Stephen Williams Movies

Boone (Ian Somerhalder) has been seriously injured in his efforts to use the crashed plane's radio to contact the outside world. As a doctor, Jack (Matthew Fox) is the most likely person to provide aid and comfort for Boone, but Jack receives unexpected assistance from another. Flashbacks cut back to a time when Jack was set to marry a former patient of his (Julie Bowen). Meanwhile, the relationship between Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Shannon (Maggie Grace) heats up considerably. And with only three very nervous and inexperienced survivors at her side, Claire (Emilie de Ravin) finally goes into labor -- while Locke (Terry O'Quinn) suddenly goes missing. ~ All Movie Guide

"Earth can be darker than space," so read the tagline for the ambitious cable sci-fi/fantasy series Odyssey 5. Returning from a lengthy mission in deep space, the crew of a shuttle discovered that they cannot go home because there is no home to go to: The Earth had been destroyed by a huge explosion. A mysterious alien called "the Seeker" (played in the two-hour pilot episode by John Neville) offered the crew an opportunity to prevent the catastrophe and save humankind by traveling five years back in time. There was only one hitch: The crew members were not their "present" selves in the past, but had all grown five years younger, and were still mired in the personal problems that plagued them at this earlier stage: One of the crewpersons was stuck in an unhappy marriage, another was weighed down by a drug dependency, still another was a pimply faced, neurotic high school kid, and so on. The principal characters were the Taggarts -- Chuck (Peter Weller), Neil (Christopher Gorham), Paige (Gina Clayton), and Marc (Kenneth Mitchell) -- and Kurt Mendel (Sebastian Roche), Angela Perry (Tamara Craig Thomas), and Sarah Forbes (Leslie Silva). Odyssey 5 launched its 19-episode Showtime cable network run on June 21, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast over Canada's CTV network on January 29, 2002, A Killing Spring was a one-shot attempt to revive the popular Joanne Kilbourn Mysteries series (aka Criminal Instincts), starring Wendy Crewson as the ex-police-detective-turned-university-lecturer created by Gail Bowen. Missing from this feature-length whodunit is Joanne Kilbourn's longtime co-star Victor Garber, though Shane Doyle fills in admirably as the "official" representative of the law. In this one, Joanne Kilbourn returns to Lanholm College, where she had once been a professor, when the Dean of Journalism is found dead, evidently the result of autoerotic suffocation during "rough sex." Although she risks losing an important internship, Joanne insists upon investigating the death, and in the process unearths a hotbed of moral depravity and academic backstabbing. Throughout, there is one person who is willing to commit murder rather than allow Joanne to expose his innumerable peccadillos -- and the result, inevitably, is two additional corpses. In the United States, A Killing Spring was picked up by the Lifetime cable channel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wendy Crewson, Sally Kellerman, Shawn Doyle and Robert Davi headline the thriller Verdict in Blood, directed by Stephen Williams. When a female judge is found murdered in her home, television reporter and amateur detective Joanne Kilbourn (Crewson) finds herself neck-deep in a homicide investigation. Her only two clues are twin wills left by the victim -- one donating everything to the woman's daughters, another donating everything to a boarding house for former criminals. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Originally titled Milgaard, this made-for-TV drama is a disturbingly accurate account of one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in Canadian history. In 1969, 17-year-old hippie David Milgaard (Ian Tracey) is arrested on suspicion for the rape and murder on nursing assistant Gail Miller (Ardith Boxall). Anxious for a quick conviction despite a paucity of conclusive evidence, the authorities in Saskatchewan rush David's trial through, and within less than two months of the murder he is sent to prison for life. As David's mother Joyce (Gabrielle Rose]) and a team of dedicated pro bono attorneys battle to clear her son's name, David goes through hell behind bars--for the next twenty-three years. First telecast in Canada in April of 1999 (though banned from viewing in Saskatchewan, where the events took place), Milgaard was retitled Hard Time: The David Milgaard Story for airing in the US via the Lifetime channel. Since that time, a third title has been bestowed on the film at the behest of David's family: Innocent: The David Milgaard Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A horror semi-parody targeted at the young adult market that ravenously gobbles up horror books like R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series, this made-for-TV vampire tale stars Chauncey Leopardi as Zach, a teenage rebel with a flair for telling ghost stories, who stumbles on an underground cabal of vampires when he takes a fateful ride on a New York subway. The vampire's leader, Valentine (Ron Silver), proposes a deal to young Zach, offering him safe passage to the world above, thus enabling the trapped vampire -- who can only mingle with humanity through the willing assistance of an innocent youth -- to reach the surface as well. Our young hero balks at this idea and escapes to the surface with a wild story for his skeptical pals, who shun him until one of their number is kidnapped by the undead subway dwellers in exchange for Zach's cooperation. Though atmospherically photographed, this low-budget production is a bit too corny to provide either laughs or chills, and it suffers further from lethargic pacing. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Cinematographer Chris Menges' first directorial effort, A World Apart was inspired by the lives of South African journalist Ruth First and her daughter Shawn Slovo (who wrote the film's screenplay). Barbara Hershey plays the fictional counterpart to Ms. First, Diana Roth, with Jodhi May as her daughter. Told from the daughter's viewpoint, the film shows us that Diana and her husband Jeroen Krabbe are so busy with their anti-Apartheid political activism that they totally shut May out of their lives. In 1963, Hershey is arrested by the South African police, becoming the first white woman to be held under the infamous 90-day-detention act. Left despondent and suicidal by two separate arrests and by constant harassment from the police, Diana still won't include her daughter in her life until the girl presses the issue in a climactic confrontation. Some critics felt that Shawn Slovo was using A World Apart to settle unresolved issues in her own life: Ruth First was killed under suspicious circumstances in 1982, without ever reconciling with her daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide