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In 1947, the Muroc Army Air Field in California has test pilots fly high-speed aircraft such as the rocket-powered Bell X-1, but they die as a result. After another pilot, Slick Goodlin, demands $150,000 (equivalent to $1,966,000 in 2022) to attempt to break the sound barrier, war hero Captain Chuck Yeager receives the chance to fly the X-1. While on a horseback ride with his wife Glennis, Yeager collides with a tree branch and breaks his ribs, which inhibits him from leaning over and locking the door to the X-1. Worried that he might not fly the mission, Yeager confides in friend and fellow pilot Jack Ridley. Ridley cuts off part of a broomstick and tells Yeager to use it as a lever to help seal the hatch to the X-1, and Yeager becomes the first person to fly at supersonic speed, defeating the "demon in the sky".

In 1957, the launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite alarms the United States government. Politicians such as Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and military leaders demand that NASA help America defeat the Russians in the new Space Race. The search for the first Americans in space excludes Yeager because he lacks a college degree. Grueling physical and mental tests select the Mercury Seven astronauts, including John Glenn of the United States Marine Corps, Alan Shepard, Walter Schirra and Scott Carpenter of the United States Navy, as well as Cooper, Grissom and Slayton; they immediately become national heroes. Although many early NASA rockets explode during launch, the ambitious astronauts all hope to be the first in space as part of Project Mercury. Although engineers see the men as passengers, the pilots insist that the Mercury spacecraft have a window, a hatch with explosive bolts, and pitch-yaw-roll controls. However, Russia beats them into space on April 12, 1961 with the launch of Vostok 1 carrying Yuri Gagarin into space. The seven astronauts are determined to match and surpass the Russians. Shepard is the first American to reach space on the 15-minute sub-orbital flight of Mercury-Redstone 3 on May 5. After Grissom's similar flight of Mercury-Redstone 4 on July 21, the capsule's hatch blows open and quickly fills with water. Grissom escapes, but the spacecraft, overweight with seawater, sinks. Many criticize Grissom for possibly panicking and opening the hatch prematurely. Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth on Mercury-Atlas 6 on February 20, 1962, surviving a possibly loose heat shield, and receives a ticker-tape parade.

Donald, an aspiring screenwriter and all-around doofus in his own right. Their sibling rivalry, which is also a metaphor for the pains of creativity, is interspersed with something that looks like an actual adaptation of The Orchid Thief, in which Ms. Orlean finds herself drawn to a scruffy renegade botanist named John Laroche.

More than once in the week after I saw ''Adaptation,'' I found myself suddenly awake in the middle of the night, pulse racing, fretting over the movie's intricate, fascinating themes. Since quite a few of the films I see have a decidedly soporific effect, those bouts of insomnia might in themselves be sufficient grounds for recommending this one. But my sleeplessness was edged with panic. At the paranoid hour of 3 in the morning, I wondered if Kaufman's towering writer's block might be contagious. As the deadline for this review approached, I pictured myself in his agitated state, pacing the floor in a sweat, muttering nonsense into a hand-held tape recorder and then desperately stalling my impatient editors: ''It's coming along. Really. You'll have something soon. No problem.' I realize that the fear of contracting writer's block from a fictional character is crazy, but in the brilliantly scrambled, self-consuming world of Adaptation. After all, one of the movie's reigning conceits is that the boundary between reality and representations of it — between life and art, if you want — is highly porous, maybe even altogether imaginary. Another is that obsessive manias — for instance, the passion for certain forms of plant life that afflicts some of the characters — reproduce themselves like pollinating wildflowers.

Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero, having long ago rejected the family business. Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire), with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for the first time about the family "business."

A few months later at Christmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a New York drug trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recovers and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powerful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gang warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity. Brooding and intense, Al Pacino has remained one of Hollywood's premier actors throughout his lengthy career, a popular and critical favorite whose list of credits includes many of the finest films of his era. Pacino was born April 25, 1940, in East Harlem, NY. Raised in the Bronx, he attended the legendary High School for Performing Arts, but dropped out at the age of 17. He spent the next several years drifting from job to job, continuing to study acting and occasionally appearing in off-off-Broadway productions. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero, having long ago rejected the family business.

Mitch passes the bar exam and works grueling hours, straining his marriage. Under Avery's guidance, Mitch discovers the firm's primary work involves aiding wealthy clients to hide money in offshore shell corporations and other questionable tax-avoidance schemes. On a work trip to the Cayman Islands, Mitch overhears a client mentioning how the firm's Chicago associates "break legs." At Avery's Cayman residence, he finds documents linked to four deceased associates. Meanwhile, a prostitute arranged by the firm's security chief, Bill DeVasher, seduces Mitch. The photos are later used to blackmail him into silence. Mitch hires private investigator Eddie Lomax to investigate the associates' deaths, but Lomax is murdered by hitmen, witnessed by his secretary Tammy.

Mitch finds a possible way to save his career after discovering the firm regularly overbills its clients. He realizes it is mail fraud, exposing them to RICO charges. He and Tammy copy the billing records but need additional files from Avery's Cayman residence. Avery changes his schedule, jeopardizing Mitch's plan, so Abby flies to the Caymans and seduces and drugs Avery to get the files. The firm's phone tap records Abby warning Tammy, leading DeVasher's hitmen to pursue them. After Abby copies the files, Avery tells her the firm set up the prostitute who seduced Mitch on the beach. He warns Abby to leave and is later killed by DeVasher's hitmen, staging his death as a bathtub drowning. Mitch's plans are compromised when a prison guard on the Moroltos' payroll tips off DeVasher about Ray's transfer to FBI custody. Fleeing from DeVasher and his hitman, Mitch confronts DeVasher and knocks him unconscious. Mitch meets with the Moroltos, presenting himself as a loyal attorney who uncovered the firm's illegal over-billing. He asks for permission to turn over their billing invoices to help the FBI prosecute the firm, but assures them that any information about their legal affairs remains safe under attorney–client privilege, implying everything will remain confidential as long as he is alive. The Moroltos reluctantly agree to guarantee Mitch's safety. Mitch hands over the evidence and is able to continue his legal career. He and Abby reconcile.

McKay campaigns across the state, his message growing more generic each day. This approach lifts him in the opinion polls, but he has a new problem: because McKay's father has stayed out of the race, the media interpret his silence as an endorsement of Jarmon. McKay grudgingly meets his father and tells him the problem, and the elder McKay tells the media he is simply honoring his son's wishes to stay out of the race. With McKay only nine points down in the polls, Jarmon proposes a debate. McKay agrees to give answers tailored by Lucas, but just as the debate is ending, McKay has a pang of conscience and blurts out that the debate has not addressed real issues such as poverty and race relations. Lucas is furious, as this will hurt the campaign. The media try to confront McKay backstage, but arrive as his father congratulates him on the debate; instead of reporting on McKay's outburst, the story becomes the reemergence of the former governor to help his son. The positive story, coupled with McKay's father's help on the trail, further closes the polling gap.

Appearing on stage in the late 1950s, Redford's television career began in 1960, including an appearance on The Twilight Zone in 1962. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of co-star Elizabeth Ashley's character in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963). Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). He starred with Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) which won him a Golden Globe for the best new star. He starred alongside Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. He had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 he had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, a reunion with Paul Newman, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award; that same year, he also starred opposite Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford. Mitch finds a possible way to save his career after discovering the firm regularly overbills its clients. He realizes it is mail fraud, exposing them to RICO charges. He and Tammy copy the billing records but need additional files from Avery's Cayman residence. Avery changes his schedule, jeopardizing Mitch's plan, so Abby flies to the Caymans and seduces and drugs Avery to get the files. The firm's phone tap records Abby warning Tammy, leading DeVasher's hitmen to pursue them

Typically, the stories related to the life or work of scientists, engineers, inventors, and explorers, the program concentrated on such concepts as space flight, robots, telepathy, flying saucers, time travel, and the intervention of extraterrestrials in human affairs. With but few exceptions, most of the stories were original concepts based on articles from recent issues of Scientific American. Issues of that magazine can also be seen on Truman Bradley's desk in a number of episodes.

The first season was filmed on 35mm Eastmancolor negative, which was then not considered the best color available for television, often fading over time due to vinegar deterioration.[citation needed] Syndication packages for a second season was renewed at an 80 percent retention ratio, borderline for color production. In March 1956, producer Ivan Tors agreed with Frederic Ziv to produce the program in black and white to offset production expenses in return for a second season. Like the syndicated Out There and Tales of Tomorrow anthology series before it, Science Fiction Theatre was a predecessor to later science fiction anthology shows such as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. The show had no fixed cast other than the host, although a number of actors appeared in multiple episodes in different roles. Dick Foran, Marshall Thompson, Dabbs Greer, Arthur Franz, Whit Bissell and Bruce Bennett appeared in more episodes than most. The show also featured stars such as Basil Rathbone, Kenneth Tobey, Victor Jory, Gene Barry, DeForest Kelley, Phyllis Coates and Vincent Price. Edmund Gwenn and Ruth Hussey were the highest paid actors for the series, $2,500 each for a three-day filming, followed by Gene Lockhart, Don DeFore and Howard Duff who were paid $2,000 each. Most actors were paid between $150 and $500 depending on the size of their role.