Charlie Anderson, a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia, finds himself and his family in the middle of the Civil War he wants nothing to do with. When his youngest boy is taken prisoner by the North, the Civil War is forced upon him.

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.

After her husband dies, a woman begins to have a nervous breakdown and is consoled by her younger sister. Soon, however, other members of the family begin to suspect the younger woman's motives.

A family is trapped in a desert town by a cult of senior-citizens who recruit the town's children to worship Satan.

When recently single Steven moves into his new apartment, cable guy Chip comes to hook him up—and doesn't let go. Initially, Chip is just overzealous in his desire to be Steven's pal, but when Steven tries to end the 'friendship', Chip shows his dark side. He begins stalking Steven, who's left to fend for himself because no one else can believe Chip's capable of such behaviour.

Three men track down a pack of Dobermans and along with a young Native American boy, train the Dobermans to rob the campaign funds of a politician.

Former police captain and his assistant investigate extortion and murder at a dating service.

A young farmer becomes a singer against the wishes of his uncle.

After reluctantly packing up his daughter, Mollie, and sending her away to study art at a Paris college, Frank Michaelson gives new meaning to the term "concerned parent." Reading Mollie's letters describing her counter-culture experiences and beatnik friends, Frank eventually grows so paranoid that he boards a plane to Paris to see firsthand the kind of lessons his daughter is learning with her new artist amour.

After the death of his girlfriend's daughter from a drug overdose, Paul Kersey takes on the local drug cartel.