The Fugitive (Twilight Zone)
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- For the television series, see The Fugitive (TV series).
“The Fugitive” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
[edit] Details
- Episode number: 90
- Season: 3
- Production code: 4816
- Original air date: March 9, 1962
- Writer: Charles Beaumont
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Producer: Buck Houghton
[edit] Cast
- Old Ben: J. Pat O'Malley
- Jenny: Susan Gordon
- Mrs. Gann: Nancy Kulp
- First Pursuer: Wesley Lau
- Second Pursuer: Paul Tripp
- Doctor: Russ Bender
- Howie Gutliff: Stephen Talbot
- Pitcher: Johnny Eiman
[edit] Synopsis
The story opens at a public park, where a group of children are playing a softball game. They are accompanied by Old Ben, a kindly, grandfatherly gentleman, whom the kids adore. When it is Old Ben’s turn at bat, he knock the ball clean out of sight. The game can’t continue, because their only ball is gone. Howie, who was umpiring the game, suggests everyone assembled play “Spaceman", one of their favorite games. Old Ben, who usually plays the spaceman, agrees but suggests that Jenny be the one to play the outer space visitor this time. Jenny declines, claiming she can’t make herself into as convincing a spaceman as Old Ben can. The other kids unanimously agree, so Old Ben says he will once again be the spaceman. He runs behind a huge tree to prepare.
When Old Ben emerges from behind the tree in the park (looking like a gruesome monster from space), the children “zap” him by using their hands as pretend guns, and Old Ben’s creation is dispatched to the next life. Old Ben then reappears from behind the tree and announces that the spaceman is gone, and the camera then pans to series host Rod Serling, who, while seated on a park bench, introduces this episode, noting that it combines science-fiction (“the improbable made possible”) with fantasy (“the impossible made probable”).
Old Ben carries Jenny home (she walks with a leg brace that restricts her movement), where Jenny lives with her strict and unsympathetic aunt, Agnes Gann. As they approach the rowhouse, Ben causes his roller skates to dematerialize. This is observed by two well-dressed men who are watching the house from across the street. From their reactions, the disappearance of the skates is not surprising; they are watching the house to get to Ben.
The two strangers enter the apartment building and question Agnes about Ben. Agnes is not surprised that "the police" are interested in Ben; she believes that he is a "shady character" despite all evidence to the contrary, and in fact she appears to dislike him only because his personality is diametrically opposed to hers. Jenny, who has been sent to bed without supper for being late getting home, overhears the conversation and limps upstairs to Old Ben’s apartment to warn him about the two men. It is then that Old Ben tells Jenny he is actually from another planet, and his senior-citizen appearance is strictly a disguise, worn to hide from the two men pursuing him. Old Ben decides that it is time for him to "skedaddle" again, but before departing he uses a strange device to heal Jenny’s bad leg. The two strangers, noticing that Jenny is now walking around without her brace, hatch a scheme to make Jenny temporarily deathly ill, so Old Ben will be forced to return and save her.
When Old Ben does return, he is confronted by the two men. They reveal to Jenny that Old Ben really isn’t a criminal but the king of his home planet. He grew tired of the pressures and inconveniences of rule and decided to leave. The strangers tell Jenny that Old Ben’s people love him as much as she does, and want him to return and continue his 4,000-year reign over them. Old Ben realizes that he must go back to his home planet, but regrets that it would be against the rules for Jenny to go with him.
However, Jenny is an incredibly bright little girl, and comes up with a plan that will force Old Ben’s pursuers to take her back with them despite the rules. After being granted one minute alone with Jenny to say good-bye to her, Old Ben, following Jenny’s suggestion, changes himself into her identical twin. When Old Ben’s subjects return to Jenny’s room, they are confronted with two Jennys and, not being able to tell them apart, are forced into taking both of them back to their home planet, where they presumably live happily ever after.
At the end of the episode, host Rod Serling holds up an 8-by-10 black-and-white photograph of a handsome young man, noting that the photo shows Old Ben’s true appearance. For years, there has been much speculation about the identity of the uncredited man in the photo.
