The Fugitive: The Most Wanted Edition - Complete Series

**As of November 15, 2012, the web site TV Shows On DVD has announced that CBS is offering replacement discs for 5 defective DVDs in this set. The 5 discs are the two Season 1 discs containing the audio issues in the episodes "Bloodline" and "Taps For a Dead War," the season two disc containing the episode "The Iron Maiden," which has music issues, the season three disc containing the episode "Three Cheers For Little Boy Blue," and the season three disc containing the two-part episode "Landscape With Running Figures." Those episodes had playback problems.

Here is the link to the web site explaining how to order your replacement discs:

[...]
A reviewer named Richard H. Campbell posted a review on Amazon.com regarding some defective discs in the newly-reissued 2012 edition of this set. I don't intend to review the product as a whole at this point, but will comment on this defective disc issue.

According to Mr. Campbell, the set contains four defective discs. He identifies them as Season 1, Volume 2, discs 2 and 3; Season 3, Volume 1, discs 2 and 3. Mr. Campbell says that the lip sync is off in the Season 1 episodes "Bloodline" and "Taps For a Dead War." He says there are issues playing the Season 3 episodes "Three Cheers For Little Boy Blue" and the two-part "Landscape With Running Figures." I have not checked the Season 1 discs in my own set to see if those episodes suffer from the same problem, however there are some comments on hometheaterforum.com where reviewers are discussing exactly the same lip sync issue with both those episodes. I assume this is an issue with every set, and there must have been some error made in the sound mixing of those episodes.

As for the Season 3 discs, I did check mine, and there are huge problems. "Three Cheers For Little Boy Blue" skips and freezes up, and if you try to fast forward or skip to another chapter, you will often be taken to the wrong place in the episode. You cannot play the episode all the way through to the completion of the end theme. In "Landscape With Running Figures," there are also skipping and freezing issues. In that two-part episode, you cannot even fast forward, rewind, or skip to another chapter. Those functions simply do not work on those episodes.

Problems with a fifth disc in this set were also discovered sometime later. The season two episode "The Iron Maiden" contained some new substituted Mark Heyes music at certain points in the episode. The season two disc containing this episode is also part of the replacement program, and presumably, CBS is restoring the original soundtrack in that episode.

Now that CBS has announced this replacement disc program, I am satisfied that they have done everything they could to make this release the one the fans--and this legendary series--deserve.

Five stars. Perhaps we could have gotten more in the way of special features, but the quality of this series, perhaps the best dramatic TV series ever done, and the remastering put into the video and audio, still earn this release five stars.

I'm happy to FINALLY be able to give this dvd set the review it deserves.

The show I'm sure everyone is familiar with. The premise of an innocent man on the run and out to clear his name likely began with this series, but it's also been copied in more modern day shows like the fantastic (though seemingly stalled out on dvd release) series "First Wave" and several others.

The packaging is awesome. Much more than I was expecting. I was really surprised by the size of it and the cleverness of it all when I first opened up the package.

And now that the much delayed replacement discs are FINALLY going out (I got mine a short time ago) we finally have this series complete with all of the original music in tact.

There has been mention of the fact that the replacement discs come in plain sleeve wrappers. I don't have an issue with that as I fail to see why they should go to the bother of anything elaborate when the idea should be to use the replacement discs to outright replace the faulty ones. I will comment though that the discs are packaged up in shrink wrap with a sticker on the shrink wrap declaring that the discs are Replacement Discs and which episodes they replace.

I have yet to sit down and watch the entire set (I've been waiting on the replacement discs before doing so) but I did watch the entire first season when it was issued previously and was very impressed with it. The issue of replacement music scores didn't happen until the second season came out years ago by the way.

In the end, it took my complaining directly to about 15 or so CBS Entertainment execs, before the right fire seemed to get lit under the right backside, but within a matter of hours of complaining to them I got an e-mail from the replacement disc outfit telling me that my discs had shipped a few days earlier.

From what they told me there was a delay in mailout because they didn't get enough discs with the first batch.

Why this was not explained to the public with press releases is beyond me, but it seems that many sets of replacement discs are just starting to ship out now.

I have not checked their toll free number to see if people can get through to them now to find out where their replacement discs are, but I would be very surprised if they didn't act to make room for new messages on their voice mail - considering all the ruckus I raised about that.

If you are still waiting on discs I suggest you try this number(1-877-335-8936) or contact CBS Entertainment if you have to.

I'm glad to finally have this set in a complete deluxe edition with everything as it should be.

I do remain curious about one thing and perhaps someone can clear it up (in a press release perhaps?)...

Do NEW copies of this release come with replaced discs, or will people who buy the sets now - STILL have to contact these people for the replacement discs???

It won't effect me personally, but I'm sure there are plenty of potential customers interested in this release who would like to know the answer to that question before buying.

p.s. ( in the wrong place...)

I've just watched the last episode.

Oh, my God, I am going to miss watching "The Fugitive". The last episode was first broadcast in 1967, when so many things were so different from today. The 3 D market, for example, is growing fast and you can watch films where people look almost real. Technically and physically real but only a good story like the ones from this great series will make actors look real, human.
The human factor is not on the lenses but on the emotion you see on screen, the emotion you feel.

I am going to miss Dr. Richard Kimble as if he was a dear friend, a brother. I am going miss Dr. Richard Kimble as if he was real.
Of course, I can always watch the series again...
end of p.s

I wasn't born when "The Fugitive" was first broadcast. Of course, I heard about the series and watched the film with Harrison Ford many years ago
but it was just last summer that I decided, I don't remember why, to order the season 1 from Amazon UK.

I was more or less expecting a somehow dated series but I was very wrong. I was surprised with the excellent quality of this series and I understood why
"The Fugitive" is such a seminal, classic TV series. The story of Dr Kimble's despair and hope is made with the same "material" of Greek tragedies and, as so, is universal and always modern.

God, they knew how to tell a story. Many of the episodes are absolutely thrilling, like the third episode of season 2, which was directed by Sidney Pollack just before his first film.
The cinematography is good, many times brilliant in its efficiency and apparent simplicity. So is the editing of stories. "The Fugitive" is a brilliant series from a time when what mattered most were the story and the characters.

If you never watched "The Fugitive" but you like great TV then order this set. No matter what, order it. "The Fugitive" is up there on the "mount Olympos" of TV series, together with Sopranos, Wire, Mad Men and a few others.

I just loved "The Fugitive" and, after watching season 1, found out how difficult and expensive would be to get the whole series because the seasons are split in many sets, more sets than the number of seasons, and I couldn't actually find all of them.

So I was very happy when I found out about this collection. I immediately pre ordered it, first from Amazon US ( order that I cancelled ) and later from Amazon Ca, which was selling it for a far better price.

The box itself has a very nice design and a replica of Dr. Kimble's "wanted" poster. The box is not square as I first thought. It has the rectangular shape of a big book and it contains the four seasons of the series but there are no booklets and the general presentation of the dvds is poor. This collection deserves much more than CBS did.

The quality of the image is very good but clearly inferior to the quality of the UK copy I had, probably because the UK copy is in Pal, which seems to be better than NTSC because it has more resolution. Whatever the reason, images from the UK dvd are pristine, crystal clear, whilst images of the same episodes of season 1 in this box set, for example, are a bit less sharp and a tiny bit washed out.

There is a dvd with extra features and a cd with the original sound track of the series but, once again, I think they could have done better. There is not even a booklet, for example.
It is a shame that this extraordinary series wasn't treated with the care and respect that it deserves.

"The Fugitive" is one of those rare and great shows when TV went far beyond its general mediocrity and, as so, it deserves more than CBS did. To add harm to injury, this box set has defective discs.
But it is not a major problem and CBS is dealing with the matter.

I read complaints about previous versions that changed the original music. There is an adhesive on the box saying that the music is the original one. Well, it is the same music that plays in the season one of the UK dvd, what turns out to be the original music as I could confirm listening to the cd with the original soundtracks.

The thing is, I love this series and it seems that the only way to watch the whole series is by buying this overpriced box set that has defective discs.

So I did buy the box set and am very happy to have the complete series in a box set. But this is not a five stars product and it is very unhelpful, not to say irresponsible, to have reviewers writing pseudo reviews, as I've seen, that are nothing more than wishful thinking written by customers who didn't even had the box set that they rated five stars...

This is an edited review. I am now on season 3, suffering terribly as I watch Dr. Kimble fighting for his freedom but also admiring his tenacity, his stainless steel dignity.

I just hope that I will make it to the last episode of season 4 without having a heart attack whilst watching "The Fugitive"...