"The Fugitive" is the sort of show that is hard to describe. Sure, it's about a man sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit escaping...but there's far more to it than this simple idea. Each episode Richard Kimble (David Janssen) is in a new city, with new guest stars and new problems...and they aren't always about his being pursued by the cops. Often, Kimble risks his own safety to help others and make the world a better place...sort of like a roaming social worker. Very, very few of these shows came off as contrived or trite...because the writing was so consistently good and Janssen was a great TV actor. As far as seeing the shows go, a few are posted on YouTube and Netflix has many of the DVDs...but not all. As for me, I got the DVDs from Netflix and bought the two missing half seasons from Amazon. Also noted that the first three seasons are in black and white and have no captioning (that sucks!!). Fortunately, the final season, in full color, also has excellent captions.

As I have already said before, this tremendous TV show that I did not really know and which I just discover - although I had already heard about it - looks on many points like ROUTE 66 series, a not less interesting and nationwide known all over the US. And not only. I watched the entire ROUTE 66 TV show three years ago and I find many similarities with this one. The main difference is of course that FUGITIVE is more thriller oriented than drama. ROUTE 66 was a deep and so accurate analysis of the sixties United States, including the deep America. It explained very well racism, social problems, or the pre Vietnam war of this period, it showed many aspects which were not evoked in most other TV shows made to entertain audiences and help them to forget their daily problems. Performances in ROUTE 66 were mostly awesome, terrific, poignant, but it remained mostly dramas, with sometimes some action and/or film noir accents, I admit. THE FUGITIVE is mainly thriller, with a man accused of a crime he did not commit - cliché among cliché - but that's not the point. The overall scheme, of a character - or two, concerning ROUTE 66 - walking, riding through the United States and encountering so different folks, is also an analysis of the American society. And also, in the FUGITIVE, you have outstanding performances pulled by many guests stars - remember Buster Keaton and future great stars such as James Caan, Bob Redford and many others in ROUTE 66 - but with the suspense element in addition. The master key in THE FUGITIVE is that the hero is on the run, a fugitive, and in each episode, the audience wonders HOW the different people this hero encounters, how those people will react when, or may I say, IF they finally know the truth about the hero - Dr Kimble. Or if they will actually know about it. That's the main most important thing that matters. That's my own opinion. Now, only an idiot would wonder if yes or no the hero will eventually be found innocent. Of course he will, who cares? The most important thing, I repeat again and again, is the overall performances such as in FATSO episode, and this suspense about the characters behaviour around Dr Kimble. It also looks like, I mean the scheme of a lonely man always trying to do something against each other, with each episode finishing in an open end, with the audiences wondering if yes or no the hero will succeed in his task, it looks like the INVADERS series. Also produced by Quinn Martin. That's it.

While I agree that this show probably tops the list of great TV dramas, it wasn't perfect. There was a tendency to repeat plot as is common with virtually all shows and the final episode was disappointing to say the least. At a gathering in LA sponsored by the The Museum of TV and Radio to honor Roy Huggins, he was asked about the final episode. He said that he had to, because of demands by ABC execs, show that the one armed man was without a doubt the guilty party. He knew that it was overkill to have the one armed man admit to the killing and to have Gerard then kill him in the episode wasn't great writing either. He said that the difficulty in getting the show on the air due to having a purported wife-killer as the hero of the piece was almost impossible, yet, he insisted on it and we all thank him for creating the finest drama TV has ever seen. Considering his other productions and that actors such as James Garner from Maverick shared the stage that night with Mr. Huggins, it amazed me that virtually all questions from the audience concerned The Fugitive. It truly says something about the staying power of the show. It is one to be watched and savored.

The 120 episodes (90 in B&W, 30 in Color) of the television drama "The Fugitive" originally ran from 1963-1967 on ABC. The broadcast of the final episodes in August 1967 was a national event.Most likely anyone reading this already knows the perfect premise of the series. The producers took Dr. Sam Sheppard's long running Cleveland murder trial and blended it with Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables". The title character was renamed Dr. Richard Kimble (played by David Janssen who would later star in the detective series "Harry O") and the series began an argument between Kimble and his wife Helen over adopting a child. He storms out of the house showcasing his fury to their neighbors. Upon returning home Kimble sees a one- armed man fleeing the Kimble house. Inside the house he finds the body of his wife. Kimble is tried and convicted, the one-armed man does not come forward and no one believes Kimble's account of that evening. When the train taking Kimble to prison derails he escapes from the custody of Indiana State Police Lt. Phillip Gerard (Barry Morse). This begins parallel chases as Kimble pursues the as yet unidentified one-armed man (Bill Raisch) and Gerard becomes obsessed with recapturing Kimble. The beauty of the premise was the total flexibility it allowed the writers with regard to each episodes story and the ease of incorporating legitimate action, tension, and drama. The series was a Quinn Martin Production (with the same high quality production value as his other television series: "The Invaders", "The Untouchables", "The F.B.I", "The Streets of San Francisco"). Each episode was broken into four acts and they went out with an epilogue- William ("Cannon") Conrad doing the narration. Janssen is excellent in the role and delivers a subtle non-verbal performance consistent with a man on the run who must be extremely reserved to avoid attracting attention. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.