Linden Chiles Movies

Roz (Peri Gilpin) cannot help but be amazed how much Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) has in common with his late mother's research assistant Leland Barton (David Ogden Stiers). Can it possibly be that Leland and not Martin (John Mahoney) is Frasier's father? Roz investigates and gets some unsettling information from Martin that seems to confirm her suspicions. But as things turn out, Leland has a different surprise for everyone. ~ All Movie Guide

When the Brazilian rainforest home of young Princess Nisa (Laura Herring) is threatened by greedy American businesses, she travels to Los Angeles with Joa the shaman (Sid Haig). There Joa is thrown in jail, and Nisa must find a way to stop the rainforest destruction herself. When a young man who loves to dance crosses her path, and together they enter a televised lambada contest, Nisa might have found the answer to her prayers. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Figuring that he'll never get a pardon from the mercurial Stockwell (Robert Vaughn), Face (Dirk Benedict) plans to escape during the A-Team's next mission. But things don't quite go as expected when Face falls in love with Sally Vogel (Valerie Wildman), a journalist whose pose as the girlfriend of mobster Tommy Tedesco (Richard Romanus) has placed her in dire peril. Throughout the episode, Face continues seeking a means of escape only to return to help out Sally and his fellow A-Teamers--a pattern he follows all the way to the climax in Atlantic City. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fans of outrageously bad drive-in fare from New World Pictures will find much to love in this bargain-bin science fiction weirdness -- one of several Alien rip-offs foisted on defenseless audiences by Roger Corman's legendary B-movie factory. The plot -- which, of course, is irrelevant to the action -- involves a food-research team on a distant planet, whose latest genetic product decides it would rather eat than be eaten...and boy, is it hungry. Then enters our hero, an undefined government specialist (Jesse Vint) whose dreams in hypersleep find their way into almost every scene in the film -- his apparent powers of precognition, however, are never mentioned. Vint responds to the team's distress signal and shows up with his robot pal to blast the slime-beast to smithereens -- and, of course, to engage in a little intergalactic nookie with the team's female personnel. Meanwhile, the constantly mutating monster chews its way through virtually the entire cast before one cancer-ridden scientist devises a highly original (and extremely disgusting) solution. The ever-thrifty Corman recycled sets and scenes from Battle Beyond the Stars and Galaxy of Terror to pad out this weekend wonder, making up for its threadbare production values (which include plenty of cheap scares, nudity, and graphic gore). ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, Quincy (Jack Klugman) and his lady friend Janet (Diana Muldaur) are enjoying a luxury cruise to Tahiti, when tragedy strikes. One man suddenly jumps overboard and drown, while another is murdered--and the murderer subsequently dies himself. It turns out that a mysterious but deadly illness is rapidly spreading throughout the cruiser...and unless Quincy is able to isolate the source of the disease, no one will ever set foot on shore again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the writings and experiences of "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Where the Buffalo Roam details the adventures of Thompson (Bill Murray) and his attorney (Peter Boyle), whose character is rewritten as Mexican-American rather than Samoan, as they pillage and plunder their way across America on a drunken, drug-saturated mission to...well, their mission is as yet undetermined, but they set about it anyway. Highlights include a staged broadcast of the Super Bowl from Thompson's hotel room and a scene in which he escapes from the police with a little help from his trusty sidekick. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

The eternally victimized Elizabeth Montgomery is the star of Act of Violence. She plays a recently divorced newswoman whose world is shattered by a gang mugging (an astonishingly brutal sequence for a TV movie). The injuries subside, but Montgomery must heal her emotional wounds--and also reassess her liberal attitudes towards the rights of criminals. She is incapable of rational thought under the circumstances, and transforms into a vengeful bigot. The working title of Act of Violence was The Victim...Anatomy of a Mugging. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After several weeks of pre-emptions and reruns, Streets of San Francisco returned to the ABC lineup in late April of 1977 for its final six episodes. This time, Stone (Karl Malden) and Robbins (Richard Hatch) put out an A.P.B. on a convicted killer who has escaped from an asylum. Refusing to believe that he has murdered his wife, the fugitive embarks upon a desperate search for the dead woman--and in the process imperils the lives of several innocent bystanders. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While heading an anti-obscenity campaign aimed at notorious porno publisher Carlo Dicassa (John Saxon), a prominent priest is found dead in the bedroom of a prostitute (E.J. Peaker). The police are satisfied by the hooker's explanation that the priest died of a heart attack while she was "servicing him", and it looks like the dead man's reputation will be forever sullied. But medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman) finds a number of inconsistencies during his autopsy on the priest--and he becomes convinced that a frame-up and murder have occurred. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Future Brady Bunch star Robert Reed appears in this episode as Martin Avery, self-proclaimed doctor who treats a fatally wounded policeman at a crime, only to vanish from sight. Stone and Keller want to locate the doctor, who is the only eyewitness to the killing, but they are stymied by the fact that the man has given them a false name. It turns out that "Dr. Martin Avery" isn't a physician at all, but a very clever and talented impostor--and it is this fact that puts the lives of the phony medico and several other people in dire jeopardy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The still-unsolved Black Dahlia murder case, fictionalized in the 1981 theatrical feature True Confessions, is handled on a more factual level in this made-for-TV movie. Lucie Arnaz plays Elizabeth Short, an aspiring starlet of questionable morals, who in 1947 was murdered by person or persons unknown. What made the case particularly unsettling was the fact that Elizabeth's body was sliced neatly in two, with every ounce of blood drained from her body. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. costars as the Los Angeles detective who ends up dedicating a lifetime to tracking down Elizabeth's killer. Who is the Black Dahlia? debuted March 1, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This episode marks the first appearance of Gretchen Corbett as attorney Beth Davenport, erstwhile girlfriend of private eye Jim Rockford (James Garner). Characteristically, Beth has called upon Jim for a teeny-tiny favor: namely, to prove the innocence of her impoverished client Ann Calhoun (Patricia Smith), who is accused of killing her husband. Dutifully, Rockford heads to Parker Arizona, the hometown of Ann's late husband Kevin, in hopes of gathering new evidence. Before long both Jim and Beth find their lives threatened by a certain party who is harboring a sinister secret--in this case, the fact that Kevin Calhoun wasn't Kevin Calhoun at all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A 2,000 pound coach vanishes from a secured steel container, and it is up to Banacek to find the bejeweled treasure. ~ All Movie Guide