For those of you too young to remember, “The Fugitive” television show ran its final episode 39 years ago today. This was back in the days of a mere 3 networks and just about anyone of any age knew all the shows.
David Janssen, as Dr Richard Kimble (an innocent victim of blind justice … reprived by fate …) had been running from the law for four years and he didn’t want to do another season and just about everybody connected with the show wanted to end the program with one Hell of a finale. It was a great conclusion and (in spite of what Wikipedia says) it was the second most watched finale of any television series. (M.A.S.H. is number one).
Anybody care to share their thoughts on this episode?
Well, it’s not like it’s written in stone…
I liked the movie The Fugitive. I thought it had an intriging plot that kept you watching.
Wolf_meister, I might consider watching this show if it were on cable, or maybe on DVD. If the movie was good, then the show probably was good. How do they compare?
It was pretty standard stuff, y’know. The formula was: Dr. Kimble would reach a town somewhere, looks for a job, makes friends with some local, some kind of problem would crop up, Dr. Kimble solves it but then he has to leave town again either because he found a clue that could lead him to the one-armed man or because that pesky Marshall just rode into town.
Next epidose, same thing happens.
Kozmik
To tell you the truth, I have never really seen the movie in its entirety. (Yes I’ve seen some of it, while changing channels). I just felt as if it was a retread of the original.
One thing the movie could never do is tell those weekly, in depth stories where Richard Kimble gets involved in the lives of the people that inhabit the city or town he may be visiting or working in.
DataZak beat me to the reply by one minute.
Anyway, I think it went beyond what might be considered “standard stuff”.
You might like it or you might not.
You have to look at the TV series in 1960s terms. It may seem very classic to you, or it may seem glurdgy as DataZak sorta said above. Also the show was perhaps mainly in black & white (NOT sure of this, folks, it was a longgggg time ago).
The movie is much more modern, and being a movie, it moves much quicker. I certainly waited each week for the next new episode, but I’m not sure if even I would like it today. Nevertheless, for the time and standards back then, it was a very good show.
Well, maybe “standard stuff” was wrong. I meant formulaic. It was a typical man-on-the-run show like Incredible Hulk or the Planet of the Apes tv series to name but two.
Oh, and with regards to the OP, I never did watch the last episode.
The series was good for its time. David Janssen had the sad “I have the weight of the world on me” look down pat.
I remember one stand up comic describing the show this way, “Hi, I’m Dr. Richard Kimble. They said I killed my wife, but I really didn’t. … Can I mow your lawn?”
The key to the final episode was when Kimble’s neighbor decided to come forward that he had seen the One-Armed Man commit the crime.
I do not think “standard stuff” is in any way wrong in your post, FWIW. I don’t know about others, but I did read that as “formulaic” for the 1960s standards.
I thought your post was pretty much spot-on. These shows really do have to be evaluated in relation to the time they were made, and the mores of that time, and the techniques typically used in those times.
David Janssen took that weight of the world look into my favorite series from the mid 70s Harry O.
I don’t remember the details of the episode any more. But I remember the event. It was a “moon landing, who shot JR, Beatles on Ed Sullivan” everybody stay home and watch TV event. Very different “back in the day” since there was no easy way to record the show and reruns were likely a year or two away. I remember the episode was “predictable” in that we knew “all” the issues would be resolved and that Dr. Kimball would be vindicated. But even given all the hype and the “predictability,” I remember being very satisfied and excited to participate in the next day’s chatter.
If you’re talking about the series I know, Kimble ran first.
SIL had never watched any old movies. Her father didn’t watch movies on TV, so she didn’t. She didn’t know who John Houston was; she was surprised to find out that Gary Cooper and John Wayne didn’t only do westerns. For the last few summers, one of the national stations has been showing a western every weekday at 4pm. One day they’d come over for lunch, later we were talking and the movie came on. I don’t even remember which one, but it was a Houston. During one of the commercial breaks she says “oh, but such thing and such other thing are so cliché!” We all kind of… fre-e-e-e-e-ze… if a pin had fallen, it would have done so slowly and apologetically… and finally her-husband-my-bro said “well, thing is, the success of this movie may have been the reason everybody else copied it”.
She always says she doesn’t understand why every documentary about special effects has to show that scene from “From the Earth to the Moon” that’s “so bad! And it isn’t even in color!” :o
Was the show suspenseful? If so, how did they manage to keep the suspense week after week?
Was The Fugitive the first television series to have a finale episode?
The sitcom Hennesey (ran 1959-1962) ended with the title character (played by Jackie Cooper) marrying his girlfriend. Whether that was intended to be the finale, I don’t know, but it was a logical place to end.
When The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet ended its 14-season run in 1966, the final episode was Ozzie deciding to convert his sons’ now-empty bedroom to a game room. Again, not exactly a big finish, but a stopping point.
The final episode of Leave it to Beaver was a clip show with the family reminiscing over an old photo album, with Wally preparing to leave for college and Beaver ready to start high school.
Not finales in the same sense as The Fugitive but all clearly intended to mark a transition.
Being the owner of all 120 eps of this program, I have a few comments:
The “wandering loner” had a TV tradition going back to the 1950s, when they were typically cowboys in Westerns. There were a few Westerns still in production, like “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza,” but the trend was going downward. Updating it to modern times breathed new life into the format, and it has enjoyed an often copied format, with varying degrees of success (“Guns of Will Sonnet” and "Branded, " both westerns; “The Invaders” also from Quinn Martin, “Run for Your Life;” “The Immortal;” “The Incredible Hulk;” and “The A-Team,” just to name a few).
Kimble comes into town and usually ends up helping someone in some way, sometimes two feuding relatives. There are lots of close-ups (screen-filling head shots) when he’s dispensing his sagely advice, often accompanied by this awful violin-ish music.
In the first episodes, Lt. Gerard has an attitude similar to Tommy Lee Jones’s character in the movie; that is, “I don’t know or care whether you actually committed the crime. The jury said you did it, and I’m just doing my job.” Lt. Gerard, to his credit, did investigate the possibility of a one-armed man, and came up with nothing.
Kimble and his wife had had an argument shortly before her death. (This is one of the things contributing to his guilt.) Mrs. Kimble had given birth to a stillborn child. As a result of complications with the pregnancy, she would never bear a child. She had also started drinking a lot. In the argument shortly before her death, Dr. Kimble had mentioned the possibliity of an adoption. She became very angry at the idea, because and adopted child would not be “her real child.”:eek: *Reminds me of an unrelated story.
I don’t think it’s aged well, so far as the cinematography and directing (again, see comments about close-ups above). You won’t find many programs being filmed like this today.
David Janssen must have been one hard-living dude. It’s not obvious how old Dr. Kimble is supposed to be, but in one ep he goes back home to the house that he lived in “the first 34 years of his life,” which is roughly Janssens age at the time. But in the flashback scenes of the murder, he has gray hair (or is it supposed to be blond?), and dyes his hair black to help disguise himself. Anyway, Janssen comes of playing a (much?) older person pretty credibly.
**Angelo Rossitto appears uncredited as a shoe shiner in one episode!
Anyway, that’s all for now.
*Unrelated story: In the series premiere of “Mannix,” Joe Mannix goes looking for a kidnapped daugther of a mobster (played by Lloyd Nolan). Nolan is not her biological daughter, as his (much younger) wife gave birth two years after he had been sent to the pokey. “She was three the first time he saw her,” after his five-year sentence. However, he considers her his daughter. Part of the story is that Mom has convinced the daughter that the daughter that since she’s not his “real daughter” that she (as well as Mom) won’t stand to inherit any of his fortune when he croaks.
**“Little person” actor best known for two half-century apart defining roles: the “Gooble Gobble” little person from “Freaks,” and “Master” ("the little man with the knowin’s of a lotta things) from “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.”
“The Fugitive” was not really supposed to be suspenseful every week. It was more of a character study. Every few weeks, Gerard would get close and then Kimble would slip away.
Except for one episode “The Girl From Little Egypt”, Kimble is threatened in every episode- the local police or someone usually can tell there is something not quite right about this well spoken soft-handed distinguished looking guy picking lettuce in California. Either that or they see his wanted poster, or he does something else that attaracts unwanted attention.
Also the proud owner of all 120 eps, I would say at least 75% still hold up today as quality televsion drama. Anything that old is going to be dated though, and the final episode has sort of a deus ex machina resolution, along with the unfortunate decision to have a character try and escape the police by climbing a tower (?), but overall I’d have to agree with Stephen King that it is the best TV drama ever.
And it was here that David Janssen patented his facial twitching to show emotion technique. Also, it does have the Murder She Wrote quality where every week Kimble arrives in a new town, and usually a crime happens, and he always becomes a suspect, which results in people he just met risking their freedom to help a wanted man they just met. 
A few years ago, I watched The Godfather with some friends. When they did the “sleeps with the fishes” line, my friend said, “I can’t believe they said that! It’s so cliche!”