The Walls of Night

This episode finds Richard Kimble working steadily as a truck driver. He's doing well...and even has a girlfriend, Barbara (Janice Rule)...though she has a secret. It seems she's on work release and is afraid, ironically enough, to let Kimble know she's been sent to prison. Little does she know that Stan IS Dr. Richard Kimble, the famous convicted wife murderer! So, when 'Stan' has a free weekend off and invites Barbara to join him at a mountain hideaway, she can't accept...but still won't tell him her legal troubles. Later, when she shows up at the mountain resort, the viewer is left wondering what is really happening!

This is a pretty good episode. The only negative is that it's also one of the very last episodes of the series and you'd think with his being this in love with Barbara that there'd be some mention of her during the finale of the series. Worth watching.

I've seen this episode many times, but the last time I saw it I noticed in the epilogue that as Kimble walks free down the street, having once more eluded capture, he goes past the "Del Floria Tailor Shop" sign from "The Man From U. N. C. L. E." The railing leading to the below ground entrance is there also. While in the U. N. C. L. E. series the entrance is usually shot head on or from a high crane, in this shot we see it from side walk level behind Kimble as he walks past it. I had go back to verify what I thought I had seen. Has anyone else seen this? I don't ever remember having seen something so prominent from one series put in another series like this.

The series seemed to be alternating good and bad episodes at this point and this is one of the best ones. It's not just based on an intriguing situation with a suspenseful ending. Here the emotions of the characters are paramount.

Another woman, (Janice Rule), has fallen for Kimble and he's fallen for her as well. They are co-workers at a trucking firm, (she's the dispatcher). Kimble keeps offering her plans for them to get away and do things together and she obviously wants to go with him but finds a reason to turn him down each time. He has a secret and she does, too. She's working at this job on work release and somehow Kimble doesn't know this yet. Their relationship is impossible because of her problem he doesn't know about and even more impossible because of the situation he's in that she doesn't know about. When her application for parole is denied, she bolts and joins Kimble at an out-of- season resort they have to themselves while the police are looking for both of them. After an idyll there, they hit the road where each other's secret is revealed to them.

The episode has the feel of an old-fashioned doomed lovers story, like "You Only Live Once", Gun Crazy" and "Bonnie and Clyde" but without the violence or the tragic ending, although both lovers face the somewhat lesser tragedy that neither of them can find happiness because their lives really don't belong to them as long as they are… fugitives.

If the decision had not been made to have an "endgame" episode, this might have been a good story to end the show with. But there was one more regular episode and then: "The Judgement".

This episode portrays one of the more convincing romances Kimble has in his travels. Working at a trucking company, Kimble meets Barbara Wells, played by actress Janice Rule. She falls for him, and the feeling is mutual. Yet, when Kimble asks her out, she will only go for coffee during the day. At night, she is always busy.

The problem is that Barbara is on work-release from prison. Kimble invites her to spend the weekend out of town while he is on a trucking run, and she must refuse. But her heart overtakes her good sense and she runs after him, violating the terms of her release.

They spend a wonderful weekend together, but each of them faces jeopardy when the law comes after them.