Starring David Janssen as The Fugitive

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by JozefK, Jun 13, 2017.

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  1. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Dixie
    Would anyone want to participate in a group rewatch?

    Not every episode, just some of the more notable ones.
     
  2. rockclassics

    rockclassics Senior Member

    Location:
    Mainline Florida
    Thanks for posting.

    The show always seemed to get out.of control with Don Rickles as a guest.
     
  3. James Slattery

    James Slattery Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island
    Having anyone else be the killer would have been disingenuous to the entire series and would have invalidated the entire four seasons, thus killing the show in syndication. It would have been a cheat ending. This was the best drama show in television history, although the finale is loaded with inconsistencies, not the least of which is his brother-in-law telling his sister to go to her mother when it was established the mother was dead.

    I will say that in my almost 40 years as a TV show collector and with a few hundred thousand episodes of shows in my collection, The Judgment is the most requested item by friends to see in my entire collection. And at age 9, I remember distinctly watching the last 2 shows with my parents, something I rarely if ever did. Everybody watched it.
     
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  4. jjh1959

    jjh1959 Senior Member

    Location:
    St. Charles, MO
    Replacement program was still operating as recently as late last year.
     
  5. Jim Pattison

    Jim Pattison Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kitchener ON
    One last post about the replacement discs...

    The discs in the 2012 Most Wanted set have no artwork on them, only text. The replacement discs can be identified by the silhouette of Richard Kimble beside the title of the program:
    [​IMG]
    Left: original disc. Right: replacement disc

    The following five discs were replaced. (Affected episode in parenthesis):
    Season One, Volume Two, Disc 2 (Bloodline)
    Season One, Volume Two, Disc 3 (Taps For a Dead War)
    Season Two, Volume One, Disc 4 (The Iron Maiden)
    Season Three, Volume One, Disc 2 (Three Cheers For Little Boy Blue)
    Season Three, Volume One, Disc 3 (Landscape With Running Figures Parts 1 & 2)
     
  6. clugul

    clugul New Member

    Location:
    California
    As long as you are buying a new DVD set from a reputable source, the music & other issues have been completely resolved. Below are customer reviews from those who recently bought either the Most Wanted Edition (includes special features) or who bought The Complete Series (no special features)


    Amazon Customer Reviews: The Fugitive: The Most Wanted Edition

    Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Fugitive: The Most Wanted Edition - Complete Series

    Amazon Customer Reviews: The Fugitive: The Complete Series

    Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Fugitive: The Complete Series
     
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  7. clugul

    clugul New Member

    Location:
    California
    Just FYI: This fellow (David Alan Hall) was directly involved in restoring the original music. Note that his comments on this video are from a few years ago.
    Fixing the Fugitive: Thanks to the Fans
     
  8. FritzL

    FritzL Adrift & Dumbfounded

    Location:
    Costa Mesa, CA
    Are there original music problems with the currently available season (really half-season) discs?
     
  9. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Dixie
    A half-century ago, ‘The Fugitive’ farewell set a precedent for series conclusions | TheRecord.com

    Once ABC announced in winter 1967 that "The Fugitive" was in its final season, Leonard Goldberg, a network programming executive at the time, remembered how friends would ask him how Kimble's journey would wrap up.

    "I said, 'Well, it's going to end — it will be over like all other television shows,'" recalled Goldberg, currently the executive producer of "Blue Bloods" on CBS. "We hadn't planned on ending it."

    Goldberg remembers hearing from his ABC bosses that the audience had no interest in how Kimble's personal story ended. But he argued that fans had become emotionally involved with the overarching plot lines. Young viewers in the turbulent 1960s were attracted to the anti-establishment undertones in Kimble's continued evasion of law enforcement — a device that one ABC executive had believed was "un-American" when the show was first pitched.

    Said Goldberg, "'I said, "Our viewers invested four years with Richard Kimble. He's become real to them. And they want to know what happens to him.'"

    Complicating the situation were business concerns over how a resolution to the story would damage the market for repeats and syndication.

    Quinn Martin, the producer of the series, was already seeing $500,000 a year go away with its cancellation. He was counting on a bounty from the sale of episodes to local TV stations. "The Fugitive," which aired in 69 countries, was also ABC's most popular and lucrative property overseas. (Janssen said he was frequently quizzed about Kimble wherever he went on vacation in Europe.)

    Martin ultimately agreed that fans deserved a finale, and a script was quickly written. But the network, wanting to make sure ratings for repeats would hold up over the summer, waited to air the two-part story, titled "The Judgment," in the last two weeks of August.

    Goldberg also believed the farewell would help promote ABC's fall lineup.​

    ---

    "I loved the idea of me getting to come into a series at the end and that it would be so special," said Baker, executive director of the acting school at San Francisco's Academy of Art University. "It was always a joy to work with an instinctive actor, and that's what David was."

    Baker was out of the country when Part 2 of "The Judgment" aired. But she learned quickly of its impact while in Madrid for the filming of "Krakatoa: East of Java" with Maximilian Schell. Spanish journalists besieged her at the location shouting, "El fugitive! El fugitive!"​

    ---

    The actual reveal was kept under wraps under Martin's orders. ABC did not provide a screening of the finale for TV critics.

    "The media didn't understand how important it was to the viewers," said Goldberg. "Had they realized it was going to be this enormous of an event, I think they would have done a better job of finding out what the ending was going to be."

    Fears that the climax would doom the aftermarket for "The Fugitive" proved unrealized. Reruns of the series remained popular through the decades that followed.

    As "The Fugitive" first proved 50 years ago, people care.​
     
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  10. cboldman

    cboldman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hamilton, OH USA
    I had thought that The Fugitive was a trend-setter in doing a wrap-up episode, but Route 66 brought its premise to a conclusion three years earlier -- also in a 2-part finale, which married off one of the leads (to Barbara Eden!) and brought the cross-country traveling to a resolution. I guess the stakes were higher in The Fugitive's plot.
     
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  11. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    Just an amazing show, with an absolutely perfect casting of the title character in Janssen. You could never get comfortable watching this show, and Janssen's expressions throughout belied the fear and anxiety he had to be feeling every minute of every day.

    My wife and I binge watched The Fugitive when there was a marathon on one of the retro stations, and it's amazing how bummed out we both were afterwards. Kimble is so often on the verge of finding a glimpse of happiness and contentment, only to inevitably have it ripped away. It's a show you really need to be in the mood to watch, but absolutely one of the great TV series ever made.
     
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  12. Jay_Z

    Jay_Z Forum Resident

    In a long form way, I kind of like the ending-with-a-whimper arc of Route 66. Buz has to leave, Tod continues with a new partner but the chemistry isn't there and things peter out. Glenn Corbett had a couple of good moments, a couple of episodes where he and his character were used to good effect, but man could he be wooden. Tod/Martin Milner seemed somewhat irritated with the situation.

    But the final two-parter of Route 66 is BAD. The worst episodes of the series. The only good thing was that Tod and Barbara Eden actually get married in a church, and it looks like a real church; one of the hallmarks of that show, the location shooting throughout the country. You can forget the rest, though.
     
  13. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Dixie
    You would think that with a show as well-known as Route 66 this finale would be more famous (I've never seen the episode). Note that Wikipedia does not cite it as the first, but only says it was "one of the earlier primetime television dramas to have a planned series finale resolving the fate of its main characters". So in a way the question remains open.

    I started a thread about pre-Fugitive series finales, but got almost no response:

    Pre-Fugitive series finales?

    From that thread:

    The Fugitive's legendary final episode in 1967, in which Dr. Richard Kimble captures The One-Armed Man, was one of the most watched TV programs in history. It inspired later series to do the same: The infamously shocking Nichols, The Odd Couple, Mary Tyler Moore, and Bob Newhart all had concluding "closure" episodes.

    Interestingly this type of finale, at least up to The Odd Couple, was generally opposed by networks and production companies., partly due to the idea that a "closed" show would be unappealing in reruns. As both The Fugitive and MTMS were disappointing in syndication (though The Odd Couple was actually a bigger hit than it had been on ABC), this idea was not firmly disproved until MASH was a bonanza in reruns even after its hugely popular finale.

    Today of course it's hard to find a long-running series that does not have a finale. However before The Fugitive it was fairly rare.

    But it wasn't unknown.

    Wikipedia on the short-lived 1966 spy drama The Man Who Never Was:

    In the final episode, "I Take This Woman", which aired on January 4, 1967, Murphy is tired of his masquerade, defeats enemy spies and retires from the spy game. He proposes marriage to Eva, who accepts, bringing the series to the end. It was unusual for a series to have a concluding episode at the time.​

    Curiously, the very popular Dick Van Dyke Show had something of a finale, in which Rob's book about working on The Alan Brady Show is bought for the movies, and the Petrie family are clearly entering a new chapter in their lives. However they don't move, nor does Rob, IIRC, leave his job. Perhaps this lack of major change is the reason the DVDS finale is seldom mentioned in this type of discussion.

    Were there any even earlier examples?

    Note: The sometimes-listed sitcom Hank (1965) doesn't really qualify. The show concerned a go-getter who works various odd jobs and attends college classes even though he is not a registered student. So we regularly see the registrar/authority figure farcically chasing him around campus but never catching up with him. This premise didn't get ratings, so in the last episode Hank confesses to the ruse -- but his initiative and faith in higher education are applauded, and he is given a full scholarship. In the last shot we see Hank's teenage sister say admiringly, "There goes my brother -- the registered student". So we have closure.

    Except not exactly. The producers of Hank later admitted that the final episode can be interpreted as closure, but in fact was intentionally left open for a hoped-for continuation of the series, in which Hank is a typical student and the show is a conventional college sitcom.
     
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  14. The Hermit

    The Hermit Wavin' that magick glowstick since 1976

    What a pity that The Incredible Hulk never got a similar proper finale... thanks Universal!!!
     
  15. sanQ

    sanQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Bernadino, CA
    He looked tired not guilty
     
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  16. sanQ

    sanQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Bernadino, CA
    I also started watching around that time in the late 80's since I was not of age to see it the first time. I really got hooked on the show and watched it every time it came on. Last week I bought the complete series on dvd and am just started Season 2. What a fantastic show. You do need to get the dvds and watch again. It will be fresh and new again. I just can't get enough of this show. I wish Janssen was still alive.
     
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  17. You should have been on the jury.:D
     
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  18. James Slattery

    James Slattery Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island
    Hank's finale was open ended but it could still be considered a conclusion. I'm still counting it.
     
  19. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Dixie
    [​IMG]
     
  20. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    they corrected the errors and offered replacement DVDs...
     
  21. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    that set has the defects...
     
  22. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    the corrected complete box has a yellow UPC sticker over the original...I own it.
     
  23. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    NO...
     
  24. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    very sad...I love him. one of my favorite actors when I was a kid...
     
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  25. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    it was...see my posting above.
     
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