Re: "The Fugitive" (1963): Season 1; Volume 1 Rumored To Be In The Works!
Thank you Colin, for the review. It gives an interesting look into how the younger generations might view what has been billed as "the greatest drama TV ever had."
Obviously Gary, David, myself and others look on THE FUGITIVE as something that perhaps Colin and members of younger demographics might not quite see. So much has changed in the landscape of not only television, but life in general since this show was produced.
I hinted at this in an earlier post:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...&postcount=152
I found Colin's review to be fair and honest. Those first few episodes after the pilot were somewhat strange choices as early episodes, and I can understand exactly where he's coming from. As for the "babe of the week", well, I suppose that with a drama about police pursuing an innocent man, the trend back in the '60s was to give the women in the audience something to grab onto as well. I can tell you that this red-blooded American male never minded feasting his eyes on the lovely actresses of the day as they made their procession through the weekly episodes.
That's perhaps another point. These shows were meant to be played out in the large time-frame of a week-to-week series. Kimble drifts into a town, interacts with the population, and leaves. Then we don't see him for another whole week, when he turns up somewhere else.
With the series available for instant viewing in a "Play All" mode, sometimes the similarity of the format might become more repetitively annoying. "Geez, just twenty minutes ago he was madly in love with Vera Miles, now he's falling for Pat Crowley?" When, in fact, the idea is that weeks - months - have passed in between.
There have to be countless days and nights of Kimble's flight and pursuit that we don't get to see. The episodes themselves represent the unconnected highlights of his journey.
So, yeah, I'm happy that Colin seemed to enjoy the series as much as he did, and hope that he can continue to do so as the series progresses forward. Within the scope of the entire series, there are bound to be themes, situations, that ring familiar, mostly due to the constraints of the format - a man on the run interacting with different people every week.
Indeed, with the "stable" of guest stars that Quinn Martin liked to use, we many times get to see the same actors playing different roles. We'll see Robert Duvall and Bruce Dern again in later episodes, and as mentioned, we get to enjoy Suzanne Pleshette in two different roles - only a few episodes apart as one came at the end of one season and the other came near the beginning of the next.
(Correction to above: It's Lois Nettleton who appeared in two episodes very close together numerically. She was in episode #89 near the end of the third season (last episode filmed that year), and in episode #92, the second episode in the fourth season under the new production management.)
Richard Anderson, who plays Kimble's brother-in-law even gets to play a different character during the series.
Harry
...with 12 days to THE FUGITIVE on DVD...
at all in your review.
The gang here has me more than ready for this one 
I'll be watching this one for the first time.
