in The Court

The story of four high school boys whose undefeated basketball season and friendship are threatened after a drive-by shooting leaves one of them in a coma and one of them with a secret.

A teacher and his students open up new worlds for one another in this urban drama inspired by a true story. Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) is a prize-winning ballroom dancer and instructor from Manhattan who volunteers his services to a high school in one of the roughest neighborhoods in the Bronx. Principal Augustine James (Alfre Woodard) in turn gives Dulaine a tough assignment – a detention class with some of the biggest troublemakers on campus. When the kids learn that Dulaine intends to teach them how to dance in the classic style, they're incredulous at best and dismissive at worst – until Dulaine demonstrates his moves for the class. While Dulaine's charges – including Rock (Rob Brown), LaRhette (Yaya DaCosta), Ramos (Dante Basco), Eddie (Marcus T. Paulk), and Sasha (Jenna Dewan) – respect his talent, they have their own way of dancing, and as they mix hip-hop moves with ballroom discipline, they create an exciting new style.

As Europe looms on the edge of war in 1913, the family and members of the court of the Russian czar Nicholas come under the sway of a mysterious mystic named Rasputin. When Rasputin miraculously appears to cure the czar's son Alyosha of his hemophilia, the monk's reputation is cemented, particularly in the mind of the princess Natasha. Natasha's fiancé (and, later, husband) Prince Paul Chegodieff, however, suspects Rasputin is a charlatan who will cause the downfall of the royal family and perhaps of Russia itself.

Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, this first episode dramatically evokes the causes of the war, from the Cotton Kingdom of the South to the northern abolitionists who opposed it. Here are the burning questions of Union and States’ rights, John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the firing on Fort Sumter and the jubilant rush to arms on both sides.

In the small town of Crown Port local attorney Bill Adams is trying to break up the ring of corrupt town officials by running for mayor. The cards seemed stacked against him when he gets help from a visiting hunter who, unknown to Adams and the rest of the town, is actually vacationing supreme court justice John Josephus Grant.