Mark Lenard Movies

In the second half of this two-parter, Picard and Data learn the truth behind Ambassador Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) unauthorized visit to the hostile planet Romulus. Spock, it seems, hopes to negotiate a reunification of the Romulans and Vulcans. Regarding this alliance as potentially dangerous, Picard objects, despite the logical nature of Spock's argument. Things heat up considerably when Picard and Data discover a Romulan scheme to double-cross Spock. Dedicated to the late Gene Roddenberry, part two of "Unification" was written by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and first aired November 16, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) concludes the story arc begun with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and continued in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), but on a wholly new, different, and upbeat note. As the movie opens, months have elapsed since the events in Star Trek III; Admiral Kirk (William Shatner), McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scott (James Doohan), Sulu (George Takei), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Chekhov (Walter Koenig) are marooned in self-imposed exile on Vulcan, along with the resurrected and regenerated Spock (Leonard Nimoy, who also directed). While Spock tries to sort out the Vulcan and human halves of his resurrected psyche, the others prepare to return to Earth to face a brace of charges by the Klingon Empire and Star Fleet over events on Genesis. Taking off in their commandeered, jerry-rigged Klingon ship, they head to Earth, not knowing that a new crisis could destroy their home world -- a huge, immensely powerful alien probe has entered the galaxy and established a position near Earth, disabling every vehicle and installation in its path with its energy and communication output, and has ionized the entire atmosphere and started vaporizing the oceans, leaving the planet only hours to survive.

Spock determines that the probe is sending out signals to another intelligent terrestrial life form, humpbacked whales, which no longer exist. Using the gravity slingshot time-warp effect (established early in the original series) to travel back into Earth's 20th century, Kirk and company land in 1980s San Francisco to try and bring humpbacked whales to the 23rd century, to respond to the probe. Thus starts a surprisingly breezy, light-hearted, yet serious odyssey through the past (comparable to the best work of the original series), as the crew learns to deal with exact-change buses, angry drivers, punk-rock enthusiasts and other elements of '80s life, and Kirk tries to persuade a scientist (Catherine Hicks) of his good intentions for two whales in captivity. The screenplay, co-authored by Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Nicholas Meyer, and Harve Bennett (from a story by Nimoy and Bennett), is the cleverest and most sophisticated of all the Star Trek movie screenplays, recalling some of the elements of Meyer's earlier time-travel movie Time After Time and also anticipating the feel and tone of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation (which would be on the air not quite a year later). Nimoy's direction offers a combination of brisk pacing and a deep love of the characters and the actors, as well as a serious appreciation of the humorous aspects of the script, and Shatner gives his best performance of any of the movies. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a news anchorwoman's prenuptial jitters increase dramatically when another man, a songwriter, falls deeply in love with her and decides that he would do anything to be her husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Woody Allen's romantic comedy of the Me Decade follows the up and down relationship of two mismatched New York neurotics. Jewish comedy writer Alvy Singer (Allen) ponders the modern quest for love and his past romance with tightly-wound WASP singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton, née Diane Hall). The twice-divorced Alvy knows that it's not easy to find a mate when the options include pretentious New York intellectuals and lifestyle-obsessed Rolling Stone writers, but la-di-dah-ing Annie seems different. Along the rocky road of their coupling, Allen/Alvy weigh in on such topics as endless therapy, movies vs. TV, the absurdity of dating rituals, anti-Semitism, drugs, and, in one of the best set pieces, repressed Midwestern WASP insanity vs. crazy Brooklyn Jewish boisterousness. Annie wants to move to Los Angeles to find that fame that finally does in the relationship -- but not before Alvy gets in a few digs at vacuous, mantra-fixated California. Originally entitled Anhedonia (the inability to enjoy oneself), Annie Hall blended the slapstick and fantasy from such earlier Allen films as Sleeper (1973) and Bananas (1971) with the more autobiographical musings of his stand-up and written comedy, using an array of such movie techniques as talking heads, splitscreens, and subtitles. Within these gleeful formal experiments and sight gags, Allen and co-writer Marshall Brickman skewered 1970s solipsism, reversing the happy marriage of opposites found in classic screwball comedies. Hailed as Allen's most mature and personal film, Annie Hall beat out Star Wars for Best Picture and also won Oscars for Allen as director and writer and for Keaton as Best Actress; audiences enthusiastically responded to Allen's take on contemporary love and turned Keaton's rumpled menswear into a fashion trend. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

The scene a remote South Sea island. A minor skirmish between rival soldiers snowballs into a potential catastrophe. A standoff between "us" and "them" threatens to heat up the cold war to the boiling point. There's plenty of preliminary bloodletting before the final high-noon showdown. Mark Lenard, John Russell, Linda Avery and Keye Luke star. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The IMF works hand in hand with a band of guerillas to rescue three rebellious scientists from a Communist prison. One of the captives is the beautiful Irina (Davana Brown), who has committed to memory all the secret information gathered by a recently executed scientist. The question: Will the IMF inadvertently cause Irina's own death when they hand her over to the guerillas? In the episode's most memorable scene, Phelps and his temporary ally Alex (Robert Purvey) hide in a huge statue. Originally telecast on November 28, 1970, "The Rebel" was scripted by Ken Pettus, from a story by Pettus and Norman Katkov. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Brown, David Soul, and Bobby Sherman were the stars of Here Come The Brides, which ran on ABC from September of 1968 until April of 1970, portraying Jason, Joshua, and Jeremy Bolt, respectively. The three brothers, living in Seattle in the year 1865, own nearby Bridal Veil Mountain. Left to them by their parents, who died some years before -- while Joshua and Jeremy were very young boys -- the mountain is a potentially vast source of timber, and provides employment for much of the area. But in the opening episode, the Bolts are about to lose all of their loggers because of the sheer remoteness of the Pacific Northwest, and the lack of one thing that the men regard as essential: Women -- more specifically, young, respectable, marriageable women. Jason Bolt (Robert Brown) strikes a bargain with the loggers: He'll bring 100 women to Seattle, all of marriageable age and seeking husbands, who will stay at least a year, if the men will keep working. In order to raise the money for the voyage east, the Bolts are forced to take a loan from Aaron Stempel (Mark Lenard), the owner of the local sawmill, which comes with one pre-condition -- if any of the women leaves in less than a year, the Bolts will default on the loan and ownership of the mountain will pass to Stempel. Jason, Joshua, and Jeremy head to New Bedford, Massachusetts, a city left largely bereft of younger men in the wake of the ravages of the Civil War, and find women doing all sorts of jobs usually done by men -- the first time they meet Candy Pruitt (Bridget Hanley), she's doing maintenance on a fire engine. It requires some selling (and conning) by Jason to get 100 women to go west, on a broken-down mule boat commanded by Captain Roland Francis Clancy (Henry Beckman). They're disenchanted with the boat and the town that they find at the end of their journey, but Candy Pruitt, who becomes they're de facto leader, is persuaded to stay on and persuades the rest of the women to try it for a year. She also develops the beginnings of a romantic attraction to Jeremy Bolt (Bobby Sherman). The youngest and most sensitive of the brothers, Jeremy talks with a stutter, which tends to make him sound even less sure of himself than he really is. Joshua Bolt (David Soul), the middle brother, is often caught between Jeremy and oldest brother Jason, acting as an intermediary between the two. The series' conflicts are often resolved with help from Lottie Hatfield (Joan Blondell), the owner of the local saloon, who becomes something of a mother hen to the New Bedford women. The other key characters on the show included Aaron Stempel, the sawmill owner who, in the first season, often played the role of villain in his attempts to maneuver the Bolts into losing their bet and their mountain. Also prominent in many episodes was Big Swede (Bo Svenson), the strongest of the loggers, Biddie Cloom (Susan Tolsky), Candy Pruitt's closest friend, and Captain Clancy, the mule boat captain, whose interest in Miss Lottie brings him back to Seattle on a regular basis. Most of the episodes dealt with the Bolts struggling to meet quotas and keep the women happy, or the romantic conflicts that inevitably resulted from men and women living in relatively spartan conditions amid competing relationships, although there were also episodes that focused on the complex relationship between the Bolt brothers, and Jason's dual-role as sibling/patriarch; and other episodes that addressed issues of racism and other prejudices, amid the rapidly changing post-Civil War world. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The Enterprise plays host to a number of interplanetary diplomats in preparation for a major galactic meeting in Star Trek 44: Journey to Babel, an episode from the second season of the well-known science fiction series. Amongst the guests are Sarek, the ambassador to the planet Vulcan -- who also happens to be Spock's estranged father. Despite the best efforts of Spock's mother, Spock and Sarek's differences remain irreconcilable. The distance between them grows when several of the other delegates are killed by an unknown assailant, and Spock names Sarek as the most likely suspect. The true test of family loyalties comes, however, when Sarek falls severely ill, requiring a donation of Spock's blood. Almost immediately thereafter, Captain Kirk is wounded by the killer, leaving Spock in command of the Enterprise and forcing him to choose between his duty to his father and his duty to the Enterprise. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

The IMF journeys to the Free World country of Valeria, where an election is about to be held. The police-controlled Nationalists intend to rig the votes so that they will emerge triumphant over the Liberty Party. The agents' mission is to "unfix" a crucial voting machine that has been tampered with by the Nationalists. Tension mounts as Cinnamon is targetted for surveillance by the police and Barney is shot in a skirmish. Written by Laurence Heath, "Wheels" was originally seen on October 29, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker George Stevens chose Monument Valley, Utah for his exterior sequences in The Greatest Story Ever Told, this ($20 million) adaptation of Fulton Oursler's best-selling book. The "Greatest Story" is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ, played herein by Max Von Sydow. The large supporting cast includes Dorothy McGuire as Mary, Claude Rains as Herod the Great, Jose Ferrer as Herod Antipas, Charlton Heston as John the Baptist, Donald Pleasence as Satan (identified only as "The Dark Hermit"), David McCallum as Judas Iscariot, Sidney Poitier as Simon of Cyrene, Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate and Martin Landau as Caiaphas. Even Robert Blake as Simon the Zealot, Jamie Farr as Thaddaeus, and motorcyle-flick veteran Richard Bakalyan as Dismas, the repentant thief, are well-suited to their roles. Originally roadshown at 260 minutes, Greatest Story Ever Told was later available in a 195-minute version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide