The Fugitive: Landscape With Running Figures

It's no secret that one of my favorite shows of all time is The Fugitive -- a Q.M. production. As Richard Kimble, the doctor falsely accused and convicted of murder and in an eternal search for the elusive One-Armed Man, David Janssen helped create a character whose story outgrew even his enormous fan base; you don't have to be a follower of the series to get the tired joke "the One-Armed Man did it."

For a long time, the series was mostly unattainable to modern audiences. With the exception of a very brief run on a local Seattle TV station, and an even briefer run on TV Land, the show's been absent from television since A&E cancelled the reruns in 1994 -- and only 42 out of 120 episodes were released on VHS.

Now, however, the series is being released half a season at a time on DVD, and fans too young to be familiar with the original run can finally watch the show as it was meant to be seen, for the first time.

One episode I found particularly compelling was a two-parter, the enigmatically titled "Landscape With Running Figures." Not only did the episode feature an excellent storyline -- even by Fugitive standards -- but it also presented an interesting example of how a given episode can both follow and stray from a show's set formula.

For example, most episodes begin with Kimble settled into the routine of his latest temporary alias -- a claustrophobically small apartment or hotel room, a low-profile, minimum-wage job, etc. Of course, just as Kimble starts to feel content in this new identity, something happens to jeopardize his anonymity. Usually, this is a result of circumstances beyond Kimble's control, but in "Landscape," he's got no one to blame but himself; he screwed up and accidentally wrote his real name into his job's daily sign-in sheet.

Before long, his boss contacts the local police (he's never heard of Kimble, but is spooked by his use of an alias), who in turn contact Lieutenant Gerard. All of this is familiar territory for regular viewers of The Fugitive. But here's where things get interesting: The Fugitive rarely gives us a peek into Lt. Gerard's private life, but here we meet his wife, who, it turns out, is just about fed up with his obsession with capturing Kimble. For Marie Gerard, the current adventure is a real slap in the face, as Gerard has interrupted their first vacation in years, to pursue the latest hot tip about Kimble's whereabouts. The last straw is when Gerard promises to call her from police headquarters at 11, but gets so wrapped up in coordinating the search for Kimble, that he completely forgets about her until hours later. By then, it's too late, and Mrs. Gerard -- notably going by her maiden name, Marie Lindsey -- has bought a bus ticket out of town. She's on her way home, but it's clear that this is the first step in what will be a separation and maybe even a divorce.

Meanwhile, Kimble has also high-tailed it out of town, hitch-hiking until he gets picked up by a gruff truck-driver. The guy turns out to be less than a good samaritan, however; he apparently picked Kimble up only so he could lecture Kimble about how pathetic he is. This is typical of The Fugitive, in which most seemingly nice people tend to have a hidden agenda. In fact, the trucker's insults and unfair conclusions are fairly benign compared to many "nice" people Kimble's encountered.

"I know all about people like you," the trucker gripes, and it goes downhill from there until the trucker has worked himself into such a frenzy that he finally kicks Kimble out -- as luck would have it, right by a roadblock the police have set up. Kimble avoids detection by blending into a crowd milling about a Greyhound bus, and slips onto the bus, unaware that his arch-enemy's wife is already a passenger. This would seem to be a ridiculous coincidence -- it wouldn't be the show's first, not by a long-shot -- but the episode made it a point earlier that transportation is scarce, due to many nearby towns having already evacuated in anticipation of a flood. So it sort of makes sense that Kimble and Mrs. Gerard would end up on the same bus.

Of course, things are never that easy for Kimble, so it's no surprise when his smooth escape is thwarted by a bus crash. Mrs. Gerard is injured, and Kimble volunteers to drive her to the nearest hospital. Because they're both going by false names, neither Kimble nor Mrs. Gerard realize each other's true identity, or how closely their lives have intertwined. Most of the episode consists of their journey, as they search for a doctor's office or hospital that hasn't been evacuated.

By making a main character out of Lt. Gerard's wife, "Landscape" dramatically breaks with the show's formula by giving us real insight into the private life of the usually one-dimensional Gerard. We see how Gerard has driven his wife away, not through cruelty, but by simply making her a clear second priority in his life. The Gerard marriage has been thoroughly destroyed by the lieutenant's Kimble obsession, and part of the tragedy is that Lt. Gerard is only dimly aware of this fact. When Mrs. Gerard propositions Kimble, she's not doing so out of some petty attempt to hurt her husband; it's clear that the sexual fantasies she confesses to are both sincere, and a result of emotional desperation. Kimble is not just some random man she is latching onto, but rather a man who has shown her the attention, care and kindness that her husband hasn't displayed in years.

For me, the best scene is the one in which Mrs. Gerard finally realizes the identity of her mysterious benefactor. She and Kimble start reminiscing about their lives when they were happily married. And Kimble screws up again; he's been careful not to mention his real name or the name of his home town, but he mentions the slogan of the local paper, which Mrs. Gerard, of course, recognizes as the Stafford paper. We see the realization on her face, as well as the unspoken decision that she will not turn him in. After all, Kimble may have inadvertantly, indirectly ruined her marriage, but while her husband is off running his own pursuits, Kimble took time out of his own to care for Mrs. Gerard. And so she selflessly decides to help him escape when the police come looking for him, despite the knowledge that his capture would finally end the very distraction that is tearing her marriage apart. This is especially ironic considering an earlier scene in which Lt. Gerard laments that Kimble "somehow gets decent people to help him -- even people who have no reason to." Gerard is stumped, because he doesn't understand that people only help Kimble after he has helped them, and they suddenly feel grateful and obliged. How would he feel if he were to find out that his own wife is now one of these many people who have helped his nemesis escape capture?

Yet despite the unusually personal stakes in the episode, "Landscape" is in other ways a very typical episode. The Fugitive was possibly the first TV series to treat Americana with extreme cynicism. Kimble meets some decent people throughout the series, but for the most part, almost everyone is out to screw him over in one way or another. Everywhere he goes, Kimble runs into people driven by cruelty, greed, and selfishness. In "Landscape," this motif is represented by a trio of teenagers. The teens laugh at Kimble's pleas for help, and take advantage of Kimble's and Mrs. Gerard's vulnerability by robbing them blind and tormenting the poor, injured Mrs. Gerard for no reason other than the fact that it amuses them. One of the teens even plots to rape the helpless Mrs. Gerard, as the other two keep Kimble occupied.

In the end, Gerard does the right thing, and temporarily abandons his search for Kimble long enough to find his wife and rescue her from the nefarious teenagers. (A little side-note: What's this show's beef with teenagers? Yes, the show's cynical about people in general, but teens get a particularly bad rap, to the point where we know that even the utterance of the word "teenager" means that something bad is going to happen.)

In the epiologue, we see that even though Gerard does love his wife, the love isn't nearly as powerful as his obsession with capturing Kimble. This is significant in the bigger picture of the series as a whole; many previous episodes are excitedly, falsely described as "the episode in which Gerard finally admits his obsession!" but those plot descriptions merely confuse obsession with determination. Here, however, Gerard finally, really does admit his obsession. He seems to be sincere when he apologizes to his wife, declares his love for her, and promises to devote his full attention to her -- but only, he adds, after he's captured Kimble. He confesses that he doesn't chase after Kimble out of mere determination or obstinance, but rather he chases after Kimble because he can't bring himself to stop. Capturing Kimble is all he thinks about, all day, every day, at the expense of all else.

Look at this from Mrs. Gerard's point of view. In one day, she has had her vacation cut short, attempted to leave her husband, been injured in a bus crash, suffered from temporary blindness, and tormented by cruel teenagers who have taunted and threatened to rape her. Her husband knows all of this, and what's his response? He still can't stop talking about Kimble!

"You're the only part of my life he hasn't touched," Gerard says, still unaware that this is no longer the case. Mrs. Gerard, still hurt, still angry -- hell, still pissed off to the Nth degree -- decides not to reveal to her husband the one thing that could ruin him, that she and Kimble had saved each other's lives. To me, that's a powerful ending.

It Would be Scarier if I Actually Believed It

Ah, hype, a movie's best friend and worst enemy. Not enough, and the film can't drum up an audience. Too much, and a backlash develops that can lead to some pretty nasty comments and reviews.

Remember when The Blair Witch Project was so new that there was still a lot of talk -- even, briefly, amongst legitimate news outlets -- about whether the allegedly "lost and found" footage was real? I really wish I had seen it during that moment when everyone was arguing and asking whether it was authentic. Try to imagine how horrified you'd be if you actually thought you really might be watching the last few days of those hapless documentarians, with no explanation for the bizarre events that plague them. Whether you love the movie or hate it, you have to admit that the concept behind creating such uncertainty was itself brilliant.

Of course, once you figure out (or know from the beginning) the truth, there's just no putting that genie back in the bottle. As the first "reality horror movie" The Blair Witch Project's revelation as a hoax honed our skepticism and, to an extent, ruined it for all of the imitators to follow. (Then again, that's what they get for imitating, dammit!!) You can put yourself in the proper mood and suspend your disbelief all you want, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you can't help but remember it's only a movie.

Still, independent filmmaker Oren Peli and his producers did make a decent effort to capture that lightning in a bottle a second time, with his haunted house story, Paranormal Activity. Like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity claims to be comprised entirely of authentic footage shot by amateurs, chronicling actual paranormal activity. Does it fool us? Of course not. Even The Blair Witch Project didn't fool most of us for too long, and in Blair Witch's shadow, Paranormal Activity's chances for success as another successful hoax are almost nil. But does Paranormal Activity scare us? Obviously, that depends on who you are and what tingles your particular spine. Personally, I found parts of it to be creepy, but too much of it to be over the top for it to build up any genuine suspense. The concept of the time-lapse camera is novel, but effective only if you actually believe you're watching real footage, and results in a lot of staring at nothing until Peli finally (falsely) concludes that he's let enough time pass by to build tension.

Personally, I prefer Paranormal Entity. Yes, it's an unabashed rip-off of the other film, and yes, it was made by admitted schlock-making studio the Asylum (now trying to segue into a name-change, "the Global Asylum," possibly as a half-hearted attempt to distance itself from its reputation). But this is one type of film that even low-budget studios like the Asylum would be challenged to screw up, at least based on production values; the whole point of the concept is that there aren't any production values, it's just a few amateurs with a camera. I found the characters of Paranormal Entity to be more believable than the characters in the film that inspired it; the Activity characters were a bit too "actory" to be believable, while the characters in Entity do present a more believable family dynamic, with the brother, sister, and mother alternately supporting each other and getting on each other's nerves.

Paranormal Entity (that's the rip-off; considering the similarity of the titles, I just thought I'd remind you of which one I was talking about) also has a better back story. The back story in Activity is that the couple has only recently moved in together, and Micah, who initially believes that they are both flummoxed by the paranormal activity, only gradually realizes that his girlfriend has actually been plagued by such activity all her life. Director/ writer Peli try to present this twist as a betrayal on her part, because, as Micah is right to point out, Katie should have told him about this before he moved in with her. But the problem is that this back story leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and outright contradicts some of what happens later in the story. The biggest unanswered question is, why have events escalated so enormously, and why now? It's alright for a movie to raise questions, of course, but only if it communicates an idea that there are answers, and we just may not be aware of them. That's not the impression one gets from Paranormal Activity, though; it just feels like Peli was making it up as he went along.

In the rip-off Paranormal Entity, however, it's clear early on that the family is relatively new to the supernatural. Beloved father and husband David died about a year ago, and his grief-stricken widow started talking to him, and then writing to him, as if he could answer. This was more of a coping technique rather than an attempt to actually communicate with David, but a visiting parapsychologist explains that writing to the dead can, theoretically, invite not only the spirit of the addressee, but other, darker spirits as well. Even before the events of the film start, this family quickly learns there's nothing theoretical about that theory. Entity's partial explanation for the haunting is a satisfaction that Paranormal Activity sorely lacks. (The question "does a story about a haunting really need an explanation?" is a question only in theory; a comparison of these two films provides a pretty solid answer.)

Paranormal Entity is skilled at how it gradually builds toward the conclusion that something supernatural is inarguably occurring. At first, as scared as the family is, they are aware that imagination, nightmares, sleep paralysis, and sleep walking could explain a lot of the weird stuff that's going on. However, by the time events escalate beyond explantions involving sleep dysfunctions -- objects moving by themselves, for example -- no one is surprised.

In Danse Macabre, Stephen King's examination of the horror genre, King theorizes that the most effective horror often partially relies on a sense of moral offense. I'm not entirely sure I agree with him, but Paranormal Entity is a good argument in favor of King's theory, as the horror does seem to be heightened by the implicit offense made by the entity stalking the Finley family: to get into our world, it "piggy-backed" on the more benevolent, weaker spirit of their beloved David, and initially led the family to believe that David himself was responsible for the weird goings-on, until they are forced to conclude on their own that their beloved father and husband could never be responsible for the more violent acts. This adds a mostly unspoken layer of emotional turmoil to the family's suffering -- an effective narrative technique that adds a level of subtlety miles away from the inferior but more widely known Paranormal Activity. (And believe me, I never thought I'd describe an Asylum picture as "layered" or "subtle.") This point is driven home (but still uncommented on by dialogue -- a nice touch) in one scene about midway through, which I found to be the scariest part of the film.

So what's the final analysis? As I have indicated, both films suffer from Blair Witch syndrome, depending too much on earnest "this really happened" false sincerity that was old almost when it was new. But I'm honestly not sure how much the makers of any of these films honestly expect audiences to believe in the authenticity of the events depicted. Judged on their own merits, both Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Entity are worth checking out despite their flaws. But if you ask which is scarier -- and which has the better story -- the cheap knock-off Entity wins hands down.