HGN2001

I read Paul Mavis's DVD review of The Fugitive: The Fourth and Final Season, Volume One at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=45639 and...

I agree with most of it. The series did take a turn for the worse in its fourth season, derailing with the change of producers to Wilton Schiller and John Meredyth Lucas.

After about five or six episodes though, Quinn Martin asked George Eckstein back to co-produce, leaving Lucas the odd-man out, though he came back later with some scripts.

Eckstein set the series back on track a bit, and I think the latter half of this set and latter half-season best exemplifies the change.

Though I agree that the change to color really didn't help the series at all, it was nevertheless exciting for this young viewer to see the series in a different light, and even today, I find myself eager to want to watch one of these episodes in gorgeous color, looking better on today's televisions than they ever did on '60s vintage TV's.

As for the music, well so far, so good (I'm only about six episodes in on the DVD set). Only some source music appers to have been changed (radios, jukeboxes, etc.), and the new "OUTER LIMITS" score fits the series well.

There's also been a detection of a line of script that's been changed in "The Sharp Edge Of Chivalry". Kimble listens through a door to hear the police discussing things. On this DVD an out-of-place-sounding cop says something about "he must have gotten away", while in the old print I have from a syndicated VHS tape has Gerard asking Richard Anderson's character "Are you sure there's no other way out?" to which Anderson replies "No."

It's a very minor change, and one which only leaves question marks in its wake. Why change this minor line of dialog? My suspicion is that it was either a bad coverup to a bad piece of audio, or a change made in the network days that didn't survive to syndication. The Gerard line is redundant from just a couple of minutes earlier.

All-in-all, I'm happy with THE FUGITIVE, Season Four, Volume 1.

Harry

Paul Mavis

I'll take that, Harry.

HGN2001

Hey - at least you ARE reviewing the set. Typically, by the time a fourth season rolls around in DVD-land, no-one's paying much attention. I thank you for your detailed analysis.

Also typical for this particular forum is the usual lack of interest (from the general populace) in one of the finest series ever produced for television.

Ah well. I'm reasonably content - and I guess that's all that really matters.

Harry

Chas Speed

I agree with everything you wrote, but in the case of "The Fugitive" on DVD you can't blame anyone for losing interest in what was a complete (to put it mildly) fiasco. If you needed an example on how NOT to release a series on DVD, the studios treatment of this classic series would be it. The only good thing I can say about it is they didn't ruin season one. One point that everybody overlooks is it was all over nothing. They would never have been sued over 40 year old stock music and the release of season one was proof of that.

HGN2001

My biggest problem is that in these very forums there was next to NO discussion at all about the fiasco that was the Season Two, Volume 1 set. At first, it was just a quiet discussion like this surrounding Paul Mavis' review of the set.

I attempted a thread in the main forum, but it sunk like a lead balloon. From the silence, I ascertained that the membership here simply wasn't interested in a 40+ year-old TV show, and quietly left.

Mr. Mavis has come through with each new release since then, and I was curious enough to check out if he had a review for S4V1.

I must point out that a lot of people seem to misunderstand the whole Season 1 vs. Season 2 use of music. The whole Season 2 debacle surrounded a very specific music library - The Capitol Music Library to be specific (no relation to Capitol Records, other than name similarity). Season 1 DID NOT USE anything from the Capitol library, thus it was presented as it aired. (Even that's not true as some minor source music was changed even in Season One.)

When it came to Season Two, CBS/Paramount took the unfortunate path of replacing ALL backscore music because it wasn't sure who owned the Capitol library - nor apparently were they sure of which music cues belonged to whom.

Harry

Chas Speed

You may be right, but I have watched season one and two back to back with all of the original music and if there is much difference I didn't notice it. It sounds 99.99% identical to me. Certainly not worth deleting an entire score over. I have also heard of films where they could not track down the rights holder to some music and they put some money aside in limbo if they were ever tracked down. It was no big deal.

HGN2001

Oh I agree - CBS/Paramount botched the whole thing due to overzealous legal-types, and it all could have been avoided.

Harry

Chas Speed

Yes, it seems like they let some of the lesser legal brains over at CBS/Paramount basically run the studio. Anyway, they didn't get one dime of my money and I was going to but the entire set. They also built up some extreme bad will to the point where I go out of my way never to buy their discs.