Television Reviews : ‘Run Till You Fall’ Stumbles Badly

Three veterans of the “MASH” TV series joined together to make something that shows up on CBS tonight. No, not another computer commercial--though a one-and-a-half-hour IBM ad couldn’t have been much worse than “Run Till You Fall” (9:30 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8), starring Jamie Farr, directed by Mike Farrell and co-written by former “MASH” writer-producer Dan Wilcox.

Mechanically acted, senselessly scripted, shamelessly padded, lifelessly directed and somniferously edited (have we left anything out?), “Run” trips up immediately, never to rise again. An inept story about an inept detective and his handicapped son, “Run” looks like a sitcom that had been turned over to Michaelangelo Antonioni, only without a sitcom’s laughs or brevity and without that director’s art--just his penchant for drawing out scenes.

“Run” is the one thing “Run Till You Fall” doesn’t do. Characters take the longest possible time to complete every act. If someone walks from their car to the stands at a Little League game, then the camera laboriously follows him all the way. Everything is incredibly drawn out: walks down airport hallways, talks in airplanes, waits in restaurants and in office waiting rooms. In fact, “Run” is all too much like spending 90 minutes in somebody’s waiting room. With nothing to read.

The script, by Wilcox and Gary Garrett, is evenly divided between the unbelievably dumb (Farr takes his son--played by Fred Savage--on a dangerous trip to pay off a violent pimp when there’s no necessity for his being along) and the insufferably corny (Farr blackmails the Little League coach so that his son, in a “climactic” scene, can pinch-hit in the big game).