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“But for Richard Kimble, the fates are preparing another appointment. At another place. At another time.”
Years: 1965
Genre: TV series, Drama
Country: United States
Languages: English
Starring: David Janssen, Barry Morse
Narrator: William Conrad
Creator: Roy Huggins
Run time: 12 hours 51 minutes
DVD distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras: Not much of anything
Related reviews: The Fugitive Season One Volume Two, The Fugitive Season Two Volume One, The Fugitive Season Two Volume Two
The Fugitive is as good as ever in Season Three Volume One, out October 27th from Paramount Home Entertainment. David Janssen is as good as ever as Dr. Richard Kimble, falsely convicted of murdering his wife. He continues to search for the one-armed man, although there is still no real explanation of what really happened when his wife was murdered. He continues to rely on the kindness and the faith of strangers, and in one case during this volume, that stranger happens to be the temporarily blinded wife of his arch-enemy, Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard (David Morse).
As always, the best episodes in the volume are those with Lt. Gerard, in particular a two-part episode where Gerard’s single-minded obsession with catching Kimble is about to cost him his marriage. Mrs. Gerard is sick and tired of hearing about Kimble. She is on vacation with her husband, but when he catches wind that Kimble is hiding out in a nearby town, he cuts the vacation short and drags her along to a hotel in that town as he obsessively chases the innocent man. Eventually, she hears the name “Kimble” one too many times and abandons her husband, running off on a bus out of town.
Unbeknownst to her, Richard Kimble is on that same bus. When a bus accident injures Mrs. Gerard, she temporarily loses her eyesight thanks to a concussion. Kimble, ever the Good Samaritan and doctor, takes her to the nearest town in a conveniently placed nearby truck, trying to find her medical help. Gerard is still so preoccupied with Kimble that he barely makes an effort to look for his missing wife. Of course, they are together. And the town is deserted. And there are some bad news kids making their journey difficult. And so forth.
Eventually, Kimble slips through Gerard’s dragnet again, of course. This show went on for a few more seasons, after all. And this is just “Volume One”. There has to be a second volume of this very season. But the chances that he gets caught again, or that he will need to make another daring escape, are greater in this episode than in any other. Which makes it one of the better episodes in the season. Well, in the first volume of the season. By the time Gerard reaches his wife, she is sick and tired of hearing about Kimble, especially now that she realizes she spent the entire time with the very man whose name she was trying to escape.
Thankfully, I am not tired of Richard Kimble. Or David Janssen. Or The Fugitive. I am willing to watch every episode of this series until the big conclusion. Looking forward to it!