Landscape with Running Figures: Part 1

This is the first episode of a two-parter. And, as I sat and watched, I noticed how obvious it was that the show was heavily padded in order to stretch it out to two parts. I really think the story you see here could have been told in about 20 minutes more or less.

The show begins with Kimble being cornered in some crappy town. Because folks know it's Kimble, they contact the police in Indiana and Lieutenant Girard (Barry Morse) makes an appearance. For the first time, you see Mrs. Girard (Barbara Rush) and she is NOT pleased that once again her husband has dropped everything, including family commitments, to go chasing after Kimble. In fact, she's so unhappy she hops on a bus and leaves town. Not surprisingly, eventually Kimble gets on the same bus...and by the end of the show, the bus has had an accident and she has been injured and cannot see.

This is not a bad episode but it is disappointing due to the pacing and padding. Hopefully it will improve in the next episode.

One of the best episodes of the series, well -acted and brilliantly directed by Walter Grauman. It starts out in a heavy rain. A weary, water-logged Kimble shows up for work only to find that when he signed in, he wrote his name as "Richard Kimble", instead of "Steve Carver", the alias he is using at the moment. It's a product of his fatigue. The long search/chase is really starting to get to him. It's also starting to get to Lt. Gerard, who interrupts a vacation with his wife to check out the lead- and makes the mistake of bringing his wife, (played by Barbara Rush) along. She's even more weary of the chase than even Kimble or Gerard. It's like she's in a love triangle and on the losing side.

Grauman has a lot of good touches, including a scene where Kimble hides from a police car next to a building that, per the sign behind him, has been "condemned". He manages to escape by hitch-hiking on a truck with an unsympathetic driver who eventually boots him out at the site of a bus crash- a bus that has Mrs. Gerard, who has left her husband in it. She has a concussion and is temporarily blind. Kindly Mr. Carver helps her and get into a pick-up truck, (it's a construction site and they drive off to the nearest town for medical help. The town proves deserted because of a flood warning. They have to deal with some ner-do-wells who harass them in the town but are then left alone again.

Kimble doesn't know that this is Mrs. Gerard, (she's using her maiden name), and she doesn't know that he is Richard Kimble. They begin to relax and talk to each other and develop a relationship. Meanwhile, Gerard has figured out she was on the bus and is on the way to rescue and re-unite with her. Slowly, she realizes who her new friend is and becomes determined to get him to stay so that her husband can capture him and end his obsession. It's still another episode where someone initially friendly to Kimble turns out to be an antagonist.

In Mel Proctor's book on the show, Producer Alan Armer complains that Barbara Rush "cried all the way the way through the … thing. It just ruined the character. This was not a cry-baby, wimpy woman." Again, I couldn't agree less. She's playing a woman who has just lost her sight, gets harassed by some thugs and then finds out she's with Richard Kimble, the murderer her husband is after. I think she's great. And so is Barry Morse, confronting the cost of his quest and David Janssen who plays a played-out Kimble who gets to relax and profits from his conversations with the lady- until they realize who they are.

Armer tells a story that David Janssen "was always good-naturedly grousing to us that we never put beautiful women in his shows, that we always gave him actresses with coke-bottle glasses." So Quinn Martin let him pick the actress to play Mrs. Gerard and he picked his old friend Barbara Rush, Rush, of course, was superb." I wonder how Vera Miles, Patricia Crowley, Susan Oliver, Ruby Dee, Brenda Vaccaro, Geraldine Brooks, Gail Kobe, Sue Randall, Elizabeth Allen, Pamela Tiffin, Ruta Lee, Lee Grant, Madlyn Rhue, Joanna Moore, Gloria Grahame, Shirley Knight, Bethel Leslie, Suzanne Pleshette, Lois Nettleton, Diana Hyland, Carol Rossen, Tuesday Weld, Elizabeth MacRae, Brenda Scott, Angie Dickinson, Katherine Crawford, Sharon Farrell, Norma Crane, Celeste Holm, Jacqueline Scott, Marion Ross, Fay Spain and Sheree North, (all of whom had guested on the show by this point), felt about being described as wearing "Coke bottle glasses"?

A can't miss episode for "Fuge fans". Ed Robertson declared it the best episode of the entire run of the show.

Could this be the worst episode ever??!!

There are many things I enjoy about old TV, seeing actors in their green years and being reminded of childhood memories from the old vehicles and location shots.

This episode is shot inordinately on the cheesiest sets in Hollywood. The plot is a mélange of all the worst clichés ever committed to film. The 3 heinous delinquents that terrorize Kimball and Mrs. Lt. Girard are reason enough to fast forward to the next scene.

I remember when 'The Fugitive' ran in the afternoon on A&E network. I've been wanting to see the episode with the shot of the train full of Santa Fe Refrigerated Express cars with the blue doors and icicles painted on them. I'm going to have to be more selective in my disc selection, I don't think I can take to many more of these.

Kimble, looking more exhausted and depleted than ever, signs his real name on his time sheet and blows his cover. So once again, he is trying to avoid capture from the beginning. Gerard and his wife, Marie, were on vacation when Phil gets word of the situation, so he drags Marie with him. Curious that he was previously married to a woman named Anne. In addition to Marie bring a different actress than Anne, the Gerards now have more than one kid to check on. Possibly a second wife, but possibly just the writers not really caring about detail. Anyways, Marie is tired of Phil calling out Kimble's name during love making and gets on an East bound bus without telling him. Now, there is a flood warning which is complicating things, but it only rained one night and things seem dry. Dick gets a ride with a trucker who thinks Dick is a drunken bum for some reason. That guy don't know Dick! Dick hasn't eaten in a couple days and hasn't shaved that morning (!) and tells the guy to shut up when they get to a roadblock. The guy throws Dick out of the truck, but as luck would have it, a bus happens by. The very bus carrying Marie Gerard! The road may be closed ahead and the passengers are given a chance to get out and get a ride back to where they came from. Dick uses this happenstance to inconspicuously board the bus. Officer Swanny is on the bus and first makes a pass at Marie, and then acts a fool and distracts the driver long enough so he doesn't see a warning sign, and then crashes the bus. No one is injured except Marie, who bumps her head and goes blind. Dick starts to walk away, but can't do it if there's someone who needs his help, so he tends Marie. She's using her maiden name and although they're from Stafford, Dick doesn't know who she is, and she doesn't recognize Dick's distinctive voice. There is a vehicle on hand for Dick to take her to a nearby town. A blind Tuesday Weld was bad enough, now Dick has to deal with a blind Marie Gerard. Meanwhile, Gerard finds out that Marie is on the bus, but is more interested in catching Kimble than he is about her. Stay tuned for Landscape with Running Figures part 2.

This two part episode is outstanding. The opening, where Kimble arrives at work in the middle of the night in driving rain, is perhaps the most powerful in the series.

Lieutenant Gerard and his wife Marie (well played by actress Barbara Rush) are supposed to be on vacation, but it gets interrupted once again, because of news of Kimble. She is irate about always being second in Gerard's thoughts, after Kimble.

Trying to escape from her husband, who has abandoned her to join the search, Marie Gerard, now using her maiden name Lindsey, finds most paths out of town are blocked by floods. In the meantime, Kimble is under enormous pressure from the manhunt, jumping from one dangerous, heart-pounding situation to the next, in one case relying on the help of small children to shield him from Gerard.

A lucky escape from danger puts Kimble on the same bus with Marie Gerard, but they do not meet until a crash which leaves her blind. She cannot see Kimble's face, and Kimble also does not recognize her. Despite hostility from a fellow passenger, Kimble is trusted to take a truck and seek medical aid for Mrs. Gerard.

In "Never Wave Goodbye," Part 1, Gerard is married to Ann Gerard, played by actress Rachel Ames. This change of wives is never explained.