The Ivy Maze

Kimble is notified by his sister that an old friend wants to be contacted. The old friend is a former fraternity brother, Prof. Fritz Simpson, played by actor William Windom. The professor has two important pieces of news. First, he believes a one-armed man working as a maintenance man at his university is the one Kimble is looking for. Second, the professor is involved in dream-deprivation research, where subjects are allowed to sleep but are awakened when they start to dream. This can cause the subjects to lose inhibitions and admit things they otherwise would not admit.

Kimble arrives and identifies the one-armed man as Fred Johnson, the one he saw running from his house the night Helen Kimble was killed. Johnson, using the name Carl Stoker, is inducted into the experiment as a paid volunteer. Although Johnson talks about the killing in Stafford, complications set in when someone informs Lieutenant Gerard about Kimble's presence.

Dick's old frat brother Fritz is a college professor who notices a one-armed employee and notifies Donna with the news. Against all odds, this particular OAM is Fred Johnson, the guy who killed Helen. Dick shows up and IDs Lefty, but Fritz wants to get a confession by subjecting Fred to a dream deprivation study he's doing. Well, things look rosey, but there's just one thing. Fritz's wife, Caroline, spots Dick on campus and calls Gerard. Seems like Fritz was briefly engaged to Helen before she left him for the wonderful future Dr Kimble, and Caroline for some reason hates Dick for that. And she's not crazy about Fritz either. So Gerard, who no longer has to answer to captain Carpenter, is on his way to Wellington College. Carpenter is one of those characters who disappeared without explanation. It was assumed Gerard drove him to either early retirement or an insane asylum. Anyways, Caroline meets Dick and starts talking about old times, and instantly becomes besties with him. Johnson seems to be reminiscent of a student involved in Bill Murray's experiments in Ghostbusters, and soon starts talking about a Stafford job that went wrong, although his account of the murder differs greatly from what was shown in Judgement. Despite Caroline's best efforts, Gerard shows up on the scene and it's chaos. Johnson, groggy from lack of dreams, nevertheless overpowers everyone and grabs the tape with his confession and throws it into a convenient jug of acid. Johnson easily escapes as no one cares about him. Kimble's escape is more harrowing, but he is able to get into the equipment compartment of the bus carrying the football team, and he leaves in the rear with the gear. He later rolls out wearing a helmet in case anyone is shooting at him. And Fritz and Caroline are in a better place in their marriage thanks to Richard Kimble.....fugitive.

"The Ivy Maze" is filled with weird story elements and coincidences which made for a much more remarkable and unbelievable plot than usual...making it seem like a weak episode.

The one-armed man just happens to be working at a college where one of Dr. Kimble's old college chums works. Together, the two doctors come up with a weird plan....to pay the one-armed man to participate in a sleep deprivation study and get him to confess to the murder of Kimble's wife since his defenses will be lowered. Dr. Simpson (William Windom) has one glitch in the plan...he doesn't consider his wife...a woman who wants to see Kimble captured. Plus, no one seemed to anticipate the way the one-armed man would react once he's betrayed himself...a HUGE weakness in the plot as well.

I don't like "The Fugitive" episodes where you have to suspend disbelief as much as you do in this one. While it was all very novel, it also seemed like the writers had perhaps run out of ideas and were scraping together a plot which should have been tossed.

This is an important episode in the Fugitive saga. An old school buddy, (William Windom) is running an experiment on the impact of sleep deprivation- one of which seems to be an inability to lie. One of his paid subjects is a care-taker at the school- who happens to have one arm. It's Fred Johnson, whom Kimble believes killed his wife. Windom summons his old friend to help him work on Johnson and get a taped confession.

Inevitably, there must be complications. Windom was in love with Helen Kimble before he married Richard and his wife, (Geraldine Brooks) resents it. Out of spite, she calls Lt. Gerard. But this could be a good thing – if they can get the confession before Gerard gets his claws on Kimble. Obviously things can't be allowed to work out- not yet. But one gets the impression that Gerard might finally be beginning to soften up and question Kimble's guilt. The endgame is coming.

This is a convoluted affair, albeit with a great cast ( the excellent William Windom), and the terrific trio are here, Kimble/Johnson/ Gerard. But the main thing is Johnsons confession to murdering Kimbles wife being taped, which is more compelling than the finale we got, where another character is brought in to testify witnessing the event. Someone should have been guarding the tape room!