The Fugitive (TV Series) The Last Oasis (1966) User Reviews

Plot summary

[ynot-16 · 8/10 · 2 December 2006]

Police, chasing Kimble through the Arizona desert, find his abandoned car by the train tracks. The sheriff figures he got away, but Deputy Jimmy Steel (played by actor Mark Richman) believes it is a trick by Kimble, and that he never boarded the train.

Kimble, who was shot by Steel, is found by people from the Indian school. He is patched up by teacher Annie Johnson (played by actress Hope Lange).

When the sheriff is gone for a few days, Jimmy Steel is free to chase Kimble, and with his superior abilities proves himself a tough adversary.

In glorious color...

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 8 May 2017]

Season four of "The Fugitive" is the only season in color and the prints on the DVD set are absolutely gorgeous...pristine and beautiful. They also are the only season that is captioned...a major plus in my house. "The Last Oasis" is the first of these color episodes.

The story begins with most of the cops in Puma County, Arizona giving up the chase for Kimble. They almost caught him and Deputy Steel (Mark Richmond) swears he shot the man...and he is not about to just give up. But finding Kimble is going to be tough, as he was discovered by some local Indian tribesmen and he's taken there to recover. A nice teacher (Hope Lange) is there to help these people and she seems more than willing to hide Kimble...and like so many other ladies, she, of course, falls for him hard. And, not surprisingly, she's willing to do almost anything to help him any way she can.

Overall, while this is mostly familiar material, Deputy Steel was unique and worth seeing just how far this guy will go to catch Kimble. Very good and well made.

Good opener for Kimble's last run.

[kennyp-44177 · 8/10 · 19 October 2021]

The last oasis kicks the fugitives final season off to a good start, and in colour! There's a strong cast in this one ,Hope Lange Mark Rich man and Al Johnson, and the location filming is great. Agree with other commentators that the colour difference when actors are placed in a studio against moving landscapes is now laughable, and should have been discontinued. Although a good opener it could have been preferrable that A clean and quiet town made the start, to remind viewers of Kimble's quest to find the one armed man.

9/13/66 "The Last Oasis"

[schappe1 · 6 January 2016]

The series is now in color but that doesn't do much for it. The magazine photographers of the time said "black and white for drama, color for excitement". The Fugitive was a drama, even if there were moments of excitement. Route 66 was a series that belonged in color because the environment was often part of the story in a positive way. Tod and Buz, (or Tod and Linc) would sometimes express delight at their surroundings. Richard Kimble lives a life without delights. He just sees danger everywhere. He's not going to wear anything colorful: he doesn't want to stand out.

On top of that the color used in the series is muted and bland looking. Several of the earlier episodes are shot on obvious studio sets, perhaps because the color camera required it. Color makes their phoniness look more obvious, (the same thing happened on Gunsmoke: Dodge City looks so much better in black and white). Finally, this first episode takes place in a colorless place: the Arizona desert. Why begin with an episode that can't fully utilize the new technology?

Anyway the plot of this is that Kimble is shot escaping form the local police. He's found by some local Indians and taken to a teacher on the reservation, (Hope Lange), who makes him her assistant when he recovers. Meanwhile a deputy sheriff, (Mark Richman) is the son of a lawman who failed to apprehend a murderer who went on to murder others and had his reputation destroyed because of it. He is determined to hunt down Kimble and winds up going after both him and the teacher.