User Reviews

Unlike some Fugitive stories (well actually, all of them) which were pretty basic (Kimble meets a troubled person and tries to help him or her without also getting caught by the police), this one tries to do a little more, in that this one is more of an action oriented story. There's still a human interest aspect as Kimble is asked by his employer's daughter to take the blame for a fender she dented on her father's sports car. Kimble does so only to discover the girl had hit a pedestrian. (Wouldn't you would think that by now he would know better than to get involved in other people's problems?) When the police arrive Kimble splits. The father, a computer scientist with a super-duper computer, offers to help Gerard predict Kimble's movement and presumably effect his capture. Not surprisingly the computer is remarkably efficient in predicting Kimble's actions even though it couldn't have been so in real life (at one point it predicts Kimble will go cranberry picking in Portland, OR and sure enough that's exactly what he does). It's kind of interesting to see the computer set up (how many people today would even know why a card puncher or sorter is needed?) although the show's budget prevented them from doing a completely realistic set up (In those days computers were a massive affair requiring almost all of the available wall and floor space of a very large room.)

This episode, a break from the common Fugitive story, embraces a theme (man vs. machine) that would become a lot more common in other movies and TV shows in the years to come. The power of a computer is shown becoming "smart" enough to predict what a person would do if given enough information about the person. It kind of hard for people today to appreciate this since the state of the art computer system in this story seems almost as antiquated as a quill pen.

As I've said earlier the normal Fugitive story centers around somebody in trouble. In this one the troubled person is practically ignored, as she mainly appears at the beginning and end, and doesn't have the usual dramatic climatic confession we usually expect, since the 2130 is the center of this story. Is this the first time a computer (in a non science fiction genre) had such a prominent place in a TV episode?

Other notes:

The vagabond Kimble meets on the train is clearly meant to remind the viewer of Jack Kerouac. At first this person may seem like a completely unnecessary character dropped into the middle of the story. I think though he was meant to be a human counterpoint to the 2130, as he reads his probing (and correct) character analysis of Kimble, a nice contrast to the computer, with its cold sterile printouts on Kimble's movements. But in a case of it's-just-too-convenient-to-be-true, the discovery by the police of the nearly perfectly hand drawn sketch of Kimble in his notebook is too conveniently at the right time and place just to make the story work (if there had been no sketch, the cops would not have known Kimble had been there, which would have ended the chase right then and there.)

One other minor character is played by Don Mitchell, who would later become a star on the Ironside show, in one of his first roles. Mitchell is another one of a long list of talented actors who were sadly underused during their careers.

Finally I want to note that this episode was directed by Leonard Horn, one of those under-rated directors that never seemed to get the respect he deserved. His work is almost solely confined to television, and his feature film work was just a couple of low budget affairs. I suggest you try to keep an eye out for his name when you happen to watch old TV shows and see if he is more than just a run of the mill operator. TV directors often have little to work with and those with a little something extra make all of the difference, whether it coaxing better performances from actors or keeping the pace nice and tight so that the story doesn't bog down. It's a shame he died at a relatively young age.

Reviewer schappe1, really had the best review. They could have made four or five or six stories out of this one episode. When I think of The Fugitive movie that came out about 20 years ago or so, it just doesn't measure up to the good script writing these old TV shows had.

And it's also a good look at life in the 1960s. For example the fruit Pickers were many normal everyday Americans not just immigrants. People needed jobs back then.

Not everybody had a car so it was many buses running. Much more popular back then.

I do have a question if anybody can answer it. In one of the last scenes, he's riding with a bunch of Pickers. He pays a man 10 cents for the newspaper, and The Fugitive jumps out the back of the truck .

Does anybody know who the black actor is, who The Fugitive got the newspaper from? It's a speaking part but not listed in the credits. Thank you, John.

This is one of the most interesting and memorable episodes of the series. It was probably worth what would now be called a "story arc" – a background story that extends through several episodes, but they didn't do that in those days

Several mini-stories are incorporated into this. Kimble is once again a chauffeur, this time for a scientist played by Melvyn Douglas, who has immature daughter, (Susan Albert), who hits a man with her own little sports car. She cons Kimble into taking the blame without telling him it was a hit and run. When the police show up, Kimble chauffeurs himself out of town. That's story #1.

Douglas is a computer scientist, with one of those intimidating early monster calculators that take up an entire room. It's called 'The 2130'. (My smart phone can probably do more today, but it doesn't look intimidating.) He's angry that Kimble was apparently joy-riding with his car and hit a guy and then stole the car to get away. He's going to use his monster computer to determine Kimble's patterns in his flight- even the ones he's not quite aware of- and thus help the cops to find him. He calls in Gerard to give him all the information he can provide and they work together to find their man. That's story #2 and the one that could have been an arc that was in the background of a number of episodes before it was resolved.

Now we see Kimble in multiple situations around the country as the computer traces and predicts his movements. Ed Robertson's book points out that Kimble uses five different aliases in this one episode. He takes up with a family of migrant workers who like him but aren't quite sure what to make of him. But the police are waiting for him at their next stop and the migrants help him escape. That's story #3.

He hops a freight train and encounters another criminal on the lam, (Hampton Francher), who is also a writer and artist. He's writing a book about his travels and includes a description and sketch of Kimble. When the police are ready for them at their destination, they both take off and Francher shoots it out with the police and is killed, allowing Kimble to escape. But they find Francher's book and drawings. That's story #4

Now Kimble signs up with a flood control outfit in Oregon. But the police are checking every truck. That's story #5. But in the meantime, stories #1-2 have changed. Douglas notices that Kimble's history reveals only two events that suggest he's a bad person: the murder of his wife and the hit and run while he was their chauffeur. In fact the 2130 determines based on all the information that has been fed into it, including the typical characteristics of a murderer, there is a 98% chance Kimble is innocent. Gerard responds that "2% is good enough for me."

Then Douglas's daughter breaks down and confesses that she was driving the car when she hit the man. Douglas decides that they are hunting down an innocent man and undermines their efforts by leaking what they are doing to a reporter. He thus becomes the opposite of a frequent type of Fugitive character: instead of a seeming ally who becomes a threat to Kimble he's an antagonist who becomes an ally.

Kimble sees an article in the paper and takes off again, knowing that he's got to start going against his instincts to stay alive. That means moving north when it's cold and we see him shivering while waiting in line for a job with the snow flying. Now your heart really goes out to him. It would have been a strong note to end the third season on. But we've three more episodes to go.

I found this to be a mediocre episode that left me with a few questions. Before I get to those, I thought all the things the computer spat out were basic common sense stuff that anyone with basic logic could figure out on their own.

When the Professor said Gerard had a computer type mind, he actually didn't because he simply used basic common sense with his own mind to conclude what the computer did.

I think it's pretty obvious that in the winter time, Kimble would head towards warmer parts of the country, and other parts in summer. It's kind of amusing that they needed a computer to figure that out. And you'd think after 3 years that the police would already have a map pinning all the places he's been previously seen along with the dates to figure out any pattern. This is just basic detective work. It's amazing they waited 3 years for a computer to do this for them.

Now for my questions.... That family Kimble encountered with the camper. They seemed to be enjoying a family vacation cross country, so why would they join Kimble getting work picking walnuts?! I found that so odd. It doesn't seem like something a family on vacation would do. Who knows...maybe they were fugitives too I guess.

Then there's the professor's daughter Laurie who had Kimble take the rap for her hit and run accident, so the police were looking for him on that additional charge now.

In Act IV, she comes clean to her Dad that it was she who had the accident after drinking beer, yet in the Epilogue he tells Gerard that he's taking her out for dinner that evening. Shouldn't she be in jail?!

Did they not tell police that she committed the hit and run and continued to allow Kimble to take the blame for it? Because I doubt she'd be able to go out to a nice dinner after admitting an alcohol related hit and run to police that put a man in the hospital.

And my biggest question was after Kimble saw the paper and jumped out of the truck. Gerard was told that he jumped out only "7 or 8 miles back", which would have been not 10 minutes prior.

So Kimble was still within a very close 10 mile radius and most likely still on foot too, yet Gerard didn't seem to care to act on that. A 10 mile radius is small enough for police to drop a net over, especially if the workers saw the direction he ran in after jumping out of the truck.

I wondered why Gerard didn't spring into action to try and catch him. His resignation of his escaping him again was strange given such close proximity. It's not like Kimble was 100 miles away already. He was still very much able to catch. I'm being generous with my 5 star rating and found it to be one of the very few lesser episodes of a almost perfect third season.