Name: Richard Kimble, Doctor of Medicine
Destination: Death Row, State Prison
Richard Kimble has been tried and convicted of the murder of his wife … but laws are made by men and carried out by men … and men are imperfect.
Richard Kimble is innocent.
Proved guilty, what Richard Kimble could not prove was that moments before discovering his wife's body, he encountered a man running from the vicinity of his home … a man with one arm … a man who has not yet been found.
Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time … and sees only darkness.
But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand.
THE FUGITIVE … a QM Production … starring David Janssen as The Fugitive …
An innocent victim of blind justice, falsely convicted of the murder of his wife …
Reprieved by fate when a train wreck freed him en route to the death house …
Freed him to hide in lonely desperation … to change his identity … to toil at many jobs …
Freed him to search for a one-armed man he saw leave the scene of the crime …
Freed him to run before the relentless pursuit of the police lieutenant obsessed with his capture.
That weekly opening narration and on-going monologue was voiced by William Conrad, who would soon find his own television fame in the role of Cannon, private investigator. The number of soon-to-be A-List Guest Stars who made appearances during the series' four year run is staggering …
Bruce Dern (who appeared FIVE times!), Dabney Coleman, Diana Hyland, Ed Asner, Telly Savalas, Ed Begley, Robert Duvall (twice), Norman Fell, Clint Howard, Jack Klugman, Ted Knight, Leslie Nielsen, Suzanne Pleshette, Kurt Russell, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Charles Bronson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Angie Dickinson, Anne Francis, James Frawley, Lee Grant, Ronny Howard, Dean Jagger, Brian Keith, Deforest Kelly and William Shatner, Diane Ladd, Hope Lang, Jack Lord, Vera Miles, Greg Morris, Kevin McCarthy, Carroll O'Connor, Slim Pickens, Jerry Paris, Mickey Rooney, Tom Skerritt, Frank Sutton, Brenda Vaccaro, Jessica Walter, Jack Warden, Tuesday Weld and Jack Weston among them.
Part One of the two-part series finale airs tonight of "The Fugitive", without question one of my favorite shows of all time. Extremely well-written, most of the episodes still hold up incredibly well today, some fifty years later. The suspense for the finale was indescribable. The program had already aired its fourth and final season … but was brought back for a two-part wrap-up episode that finally saw Dr. Richard Kimble vindicated. It was, at the time, the most watched television show in history.
Actor David Janssen, who portrayed the good doctor for four seasons joked that he knew exactly how the show was going to end …
“It goes like this … Kimble, cleared of the murder, retires to a desert island to recuperate from his ordeal. At sunset he takes a swim. Just before plunging into the surf, he pauses, unscrews his wooden arm, and tosses it on the sand.
Fade-out.”
Not exactly … more next week.
