Harrison Page Movies

An already hectic day at the ER is made even more so when two children are brought in exhibiting symptoms of smallpox. With Weaver (Laura Innes) temporarily unavailable, Carter (Noah Wyle) orders a lockdown at County General to avoid an epidemic -- and avert a nationwide panic. Meanwhile, Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) encounters major problems while trying to get information about a smallpox vaccine from CDC; both Chen (Ming-Na) and Pratt (Mekhi Phifer) appear to have come down with the disease themselves; and a patient riot breaks out, one which may cause the epidemic to spread to the rest of Chicago. This final episode of ER's eighth season ends with a cliffhanger, the ingredients of which include a startling development in the relationship between Carter and Abby (Maura Tierney). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Forced by Romano (Paul McCrane) to work a few shifts in the ER, Elizabeth (Alex Kingston) has a run-in with Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) -- and learns for the first time about Greene's (Anthony Edwards) inoperable tumor. Elsewhere, two girls involved in a campus stabbing incident are brought into the ER. Chen (Ming-Na) handles a victim of severe trauma. And when Weaver (Laura Innes) tries to find out if her girlfriend, Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal), has been injured in a fire, she is in for a big surprise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ally defends a young transvestite (Wilson Cruz) on charges of prostitution, using a modified insanity defense. Meanwhile, Richard fights to have his dead uncle's unusual last request carried out. ~ TV Guide, All Movie Guide

One of the more popular features from Roger Corman's "B"-factory Concorde/New Horizons, Carnosaur perpetuates the grand Corman tradition of zeroing in on a big-budget Hollywood studio moneymaker, then dashing off a quick-and-dirty poor man's version before moss gets a chance to grow on the larger film's concept. This bargain-basement spin on Jurassic Park was actually based on a novel by John Brosnan (under the pseudonym Harry Adam Knight). It features Diane Ladd (whose daughter Laura Dern took the high road on Spielberg's film) as a kooky mad scientist whose experiments on human and dinosaur DNA result in dual disasters -- first, a rubbery midget Tyrannosaurus bred from dinosaur and chicken DNA (imagine the barbecue potential!) which escapes the lab and goes on the requisite bloody rampage; and second, a specially-engineered virus with the ability to replace human beings with dino-babies. Although this exploitation quickie doesn't waste too much time delivering the standard Corman cargo (blood and breasts), the mayhem is too often derailed by endless genetic techno-babble from Ladd, whose freaked-out performance is the film's sole plus. The downbeat ending is pure '80s, and paves the way for the inevitable sequels. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

After his brother is badly beaten by a street gang, Jean-Claude Van Damme deserts the foreign legion in order to avenge his honor in this action film also known as A.W.O.L. and Wrong Bet. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The first season of the lampoonish cop show Sledge Hammer! ended as the title character, a thick-muscled, thick-witted Los Angeles police detective (played by David Rasche), confidently set about to disarm a nuclear device. "I know what I'm doing," said Sledge -- but he didn't, and the season ended with Los Angeles and everyone in it going up in a puff of mushroom-shaped smoke! This bizarre finale had been conceived by series creator Alan Spencer when it seemed as though the series would not be renewed for a second season. However, a renewal came in at the last moment -- and thus it is explained at the outset that season two is a prequel to season one, officially titled Sledge Hammer!: The Early Days. Once we get past this outrageous bit of creative chicanery, it is easy to see that Sledge Hammer is just as arrogant, stubborn, brutal, and stupid as ever, while his partner, Officer Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), has become quite adept at concealing her superior intellect and allowing Sledge to think that he and he alone has solved all their cases. This season's crop of satirical storylines includes Sledge and Dori's smashing of a college neo-Nazi ring, a close encounter with the ghost of Humphrey Bogart (played by Robert Sacchi), various underground assignments in which Sledge poses as everything from a mob assassin to Australian automobile manufacturer "Crocodile Bruce," and wacky one-shot parodies of Vertigo, Dressed to Kill, and Robocop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A broad and brassy satire of hard-boiled detective shows, the weekly, half-hour ABC sitcom Sledge Hammer! first burst onto the scene September 23, 1986. Created by Alan Spencer, the series starred David Rasche as Detective Inspector Sledge Hammer, a tough, arrogant cop who played by his own rules and was nobody's patsy, no sir! Breaking 57 varieties of civil liberties every time he went out to collar a criminal, Hammer made no distinctions between the gravity of individual crimes, being just as tough and brutal on litterbugs as he was on bank robbers. You couldn't miss Hammer when he arrived on the scene, waving his beloved pearl-handed .44 Magnum and dressed in garish, mismatched clothes, with his ever-present sunglasses covering his beady little eyes. Although Hammer had an impressive resumé of big arrests, it was usually his smarter, quieter, and better-looking partner, Officer Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), who did most of the hard work. And in time-honored cop-cliché fashion, Hammer's volatile superior officer, Captain Trunk (Harrison Page), who never spoke when shouting would do, suspended our hero from the force each and every week, only to reinstate him for a job well done (by Dori Doreau, that is!). The series' first season contained perhaps the most bizarre cliffhanger ever conceived, with Hammer, muttering his trademarked "I know what I'm doing," accidentally detonating a nuclear device and destroying Los Angeles and everyone in it! This deliciously "noir" grace note was conceived by the producers when it seemed as if there was no way on earth that Sledge Hammer! would be renewed for a second season. When renewal did occur, the producers blithely explained that season two was a prequel to season one: Sledge Hammer: The Early Days. And in this same insouciant vein, the series went its merry way until it finally was canceled for keeps on June 30, 1988. ~ All Movie Guide

Sledge Hammer solves more crimes. ~ All Movie Guide

Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, Kojak recalls the events leading up to his shooting of a notorious serial murderer in 1969. Though convinced at the time that he had disposed of the "Clothesline Killer", Kojak has reason to wonder if he got the right man: someone is currently embarked upon a murder spree, using the Clothesline Killer's modus operandi. At the same time, the detective experiences poignant memories of a lost romance. This was the final Sunday-night Kojak episode; Part Two of "The Summer of '69" would be seen in the series' new Saturday-evening berth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide