Jessica Walter

The series that redefined the prime-time teen drama back in the 1990s gets a modern makeover in this spin-off series centering on a family attempting to adjust to life in Beverly Hills after relocating from the Midwest to California and seeing their lives change in ways they never anticipated. Annie Wilson (Shenae Grimes) is a teenage girl with a big heart and a passion for the theater, and her brother Dixon (Tristan Wilds) is a talented athlete and gifted scholar who was adopted by Annie's parents after living with the family as a foster child. Their father Harry (Rob Estes) and mother Debbie (Lori Loughlin) decided to move their family from Kansas to Beverly Hills in order to be closer to Harry's elderly mother Tabitha (Jessica Walter), a former television star who spent her fair share of time at the Betty Ford Clinic. Of course adjusting to life at a new high school is never easy when you're a teenager, though Annie and Dixon's transition is made especially awkward due to the fact that their father has accepted a position as the new school principal. It's going to take a little time for the two West Beverly Hills High newcomers to identify the cliques and connect with classmates, who include bratty rich girl Naomi (AnnaLynne McCord), popular jock Ethan (Dustin Milligan), ambitious student journalist Navid (Michael Steger), and rebellious broadcaster Silver (Jessica Stroup). Perhaps with a little help from such staff members as hip teacher Ryan Matthews (Ryan Eggold) and helpful guidance counselor Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) - not to mention Kelly's longtime friend Donna Martin (Tori Speling), the owner of a popular Beverly Hills boutique - Annie and Dixon will make some lasting friendships while finding their way though the hallowed halls of California's most exclusive high school. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

As Arrested Development leaps into its first season, hard-working Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is on the brink of starting a new life in Arizona with son George Michael (Michael Cera) when he is dragged kicking and screaming back to California, there to take charge of his family's business when his light-fingered father, George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), is jailed for fraud and the company's assets frozen. Though he had fondly assumed he'd seen the last of his vituperrious mother, Lucille (Jessica Walter), and his lazy, self-indulgent siblings, he was forced to hunker down and teach them how to behave (and spend!) more responsibly. As Michael's airheaded would-be-activist twin sister, Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), her sexually confused ex-doctor hubby, Tobias (David Cross), and their out-of-control daughter, Maeby (Alia Shawkat), move in with Michael, older brother Gob (Will Arnett), a spectacularly unsuccessful and untalented magician, must face the prospect of actually getting a real job, while the "baby" of the family, Michael's feckless kid brother, Buster (Tony Hale), remains sequestered in his mommy's Balboa Bay condo. Michael's well-ordered world doesn't take very long to unravel; by the second episode, his darling son George Michael has set fire to the Bluths' frozen-banana stand in Newport Beach, and has developed a borderline-incestuous crush on cousin Maeby. A few weeks later, Lucille Bluth's neurotic social rival Lucille Austero (Liza Minnelli) has entered into an affair with the much, much, much younger Buster, an act that will eventually move Buster's mom to spitefully adopt a Korean orphan named Annyong (Justin Lee). Meanwhile, Michael finds it next to impossible to break up the doomed romance between brother Gob and his girlfriend, Marta (Patricia Velasquez), and to fire such millstones around the Bluths' necks as hopelessly inept family lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler) and blackmailing company secretary Kitty Sanchez (Judy Greer).

Among the supporting actors entering into the lunacy are Rocky co-star Carl Weathers, who makes the first of several self-deprecating appearances as himself in the episode wherein George Michael is forced to hire a public relations service to gain entrance to a private school; Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton as the warden in the prison where George Sr. is wasting away, so to speak; Seinfeld veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the sight-challenged attorney Maggie Lizer, who plays up to Michael while trying to dig up more damaging dirt on his family's business practices; and series regular David Cross' longtime Mr. Show cohort Bob Odenkirk as a marriage counselor who tries to patch up the differences between Lindsay and Tobias (chief among them the fact that the "never-nude" Tobias will not undress in front of his spouse); and Amy Poehler, real-life wife of regular Will Arnett, as the "where the hell did she come from?" new wife of the gormless Gob. The season finale finds George Sr. staging a heart attack for the purpose of busting out jail, Maeby finally tumbling to George Michael's unspoken love for her, an unintentionally gay-themed book written years ago by Tobias embarrassingly hitting the best-seller charts, and the rivalry between Buster and Annyong coming to a head -- and threatening to bust both of their heads. Although season one of Arrested Development posted lukewarm ratings, the series earned a renewal from the Fox network largely on the strength of its five surprise Emmy Award wins (Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing, and Outstanding Writing). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sophomore effort from writer and director Greg Pritikin, who previously co-directed and acted in 1998's Totally Confused, Dummy stars Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist, Summer of Sam) as Steven, a recently unemployed ne'er-do-well who has difficulty expressing himself. Steven's best friend is Fanny, an aspiring singer played by Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element, Resident Evil) who, along with Steven, is just looking for her niche. Eventually Fanny takes a shine to Yiddish music and Steven finds he has a knack for ventriloquism. Through his newfound talent, Steven discovers that he is able to overcome his social problems through his dummy and decides to try impressing and winning the heart of Lorena, played by Vera Farmiga (Autumn in New York, 15 Minutes). The winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Santa Barbara Film Festival, Dummy also stars Illeana Douglas and Jared Harris. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Tamara Jenkins wrote and directed this comedy-drama depicting the experience of growing up poor in the 90210 zip code, told from the point of view of Vivian Abramowitz (Natasha Lyonne), a teen who lives a nomadic existence in the outskirts of Beverly Hills with her single, divorced father, Murray (Alan Arkin) and her two young brothers (David Krumholtz, Eli Marienthal). As Murray tries to keep the family in the Beverly Hills school district, the family moves into a one-bedroom apartment in a shabby complex. When sexually liberated Rita (Marisa Tomei), daughter of Murray's brother Mickey (Carl Reiner), checks out of a drug rehab and moves into the apartment, she becomes a "role model" for the young Vivian. Jenkins's semi-autobiographical screenplay was developed and refined during Screenwriters and Filmmakers Labs sessions at the Sundance Institute. Produced by Robert Redford and Michael Nozik, this film was shown in the Directors Fortnight section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Ruthless social climber Celeste Cooper (Joanna Kerns) is determined to maneuver her grown daughter Laurel (Christine Elise) into a wealthy and prestigious marriage. But Laurel wants no part of her mom's machinations and weds the likeable but "socially undesirable" Ted Rogers (Grant Show). After doing everything in her power to break up the marriage, the increasingly unhinged Celeste decides to take Ted out of the picture permanently--by hiring a hit man. Purportedly based on an actual event, the made-for-TV Mother Knows Best was first seen over the ABC network on April 13, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ron Leibman and Jessica Walter, husband and wife in real life, play a married couple in this episode. A man who served as a juror in a mob trial is found murdered. When the chief suspect is brought to trial, Assistant D.A. Sam McCoy finds himself locked in a volatile courtroom battle with a longtime friend, defense attorney Mark Paul Kopell (Leibman). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Is it possible to be politically correct and unified? Find out in this satire set on a fictional eastern university. Port Chester University espouses pc thinking. From the Womynists to the Republicans, everyone there is involved in a cause; many of them are militant. So involved are they, that there is no time to go to class. Much of the story focuses upon residents of the Pit, a co-ed dorm devoted to anarchy and anti-pc philosophy. They are led by Droz. All of the other groups loathe the Pit dwellers, and wish to close it down. President Garcia-Walker is also unpopular for her unbending uptight demeanor. The film's highlight is a giant party featuring the musical stylings of George S. Clinton and Funkadelic. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can transfer the information from her address book into a software program that will store the information on her PC. Unknown to Terry, one of the employees of the store is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), known in the press as "The Address Book Killer," who likes to steal other people's address books and murder all the people listed within, including the book's owner. Terry accidentally leaves her book behind at the store, and Karl lifts it, but as he drives to her house to strike her off the list first, he is injured in a serious accident and taken to a hospital. While Karl is being given a CAT scan, lightning strikes the building and Karl is transformed into a series of electrical impulses that can travel as computer code from one system to another, or as current through power lines. Soon Terry begins to suspect something is wrong as her friends succumb to attacks by microwave ovens, hot-air blowers, and other household objects. Terry and her computer-savvy son, Josh (Wil Horneff), realize that they're at risk after Karl appears in Josh's virtual reality games; it's up to Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey), a brilliant hacker-turned-computer maintenance technician, to isolate and destroy the Karl virus before it can kill again. The film's soundtrack features such hip-hop stars as D-Nice and Too Short, Schoolly-D, Grandmaster Slice, and Kool Moe Dee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Merlin Olsen stars as Aaron Miller, an Amish farmer from Pennsylvania. Aaron's oldest son leaves for Northern California, where he works in a grape vineyard before being killed in a wind-surfing accident; left behind is his pregnant girlfriend (Kathleen York). Thus it is that Aaron moves himself and his family to California, seeking to help out his late son's lady friend and to offer his services to the vineyard owners. Aaron's Way was the pilot for a "warm and fuzzy" Merlin Olsen TV series, which premiered in March of 1988. Plagued by a cumbersome premise, the series survived a scant 12 episodes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this murder mystery, one twin sister assumes the identity of the other after she is killed in a boating accident. She does not realizes that the dead twin held a fatal secret. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Angela Lansbury guest stars as crime novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in this crossover episode with Lansbury's own series Murder, She Wrote. When one of Robin Master's guests (Dorothy Loudon) is marked for murder, Magnum finds himself working with--and against--the redoubtable Ms. Fletcher to root out the killer. A man who likes to deal in facts and logical deductions, Magnum is continually flustered by Jessica's intuitive approach to crime-solving, much to the (presumed!) delight of the viewer. Ending on a cliffhanger, this episode was originally Part One of a two-part story which concluded with the Murder She Wrote episode "Magnum on Ice"; however, a new ending which neatly wraps up the storyline was filmed for the Magnum, P.I. syndication package. (Curiously, the story remains open-ended in the DVD version of "Novel Connection".) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide