The Fugitive: Season One, Volume Two

The Fugitive follows the adventures of Dr. Richard Kimble, a man on the run after being convicted of murdering his wife. At the start of each episode in this set, the narrator informs the viewer that Kimble is innocent and was unable to prove “that moments before discovering his murdered wife’s body he saw a one-armed man running from the vicinity of his home.” On his way to Death Row, fate offered Kimble a reprieve in the form of a train accident, allowing him to escape his police escort, Lieutenant Philip Gerard.

Over the course of the series, Kimble travels the country searching for the one-armed man, following any lead no matter how slim, all the while trying to stay out of the clutches of the police, especially the determined Gerard. Kimble moves from town to town, taking odd jobs and false names, but since the case made national headlines, he runs into people who know or discover his identity. What keeps the viewer intrigued is never knowing how the characters are going to react to Kimble: do they believe he is a murderer and inform the authorities, do they believe he is innocent and try to help him, or do they believe they can take advantage of Kimble’s predicament for their own nefarious purposes?

The Fugitive is an all-time classic television drama and in 1993 was ranked by TV Guide as the best dramatic series of the 1960s. Produced by the legendary Quinn Martin, it ran four seasons from 1963 to 1967. The finale became the highest-rated dramatic program up to that time, bringing in 30 million viewers, which was then 72 percent of all households. It was unseated in 1980 by the revelation of who shot J.R. on Dallas.

The series has a number of assets, but its greatest is its writing. Kimble is compelling as a lead character because the audience roots for him to succeed. He’s an everyman wrongly accused, a successful plot device that Alfred Hitchcock used to great effect in a few films. The specter of Gerard and the law raises the stakes and creates tension. Kimble being a fugitive created infinite story possibilities for the writers because he could appear anywhere and alongside anyone, the only limitation being Kimble would have to move on by the episode’s end. “Come Watch Me Die” provides an interesting twist as Kimble is sworn in as a deputy and escorts a prisoner. The man-on-the-run formula became a successful template that many television shows have used over the years, both popular (The Incredible Hulk and The A-Team) and obscure (Run, Joe, Run and Two).

The cast is talented. David Janssen played Kimble and was nominated for an Emmy for his work this season. The only other actor to “appear” in every episode was series narrator William Conrad, a television icon for both his acting and voiceover work. Barry Morse played Lt. Phillip Gerard, an allusion to Inspector Javert from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Like many old series, it is fun for TV buffs to see what actors appear. The most well known include Claude Akins, Lee Grant, Carroll O’Connor, Warren Oates, Telly Savalas, Bruce Dern, and Diane Ladd. Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn shows up in a small role as a television reporter.

This four-DVD set presents the final 15 episodes of season one in airdate order. The shows have been transferred from the original negative with restored audio and according to the liner notes “some episodes may be edited from their original network versions.” The video looks crisp and clean, accentuating the beauty of the black-and-white footage. The Fugitive is a quality series that deserves to be in the video library of any serious TV-on-DVD collector.

Misson: Impossible - The Third TV Season

Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme and the self-destructing tape-recorded messages transcended the series and became icons. Some people first became aware of them through parodies before ever seeing the show. That would explain how people have fond memories because the show really should be called Mission: Ridiculous, considering how bad the stories are.

The series tracks the adventures of the Impossible Mission Force, a U.S. spy agency whose exploits find them traveling abroad, behind the Iron Curtain and to fictitious Latin America countries, and taking care of business at home against foreign agents and mobsters.

Every show opens with Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) getting his team’s assignment before the message disintegrates. He is told by the voice, “Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it,” which is upon consideration odd because he always accepts the mission. What would happen if he passed on a top-secret mission? Is there another team to do it? Would his memory have to be erased?

Jim then meets with his IMF team to work out a plan. They are technical expert Barney Collier (Greg Morris), the muscle Willy Armitage (Peter Lupus), master of disguise Rollin Hand (Martin Landau) and Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain) whose only expertise was that she was a good-looking woman and they needed one in many scenarios. On occasion, they would be thrown curves in their plans, but they always quickly recovered and came out on top. That would be bad enough, but the writers stretched believability beyond the breaking point when the IMF would know the type of file folders or prison towels used in other countries.

Hollywood fans will enjoy seeing celebrities and future stars appear. Some of the guest stars included Joan Collins, Lee Grant, Larry Linville, Sugar Ray Robinson, Pernell Roberts, John Vernon, and Anthony Zerbe. Lee Meriwether would later appear in season four as IMF agent Tracey in three episodes. The third season was the last for Landau and Bain. Leonard Nimoy came in the following year and took over as the master of disguise.

The Emmys honored the series this season, especially the cast. Bain won for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series. Nominations went to Graves and Landau for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series and Morris for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series. The show was nominated for Outstanding Dramatic Series and a category that is no longer honored Outstanding Dramatic Program for episode “The Execution.”

The DVD case states, “some episodes may be edited from their original network versions,” which is sure to disappoint some M:I fans. CBS/Paramount is apparently not sure themselves from their ambiguous language. There was no clean up work done on the prints. A hair appears in the bottom of a scene during “The Glass Cage.” The audio is available in English 5.1 Surround, English Mono, and Spanish Mono. There are no extras.

Mission: Impossible – The Third TV Season might be tolerable for spy junkies, baby boomers who grew up with the series, and those who want to see where shows like 24 came from, but it certainly won’t hold up for today’s sophisticated television viewer. If assigned to watch it, don’t accept that mission.