The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an
American network
television dramatic series (
ABC,
1963-
1967) starring
David Janssen as Dr.
Richard Kimble, an innocent man from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted for his wife's murder and sentenced to death. While headed to death row, he escapes custody following a train wreck and begins a cross-country search for a one-armed man (played by
Bill Raisch) he correctly believes to be the real killer.
Like Kimble, the one-armed man uses a variety of aliases while on the run, and in an early appearance, he uses the name "Fred Johnson". While there is no reason to believe that this is the character's real name, the one-armed man is usually referred to as Fred Johnson by fans of the show.
While Johnson is being pursued by Kimble, Kimble is being pursued by the relentless police detective Lt. Philip Gerard, (played by
Barry Morse).
William Conrad provided
voice-over narration for each episode. Kimble's murdered wife Helen was portrayed (in flashbacks) in several episodes by an uncredited
Diane Brewster. Also seen very occasionally was Kimble's sister Donna Taft, played by
Jacqueline Scott. Aside from the narrator, only the character of Kimble is present in every episode; Gerard appears in fewer than half of the episodes, and the one armed man is seen very infrequently, usually only once or twice a season.
In a
1993 ranking,
TV Guide named
The Fugitive the best dramatic series of the
1960s.
The series was conceived by
Roy Huggins and produced by
Quinn Martin. It is generally believed that the series was inspired by the
Sam Sheppard case of the
1950s, in which the wife of
Cleveland osteopathic physician Sam Sheppard was brutally murdered in their home; Sheppard maintained she had been killed by an intruder, was found guilty, appealed against this judgment to the
Supreme Court, and was finally acquitted, having by that point served years in
prison. (Huggins, however, steadfastly denied that the Sheppard case had any role in his creation of the show.) Reportedly, ratings of
The Fugitive dropped in the months following the acquittal.
The program aired for four seasons, with 30 episodes per season, for a total of 120 episodes. The first three seasons were filmed in
black and white, while the final season was in color.
The series concept of a lead character who was forced to keep on the move, pursued by the law for a crime he did not commit, proved to be perfect for television programming. While shows like
Route 66 had employed the same anthology-like premise of wanderers finding adventure in each new place they came to,
The Fugitive answered two questions that had bedeviled many similar series: "Why doesn't the protagonist settle down somewhere?" and "Why is the protagonist trying to solve these problems himself instead of calling in the police?" Numerous other television series since have imitated this basic series premise, with the twists being mostly in the nature of the fugitives: a scientist with a monstrous alter ego (
The Incredible Hulk,
1978); a husband and wife (
Hot Pursuit,
1984); a young man afflicted with
lycanthropy (
Werewolf,
1987); and even a German shepherd (
Run, Joe, Run,
1974).
Interestingly, the state of
Indiana had abolished capital punishment during the course of the show's original run.
A total of 42 episodes have been released on home video (VHS) by NuVentures Video. Of these, 12 episodes were also released on
laserdisc.
The final episode of the series aired on Tuesday,
August 29,
1967, with the conclusion of an episode entitled, "The Judgment." In that last episode, Dr. Kimble has been captured by Gerard in Los Angeles and is being transported back to Indiana. During the lengthy train trip, Kimble convinces the detective to provide him one final opportunity to catch Johnson.
The basis for his desperation is a bail bond slip allegedly signed by Kimble's brother-in-law, Leonard Taft. In fact, the bond was signed by a previously-unseen neighbor, Lloyd Chandler, a war hero who was at the house the night of the murder. Rather than stop the murder, Chandler had cowered from Johnson, and is now being blackmailed by the killer in order to protect his courageous reputation. Kimble and Gerard discover this and head to an abandoned amusement park, where Kimble has a dramatic confrontation on a water tower with Johnson. Following a scuffle, Johnson is shot to death by Gerard, which allows Chandler to finally admit what happened that night.
Until the
November 21,
1980 "Who Shot J.R." episode of
Dallas, this episode was the highest-rated series television program ever. In
1983, the final episode of
M*A*S*H, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", topped both programs.
[ ] One who recognized the similarity was Morse; he pointed out the connection to Quinn Martin, who admitted that
The Fugitive was a "sort of modern rendition of the outline of
Les Misérables".
Morse accordingly went back to the
Victor Hugo novel and studied the portrayal of Javert, to find ways to make the character more complex than the "conventional 'Hollywood dick'" Gerard had originally been conceived as. "I've always thought that we in the arts ... are all 'shoplifters,'" Morse said. "Everybody, from Shakespeare onwards and downwards ... But once you've acknowledged that ... when you set out on a shoplifting expedition, you go always to
Cartier's, and never to
Woolworth's!"
, a feature film based on the series, was released in 1993, starring
Harrison Ford as Kimble,
Tommy Lee Jones as Gerard (now named "Samuel" instead of "Philip" and a
U.S. Marshal rather than a police lieutenant) and
Andreas Katsulas as the one-armed man (now called Fred Sykes instead of Fred Johnson). While some believe this movie and its success may have started the Hollywood trend of the 1990s for remaking old television series as feature films, this movie eschews the
campy approach generally taken by such remakes, and treats its source material with respect. In particular, the script portrays Kimble as a man so good that he chooses to help others even when it poses a danger to his liberty or to his physical safety. Barry Morse did have a cameo role in the film, (where he sees Harrison Ford and starts to chase him), but it was cut out of the theatrical release of the movie.
Gerard and his team of marshals returned in the film
U.S. Marshals, played by the same actors, but aside from a similar plotline with Gerard's team hunting a fugitive innocent of the charges against him, the events of that film had nothing to do with the events of
The Fugitive.
A short-lived TV series remake (
CBS,
2000-
2001) of the same name also aired, starring
Timothy Daly as Kimble,
Mykelti Williamson as Gerard, and
Stephen Lang as the one-armed man. CBS cancelled the series after one season.
Spoofs and parodies of
The Fugitive appeared in many TV shows and movies, including
Alf,
The Simpsons,
Get Smart ("Don't Look Back")
,
It's Garry Shandling's Show and the film
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
*
Encyclopedia of Television*
The Fugitive Recaptured by Ed Robertson, a book about the show*
The Fugitive, a fan page
*
The Fugitive, discussion forum
