'Fugitive' doesn't find its 'Wings'

By Matt Manser

For the Daily

Don't you hate when this happens? You come back from your house after a nice jog, only to find your wife murdered by a strange man. You grab the man by the arm to stop him, but his prosthetic arm falls off. You're so startled by this event that the man uses his real arm to reclaim the fake one and then runs away. Later, the police find no trace of the arm. The police also get word that you and your wife had a disagreement as to how to spend the major cash she has locked up in a trust fund. So you're arrested for murder, and put on death row. Then, as luck would have it, a freak car accident occurs while you are being chauffeured to prison, and you escape. Now free, you dedicate all your time to tracking down the one-armed man and avoiding John Q. Law.

Doesn't it suck when that happens? Okay, maybe this has never happened to you, but it did happen to David Jannsen in 1963 and to Harrison Ford in 1993. Now it's 2000, and it's happening again. This time it's Tim Daly ("Wings") who plays Dr. Richard Kimble in a new version of "The Fugitive."

The premise of "The Fugitive" is quite familiar, whether or not you've seen the movie or the original TV series. For those who are unfamiliar, the first episode (aired Oct. 6) reminds the audience of the story, showing Dr. Richard Kimble escaping from the car accident. Kimble then winds up on a bus to Cleveland, strangely enough, wearing new clothes.

While in Cleveland he visits an Internet cafe, goes on the net and types "one armed man" into a search engine. Believe it or not, Kimble turns up an article about a different crime a one-armed man is wanted for. The name in the article is Fred Johnson. Of course, Kimble then tracks Johnson to Miami.

Kimble is a likable character, so we want him to catch his man and clear his name. The audience knows this won't happen, so the show gets frustrating. This creates the "Gilligan's Island Quandary." If the audience gets what it wants, the show ends. This is why "The Fugitive" worked best as a movie. I recommend watching two or three episodes and the last one. Save yourself the anxiety. In the meantime, there are always "Wings" reruns.