The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

The most impressive aspect of TSOD and Gord and David is that they are usually very objective; they respect that every show has its fans, or even if it's just FAN, and always take that into account when reporting or reviewing a release. Would that such empathy, sympathy and tolerance were as evident on forums such as these.

As for Kimble, Gerard and the train, look, stopping a train is not always as easy as it seems in TV and movies, Lucy pulling the emergency brake and everyone goes flying. Even a man waving a badge might not get a train to stop until it went through at least a semblance of proper protocol, unless, of course, Gerard could prove that there was an immediate threat or danger to the passengers or the safety of the train itself. With Kimble's apparent harmless jump from the train, it is possible, though not likely, to land in such a way where nothing would be excessively injured. There are even verified stories of skydivers whose chutes didn't open and they hit the ground without much in the way of injury. It's certainly not common, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE. It's like the one karate chop to the back of the neck that always renders the villains unconscious in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. It is, in fact, possible to do that, but not easily. Never let your suspension of disbelief get too lazy when it comes to vintage television.

What I find hard to believe is Kimble always hurriedly tossing his duffel bag away presumably in order to run faster during a sudden pursuit. Yet that same duffel bag pops up again and again in later shows. Where does he keep buying these things, at the luggage store for transients and interstate fugitives?

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I always assumed he either went back and found his flung bag later or bought them in bulk and stashed them somewhere so he could chuck them without a worry in the world.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

A lot of that comes from experience, and from talking to the studios and understanding their point of view, and some of it came from when I consulted on the "Kids in the Hall" DVD set. I learned a lot about budgets, dealing with talent, and legalities of getting something on DVD, and I wasn't really THAT involved in the set. People often think it's a matter of encoding the episode, making some menus and packaging and sending it to stores, and it's so much more.

I'm planning a followup article to my "Stalled Series" piece from a few weeks ago which examines the dropoff between seasons. I was shocked at how dramatic some of the drops are, and it becomes pretty clear why the studios "abandon" some shows - the fans have abandoned the studios.

Gord

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Gord:

I'm sure every fan of "The Fugitive" is extremely appreciative of the editorial you just published at "TVShowsOnDVD.com".

Thanks for the support!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

You might be right about the latter, Carab, but you have to take into account that it would have put a serious dent in his hair dye budget.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

My assumption was that the bag was always part of his (superficial) latest identity, for which he assembled some stuff, and throwing it away meant he gave that up (even if the bag would be found by officials they wouldn't find anything significant).

Well, one explanation is as good as another, I guess.


Cees

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I never knew how he kept all the names straight...he did flub up once in LANDSCAPE WITH RUNNING FIGURES and signed his own name to a hotel register....Richard Kimble!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Great job on the editorial, Gord, but boy,that ad with putting TV DVD on a pedestal at the end... that stung. Not me personally, but does make a great point: releases previously like ILL, Twilight Zone, Perry Mason et al. have been so good, it does make one wonder how and why Fugitive when so horribly wrong.

Once again, there needs to be a resolution to the music rights problems plaguing TV DVD releases or honestly, I think the whole industry is at a tipping point that could end up ruining it all.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Oh boy.
I picked this up, giddily last week. I've loved the show a long time but, like Paul Mavis, haven't had a chance to see it since the early 90's A&E run.
After the extra mile they went to with The Invaders set, issues with this one were the last thing I was expecting. Ironically, the clerk that had to get it out of the case started talking about how much he liked the show too and asked me how the sets were.
"All the CBS/Paramount sets I've seen have been great...they put out great product" I told him. In the back od my mind I was thinking 'now watch...some of the prints on this set will be mangled or something'. I got home put it on the shelf and didn't give it another thought. I took it for granted this would be a competent, solid release.
Then I start to notice this thread ballooning past 10 pages in a week...
I still haven't opened it, but I'm really heart broken about this. I can't begin to envision the show without the genuine underscoring- it would be like taking the soul out of someone and leaving a zombie shell.
I will sadly be returning this now and resigning myself to the fact The Fugitive is now in the realm of 'abandoned' series.

And to think how happy most of us were when they kicked up the release schedule...

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Yes, he did that while in a state of complete exhaustion and it was an incredibly effective way to initiate the tense drama of this sublime two part episode, among the series' finest.

The dilemma of always having to remember your alias was dealt with on THE FUGITIVE influenced THE INCREDIBLE HULK series, where the lead character on the run, Dr. David Banner, always used an alias with David as the first name and a name starting with a B for the last. Much easier to remember, but not as appropriate a measure for Kimble who was in a much more precarious situation than Dr. Banner and could ill afford to have ANY association with his real name crop up.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

duplicate; see below

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I had first mentioned the trade mag ad that Gord uses for the editorial back in April, in a pair of posts for The Invaders and Star Trek. It seemed appropriate for those releases, but I recalled the ad's message and urged Gord to include it in his new editorial, considering that with the most recent Fugitive DVDs the studio hasn't exactly lived up to their own standards, as stated in that ad!

Also, just a quick note, Matt...Twilight Zone was from Image Entertainment, not CBS/Par. I Love Lucy and Perry Mason are from CBS DVD, though.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I'm not even a fan and I'm appreciative of it.

When are consumers going to rise up against the music industry and declare that enough is enough, that they're tired of everything being held hostage by a bunch of greedy hogs? I wish consumers would bring a class action suit against the industry for causing the ruination of their favorite TV shows on DVD due to holding the studios hostage with their unreasonable costs.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Edit: I read the thread, and now I say if there's grounds for a lawsuit, BRING IT ON!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Yesterday I dropped in and was stunned to see the Fugitive thread was 10 pages long (at the time). Wasn't this thing just released a few days ago? This can't be good.

After two nights of reading... I was right. It ain't. There have been some TV on DVD snafus before, but this one takes the cake. It is a complete bastardization of the show. The icing on the cake is sneaking the names in there like they belonged.

I wonder if someone actually thought that folks would not notice... that they could just sneak it by and congratulate themselves on a job well done. How clever they must have thought they were.

It is a shame, because although I had heard of this show for many years, I had never seen more than snippets of it. I was really enjoying the first season and was looking forward to a long journey with Dr. Kimble. I'm not sure I can buy season 2 now without being totally distracted.

This does not bode well for the future. I guess some of our favorites as we saw and remember them will be lost forever.

Very depressing.



Ah, those were the days... working on the show with Mark, Sam and the Ronster!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Good article, that, Gord, and, at least to me, a very interesting and intriguing examination into why some studios seemingly do nothing to prepare television disc purchasers for possible modifications on the releases that these purchasers purchase. I have purchased the last three "Hawaii Five-O" releases (up to and including this latest #4 release), and so far, despite the disclaimer that some episodes may have been edited, I don't think that I have seen very much editing. About the only major problem was that the "Bored, She Hung Herself" outing was missing out of S2, but that, to me, is comparatively minor compared to the issue on trial here-- that being, why didn't CBS do much to prepare "Fugitive" fans for a full-scale assault of replaced music in S2, V1? I mean, at least Sony prepared "Married With Children" fans (at least, those that purchased S4 of that) for the sound-alike opening title track that was the replacement of the popular Frank Sinatra theme.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Also interesting given the pictured Star Trek Season 2 release was the planned HD-DVD release. Wonder what became of the format...

Thanks for the correction. I made the mistake by re-watching the DVDs this weekend but only remembering the CBS logo popping up initially, not Image. Can only say... ooops.

Then again, again I ask: after Mason and Lucy were so excellent, among others, how in the world did the train leave the tracks here? And given the standard of excellence they had achieved up to this point, including with the first season of Fugitive, did they expect the fans not to notice or to be angered by being essentially toyed with?

We still don't have an official statement yet and the longer the silence goes, the faster people will assume the worst and put words in their mouth and the sooner past successes will be forgotten in light of current missteps.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Not exactly. It WAS going to be released as a Hybrid (HD DVD on one side, DVD on the other) release, until the HD DVD format folded in February. Since then the studio took the DVD side of it and announced Star Trek - Season 2: Remastered DVD Edition, coming out on August 5th.

People (myself included) believe there will eventually be a separate Blu-ray Disc release of Seasons 1 and 2, but the Blu-ray spec is for single-sided discs, no flippers, so the "hybrid" concept isn't there for using a back side for standard DVD version...making it necessary that BD and DVD versions would have to be sold separately. But we're getting way off-track here with this hi-def stuff; let's stick on-topic!


After he read my post, Gord reminded me (well; informed me...I somehow never knew this) via IM that although Image released the Twilight Zone DVDs, CBS did have a hand in the production. I checked one of my copies (Definative S1, grabbed at random)...yep, the CBS DVD "eye" logo is on the back of the box! I figured the on-screen logo was just there for "ownership" purposes; guess not.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Gord,

Let me be another person to thank you for the excellent editorial at your site concerning this fiasco. I appreciate the hard work you put in on our behalf. I hope someone from Paramount provides you with an explanation.

Doug

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

The song was gone in the S3 DVDs.

And the End Credits were changed to reflect that replacement.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Yes, but that change was clearly marked on the back of the box:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Married-Children/2501

...albeit it was worded so that it almost sounded like a "feature" rather than an issue! Ah, well...it was still very clear to anyone who cared to read it. And not exactly a small font; it was larger text size than the back-of-the-box description. Sony did good with that one.


The original Roswell release also stands out in my mind as a DVD set that made it clear that there was soundtrack changes, before you bought the set. Not only was there decent-sized text on the back saying that the discs had new music, but selected by the people who had chosen the original music for the TV broadcasts, but that wording was also repeated with a sticker on the front of the box for the copy I bought. Moreover, there was a more detailed letter/apology about the changes, from the show producers, included inside the box. Nice...that's one that Fox got right.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

And here I am, Carab!!!!!

I truly believe that it may have been possible for Kimble to get out of the train barely unscathed provided he knew how and where to time his fall and roll off of the terrain properly with very minimal injury to himself. Given he was still a young-enough man to successfully try such and roll-off and run on, I believe it is possible for him to have gotten up, gathered himself, and continue his run for the the one-armed man.

Plus, may we not forget the possibilities of adrennaline and how much of it which may have been in the doc's veins upon regaining enough of his memory to run, coupled w/the sight of Gerard and Margaret's being by his side as the break commenced.

Also, I was impressed with Ivan Dixon's portrayal of Dr. Towne in this episode as well. Portraying a black man who literally put himself through college and medical school for eight years, particularly at that time, Dixon's Towne showed, to me, reasonable consideration and strength in his position to how well he needed to do his job as the chief of psychiatry in the hospital Kimble was brought to. Even being at odds with Margaret Ruskin, the social worker employed at the hosptial (also played very well by Betty Garrett) as he was, there was a level of abject honesty and open passion conveyed by both people where the underlying respect was tied together at the end of episode where Dr. Towne consoled Margaret at the end of Dr. Kimble's phone call.

Such a portrayal as Mr. Dixon gave in this episode (and 1967's "Dossier On A Diplomat") gave a glimpse into what kind of dignity he brought to his works as an actor and a director.

Again, I say, of all the actors Quinn Martin worked with repeatedly during The Fugitive, Ivan Dixon was the only black actor to appear in this series more than once.

Also, as a black woman, I have extra-added respect for this series in the manner to which blacks were portrayed in The Fugitive during its four years on the air with the same amont of dignity and respect to which Mr. Dixon and other thespians, such as Ossie & Ruby, Diana Sands, Janet MacLachlan, Lloyd Haynes, James Edwards, Bill Gunn and Percy Rodrigues, amongst others, brought to their guest roles.

IMHO, given that this series ran amidst the Civil Rights era, that was rather significant.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

I was gonna mention "Dossier On A Diplomat" since I could clearly see you are a fan...I am too. When he actually got some lines (unlike Hogan's Heroes) the man could bring it.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Even more unusual was the fact that CBS Paramount included a lengthy disclaimer on the HAWAII FIVE-0 S2 box noting that the episode "Bored She Hung Herself" aired once as part of Season 2 and was not included on the set, alerting fans in advance to the omission. Why they would go above and beyond with their disclaimer on that set but not THE FUGITIVE indicates that their left hand may not know what their right hand is doing all of the time.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Of course I can only speculate but it wouldn't surprise me if even some of the folks who worked on this latest FUGITIVE release were ignorant of the music change...it could have been carried out by a small cabal at CBS/Paramount...there could be a lot of folks who restored the audio (voice and sound), created the menus, designed the packaging, etc., that were just as shocked when they put the DVDs in their players as the rest of us.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Looks like my little article may have attracted the attention of larger media outlets...



Gord

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Gord, the pen is mightier than the sword!

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

Oh yeah, I forgot that they we're doing DVD/HD-DVD for Star Trek. Still amazes me the prices they demand for Star Trek overalll, just insane. I'd be more interested if they were as loaded as, say, a Twilight Zone, but as is? Ugh.

As for the Twilight Zone and CBS thing, eh, not that many people pay attention to small details and those who do do forget, so don't sweat it.

By the way, for what it's worth, I have to tell you I hit up the TVonDVD.com site daily and regularly use it to help manage purchases and to inform others on what is coming. You do good work and you should be proud of your baby.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews

That's right!!!!!!

Particularly in the motion picture, "Nothing But A Man", in which he co-starred with Miss Abbey Lincoln, in 1964, the same year "Escape Into Black" was produced. He was very powerful in that film.

In fact, Mr. Dixon's good friend, Sidney Poitier, once said that you had to be very careful because if you shared a scene, Mr. Dixon could easily run off with it.

Re: The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews