Maia Brewton Movies

Since Sky Trackers was produced on behalf of the Disney Channel cable service, we shouldn't be surprised that the principal characters are three children. When an extraterrestrial satellite crash lands in the Australian outback, the kids search for survivors. The plot thickens when it is learned that the aliens may be carrying a deadly virus. Pamela Sue Martin and Paul Williams are top-billed as the two adult doctors who try to find the kids before the kids can be exposed to the space capsule. Sky Trackers was first telecast in the US on May 27, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

First telecast on September 21, 1985, the 2-hour pilot for the TV series Lime Street stars Robert Wagner as James Greyson Culver, an investigator for a prestigious London insurance company. His assignment is to get to the bottom of a plot to assassinate the royal family of a British principality. With three successful previous series to his credit, Wagner was money in the bank to Lime Street, which at its inception seemed a shoe-in for a long run. But the series was doomed before its premiere by an unforeseen tragedy. Wagner's daughter was to have been played by Samantha Smith, a young girl who'd risen to fame by writing a friendly letter to Soviet boss Yuri Andropov. Alas, just one month before the premiere of Lime Street, Smith was killed in a plane crash. Only four episodes of Lime Street had been filmed; out of respect for Samantha Smith, star Robert Wagner and the ABC network agreed to shut down production forever. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the acrimonious relationship between his nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and his lovely mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty's dad's supervisor. The one balm in Marty's life is his friendship with eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at present is working on a time machine. Accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty inadvertently interferes with the budding romance of his now-teenaged parents. Our hero must now reunite his parents-to-be, lest he cease to exist in the 1980s. It won't be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its dazzling special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the quagmire of surviving the white-bread 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset. Back to the Future cemented the box-office bankability of both Fox and the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, who went on to helm two equally exhilarating sequels. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi