant Lituma. Nieves is eventually sent to jail. Lalita marries one of Lituma's former comrades. And Fushia, who has contracted leprosy, spends his fortune to covertly enter the leper colony at San Pablo. He lives a lonely life there, visited once a year by his aging friend Aquilino.

Tallulah Winters is a dancing star who is hired to perform on an ocean liner. Before she leaves, she is recruited by what she believes is a branch of the American government and asked to smuggle a prototype explosive mine out of the country. In fact, she is unknowingly working for Nazi agents who have stolen the mine. Meanwhile, Merton Kibble, a writer of pulp fiction adventure stories but suffering from severe writer's block, is on the same ship and soon he finds himself embroiled in Tallulah's real-life adventure.

In early 1960s New York City, concert pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) pursues an affair with a married woman, Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss), while two adolescent private-school girls, Valerie "Val" Boyd (Tippy Walker) and Marian "Gil" Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth), stalk him and write their fantasies about him in a diary. Orient's paranoia leads him to believe that the two girls, who seem to pop up everywhere he goes, are spies sent by his would-be mistress's husband.

In reality, fourteen-year-old Val, the bright and imaginative daughter of wealthy international trade expert Frank Boyd (Tom Bosley) and his unfaithful, snobbish wife Isabel (Angela Lansbury), has developed a teenage crush on Henry after seeing him in concert, and has involved her best friend Marian. Although Marian's parents are divorced, she lives a relatively happy and stable life in a townhouse in the city with her mother and her mother's also-divorced female friend, while Val, whose parents are still married (albeit unhappily), sees a psychiatrist daily and lives with paid caretakers while her parents travel the world.

Val's parents return for Christmas, and Val becomes concerned that her mother Isabel is having an extramarital affair with a young pianist. Val's interference leads her mother to find and read Val's diary. Isabel chastises Val and seeks out Henry, ostensibly to tell him to stay away from her underage daughter. The cheating Isabel and the womanizing Henry are quickly attracted to each other and begin an affair, which Val and Marian accidentally discover while stalking Henry outside his apartment. Val's devastation and Isabel's attempts to cover up her own behavior cause Frank to figure out what happened. Frank and Isabel separate, while the paranoid Henry flees the country. However, positive changes for Val result as Frank, who unlike Isabel genuinely cares about his daughter, resolves to stop traveling so much and establish a real home where he and Val can spend more time together. In the end, Val and Marian have matured and moved on from fantasy play to makeup, fashion and boys their own age.

Skelton plays an "average Joe" who is madly in love with Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell), a big Broadway musical star. Much to his surprise, Constance agrees to marry him, thinking he's a rich mining tycoon, and much of the film deals with the consequences of this misunderstanding.

Arly Jover plays Anna Heymes, a stylish 31-year-old Parisian housewife, who experiences nightmares and hallucinations related to a series of gruesome murders in the city. At the same time, a duo of policemen, the unorthodox Schiffer (Jean Reno) and the cautious officer Nerteaux (Jocelyn Quivrin), work to unravel the mystery surrounding the murders. The plot thickens when Anna discovers that she has been subjected to intensive reconstructive surgery, which concealed her Turkish heritage. A series of events escalates into a confrontation with the Turkish mafia and the death of Anna's would-be assassin.

An academically gifted teen Sophie Kerr (Sarah Foret), her model-beautiful older sister Karen Kerr (Torrey DeVitto) and their newly single mother Lynne Kerr (Daphne Zuniga) leave small town New Mexico in search of a new life in New York City. After their father runs off with his teenage mistress, Sophie and Karen decide their family needs a fresh start. They convince their mother that the big city holds promise for all of them. Sophie has received a scholarship to a Manhattan private school, Karen can pursue her dreams of modeling, and Lynn can leave the painful memories of her failed marriage behind her, while reviving the ambitions of becoming a fashion designer which she put on hold to raise a family.

The novel recaps Penelope's life in hindsight from 21st-century Hades; she recalls her family life in Sparta, her marriage to Odysseus, her dealing with suitors during his absence, and the aftermath of Odysseus' return. The relationship with her parents was challenging: her father became overly affectionate after attempting to murder her, and her mother was absent-minded and negligent. At fifteen, Penelope married Odysseus, who had rigged the contest that decided which suitor would marry her. Penelope was happy with him, even though he was mocked behind his back by Helen and some maids for his short stature and lesser developed home, Ithaca. The couple broke with tradition by moving to the husband's kingdom. In Ithaca, neither Odysseus' mother Anticleia, nor his nurse Eurycleia, liked Penelope but eventually Eurycleia helped Penelope settle into her new role and became friendly, but often patronising.

Shortly after the birth of their son, Telemachus, Odysseus was called to war, leaving Penelope to run the kingdom and raise Telemachus alone. News of the war and rumours of Odysseus' journey back sporadically reached Ithaca and with the growing possibility that Odysseus was not returning an increasing number of suitors moved in to court Penelope. Convinced the suitors were more interested in controlling her kingdom than loving her, she stalled them. The suitors pressured her by consuming and wasting much of the kingdom's resources. She feared violence if she outright denied their offer of marriage so she announced she would make her decision on which to marry once she finished her father-in-law's shroud. She enlisted twelve maids to help her unravel the shroud at night and spy on the suitors. Odysseus eventually returned but in disguise. Penelope recognised him immediately and instructed her maids not to reveal his identity. After the suitors were massacred, Odysseus instructed Telemachus to execute the maids who he believed were in league with them. Twelve were hanged while Penelope slept. Afterwards, Penelope and Odysseus told each other stories of their time apart, but on the issue of the maids Penelope remained silent to avoid the appearance of sympathy for those already judged and condemned as traitors. .

During her narrative, Penelope expresses opinions on several people, addresses historical misconceptions, and comments on life in Hades. She is most critical of Helen whom Penelope blames for ruining her life. Penelope identifies Odysseus' specialty as making people look like fools and wonders why his stories have survived so long, despite being an admitted liar. She dispels the rumour that she slept with Amphinomus and the rumour that she slept with all the suitors and consequently gave birth to Pan.

Between chapters in which Penelope is narrating, the twelve maids speak on topics from their point-of-view. They lament their childhood as slaves with no parents or playtime, sing of freedom, and dream of being princesses. They contrast their lives to Telemachus' and wonder if they would have killed him as a child if they knew he would kill them as a young man. They blame Penelope and Eurycleia for allowing them to unjustly die. In Hades, they haunt both Penelope and Odysseus.

Yor, a roving hunter and barbarian, jogs through a seemingly prehistoric desert landscape past the stone towers of Cappadocia, Turkey. Kala, a seemingly primitive cavewoman, and her mentor and protector Pag are hunting in a nearby village. They were hunting a small pig-like Polacanthus. Suddenly, they are attacked by a "stegoceratops" (a cross-breed of a ''Stegosaurus'' and a ''Triceratops''). Yor appears and kills the dinosaur with his axe, drinking some of its blood immediately afterward. The village befriends Yor, and together, the villagers cut the choice meats to be feasted upon in celebration.

While Yor rests, a band of cavemen with bluish skin attack the village. Only Yor and Pag escape. Yor immediately swears to get Kala back. Yor and Pag track the blue cavemen to their lair, where Yor shoots a giant bat with his bow and arrow. He uses the dead bat like a hang glider to storm the lair and starts flooding sections of the cave, the diversion helping his escape out the back with Kala. The flood kills everyone inside the cave, including the other kidnapped villagers (who had been locked in cages) as well as the blue cavemen.

Kala and Pag decide to follow Yor in his adventure to find his origins. Along the way, they find a mysterious society of sand mummies led by a blonde woman named Roah with an amulet similar to Yor's own. Yor proceeds to kill everyone except Roah, deciding that she will be important for their journey. Kala tries to kill Roah at one point, but they are both suddenly attacked by more blue cavemen. Yor and Pag come to the rescue, but a caveman strikes Roah down from behind, and she dies in Yor's arms.

Yor, Pag, and Kala make friends with another tribe after saving some children from a dimetrodon, but this tribe is killed by (unseen) flying saucers shooting lasers. Yor and company use a boat to make their way to an island surrounded by storms. There Yor discovers, to his initial disbelief, that his parents were from a small band of nuclear holocaust survivors, thereby revealing the "twist" that Yor's world is actually post-apocalyptic Earth after a nuclear holocaust. A ruthless tyrant called the Overlord has taken control of the remaining nuclear technology with his android army.

Yor finds allies in a group of rebels led by the scientist, Ena, and the mysterious blind Elder, who have been plotting to overthrow the Overlord for years. Yor and the rebels join forces and attack the Overlord and his androids. Ena leads them to the fortress's atomic stockpile, where they plant explosives powerful enough to destroy it and the fortress. The Elder remains behind and slowly deactivates the android army, buying time for the others to escape. The Overlord pursues them in an attempt to stop the stockpile's destruction and briefly engages Yor in combat, overwhelming him temporarily. As the Overlord enters a nearby elevator, Yor grabs a nearby pole and hurls it through the window, impaling the villain. Mortally wounded, the Overlord struggles onward toward the stockpile as Yor and Ena continue to lead the others to safety. Pag orders them to keep going while he fends off the androids, but he loses his weapon and gets cornered by them. Ena and the rebels quickly rush to his aid, but just as the androids are about to kill Pag, the Elder deactivates them as well. The group quickly boards one of the Overlord's ships just as the Overlord himself reaches the stockpile control room. But before he can stop the bomb, it explodes, and he succumbs to his injuries and slowly dies. At the same moment, the Overlord's spacecraft, carrying Yor, Kala, Pag, and the rebels flies out of the hangar to safety while the Overlord's facility explodes behind them. As the movie ends and the ship flies off into the distance, the narrator intones: "...Yor returns to the primitive tribes on the mainland. He is determined to use his superior knowledge to prevent them making the same mistakes as their forefathers. Will he succeed?"

The game begins on March 1, 2067, when the Earth's resources are all nearly depleted. To avert the slow decay of civilization, the major corporations of Earth venture into space – an area known as "The Frontier" – to find the raw materials required for humans. Unfortunately, some old enemies are already in the neighborhood when the corporations arrived - the powers from the First Alien War - and they have plans of their own for the resources of the Frontier. Plans that could very well mean the end of the human race.

The player takes command of an elite force that has been created to fight the aliens in space. Unlike previous games in the series, the game is primarily a space combat simulator, with the player flying starfighters to protect the human corporations set up to gather resources in the Frontier. The player also acts in the role of X-COM commander in the region, managing bases, resources, and the organisation's financial standing. The player also needs to capture and research alien technology in order to improve human technology and discover the reason for the aliens' interest in the region.

The end game is signified by the discovery of alien plans to build a doomsday device to destroy the surface of earth. This device is some kind of energy weapon, larger than a space station. As the weapon itself is impossible to destroy by conventional means, the research and creation of the "Nova Bomb" is required. This is a large missile, which instead of destroying the target directly, is aimed at the central star to a system. Upon impact, it would cause the star to explode, destroying everything in the system - thus the missile's name "Nova".

The final mission is two-staged. The first stage involved entering a black hole inside a carrier (the UGS ''Macarthur'') equipped with a special device, allowing the player to enter an alternate dimension where this weapon is stored. It involves destroying the defence craft at the black hole, whilst protecting the UGS ''Macarthur''. If successful, the UGS ''Macarthur'' enters the black hole to enter the alternate dimension. The second part of the mission involves launching the Nova Bomb at the star of the system inside the black hole. As the missile could be destroyed for up to 1 minute after launch (after which it entered hyperspace), it requires protection from assault by enemy craft. From this mission, three possible end-game sequences are possible:

• Mission failed - If at any point the craft the player is piloting is destroyed or disabled, or if the ''Macarthur'' is destroyed in the first part, or if the Nova Bomb is destroyed in the second part. This results in an end sequence where the aliens move the Doomsday device to Earth, and destroy it.
• Mission successful, ''Macarthur'' destroyed - If the ''Macarthur'' is destroyed during the second part of the mission, the player becomes trapped and cannot travel back through the black hole. The mission is a success, but all craft are lost. This resulted in an end sequence detailing a memorial service for all those lost.
• Mission successful outright - If the player succeeds in entering the black hole, launching the Nova Bomb, and returning to the ''Macarthur'' before the Nova Bomb reaches its destination, this results in an end sequence of the ''Macarthur'' returning to one of the X-COM bases with craft doing tricks around it, and fireworks being launched.

Gilbert Gosseyn wakes to find he is Gosseyn Three, in telepathic contact with Gosseyn Two. One of the spare bodies used in his reincarnation machinery was found and forced to life by the approach of an immense space fleet from another galaxy, crewed by the primordial ancestors of humans, gripped in an eon-long war with mutants equally old. The space-fleet is ruled by an unstable youngster who seems to possess many of the same powers, including a double-brain, as Gosseyn.

Gosseyn must school the youth in Null-A sanity, save the Earth from a cabal of gangsters and businessmen who oppose the return of the Games Machine, discover the secret reasons behind the endless horrifying war, and stop the intrigues of Enro the Red to return to power.

Prologue

In 1970, Anglo-Irish mercenary Carlo Alfred Thomas "Cat" Shannon and his four fellow mercenaries – German ex-smuggler Kurt Semmler, South African mortar expert Janni Dupree, Belgian bazooka specialist "Tiny" Marc Vlaminck, and Corsican knife-fighter Jean-Baptiste Langarotti – leave a West African war they have lost, saying their goodbyes to the general who had employed them for the past six months. While the general and his people leave for exile in one plane, Shannon, his men and a group of nuns with their orphan charges fly out for Libreville in another, piloted by a South African mercenary. After a six-week "House arrest" in a hotel, the mercenaries are flown to Paris, where they part company.

Part 1: The Crystal Mountain

A few weeks later, a prospector employed by British-based company ManCon (Manson Consolidated) sends mineral samples, acquired from the "Crystal Mountain" in the remote hinterland of the African republic of Zangaro, to headquarters. When they are analysed, ruthless British mining tycoon Sir James Manson realises that there is a huge platinum deposit in Zangaro. The president of Zangaro, Jean Kimba, is Marxist, homicidal, insane, and under Soviet influence, so any public announcement of the findings would benefit only the Russians. Confiding only in his top assistants, security chief Simon Endean and financial expert Martin Thorpe, Manson plans to depose Kimba and install a puppet leader who, for a pittance, will sign over Zangaro's mining rights to a shell company secretly owned by Sir James. When ManCon eventually acquires the shell company for a fair market price, Sir James and his aides will pocket £60 million.

Endean visits a freelance writer to discuss his recommendations and eventually hires Shannon to reconnoiter Zangaro and investigate how Kimba might be deposed. Masquerading as a tourist under the name "Keith Brown", Shannon visits the country and upon his return to London submits a report stating that the army has little fighting value and that Kimba has concentrated the national armory, treasury, and radio station within the presidential palace in Clarence, the Zangaran capital city and principal port. Should the palace be stormed and Kimba killed, there will be no opposition to any new regime. Because there is no organised dissident faction in Zangaro, the attacking force will have to be assembled outside the country and land near Clarence to launch the attack. Shannon budgets the mission at £100,000, with £10,000 for himself. While Endean has used a fake name, "Walter Harris", Shannon has him tailed by a private detective and discovers his true identity and his involvement with Sir James Manson.

Although Manson has taken steps to silence the few people aware of the Crystal Mountain platinum deposit, the chemist who analysed the samples has inadvertently revealed his findings to a former acquaintance, who (unknown to the chemist) has political connections to the Soviet government. The acquaintance reports the findings to the Soviets, who in turn assign a KGB bodyguard to Kimba while they prepare to send in their own geological survey team. In a conversation with a Foreign Office bureaucrat, Sir James learns that the Soviets have got wind of the deposit. Sir James commissions Shannon to organise and mount the coup, to take place on the eve of Zangaro's independence day, one hundred days hence, but does not tell Shannon of the Soviet involvement.

Part 2: The Hundred Days

Shannon reassembles his old team to execute the attack on Kimba's palace. They and Shannon trawl Europe to procure a nondescript tramp cargo vessel (the Toscana), RHIBs, uniforms, submachine guns ("Schmeissers"), mortars, and anti-tank weapons. To conceal the nature and purpose of these purchases, Shannon spreads them over several countries, buys from both legitimate and black-market suppliers, and establishes a holding company to thwart attempts to identify the buyers. He also finds time for a brief sexual liaison with Julie Manson, Sir James's daughter, from whom he learns the object of Sir James's true plan.

Simultaneously, Charles Roux, one of Shannon's arch-enemies, incensed that he did not receive Endean's project despite the freelance writer recommending him, puts a contract out on Shannon. Hearing of this, Langarotti tips Shannon off and they lure the assassin, Raymond Thomard, into a trap. They then send Thomard's head to Roux, permanently silencing him.

Martin Thorpe has meanwhile secretly purchased the controlling interest in a shell company (Bormac Trading) from the ailing widow of its founder. Endean has obtained the agreement of Colonel Antoine Bobi, a former commander of the Zangaran Army who fell out with Kimba and is now in exile, to participate in Sir James's scheme: once installed as president, the venal and illiterate Bobi will sign over the mineral rights to the Crystal Mountain to Bormac for a nominal price but a large bribe for himself.

Having loaded the arms and other equipment aboard the Toscana, the mercenaries sail to Freetown in Sierra Leone to pick up six African mercenaries, disguised as casual stevedores, who will also participate in the attack, and Dr. Okoye, an African academic.

Part 3: The Killing Spree

The mercenaries attack President Kimba's palace at the break of dawn. After a mortar bombardment, Semmler, Shannon, Langarotti, and the other four African mercenaries storm the palace; Semmler shoots Kimba as he tries to escape through his bedroom window. Kimba's KGB bodyguard escapes the firefight and shoots Vlaminck in the chest, while the Belgian kills him with his last bazooka rocket before he dies. Dupree and his two African mercenaries attack the nearby army camp following the bombardment. A Zangaran soldier throws a grenade at them as he flees and one of the African mercenaries throws it back, but it falls short and Dupree, deafened by the gunfire and shelling, fails to hear the warnings and is killed in the blast.

Around midday, Endean arrives in Clarence to install Colonel Bobi as the new Zangaran president. He has his own bodyguard, a former East End gang enforcer. When Endean and Bobi arrive at the palace, Shannon lures Bobi into the presidential office. A shot is heard and Endean realizes that Shannon has killed Bobi. Shannon shoots Endean's bodyguard to protect himself as the enforcer tries to draw his gun. Later, the Soviet geological survey team's request to land in Zangaro is permanently refused.

The aftermath

As Shannon drives Endean to the border, he explains that Endean's otherwise comprehensive research had recognised - but failed to account for - the 20,000 immigrant workers who did most of the work in Zangaro, but had been politically disenfranchised by both the colonial government and Kimba regime; fifty of them, in new uniforms and armed with Schmeissers, have already been recruited as the nucleus of the new Zangaran Army. Shannon reveals to Endean that the general Shannon had served under at the beginning of the novel is the acknowledged leader of these people, that someday he will come to Zangaro to officially take over, and that if Manson wants the platinum he will have to pay the proper market price. Endean threatens reprisals if Shannon ever returns to London, but Shannon remains unfazed.

In the novel's epilogue, it is revealed that Dupree and Vlaminck were buried in simple unmarked graves near the shore. Semmler later sold the cargo vessel to its captain and died while on another mercenary operation in Africa. Langarotti took his pay and was last heard of going to train a new group of Hutu partisans in Burundi against Michel Micombero, telling Shannon "It's not really the money. It was never for the money." In Zangaro, a "Council of Reconciliation", consisting of members from the Vindu, Caja and immigrant worker communities, assumes control and governs with moderation. With no other choice, Sir James Manson and Endean keep silent about their part in the coup.

Finally, the epilogue reveals that before embarking on the Zangaro operation, Shannon had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer (skin cancer in some American editions) with only six months to a year to live. Three months after the coup, he posts the remainder of his earnings to the surviving family members of his fallen comrades., and also sends a manuscript (presumably describing the events) to a journalist in London. He walks into the African bush, whistling a favorite tune ("Spanish Harlem"), to end his life on his own terms with "a gun in his hand, blood in his mouth, and a bullet in his chest".

Nita and Kit start to fight about the solution to the pollution in Jones Inlet, leading Nita to start to work on her own for a while. In the meantime, Nita's mother falls ill and is taken to the hospital with a brain tumor.

Meanwhile, Kit finds out that his dog, Ponch, is able to create universes out of nothing, bringing in a lot of research possibilities where they can explore. Nita begins to practice with kernels - magical "software" that describes and reflects the surrounding area- in order to try to save her mother's life.

While practicing, Nita meets a wizard named Pralaya who might be able to join her in saving her mother's life. She then discovers that the wizard may be overshadowed by the Lone Power, making it a dangerous prospect for them to work together. She discusses it with Kit, who decides to help her as well.

While her mother is in surgery, Nita enters her body with Pralaya and begins to search for the kernel in order to kill the cancer, leaving Kit behind. Kit, using the universes Ponch creates, is able to also enter Mrs. Callahan's body to aid Nita and her mother. He helps her undo the deal she was in the process of making with the Lone Power for her mother's life, but she is still unable to eliminate all of the cancer. As the Lone Power is gloating in his anticipated victory, Nita's mother is able to take control of the kernel and defeat the Lone Power. She realizes that if she were to cure herself, she would be starting down a path at the end of which nothing would matter to her except extending her life, so she chooses to live out what life is left to her in love.

''Roar'' chronicles the life of Conor (Ledger), a 20-year-old orphaned prince who must rise above tragedy to lead his people to freedom. Conor takes on a band of ragtag allies that include Tully (Greer), a teenage apprentice magician; Catlin (Farmiga), a beautiful former slave; and Fergus (Ryan), Conor's big-hearted, ebullient protector. Their primary struggle is against Longinus (Roché), a supernatural creature whose true essence is that of a 400-year-old Roman centurion ready to do the bidding of evil Queen Diana (Zane), who is an emissary of the Romans. In this fight for freedom, what is most important for Conor and his people is the Roar – the roar of the land, the roar of the people – a voice that echoes through every living creature and is the power of life.

Ann Walton (Mala Powers) is a young bookkeeper who has a steady boyfriend, Jim Owens. When Jim announces that he has received a raise, the young couple decide to finally marry and inform Ann's parents about the engagement. Meanwhile, a man who works at the concession stand where Ann works takes an interest in her and tries to flirt with her, though she is uninterested.

Staying late at work one night, Ann notices she is being stalked and tries to run away from the man who is following her. She is unable to hide and is eventually caught and raped by the man who works the concession stand. The memory of a scar on the man's neck is the only thing able to come through to Ann in her trauma.

Returning home, Ann's parents learn of what happened and contact the police. Though the police and her family, friends, and fiancé, Jim, are supportive, Ann believes that the neighbors are gossiping about her and that Jim can no longer see her as she once was. After being forced to look at a lineup of men with scars, none of whom she can identify as her attacker, Ann runs away, taking the bus to Los Angeles on a whim.

While the bus driver is on a break, Ann overhears on the radio that her parents are looking for her and have identified her as the victim of a rape. Ann runs away from the bus and sprains her ankle where she is found by a man named Rev. Bruce Ferguson. He brings Ann to the orange farm belonging to his friends, the Harrisons. He does his best to help Ann out, eventually securing her a job as a bookkeeper for the Harrisons. Ann and Ferguson grow increasingly close. When Ferguson asks her to attend a local festival she agrees, but when another attendee pressures her for a kiss she is reminded of her rape, and attacks him with a wrench.

Ann is forced to stand trial, but Ferguson investigates why she would do such a thing and learns of her rape. He is able to persuade the judge to commute her sentence, and instead she goes to therapy for a year.

At the end of her time in therapy Ann wants to stay with Ferguson and pursue a relationship with him, but he tells her not to run from life's challenges and encourages her to return to her old life and to Jim.

After the events of ''The Wizard's Dilemma'' (her mother's death) Nita is depressed. She has also been having some strange dreams concerning a lone character refusing any help. She has some trouble understanding the lone character's Speech.

Meanwhile, Kit is asked by Tom and Carl to help find Darryl McAllister, an autistic boy who is on his Ordeal - and has been for the past three months but Darryl is not all that he seems. He is an Abdal: a figure of tremendous power and a conduit for goodness from The One who limits the power of the Lone One in the Universe and can exist in more than one place at once. Utilizing Ponch's ability to "walk" through universes, Kit enters Darryl's mind to assist him in the Ordeal where he sees Darryl tortured, but overexposure causes Kit to exhibit antisocial tendencies and mood swings picked up from Darryl himself. He begins to take on Darryl's autistic traits and becomes trapped in Darryl's mind. As Nita looks into strange dreams she begins to understand the lone character who she realizes is the boy Kit is looking into, Darryl. When she realizes that Darryl is an Abdal and that he is actually tricking the Lone One she enters his mind in an attempt to save both Kit and Darryl. Darryl, meanwhile, has created in his mind a trap in which he traps the Lone One and forces him to experience the autism that he deals with daily. This is the trap Kit becomes stuck in and Nita is forced to enter.

In the end Nita breaks the trap and frees Darryl, Kit and the Lone One. Darryl forces the Lone One to accept a deal in which Darryl remains in his own universe if the Lone One will return to it someday. However Darryl escapes this deal through his ability to exist in more than one place and leaves his autistic self behind in the universe while he returns to his body free of autism.

When Nita's sister Dairine signs up for an intragalactic exchange program without permission, their local advisors transfer the mission to Nita and Kit. The destination seems to be an ideal planet, and they are hoping for a vacation. Meanwhile, the aliens who arrive at Dairine's house appear to be very "alien". However, Nita's dreams become nightmarish and the planet Alaalu turns out to be hiding a dark secret: an avatar of the Lone Power has been trapped in this dystopia since their people refused Its gift of entropy. While this may have prevented deterioration to war, crime and natural disasters, among other things, it also prevented such change as evolution, and the Alaalu people are trapped in their current stage of existence when they have the potential to be free of it. It becomes the young wizards' job to convince the Alaalu wizard and her people to accept this change, inevitably setting the Lone Power free.

On Earth, the wizards at Dairine's place have become aware that their Sun is in danger of flaring up to the point of scorching their planet. However, one of the visitors comes from a planet where he is a guardian against the recurrence of such a disaster, and recognizes it in time for them to save the Earth.

The overarching plot of the Xeelee Sequence involves an intergalactic war between humanity and the Xeelee, and a cosmic war between the Xeelee and the Photino Birds, with the latter two being alien species that originated in the early universe. The technologically advanced Xeelee primarily inhabit supermassive black holes, manipulating their event horizons to create preferable living environments, construction materials, tools, and computing devices. The Photino Birds are a dark matter-based species that live in the gravity wells of stars, who are likely not aware of baryonic life forms due to dark matter's weak interactions with normal matter. Due to the inevitable risk of their habitats being destroyed by supernovae and other consequences of stellar evolution, the Photino Birds work to halt nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, prematurely aging them into stable white dwarfs. The resulting dwarfs provide them with suitable habitats for billions of times longer than other types of stars could, but at the expense of other forms of life on nearby planets. The Photino Birds' activities also effectively stop the formation of new black holes due to a lack of Type II supernovae, threatening the existence of the Xeelee and their cosmic projects.

After overcoming a series of brutal occupations by extraterrestrial civilizations, humanity expands into the galaxy with an extremely xenophobic and militaristic outlook, with aims to exterminate other species they encounter. Humans eventually become the second-most advanced and widespread civilization in the Milky Way galaxy, after the Xeelee. Unaware of the Photino–Xeelee war and the existential ramifications of what is at stake, humanity come to the (unwarranted) conclusion that the Xeelee are a sinister and destructive threat to their hegemony and security. Through a bitter war of attrition, humans end up containing the Xeelee to the galactic core. Both humans and the Xeelee gain strategic intelligence by using time travel as a war tactic, through the use of closed timelike curves, resulting in a stalemate for thousands of years. Eventually, humanity develops defensive, movable pocket universes to compartmentalize and process information, and an exotic weapon able to damage the ecological stability of the core's supermassive black hole. Minutes after the first successful strike, the Xeelee withdraw from the galaxy, effectively ceding the Milky Way to fully human control. Humanity continued to advance technologically for a hundred thousand years afterwards, then attacked the Xeelee across the Local Group of galaxies. However, despite having annoyed the Xeelee enough to give up activities in the Milky Way, humans, having become an extremely powerful Type III civilization themselves at this point, prove only to be a minor distraction to the Xeelee on the whole, being ultimately unable to meaningfully challenge their dominance across the universe.

Although the Xeelee are masters of space and time capable of influencing their own evolution, they are ultimately unsuccessful in stopping the Photino Birds. They instead utilize cosmic strings to build an enormous ring-like structure (which comes to be known as Bolder's Ring, or simply the Ring) to permit easy travel to other universes, allowing them and other species to escape the Photino Birds' destruction of the universe. The Xeelee, despite their unapproachable aloofness and transcendent superiority, appear to be compassionate and charitable toward the younger and less advanced species that inhabit the universe, demonstrating this by doing such things as constructing a specially-made universe suited to the Silver Ghosts, who humans had nearly driven to extinction. Humans are likewise shown compassion by them and allowed to use the Ring to escape, despite their relentless long war against the Xeelee.

Ben Stride walks into a desert cave encampment during a nighttime rainstorm. He encounters two men taking shelter next to a fire and asks to join them. Stride tells the men he is from the town of Silver Springs, which provokes a mysterious reaction from the two men. They discuss a robbery and murder that recently occurred there. When Stride realizes who the men are, he guns them down.

While tracking through the Arizona wilderness, Stride comes upon a wagon stuck in the mud. Stride helps pull the wagon clear, and the wagon's owners, John and Annie Greer, are grateful. Travelers from Kansas City, they admit they are inexperienced at frontier life and ask Stride to ride with them as they head south to the border town of Flora Vista on their way west to California. Greer says he hopes to find a sales job there, but has been taking odd jobs along the way. The mention of Flora Vista arouses Stride's curiosity and he agrees to take them to the border. As the trio travels, Annie shows a growing attraction to Stride. At one point they are stopped by a US Army detail, whose commanding officer tells them to go back, as Chiricahua Apache have been spotted in the area and he cannot guarantee their safety.

Stride and the Greers travel on to a stagecoach relay station where they encounter Bill Masters and Clete, two former nemeses of Stride's. As they all spend the night at the station, Masters tells the Greers that Stride was once the sheriff of Silver Springs, and his wife was killed during the robbery of the Wells Fargo freight office. Stride has been tracking and killing the seven men who performed the robbery, and Masters intends to abscond with the $20,000 in gold they stole once Stride has accomplished his task. Annie feels sympathy for Stride, who confesses that he feels guilty about his wife's death because at the time he was no longer sheriff and too proud to take the deputy job, so she took one as a clerk at the freight office. Before the wagon heads out of the station, with Masters and Clete tagging along opportunistically, they are met by Chiricahua warriors. The Apache leave when Stride gives up one of the horses to the hungry tribesmen.

The group encounters one of the Wells Fargo robbers, who is being chased by Indians. Unaware of the man's part in the robbery, Stride saves him from the Apache. The man, however, recognizes Stride and nearly kills him, but Stride is saved when Masters shoots the man in the back.

Masters and Clete reach Flora Vista ahead of the wagon, and they meet with the Wells Fargo bandits waiting for delivery of their gold. Masters tells their leader, Payte Bodeen, that Stride is heading in their direction to kill all of them and avenge his wife's death. Bodeen dispatches two of the bandits to meet Stride before he can reach Flora Vista. Meanwhile, Stride leaves Greer and Annie, telling them to continue on without him. Stride rides ahead into a canyon alone and is ambushed by the two bank robbers but kills them both. Wounded in the leg, Stride is knocked unconscious while trying to ride away with one of the bandits' horses.

Stride regains consciousness and returns to the Greers' camp, where he overhears Greer admitting to his wife that he was paid $500 to deliver the Wells Fargo box containing the gold to Flora Vista. Stride takes the gold away from Greer to draw the rest of the bandits out from town, and Greer and Annie head into Flora Vista to notify the local sheriff.

Greer arrives in town without the gold, telling Bodeen that Stride has it, and as he walks down the street toward the sheriff's office, Bodeen guns him down. The last two bandits, Bodeen and Clint, ride out to confront Stride. Stride shoots Clint but Bodeen is killed by Masters and Clete. Masters, blinded by greed, then kills Clete and walks out into the clearing where Stride has placed the box of gold. They face off, and Stride kills Masters before he can pull his guns.

Stride returns the gold to Wells Fargo and tells Annie that he is going to take a job as a deputy sheriff in Silver Springs. He puts her on a stagecoach bound for California, then rides away. Annie, however, tells the stage driver she is not going.

Don Félix seduces Elvira, who dies of love for him after he leaves her. Her brother then comes to avenge her. Don Félix and the brother die in their duel. The work culminates in don Félix's descent into hell.

The player-controlled character Roberto is staying in Las Vegas with his girlfriend Marian in a motel room on a romantic vacation. He is summoned to the motel clerk to pay his hotel bill only to discover that Marian was apparently kidnapped by a mysterious person under the employment of Akiko.

He must then solve the mystery. Roberto must be able to pay the $800,000 in ransom money for the location of his girlfriend to be revealed. Key people show up in the adventure component of the game and give out advice whenever he makes a notable amount of money at blackjack. The first informant shows up after increasing Roberto's bankroll to $5,000 and the final informant appears once Roberto has $100,000 in his pocketbook.

''Translated from the game's manual''

The city has been corrupted by drugs for some time. Johnny Thomas, a man who lost his mother and sister as a result of his father being used as an experiment for a new kind of drug, is the only man who opposes the drug syndicates. After the incident, Thomas left the corrupted police department he was working for and became a private secret agent in order to investigate the illegal trafficking routes in his city. During his investigation, he learns that an international criminal organization known as "Hawk" is responsible for the majority of the drugs that have sneaked into the country.

During the series, Paul grapples with, amongst others, his attraction to his colleague Dr Rachel Mann (who is engaged to an astronaut), the arrival of his girlfriend at the observatory, and a bout of fatalism that comes on when he creates a simulation of how the Universe will end.

Barret Michaelson is an unwelcome newcomer in a public high school, often bullied by his new classmates. He has no friends until another misfit with a bad reputation, Ryan, saves him from a beating in the men's locker room. Ryan is a misanthropic existentialist with violent tendencies and a dark past. It is revealed that Ryan's father murdered his mother and then committed suicide in front of Ryan when he was only ten years old.

The two become fast friends who spend much of their time together engaged in philosophical conversation, but their friendship comes to an abrupt halt when the two are involved in an incident with a local landowner who claims they are trespassing on his land. Ryan throws a rock at the man, causing him to fall and break his neck on a rock. The two manage to successfully make it look like an accident, but the incident forces Barret to pull away from his friendship with Ryan. This causes Ryan to become very emotional, and to purchase a black market gun. Barret soon agrees that they should put the incident behind them and continue to be friends, but Ryan becomes increasingly morose and attached to Barret.

When Ryan suffers a brutal beating at the hands of the bully against whom Ryan had originally defended Barret, he is consumed by a will for revenge, and makes it clear to Barret that he intends to shoot the bully to death. Barret tries as hard as he can to dissuade Ryan, but Ryan says it's his "destiny" and insists that there is nothing Barret can do to stop him. As the moment of truth approaches, Ryan forces Barret at gun point to accompany him to the would-be crime scene. Ryan finds his enemy in a secluded area, smoking what is probably a joint (marijuana cigarette). Barret tries to warn him, but it is to no avail, and Ryan kills him. After the killing, Barret tries to incapacitate Ryan by hitting on the head with a rock, but it doesn't work. In a struggle, the gun goes off, claiming Ryan's life. Barret then shoots him once again, and tries to turn the gun on himself, but by that time the gun is out of bullets.

During Carnival in early-twentieth century Spain, the boulevards of Seville are jammed with revelers wearing grotesque costumes and masks. A detachment of Civil Guards stagger among the masquerading merrymakers, bewildered by the "riotous disorder". A frenzied merriment prevails. Antonio Galvan, a young bourgeois revolutionary home from his exile in Paris to visit his parents, mixes with the crowds while evading the authorities pursuing him. He makes eye contact with the dazzling Concha, who is perched on a float in the parade. She flees into the crowd with Antonio in pursuit, and he is rewarded with a secret note inviting him to meet with her in person that evening.

Antonio has a chance encounter with a friend he has not seen in years, Don Pasqual, a middle-aged aristocrat and former Captain of the Civil Guard. The younger man, consumed with the image of the lovely Concha, asks the older gentleman what he knows of the mysterious girl. Don Pasqual solemnly relates, via a series of flashbacks, the details of a fateful relationship he had with the young temptress, his tale the confession of a man in thrall to the devastating girl. He says Concha subjected him to ridicule and humiliation, manipulating Don Pasqual in the manner of a puppet master, and he could not help but submit. His public prestige and authority were ultimately shattered, and he resigned his commission in disgrace, after which, satisfied with her conquest, Concha flung him aside for a final time.

Don Pasqual says he has not seen Concha for several years, and assures Antonio that any desire he once felt for her is now utterly extinguished. He exhorts the young man to avoid any contact with the temptress, and Antonio vows to heed his warning, but he keeps his date with Concha. He intends to just tell her off and leave, but ends up going to a club with her. While they are there, a note is delivered to Concha from Don Pasqual that declares his undying love for her. She reads the confidential confession to Antonio, who is incensed that his friend misled him. He passionately kisses Concha at the same moment Don Pasqual bursts into their private room. Antonio accuses Don Pasqual of lying to avoid competition for Concha's affections and says he's acting like a fool. Don Pasqual slaps Antonio with a glove, calling him a coward when Antonio says he will forget the insult from his friend, and a duel is arranged. After demonstrating his expert marksmanship with a pistol, Don Pasqual departs. Concha pledges to accompany Antonio to Paris after the duel and Antonio writes farewell letters.

The suitors meet at a secluded location the following morning. Concha tells Don Pasqual that, if he ever loved her, he could not kill "the only man I ever cared for." When the duelists step to their positions, Don Pasqual does not even aim his pistol, something which is not noticed by Antonio until after he fires. Don Pasqual is gravely wounded by Antonio's bullet. The police, notified of the illegal combat, arrive and arrest the fugitive Antonio. Don Pasqual is taken to the hospital.

Concha turns her charms on Governor Paquito to secure Antonio's release from prison, and he somewhat grudgingly issues two passports so Concha and Antonio can escape to Paris. Before reuniting with Antonio, she visits Don Pasqual at the hospital to thank him for sparing Antonio's life. He says his actions were proof of his love for her, but rejects her thanks and refuses to forgive her, so she leaves. She and Antonio make their way to the French border and pass through customs without incident. When their train arrives, Antonio eagerly enters their carriage, but Concha hesitates and then informs the station master that she is not boarding. The shocked Antonio calls to her from the window of the moving train, and she announces she has decided to rejoin Don Pasqual before reentering Spain.

Arthur, who had been training himself to be a great knight, pulled out the sacred sword Excalibur from the rock. After pulling it out, Arthur realized his destiny was to become the first King of the Britons. Merlin then sends Arthur and his two closest companions, Lancelot and Perceval, to overthrow the evil king Garibaldi and to unite Britain. Retrieved April 9, 2013.

Bugs is traveling by tunneling underground—and runs straight into a tree. He heads for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as he observes "these Pennsylvania hardwoods ain't too soft!", but he does not immediately notice that a sign nailed to the tree reads "Pittsburghe, Transylvania". He asks a two-headed female vulture (Agatha and Emily) for directions to "Pittsboig" when he realizes that he has not reached the Steel City, but Agatha and Emily are too busy talking about eating him. Bugs leaves them to it, sees an old castle nearby, mistakes it for a motel and calmly approaches it. Upon ringing a skull/chime doorbell (playing "The Hearse Song") Bugs meets a vampire, who introduces himself as Count Bloodcount and invites him in. Although Bugs is only looking for a telephone to call his travel agency, the Count leads him to a guest room beckoning him to rest, informing him that "Rest is good for the blood.".

Unable to sleep, Bugs picks up a book titled ''Magic Words and Phrases'', and despite his initial skepticism about their effect, he reads it. The Count sneaks up behind him and is just about to strike when Bugs says "abracadabra", turning the Count into a bat. Bugs mistakes the bat/Count for a big mosquito and clobbers him with a fly swatter. As the bat dizzily flies out of the window, Bugs says "hocus pocus", which turns the Count back into a vampire and causes him to fall into the moat surrounding his castle. Agatha and Emily wonder what a splendid-looking specimen the Count is as they watch him take the plunge.

Shortly afterward, while Bugs is searching for the house restaurant, the Count sneaks up from behind again, but Bugs is humming to the tune of "It's Magic", substituting "abracadabra" for some of the lyrics, and inadvertently turns the Count back into a bat. Once again mistaking the bat for a mosquito, Bugs sprays the bat with a fumigator. As the bat/Count is hanging his head down from an archway, coughing insecticide out of his lungs, Bugs sings "hocus pocus" during a continuation of his song, and the Count crashes to the floor on his head.

Fed up with the situation, the Count confronts Bugs and reveals his true identity as a vampire, resulting in a duel of "magic phrases" in which Bugs transforms into a baseball umpire. He then turns himself into a baseball bat when the count turns himself into a bat (with "hocus pocus" strangely enough) to hit the bat-vampire on the head (despite the Count putting on glasses in a futile attempt to keep Bugs from doing so). Bugs gets the best of the Count for the rest of the duel by saying "abracadabra" every time the vampire says "hocus pocus", causing him to be crushed repeatedly by a stone slab from the floor that the Count intended to crush Bugs with. By mixing the magic words to "abraca-pocus" and "hocus-cadabra", Bugs causes the Count to become a mixture of human and bat body parts. Afterward he uses "Newport News" and turns him into Witch Hazel. Unimpressed ("Wow, I can do better than ''that''"), he uses the incantation "Walla Walla, Washington", and the Count is turned into a two-headed male vulture. Bugs calls out to Agatha and Emily, and the Count soon finds himself the object of their romantic intentions. The Count flees the castle with the female vulture in amorous pursuit as Bugs watches in amusement.

Bugs finally finds a working pay phone (in a coffin), but while waiting for the operator to reach his travel agency in Perth Amboy, he once again sings "It's Magic", this time substituting "abraca-pocus", which causes his ears to turn into bat wings. Bugs tells the operator to cancel the call, hangs up, and decides to fly home with his new wings.

Jack Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) and Gil Turner (Ed Begley Jr.) are writers for ''The Sensation'', a supermarket-grade tabloid run by Turner's father, Mac Turner (Norman Fell). Jack is a more serious journalist, using ''The Sensation'' as a stepping stone to a better career and aspires to work for ''Time'' magazine, while Gil is a gangling yes-man, ever ready to win his father's approval.

When Mac receives a homemade videotape of two panicked men running from a creature they believe to be Frankenstein's monster, along with a waist-down shot of the suspected monster, he dispatches his son and Jack to Transylvania to follow the lead. Jack tries unsuccessfully to beg off, but is told by Mac that if they both again come back with nothing, they are both fired. They have to bring a story that will bring a banner headline "Frankenstein Lives!"

Planes, trains and buses later, Jack and Gil arrive at their destination. Once off the bus, Jack immediately spots Elizabeth Ellison, a pretty female tourist (Teresa Ganzel) from New York City, whom he propositions. Gil immediately sets out on their assignment, just as quickly drawing hysterical ridicule when he tries to question a hotel desk clerk about the whereabouts of Frankenstein, who shares Gil's inquiries with the staff and patrons, including the mayor Lepescu (Jeffrey Jones).

Jack rescues Gil and pulls him out of the hotel to avoid further embarrassment. Both then take off for their hotel. Seeing them leave, a gypsy woman named Madame Morovia (Inge Appelt) orders her male companion to bring them to her.

Jack and Gil arrive at their hotel, which resembles a 17th-century castle, complete with a gated entrance, but adorned with an "Opening Soon!" banner and signs denoting the acceptance of credit cards. They are met at the gate by Fejos (Michael Richards), a butler with an odd sense of humor. They meet for brunch with Lepescu, where they also meet Radu (John Byner), his hunched-over manservant who addresses everyone as "master" and his wife Lupi (Carol Kane).

Both Gil and Jack learn that something is amiss about Transylvania, despite being laughed off by the locals, including Inspector Percek (Božidar Smiljanić), head of the local police. After meeting Morovia, who tells them they must continue their pursuit, they encounter a series of real-life horror creatures, including a Wolfman Larry (Donald Gibb), a nymphomaniac vampire Odette (Geena Davis), and a swamp monster Twisto that grabs Gil by the crotch as he tries to escape a frightening face-to-face confrontation with the object of their mission himself.

They eventually learn of a Sicilian doctor, Victorio Malavaqua (Joseph Bologna), who lost his license to practice medicine. Finding out that Malavaqua has been giving care in a sanitorium, Gil tries to go there to make an appointment but is rebuffed by the guard. Gil eventually sneaks in and finds Percek and Malavaqua talking about the latter's "experiments", including one involving a patient, Kurt Hunyadi, that fits the description of the Frankenstein monster, which Malavaqua claimed had died. An exhumation of the body later proves otherwise.

Gil learns that Radu is in cahoots with Malavaqua, serving as his lab assistant. Malavaqua also displays a tendency towards madness when within the confines of his laboratory, but returns to normal when he leaves it. It is later revealed, as Gil and Jack go on a search for Elizabeth's missing daughter Laura, that not only has Malavaqua faked Hunyadi's death, but is also his creator, along with that of Odette, Larry, and Twisto. It is also revealed that Malavaqua has engaged in this type of bizarre work to clear his family's name.

The story ties together after Jack is attacked by the Wolfman. In an attempt to rescue Jack, Gil pulls him off Jack, only to be carted off by the Wolfman. The police arrive, but refuse to listen to Jack's story and order him put in the local police lockup. Elizabeth rescues him and learns that the entire police force is at the wine festival instead of searching for her missing daughter. Jack heads off to Malavaqua's lab and Elizabeth goes to the festival. As she is being hauled away by police after confronting Percek, the town is horrified as the monster returns in the flesh, carrying Laura in his arms. Perceived to be dead, it is later learned she was just sleeping.

Jack and Gil arrive, having confronted Malavaqua, and explain Malavaqua's actions to the townspeople, that Malavaqua was legitimately trying to create normal lives for those seen as outcasts or freaks by the townspeople, who now welcome them with open arms.

Finding out that the story is even bigger than what they bargained for, Gil takes enough pictures and both gather enough material to last weeks for the tabloid. They more than make up for their failures and Mac gets his banner headline.

The game starts 20 years after the events of Operation Moongate. After the defeat of Z-Gradt, the mightiest VR and the final boss of the first game, humans continued to battle in their VR's, searching for supremacy. However an unknown AI known as Tangram has awakened and became self-conscious. With the directive to destroy humanity, Tangram infected Earth's mother computer with a virus called "Tangram Virus" and hacked into all VR systems, except for the player's VR. It plans to use the infected VRs to destroy the last human colonies that survived the previous war. The player begins the mission to defeat all VRs and destroy Tangram to stop its evil ambitions once and for all.

After defeating all VRs, the player is teleported to the Earth's mother computer system to fight Tangram. Depending on the final battle outcome, there are two endings available.

Good Ending: Tangram is erased from the computer and the player's VR is teleported back to Earth's stratosphere, where its armour is critically damaged during the fall but is saved by VRs that came on the Floating Carrier. Fei-Yen is saved by Angelan or the opposite and the others (Temjin, Raiden, Dodray, Bal-Bados, Specineff, Cypher, and Apharmd) are saved by the same model VRs.

Bad Ending: If the player's time counter reaches 0, Tangram hacks into the player's VR system and shuts it down, resulting in a Game Over screen.

Mars, once a peaceful society, has deteriorated into a planet of war. Shady corporations have deployed giant robots called Virtuaroids to cause chaos around the planet for their own nefarious gain.

As part of the Marz Special Investigation Unit, the player must take control of their own robots (armed with a variety of explosive weaponry) and lay waste to the Virtuaroid enemy in battle.

Battling their way through hordes of Virtuaroid armies, the Marz Special Investigation Unit must find out who this shady corporation is and end the chaos on Mars, once and for all.

Prior to Ganbaruger arriving to Earth, an evil organisation which was named the comes to Earth with the intent to conquer and despoil it. From their fortress they launch a missile that will flood the world with ( ), eggs of darkness which hatch into evil monsters called ( ) based on things that annoy or frustrate humans.

The "guardian of light" Eldran appears, an Ultraman-like entity who is sworn to protect the universe and Earth in particular then appears. Using the heroic robot Raijin-Oh, Eldran attempts to thwart the Evil Empire by preventing a missile from striking Earth. What happens instead is that the missile detonated against Eldran, throwing Raijin-Oh down to Earth. The robot crashes into Japan's Hinobori city( ), elementary school Hinobori School.

Eldran must leave to continue protecting the Earth, so he leaves the duty of defeating the Evil Beasts to a 5th grade classroom full of children, in the school where he crashed. He entrusts the children with Raijin-Oh, granting each child a different role to perform in either operating or supporting Raijin-Oh. Eldran also transforms their school itself, so it can transform into a command center when Raijin-Oh is needed. Jin, Asuka and Kouji are chosen to lead Raijin-oh, but every day they have many amusing experiences in the school. Jin does not want to study, while his friends do and force him to do it by tickling him.

"Harry Houdini" (Adrien Brody) has kidnapped and buried alive a rich businessman's wife. He demands $1 million in cash from the woman's husband in return for the release of the location of her burial site before she runs out of oxygen. He also states that if police involvement is initiated, he will ensure she is never found alive. As expected, however, police involvement is initiated and Detective Madeline Foster (Maura Tierney) is assigned with the task of finding the buried woman and catching Houdini.

It is quickly realized though that Houdini, in fact, wanted the police to get involved so he could commit a second kidnapping - that of Foster. When Houdini is finally caught as the result of a car chase involving him and Detective Foster, she attempts to get him to reveal the location of his buried victim. When Foster's initial interrogation of Houdini proves unsuccessful, the FBI are assigned to take over the case, although they do not have any more luck. In a plot twist, it is revealed that Houdini has already committed a murder, that of his accomplice. He now has nothing to lose and the police realize the death of the buried woman would not be as significant as first thought.

However, Houdini offers them a final lifeline - if he is allowed to talk to Foster, alone, he will allow his victim to be recovered alive. The police, now just puppets in Houdini's plan, agree to his request. Troubled, Foster begins to reveal her darker side to Houdini and he sees a kindred spirit in her.

Soon after, it is revealed that Houdini was in fact a painter in the police department, and outlined the entire building in a very detailed map. Just as Foster is revealing the truth, Houdini takes her to the place where he buried the first woman. Foster escapes her hold, and releases the woman and takes Houdini's gun, then pushes him inside the coffin. As he taunts Foster, she shoots him rather than burying him.

Putney Swope, the only black man on the executive board of an advertising firm, is accidentally put in charge after the sudden death of the chairman of the board. Prevented by the company by-laws from voting for themselves, board members voted by secret ballot for the one person they thought could not win: Putney Swope.

Renaming the business "Truth and Soul, Inc.", Swope replaces all but one of the white employees with black employees and insists they no longer accept business from companies that produce alcohol, tobacco or toy guns. The success of the business draws unwanted attention from the United States government and the President (Pepi Hermine), which considers it "a threat to the national security".

Swope decides to test his followers by saying he's going to go back on his pledge to not take certain accounts. He's delighted when they accuse him of copping out, then disillusioned when they relent and say they'll follow him no matter what, and he walks away, leaving them to squabble over a glass bin full of money, which one sets on fire with a Molotov cocktail when he finds out he isn't getting any.

Three rustlers—Bob Hightower (John Wayne), Pete (Pedro Armendáriz) and The Abilene Kid (Harry Carey Jr.)—ride into Welcome, Arizona. They have a friendly conversation with Sheriff Buck Sweet (Ward Bond) and his wife (Mae Marsh), who asks if they have seen her niece and her husband on the trail. The three subsequently rob the local bank, but the loot is lost when Kid is shot and his horse falls. They flee into the desert on two horses, pursued by Sweet and his men in a buckboard. Sweet shoots a hole in their water bag and then turns back to the depot.

The fugitives come within sight of the railroad's water tank, only to see Sweet station a guard. Doubling back to Terrapin Tanks, a granite sump at the edge of the desert, the robbers lose their horses in a sandstorm. Desperate for water, they find the tanks dynamited by a tenderfoot, who disappeared chasing his thirsting horses. In a covered wagon nearby lies the man's wife—Sweet's niece-in-law (Mildred Natwick)—who is in labor. While Pete helps with the delivery, the other two laboriously collect water from nearby cacti. Many hours later, the woman has a boy, whom she names "Robert William Pedro Hightower" after her benefactors. Before dying, she exacts a promise from them to save him and be his godfathers.

Moved, the three desperadoes keep their vow. They find a chest filled with baby things, condensed milk, an advice book, and a Bible. Pete offers Bob the Bible for guidance, but Bob slaps it aside. Kid, certain that a higher power guided them there, compares the baby to the infant Jesus in the manger and themselves as the Three Wise Men. Inspired by a Bible verse, they head for the town of New Jerusalem, across the desert and over a mountain. The posse later comes upon the abandoned wagon, and recognizing the possessions of his niece-in-law, Sweet believes that the fugitives killed her and sets out for revenge.

When they cross a salt flat, Kid collapses and dies. Once past the flat, Pete trips, breaking his leg. He asks Bob to leave him his pistol, "for coyotes"; as Bob walks toward the mountain, he hears a single gunshot. Staggering through a ravine, Bob finally falls, but in his delirium the ghosts of his two friends refuse to let him give up. Finding a donkey and her colt at the end of the ravine, he uses them to reach New Jerusalem, where he stumbles into a cantina to get drinks for himself and the baby. Just as Sheriff Sweet catches up with him, Bob collapses from exhaustion.

Bob is jailed in Welcome, but with his heroic rescue of the baby, the entire town has become sympathetic towards him. Bob gives his godchild into the temporary custody of the Sweets, now his friends, but when the judge (Guy Kibbee) asks him to give up custody permanently in exchange for a suspended sentence, he refuses to break his promise to the baby's mother. Pleased, the judge gives him the minimum sentence of a year and a day; and as he leaves for prison, all the townspeople give Bob a rousing farewell.

Based on the novel of the same name by Alan Marshall, the film is set in the early 1900s in a small town in the Western District of Victoria, centering around a young Alan Marshall and the people in his town. Crippled by polio, Alan tries to make sense of his place in a world where a man's physical prowess gains the admiration of women and the envy of his peers, as demonstrated by the horsebreaker East Driscoll, portrayed by Russell Crowe. Charlotte Rampling also stars as an English lady, Grace McAlister, who has moved to the area with her husband. Complications arise as an attraction develops between East and Grace and young Alan deals with the complexities of growing up.

Ayumi Mamiya is a witch cursed to lose her powers but there is one boy who can break the spell and save her. Haruo Yoshikawa thinks he is a normal boy but unknown to him his three sisters are witches who use their magical powers to keep him protected and ignorant about the existence of magic. Now Ayumi must wake up Haruo's latent powers to save herself but his sisters will have none of that.

Rosalinda Amendola, the daughter of happy but impoverished former acrobats, is in love with the boy next door, aspiring composer Pete Dingle. Though Pete's parents are wealthy, his miserly father Frank hides his money in the wall.

Joe Mahoney, a vaudeville performer who has fallen on hard times, has to leave his best friend and stage companion Rupert, a dancing squirrel, in the town. Rupert will have to fend for himself with the other squirrels and live in a tree. Unsatisfied with tree life, Rupert gains access to the Dingle home and makes his bed in Frank's hidden cache of money. He clears room by throwing the money through a hole, causing it to float down into the Amendola house and appear as if sent from heaven in answer to Mrs. Rosalinda's prayers.

Taxmen and cops converge on the Amendola house to discover the source of the family's wealth.

Engineers George Melton and Allan Chadwick work furiously to complete a design on time, even though it is Christmas Eve. Michael O'Brien, the third partner in the firm, arrives with presents for all and kindly lets their employees leave. The three old men then go home to the mansion they share with Madame Tanya, an elderly countess dispossessed by the Russian Revolution, for a dinner with prestigious guests.

When the guests cancel at the last minute, George is convinced it is because of his dark past. To relieve George's black mood, Michael comes up with an idea to obtain new guests for dinner. Each man throws out a wallet containing $10 and his business card into the street. George's is found by Arlene Terry, who merely gives the money to her driver and discards the wallet. However, the other two are returned by more considerate people: Texas cowboy James Houston and teacher Jean Lawrence. They stay for dinner and soon become good friends with the three men and Madame Tanya. James and Jean also fall in love with each other, delighting the three men.

When the engineers have to travel to another city on business, Madame Tanya begs Michael to take the train rather than fly. He assures her it is perfectly safe, but Madame Tanya's premonition proves tragically correct when their aircraft crashes in a storm, killing all three. When James and Jean come to announce that they are engaged, they receive the bad news. The ghosts of the three men return home, where they are dimly sensed by Madame Tanya.

It turns out that Michael had bequeathed some bonds to the young couple so they could afford to marry. The story is picked up by the press, and as a result, James is invited to be a guest on a radio show. This is the opportunity he has been waiting for to showcase his wonderful singing voice. At the studio, James bumps into Arlene Terry, an established singing star. She wishes him well and is impressed by his performance. She had been wanting to replace her aging partner; she and her manager, Phil Hubert, offer James a starring role in her new show. He accepts.

As James spends time with Arlene rehearsing, he becomes infatuated with her and neglects Jean, much to the distress of the ghosts, who are powerless to do anything. When Arlene's ex-husband bangs on her door, she has James leave by the back door, but not before persuading him to take a three-day break from work with her in the country.

George is summoned to leave the world. Michael begs him to repent before it is too late, but George refuses to be a hypocrite and walks away amid thunder and lightning into the darkness. Soon it is Allan's turn. His son David comes to take him to Heaven to be reunited with his wife. When Michael is called, he refuses to leave James, although a voice tells him each person is summoned only once and that he will be doomed to roam the Earth forever if he turns it down.

When Arlene leaves her apartment to meet James, her ex-husband is waiting. He needs her help to get back on his feet. However, she coldly brushes him off. When Arlene and James drive away, the jealous, estranged husband follows and shoots them when they stop for dinner. James dies on the operating table with his spirit greeted by Michael who then intercedes on his behalf, pleading with a "voice from above", for a second chance for the young man. His wish is granted and James returns to life. Michael is reunited with a now-repentant George, and both are admitted into Heaven.

During the current term at Maudlin Street Secondary Modern School, William Wakefield (Ted Ray) – who has been at the school for 20 years – is acting headmaster. He spots an advertisement for a headmaster of a brand new school near where he was born and decides to apply for the post.

Because of a coinciding visit by a Ministry of Education Inspector, Miss Wheeler (Rosalind Knight), and the noted child psychiatrist Alistair Grigg (Leslie Phillips), he decides to enlist the help of his staff to ensure that the school routine runs smoothly during their visit.

While in conference with his teaching staff (including Gregory Adams (Kenneth Connor), science master; Edwin Milton (Kenneth Williams), English master; Michael Bean (Charles Hawtrey), music teacher; Sarah Allcock (Joan Sims), gym mistress and Grace Short (Hattie Jacques), maths teacher); a senior pupil (Robin Stevens, played by Richard O'Sullivan) overhears that Wakefield is planning to leave at the end of term. The pupils are fond of the venerable teacher and Stevens immediately rushes this information to his schoolmates. They plan to sabotage every endeavour that might earn Wakefield praise, which would set him on the road to his new post.

On arrival, Grigg and Miss Wheeler are escorted by Wakefield on a tour of inspection and the pupils go out of their way to misbehave in each class they visit. However Griggs' tour has not been in vain: he has taken a shine to Sarah Allcock, the gym mistress and it is obvious the feeling is mutual.

Miss Wheeler is disgusted at the behaviour of the children towards the teachers, but is softened when she visits the science master's class, where she feels an instinctive maternal affection for the charm of the nervous science master, Adams.

Wakefield realises his position as headmaster of the new school is in jeopardy and, on seeing Miss Wheeler's interest in Adams, enlists his help. He asks Adams to make advances to Miss Wheeler to win her over. Adams is aghast at the thought, but eventually agrees to do his best. After many unsuccessful attempts to tell Miss Wheeler of his love, Adams finds an untruth has become truth and finally finds enough courage to declare his love.

The pupils meanwhile, have been doing everything in their power to make things go wrong, and on the last day of term are caught trying to sabotage the prizegiving. They are told to report to Wakefield's study and after much cross-examination he learns the reason for the week's events – the pupils simply did not want to see him leave. Wakefield – deeply moved – tells the children he will not leave and will see them all next term.

Miss Wheeler, softened by her newfound love, announces that she intends to tell the Ministry that staff-pupil relationships at the school are excellent.

An alien contacts ''Voyager'', claiming to be a deceased member of the crew, Ensign Lyndsay Ballard, now known as Jhet'leya. She explains that an alien race, the Kobali, reanimated her after her coffin was jettisoned into space. The Kobali reproduce by altering the DNA of dead individuals of other races, although such people are (at least initially) prisoners of the Kobali so that they can more easily adjust to their new lives. Ballard escaped from her 'new' family, stole a ship, and spent six months searching for ''Voyager''.

When she finds ''Voyager'', she is under attack from a Kobali vessel. Disabling the pursuing vessel, she makes audio contact with ''Voyager''—only to be disconnected when Mezoti, an adolescent former Borg drone, accidentally closes the channel in an attempt to notify Captain Janeway.

When contact is reestablished, Ballard is brought to Sickbay, where she retells the story of her death. Harry Kim, who was involved with Ballard, is present to confirm the details, and the Doctor confirms that the alien's DNA contains portions that match Ballard's medical records.

When the Captain clears Ballard for duty, she attempts to return to her "old" life, but finds adjustment difficult—the Doctor has managed to restore her physical appearance, but biologically, she is still Kobali (as there was not enough human DNA in the ensign's body to revert her). She discovers that fact for herself all too clearly when she attempts to eat her favorite food in the Mess Hall, and finds that it suddenly tastes "metallic" and unappealing.

Eventually, Q'Ret—Ballard's Kobali "father"—returns, demanding the return of his "daughter", Jhet'laya. After a tense meeting in the briefing room (which Ballard ends prematurely), she finds herself in the Mess Hall, depressed and isolated. When Harry Kim attempts to console her, and suggests that they alter one of Tuvok's meditation holoprograms as a prank, Ballard suffers a painful "reversion" of her Kobali physiology.

In Sickbay, the Doctor discovers that a pathogen that was introduced into Ballard's bloodstream is forcing Ballard's body to reject the Doctor's improvised "reconstructive surgery". Ballard must visit Sickbay twice daily if the treatments are to remain effective. Ballard loses her temper upon hearing that she would, essentially, be confined to sickbay for the rest of the 75-year journey, and lashes out vocally and physically, shouting angrily in untranslated Kobali.

Appalled at her new, more "volatile" Kobali personality, Ballard discovers that ''Voyager'' is no longer the home she once knew; corridors that she once walked with familiarity are now alien, she is unable to remember her human family due to the Kobali's alterations, and her new Kobali personality is too emotionally volatile.

When Q'Ret returns, with two other vessels, Ballard decides that she needs to leave—she no longer belongs on ''Voyager'', and the ship will be destroyed if she stays. A distraught Harry Kim refuses to lose her again, but Ballard/Jhet'laya tells him that she was already lost to him when she died...but at least this time they got to say "goodbye".

Signalling the Kobali to break off their attack, Harry and Jhet'laya have one final moment together in the transporter room. Harry has been practicing his Kobali as a farewell surprise.

An amused Jhet'laya appreciates his efforts, but points out that instead of a touching farewell, he said "the comets are tiresome". The two share one final laugh and a kiss before Jhet'laya steps up to the transporter pad and beams over to the Kobali ship.

As Harry is seen looking over a hairbrush that used to belong to Ballard, Mezoti comes over to comment it is a pretty brush. Harry explains it belonged to a friend of his and offers it to her. Mezoti questions his action wondering if his friend would mind. Harry explains he is sure she would want it being used with someone with such pretty hair. Mezoti, being nice and thankful of her gift, offers Harry the chance to join her on the Holodeck. Harry smiles, suggests messing with the Vulcan program, and the two walk off hand in hand.

In a side plot, Seven of Nine attempts to handle the task of caring for the Borg children by rigidly structuring their daily activities, up to and including fun and recreation. The children continuously stray from her organized plan, out of a need for individuality. Seven's attempts to respond to this behavior with "punishment protocols" only result in further rebellion. Seven requests that someone else be assigned to the children's care. Chakotay comments that she has gone overboard with her attempts to organize the children's schedules, telling her that she is still treating them like Borg drones and that she can't always schedule fun. Her request is denied. When the children are given the task of creating clay sculptures of geometric shapes, Mezoti deviates from the assignment and instead creates a crude sculpture of Seven's head. Though it is not what she assigned, Seven accepts the deviation, claiming that it shows individuality.

This episode is a Wild West allegory of all the other episodes of ''The Prisoner''. Number Six is again a non-conformist and refuses to be a number or to blend in with the other members of the Village. He refuses to accept things the way they are and wants to escape and expose the Village.

The episode begins with a Western paraphrase of the regular opening sequence, with Number Six, dressed as a Sheriff, turning in his badge and his gun (i.e., resigning). Leaving town, without a horse but still carrying his saddle, he is attacked by several men in the countryside as the episode title "Living in Harmony" appears on screen, where one would expect to see the series' name. (The "I am not a number" dialogue that usually follows the title caption in other episodes is omitted.) Number Six wakes from his beating and finds himself in a strange Western town. A Mexican man tells him that he is in the town of Harmony. Number Six goes into a saloon and meets the mayor of the town, also called The Judge. He meets with an intense mute young man known as The Kid who guards the jail. A saloon girl is also introduced, Kathy.

After unintentionally agitating a mob into trying to lynch him, Number Six is taken into "protective custody." To satisfy the mob's bloodlust, the Judge allows them to lynch Kathy's brother. She, fearing for Number Six's life, goes into the jail, distracts the Kid, steals the keys then passes them to Number Six. He escapes, only to be lassoed and brought back to town by the Judge's henchmen. At an impromptu trial, the Judge announces that Number Six is free to go as he was only in protective custody, but Kathy is guilty of aiding a prisoner to escape, as she did not know he was merely in protective custody. The Judge then makes Number Six a deal: if he will become the sheriff of the town, Kathy is free to go. The Judge insinuates that she may not be safe with the Kid watching over her. Reluctantly, Number Six agrees and takes the badge, but refuses to wear a gun. The Judge, disappointed, plans to get him to carry a gun by making unarmed men attack him.

Number Six asks Kathy to escape with him, but while he is clearing the way the Judge gets the Kid to kidnap Kathy. However, the Kid takes it too far and strangles her to death. Number Six finds her and buries her. He then turns in his badge but picks up the gun, has a showdown with the Kid and kills him. The Judge arrives with several armed men and upon learning of Kathy's death gives Number Six the ultimatum to work for him or be killed. Although Number Six picks off the Judge's men, he is then shot by the Judge. He awakens lying on the floor of the empty saloon. He is wearing his usual Village clothes rather than Western wear, along with headphones and a microphone. All the characters that he saw are present only as paper cutouts.

Number Six wanders groggily out of Harmony and finds that it is just an annex of the Village. He rushes to the Green Dome and finds the Judge (the new Number Two) and the Kid (Number Eight). Number Six glowers at them, notices Kathy (Number Twenty-two), and walks out disdainfully. Number Two and Number Eight discuss the failure of their experiment. Number Twenty-two is obviously distressed and rushes out of the Green Dome. Number Eight follows her back to the saloon, calls her "Kathy," and starts strangling her as if the role-playing were continuing. She screams. Number Six hears and rushes over, but too late. Number Twenty-two dies in his arms, in her last words wishing it had all been real. Number Two arrives and Number Eight frantically throws himself off the saloon balcony to his death.

A suburban police station is understaffed due to a flu epidemic, and Sergeant Wilkins, under pressure to maintain staffing levels, is pleased to hear that three new recruits, straight from training school, are due shortly.

Before even arriving, the three policemen inadvertently assist some bank robbers into their getaway car, and are embarrassed when they learn the truth. The new constables are self-proclaimed intellectual and amateur psychologist PC Timothy Benson, former socially well-connected playboy and cad PC Tom Potter, and extremely superstitious PC Charles Constable. The arrival of WPC Gloria Passworthy, with whom Constable falls in love, and Special Constable Gorse completes the roster.

Out on the beat, the new constables try hard, but are less than successful. Benson nearly arrests a plainclothes detective, and Constable believes he has heard a murder being committed, but it turns out to be a radio play. Potter investigates a report of an intruder, but finds a young woman in the bath and engages in a civil conversation with her about her recently broken relationship. Gorse, tasked to patrol with a police dog, is unable to control it. They have better luck when a wages robbery takes place. Benson and Potter locate the getaway car, and all four engage in a confrontation with the thieves, arresting them and recovering the money.

Commended for his efficiency and excellent results, Inspector Mills is promoted to a training position and Wilkins is promoted to replace him. Charlie Constable gets his girl (with a little help from Sgt Moon) and stops being superstitious.

The Ethics of Living Jim Crow

"The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" follows Richard Wright's own experiences growing up in the Jim Crow era. The essay begins with Wright's first encounter with racism as a child, when his attempt to play a war game with white children turns violent, and ends with a scolding from his mother, blaming him for the incident. The rest of the essay follows his experiences as a Black man in the South through his adolescence and adulthood. He describes his experiences with racism at his first job, at an optical company where his white coworkers increasingly bully and threaten him as punishment for wanting to learn skills that could allow him to advance, ultimately forcing him out. Wright describes the continuation of his "Jim Crow education" as he moves from place to place, witnessing violence against a Black woman that police officers punish her for, facing attacks on his own body from white youths, and working as a bell-boy in a hotel where white men have exploitative sex with Black maids, but where sex with a white prostitute means castration or death for a Black man. Wright's essay ends with a discussion of the complicated world view Black people must adopt in order to survive during Jim Crow, and asking the question "How do Negroes feel about the way they have to live?"

Big Boy Leaves Home

"Big Boy Leaves Home" is the story of Big Boy, a young black whose youthful excursion goes horribly wrong. Big Boy and his friends, Bobo, Lester, and Buck decide to go to the local swimming hole, which is owned by a white man who does not allow black people to swim there. Despite their initial reservations, they strip naked and proceed to play in the water. When a white woman comes upon the boys, they are unable to get their clothes back without being seen, and the woman panics, thinking she is being attacked. She calls for her husband Jim, who appears and shoots Lester and Buck, killing them. After a brief struggle between Big Boy and Jim, Big Boy takes control of the rifle and shoots Jim. Terrified, Big Boy and Bobo gather their clothes and flee the scene. The boys agree to run back to their homes apart, desperately trying to escape the imminent threat of lynching. Once Big Boy arrives at home, he relays the story to his mother and father, who gather members of their community in an attempt to save their son. Big Boy is sent off with some food to hide, lying in wait for an acquaintance of the family with a truck that will be able to take him away from the gathering mob. From his hiding place in the hills, he overhears white men discussing their search for himself and Bobo. Eventually, Bobo is captured by the mob, who tar and feather then burn and lynch him as Big Boy is forced to listen. In the morning, Will, the truck driver finds Big Boy and they drive off to Chicago Illinois, with Big Boy's future uncertain.

Down by the Riverside

"Down by the Riverside" takes place during a major flood. Its main character, a farmer named Mann, must get his family to safety in the hills, but he does not have a boat. In addition, his wife, Lulu, has been in labor for several days but cannot deliver the baby. Mann must get her to a hospital - the Red Cross hospital. He has sent his cousin Bob to sell a donkey and use the money to buy a boat, but Bob returns with only fifteen dollars from the donkey and a stolen boat. Mann must take the boat through town to the hospital, even though Bob advises against this since the boat is very recognizable. Rowing his family, including Lulu, Peewee, his son and Grannie, Lulu's mother, in this white boat, Mann calls for help at the first house he reaches. This house is the home of the boat's white owner, Heartfield, who immediately begins shooting. Mann, who has brought his gun, returns fire and kills the man, while the man's family witnesses the act from the windows of the house.

Mann rows on to the Red Cross hospital but is too late; Lulu and the undelivered baby have died. Soldiers take away Grannie and Peewee to safety in the hills, and Mann is conscripted to work on the failing levee. However, the levee breaks, and Mann must return to the hospital, where he smashes a hole in the ceiling at the direction of a colonel - who then directs Mann to find him once everything's over saying he'll help Mann if he can - allowing the hospital to be evacuated. Mann and a young black boy, Brinkley, are told to rescue a family at the edge of town, who turn out to be the Heartfields. Inside the house, Heartfield's son recognizes Mann as his father's killer and Mann raises his axe thinking to kill the children and their mother but is stopped when the house shifts in the rising flood waters. Despite his terror that he might be recognized as Heartfield's murderer and accordingly facing the possibility of a brutal and torturous death, Mann takes the boy, the boy's sister and his mother to "the hills" and safety. There, Mann tries to blend with "his people", hoping he might find his family, until the white boy identifies Mann as the killer of his father. Armed soldiers take Mann away after tribunal with the general and then the colonel he'd helped at the Red Cross. Knowing he's doomed and vowing to "die fo they kill [him]" Mann runs and the soldiers shoot him dead by the river's edge.

Long Black Song

"Long Black Song" begins with Sarah, a young Black woman, caring for her baby as she waits for her husband Silas to return from selling cotton. Lonely, and tired by baby Ruth's needs, Sarah fantasizes about Tom, a man she knew before he was sent to war. As the sun goes down, a white salesman arrives and tries to sell her a graphophone. They make conversation, and as she gets him some water, he attempts to seduce Sarah. She protests, and runs to the bedroom where he rapes her. He leaves the graphophone, and says that he will return in the morning to convince her husband to buy it. When Silas returns, he sees the graphophone and suspects that Sarah has been unfaithful. Silas hates white people, and is livid when he figures out that Sarah slept with a white man. In a fit of rage, he drives her from the house, whipping her as she tries to escape. She eventually gets away from him, coming back to the house only to retrieve Ruth. She sleeps outside, away from Silas' grasp, and resolves to stop the white man from confronting him the next day. She is unable to head the salesman off, however, and when he arrives at the house, Silas whips and then shoots him. Sarah returns to Silas and tries to convince him to escape with her, but he relents that he can never be free in a white man's world despite all his effort. Sarah takes Ruth back into the hills, where she watches a white mob descend on Silas, attempting to kill him first with bullets and then by lighting the house on fire. The house burns down around Silas, who does not attempt to escape after having killed as many white men as he could.

Fire and Cloud

"Fire and Cloud" follows a preacher, Taylor, as he tries to save his people from a wave of starvation. Denied food aid by the white authorities, Taylor must return empty-handed to his church. There he finds a tricky problem. He has been talking about marching in a demonstration with communists, and they have come to visit him in one room. In another room, the mayor and the police chief have arrived to talk to him. Taylor has a history with the mayor, who has done him favors in exchange for his securing peace and order among the black community. However, if the mayor finds out about the communists, Taylor will be in trouble. First Taylor talks to the communists, who try to convince him to further commit to marching by adding his name to the pamphlets they distribute. Taylor gives them only vague answers. He then talks to the mayor and the sheriff, who try to convince him not to march. Again, Taylor is unsure of what to do as he feels that adding his name will threaten not only himself but his community. He successfully gets both groups out of the church without their paths crossing. Then he talks to his deacons. One among them, Deacon Smith, has been plotting to depose Taylor and take over the church.

A car pulls up, and Taylor leaves the deacons to see who is in the car. Whites beat him and throw him in the back, taking him out to the woods. There, they whip him and make him recite the Lord's Prayer, in a move designed to keep him from marching. Taylor must walk back through a white neighborhood, where a policeman stops him but does not arrest him. Once home, Taylor realizes that this beating directly connects him to the suffering of his people, and he tells his son that the march must go on. Seeing that many in his congregation have also been beaten over the night, Taylor leads them in the march through town. He realizes that together, the pain of his being whipped and the strength of the assembled marchers, black and white people in one crowd, are a sign from God. The whipping is fire, and the crowd is the cloud God used to lead the Hebrews to the Promised Land.

Bright and Morning Star

"Bright and Morning Star" concerns an old woman, Sue, whose sons are communist party organizers. One son, Sug, has already been imprisoned for this and does not appear in the story. Sue waits for the other son, Johnny-Boy, to arrive home when the story begins. Though she is no longer a Christian, believing instead in a communist vision of the human struggle, Sue finds herself singing an old hymn as she waits. A white fellow communist, Reva, the daughter of a major organizer, Lem, stops by to tell Sue that the sheriff has discovered plans for a meeting at Lem's and that the comrades must be told or they will be caught. Someone in the group has become an informer. Reva departs, and Johnny-Boy comes home. Sue feeds him dinner, and they discuss her mistrust of white fellow-communists. Then, she sends him out to tell the comrades not to go to Lem's for the meeting.

The sheriff shows up at Sue's looking for Johnny-Boy. The sheriff threatens Sue, saying that if she does not get him to talk, she had best bring a sheet to get his body. Sue speaks defiantly to the sheriff, who slaps her around but starts to leave. Then Sue shouts after him from the door, and he returns, this time beating her badly. In her weakened state, she reveals the comrades' names to Booker, a white communist who is actually the sheriff's informer. Sue realizes that she is the only one left who can save the comrades, and she dedicates herself completely to this task. Remembering the sheriff's words, she takes a white sheet and wraps a gun in it. She goes through the woods until she finds the sheriff, who has caught Johnny-Boy. The sheriff tortures Johnny-Boy before her eyes, but she does not relent or try to get Johnny-Boy to give up. Then Booker shows up, and she shoots him through the sheet. The sheriff's men shoot first Johnny-Boy and then Sue dead. As she lies on the ground, she realizes she has fulfilled her purpose in life.

Down at the local labour exchange, everyone is moaning about the lack of decent jobs, unaware that nearby Bert Handy and his secretary Miss Cooling are attempting to fill vacancies, at a new enterprise called Helping Hands. When word gets round, people are quick to visit the agency, notably Sam Twist, Francis Courtenay, Delia King, Gabriel Dimple, Lily Duveen, Mike Weston and Montgomery Infield-Hopping. Bert decides to hire them all and at first business is slow. The only customer is a man who speaks gobbledygook but since Francis (who can speak 16 languages) is not present nobody can understand him and he goes on his way. Within a few days business picks up and Delia has an assignment to try on a complete women's wardrobe for Mr Delling, a gentleman who is planning a surprise for his wife. However things get complicated when the man's wife arrives home unexpectedly.

Meanwhile Sam Twist is sent to a baby-sitting job, only to find that there is not a baby to be sat, instead there is Mrs Panting, a woman who needs to make her husband jealous, succeeding in the process with Sam getting a black eye. The following day, Francis is assigned to take a pet for a walk but when he gets to the owner's house, he finds out it is a chimpanzee. He takes the chimp for a walk and soon discovers that people who work in the transport industry have an aversion to apes. They eventually end up at a chimps tea party, enjoying a nice afternoon tea. Next is Lily Duveen, who has been employed at a wine tasting evening, to collect invitation cards from the attendees. After she has performed this task, she samples some of the wines and makes a bit of a spectacle of herself.

Later a man from Amalgamated Scrap-Iron arrives in the Helping Hands office. He is obviously busy as he requests that someone take his place in the queue, at the hospital outpatients department. Bert says he will get someone on the case but the chap insists that the top man does the job himself, so Bert ends up queuing at the hospital, where he is mistaken for an eminent diagnostician and taken on a tour of the hospital. When this mistake is eventually discovered, the nursing Sister telephones the ward Bert is currently visiting. A nurse answers, "Ward 10...?" and Sister replies, "Emergency!" — a cultural reference to the popular TV series "Emergency Ward 10" of the time.

The next job that Francis undertakes, is in the field of photography as a model. Obviously very chuffed that he has been chosen, he is crestfallen when he discovers that the job is an advertisement for a bee-keeper's helmet. His next job is between a bickering couple. The husband can not understand his wife, who continually berates him in her native German. Thanks to Francis getting a bit emotionally involved, the wife starts speaking English and the couple make up.

Lefty Vincent, a boxing friend of Bert's, pops into the office. He requires four helpers to act as seconds, for his fighter Dynamite Dan. When they get to the venue, Dan is terrified by his opponent, Mickey McGee, so pretends that he has sprained his finger. The fight is off until Gabriel takes on McGee instead. Sam is excited over his next job. Due to a mix-up, he thinks he is on a top secret spying mission to the Forth Bridge (recalling Alfred Hitchcock's film of ''The 39 Steps''), when all that is required of him is to make up a fourth in a game of bridge. When Sam gets back, he learns that the whole of Helping Hands have been engaged to demonstrate exhibits at the Ideal House Exhibition (based on the real Ideal Home Exhibition). Needless to say all of the demonstrations end in calamity. Sam's next job is at an exclusive men's club, where no matter how hard he tries he can not keep silent, which is a strict rule of the establishment.

Miss Cooling decides on a new filing system, for a more streamlined operation and job cards are put in cubby holes for each of the workers. Disaster strikes when the cleaner knocks the box down and puts the cards back all mixed up. Everyone gets someone else's assignment, with misunderstandings all round. Finally, the gobbledygook man turns up again and this time Francis is there to translate. He is their landlord and has been trying to inform Bert that he will have to vacate the premises, because he has had a better offer. Due to a show of unity by all the staff, the landlord agrees that they can stay, on the provision that they do something for him. His main interest is property development and he needs a house cleared and cleaned. Unfortunately the team end up demolishing the house but thankfully it turns out that the landlord has changed his mind and decided to demolish it and replace it with a luxury block of flats (or "flabberblob"), so all ends well.

Captain Crowther (Sid James) has five of his crew replaced at short notice before a new cruise voyage begins. Not only does he get the five most incompetent crew men ever to sail the seven seas, but the passengers turn out to be a rather strange bunch too.

The SS ''Happy Wanderer'' is the cruise ship and after this voyage, Crowther hopes to get a job as captain on a transatlantic ship, promising the crew members their jobs will be safe under the new captain. Starting off from England, the ''Happy Wanderer'' calls at unnamed ports in Spain, Italy and North Africa before going home again.

Single ladies Gladys (Liz Fraser) and Flo (Dilys Laye) take the cruise, with Flo hoping to find a husband. Bridget (Esma Cannon) is her usual dotty and entertaining self, and one unnamed passenger (Ronnie Stevens) never disembarks but always goes straight to the bar to drink, to forget an unidentified woman. The crew and passengers settle in as the ship leaves port and head chef Wilfred Haines (Lance Percival) finds out he is seasick. Mario Fabrizi makes a quick appearance as one of the cooks under Haines. Ed Devereaux, best known for the part of Matt Hammond in the Australian TV series 'Skippy', appears as a Young Officer.

Gladys and Flo fall for the PT instructor Mr Jenkins but nothing comes of it, especially when Flo turns out to be hopeless in the gym. Meanwhile, the new men try to impress Crowther but disaster follows disaster with him getting knocked out and covered in food at a party.

Meanwhile, ship's doctor Dr. Binn (Kenneth Connor) has fallen for Flo, but she wants nothing to do with him so he serenades her with a song after leaving Italy (''Bella Marie'', sung by Roberto Cardinali), which she does not hear as she is asleep. Gladys, who has heard the song, realises that Flo is in love with Binn and with the help of First Officer Marjoribanks (Kenneth Williams) arranges a plot for Binn and Flo to get together. It works and the confident Binn finally confesses his feelings to a gobsmacked Flo, who returns his affections.

Crowther lets the five newcomers know that they have improved since the cruise began, simply by doing their jobs and not by trying to impress him. They learn that the Captain has been in charge of the ''Happy Wanderer'' for ten years and decide to hold a surprise party for him, with the passengers. Haines bakes him a many-flavoured cake and the barman cables the former barman for the recipe of the Captain's favourite drink, the ''Aberdeen Angus''.

The party goes well and Crowther gets his telegram telling him he has the captaincy of the new ship. He turns it down as he recognises it does not have the personal touch of a cruise ship, and prefers the company of his own crew.

Captain Picard, while sleeping in his quarters on the ''Enterprise'' after the successful completion of a mission, is abducted by an unknown device. He finds himself in a cell with two other prisoners: Starfleet Academy Cadet Haro from Bolarus IX; and philosopher Kova Tholl from Mizar II. They are later joined by the violent Esoqq from Chalnoth. While they have meager beds and facilities, their only source of nutrition is a dispenser of tasteless rubbery disks, which Esoqq is unable to eat. He moves toward Tholl as though to eat him, but Picard is able to dissuade Esoqq temporarily. Picard attempts to learn why the four of them have been abducted but can find no connection. Picard organizes Haro and Esoqq to attempt to break the lock on the only door to the cell. Initially foiled by a stun beam when they tamper with the controls, they manage to override the beam and then defeat the door's security, only to find a blank wall behind it.

Meanwhile, on the ''Enterprise'', a doppelgänger of Picard has taken his place, ordering the ship to delay a scheduled rendezvous with another ship and travel slowly to a nearby pulsar. En route, Picard's double exhibits behavior that the senior crew begins to question, such as his newfound romance for Dr. Crusher, as well as engaging the crew in singing "Heart of Oak", the official march of the Royal Navy, in Ten Forward. Upon reaching the pulsar, Picard's double orders the ship to be moved closer, potentially exposing the crew to lethal radiation, Commander Riker and the rest of the bridge crew refuse to follow his orders, effectively removing him from command due to his perceived unfitness for duty.

After discovering the false door in the cell, the real Picard deduces that Haro is not who she claims to be, as she knows details of a secret Starfleet mission that are unavailable to Academy cadets. Picard observes that the four different alien captives and the tightly controlled setting are suggestive of some kind of experiment: Tholl, the collaborator who goes along with whoever is in charge; Esoqq, typical for his species, a violent anarchist who rejects any kind of authority; Haro, the cadet, sworn to obey orders without question; and Picard, a leader, accustomed to giving orders. Haro reveals herself to be not a Bolian, but a member an unidentified alien species. She reverts to her natural form and is joined by a second such alien; the two have been studying the concept of authority and leadership, as their race lacks hierarchical authority structures such as humans and other races have. Because the captives' knowledge of the experiment has now made it impossible to continue collecting data on their natural behavior, the aliens return Picard, Tholl, and Esoqq to their respective original locations.

Aboard the ''Enterprise'', Picard's double is also revealed to be of the same alien species, all members of which are in constant telepathic contact, which the aliens remark is far superior to the vocal communication used by the beings aboard the ''Enterprise''. When Picard criticizes them for engaging in kidnapping and assault, the aliens express ignorance of the morality Picard espouses, and indicate that they will need to study this concept further. However, Picard uses a series of nonverbal cues to direct his crew to trap them within a force field, causing the aliens to panic as they are unable to bear captivity. After a few moments, he releases the field and allows them to go free, but warns them not to abduct others again.

Charlie Hawkins (Sid James) is the workaholic owner of thriving taxi company ''Speedee Taxis'', but his wife Peggy (Hattie Jacques) feels neglected by him. When Charlie misses their fifteenth wedding anniversary, because he is out cabbing, she decides to punish him. Telling Charlie that she is going to 'get a job', she establishes a rival company, ''GlamCabs''. The cars are brand new Ford Cortina Mk1s and driven by attractive girls in provocative uniforms. Flo, the wife of one of Charlie's drivers, is appointed to the post of office manager.

Charlie continues to coach his mainly inept (and often ex-army) drivers, including the clumsy Terry "Pintpot" Tankard (Charles Hawtrey), whilst Peggy refuses to tell Charlie about her new job. Charlie feigns a lack of interest, but he is dying to know. As Charlie unsuccessfully struggles to cope with his wife's absences, and realises just what she had to endure, Peggy's company becomes a thriving success due to the large number of male taxi passengers preferring to ogle her sexy drivers during journeys. Speedee rapidly starts losing money and faces bankruptcy. Peggy feels terrible for what she has done. Charlie and his drivers attempt to sabotage the rival company, but they are chased off.

In desperation, Charlie suggests a merger with his rivals, but is furious to discover who the real owner is and storms off.

A month later, Peggy is living at the office and Charlie has turned to drink, allowing his company to collapse around him. Peggy and Sally (Liz Fraser) are hijacked by bank robbers. Peggy manages to use the taxi radio to subtly reveal their situation and location. Charlie intercepts the broadcast and rallies the other ''Speedee'' drivers in pursuit. The robbers are cornered and captured.

Peggy and Charlie are reconciled, especially over the fact that she is expecting a baby.

Early life

Joanna was born on December 12, 1976, in Truro, Cornwall, England, U.K. At the age of 15 she began bodybuilding. She broke a world record when she became the youngest British female bodybuilder to turn IFBB pro, at the age of 21, in a sport in which over 10,000 women compete at amateur level worldwide. At the age of 27, Joanna moves to Los Angeles, California. Joanna's goal is to win the Ms. Olympia title and retire on the top.

Training

Over the next five months, Joanna begins her training and dieting for the 2004 GNC Show of Strength. She endures regular massage secessions that tear her muscles, which is although painful, but makes her muscles grow larger. Another prominent female bodybuilder featured was Debbie Bramwell, who is a friend of Joanna, helps Joanna train at the gym. When the issue of steroids was brought up, Joanna sarcastically said that "Yeah it's all about the steroids, you know. We just take steroids and look like this. Try this at home everyone, for a few weeks, and see how you look." She visits her nutritionist to measure her body fat. Joanna's body fat goal is to get herself at 3% body fat. Her body weight came in at 2.6%. She lost a total of 30 lbs in 6 weeks.

Modeling

Due to poor funding in professional female bodybuilding, Joanna main source of income is modeling for her website that is consistently updated with pictures and videos of her, which is her sole source of income. It's a members only website where those members pay $25 for her content. Joanna explains that there is no way for her to get a job and work several hours a week and be a professional female bodybuilder because it would be too stressful.

2004 GNC Show of Strength

In order to qualify for the 2004 Ms. Olympia, Joanna must come in first or second place at the GNC Show of Strength. There are about over 70 professional female bodybuilders in the world and each are eager for recognition by attending the Ms. Olympia. Joanna and Debbie travel to Atlanta for Joanna to compete in the 2004 GNC Show of Strength. Joanna commented that Jeannie Paparone had a nice shape to her and she could be hard for her to beat. Other predominate professional female bodybuilders include Yaxeni Oriquen-Garcia, Mily Pena, Nancy Lewis, Rosemary Jennings, Gayle Moher, Mary Ellen Doss, Monica Martin, Angela Debatin, Michelle David, Mary Ellen Jerumbo, and Elizabeth Gomez. Debbie Bramwell, although did not compete herself, was with Joanna backstage helping her prepare and encouraging her. Before the show, all of the female bodybuilder would eat sugary food and work out with weights in order to show off their veins. While performing, bodybuilders are dehydrated and at their weakest so performing poses is very tiring and strenuous.

At the end of the first round, the judges pick out their top three favorites, which is a strong indicator of final placing. Nancy Lewis was picked first, Rosemary Jennings was picked second, and Joanna Thomas was picked third. After preparation backstage for the final round, Joanna came on stage in a pink bikini and posed to the song ''Barbie Girl''. During posedown, Joanna, along with Nancy Lewis, Rosemary Jennings, Gayle Moher, Mary Doss, and Jeannie Paparone began performing free form poses and try to over-shine their competitors for the judges to see. At the end of the GNC Show of Strength, Joanna came in 2nd place, with Nancy Lewis winning the lightweight title. Joanna won $2,000 dollars at the GNC.

The final results for the 2004 GNC Show of Strength:

2004 Ms. Olympia

After finishing the 2004 GNC Show of Strength, Joanna returns to Los Angeles where her parents sent her video of her 1997 EFBB Northeast Qualifier, her first female bodybuilding competition, where she placed first in middleweight. Joanna travels to Las Vegas to compete in the 2004 Ms. Olympia. On the night before the contest, bodybuilding fans get to meet with their bodybuilding heroes. Along with Joanna, Betty Pariso, and Dayana Cadeau are seen. Dayana Cadeau boasts that nobody that in her class can beat her. Joanna spends the next 12 hours of fasting and dehydrating before the competition. Her parents and from England flew out to Las Vegas to see and support her. Debbie Bramwell also came to support her. If Joanna did win the 2004 Ms. Olympia she would only win $10,000, a fraction of the $120,000 that would be won by the 2004 Mr. Olympia winner.

After five months of training and dieting, Joanna takes part in the 2004 Ms. Olympia. During the first round, Joanna was not picked among the top six. She only has the evening show left to improve her chances. At the end of the next round of posing, Joanna did not place in the top three in the lightweight class, much to her and her parents disappointment. The next day, at her apartment, Joanna calls the Olympia judge and asks where she was placed at the Olympia and she was told she placed 7th place. At the end of the documentary, Joanna was more determined than ever to win the Ms. Olympia title.

The final results for the 2004 Ms. Olympia:

Martok receives a message from the Klingon government stating that he has been assigned to retrieve a missing Klingon vessel, the ''B'Moth'', lost several days ago. The Klingon High Council assigns the General a ship of his own, the ''Rotarran'', to accomplish the mission. He departs Deep Space Nine along with his newly appointed First Officer, Worf, who has signed on to the mission at Martok's request. Worf's lover Jadzia Dax, a devotee of Klingon culture, joins them as the ship's Science Officer. The ''Rotarran'' is Martok's first command since his escape from a Dominion prison camp, and he is dismayed to find that the crew's morale has been destroyed by a series of punishing losses at the hands of the Dominion's ruthless soldiers, the Jem'Hadar.

The morale situation is only made worse by Martok's overcautious nature and unwillingness to go into battle, and because of this he misses a chance for an easy victory. Dax, acting as a Klingon would, challenges Worf about the General's behavior, which Worf will hear none of. In the mess hall, Dax is forced to stun a Klingon officer with her phaser when a pair of officers get into violent argument, almost causing the death of one of them. After this, Dax angrily confronts Worf about it and tells him that he needs to deal with the General by challenging him for command.

The ''B'Moth'', the missing Klingon vessel, is found just across the Cardassian border, but Martok, fearing that the Jem'Hadar left it behind as a trap, refuses to enter Cardassian territory to rescue it. Worf realizes Martok is paralyzed by fear. Reluctantly, he decides to challenge Martok for control of the ship. A knife fight ensues, during which Worf sees that Martok's fear is gone and allows him to win the fight. Worf sustains a nasty wound yet survives, putting Martok into a battle frenzy just as a Jem'Hadar ship approaches. The revitalized crew defeats the enemy, rescues the ''B'Moth'', and returns to Deep Space Nine as victors for the first time. Martok is forever grateful to Worf for reminding him of his duty as a Klingon warrior, and offers him a place in the House of Martok.

"Renegade" Luke (Hill), a drifter and petty con artist, lives a free and easy life with no responsibility travelling around the Southwestern United States in his Jeep CJ Renegade with a chestnut colt named Joe Brown. The events take a sudden twist when his friend Moose (Norman Bowler), who has won a ranch in Arizona over a poker game, asks Luke to become the legal guardian of Moose's son Matt (Ross Hill) and to keep an eye on the property while he is serving time in jail for a crime he claims he didn't commit. Both Luke and Matt are less than enthusiastic about the idea but eventually they reluctantly make their way to Arizona together. As they progress on their trip they experience an abnormal series of accidents, including a crazy trucker trying to push them off the road and a helicopter following them around. It turns out that real-estate-shark Lawson (Robert Vaughn), a sworn enemy of Moose, is trying to prevent them from getting to the property so he can keep it for himself. With the help of a gang of bikers, eventually Luke and Matt manage to defeat Lawson and become friends.

In 1911, England, George V will be crowned king in a few days. In the meanwhile, many important guests and dignitaries arrive in Buckingham Palace for the coronation. Among them are: King Nicholas VIII of Balkan country of Carpathia, his father the Prince Regent, Charles, and his grandmother, the widowed Queen Dowager (the royals have probably been inspired by King Michael I of Romania, Carol II of Romania and Queen Marie of Romania.) The British government pamper the Royals during their stay in order to maintain Carpathian in the Triple Entente as the tensions between ruling families all over Europe is rising. So, they take Prince Regent Charles to watch a performance, starring Mary Morgan. When Charles is taken to meet the cast, he properly meets Mary Morgan, who he is interested in and invites Mary for dinner at the palace.

When Mary arrives, she feels disappointed when she finds out that Prince Charles is too stiff and pompous for her taste. Charles also fails to impress her with the large party Mary expected. The civil servant, Northbrook, asks Mary to leave early, but she doesn't. Charles ignores Mary for much of the supper because of phone calls and "matters of state." He tries making passes at Mary, but is rejected. She then explains her disappointment to the Prince, and how she expected "swaying romance", passion and gypsy violins, but instead got ignored by the prince in a stiff supper. The prince then changes his manners and tactics, complete with a violinist, leading the two to kiss. Mary admits she might be falling in love with Charles. Mary faints due to all the activity and drinks, so the prince places her in a bedroom inside the palace.

The next day, when Mary wakes up, she overhears a conversation with Nicholas and the German embassy, planning to overthrow the Prince Regent. Mary meets with the Queen Dowager, who invites her to attend the coronation in place of her sick lady-in-waiting. After the ceremony, Mary refuses to inform Charles about the plans to overthrow him. Nicholas invites Mary to the ceremonial ball, where she persuades to draw up a contract, where he reveals the Germans plans, but only if the Prince Regent agrees to a general election. The impressed Prince Charles finds out he's fallen in love with Mary and wants to stay with her. The day after the coronation ball, Mary's sincerity has inspired Charles to finally show love to his son.

The following morning, the Carpathians must leave England. Charles had planned for Mary to go back to Carpathia with them. In 18 months, the prince will no longer be a royal, but a normal, free citizen. Also in 18 months, Mary's performing contract will be over. as the say goodbye, the two realize how much can happen in 18 months.

General Wellington orders Richard Sharpe to find out what happened to Claud Hardy, one of Major Michael Hogan's exploring officers, who was sent to locate Spanish gold thought to be in the (fictional) hamlet of Casatejada, and to retrieve the gold himself through any means necessary, as Wellington's army is in desperate need of funds.

Sharpe sets off with his small company and links up with Major Kearsey, another of Hogan's exploring officers. Kearsey makes it clear that he believes that the gold belongs to the Spanish and the purpose of the mission is to return it to them. They meet the local partisan commander El Catolico, who delights in torturing French prisoners to death.

When Kearsey is captured by the French, Sharpe decides to go into the town and rescue him, as the partisans trust the major. They succeed, at the cost of a few of their own men, and free not only Kearsey, but also Teresa Moreno and her brother Ramon. The Spanish guerrillas soon enter the town, and they surprise Sharpe as he searches for the gold.

El Catolico admits knowledge of the gold and strongly implies the British intend to take possession of it rather than merely escort it to the Spanish in Cadiz. He claims to Sharpe and Major Kearsey that he witnessed the French take the gold and capture Captain Hardy.

Sharpe is strongly attracted to Teresa, who is betrothed to El Catolico. Her father, Cesare, is the region's nobleman, but now fights with the partisans. Despite his status, he is deferential to El Catolico.

El Catolico assigns partisans to escort Sharpe and his men partway back toward British lines, but when they leave, Sharpe doubles back late at night to search a fairly new grave. El Catolico is not fooled, and his men are waiting for Sharpe, but Patrick Harper learns that the gold is hidden under a large pile of manure nearby. Sharpe takes Teresa hostage to extricate himself and his men.

They head for the fortress of Almeida and are harried by both the partisans and by French troops. Sharpe and Teresa fall in love. When questioned, she admits that El Catolico murdered Hardy (after the latter found out about the gold) and that her fiancé intends to use the gold for his own ends, rather than turn it over to the provisional Spanish government in Cadiz.

Sharpe and his men are about to be overrun by French lancers, but are rescued by a unit of King's German Legion cavalry under Captain Lossow, who was sent by Hogan to search for them and take them to Almeida. The officers meet the commander of the fortress, the English Brigadier Cox. Sharpe had an order personally written by Wellington, ordering that all officers give Sharpe whatever assistance he requires, but Kearsey had torn it up, so Cox is suspicious of his motives. El Catolico and his men arrive the same night and lodge a claim for the gold on behalf of the Spanish government.

Unable to contact Wellington, as the telegraph is destroyed by French artillery before a message can be sent, Cox orders the gold to given to El Catolico and that Sharpe and his men join the besieged garrison. That night, there is a final showdown between Sharpe and El Catolico on the roof above Sharpe's bedroom window. Sharpe, knowing that El Catolico is the far superior swordsman, traps El Catolico's rapier after it impales his leg long enough for Sharpe to disarm and kill him.

However, since Cox insists on giving the gold to the partisans, Sharpe decides to blow up the fortress's magazine. Before he can do so, however, a stray French shell ignites the gunpowder trail he had laid to the magazine. The ensuing massive explosion breaches the fortress walls and kills many of the garrison, including Kearsey. Cox is forced to surrender. Sharpe and Lossow depart with their men and the gold before the French forces enter.

Teresa returns to the partisans. Sharpe learns that the gold was needed to pay for the construction of the enormous defensive Lines of Torres Vedras, which form an impregnable barrier between the British Army's base in Lisbon and Marshal Masséna's invading army. Hogan reassures Sharpe that the gold was more necessary to Wellington than Almeida.

Sharpe is granted a month's leave by Wellington, so he takes the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with Josefina LaCosta, his love interest from ''Sharpe's Eagle'', who has set herself up in Lisbon as an exclusive courtesan. When she complains after Sharpe chases away her latest client, a wealthy lieutenant, Sharpe laughs and drops gold coins, showing that he has enough of "Sharpe's gold" for her.

Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro) is a veteran New York City Police Department detective. When Vincent was only 8 years old, his father was executed for murder, because a child whom his father (also a cop but desperate for money) had kidnapped for ransom died when in his care. Vincent feels guilty for his father's deed, and has tried to redeem himself; he works hard and well as a cop despite the stigma of being the son of a murderer. Although he used to live in Long Beach, Vincent now lives in New York City.

Vincent has a son called Joey La Marca (James Franco). Joey is still in Long Beach, but he is a homeless junkie. Vincent last saw Joey 14 years ago, when Vincent walked out on his son and his son's mother, and went to live by himself. He has told his current girlfriend, Michelle (Frances McDormand), that he has no children.

Then Vincent's son, Joey, is implicated in a drug-related killing out in Long Beach. Vincent is unwilling to help his son, and Michelle cannot understand why.

Joey's girlfriend, Gina (Eliza Dushku) is struggling to stay sober for the sake of her infant son, Angelo; Joey is the father of the child. Gina pleads with Vincent to try to save Joey. Gina later abandons the child, leaving the toddler with Vincent.

Vincent's cop partner, Reg (George Dzundza) is sympathetic to Vincent's situation, and is trying to help Vincent clear Joey of the drug-related killing. On the basis of a tip-off, Reg and another policeman are in Long Beach searching an abandoned and ruined casino where Joey is thought to sleep, to try to take Joey in for questioning. During the search, Reg is brutally shot and killed. The second cop assumes that Joey killed Reg, and is unaware that Reg was killed by the ruthless local drug enforcer, Spyder (William Forsythe).

Joey is now thought to be responsible for two murders, including killing a cop. A massive police search is launched to stop this "armed and dangerous cop-killer". It looks as if the police will probably shoot and kill Joey if they can locate him.

Vincent decides he has to do whatever he can to save his estranged son, for the sake of his son, but also for the sake of his little grandson, so that his grandson can grow up with a mother and a father. Vincent decides he cannot stay "disappeared" from his son's and grandson's life, in the same way his own father disappeared from his life when he was a child.

After a difficult search, Vincent finds his son, who does not trust him and thinks that his father only wants to arrest him—cop first, father second. Eventually Vincent is able to persuade his son that he cares for him. When other police home in on them, Vincent uses his own body to block his son's body so that police cannot shoot Joey without first shooting him.

Joey is taken into custody without violence and father and son exchange a small smile before he is taken away.

Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger stop by the local university to investigate an apparent open-and-shut self-defense case. Professor Jeremiah Cowan was giving a class when a gunman burst into the room and pointed a gun at him. Cowan shot the intruder before the intruder could shoot.

The dead man was Ford Oldman, who had apparently made several threats against Cowan in the past. Monk explains to Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher how Cowan staged the scene, but before he can explain Cowan's motive, Natalie cuts him off, since the department hasn't paid Monk for his consulting.

Later that day, Stottlemeyer calls Natalie to say that he has Monk's check at the station. Arriving at the station, they notice that the San Francisco Police Department is making large budget cuts. It starts when Disher asks if they can break a $20 so he can get a cup of coffee from the machine, which the OCD-ridden Monk isn't willing to do. Stottlemeyer asks Monk to accompany him to the Conference of Metropolitan Homicide Detectives, which this year is being held in San Francisco. At the conference, Stottlemeyer reveals several things, including Monk's case clearance rate. After, the captain thinks Paul Braddock, the moderator (and a detective from Banning, California), used to work for the SFPD until Stottlemeyer threatened to expose his abusive methods to Internal Affairs.

While having coffee with Natalie, Stottlemeyer asks her and Monk to come with him to Mill Valley, where he is planning on checking in on a police informant he once worked with. The man's name is Bill Peschel. They travel out later that day to meet Peschel, who lives with his daughter Carol, her husband Phil, and their two children. It becomes clear that Peschel suffers from dementia because he keeps thinking that he is running his bar. Keeping the part, Stottlemeyer acts like Monk is his rookie partner and they are seeking information.

Peschel first starts by saying that Hy Conrad was in here bragging about a smash-and-grab, but then gets to the point when he tells them that a fancy lady came in asking someone to kill her rich husband and make it look like an accident. After leaving, Natalie tells Monk that Peschel has Alzheimer's disease. Talking to Carol Atwater, Monk takes an obsession in the Diaper Genie diapers she uses. Carol mentions that most cops her father used to know now hang up on him when he calls in late at night with his tips. Peschel has also invested big in stock of InTouchSpace, a social networking site.

Monk Gets Laid Off

When Monk and Natalie arrive at the police station the next day, Stottlemeyer explains that due to the budget issue, Monk's contract as a private consultant has been officially declared void.

Natalie is infuriated as she can't get paid unless Monk is paid. Disher walks in, informing them that Judge Clarence Stanton was just gunned down in Golden Gate Park. Hearing this, Monk prepares to go to the scene, even if no longer a consultant. Examining the area outside the crime tape, Monk finds several clues that tell them that the killer is a woman. Judging from the impression of the killer's bike, it has a different distance from the seat to the handlebars, and the frame's top tube is at an angle, consistent with that of a woman's bicycle. The treads also match those of female running shoes.

Back at the apartment, Monk (desperate to use his Diaper Genies) "accidentally" creates several messes to prove that the Diaper Genies are great for trash bags. Natalie empties the Diaper Genie and walks back in to find Monk talking to the police hotline under assumed names with tips about Judge Stanton's shooting death. In the next morning's issue of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', the article about the shooting explains that Stanton was about to preside over the trial of Salvatore Lucarelli, the West Coast Godfather. Monk happens to open to an article about a hit-and-run and calls the police hotline anonymously again. This is too much for Natalie, who unplugs the phone suggesting Monk look through the Help Wanted ads. Then Stottlemeyer calls to tell Monk to stop sending in anonymous tips, since their caller ID systems traced the calls back to him.

Monk and Natalie at Intertect

Monk becomes a private eye

Just then, someone knocks at the door. The man's name is Nicholas Slade, and he is looking to hire Monk and Natalie at his private detective agency, Intertect. Slade explains how he used to be a vice detective on the force until ten years ago when he went private and started his agency. His agency is essentially a "private eye" in many ways. He was at the conference when he witnessed Monk's interview, knowing that Stottlemeyer was about to change the consulting agreement.

Natalie gets an assistant

Natalie goes down to the office to fill out paperwork and meets her new office assistant, Danielle Hossack. Danielle describes how wonderful Slade is, having made some strategic investments in the stock market and used the profits to start Intertect. She tells Monk and Natalie that she is at their beck and on call at any time. In short, Natalie is disturbed to find that she is effectively getting what she calls "her own Natalie", since, after all, Danielle's loyalty is to both of them, although Natalie is still loyal to Monk even though Intertect is now paying her. That afternoon, Monk is at work solving the open case files. He quickly proves a missing diamond case to be an inside job, and that a spy at a helicopter manufacturing company is using a wheelchair to smuggle secrets to the competition. Natalie also trades her Buick Lucerne for a Lexus company car.

As part of their employment at Intertect, both Monk and Natalie have their own benefits. With regards to Monk, Intertect is now paying for his sessions with Dr. Bell. Natalie has a new company car and a new dental plan.

When Natalie goes into work the next morning, Monk is still there, trying to solve the death of a man who has been stabbed in the chest. It's a six-month-old case involving Lou Wickersham, who was killed during a burglary. As Natalie informs Danielle that she can't be wheeling in case files to Monk like this, Danielle explains that the police have caught a break in the Stanton case. They are focusing on violent offenders Judge Stanton sent to prison and who have been recently released. They also pursuing a theory that Salvatore Lucarelli had him killed to avoid trial. Going back on the Wickersham case, Monk realizes that the circumstances around where Wickersham's body was found and the lack of defensive wounds don't add up. He realizes that it was a suicide, and explains that Wickersham ransacked his own house to hide the fact that he had sold his wife's jewelry and everything valuable to pay off loans. He only was able to buy some time. The best thing possible for him was to stage a home invasion, and stage his suicide as a murder to guarantee his wife a more comfortable life.

Monk Meets the Godfather Again

As Danielle, Monk and Natalie try to debate how to find proof that Wickersham's death was a suicide, Natalie receives a call from Slade. Another judge, Alan Carnegie, has been shot dead and the new client has asked specifically for Monk. The name of this client is Salvatore Lucarelli. Slade says that Lucarelli and Monk have met.

As they are driving towards the jail, Monk explains to Natalie the events of his encounter with Lucarelli in the season 3 episode "Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather". A man named Phil Bedard (who was played in the episode by Devon Gummersall), who worked for the US Mint, walked into a barbershop that was a front for Lucarelli's gambling and protection racket. He had stolen some money from his employers, and hidden it in the gumball machine at the shop. When the barbershop client tried to intervene as Bedard attempted to retrieve the pennies, Bedard grabbed his gun and fired like a maniac, killing everyone in the room in what was known as the Barbershop Massacre. Lucarelli and his men wanted revenge, but as he didn't want to spark a mob war, he pressed Monk and his first assistant Sharona Fleming to clear his name. Monk only took the job because the FBI and ATF saw an opportunity to get a man on the inside. Although Lucarelli was cleared of any charges, the feds were angry at Monk because he washed and ironed his wired tie, ruining it.

Now, with Stanton dead, Carnegie was to be the next in line to preside over Lucarelli's trial. Carnegie was shot while walking his dog. In the interview, Lucarelli says that he only kills lobsters at his restaurant.

When Monk and Natalie arrive at the scene of Carnegie's murder, they find Stottlemeyer and Disher there. At first, Stottlemeyer does not understand what Monk is doing looking at the body, since as Monk is no longer working for the SFPD, he shouldn't be crossing the police line. Natalie tries explaining otherwise, when Slade arrives. Slade suggests that Stottlemeyer reconsider his decision about not joining Intertect, and even tells him that Lucarelli had Monk come out to help. He even says that Monk, Natalie and Stottlemeyer would make a great team (which Natalie refers to as the Odd Squad). Disher points Monk over to Carnegie's house. No one heard any screams or cars screeching away, which allows Monk to close up the murders of Judges Stanton and Carnegie.

At Carnegie's house, Monk explains to Alan's widow, Rhonda, that her husband was the alternate to hear the case against Salvatore Lucarelli should something happen to Stanton. She wanted her husband's murder to look like a mob hit. It is the fact that the Carnegie family dog only barks at strangers that pointed Monk to the widow: If Alan Carnegie had been shot dead by a stranger, why didn't the dog bark madly at the shooter? The answer is that Rhonda, who is not a stranger to the dog, shot her husband.

After Disher arrests Rhonda Carnegie for the murders, Stottlemeyer thanks Monk for just happening to show up, since otherwise he would have exhausted himself for weeks trying to track down every connection to Lucarelli. Unfortunately, they can't rehire Monk as a consultant.

Peschel's death

As soon as Stottlemeyer finishes thanking Monk, Carol Atwater calls the captain to say that Bill Peschel is dead. She had left her father to drop off her son at school and drop off her daughter at a pediatrician's appointment.

Peschel apparently had jumped into the pool and banged his head badly. But Monk starts to think otherwise at the crime scene. Natalie ditches Monk at Dr. Bell's office. That night, Monk calls Julie to deliver some files to his apartment. Natalie convinces her not to. When the papers the next morning show the article about Rhonda Carnegie's arrest, Natalie finds it too painful to read all the way through, although she is pleased at the way Slade has twisted the article to improve Intertect's reputation.

Walking in the door, she finds Monk reviewing more case files. Monk says he thought Natalie went on vacation, which makes little sense considering that everywhere Monk goes, Natalie and murder follow. Carol Atwater calls to tell Monk and Natalie that her father has died.

At the scene, Monk and Natalie encounter Carol, Stottlemeyer, Slade and Paul Braddock, the moderator from the conference. Natalie finds it odd that Carol married someone with a name similar to her father (''Bill'' being short for ''William'', and ''Phil'' being short for ''Phillip'') and asks Monk about it. Carol comes over, explaining that Braddock and Slade happened to know her father in the 1990s. Stottlemeyer and Braddock's conversation, pleasant to start off, transitions into a brawl when Braddock attacks the captain. Slade prevents Stottlemeyer from taking the fight too far. Afterwards, Monk observes grass stains on the captain's pants. He remembers how Peschel's socks were clean and white, meaning he couldn't have walked across the grass. Monk has Natalie stand on the plastic chair that Peschel allegedly stood on. When she does, the legs of the chair sink into the grass under her weight. The chair Peschel stood on didn't sink its legs into the ground, even when he was twice Natalie's weight. Slade uses this claim to try and snag himself another client.

They suspect someone whom Peschel had sent to prison with his tips got released and exacted revenge. Meanwhile, Stottlemeyer figures that his career is at risk, since Braddock will probably go back to the convention and he will have to explain his injuries, and he might also twist the story to make Stottlemeyer look like a raging psychopath. Monk calls up Danielle to ask her to do some research into Peschel's career. She says that he was an early investor into InTouchSpace, the social networking site. Natalie explains to Monk that InTouchSpace works like Facebook and MySpace in that you can communicate with other people without leaving the comfort of your house, and that she, Julie, and Adrian's agoraphobic brother Ambrose use it.

Since Danielle doesn't call back, they take the afternoon off. Natalie drops Monk off at Dr. Bell's place and runs several errands while Monk squeezes in his sessions. Of course, Dr. Bell isn't entirely happy about Monk trying to squeeze in five-minute sessions between his other patients, and suggests to Natalie that she get Danielle to find more open cases for Monk to work on.

The next morning, Dr. Bell's hunch comes true when Natalie finds Monk with a cartload of cases that an Intertect employee gave to him. Infuriated, she confronts Danielle, but Danielle claims innocence and says that only one person has the authority to send these files over. Natalie confronts Slade that what he is doing to Monk is much like killing the goose that laid the golden egg – giving him too much work. Returning to Danielle (whom Natalie claims is working not for her but for Slade), Danielle states that Mill Valley's police have confirmed Monk's finds.

Braddock's death

Danielle tells Natalie that the death of Bill Peschel has been verified by police as a homicide. Through the time Stottlemeyer is arrested, the novel continues to follow Natalie and Monk with Natalie narrating, but also follows a third-person narrated subplot that pursues Lieutenant Disher.

Randy has given himself the nickname "Bullitt", after the film starring Steve McQueen. He has started calling Jack Lansdale, a new transfer into the homicide division, "Jackal". Stottlemeyer calls to Randy from his office. The captain's mood has been getting much worse since the reduced operating budget and the conference. Now, Slade has grabbed all of the glory for Rhonda Carnegie's arrest and humiliated the department. Randy has heard about how Stottlemeyer attacked Braddock. The captain tells Randy that he has a new homicide to investigate that will test his ability to lead: it's Braddock himself. He was found dead in his hotel room this morning.

As Disher and Lansdale drive towards the crime scene, Disher reviews the instances of abuse and statements from Braddock's victims. Reading the files causes Disher's nausea to reach a point that he vomits into the street in front of a Japanese tour group. Examining the crime scene, the medical examiner tells Disher that Braddock died of strangulation. Lansdale is a little curious when Disher tells Dr. Hetzer to look for traces of the comforter. Disher explains that things look as though Braddock was being strangled but fought back. The killer then pushed Braddock onto the bed and suffocated him.

At the hotel where Braddock was murdered, Disher has found no surveillance footage of the killer. He stops by Stottlemeyer's office to ask him exactly why the file says he was at the Dorchester Hotel the night before. Stottlemeyer explains that he was there at 9:30 PM because a cop said that Braddock was taking bribes from gang members running meth labs from their mobile homes in the desert. The cop never showed up. Disher explains that Braddock died around 10:00 PM, and whoever did it also turned up the air conditioning to prevent anyone from knowing the exact time of death.

In the meanwhile, Monk has been going through the new case files when Danielle shows up with background information about Bill Peschel. Monk was right in that Carol and Phil Atwater aren't a prosperous upper-middle-class family. Phil apparently lost his job months ago - he leaves the house each morning with a jacket and a tie but sits in a chair at a Barnes & Noble doing crossword puzzles. It seems possible that Carol and her husband planned the murder of her father. By posing as an obituary writer, Danielle has gotten more information from Carol about her father's early life. He took over the tavern in 1970, and became respected within the police department when he gave them tips to track the people who killed his friend.

Natalie picks Monk up as they head to the Barnes & Noble where Phil Atwater hangs out all day. Phil is just about to leave when Natalie informs him that they know he was fired months ago. It is possible that he murdered his father-in-law for the money, but he quickly is proven to have not been involved. However, he is guilty of shoplifting. Monk has observed Phil removing many of the anti-theft devices on a ''Murder, She Wrote'' novel. Phil does provide a rather important tip: ten years ago, his father-in-law (Peschel) made a lot of money through investment in InTouchSpace.

Captain Stottlemeyer is arrested

Disher finds a file from Forensics on his desk that morning. Polyester found on Braddock's neck has been traced back to the Continental, a type of tie sold at Walmart stores. Disher remembers seeing that tie before somewhere. Feeling nauseous, Disher tells Lansdale to round up several officers and head to Stottlemeyer's apartment to wait for Disher to bring a search warrant.

As Lansdale and his team search Stottlemeyer's apartment, Disher sits wracked with the guilt of betraying his friend and mentor. A detective from Wichita staying in the room next to Braddock's recalls hearing someone enter the room and break a glass. The tie found in the trash at the captain's apartment matches the fibers at the crime scene. Stottlemeyer still states that he never killed Braddock even with a motive. However, it's the captain's fingerprints that are on the glass, and so Disher arrests Stottlemeyer.

Meanwhile, Monk and Natalie are pursuing the mystery of Steve Wurzel. He was motorcycling from San Francisco to Mendocino in the fog, but he never arrived in Mendocino. He went missing on the coastal road. Natalie finds several strange clues like Wurzel buying Peschel's business and both investing in InTouchSpace. It's clear that Monk is suffering from case overload. As they drive along, Natalie calls Danielle asking to arrange an appointment with Linda Wurzel.

Back at the apartment, Monk finishes his Intertect cases while Natalie hones her detective skills by reading ''Murder, She Wrote''. The captain calls asking them to come to the jail. At first, they think that Lucarelli asked for them, so they are shocked to see Stottlemeyer in a jumpsuit. Stottlemeyer explains his situation, asking for Monk to clear his name.

At police headquarters, Randy has been promoted to Acting Captain and has moved into Stottlemeyer's office. Natalie is tempted to slap him, although Disher says he was following the evidence and hopes to clear the captain's name. He tells them that they are not allowed to look at the Braddock file, but Monk and Natalie immediately head to the scene of the crime.

At the hotel, Monk immediately proves that Stottlemeyer is innocent. There are four identical drinking glasses in the room, but in the crime scene photos, there are five. The fifth glass, the one Stottlemeyer's fingerprints were on, was obviously planted there later. As they leave the hotel, they run into Slade in the lobby. Slade says they need to talk about how with the way Monk is working, he is eventually going to destroy himself.

Back in jail, Stottlemeyer suggests that they look at Braddock's arrest records. He tells Monk and Natalie that a closer look at some of these arrests will bring up note that they came with the help of a confidential informant. Natalie calls Danielle and has her meet them at Monk's apartment. When Danielle enters (and Monk spends 30 minutes washing his hands), Natalie tells Danielle that she has realized how Slade has been using the GPS systems to track her and Monk around on their cases. But Danielle also has the information they need on Linda Wurzel and Dalberg Enterprises.

Linda Wurzel ''is'' Dalberg Enterprises - Dalberg being her maiden name. She has an office downtown and an estate in Sea Cliff, and three days a week has a standing appointment at JoAnne's beauty salon. They meet Wurzel, but after Monk freaks out about the skin cell eating fish, he and Natalie explain how Braddock's murder and Peschel's murder might be connected. The use of these creatures to eat dead skin cells is too much for Monk, who borrows Natalie's cell phone and places a call. Soon, the Department of Homeland Security arrives, and Monk solves the case. However, in a most unusual way, it turns out that Natalie has also solved the case - all she has been in need of is for Monk to string together the loose ends.

Here's What Happened

Peschel sold his business ten years ago, around the same time that Steve Wurzel vanished on the road. Linda Wurzel was their connection. At that same time, Slade quit the SFPD, and started Intertect by using the money of his InTouchSpace investment. Monk also remembers that on the day that he and Natalie first became private eyes at Intertect, Danielle told them how Slade used his investment money to start the company.

It is here that Monk is on the same page as Natalie: Slade killed Steve Wurzel, Bill Peschel, and Paul Braddock. Monk remembers how Peschel told them, and infers that he probably also told Braddock. It proves that Slade killed both of them and framed Stottlemeyer for Braddock's murder.

As they already know, Peschel worked a tavern in the Tenderloin for several years. He was a confidential informant who sold tips to Paul Braddock (who was working with the SFPD then), Nicholas Slade and Leland Stottlemeyer. Ten years ago, he sold his place to Linda Wurzel and retired with an InTouchSpace stock investment.

Natalie remembers how when she, Stottlemeyer and Monk went to see Peschel, he was living in his daughter's house and diagnosed with dementia. He thought he was still running his tavern, and that Stottlemeyer and Monk were cops who had come to him seeking information. She also remembers Peschel mentioning something about a smash-and-grab and about a rich woman who came in to hire a hit man to kill her husband and make it look like an accident, and she realizes who exactly he was talking about: he was talking about Linda Wurzel.

In 1998, Linda Wurzel went to Bill's Tavern, seeking a hit man to kill her husband. She probably figured that she would increase her odds of getting someone at the tavern. Peschel gave the tip to Slade. Slade, who was still a detective with the police department, posed as a hit man and met her. But instead of arresting her, he realized that this was too good a tip to pass up. He ran Steve Wurzel off the road somewhere between San Francisco and Mendocino. His body drifted out to sea and was never found. Whether or not Peschel helped him, they both got paid. Linda Wurzel bought Peschel's bar and gave both of them InTouchSpace stock. Slade used the investment to start Intertect.

Everyone was happy, that is until Peschel became senile and started calling his police friends with ten-year-old tips. Slade could not take the risk that Stottlemeyer or Braddock would piece together what Peschel was telling them. He realized that they had seen too much, so he had to silence them by any means possible.

Taking care of Peschel was the easiest part, but then Slade had to get Stottlemeyer and Braddock out of the way. He was incredibly worried, until he saw Braddock humiliate the captain at the conference. He stole Stottlemeyer's glass, being careful not to put his own fingerprints on the glass. Slade's luck improved when Monk got fired and Braddock attacked Stottlemeyer at Peschel's wake.

Knowing how well Monk solves cases, Slade hired him and Natalie and set them to work. He was trying to keep them busy and prevent them from knowing what was going on.

Just before meeting Monk, Natalie and Stottlemeyer at the Alan Carnegie murder scene, Slade killed Peschel. He killed him in the house, and threw his body in the pool, and staged the scene to make it look like an accident. Braddock was the next on Slade's list of people to be eliminated.

The night after Stottlemeyer attacked Braddock at the wake, Slade dressed himself in a beefeater suit, and took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Intertect was the company responsible for security, so people naturally thought that he could have been there for some other matter. He brought with him the glass carrying Stottlemeyer's fingerprints, and a tie of the same type and color as the captain's. He entered Braddock's room, talked with Braddock for a few minutes, and then strangled him with the Continental tie.

Braddock, however, fought back, and Slade suffocated him on the bed. The sounds that the Wichita detective was hearing from his room were the sounds of the struggle behind the wall. Slade planted the glass at the crime scene to frame Stottlemeyer. He knew very well that the Captain had thrown out his previous tie earlier that afternoon after Braddock had attacked him - he knew that the blood on the tie would match 100% and that the fibers would match as well. He knew Stottlemeyer would have an obvious motive, and even lured him to the hotel by faking the phone call, that way, the Captain would have an alibi for the time of the murder. No one in the department, would suspect Slade was involved.

Monk realizes they can't prove any of this. Natalie realizes this also. Linda Wurzel will talk to Slade and say they met her, or that Slade is tracking them. Natalie explains how she discovered the tracking devices in the GPS and the keylogger programs of their computers, and the possibility that the phones have wiretaps placed on them.

Not wanting Slade to know where they have been, Monk tells Natalie to call Julie and have her meet them at his apartment. He instructs Julie to drive the Lexus across town so that Slade will be distracted. In the meanwhile, Monk and Natalie will switch out the Lexus for Natalie's own car. He also has Danielle meet them in her own car. Monk, Natalie and Danielle make their way to Linda Wurzel's street for what will be Danielle's first stakeout.

Shortly after they park, Wurzel arrives. During the stakeout, Natalie turns her attention to the Braddock case. It's clear that Slade was the guy in the beefeater suit on the elevator tape, but it doesn't prove he was at the hotel at the same time that Stottlemeyer was. Slade could have created a false pretense as to why he was at the hotel that night as Intertect is responsible for the hotel's security, and he could have erased himself from the tapes. When Wurzel pulls out heading towards Danielle's car, Natalie gives her a call. They follow Wurzel across town to Mission Bay and an abandoned warehouse.

Parking a short distance away, Monk and Natalie sneak into the warehouse, Natalie muting her cell phone and setting it on speed dial so that they won't be seen. They observe Wurzel talking to Slade. When Slade pulls a gun with a silencer, Monk steps out to confront him. Slade asks them who is driving his Lexus all over Berkeley, which causes Natalie to forget about the case and ask herself what Julie is doing that far away in the middle of the night.

Monk explains to Slade that killing Steve Wurzel was his undoing. He was the only person who attended the conference who knew Peschel, Braddock and Stottlemeyer. Slade turns his gun at them and is about to shoot when Danielle leaps from a pile of bricks and knocks the gun out of his hand. Natalie snatches up the gun, aiming it at Slade, who now threatens to break Danielle's neck. Slade taunts Natalie, saying she can't shoot a gun. Slade releases Danielle just as Disher and the police arrive to arrest him and Wurzel for their crimes.

Monk Gets Hired

Disher congratulates Monk for his work and clearing Stottlemeyer's name. The open 9-1-1 call is as good as any confession. Monk disinfects the Captain's office before it is put to use. Stottlemeyer is exonerated and goes back at work. He is constantly repeating some of the things Natalie said on the open 9-1-1 call, and says that she'll be soon called "Dirty Natalie". He accepts Disher's apologies, but tells him that he was just doing his job.

Later, Stottlemeyer shows up later at Monk's apartment to officially say that Monk is back on their payroll as a consultant. He got the chief to reconsider by using political blackmail, threatening to explain his story to the TV stations if Monk wasn't rehired and the old budget brought back. With regards to the trial, Slade happened to be wearing a wire when he met Linda, and he has kept a recording of their conversation ever since for insurance. Monk prepares to return to being a consultant to the San Francisco Police Department, the position he really belongs in.

The show is about how two people get married and how one spouse ends up involved in the murder of the other spouse. The viewers were able to guess who murdered whom. The murderer was announced at the end of each show.

In ''Phantasy Star Online Episodes I and II'', the spaceship ''Pioneer 2'' arrived at the uninhabited planet Ragol in hopes of colonization in response to the failing ecosystem of the home planet Coral. In ''Episode III''. ''Pioneer 2'' has since gained independence from Coral, but inner strife still prevents an organized colonization, and it remains in orbit above Ragol.

The government of ''Pioneer 2'' also hopes to exploit "the germ", a mysterious substance discovered on the planet, which they use to power the newly developed "C.A.R.D. technology", which is used to store items such as weapons as cards and allow them to be used much more efficiently. C.A.R.D. is an acronym for "compressed alternate reality data". The game can be played as either the "Heroside" or the "Darkside". The "Heroside" are military commanders, who take orders from the government to explore, research, and ultimately, capture the Arkz, an anti-government faction. The "Darkside" are the Arkz, founded by a man known only as Red. The Arkz try to intercept and destroy the government's plans for the exploitation of the planet. They also oppose the use of C.A.R.D. technology due to its unpredictability and the lack of complete understanding of the germ. They still, however, use a stolen version of the technology in order to be able to compete with Heroside. Both sides also search for the location of the "Great Shadow", the source of the germ.

Within the two factions, each character has their own goals and aspirations, and playing as certain characters in battle will reveal different aspects of the story. When both sides of the story are completed, one after another, it is discovered that the government, while experimenting with the germ for clone technology, is attempting to create bio-soldiers with the genetic material of Red's deceased twin daughters. The final boss for Heroside is a rejected mutated clone of Pollux. The final boss for Darkside is a rejected mutated clone of the other twin, Castor. After completing the storylines and their boss battles, there is a final battle with the source of the germ, Amplam Umbra. Once the source is destroyed, ''Pioneer 2'' finally lands on Ragol, and the colonization of the planet begins.

The story begins with Collin Fenwick losing his mother, and then his father, and moving into his aunts' (Dolly and Verena) house. Catherine, the servant, also lives in the house and gets along, for the most part, only with Dolly. Dolly is famous for her medicine, which she makes by going out into the woods with Catherine and Collin and randomly picking plants. They then go to an old treehouse, which is propped up in a Chinaberry tree. One day, after Dolly has an argument with Verena (Verena wants to mass-produce Dolly's medicine), Dolly, Collin, and Catherine leave their home and start walking. They go to the treehouse in the Chinaberry tree, and decide to camp out there. Verena, meanwhile, informs the sheriff of her sister's disappearance; the Sheriff organizes a search party, and eventually arrests Catherine. During the course of the novel, others come to live in the treehouse, such as Judge Cool and Riley Henderson. In a climactic event, a confrontation among the search party and the residents of the tree house leads to Riley getting shot in the shoulder. After Judge Cool discusses the situation, everyone agrees that it was a pointless struggle, and old relationships are invigorated once again. Many people leave as friends. The story ends with how a "grass harp, gathering, telling, a harp of voices remembering a story."

The first act of the novel introduces Calvin Dexter, the main character of the story. Dexter is described as a lawyer in his early fifties with a passion for running triathlons to keep in shape. The book digs into his past and reveals that he is a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, and that his last tour of duty was as a tunnel rat, an extremely élite and secret task force that descended deep into the catacombs of Vietcong tunnels to hunt down the enemy in their own lairs. Dexter later married and had a daughter who at the age of 16 was lured away and forced into prostitution by Latino gang members and eventually murdered. Dexter hunts down his daughter's killers in Panama and executes them, then returns home only to discover that his beloved wife couldn't deal with the death of their only child and has committed suicide during his absence. He moves away and becomes only a small-town lawyer in his public face. But when the reason and price are right, he transforms himself into the "Avenger" and delivers justice not by killing criminals but by 'rendering' them to the United States, so that they will stand trial for their crimes against Americans. Intertwined into the backstory of Calvin Dexter is the narrative of a young American volunteer from a very privileged family who was killed while delivering aid in Bosnia during the Bosnian War.

As the second act kicks into gear, the boy's grandfather, a Canadian billionaire named Stephen Edmonds, hires a tracker to discover the identity of his sole grandson's killer and eventually learns him to be Zoran Zilic, a sadistic hitman for Slobodan Milošević's government. The CIA had followed the movements of Zilic during the war, but let him slip off the radar after the fall of Milošević. Edmonds then learns of the services provided by the Avenger and hires him to pursue Zilic and bring him to trial. It is then revealed that a secret section in the CIA, headed by Paul Devereaux III, a dedicated patriot, has been working with Zilic in recent months with plans to use him as bait to eliminate ''another'' terrorist danger — Osama bin Laden himself. From the CIA’s point of view, Zilic, despite his horrific crimes, had been marginalised as a result of the end of hostilities in Bosnia and could be used to neutralise a much larger threat to the American way of life.

The third act details the actions of the "Avenger" as he tracks Zilic to his palatial and fully self-sufficient farm/compound in South America. Meanwhile, the CIA operatives work furiously to prevent the "Avenger" from nabbing Zilic. The Avenger is tipped off by an unknown ally that the CIA is onto him and outsmarts them at every turn. He successfully manages to transport Zilic to Key West and into police custody. It is revealed in the aftermath that the person that tipped Dexter off was his Tunnel Rat partner from Vietnam, who is now Devereaux's deputy. Just as the story ends, the date is stated to be September 10, 2001.

Category:2003 British novels Category:British novels adapted into films Category:Novels by Frederick Forsyth Category:Political thriller novels Category:British political novels Category:Novels set in Florida Category:Novels set in Panama Category:Novels set in Vietnam Category:Novels set in New York City Category:Novels set in New Jersey Category:Novels set in Ontario Category:Novels set in Virginia Category:British novels adapted into television shows Category:Cultural depictions of Slobodan Milošević Category:Bantam Books books

''Groundpiglet Day''

Tigger wants to ski, but Winnie the Pooh and Piglet point out that there's no snow. So, they go ask Rabbit what day of the year it is, but after opening his front door and letting the wind blow in, Rabbit's calendar pages (November to February) get torn off and get swept under Rabbit's bed, but he doesn't realize it, and claims that it's February 2, Groundhog Day. In an effort to find out if there are two more weeks of winter or if spring comes tomorrow, they ask Gopher if he sees his shadow. Gopher angrily points out he's a gopher not a groundhog, so they have Piglet pretend to be a groundhog. His hat falls over his eyes, preventing him from seeing. Thinking that winter is over, they all prepare for spring by airing out their houses, planting gardens and spring cleaning. Later that day, it snows. A discouraged Rabbit confronts Piglet for lying to them and tells him that it's all his fault, and goes home to see wind blowing into his house and the calendar pages being blown outside. After putting the lost pages back on the calendar, he realizes that it's not Groundhog Day, it's only November 13. Feeling awful for what he said, Rabbit goes to apologize to Piglet, only to find a note from Piglet saying that he's gone to look for a real groundhog. Rabbit frantically goes looking for Piglet, while Piglet looks for a groundhog. Rabbit tells everyone that it's November 13. So, they decide to get ready for Thanksgiving.

''A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving''

Later, it is Thanksgiving in the Hundred Acre Wood and Winnie the Pooh and his friends bring food for the big dinner. Then, things change when Rabbit informs them that Thanksgiving is a special time of year that should include special items, so Pooh and the gang set off to find those very items.

''Find Her, Keep Her''

A month later, on Christmas Eve, Rabbit tells the story of how he met a baby bluebird named Kessie. Later that summer, Owl teaches her to fly. Rabbit refuses to let her fly, and with that, they go home. In the fall, Kessie looks out the window to see wild ducks flying south for the winter. For days, she tries to fly. Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet have an idea on how to get Kessie South for the winter, a giant slingshot. When Kessie is about to take off, Rabbit arrives and stops her. He yells at Pooh. Next he tells Tigger to stay out of slingshot and let go of it. Tigger lets go, and Rabbit is hit and falls off the same cliff Kessie had fallen off of that summer. Kessie quickly swoops down, and grabs Rabbit, and brings him back to the top. Now that Kessie can fly, she plans on going south the next day. The next morning, Owl, Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger say goodbye to Kessie as she prepares to fly south. Meanwhile, Rabbit is in his garden feeling sad, and stubs his toe on a potted carrot, that Kessie had planted. He rushes to say goodbye to Kessie but finds he's too late now and Kessie is gone. However, he is happy when Kessie comes back to say goodbye. Back in the present, Rabbit tells Roo that he has not seen Kessie since then. Everyone hurries outside to decorate a tree. Christopher Robin arrives to help decorate. After the tree is done, Rabbit realizes he forgot the most important part, a star to go on top of the tree. Rabbit is really sad but then sees a falling star. Everyone gathers to make a wish, only to realize that it's not a falling star. It is Kessie holding a star, which she puts on the tree. Rabbit and Kessie hug, and Kessie wishes Rabbit a Merry Christmas.

Heavyweight boxing champion George 'The Iceman' Chambers (Ving Rhames) is convicted of rape and sentenced to Sweetwater, a new prison in the desert. The high-security facility is populated by hardened criminals. Unaware of the prison's ways and its unique hierarchy, the pompous and bratty Chambers tries to impress upon the inmates his status as a champion boxer.

The prison camp, within its own walls, has a riveting competition on which a betting syndicate thrives. Criminals fight in boxing matches with very lax rules, thus making it a very addictive and lucrative venture for the syndicate. The most popular boxer behind bars is Sweetwater's undefeated Monroe "Undisputed" Hutchen (Wesley Snipes), who ends up in solitary confinement after Chambers picks a fight with him in the mess hall. Flashbacks to Hutchen's own boxing career shows that he had been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for beating to death a man who was sleeping with his girlfriend.

Sensing the brewing hatred for the heavyweight champion, an incarcerated mob boss named Mendy Ripstein (Peter Falk) senses potential in a match between the modest Hutchen and the egomaniacal Chambers. Ripstein, a lifelong boxing fan, proposes a match and Warden Lipscomb (Arndt) is persuaded to look the other way.

As all the arrangements are finally organized, an eagerly awaited fight night arrives. Chambers knocks down Hutchen twice (and with the London Prize Ring Rules, each knockdown counts as the end of a round, as the boxer is given only 60 seconds to get up.) In the third round, Hutchens charges back and knocks Chambers down for the first time in his career, sending the crowd of prisoners into a frenzy. Finally, in the fourth round Hutchen officially KO's Chambers to become the undisputed champion.

Ripstein's Mexican assistant reveals, in a narrator voice, that Ripstein died three weeks after the fight, but in his will, he left him $2,000,000. Chambers was released on parole, and Hutchens received the money for his sister, who was experiencing hardship on the outside.

It is also revealed that Chambers and his manager denied that the fight with Hutchen ever occurred, and that it was all a rumor. Months later, Chambers wins back the Heavyweight Championship of the World. The whole cell block watches the televised fight, and laugh and cheer Monroe's name after hearing Chambers being crowned the 'undisputed' heavyweight champion of the world.

The story features three anthropomorphic wolves who build four houses using different types of materials: bricks, concrete, steel, and flowers. A big bad pig tries to destroy the houses made of bricks, concrete, and steel by huffing and puffing, but fails, so he finds a way to destroy those houses by using a sledgehammer for the bricks, a pneumatic drill for the concrete, and dynamite for the steel. However, when the pig tries to blow down the flower house, he smells the fragrant flowers, and has a change of heart. The pig and he and the wolves live happily ever after as friends.

In 1969, Alan Parrish lives with his parents Sam and Carol in Brantford, New Hampshire. One day, he escapes a group of bullies and retreats to Sam's shoe factory. He meets his friend, Carl Bentley, who reveals a new shoe prototype he made by himself. Alan misplaces the shoe and damages a conveyor belt, but Carl takes responsibility and loses his job. After the bullies attack Alan and steal his bicycle, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats to a construction site. He finds a board game called ''Jumanji'', which was buried 100 years earlier, and brings it home.

That night, after arguing with Sam about attending a boarding school, Alan plans to run away, but his friend, Sarah Whittle, returns his bicycle. Alan shows her ''Jumanji'' and invites her to play. With each roll of the dice, the game piece moves by itself and a cryptic message describing the roll's outcome appears in the crystal ball at the center of the board. After Alan inadvertently rolls a five, a message tells him to wait in a jungle until someone rolls a five or eight, and he is sucked into the game. Afterwards, a swarm of bats appears and chases Sarah out of the mansion.

Twenty-six years later, Judy and Peter Shepherd move into the now-vacant Parrish mansion with their aunt, Nora, after their parents died in an accident on a ski trip in Canada the winter before. Discovering ''Jumanji'' in the attic, Judy and Peter begin playing it. Their rolls summon giant mosquitoes and swarms of monkeys. The game rules state everything will be restored when the game ends, so they continue playing. Peter next rolls a five which releases a lion and a grown up Alan. As Alan makes his way out, he meets Carl, who is now working as a police officer. Alan, Judy, and Peter go to the now-abandoned shoe factory and learn that Sam abandoned the business to search for his son after his disappearance, until his 1991 death. Eventually, the factory closed, sending Brantford into economic decline.

Realizing they need Sarah to finish the game, the three locate Sarah, now haunted by both ''Jumanji'' and Alan's disappearance, and persuade her to join them. Sarah's first move releases fast-growing carnivorous vines, and Alan's next move releases a big-game hunter named Van Pelt, whom Alan first met in the game’s inner world. The next roll summons a stampede of various animals, and a pelican steals the game. Peter retrieves it, but Alan is arrested by Carl. Back in town, the stampede wreaks havoc, and Van Pelt steals the game.

Peter, Sarah, and Judy track Van Pelt to a department store, where they set booby traps to subdue him and retrieve the game, while Alan, after revealing his identity to Carl, is set free. When the four return to the mansion, it is now completely overrun by jungle wildlife. They release one calamity after another until Van Pelt arrives. When Alan drops the dice, he wins the game which causes everything that happened as a result of the game to be reversed.

Alan and Sarah return to 1969, just in time for Alan to reconcile with Sam, who tells him that he does not have to attend boarding school. Alan also admits his responsibility for damaging the conveyor belt. After realizing that they have memories of the game, Alan and Sarah throw ''Jumanji'' into a river, then share a kiss.

In an alternate version of the present, Alan and Sarah are married and expecting their first child. Alan's parents are still alive and Alan is now successfully running the family business. Alan and Sarah meet Judy, Peter, and their parents Jim and Martha for the first time during a Christmas party. Alan offers Jim a job and convinces them to cancel their upcoming ski trip, averting their deaths.

Meanwhile, two young girls hear drumbeats while walking on a beach. ''Jumanji'' is seen lying partially buried in the sand.

Rena Hayami is introduced as a Japanese ambulance driver. On one afternoon, she responds to an accident at Twin Ring Motegi. Pressed for time, Rena pushes her driving skills to the limit in order to deliver the injured racer to the hospital. Along for the ride with his injured team member, the former racing engineer and now team manager Stephan Garnier is impressed enough to offer Rena a chance to become a racing driver herself. She accepts and joins Stephan's team, oblivious to the fact that the team is sponsored by a shadowy corporation called GVI, which determines the placing of the racers in the race, as shown in one of the chapters, when Rena (the player) is forced to place second, not first. At first, Rena benefits from the company's influence and is given equipment and opportunities to race in major events. However, she quickly develops a bitter rivalry with independent Spanish veteran racer Gina Cavalli. It is later revealed that Gina despises GVI, and her contempt for the company spills over to Rena, whom Gina considers to be their pawn. Later, when the first rally race chapter was introduced, Stephan's team mechanic Eddie is introduced, and it is revealed that Stephan was once a very good team manager until an accident occurred involving one of his racers, he was forced to resign. Towards the end of Rena's rookie season, Eddie comes up with a plan to leave GVI with Stephan and Rena. Months later, they form a new team without GVI's influence and Gina finds new respect for Rena, and the two become friends while continuing their rivalry on the racetrack.

With his pregnant wife at death's door after a car crash, desperate husband John Barrett (Winstone) invades the home of Mark Driscoll (Dutton) and holds both Driscoll and his rich, neglected wife Sally (Fenn) hostage in order to understand the events that led to his wife ending up in a coma.

On Christmas Eve night in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a steam locomotive passenger train stops at the house of a boy who is growing increasingly skeptical about the existence of Santa Claus. He goes outside to check it out and the conductor says it's the Polar Express and is on its way to the North Pole and encourages the boy to hop on. Although reluctant at first, the boy climbs aboard and meets a spirited girl and a smart know-it-all boy. The train then stops to pick up a boy named Billy. At first, Billy refuses to board, but he changes his mind, prompting the boy to apply the emergency brake, allowing Billy to board. The children are served hot chocolate by a team of singing and dancing waiters, and the girl saves a cup for Billy, who chooses to sit alone in the observation car. The conductor and the girl go to give Billy his cup, but the boy notices that the girl's ticket has not yet been validated. When he tries to take it to the girl, the wind takes the ticket to the wilderness where wolves roam and an eagle who brings it to its chick, but it soon finds its way back into the train; after the girl discovers that her ticket is missing (although the boy offers his ticket, the conductor does not allow this), the conductor leaves with the girl, presumably to throw her off. Before the boy can stop the train again, he finds the ticket and traverses the rooftops of the train to find the girl.

The hero boy encounters a mysterious ghostly hobo that takes him to the engine, where the girl has been put in charge since the driver and fireman, Smokey and Steamer, are busy replacing the headlight. After the light is replaced, they are forced to stop the train when they see a herd of caribou blocking the tracks. The conductor yanks on Smokey's beard, causing Smokey to scream out in pain, and the caribou clears the tracks. As the train continues on, it moves at an extreme speed due to the split pin shearing off, and the train starts rocketing down Glacier Gulch. Once they reach a frozen lake, Smokey uses his hair pin to replace the split pin and Steamer narrowly gets the train onto the tracks on the other side of the lake after the ice breaks.

Once the hero boy and the girl are safe, the conductor takes them back to their seats. They go through an abandoned coach full of thrown away toys where the hobo uses a marionette puppet of Ebenezer Scrooge to scare the boy. They soon find Billy singing to himself. The train arrives at the North Pole, where the conductor announces that one of the children will be chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas from Santa himself. Seeing Billy still alone in the observation car, the girl and boy persuade him to join them. However, the boy accidentally uncouples the car, sending it hurtling along a route towards an sewer railway turntable inside Santa's workshop. The children make their way through an elf command center and a gift-sorting office facility, where Billy finds a present in his name, before sliding down a massive slide into a funnel and being dumped into a giant sack of presents, where they also find the know-it-all kid. After the sack is loaded onto Santa's sleigh, the elves escort them out before Santa and his reindeer arrive.

A bell flies loose from the galloping reindeer's reins; the boy initially cannot hear it ring, until he finds it within himself to believe. He returns the bell to Santa, who selects him to receive the first gift of Christmas. Santa agrees to let him keep the bell, and the boy places it in his robe pocket. The rear car is returned to the train by the elves as the children board to go back home, but the boy discovers that he lost the bell through a hole in his pocket he unintentionally ripped while getting out of bed. As soon as Billy heads home, his present is waiting for him inside the house. Hero Boy returns home, and the conductor reminds him that "it doesn't matter where you're going. What matters is deciding to get on." And wishes him a Merry Christmas. He awakens on Christmas morning to find a present containing his lost bell with a note from Santa. He and his younger sister Sarah joyfully ring the bell, but their parents do not hear the bell since they don’t believe in Santa and decide that the bell is broken. The boy reflects on his friends and sister eventually growing deaf to the bell over the years as their belief faded. However, despite the fact he is now an adult, the bell still rings for him, as it does "for all who truly believe".

Dr. Andrew Manson (Robert Donat) is an idealistic newly qualified Scottish doctor dedicated to treating the Welsh miners suffering from tuberculosis in the Welsh mining village of Blaenely and is an apprentice to Dr. Page (Basil Gill). Initially, he has many lofty scientific goals, but meets local resistance in his research. After his laboratory and notes are destroyed by the miners, he moves to London, taking working class patients in impoverished conditions. There, his purpose erodes when a chance encounter with a medical school friend, Dr. Frederick Lawford (Rex Harrison) leads to his quiet seduction by an unethical medical establishment, treating rich hypochondriacs. Christine (Rosalind Russell), his wife tries to set him back on the original path. Dr. Philip Denny (Ralph Richardson), Manson's best friend and still working for improved working class health, dies at the hands of an incompetent, social-climbing surgeon.

The film follows Tome, a young woman born to a rural lower-class family in the Tōhoku region in 1918, who, after a long series of mishaps, rises to the status of a madam in the post-war era. When she is sentenced to jail, her daughter Nobuko becomes her patron's lover, but later steals his money to use it for building up a farming commune.

Ricky Hayman and Kate Newell work at the Good Buy Shopping Network, a home shopping channel run by John McBainbridge. Sales have been down over the last two years under Ricky's management, and Kate was brought in to come up with new ideas.

Ricky views Kate as a threat and she expresses her dislike for him as well. However, John has given Ricky an ultimatum to increase sales, or lose his job. While out driving one day, Ricky and Kate come across a charismatic strange man who calls himself "G". G is unusual in that he wears white robes and is perpetually happy and smiling. He seems to sense how troubled Ricky is, and follows them back to the Good Buy studio.

G wanders onto the set of an infomercial, and while he is on the air, the number of calls with customers wanting to buy something increases. Kate notices this and gets G his own spot on the network selling items. Meanwhile, the mutual dislike between Ricky and Kate fades and they begin to express romantic interest in each other.

G's infomercials are mostly spontaneous anecdotes or thoughts about life, but customers connect with him and even the slowest moving items begin selling out. While staying at Ricky's house, he encounters a party of businessmen and displays his talents by making a Rolex watch "disappear" and curing a man of his fear of flying. Ricky begins marketing G's name on other items to increase sales. He wants to give G his own show, but the stressful work environment and throngs of fans who want to meet G begin to take its toll.

G is no longer the happy, inspiring man he once was, and when Kate tries to convince John to let G leave the network, he refuses and she quits out of contempt. Ricky reaps the benefits of the increased sales, receiving a large promotion and a new office. However, the rewards seem hollow due to G's lethargy and Kate's rejection of him.

On the night of the premiere of G's new show, Ricky searches himself and decides that letting G go is the right choice. He announces his decision live on air to the studio audience and to his boss. Kate hears of his decision and forgives Ricky, racing back to the studio to be with him. They have a romantic reunion on the air, and the show is ended. Afterwards, Ricky and Kate say their goodbyes to the fully recovered G, who wanders off into the distance to continue his pilgrimage.

In the mid-17th century, the court of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany gather to watch a play. The town of Mâcon is plagued with a curse that has made every woman barren and brought famine to the land. A woman is in labour signifying the first birth in many years which the midwives initially believe is a false labour due to The Mother's advanced years and general ugliness. However, she does give birth to a healthy baby boy. Her husband, the Father, immediately seeks to profit by selling potions to cure impotence. However, the elder Daughter (Julia Ormond) of the couple is taken with the child and sees potential to use him to make herself rich.

Years later the Daughter successfully passes the child off as her own claiming him as a virgin birth to protect her own virtue. Various precious gifts are given to the Baby of Mâcon and a cult develops around him. The Daughter sells the Child's blessings of fertility in exchange for livestock and riches. She keeps the Mother and the Father imprisoned, along with the Child's wet nurse and a young girl chosen by her to be her father's sexual slave.

The Bishop, sensing a threat, considers the Daughter blasphemous and the Bishop's Son (Ralph Fiennes) believes that either she is a virgin and the Child is not hers, or the Child is hers in which case the Daughter is a whore. Frustrated, the Daughter uncages her parents to show the Bishop's Son she is still a virgin but he refuses to believe her mother is the mother of the Child. The Daughter then takes the Bishop's Son to the farm where she keeps her livestock and offers her virginity to him. The Child stumbles across them and prevents the Bishop's Son from taking the Daughter's virginity by using his power to urge a sacred bull to gore the Bishop's Son. He warns the Daughter not to kill the bull, as even he will not be able to protect her from the consequences. The Daughter kills the bull and the townspeople discover her. Sensing opportunity the Bishop says she is unfit to be the Child's mother and takes custody of him.

The Bishop auctions off the Child's fluid with many suspecting he is being tortured to produce holy tears and blood which sell at high prices. At night, the Daughter sneaks into the Child's room and suffocates him for abandoning her.

The Bishop orders her executed; however, the laws of the town expressly forbid the execution of a virgin. To circumvent this Medici makes a suggestion to the Bishop that the Daughter be raped. The Bishop dispenses holy pardons to members of the Militia allowing them to rape the Daughter. The scene is to take place in a curtained-off canopy bed behind which the actress playing the Daughter acts out screams. However, the actors in the scene actually rape her while Medici and the court, stationed outside, gleefully count off the rapists. After she is raped by 208 men she is sentenced to execution only for it to be discovered that she is already dead from the trauma.

The townspeople gather to bury the body of the Child. Fearful to be without his powers they begin to gently strip his relics and eventually viciously dismember him hoping that his body will bring them good fortune.

Famine falls once again onto the city of Mâcon. The cast members take a bow and the rest of the court turns around and bows to the camera, acknowledging that they too are performers.

The player characters explore a stepped pyramid deep in the heart of a tropical jungle—the ''Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan''. The characters must penetrate this Mayan-style temple, which is full of tricks and traps. Some of the traps include cursed items, firebombs, and triggered statues.

The shrine is an ancient Mayan/Aztec pyramid, and the module uses names, monsters, and characters based on that period. It also includes an illustrated booklet with fifteen pictures depicting various parts of the shrine to be shown to the players at the appropriate time. Also included are three pre-made characters for use if the scoring system is used.

The main character is Mervyn, a sorcerer's apprentice whose botched spell turns him into a frog just in time to save him from an invasion of evil magic-users who slay his mentors. Mervyn's arcane capabilities are intact, and the game's aim is to hunt down the attackers.

Hotshot businessman Bill Campbell (Broderick) has returned to his hometown of Buzzsaw at the request of his younger sister Marci (Peldon), who is convinced that their stepfather Mayor Van Der Haven (Jones) has been murdered and replaced by his twin brother Matt Skearns.

On the way to Buzzsaw, Bill's car and clothes (including his wallet which contains an important contact number) are stolen by a woman named Sally (Kling) and he is forced to hitchhike home naked, where he is picked up by two drunken brothers—both named Jim (Monks and Reilly). Over the course of the day, Campbell must find Sally, retrieve his wallet, and avoid the diabolical Skearns, who is looking for financial compensation after spending 15 years in prison for a crime committed by his twin brother.

The film ends with Skearns driving off a cliff and into a canyon, rather than risk capture by the police. Marci, who tells her classmates what happened, introduces them to her brother and his wife, Sally. Marci also tells her classmates that the Jim brothers were congratulated as heroes for trying to bring a criminal to justice. Both were given jobs as FBI informants.

High school senior Nick Powell plans to skip his graduation and fly to London for a writing program, despite the plan of his controlling mother, Diane. His mother pressures him to succeed and is emotionally distant.

Nick's best friend, Pete Egan, confides in him that he is bullied by Annie Newton, a troubled teen. Nick attempts to step in on one such occasion, only for it to escalate into a physical confrontation. Annie's closest friends are violent thieves, and her boyfriend, Marcus, is on parole for similar violations.

Nick tells Pete about his plans to leave for London and they say goodbye. Annie decides to rob a jewelry store across the street from where Marcus is stealing a car. Marcus reprimands her, and tries to take the jewels for himself, but Annie keeps them and pushes him to try to stop her. Believing Annie is out of control, Marcus tips off the cops. Annie is arrested and assumes that Pete is responsible because he saw her load the merchandise into her locker.

She later attempts to beat a confession out of Pete. When Annie does not believe his innocence, Pete reluctantly gives up Nick's name, thinking that Nick is already on a plane to London. He is unaware that Nick gave his ticket to a girl at a party, having decided not to go. When Annie and her crew find Nick walking home from the party, they run him off the road and beat him mercilessly. When Annie believes she has killed Nick, they dump his body into a sewer.

The next morning Nick goes to school to find that no one can see or hear him. He returns home to find his mother has filed a missing person's report, and the police are investigating his disappearance. After a while, Nick realizes that he is still alive, but unconscious. When Nick realizes that he is having an out-of-body experience, he reaches out to Annie and Pete to save his life.

Corrupt police Detective Larson seems close to putting together the whole truth, and implies that once he finds Annie he will be able to pin the robberies and murder on Marcus. Since Marcus is still on parole, Detective Larson tells him that even being associated with the murder could send him back to prison. Marcus decides to get involved and kidnaps Pete, forcing him to lead him to Nick's body so they can move it to another location. He conspires to kill Annie and arranges to meet with her. Annie calls Pete to the meeting place as well, who is under surveillance by the police. Distraught, Pete pens a suicide note and takes an overdose of pills to commit suicide as Nick frantically watches, begging him not to do it. Before Pete can fully die and starts to leave his body, Nick confronts him since they can see one another. Pete desperately tries to apologize as police close in. As Annie flees from both Marcus and the police, Nick yells at her and she hears him for the first time.

Although the two cannot have a conversation, she hears some of his voice in her head and can sense his presence. Annie feels her actions weighing on her conscience and stops to visit Nick's room to get a sense of who he is. The two realize that they were similar and, given different circumstances, the two could have been close. Diane catches Annie in his room, and she flees. She returns to the woods to find Nick's body, only to see that it has been moved. She confronts Pete and Marcus to learn the body's location. Marcus tells her, but shoots her in the stomach as she leaves. She shoots Marcus in return, and calls the police to tell them where to find Nick. Nick's body is found in a dam and is saved. After visiting him in the hospital, Annie dies from her wounds.

After leaving the hospital, Nick meets Annie's younger brother, Victor, flying his model plane at the park. They both commemorate Annie by writing her a message on top of the plane and flying it across the river bank.

Midsummer night, 1894, in northern Sweden. The complex structures of class bind a man and a woman. Miss Julie, the inexperienced but imperious daughter of the manor, deigns to dance at the servants' party. She's also drawn to Jean, a footman who has traveled, speaks well, and doesn't kowtow. He is engaged to Christine, a servant, and while she sleeps, Jean and Miss Julie talk through the night in the kitchen. For part of the night it's a power struggle, for part it's the baring of souls, and by dawn, they want to break the chains of class and leave Sweden together. When Christine wakes and goes off to church, Jean and Miss Julie have their own decisions to make.

The game opens with the Maken's activation; Kay watches with her father as Fei prepares to wield the sword. They are attacked by Sangokai member Hakke Andrey, who kidnaps Sagami and mortally wounds Fei. Prompted by Fei before he dies, Kay takes up the Maken; brainjacking Kay, the Maken defeats Andrey, but fails to prevent Sagami from being kidnapped. Despite brainjacking Andrey to pursue the Sangokai under Lee's orders, Kay remains tied to the Maken and is in danger of permanently losing her PSI. During the Maken's journey across the world, it is revealed that the Sangokai—whose members include the current President of the United States—are being influenced by a god-like being of the PSI realm dubbed Geist. Geist, which also seeks to preserve humanity through more extreme means than the Blademasters, intends to use the Sangokai to reduce the human population. Over the course of the game, the Maken has the option of brainjacking numerous characters from both the Blademasters and the Sangokai.

Depending on brainjacking and dialogue choices made by the Maken through the game, several different narrative paths and endings are unlocked. One ending has the Maken follow the Blademasters' orders, destroying the Sangokai and Geist while saving both Kay and Sagami; it is then sealed away as it has the potential of becoming a second Geist. Another ending sees the Maken allowing Kay to die, taking control of the American President following Geist's defeat. The third ending shows the Maken abandoning its mission in order to save Kay, which brings it into conflict with Geist—with the help of Kou, the Maken sacrifices itself and restores Kay to her body. Alternate versions of this route show the Maken being offered a deal by Geist if the Maken refuses to allow itself to die for Kay—accepting the truce restores Kay, while refusing it restores Sagami while the Maken permanently takes over Kay's body. Another route sees the Maken refuse to follow the Blademasters' orders and instead side with the Sangokai, killing Lee and joining Geist in creating a "utopia" by controlling human thoughts. If the Maken refuses to follow both the Blademasters and the Sangokai, it kills Geist while allowing Kay to die. The Maken is contacted by Lee's spirit, who says that the Maken is now the only being left capable of restoring the world.

After conquering hundreds of planets, the Star Cluster Gozma sets its sights on Earth. To defend it, the Japanese military forms an elite Earth Defense Force. Under Commander Ibuki, the force begins rigorous training.

Meanwhile, as their first act, the Gozma decide to eliminate those who pose the greatest risk of interfering with their invasion: the military. After a brutal day of training, the Earth Defense Force recruits are fed up with Ibuki's cruel ways and leave the training session. Soon afterwards, they are attacked by Gozma troops. Five surviving officers gather together, beaten and exhausted but refusing to retreat from the threat. The Earth trembles, empowering them with the Earth Force, giving them the power of mythological beasts and becoming the Changeman. With the mystical power of the Earth Force and military technology, the Changeman begin their war against Gozma.

While Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) and Mr Stringer (Stringer Davis) are soliciting donations for a charity ("The Reformed Criminals Assistance League"), they call on Mr. Enderby (Finlay Currie), a rich recluse. He tumbles down the long entrance staircase, apparently the victim of a fatal heart attack. Knowing that Enderby had a pathological fear of cats, Miss Marple becomes suspicious when she finds one in the house. She also finds a piece of mud bearing the print of a riding boot, but when she goes to Inspector Craddock (Bud Tingwell), he is sceptical, believing that Enderby died of natural causes.

Undeterred, Miss Marple eavesdrops when Enderby's family gather for the reading of the will. There are four beneficiaries: fourth cousin George Crossfield (Robert Urquhart), niece Rosamund Shane (Katya Douglas), nephew Hector Enderby (Robert Morley) and sister Cora Lansquenet. Each receives an equal share of the estate. Cora claims that Enderby was murdered. The next day, when Miss Marple goes to see her, she finds Cora dead, stabbed in the back with a hatpin. Cora's companion of many years, timid Miss Milchrest (Flora Robson), can provide little information.

Miss Marple begins her investigations as a guest at the Gallop Hotel run by Hector Enderby, where the other two surviving heirs and Miss Milchrest are staying. When Inspector Craddock questions them and Rosamund Shane's spendthrift husband Michael (James Villiers), none of them can produce a satisfactory alibi for the time of Cora Lansquenet's death.

An attempt is made to do away with Miss Marple, but is foiled by the intended victim (without her even realising it). Miss Marple then discovers that the piece of mud found in Enderby's house came from shady art dealer George Crossfield's riding boot, but her case against him is dashed when she learns that each of the heirs visited Enderby on the day he died, to ask for money. Crossfield has meanwhile found out who the murderer is, but he is locked in a stall with an excitable horse and is trampled to death.

By this point, Miss Marple knows the identity and motive of the killer, but has no definite proof. She therefore lays a trap, pretending to have a heart attack at a dance at the hotel while doing the twist with Mr Stringer. The police doctor places her in a room by herself, declaring it to be too dangerous to move her until morning. During the night, the murderer, Miss Milchrest, makes one last attempt to silence her, but Miss Marple is ready. Milchrest's motive is revealed to be a seemingly worthless painting owned by Cora, which actually was very valuable.

Hector Enderby later proposes marriage to Miss Marple but she turns him down. When she declares her distaste for blood sports, Hector, an enthusiastic fox-hunter, mutters to himself "That was a narrow escape!"

The series takes place in a fictional universe consisting of eighteen surviving realms which, according to in-game backstories, were created by an ancient pantheon of eternal, ethereal and preternatural divine beings, known as the Elder Gods. The ''Mortal Kombat: Deception'' manual described six of the realms as: "Earthrealm, home to such legendary heroes as Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, and Jax Briggs, and also under the protection of the Thunder God Raiden; Netherrealm, the fiery depths of which are inhospitable to all but the most vile, a realm of demons and shadowy warriors such as Quan Chi and Noob Saibot; Outworld, a realm of constant strife which Emperor Shao Kahn claims as his own; Seido, the Realm of Order, whose inhabitants prize structure and order above all else; the Realm of Chaos, whose inhabitants do not abide by any rules whatsoever, and where constant turmoil and change are worshiped; and Edenia, which is known for its beauty, artistic expression, and the longevity of its inhabitants." The Elder Gods decreed that the denizens of one realm could only conquer another realm by defeating the defending realm's greatest warriors in ten consecutive Mortal Kombat tournaments.

The first ''Mortal Kombat'' game takes place in Earthrealm (Earth) where seven different warriors with their own reasons for entering the tournament with the prize being the continued freedom of their realm under threat of a takeover by Outworld. Among the established warriors were Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade. With the help of the thunder god Raiden, the Earthrealm warriors were victorious and Liu Kang became the new champion of Mortal Kombat. In ''Mortal Kombat II'', unable to deal with his minion Shang Tsung's failure, Outworld Emperor Shao Kahn lures the Earthrealm warriors to Outworld, where Liu Kang eventually defeats Shao Kahn. By the time of ''Mortal Kombat 3'', Shao Kahn merged Edenia with his empire and revived its former queen Sindel in Earthrealm, combining it with Outworld as well. He attempts to invade Earthrealm, but is ultimately defeated by Liu Kang once more. After the Kahn's defeat, Edenia was freed from his grasp and returned to a peaceful realm, ruled by Princess Kitana. The following game, ''Mortal Kombat 4'', features the fallen elder god Shinnok attempting to conquer the realms and kill Raiden. However, he is also defeated by Liu Kang.

In ''Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance'', the evil sorcerers Quan Chi and Shang Tsung join forces to conquer the realms. By ''Mortal Kombat: Deception'', after several fights, the sorcerers emerge victorious; having killed most of Earthrealm's warriors until Raiden steps forth to oppose them. The Dragon King Onaga, who had been freed by the warrior Reptile at the end of ''Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance'', had deceived Shujinko into searching for six pieces of Kamidogu, the source of Onaga's power. Onaga confronted the alliance of Raiden, Shang Tsung, and Quan Chi to obtain Quan Chi's amulet, the final piece of his power. Only a few warriors remained to combat the Dragon King and his forces. Shujinko eventually triumphed over Onaga and removed his threat from the realms.

In ''Mortal Kombat: Armageddon'', the titular catastrophe begins. Centuries before the first ''Mortal Kombat'', Queen Delia foretold the realms would be destroyed because the power of all of the realms' warriors would rise to such greatness that it would overwhelm and destabilize the realms, triggering a destructive chain of events. King Argus had his sons, Taven and Daegon put into incubation and so one day they can be awakened to save the realms from Armageddon by defeating a firespawn known as Blaze. In the end however, Shao Kahn is the one who defeats Blaze, causing Armageddon.

The crossover ''Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe'' does not share continuity with the other games. After the simultaneous defeats of both Shao Kahn and the alien warlord Darkseid in the DC Universe causes both villains to fuse into the entity "Dark Kahn", both the ''Mortal Kombat'' and DC Universes begin to merge. This brings the warriors and heroes into conflicts after suffering bouts of uncontrollable rage. The heroes and villains of both universes repeatedly battle each other, believing each other to be responsible for the catastrophe, until only Raiden and Superman remain. The two confront Dark Kahn and team up to defeat their common foe. After Dark Kahn's defeat, the two realms defuse, with Shao Kahn and Darkseid trapped in each other's universes to face eternal imprisonment.

In the 2011 ''Mortal Kombat'' reboot, the battle of ''Armageddon'' culminated in only two survivors: Shao Kahn and Raiden. On the verge of death by the former's hand, the latter sent visions to his past self in a last ditch attempt to prevent this outcome. Upon receiving the visions, the past Raiden attempts to alter the timeline to avert ''Armageddon'' amidst the tenth Mortal Kombat tournament. While he succeeds in preventing Shao Kahn's victory with help from the Elder Gods, he is forced to kill Liu Kang in self-defense and loses most of his allies to Queen Sindel; leaving Earthrealm vulnerable to Shinnok and Quan Chi's machinations.

''Mortal Kombat X'' sees Shinnok and Quan Chi enacting their plan, leading an army of undead revenants of those that were killed in Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm. A team of warriors led by Raiden, Johnny Cage, Kenshi Takahashi, and Sonya Blade oppose them, and in the ensuing battle, Shinnok is imprisoned within his amulet and various warriors are resurrected and freed from his control, though Quan Chi escapes. Twenty-five years later, the sorcerer resurfaces alongside the insectoid D'Vorah to facilitate Shinnok's return. A vengeful Scorpion kills Quan Chi, but fails to stop him from freeing Shinnok. To combat him, Cassie Cage leads a team composed of the next generation of Earthrealm's heroes in defeating him. With Shinnok and Quan Chi defeated, Liu Kang and Kitana's revenants assume control of the Netherrealm while Raiden taps into Shinnok's amulet.

''Mortal Kombat 11'' and its expansion, Aftermath, sees the architect of time and Shinnok's Mother, Kronika, working to restart the timeline following her son's defeat and Raiden's tampering with her work. In doing so, she brings past versions of the realm's heroes to the present, aligning herself with some while the rest work to defeat her. After nearly killing Liu Kang a second time, Raiden discovers Kronika has manipulated them into fighting across multiple timelines as she fears their combined power. Despite her interference and attacks by her minions, Raiden gives Liu Kang his power, turning him into a god of fire and thunder so he can defeat Kronika. However in the Aftermath, Shang Tsung interferes given that Kronika's broken crown needs to be restored for the great reset to be successful. At the end, the player can choose your ultimate destiny in deciding whether Tsung or the fire god will prevail and start history anew.

The story alternates between two different narratives: Sam and Hailey, and Hailey and Sam, wild and wayward teenagers who never grow old. With an evolving stable of cars, the teenagers move through various places and moments in time as they try to outrace history.

As the story proceeds, one can note that many events are perceptual and not certain. By reading both stories some sense can be made from this poetic styled puzzle. The words written are a vague mix of poetry and stream of consciousness prose. Both Hailey and Sam depict their feelings as well as ideas and thoughts towards one another.

Strongly pressured by the crew of the ''Enterprise'', Captain Picard reluctantly agrees to take a vacation on Risa, a pleasure planet. Shortly after he arrives, he is kissed by a woman he has never met, in her attempt to fend off a Ferengi named Sovak. Sovak accuses Picard of conspiring with the woman, Vash, who has in her possession a data disc that he wants. Picard has no interest in the quarrel and returns to his room to discover two "Vorgons" who identify themselves as time-traveling police agents from the 27th century, searching for a powerful weapon called the Tox Uthat capable of stopping the fusion reactions of a star. The 27th-century scientist who invented it traveled back in time to hide it. According to their historical records, Picard will locate this object on Risa.

Picard confronts Vash about the Tox Uthat. She claims to be the former assistant of an archaeologist who discovered the location of the Uthat, gave her the disc for safekeeping, and died. Picard and Vash use the information on the disc to determine the Uthat's hiding place. When they arrive at the location where the Uthat is buried, the Vorgons appear to witness the discovery of the Uthat. Sovak then arrives with a phaser rifle and has Picard and Vash excavate the site at gunpoint for hours. However, the Uthat is not there. The Vorgons leave, confused because this doesn't line up with their historical record. Sovak, in his obsession, refuses to believe that the Uthat isn't there, throws away the rifle, and starts digging while Vash and Picard return to the resort.

After their arrival, the ''Enterprise'' returns to pick up Picard. He catches Vash attempting to sneak away from the resort and surmises that she arrived days earlier, located the Uthat, and devised a ruse to fool Sovak into thinking the Uthat was lost. She reveals the hidden Uthat and the Vorgons reappear, demanding it. When Vash suggests that the Vorgons may have ulterior motives, Picard has the ''Enterprise'' use the transporter to destroy it. The disappointed Vorgons reveal that Picard has acted just as their records said by destroying the Uthat, admit defeat, and leave. Vash and Picard have a final intimate exchange before they say goodbye to each other.

The film begins with Eiko, a student, learning about Noe Itō's life by interviewing her daughter, Mako. Eiko is shown to believe in Ōsugi's principles of free love. She is also connected with an underground prostitution ring and is questioned by a police inspector. Wada, another student, spends his time philosophizing with Eiko and playing with fire. The two sometimes engage in re-enactments of lives of famous revolutionaries and martyrs.

Their story is interwoven with the retelling of Ōsugi's later years and death. The scene where Itsuko tries to take Ōsugi's life is retold several times with differing results. The 1920s scenes in general follow a different pace than the 1960s scenes, both musically and stylistically.

In the final scene, Eiko's lover, a film director, commits suicide by hanging himself with a length of film. Eiko and Wada gather all of the 1920s characters and take a group picture of them. The two then leave the building.

An elderly couple, John and Marie Holt, visit a medical center specializing in a new technology: trading aged bodies in for younger models. The center representative, Mr. Vance, tells them that 98% of couples have been happy with the quality of the swap, but the company offers a guarantee that if they change their mind afterwards within one week, the swap procedure can be reversed. The swap costs $5,000 per body. John and Marie have only $5,000, and government regulations prohibit extension of credit for the procedure. Since John's health problems and constant physical pain make a body swap particularly imperative for him, Marie suggests that he alone do it, but John refuses to go through with the procedure unless they can do it together.

John attempts to earn the rest of the money in a high-stakes poker game. He loses most of his $5,000 over several hands. In a final hand, he must put the remaining amount on the table in order to call against Faraday, the only other player who has not folded on that hand. By coincidence, the total pot for the hand is $5,000. Faraday inquires why John is taking such a risk. John explains his situation and reveals a hand of three kings. Moved by sympathy, Faraday lays his winning hand (three aces) face down on the table and says John is the hand's winner, thus allowing him to leave with the same amount he started with. John admits to Faraday that he cannot endure his physical pain any longer and is going to have the procedure, then use his youthful body to earn the money for Marie to follow.

After John is transferred to a new body, and tells Marie how wonderful their new life will be. Marie breaks down in tears, unable to relate to a husband so much younger than her. John opts for the return clause, willing to cope with his pain in order for them to be together. His "old" body restored, Mr. and Mrs. Holt depart towards an uncertain future–but their love for each other is "younger" than ever.

After getting exposed to cosmic radiation, Reed Richards, Susan Storm, and Ben Grimm alongside their robot H.E.R.B.I.E., fight crime as the Fantastic Four.

Kal-El, instead of landing in Kansas, is intentionally sent to England (as it is the heart of the British Empire). He is found by the Clarks, who view a headset video found with Kal-El, learning of his origins. They mistake "Kal-El" for "Colin" and name him Colin Clark. Being raised stereotypically British includes belief in the philosophy: "What would the neighbours think?"

When Colin's powers begin to surface, each power causes a unique problem: when he learns to fly, he smashes the ceiling, and when he acquires heat vision, he accidentally burns his mother; though his father creates glasses (from the glass of his spaceship) to help contain the heat. Eventually Colin agrees not to use his powers, as they are causing problems.

Colin goes to university and meets and falls in love with Louisa Layne-Ferret, who initially ignores him completely. After a tragic cricket accident in which the bowler is impaled by Colin's cricket bat, a guilty Colin meets Peregrine Whyte-Badger, who takes both Colin and Louisa under his wing to become reporters for the British tabloid ''Daily Smear''.

Although his parents hated it when he used any of his powers, after heroically saving the Rutles, Colin adopts a secret identity and garish costume and becomes Superman.

Vicki Lynn (Jean Peters) is a waitress who is transformed into a fashion model by press agent Steve Christopher (Elliott Reid). When Vicki is murdered, detective Ed Cornell (Richard Boone) tries to blame the crime on Christopher.

In fact, the cop knows who the real killer is, but he is so hopelessly in love with the dead girl Vicki, who herself despised him, that he intends to railroad an innocent man to the electric chair. With the help of Vicki's sister Jill (Jeanne Crain), Christopher tracks down the real killer, Harry Williams (Aaron Spelling) and exposes the crooked cop Cornell, who had manipulated Williams into murdering Vicki.

Theresa O'Brian is a 12-year-old orphan who desperately wants to attend a school for the performing arts and become a star. She is not receiving encouragement at the orphanage and is getting into trouble with the orphanage officials due to her infractions of the rules and regulations.

In one of her unauthorized adventures away from the orphanage, she meets and befriends Sammy Cohen who was a Vaudeville performer who became an alcoholic and lost his career. He is interested in renewing his career and has faith in Theresa's ability, and together they develop an act called "Buddy and Babe" in order to raise money for Theresa's tuition.

While lost near the Spanish-Portuguese border, Sharpe and his company surprise a group of French soldiers in unusual grey uniforms, caught in the act of raping a teenage Spanish villager. They kill some Frenchmen and take two prisoner. During a parlay, their leader, Brigadier-General Guy Loup, offers to give Sharpe safe passage in exchange for the men, but Sharpe, appalled by the rape and massacre of the other villagers, including children, orders the prisoners shot. (Loup reveals that he counters the atrocities committed by Spanish guerrillas by having his men commit more heinous ones.) Loup swears to avenge them.

Back at headquarters, Sharpe is informed by Major Michael Hogan that the Real Compania Irlandesa, the royal bodyguard of the captive King of Spain, have been sent to join Wellesley's forces. As the British wish for Wellesley to be appointed Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies, it is imperative that the unwanted soldiers be treated with honour, though they are composed of Irish exiles and their descendants (who have no love for the British due to their occupation of Ireland) and have no combat experience. Wellesley assigns Sharpe to encourage them to desert by taking them to a fort close to the French and drilling them mercilessly. There Sharpe also has to deal with former Wagon Master-General Colonel Claude Runciman, a grossly fat and indolent man.

Pierre Ducos, a French intelligence officer answering to Napoleon himself, has planted an agent within the Compania Irlandesa, Dona Juanita de Elia, a Spanish noblewoman, the mistress both of the unit's commander, Lord Kiely, and of Loup. False rumours of British atrocities in Ireland, backed up by forged American newspapers, target not only the Compania, but also the many Irishmen in the British army. Despite knowing Wellesley's intentions, Sharpe decides to turn the demoralised exiles into real soldiers. He persuades Runciman to divert arms and ammunition to the Compania, and conspires with a local partisan, El Castrador, to kill and mutilate some deserters, making it look like the French are responsible, to deter further desertions.

The Compania are joined at the fort by a Portuguese infantry battalion. Sharpe, concerned by the threat posed by Loup's personal vendetta against him, acknowledges his illegal execution of Loup's men to a few officers. That night, Loup attacks the fort, massacres the Portuguese, and is only driven off when Sharpe's friend, Tom Garrard, sacrifices himself to blow up the ammunition wagons.

Sharpe's carelessly public admission and the imminent enquiry into the disaster endanger his career. Wellesley, though reluctant, is willing to make him a scapegoat to conciliate the Portuguese. To avoid this, Sharpe attacks Loup's hideout but finds it deserted, except for Dona Juanita, who is exposed as the enemy agent, and courier of the forged newspapers. Sharpe sleeps with Juanita, and lets her go the following morning, thus frustrating Hogan's hopes of uncovering her accomplice in the Compania.

The disgraced Kiely commits suicide, and his funeral is presided over by the regiment's chaplain, Father Sarsfield. In a private conversation over the open grave, Hogan informs Sarsfield that he is aware of his treachery, but lacks proof. Sarsfield attempts to kill Hogan, but is shot by Sharpe, and buried with Kiely.

The French, led by Marshal André Masséna, prepare to cut the British off from their only route of retreat and bring Wellesley to battle.

Wellington concentrates his forces at the village of Fuentes de Onoro. Still in disgrace, Sharpe, Runciman and the Real Compania Irlandesa are assigned to guard the ammunition wagons. French assaults push the British out of the village and steadily back up a hill. Wellington releases his reserves, who drive the French back into the village. However, the British are in turn counter-attacked by the Loup Brigade. With Sharpe's encouragement, Runciman "offers" to throw the Compania into the fray. They turn the tide of battle; as the Loup Brigade falters, the French fall back, and Wellington sends his men forward, winning the battle.

During the fighting, Loup and Sharpe duel in the ford over the river. Sharpe is shot and wounded by the Dona Juanita, who is in turn killed by Harper. Despite his wound, Sharpe disarms and drowns Loup. The Real Compania Irlandese are sent to the Spanish Junta in Cadiz with honour. The case against Sharpe and Runciman is dropped, in light of their bravery and the deaths of all eyewitnesses to Sharpe's admission other than Runciman, who lies on Sharpe's behalf.

A random group of individuals on a train travelling between London and Sheffield are cryogenically frozen when the train crashes inside a tunnel and a canister of gas being carried by a passenger is released in their carriage. They unfreeze to find the United Kingdom in ruins. Unbeknownst to them, 52 years have passed. They wrongly believe weeks, then months, then just 14 years have passed whilst they were frozen in time before eventually finding out the devastating truth. They are some of the few humans to have survived an apocalyptic asteroid strike and are alone in the British countryside. It is revealed that the passenger with the gas canister, Harriet Ambrose (Nicola Walker), knew of the incoming asteroid strike and had been on her way to a top-secret government project known as ''Ark''.

Harriet wishes to track down the ''Ark'' team to find her boyfriend, scientist Jonathan Geddes (Ralph Brown). The rest of the group agrees to join her, since it seems like their best chance to find other survivors and a safe haven. On the way, they must deal with the dangers of the post-apocalyptic world, such as feral dog packs and tribes of seemingly hostile humans... children of the few original survivors.

The story takes place in a time when the Spanish adventurers, known as Conquistadors, colonised the New World of the Americas, in search of the mythical gold treasures of the dethroned Native Americans.

In 1930, Lemuel "Lem" Siddons, a saxophonist in a traveling band, dreams of becoming a lawyer. When the band's bus reaches the small town of Hickory, Lem suddenly decides to leave the band and settle down, finding a job as a clerk in the general store owned by John Everett Hughes. At the town civic meeting, Lem again notices Vida Downey, a bank teller whom Lem had seen on his first day in town, and eventually attempts to woo away from her boyfriend Ralph Hastings. Lem notices Vida crosses off the YMCA and the 4-H from her list of three possible organizations to keep the town's boys off the streets, leaving only the Boy Scouts, and he decides to suggest and volunteer to become Scoutmaster of the newly formed Troop 1.

Some time later, Lem becomes an all-around natural leader with the Scout troop, even putting a plan to become a lawyer aside as he helps the town's boys mature into men. Meanwhile, the town's troublemaker boy, Edward "Whitey" White, Jr., refuses to join the troop. One night, while Lem and Vida are on a date, they catch Whitey shoplifting from Hughes' store. Startled, Whitey falls and sprains his ankle, which Lem bandages using the techniques provided in the Boy Scout Handbook. Impressed by Lem's work, Whitey secretly steals the book, which Lem allows, because he sees his past self reflected in Whitey. One night, Lem invites Whitey's father, Edward, Sr., to attend parents' night at the Boy Scouts' meeting place located on the lake property of Hetty Seibert. Edward arrives drunk and embarrasses Whitey, causing him to quit the troop. However, Edward dies later that very night of alcohol poisoning, leaving Lem and Vida to adopt Whitey.

In 1944, Lem is accidentally captured by the United States Army, who are playing a war game in the area near the lake. Lem is taken for a spy due to his Scouting equipment and is unable to prove he is a Scoutmaster after the military captain asks Lem to tie a sheepshank, the only knot Lem never learned. Across the lake, Troop 1 fires their morning cannon, accidentally signaling the military to playfully attack the boys. The scouts take shelter in a staged base and successfully capture a tank with explosive squibs, meant to resemble land mines, thus freeing Lem from the captivity of the embarrassed military.

Back at the lake, Lem and the troop discover that Ralph is taking Hetty to court over the lake property, since he believes it belongs to him. Lem is hired as Hetty's lawyer. He questions her on the stand, revealing that the property was once the location of her family cottage before it burned down in September 1918, two days after she learned that her sons were killed in France. Hetty states that she allowed the troop to meet there, as the boys reminded her of her late sons at play. Ultimately, Hetty wins the case and Lem is allowed to keep the property.

On September 1, 1945, Lem and Vida celebrate Hughes' birthday by listening to Harry S. Truman announce the end of the war over the radio. Whitey, who became a captain in the army, returns to Hickory to introduce Lem and Vida to his wife, Nora, an army nurse. In 1950, Hughes passes away, leaving the store to both Lem and Vida. Meanwhile, due to Lem's health, the Scout committee forces Lem to retire as Scoutmaster. In appreciation for his two decades of service, the entire town gives Lem a surprise celebration on October 2, 1950, with both current and former members of Troop 1 in attendance for the dedication of Hetty's property as Camp Siddons to honor Lem.

Archie Moffam is an Englishman in New York. Like Bertie Wooster he's kind hearted but mentally limited, if not negligible. Unlike Bertie he has no private income. He's a veteran of the First World War.

During a stay in New York he bitterly criticises the service at the Cosmopolis Hotel, thus making an enemy of its owner, Daniel Brewster. On a subsequent trip to Miami he meets, falls in love with and marries Brewster's daughter Lucille. Brewster is not delighted. Archie's attempts to make amends by finding employment and by purchasing a valuable objet d’art for Brewster end in disaster. Further indiscretions follow for Archie: he upsets Lucille by apparently paying too much attention to an actress; he bets $1000 on the Giants (then a New York baseball team), but gets into a fight with their star pitcher and injures his arm. He advises Lucille's brother, Bill, who has a habit of getting into relationships with girls of whom his father disapproves, and lends a hand to an old comrade from the war, “The Sausage Chappie”, who's lost his memory and forgotten his own name. He upsets Mrs Cora Bates McCall, a vegetarian and healthy food campaigner, by persuading her son to take part in a pie-eating contest. Then there's an incident with a painting which further upsets Brewster. Eventually he pacifies the old curmudgeon by telling him he's about to become a grandfather.

A poor prince wants to marry the Emperor's daughter and sends her two beautiful gifts, a nightingale and a rose. The princess rejects the humble gifts because they're real and natural, rather than artificial. The prince then disguises himself and applies for the position of swineherd at the palace. Once on the job, he creates a musical pot. The princess slogs through the mud to the swineherd's hut and pays ten kisses for the pot. When the swineherd follows the pot with the creation of a musical rattle, she pays one hundred kisses for it. The Emperor, disgusted that his daughter would kiss a swineherd for a toy, casts her out. The prince, having found the princess unworthy of his love, washes his face, dons his royal attire, and spurns the princess as her father did. The princess is left outside the palace door singing dolefully.

Andre Stander is an officer with the South African Police, newly married with a rising reputation as the youngest captain on the force. He and his partner are assigned along with other officers to riot duty in the wake of the Soweto uprising. In the chaos of one of the riots in Tembisa, Stander shoots a young, unarmed protester, which deeply affects him and causes him to become disillusioned towards the apartheid system. One day on his lunch break Stander decides to spontaneously walk in and rob a bank. He thoroughly enjoys the rush and decides to embark on a spree of robberies, even responding to one in his official capacity as an officer. In the wake of these robberies, Cor Van Deventer, Stander's partner, leads a team assigned to take down the new bank robber. Eventually being able to see through Stander's disguises, Van Deventer's team finally makes the arrest. Stander is stripped of his position and sentenced to 32 years in prison.

While in prison Stander meets two other men, Lee McCall and Allan Heyl, with whom he quickly fosters a friendship. The trio have grand plans of what they will do when they get out, even saying that when they do they will come back for each other. After a year or so in prison Stander and McCall go to play a rugby game with other prisoners. During the game they feign serious injury and are taken to the infirmary, where they knock the doctor unconscious and relieve the guards of their weapons. Shortly after their escape Stander and McCall return for Heyl, the three introduce themselves to each other as their new assumed names and proceed to rob a few banks, purchase a high-priced safehouse, and steal a yellow Porsche 911 Targa.

As the robberies continue, the risks that come with it increase exponentially, as the so-called "Stander Gang" is being relentlessly pursued by the police task force under none other than Cor Van Deventer. After a gunshop hold-up that left a woman shot as well as able to identify the gang, McCall dropping money on the way out of a bank, and McCall's unexplained shooting spree at another bank that lead to a police chase, the gang soon sees that their luck is running out as they become increasingly more reckless. Deciding it would be best to cut their losses and settle down Stander comes up with a plan to rob the exchange office at the airport and leave South Africa, using a combination of flight schedules and disguises to come up with the best plan. Hours before the robbery is to take place Stander returns to Tembisa to make his final peace with the father of the protester he killed, and is instead beaten with a club by the boy's father. As McCall becomes infuriated with the fact Stander did not come to pull off the robbery, he and Heyl see on the news that if they were to have gone to the airport a large number of police would have arrested or killed them, leading Heyl to say "Even when he's wrong, he's right."

In 1984, the gang begins to organise their exit strategy when Stander goes off to Cape Town to purchase a boat and Heyl plans to go to Greece. However, McCall's plans are cut short when a squad of police surround the safehouse. While driving to see McCall, Heyl tells Stander a story about his relationship with a black woman. She had become pregnant (not by Heyl) and the two were living together, when police saw this they beat her to the point of miscarriage. Heyl thanks Stander for all he has done to help him and McCall get their revenge on the system and how the last six months had been the time of him and his friend's lives. Meanwhile, back at the safehouse McCall scrambles for an escape, but realising there is no way out he decides to grab two pistols and begin shooting at police. Stander and Heyl pull up just in time to see McCall gunned down by police. As they drive from the scene Stander and Deventer lock eyes, a police chase ensues and the Porsche is severely damaged, leading Stander and Heyl to steal another vehicle and drive off into the distance. Heyl and Stander part ways to go off and escape South Africa. Stander, who is being followed by numerous policemen, rushes to the airport where he is forced to show identification. Deventer frantically rushes to see if it is Stander, but stops when he finds out that it was a false alarm (due to Stander's use of a fake passport) and Stander is allowed to leave.

Finally arriving in Fort Lauderdale (Florida, USA), Stander is unable to remain inactive for long when he hotwires a Mercury Cougar and runs a red light in front of police. Leading them on a short chase, Stander exits his vehicle and begins to disobey the officer's orders, prompting the officer's partner to grab a shotgun and threaten Stander with it. Stander disarms the partner only to be shot by the officer multiple times.

Iron Claw is the leader of a global criminal empire known as "Crime". Crime has a network of wealthy, influential sympathizers and employs an army of faceless, leather-masked thugs and cyborg assassins. It seeks to become the most powerful mafia organization in the world.

To combat the threat of Crime, ISSIS, the International Science Special Investigation Squad, is formed. The focus of the series is ISSIS's battles against Crime in Tokyo and Japan.

Tokyo's ISSIS branch commander, Daisuke Kujirai, proposes a radical experiment. Taking the code name "Joker", he recruits four young test subjects to undergo his cyborg enhancement project: Goro Sakurai, a multi-talented athlete and Olympic Gold medalist; Ryu Higashi, a disgraced boxing champion; Karen Mizuki, a policewoman who has been critically injured; and Bunta Daichi, an oceanographer who is clinically dead and is being cryogenically sustained. All four are surgically altered and given various bionic enhancements as well as energy manipulation powers. They are given the code name J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai, or J.A.K.Q (pronounced "Jacker"), and the mission to destroy Crime. Later in the series Joker leaves to head ISSIS's advanced engineering branch, and Sokichi Banba, a master of disguise and a cyborg, becomes their new boss, known as Big One.

The premise of the home console game: A young man named Donald J. Boy (DJ Boy) is a roller fighter taking part of an ultimate fight-race known as "Rollergame", taking place in Cigaretch City, located on the outskirts of New York City. Many people were excited to see DJ Boy, but a roller fighter gang known as the Dark Knights want him out of the competition. Their leader, Heavy-Met Tony, calls his gang to kidnap his girlfriend Maria, who also comes into town and defeat DJ Boy. DJ Boy must rescue Maria, defeat the Dark Knights, and win the Rollergame competition in one adventure. The arcade plot tells a different story. Two rollerskaters named Bob & Tom (the two playable characters) were breakdancing to the beat of their boombox, until it got stolen from rollerskater thieves (possibly the Dark Knights), in which they must find and defeat them in order to retrieve what is rightfully theirs.

Five days after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and Michael O'Laughlen, both members of the KGC, approach Thomas Gates to decode a message copied into Booth's diary. Thomas recognizes the message as a Playfair cipher, and translates it while Booth departs for Ford's Theatre to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, realizes Booth and O'Laughlen are trying to help the Confederacy, and rips the cipher's pages from the diary to burn them. O'Laughlen shoots Thomas and flees with the one surviving page fragment, and a dying Thomas tells his son Charles the keyword for the cipher.

Over 140 years later, famed treasure-hunter Ben Gates tells Thomas' story at a Civilian Heroes conference. Black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson produces the page fragment, with Thomas Gates' name next to those of Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd. The public believes Thomas helped kill Lincoln, and Ben and his father Patrick set out to disprove it.

Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers traces of the cipher on the diary page; when solved using the keyword, it points to the smaller Statue of Liberty in Paris. Traveling there, Ben and his friend Riley Poole discover an engraving referencing the Resolute desks. They head to London, reluctantly recruiting Ben's estranged girlfriend, Dr. Abigail Chase, along the way. Ben and Abigail sneak a peek at the Buckingham Palace desk, and obtain a Pre-Columbian carved plank from a secret drawer. Mitch, who had secretly cloned Patrick's cell phone in order to track Ben's whereabouts, pursues the trio, and eventually obtains the wooden plank after Ben manages to photograph it.

Back in America, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife, archaeo-lexicologist Dr. Emily Appleton, for help. She claims the carvings reference the "center of the earth", but points out that some of the glyphs are partial. Ben and Abigail convince Abigail's new boyfriend Connor, a White House Curator, to let them see the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Ben discovers that the second plank has been replaced by a stamp of an altered Presidential seal, which Riley identifies as the symbol for a secret shared diary, written by Presidents and containing controversial topics such as Watergate, Area 51, and the JFK assassination.

Ben crashes the President's birthday party at Mount Vernon to convince the President to explore a secret tunnel with him. There, Ben activates a secret sliding door, separates the President from his guards, and asks him about the book, while safely leading the President to freedom at the other end of the tunnel. The President sympathetically warns Ben that his actions, while innocently meant, will be interpreted as attempted kidnapping. He then reveals the book is hidden in a safe in the Library of Congress. Pursued by the FBI, Ben, Abigail, and Riley manage a brief look at the book. They find a photograph of the missing plank, and an entry by Calvin Coolidge. He found the plank in 1924, translated it, had it destroyed, and commissioned Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore, to hide evidence of a hidden treasure nearby.

After consulting Emily about the glyphs, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick head to Mount Rushmore. They meet Mitch and Emily there, as Mitch kidnapped her after Ben left. Mitch already has acquired, memorized, and destroyed the final clue, so he can claim the treasure. He helps the group find the entrance of a cave full of booby traps. After briefly getting separated, the group finds a pit containing Cíbola, a Native American city of gold. An ancient dam fails, and it becomes clear one of the group must sacrifice themselves in the quickly flooding cave to hold open the door for the others. Mitch does so, but begs Ben to give him posthumous credit for finding the treasure so he can be in the history books, too.

Ben and the rest return to the surface, where the President prevents Ben from being arrested by claiming Ben saved him from the tunnel's accidental closing. Ben ensures that Mitch receives joint credit for the discovery, rekindles his relationship with Abigail, and clears Thomas Gates' name by proving Booth consulted him about the treasure, not the assassination.

The robot creator Doctor Light created two human-like robots with advanced artificial intelligence named Rock and Roll. Following this, he created eight more robots intended for industrial use: Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, Elec Man, Time Man, and Oil Man. He received a Nobel Prize for Physics, and his old colleague and rival Doctor Wily has grown bitter for not being acknowledged for his work on the project. Wily discovered a prototype robot made by Doctor Light before Rock and Roll called Proto Man, who is in danger of having his energy generator go critical. Wily gave him a nuclear energy supply to extend his life. He later steals and reprograms the eight industrial robots to attempt world domination. Rock volunteered to stop Wily and rescue his friends, and Dr. Light converted him into a fighting robot, giving him a new name: Mega Man. After defeating all eight Robot Masters and returning them to normal, Mega Man goes through Dr. Wily's fortress and challenges him. After beating Wily, the mad scientist surrenders and asks Mega Man to spare him. Mega Man then returns home, where he's greeted by Dr. Light, Roll, and his friends.

11-year-old Henry Cassavant moves with his parents to a new town to escape from the memories of Henry's older brother Eddie, who was hit and killed by a car. Henry contributes to his family by working at a grocery store for Mr. Hairston, a deceptive old man who makes rude and racist comments about the townsfolk that would walk by his store. Despite his gruffness, Mr. Hairston appears to have a special liking for Henry, occasionally giving him candy bars.

Every day, Henry watches an old man leave the "crazy house" near his apartment and disappear down the street. Henry is very curious about what the old man does but cannot follow him because he is recovering from a fractured knee and is on crutches. The day after his leg is healed, Henry follows the old man to an art center, where he meets him in person. From George Graham, the supervisor of the center, Henry learns the old man, Mr. Levine, is a Holocaust survivor who lost his family to the SS. Mr Levine goes to the art center every day to carve out a model of his old hometown, complete with carvings of all the people he had lost, including his wife and children.

Henry and his mother visit Eddie's grave and talk about one day getting a headstone. Henry asks Mr. Hairston if he can somehow find him a good headstone to put over Eddie's grave. Mr. Hairston tells Henry he knows somebody who makes headstones and might be able to. Later, Mr. Hairston changes his mind, telling Henry he will be fired at the end of the week and will not receive the headstone. Henry returns home and finds that his father is being sent to the hospital, to be treated for depression.

Unable to deal with the stress of losing the headstone, his job, and his father in the same day, Henry goes to the art center. He learns that Mr. Levine's village has been given a prize from the city and will be put on display at the town hall. Further into the week, Mr. Hairston tells Henry that he will let him keep the job and he will get his brother's headstone on one condition: he must destroy Mr. Levine's model village.

Not knowing what he should do, Henry hides in the storage room at the art center and finds a mallet. Henry falls asleep in the storage room and when he wakes up, he finds the art center deserted. Henry then finds the mallet and brings it above his head ready to smash the village, before deciding not to do it. Just then, a rat startles Henry and he drops the tool on the village, destroying part of it. Mr. Hairston waits for him at a closed furniture store in the rain. When Henry asks Mr. Hairston why he wanted Mr. Levine's village destroyed, Mr. Hairston explains: "Because he is a Jew." Henry refuses the reward and quits his job.

Henry later visits the art center, where Mr. Levine, unfazed by his village being partially destroyed, is rebuilding it. George tells Henry Mr. Levine is "a survivor" and the ceremony date has been changed. Henry does not tell anyone what he did. Mr. Levine presents Henry with a carving of him like the ones he made for his village.

Henry and his family move back to Frenchtown, where Henry puts Eddie's old baseball bat and ball on his brother's grave as a monument.

Category:1992 American novels Category:Novels by Robert Cormier Category:American young adult novels Category:Novels about the aftermath of the Holocaust

Roommates and pals John Roth (Josh Hamilton) and Moe Curley (Harold Perrineau) start an adult internet site named InterconX where Jordan Nash (Vanessa Ferlito) is one of their stars. John has recently gone through a disastrous break-up with his fiancé, and is now obsessed with a woman named Angel, who lives her life on 24-hour webcam. A handful of people whose lives revolve around internet relationships at an adult web site become entangled in person in this comedy/drama.

The story begins with Kepler reading about a skillful magician named Libussa. He falls asleep while reading about her. He recounts a strange dream he had from reading that book. The dream begins with Kepler reading a book about Duracotus, an Icelandic boy who is 14 years old. Duracotus' mother, Fiolxhilde, makes a living selling bags of herbs and cloth with strange markings on them. Duracotus is sold by Fiolxhilde to a skipper after cutting into one of these bags and ruining her sale. He travels with the skipper for a while until a letter is to be delivered to Tycho Brahe on the island of Hven (now Ven, Sweden). Since Duracotus is made seasick by the trip there, the skipper leaves Duracotus to deliver the letter and stay with Tycho.

Tycho asks his students to teach Duracotus Danish so they can talk. Along with learning Danish, Duracotus learns of astronomy from Tycho and his students. Duracotus is fascinated with astronomy and enjoys the time they spend looking at the night sky. Duracotus spends several years with Tycho before returning home to Iceland.

Upon his return to Iceland, Duracotus finds his mother still alive. She is overjoyed to learn that he is well studied in astronomy as she too possesses knowledge of astronomy. One day, Fiolxhilde reveals to Duracotus how she learned of the heavens. She tells him about the daemons she can summon. These daemons can move her anywhere on Earth in an instant. If the place is too far away for them to take her, they describe it in great detail. She then summons her favorite daemon to speak with them.

The summoned daemon tells them, "Fifty thousand miles up in the Aether lies the island of Levania," which is Earth's moon. According to the daemon, there is a pathway between the island of Levania and Earth. When the pathway is open, daemons can take humans to the island in four hours. The journey is a shock to humans, so they are sedated for the trip. Extreme cold is also a concern on the trip, but the daemons use their powers to ward it off. Another concern is the air, so humans have to have damp sponges placed in their nostrils in order to breathe. The trip is made with the daemons pushing the humans toward Levania with great force. At the Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Moon, the daemons have to slow the humans down lest they hurtle with great force into the Moon.

After describing the trip to Levania, the daemon notes that daemons are overpowered by the Sun. They dwell in the shadows of the Earth, called Volva by the inhabitants of Levania. The daemons can rush to Volva during a solar eclipse, otherwise they remain hidden in shadows on Levania.

After the daemon describes other daemons' behavior, she goes on to describe Levania. Levania is divided into two hemispheres called Privolva and Subvolva. The two hemispheres are divided by the divisor. Privolva never sees Earth (Volva), Subvolva sees Volva as their moon. Volva goes throughout the same phases as the actual Moon.

The daemon continues the descriptions of Subvolva and Privolva. Some of these details are scientific in nature such as: how eclipses would look from the Moon, the size of the planets varying in size due to the Moon's distance from the Earth, an idea about the size of the Moon and more. Some details of Levania are science fiction such as: descriptions of the creatures that inhabit Subvolva and Privolva, plant growth on each side, and the life and death cycle of Levania.

The dream is cut short in the middle of the description of the creatures of Privolva. Kepler wakes up from the dream because of a storm outside. He then realizes that his head is covered and he is wrapped in blankets just like the characters in his story.

The ''Enterprise'' brings aboard the Betazoid Federation emissary Tam Elbrun (Harry Groener), and takes him to a distant star system. Elbrun, whom Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) previously knew when he was a mental patient, has a history of mental instability due to his overpoweringly strong telepathic capabilities, but his unique skills are used for first contact situations with alien life. However, some of the crew including William Riker mistrust him, due to an incident on another first contact situation he was involved in with another Federation ship. A misunderstanding broke out that led to the deaths of 47 Starfleet personnel, including two of Riker's friends from his Starfleet Academy class and the ship's captain. On this particular mission, Elbrun's abilities are needed to try to coax a giant sentient spaceship, code named "Tin Man," away from a star that is about to go supernova. It also comes to light that the star is in a Romulan-claimed area of space, and that this is a race to claim the ship. Elbrun finds it impossible to filter out the thoughts of the ''Enterprise'' crew, but finds solace in meeting Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), by whom Elbrun is initially puzzled, finding what he calls 'absence of mind'; he finds relief in developing a friendship with Data, who, being an artificial lifeform, has no organic mind to be read.

When they arrive, the ''Enterprise'' is attacked and disabled by a Romulan Warbird that has overly stressed its engines to catch up to them. The Romulans race ahead to try and communicate with Tin Man. When Elbrun gleans from the Romulans telepathically that they intend to destroy Tin Man if they can't claim it, he sends a telepathic warning to Tin Man. Tin Man suddenly comes to life and emits an energy wave that destroys the Warbird and further damages the ''Enterprise''. Elbrun, now in communication with Tin Man, reveals that it calls itself Gomtuu. The creature is millennia old and formerly had a crew, but they were lost in a radiation accident. Due to a combination of remorse, loneliness, and a lack of purpose, Gomtuu wishes to die in the supernova. Elbrun requests to be beamed aboard the creature, but Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is cautious of this action. When a second warbird arrives, Picard lets Elbrun transport to Gomtuu along with Data to help procure the ship. Elbrun is initially overwhelmed by Gomtuu, but eventually comes to identify himself with the ship.

With the supernova imminent, the elated Elbrun informs Data he will stay with Gomtuu, believing it is where he truly belongs. Moments before the start of the supernova, Gomtuu creates another energy wave that sends the ''Enterprise'' and the Warbird spinning out of the star system in separate directions before they are caught in the nova blast. As the ''Enterprise'' regains control, they find Data aboard the bridge, who reports what happened aboard Gomtuu. When Data discusses the events with Troi, Data comes to realize that like Elbrun with Gomtuu, the ''Enterprise'' is where he belongs.

The story recounts an evening in the life of a man named Farrington, frequently referred to simply as "the man". Farrington’s difficulties begin at his clerical job when his boss — whom he addresses as "Mr. Alleyne" — berates him for not having finished an assignment. Instead of applying himself immediately to the task, the alcoholic Farrington slips out of the office for a glass of porter. When Alleyne yells at Farrington again, Farrington replies with an impertinent remark and has to apologize. We learn that Farrington’s relationship with his superior has never been a good one, partly due to Alleyne’s overhearing of Farrington mocking his Ulster accent.

After work, Farrington pawns his watch-chain for drinking money and joins his friends for a night of drinking. Farrington’s account of his standing up to his boss earns him some respect. However, his revelries end in two humiliations: a perceived slight by an elegant young woman and defeat in an arm-wrestling contest. Farrington goes home in a foul mood to discover that his wife is out at chapel. He tells his youngest son, Tom, to make dinner but as the child lets the fire in the kitchen go out, Farrington's rage explodes and he starts beating the little child with a walking stick. The story ends with Tom pleading for mercy.

Setting

In the year 25XX, humans and Reploids - sentient androids initially created by Dr. Cain prior to ''Mega Man X'' - now coexist peacefully, successfully restoring Earth's former nations thanks to the technological efforts of Slither Inc. However, the peace is disrupted by several incidents of Reploids mysteriously going Maverick. Trading between nations became obstructed, forcing the nations to separate into utopian cities.

To repel the attacks, people banded together to create the Guardians, a Maverick-fighting defense and investigation force. The group's original leader, Ciel, mysteriously disappeared after an investigation where she discovered a Biometal (a living artifact containing characteristics of someone who lived long ago) called "Model W", which turned her team into Mavericks. In response, Ciel created six new Biometals (based on X, Zero, and the Four Guardians of Neo Arcadia) to counter the growing threat.

Story

A decade prior to the beginning of the story, Vent or Aile (depending on what gender the player chooses) loses his/her mother to a Maverick raid on an amusement park and becomes orphaned. He/she is taken in by Girouette (Giro for short in North America and Europe), the owner of Giro Express (Girouette Express in Japan), a delivery service. Giro is contacted by an unknown person to deliver a package containing Biometal Model X to a rendezvous point in a forest.

Vent/Aile and Giro are ambushed by Mavericks after meeting up. Vent/Alie escape the area while Giro covers their retreat. Here, he/she meets with Prairie, the leader of the Guardians, but their meeting is cut short when a Maverick attacks the group. Model X lends its strength to Vent/Aile, allowing him/her to "Megamerge" and transform into Mega Man Model X. With the help of Model X, the Maverick is destroyed. After finding Giro, in the form of Mega Man Model Z, they board an airship deemed the Guardian's headquarters. Later, a Maverick attack is spotted at the Slither Inc. main office. The duo meet the president of Slither Inc., Serpent, and his Reploid guardians, Prometheus and Pandora. Serpent reveals his knowledge of the Biometal and says that he's also a Mega Man, possessing Model W. He expresses his intent to find the Model W Core, and leaves, but not before possessing a weakened Giro with the power of Model W. A fight ensues, mortally wounding Giro. Giro hands Model Z over to Vent/Aile during his dying moments and transforms into a Cyber Elf. By "double mega-merging" with both Model X and Model Z, he/she uses the form Model ZX to escape. Now the Guardians, including Vent/Aile, must recover eight Biometal fragments and stop Serpent.

After finding four of eight Biometal pieces, the Guardian HQ comes under attack from Mavericks, led by Prometheus, with Vent/Aile aiding in the defenses. He/she succeeds in defeating Promethus before recovering the rest of the pieces. Upon retrieving all eight Biometal pieces and their passwords, Vent/Aile is able to enter a secret location and find Model W. However, Vent/Aile is stalled by Pandora and the Biometal is moved elsewhere. Later, Vent/Aile receive a signal from Model W, located at the Slither Inc. Head Office. Vent/Aile set off to destroy Model W.

After battling through Slither Inc., Vent/Aile face off against Serpent, who feeds the Model W core with several innocent Cyber Elves, and then fuses with it. Vent/Aile suddenly reverts to human due to the realization that the hatred of the Mavericks that he/she has kept inside his/her heart is the last thing needed to unleash Model W's full power, thus resulting in his/her temporary defeat. However, after gaining courage from the Biometals, he/she merges into Mega Man ZX and challenges Serpent to a final battle. During the battle, the tower collapses, destroying Model W and killing Serpent. Vent/Aile reunite with Prairie and the Guardians, and vow to continue to work for peace and justice.