Grace Lee Whitney Movies

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

Nick Newell (Gary Coleman) doesn't like being called a "genius," but the word certainly fits. The 13-year-old is starting as a freshman at Brighton University, and he's excited to be in a class taught by his idol, famous astronomer Jason Mills (Robert Guillaume). He gets along great with his roommate, Steve (Dean Butler), and gains the friendship of a pretty co-ed named Julie (Kari Michaelsen). Unfortunately, Nick's brain power doesn't prepare him for the problems that arise from being younger than everyone else on campus. Anxious to make a good impression on Professor Mills, Nick tries too hard and only embarrassess himself, plus his grades are slipping for the first time in his life. Nick also develops a massive crush on Julie, who considers him more of a younger brother than a love interest. When Julie and Steve become interested in each other and Professor Mills criticizes an extra-credit project, Nick despairs and decides to take a bus back home. He's surprised to find out how much he's loved, though, when his friends follow and beg him to return. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Thanks to a freak accident involving the Enterprise's transporter device, Captain Kirk is split into two separate bodies, each with its own personality, in this installment of the popular television series. The two Kirks represent opposite aspects of the Captain's personality: one who is aggressive, forceful, and callous, the other caring, sympathetic, but also indecisive and weak. The two men vie for control of the ship, leaving the Enterprise without a definite commander. Meanwhile, the rest of the landing party, led by Sulu, remains stranded on the planet's surface until the transporter can be repaired. Spock, Scotty, and the others must find a way to reunite the halves of Kirk's personality and rescue the others before nightfall arrives, bringing with it extreme cold that could mean the landing party's death. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

The starship Enterprise has a rendezvous with the tiny survey ship Antares to pick up a special passenger, Charlie Evans (Robert Walker Jr.). The sole survivor of a spaceship crash on the remote planet Thesus when he was three years old, Charlie spent 14 years alone, learning to talk and how to survive from the crashed ship's computer tapes. The Enterprise is to transport him to his closest living relatives, and he is eager, after so many years alone, to meet more people. Science officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is doubtful of the boy's story, because of the sheer barren nature of Thesus, but Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is willing to take him at face value, and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) finds the boy looking up to him as a guide into this new world. Charlie is like any healthy 17-year-old in that he wants to be liked, and wants friends and more; he also develops a hopeless crush on Yoeman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney). But Kirk (William Shatner) and company discover that Charlie is unlike any 17-year-old, in that he has somehow developed immense and terrifying mental powers, apparently from his years on Thesus, enabling him to transform matter at will, and that he has an easily roused temper and an easily pricked ego that can bring those powers to bear in an instant, destroying the Antares as her captain was trying to warn Kirk about his passenger and making people who displease him disappear, or transforming them, sometimes horribly, as when he closes up the eyes and mouths of a group of laughing crew members. Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy try to defeat him by overtaxing his powers once he takes control of the ship, but it is only when a ship carrying actual Thesians -- a race supposedly only existing in legend -- makes rendezvous with the Enterprise that Charlie's power is broken and his crew restored whole. But now Kirk must face a terrible choice about what to do with Charlie: risk the safety of others or send him away with the immaterial, wraith-like Thesians, consigned to a life of perpetual loneliness and solitude forever. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In Volume 16 of a collection culled from the 1963-1965 science fiction anthology television series, the human phenomena of "murder" is investigated by a pair of curious Martians. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Gangster Marty Pulaski (Ed Nelson) is unable to control the homicidal impulses of his mentally disturbed younger brother Herbie (Sherwood Price). The kid's itchy trigger finger is especially irksome to "overlord" Jake Szabo (Joe De Santis), who thinks that Marty is ordering the murders committed by Herbie as a means of taking over Szabo's operation. Required to leave town to testify in a trial, Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) hands the responsibility of tracking down Herbie (an "unknown sniper" so far as the public is concerned) over to Lt. Roy Gunther (Ford Rainey). More psychological melodrama than crime story, this is the last Untouchables episode to be filmed, though not the last shown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This western served as the pilot film for Warner Bros.' Temple Houston television series. It is the tale of a young, brash attorney (Jeffrey Hunter) in the Texas circuit court system. His old flame (Joanna Moore) is accused of murder. The case is resolved when Hunter reveals the real killer in contrived courtroom melodrama. A rather skimpy plot, but uncomplicatedly colorful and entertaining. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide

California politics is the clinically dissected yet informative and interesting topic of this feature-length drama by co-directors Bernard Girard and Robert Lewis. Relegating any character development to secondary status, the two directors have opted for a mode more in keeping with a television educational drama (TV is their principle medium) than the dynamic, personal interactions of the larger screen. At issue is the mud-slinging involved in a campaign to stop legislation regulating the practices of collection agencies. A few California lawmen lead the legislation and are determined to succeed in spite of their underhanded detractors. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide