FX: The Series (1996)

When a beautiful actress helps frame movie special effects master Rollie Tyler for a vicious crime, he finds himself on the run from the law. Rollie turns to his pal, NYPD Detective Leo McCarthy, to help catch the real culprits. They uncover, and bring down a secret auction being held in New York, where the world's richest collectors are bidding for millions of dollars in smuggled gems.

When a beautiful actress helps frame movie special effects master Rollie Tyler for a vicious crime, he finds himself on the run from the law. Rollie turns to his pal, NYPD Detective Leo McCarthy, to help catch the real culprits. They uncover, and bring down a secret auction being held in New York, where the world's richest collectors are bidding for millions of dollars in smuggled gems.

While a huge bomb ticks away somewhere in the city of New York, the right-wing terrorist leader, who is in police custody, refuses to divulge it's location. Leo turns to Rollie to trick the terrorist into talking by making it appear that the bomb has already gone off. Things go awry when the terrorist discovers their plan and escapes, taking Rollie hostage and ordering a second bomb to be detonated.

A group of desperate ex-cons attempt to rob a gold exchange on the top floor of a downtown high rise. The robbery goes sour and the crooks take a group of hostages, including Leo's friend, Coleen O'Malley. Leo calls on movie Rollie, to help launch a rescue attempt by staging a phony helicopter crash on the building's roof.

Tensions are high when Rollie decides to work on a gangster flick being directed by a director whom Angie believes was responsible for the on-set accident that killed her father years earlier. When the director himself is killed in a suspicious accident, all evidence points to Angie. Leo joins Rollie to unmask the real killer... a mobster who is attempting to take over one of the largest criminal families in New York.

A murderous boss of a stolen car ring slips through Leo's fingers yet again. With the help of Angie and Lucinda they get into the ""hot"" car business and stage an elaborate ruse to find the kingpin's secret ""chop shop"" and shut down the operation for good.

A family reunion between Rollie and his charming con-man father, Dingo, could be their last when a ruthless bookie leans on dad to pay off a huge gambling debt. Leo joins them in a complex con game of shutting down the biggest illegal gambling operation on the east coast.

When her friend, a UFO buff, is murdered, Angie gets Rollie to enlist Leo to find the killer. With the help of Lucinda, their search leads them to a top-secret military base rumored to contain a crashed UFO and alien bodies. The danger becomes more down-to-earth when they uncover a plot by crooked officers to smuggle deadly plutonium and sell it to the highest bidder.

Rollie and Leo discover a deadly group of Irish Terrorists hatching a plot to steal the Crown Jewels of England from a New York museum where they are on display. Rollie and Leo stage a break-in at the museum to replace the real jewels with fake ones, but are betrayed and forced to steal the genuine article!

A powerful bomb kills an investment banker scheduled to testify against a Colombian drug-money laundering operation, and Rollie's good friend, and stuntman, Rick Forsythe. Leo discovers the bombing is part of an inside plot to steal $16 million from the drug cartel. With the help of Lucinda and Angie, they use movie magic to apprehend the murderers.

Romantic sparks fly when Rollie is reunited with a beautiful Hong Kong woman while working on a martial arts action movie. But Leo suspects she's really working with foreign assassins hired by Red China to kill the movie's popular star. Leo tries to warn the lovestruck Rollie of the danger, but Rollie has ideas of his own and works with the woman to foil the assassin.

After a protected witness is murdered, Leo enlists Rollie to help him trap a mysterious sniper who can hit a target from more than a mile away. But the plan fails and the sniper embarks on a campaign of revenge against Leo and his friends.

When a fellow cop is killed in a drug bust by a mid-eastern dignitary who claims diplomatic immunity, Leo gets Rollie to help expose the diplomat's ties to a Russian gangster before they can launch a diabolical counterfeiting operation.

Rollie works on a major Broadway show that is plagued by suspicious accidents, and it looks like the star, a fading Hollywood actress attempting a comeback on stage, is the target of an obsessed fan who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get to her. Leo is called in to investigate and uncovers a dark secret in the star's past. But when Lucinda takes the woman's place on stage, Rollie must use his skills with F/X magic to save his friend's life.

Five years ago, three men staged a daring armored car robbery in which a young man was crippled for life. They then hid the money in a place that requires all three men to find. Now, the statute of limitations is almost up, and Leo is determined to see that justice is done before it's too late. After one of the men is arrested, Rollie , Angie, and Leo stage a ruse to make it appear as if he is dead. Rollie then poses as a friend and confidante of the captured man and joins the other two thieves in their hunt for the money. But a double cross by one of the men puts the lives of both Rollie and Angie on the line.

When Leo sees disturbing similarities between the science fiction movie for which Rollie is providing the special effects, he begins to suspect the movie's director is a serial killer who terrorized Central Park four years ago and was never caught. He talks Rollie into using FX to get him to confess, but they soon discover the director has a dual personality and his murderous ""other"" is now taking over, ready to kill again.

Learning that a wealthy computer magnate is going to be hit, Leo calls on Rollie so he can masquerade as the intended target and thwart the assassination. The trick works so well, however, that Rollie and Angie are kidnapped by the magnate's jealous brother and a ruthless arms smuggler who plan to stage an even more dangerous masquerade.

When Rollie discovers a sinister international arms smuggler named Victor Loubar has stolen his identity, he teams up with FBI agent Elena Serrano to hunt for the impostor. Together they enter the dark, sinister world of Loubar, where nothing is what it seems, and no one can be trusted, racing to stop the mysterious criminal mastermind from stealing a top secret experimental ""smart grenade"" from a military contractor.

When a drug dealer and hopped-up movie star get Rollie fired from his movie job, he teams up with Detective Francis Gatti and an embittered Narcotics Detective in a personal war against two of the city's biggest drug gangs. Using F/X illusions, they engineer a war between the two gangs to stop tons of heroin from hitting the streets.

Rollie is helping students make a video for a class project when a band of armed men invades the high school and takes over. Trapped and badly wounded, Rollie joins forces with a juvenile delinquent-in-the-making as they discover the crooks are using the school to stage a multi-million dollar armored van robbery. Using materials from around the school, Rollie and the student fashion makeshift movie F/X illusions to defeat the invaders and rescue the student's girlfriend who is being held captive by the thieves.

An innocent meeting with an old school chum becomes a race against death for Angie when she is mistaken for a woman who possesses proof of a prominent law firm's connections to organized crime. When the kidnappers realize their mistake, Angie escapes and is on the run. Rollie comes to her aid and they use their F/X skills to defeat the pursuing killers.

Weary of having his work ruined by others, Rollie jumps at the chance to direct a low-budget ""heist"" movie. But he and Leo discover the film's ""producers"" are actually crooks who are planning to pull-off the fictional robbery for real and steal gold bullion from a United Nation's vault.

Leo McCarthy's death in a massive explosion is just the beginning of Rollie nightmare. An internal investigation into police corruption points the finger at Leo and Francis Gatti. When Rollie is implicated in a scheme to resell weapons impounded by the police, he hits the street -- on the run from the NYPD. Only Detective Mira Sanchez, the internal affairs detective assigned to the investigation, believes Rollie's story. Together they tackle mob gun runners using mini-lasers and Rollie's newly developed RT-3 to clear Leo's name and allow him to be buried with honor.

A mob accountant on the run pulls Rollie back into the unfinished investigation of Leo murder. The accountant will finger his boss, Vincent Capricio, for Leo's death if Rollie helps him disappear. Acting on the information, Frank Gatti launches a rogue operation with F/X help from Rollie. But their desire for vengeance exacts a deadly cost when a mob mole inside Midtown South blows Frank's cover. With Frank's life on the line, Rollie must answer an impossible question -- how do you make a man disappear in broad daylight?

A quick bank withdrawal turns into Dog Day Afternoon, when Angie is caught in the middle of a botched mob operation. On location for ""Vindicator II,"" Rollie has all the high-tech gear he needs to make life miserable for the hostage-takers. But the joint Tyler/NYPD operation is turned on its head, when one of the criminals turns out to have a strange hold on Mira. Rollie is challenged to provide the ultimate illusion of escape.

When Angie joined up with young, twitchy director Levi Chase and her old school friend Kit Marchado, she figured making a Gonzo film would be a gas. But the premise behind the film -- breaching a high security penthouse to get a photo of reclusive, retired mobster Mickey O'Brien -- is also a blueprint for murder. In a race against death, Rollie reaches Mickey steps ahead of a hitman. Trapped in a penthouse, with no way out but down, Rollie takes Mickey on a free-fall high dive, betting their lives on an untested stunt chute.

On location in London, the last person Rollie expected to see was FBI agent Elena Serrano. This time she needs Rollie's help in spiriting an undercover agent back to New York with his deadly cargo of bio-toxin. But the undercover agent is long dead, and the man beneath the mask is Rollie's nemesis, Victor Loubar -- international weapons dealer and chameleon master of disguise. By the time his ruse is revealed, Loubar is in deep cover, somewhere in New York ready to transfer the deadly bio-weapon to the highest bidder. Now Rollie has to find Loubar in a city of millions before he can close his deal. Satellite surveillance, identity switches, and a massive FBI investigation lead Rollie to a showdown at Grand Central Station. Someone's going to walk away from the fiery finish - but whose face will he be wearing?

Supermodel Danielle Vandenglas is the star of ""House of Horrors"" but death is her stand-in -- and Rollie Tyler is her only hope for survival. Car wrecks, fires, and fatally misfired F/X make it clear someone wants the film shut down. With Mira's help, Rollie hacks through a web of murder, money, and Hollywood back-stabbing to uncover the plotters. But it might be his last gig when he becomes the final victim of their scheme. Pumped full of snake venom, dying by inches, Rollie fights alone through a maze of terror -- knowing that, this time, death is no illusion.

When the body of a Scotland Yard Inspector plummets from the sky and lands in the middle of New York City, a messy case lands on Mira's desk. The suspect, Justin Telemark, lives on board his private 747 -- the most exclusive casino in the world -- and he intends to stay well out of NYPD jurisdiction. Boarding the casino flight in Toronto, Rollie, Mira, Angie and supermodel Danielle Vandenglas have an hour and a half to find evidence of Telemark's guilt and divert the aircraft to JFK.

Mangela, an Australian aborigine, tracks a stolen artifact to New York, but needs Rollie's strength and expertise to recover it from a renegade tribesman. Rollie undertakes the quest of a lifetime, to save his friend and face down his own primitive fears in the ultimate one-on-one challenge.

A frantic phone call from Mira's ex-husband sends Rollie and Mira on a rescue mission into the old 'hood. But things go bad when the van is ripped off and a squad of high-tech killers joins the pursuit.

With Rollie's help, the assassination of a US Senator is recreated in a movie, and then in real life -- with the original assassin! When it's discovered that Orrin Hill, the assassin, has a brain tumor erasing his memory, a plot is hatched to convince him he's back on that fatal day in 1979. Lost in a time warp, he must do the deed all over again, allowing Rollie and Mira to track him to the source of the conspiracy -- the man who got away, eighteen years ago.

Rollie and Angie do Mira a favor by providing cover for a young federal witness. The situation explodes in their faces when a high-tech motorcycle gang tracks them down and beseighes them in an abandoned farm. Result: Total War!

It's revenge twice over when Ricky Delacruz escapes justice and goes after the man who almost put him away: Rollie Tyler. But his victim ends up being Angie, and Rollie sets out to even the score...no matter what it takes!

Random deaths in Kansas...the cold-blooded murder of a militia cell in Pennsylvania...the apparent suicide of a government scientist in New York -- threads that lead Rollie and Mira into a shadowy world where nothing is as it seems. When they learn the conspirators intend to wipe out the only people who know the truth about a bio-engineering project gone horribly wrong, Rollie faces the ride of his life, dangling from a helicopter riding a nerve gas weapon, in a race against certain death -- for himself and half of New York City!

To clear his name when he is blamed for a flashover fire on set, Rollie probes the twisted psyche of a high-tech arsonist and, with the help of one of his victims, enters a dark world of betrayal and deceit culminating in a showdown in a blazing inferno where the only object becomes survival.

When a young girl is kidnapped from Rollie's set and sealed into an airtight chamber, Rollie and Mira must race the clock to rescue her. The young victim of an extortion plot has twenty-four hours to live, unless Rollie can use his F/X wizardry to convince the kidnappers that their crime will have profound consequences, both in the real world and in the realm of the supernatural.

Rollie, Angie, and Mira enter the world of life after death to solve the murder of a hapless drifter. The frozen body of a nameless drifter is discovered on the set of Rollie's latest flick and leads Rollie, Angie and Mira to Bio-Dorm, a cryonics laboratory owned and operated by David Craymore. Craymore's experiments on human victims have convinced him that he too can reap the benefits of suspended death and be reunited with his departed wife. But he needs an organ donor to take the icy ride into the future with them. And Angie Ramirez is the perfect candidate. Rollie and Mira discover the chilling truth almost too late and together pull Angie back from beyond the brink of frozen death.

Rollie and Angie get to put on the Ritz as they become cat burglars to the rich and famous to lure the reclusive super-thief Sebastian from his high-tech lair. In the process, they move from simulated robberies to the real things, putting their reputations -- and their lives -- on the line.

Loubar is back-with a vengeance! His assignment: to kill the Chinese Trade Minister. Using Rollie's identity, and three days stolen from his life, Loubar constructs a perfect frame. Unless Rollie stops the assassination, his life as a free man is over. But there's more to Loubar's bid for revenge, and his dark and twisted act will change the lives of Rollie and Angie forever.