The Immortal
Test driver Ben Richards discovers his blood contains every immunity known to man--in effect making him immortal. When an elderly billionaire named Maitland learns of Richards' condition, he hires mercenary Fletcher to track Richards all over the country, capture him, and bring him back to Maitland's estate for periodic transfusions. The series details Richards' adventures with people he meets along the way, all the while fleeing from Fletcher and his goons.
- 1969-1971
- 1 season
- ABC
- Action & Adventure, Science Fiction
Test driver Ben Richards discovers his blood contains every immunity known to man--in effect making him immortal. When an elderly billionaire named Maitland learns of Richards' condition, he hires mercenary Fletcher to track Richards all over the country, capture him, and bring him back to Maitland's estate for periodic transfusions. The series details Richards' adventures with people he meets along the way, all the while fleeing from Fletcher and his goons.
Season 1 Episode Guide
16 Episodes 1969 - 1971
Episode 0
Pilot
Tue, Sep 30, 1969 73 mins
A professional race-car driver discovers that there are certain properties in his blood that will make him, basically, immortal. A dying multi-millionaire also finds out about the racer's blood, and is determined to get it to keep himself alive.
Episode 1
Sylvia
Thu, Sep 24, 1970 60 mins
When Ben realizes that his fiancee is now engaged to another man, his attendance at their engagement party arouses the suspicion of the wealthy and devious Arthur Maitland.
Episode 2
White Elephants Don't Grow on Trees
Thu, Oct 1, 1970 60 mins
An ever down-on-his-luck dreamer who bid his last chance for custody of his son for leaking toxic gas canisters, must flee Fletcher and his men while transporting the tanks with Ben.
Episode 3
Reflections on a Lost Tomorrow
Thu, Oct 8, 1970 60 mins
Ben gets a job as a lab janitor for a doctor studying blood and longevity. Weaker, Maitland becomes a patient at the clinic, offering to buy their exclusive help, permanently.
Episode 4
The Legacy
Thu, Oct 15, 1970 60 mins
Ben helps a female doctor treating a group of Mexican American rogues out for enough money to move on to better things.
Episode 5
The Rainbow Butcher
Thu, Oct 22, 1970 60 mins
A crooked sheriff arrests Ben for a minor traffic infraction, adding to his workers slaving on a kid's camp. His coerced kept woman (Wilcox) wants a way out.
Episode 6
Man on a Punched Card
Thu, Oct 29, 1970 60 mins
Computer programmers, at first intent on proving their system for Maitland's grant money, agree to predict Ben's escape route.
Episode 7
White Horse, Steel Horse
Thu, Nov 5, 1970 60 mins
A nasty tempered rancher who refuses to pay his hired hands what he promised causes a fatal scuffle for which he blames Ben and a drifter.
Episode 8
The Queen's Gambit
Thu, Nov 12, 1970 60 mins
A woman feigning car trouble draws Ben into the compound of a young millionaire envisioning a 'partnership' to greater world power.
Episode 9
By Gift of Chance
Thu, Nov 19, 1970 60 mins
A domineering foreman on a declining tomato farm deliberately poisons his illegal workers with pesticide, one of them Ben's friend.
Episode 10
Dead Man, Dead Man
Thu, Dec 3, 1970 60 mins
After surviving a car crash on a mountain road, Ben must pose as the missing driver, a deputy sent to arrest the local doctor for fraud.
Episode 11
Paradise Bay
Thu, Dec 10, 1970 60 mins
Ben seeks his brother in a dwindling beach town slated for corporate development.
Episode 12
The Return
Thu, Dec 17, 1970 60 mins
To save the victim of an argument implicating his boyhood benefactor, Ben must choose whether to expose his whereabouts to his pursuers.
Episode 13
To the Gods Alone
Thu, Dec 31, 1970 60 mins
Fletcher traps Richards in a cabin, framing a 'flashback' tale of a dying Jordan Braddock.
Episode 14
Sanctuary
Thu, Jan 7, 1971 60 mins
Ben Richards is severely hurt while driving a dune buggy and is found by Native Americans. They take him back to their reservation to recover and during his recuperation he gains insight to another culture.
Episode 15
My Brother's Keeper
Thu, Jan 14, 1971 60 mins
Utterly ridiculous plot whereby the abrasive, arrogant, and smug Fletcher with his obedient, shirt-and-tie, robot-like thugs commit a home invasion of (Ben's presumed brother) Jason Richards' house and then threaten, manhandle, and inject Jason's wife with a "truth serum" in order to make her reveal the location where both her husband Jason and Ben are hiding. As if that wasn't bad enough, at the end of the screenplay when Jason and his wife have their opportunity to confront Fletcher, they seem almost oblivious (and almost forgiving!) to what he had previously subjected them to with his Gestapo tactics. It is unfortunate that The Immortal's producers didn't have the decency (or perhaps the desire?) to engage better writers to at least end the series conclusively in the way that David Janssen's 1963-67 series The Fugitive did. Christopher George (as Ben Richards) likewise deserved both closure and justice after all he had gone through.