Series / The Fugitive (1963)

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A groundbreaking American drama series created by Roy Huggins and produced by Quinn Martin, which aired for four seasons (1963–67) on ABC.

The premise: Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen), a pediatrician from Stafford, Indiana, has been wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife, Helen. However, as he is being transported to Death Row by train there's an accident which enables him to escape.

Now Kimble must continually travel throughout the country, looking to locate the actual murderer—a one-armed man (Bill Raisch) who he saw running from his house that night before he discovered his wife's body—and clear his name.

Meanwhile, Kimble is pursued by Lt. Philip Gerard (Barry Morse), the Stafford police detective who was escorting him at the time he escaped. Gerard is determined to track down and recapture Kimble, thereby precluding the fugitive from simply settling down in some remote area under an assumed identity. In the meantime, Kimble supports himself on the run by taking various small jobs and inevitably gets involved in the personal lives and problems of the strangers he encounters.

The Fugitive was adapted into a 1993 feature film, starring Harrison Ford as Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard. There was also a short-lived CBS remake series in 2000, which starred Tim Daly as Kimble and Mykelti Williamson as Gerard. Meanwhile, the show's premise has provided the template for an entire subgenre of action and drama shows.

The rights to the original series were initially owned by QM Productions. They were subsequently acquired by Taft Broadcasting through Worldvision Enterprises (which actually had syndication rights before either it and QM were both acquired by Taft), Spelling Television (which once had a movie production arm, Spelling Films), Paramount Television (which produced Wings, also starring Tim Daly, and the television arm of Paramount Pictures), and currently CBS Studios. None of these companies (either TV or theatrical) were involved in the subsequent remakes of The Fugitive, all of which were produced by Warner Bros. Entertainment, a result of Keith Barish taking the rights to the IP (but not the series itself) with him upon leaving Taft, and eventually teaming up with former QM Productions employee and latter-day producer Arnold Kopelson to produce the 1993 film with Warner, which has retained the remake rights ever since.

Another remake of the series, starring Boyd Holbrook as the protagonist (now named Mike Ferro) and Kiefer Sutherland as his pursuer (now called Detective Clay Price), premiered on August 3, 2020, on the short-lived streaming platform Quibi. It ran for one season.

The Fugitive provides examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Kidnapping: Kimble to Philip Gerard Jr. in "Nemesis".
  • Also, Kimble to Policewoman Jane Washburn in "Echo of a Nightmare".
• Accidental Murder: Kimble witnesses Martin Rowland committing it in "Glass Tightrope". Kimble convinces him to confess.
• Acquitted Too Late:
  • In "Nightmare at Northoak", Kimble suggests that this is what Gerard has nightmares about (i.e. finding the One-Armed Man after Kimble has been executed). Gerard's reaction indicates that he might be right.
  • In "Scapegoat", Kimble returns to a town he'd been in before to prove the innocence of a former employer who has been convicted of murdering him. When he arrives, the man has been killed trying to escape.
• Adventure Towns
• All Bikers Are Hells Angels: The titular motorcycle gang in "The Devil's Disciples".
• Amnesia Episode: "Escape Into Black" centers on Kimble getting Easy Amnesia.
• Amnesiacs Are Innocent: In "Escape Into Black", a doctor finds out about Kimble's identity after a gas explosion has left Kimble amnesiac. He persuades Kimble to turn himself in on the basis of this trope. A friendly social worker manages to warn Kimble in time, though.
• And This Is for...: In the final episode, during the show-down, Kimble hits Johnson in the face, shouting: "You killed her! You killed my wife! Didn't you! Didn't you!"
• And Starring: In the episodes in which he appears, "Also Starring Barry Morse as Lt. Gerard".
• Artistic License – Law: Escaping from prison is illegal, even if you are found innocent of the crime for which you were convicted. With some public support and a sympathetic judge you might get a more lenient sentence, but you'd still probably end up serving some time simply for escaping.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The supposedly Hungarian Karac-family from the episode "The Blessings of Liberty". Not only is "Karac" not a Hungarian family name ("Karacs" exists, though), but to add to it, the children are named Jan, Magda and Karla, all non-Hungarian names (János, Magdolna and Klara would have been the right choice).
• Ax-Crazy: Fred Johnson.
• Berserk Button: Gerard is normally very composed and calm, but he breaks during the finale when interrogating the One-Armed Man, precisely because he finally realizes at that moment that Kimble is right. He also chews out Lloyd Chandler later for not testifying on behalf of Kimble years ago.
• Big Storm Episode: "Storm Center", "Ill Wind".
• Bilingual Bonus: There's quite a bit of Spanish spoken in some of the episodes set in the Southwestern U.S. or even Mexico.
• Bittersweet Ending: As Kimble leaves the courthouse, finally cleared, at the end of the final episode, a police cruiser drives up and Kimble stops dead before being reminded that he doesn't have to fear them anymore. It's just a little hint to show how long it will probably take for him to recover from the last five years. And, of course, his wife is still dead (although their marriage was apparently on the rocks already, and he's conveniently been provided a new Love Interest). He's also lost his father, who died years before he was cleared.
• Blackmail:
  • Numerous characters who find out about Kimble's real identity use the information to force him into doing something for them.
  • What the One-Armed Man uses on Lloyd Chandler, the witness to Helen Kimble's murder, in order to keep him quiet.
• Bookends: Part 1 of the final episode, "The Judgment", opens with Kimble in Tucson, Arizona... the same town he'd visited in the first episode, "Fear in a Desert City". And the same Part 1 ends with Kimble and Gerard once again handcuffed together aboard a train.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Part 2 of "The Judgment" has the One-Armed Man shooting a hand gun at the amusement park. The gun can be heard firing six shots. When he then attempts to shoot Kimble, the gun is empty, so he throws the gun at his pursuer.
• The Boxing Episode: "Decision in the Ring" has Kimble as cut man for a boxer who may be suffering brain damage.
• Cain and Abel: Frank and Davey in "Fatso", the latter of which was framed by the former both to try and cover being AWOL and to get him out of the way to have the family business all to himself. Semi-subverted in that Davey is the older of the two.
• Cassandra Truth: If Kimble had gotten anybody to believe his story of the One-Armed Man, there wouldn't have been a TV series. Gerard even believes that Kimble's clinging to the story is a psychological defense mechanism.
• Character Development: Gerard. While he stays a By-the-Book Cop, he goes from firmly believing Kimble to be guilty to chasing Kimble because it's his job to openly doubting that Kimble is a dangerous man. In the final episode, his conviction that Kimble is innocent is strong enough to make him put a gun in Kimble's hand to send him after Johnson.
• Character Tics: Kimble tends to nervously cast his eyes downward and twitch one side of his mouth while talking to someone.
• Chekhov's Gun: Or rather, the bullet to go with it: Donna finds a bullet in the drawer of her son Billy which puts Gerard on the trail of the witness to the murder.
• Chick Magnet: Kimble racks up a truly impressive number of Girls of the Week during his time on the run.^note David Janssen was known to complain about the lack of attractiveness of some of the female guest stars. Given Janssen's sense of humor, though, he may well have been kidding.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • After appearing on a recurring basis in the first two seasons, Captain Carpenter (Paul Birch), Gerard's superior at the Stafford PD, was written out of the series without explanation. (Since Carpenter was really never more than a sounding board for Gerard to talk to about the Kimble case—he was never seen in any other situation, and had no character development at all—he was very easy to lift out of the series. After the second season, instead of discussing the case with Carpenter before leaving to pursue Kimble, Gerard would just simply go.)
  • Richard's younger brother Ray Kimble plays an important role in the episode "Home Is the Hunted", but is never seen or mentioned again afterwards.
• Clear My Name: Of course, the entire show is about Kimble and his attempts to clear his name. However, in the episode "Corner of Hell", there's an interesting twist on this: Gerard has been captured by a clan of moonshiners in bayou country who accuse him of seriously injuring one of their own and held captive in a makeshift cell. Now it's his turn to plead for his life to Kimble! Kimble, being the nice guy that he is, does some amateur detective work to find the real attacker and save Gerard's life.
• Climbing Climax: The final showdown between Kimble and the One-Armed Man, in Part 2 of "The Judgment", takes place atop an amusement park ride tower.
• Compilation Movie: The series' third and final two-parter "The Judgment" was edited into a movie (The Fugitive - The Judgment) for home video release
• Continuity Snarl: The relatively minor detail of how Helen Kimble was murdered. There are several episodes in the second season where it's mentioned that she was strangled. In one of these episodes (where a neighbor of the Kimbles gives a false, but accurately detailed confession to the murder) it was even specified that she was strangled with her own belt. But by the fourth season (possibly because the writers realized this method of murder would be an awfully hard thing for a one-armed man to accomplish), it was changed. In one fourth season episode the One-Armed Man confesses, and in the Grand Finale is shown in flashback, to have killed her by hitting her over the head with a lamp in the house.
• Contrived Coincidence: About Once per Episode. William Conrad's opening narration, which emphasizes the "huge hand of fate" that seems to rule Kimble's life, somewhat acknowledges this.
• Damsel in Distress: Regularly.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Averted in "Terror at High Point". The villain tries to frame and kill someone else to cover up his own sexual assault, but fails due to Kimble.
• Destroy the Evidence: The One-Armed Man in "The Ivy Maze".
• The Determinator: Kimble in his efforts to catch the One-Armed Man and Gerard in his efforts to catch Kimble.
• Diplomatic Impunity: Kimble is able to take advantage of this in "Dossier on a Diplomat", after coming to the aid of an African ambassador who has a fainting spell in the street.
• Dirty Coward: Lloyd Chandler, the friend and neighbor of the Kimbles' who witnessed Helen's murder, keeps quiet for five years to avoid being known as one of these.
• Disney Villain Death: Fred Johnson, the One-Armed Man.
• Disposable Woman: Kimble's murdered wife.
• The Drifter: Both Kimble and The One-Armed Man.
• Dye or Die: After his escape, Kimble dyed his gray hair (although it's hard to tell the hair color in the black and white of the first three seasons, Kimble's younger brother states in the episode "Home is the hunted" that Richard's hair is gray) to the black it remains throughout the show.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": For the first two seasons, the rarely seen One-Armed Man has no other name. As he becomes seen a little more often, he uses the name "Fred Johnson" along with several other aliases. Kimble and Gerard, having no other consistent name to go by, often refer to him as "Fred Johnson", but most everybody just remembers him as, well, the One-Armed Man. In the final episode, he vehemently denies that "Fred Johnson" is his real name, and there is some evidence (albeit inconclusive) that his name could be "Gus Evans".
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Some of the bad guys Kimble meets can't fathom his frequent attempts to help others, even when the smart move is to run for his life before the cops show. Conversely:
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Sometimes Kimble gets caught off-guard by seemingly-helpful people who happen to be pulling a Batman Gambit and now need a patsy—say, a Wrongly Accused doctor—for their plans to work.
  • Subverted with, of all people, Gerard. As he pursues Dr. Kimble across the country, Gerard comes to learn how Kimble thinks and acts, and comes to realize that Kimble can be trusted to behave in certain ways. Gerard especially knows that Kimble would never hurt a child... which is why Gerard isn't upset when Gerard's own son is stuck with Kimble during a dire crisis. It's just that pesky murder of Mrs. Kimble, you see.
    • It's actually not a subversion, since Gerard's not really evil to begin with. He's an honest cop who's pursuing Kimble because it's his job.
• Exact Words: In "The Breaking of the Habit", Sister Veronica never actually lies to the traffic cop. She just states that Father Taylor has a toothache and that his dentist is in the town in question. She never claimed that Father Taylor was the man sitting next to her...
• Failure Is the Only Option: at least until the Grand Finale.
  • Lampshaded in the MAD parody, "The Phewgitive". Both "Thimble" and "Javert" realize that if they ever actually catch the man each is looking for, the series will be over and they'll be out of work, so when each narrowly misses his quarry the response is actually one of relief ("Phew... That was close!") rather than disappointment.
• Feet-First Introduction: Kimble, getting off the bus in the very first episode, "Fear in a Desert City".
• For the Evulz: Why Neil Pinkerton kills Mona Ross' mother in "A.P.B."
• Frame-Up: The set-up for the show.
  • On more than one occasion people who find out Kimble's identity either commit or plan to commit crimes (usually murder) knowing that Kimble will be blamed, or frame him for it afterwards. Ironically, he's always able to clear his name for those.
• Friend to All Children: Kimble. People taking advantage of or otherwise abusing them are especially despised by him.
  • Putting himself at risk of being captured to help children, or even possibly killed on the spot, often works in his favor to convince others of his innocence and to help him. The two biggest examples are the entire town in "Nightmare at Northoak" (including its law enforcement), and the detective in "When the Bough Breaks" (who is very heavily implied to have figured out Kimble's identity, but lets him go after he found and helped to rescue a kidnapped baby).
• Friend to All Living Things: Kenny in the episode "When the Wind Blows".
• Fugitive Arc: The Series
• Gambit Pileup: Both parts of "The Judgment".
• Gaslighting: "The Homecoming", courtesy of Janice's Wicked Stepmother.
• Genre Savvy: Too many examples to count for Kimble, and a few for Gerard:
  • Gerard learns quickly to use one-armed men as Kimble-bait. (And, in all but the first instance, it's even the correct One-Armed Man.)
  • Kimble plans an elaborate scheme to see his sister after their father's death. If it hadn't been for an inconvenient coincidence, it would probably have worked.
  • Kimble also develops a very good sense for when someone will actually make good on their threat to shoot him.
  • In "The Shattered Silence", Kimble uses pepper to get some dogs off his trail. It's never quite explained why it didn't work.
• Going by the Matchbook: Averted and possibly lampshaded in the first part of the Grand Finale: Gerard finds a matchbook from an art supply store at the place where he and Kimble assume someone met with the One-Armed Man. It gives them no clues and never shows up again.
• Good Cop:
  • Gerard. He may be obsessed with capturing Kimble, but he's incorruptible, honest, and will aid the local law enforcement in arresting the other criminals who happen to be guest-starring that episode. Also By-the-Book Cop: Gerard may be obsessed with capturing Kimble, but he'll bend the law only so far. The only time Gerard comes close to breaking the law is in the final episode, when he gives Kimble 24 hours to find out who helped the One-Armed Man jump bail.
  • Kimble does get caught by other incorruptible cops during his ordeals, but is able to escape thanks to some moral dilemma that forces the cop to look the other way, or in some cases through sheer good fortune.
• Good Versus Good: Gerard vs. Kimble
• Grand Finale: One of the first shows to have a final episode to wrap up the whole series ("the day the running stopped"). It was at the time one of the most-watched episodes ever.
• Greaser Delinquents: Kimble and Gerard's (temporarily blinded) wife have to contend with a trio of these in Part 2 of "Landscape with Running Figures".
• He Knows Too Much: Happens to Kimble regularly, to Gerard a few times, and to the One-Armed Man courtesy of Lloyd Chandler, the witness to the murder.
• Heel–Face Turn: To the extent that he's the show's Designated Villain, Gerard undergoes this in the Grand Finale.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: In "Come Watch Me Die", Kimble gets deputized to help transport a suspected killer.
• Hollywood Law: Kimble's motive for killing Helen is supposed to be... that they disagreed over adopting a child?!? Neighbors heard them arguing loudly about it on the night of the murder, and also had heard them heatedly arguing about the topic for months. Apart from that, the only evidence is his lack of an alibi. It's discussed several times during the show, most notably in "Man in a Chariot" and "Dossier on a Diplomat" that Kimble, whether or not he's guilty, should never have been convicted on the evidence presented by the prosecution.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: "Nicest Fella You'd Ever Want to Meet" finds Kimble, arrested by blowhard small-town sheriff Joe Bob Sims, chased around a rock quarry by the rifle-toting sheriff after witnessing him murder a fellow prisoner.
• I Am Spartacus: "Nightmare at Northoak" ends with a variation of this: Gerard accuses a small-town sheriff of having helped Kimble (who'd rescued several of the town's children from a burning school bus) to escape from the local jail while awaiting extradition, and threatens to bring him before a grand jury for aiding and abetting a fugitive. The sheriff's wife then steps forward to confess to it, and Gerard tells her she'll have to be arrested... which leads to a whole roomful of townspeople standing up one by one and "confessing" to him.
• Idiot Ball: Ties in with Good Cannot Comprehend Evil—sometimes Kimble's lack of mistrust in people is amazingly stupid, considering his situation.
• I Have Many Names: Kimble, and to a lesser extent the One-Armed Man.
• I Owe You My Life: In "The Evil Men Do", Kimble is working as a stable hand when he rescues the stable's owner from an out-of-control horse. When the owner, a former Mob hitman, discovers Kimble's identity and plight, he attempts to repay his debt by killing Gerard.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: in "See Hollywood and Die", Kimble is forced to pretend he's a hardened criminal to keep two hoodlums from killing him and a female hostage. When the hoodlums find out he's really the famous doctor "who killed his wife", it makes it easier to deal with the hoodlums but harder to deal with the woman who's now terrified for her life.
• Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: In that it forces Kimble to risk his own safety when helping others. On the other hand, it convinces those he helps that he's really a good guy and they repay his kindness by helping Kimble escape and is also a huge reason why Gerard himself comes to believe that Kimble may in fact be innocent of murdering his wife. Even discussed in the opening narration to "Nobody Loses All the Time". Though, if you're an especially horrible person it still won't stop him from beating you within an inch of your life.
• Inspector Javert: Lt. Gerard is actually inspired by and named for him.
• Institutional Apparel: In "Nicest Fella You'd Ever Want to Meet".
• Instrumental Theme Tune: Composed, along with much of the show's incidental music, by Pete Rugolo.
• Ironic Echo:
  • In "Corner of Hell", Kimble is befriended by a group of moonshiners, who subsequently capture Gerard and plan to lynch him after the daughter of the head moonshiner is beaten unconscious and Gerard is found next to her. As it happens, Gerard saw the actual attacker running from the scene of the crime just as he arrived... but he can't prove it. Kimble himself lampshades the parallel.
  • In "Come Watch Me Die", Kimble gets deputized to help transport a suspected killer. The young man claims to be innocent, so Kimble treats him well only to learn that he did actually do the murder he was accused of and Kimble's sympathetic treatment nearly allowed him to escape.
  • In "The Judgment: Part II", When Kimble finally corners the One-Armed Man he angrily asks him why he killed Kimble's wife. Johnson answers back "'Cause she wouldn't let me go!" This stuns Kimble, because he had been arguing with his wife about getting a divorce because she refused to adopt.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gerard towards the end, but even long before that in regards to Kimble's sister. He knows that she's in contact with Kimble and at times can prove it but never arrests her, and for the most part he doesn't hound her as to Kimble's whereabouts.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Surprisingly absent, considering that Gerard gets called in whenever Kimble is spotted somewhere and nobody ever objects to him basically taking over entirely.
• Justified Criminal: While Kimble tries to stay legal as much as he can, it doesn't stop him from breaking the law when it's what he has to do to escape... as long as nobody gets hurt.
• Kangaroo Court: In "Corner of Hell", the moonshiner Tully sets one of these up for Gerard, whom he mistakenly believes to have attacked and concussed his daughter (Gerard is found "guilty", but the truth comes out before he's lynched).
• Karma Houdini: The corrupt Deputy Sheriff in "Tug of War", who essentially gets away with murder.
• Karmic Death: Although Fred Johnson doesn't get legally executed, it's still a representative of the law who kills him.
• The Killer Becomes the Killed: Fred Johnson, murderer of Helen Kimble, is killed by Gerard in a showdown, just as he was about to shoot Richard Kimble.
• Large Ham: Typically from the guest stars of the week, such as Harry Townes or William Shatner.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Helen Kimble had a miscarriage before the plot proper begins. It left her incapable of bearing future kids, and the issue becomes a strain on her and Richard's marriage. Their arguments over the merits of adopting becomes the "motive" in the prosecutor's argument that Richard killed her.
• Leave No Witnesses: "A Stroke of Genius", "There Goes the Ball Game"
• Like Father, Like Son: Gerard's son Philip Junior in the episode "Nemesis". Despite being frightened of Kimble, he keeps doing his best to slow him down and leave clues for his father. Let's all hope Gerard is damn proud of him.
• Loophole Abuse: At the end of "The Savage Street", Jose and his son Jimmy (the main characters of the episode) are helping Kimble escape but his police officer brother stops them and demands him to open the van door. After Jose tells him what will likely happen to both him and his nephew if they are caught harboring Kimble (and he knows full well that Kimble is hiding in the van), he still orders him to open the door because as a police officer he's obligated to search. But he doesn't look inside, and quickly closes the door, letting Kimble escape and getting them all off the hook.
• Mad Doctor: Howell in "Death of a Very Small Killer" is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who doesn't care how many people die if it enables him to find a cure for a particularly resistant strain of meningitis. Kimble disagrees.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The entire point of the two-parter "Angels Travel on Lonely Roads". Kimble and Sister Veronica met each other at precisely the right time, which (through a series of fortunate events) ultimately led to him slipping through the police dragnet and her not abandoning her faith. No matter the interpretation, both see it as a miracle, plus the truck lasted far beyond what it should have.
• Marquee Alter Ego: That dye-job was just a little too perfect...
• Miscarriage of Justice: Kimble's conviction.
• Minimalist Cast: "Storm Center" has a cast of just six. Most of the time, only David Janssen and the episode's only guest star Bethel Leslie are on screen.
• The Most Wanted: The series is about an innocent man in his search for the murderer of his wife as well escaping from the police (and especially a Cowboy Cop).
• Motive = Conclusive Evidence: Apart from Kimble's lack of an alibi, his so-called "motive" is the only evidence he was convicted on.
• Multi-Part Episode: "Angels Travel on Lonely Roads", "Landscape with Running Figures" and "The Judgment" was all two-parters.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Probably The One-Armed Man's motto.
  • Also former hitman Arthur Brame in "The Evil Men Do".
• My Greatest Failure: The fact that Kimble escaped while under Gerard's personal custody plays no small part in the latter's obsession with recapturing him.
• Mysterious Past: We learn very little about the One-Armed Man's background, such as how he lost his arm or what led him to a life of crime. We're never even told definitively that "Fred Johnson" is actually his real name and not just another alias.
• Narrator: Voiced by William Conrad, who's ideal for this.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: At the end of "The Ivy Maze", a pile-up of stupid actions from Gerard, Kimble and his friend Fritz allow the One-Armed Man to destroy his Engineered Public Confession and escape.
  • Specifically, it was Kimble deciding to throw the One-Armed Man at Gerard and run away, rather than keeping him pinned in place for Gerard to arrest them both. Had he done this, it's quite possible he would have received a new trial and been cleared of murder due to the confession.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Whenever Kimble wants to help somebody, he usually has to risk exposure and recapture to do so.
• Not Me This Time: Kimble in "Stroke of Genius" and "The Evil Men Do". Gerard believes him immediately and acknowledges that he'd never really suspected him in the first place.
• Not-So-Imaginary Foe: Gerard doubts the existence of the One-Armed Man, believing him to be a figment of Kimble's guilty imagination. However, by the final season, Gerald has caught glimpses of the One-Armed Man, and by the finale he even interrogates him and openly doubts his alibis.
• Novelization: The pilot episode was novelized, much to series creator Roy Huggins' disgust; he held the rights to all merchandising and said novelization was written without his knowledge or consent. There were, unsurprisingly, no further novelizations (and not much merchandising).
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Julie Sommars as Hungarian immigrant Carla Karac in "The Blessings of Liberty". The other actors^note mostly American except for Austrian Ludwig Donath playing the Karacs at least try to sound foreign.
• Oh, Crap!: Once per episode.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Joanna Pettet's native British accent pokes through occasionally as Tina in "Shadow of the Swan."
• One Last Smoke: Kimble asking Gerard for a cigarette in the season one opening has elements of that.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with Philip Gerard and his son of the same name. Played straight with Richard Kimble (although he does use the first name Richard in false names a few times).
• Opening Narration: A couple different ones were used over the course of the show.
• Outlaw Couple: An anti villainous example mistakenly kidnap Kimble in "Tiger Left, Tiger Right." The husband (Leslie Nielsen) grabs Kimble believing him to be Kimble's temporary boss, whom he blames because one of the boss's trucks injured him and he never got a response when he wrote letters about it.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Kimble usually takes jobs as a laborer, handyman or factotum of some kind (probably because that's the kind of jobs where nobody will look too closely into your past life), but most people immediately know something is up with him because of his obvious education and middle-class background.
• Phone-Trace Race: Several throughout the series.
• Pilot: "Fear in a Desert City"
• Plot Armor: Kimble, Gerard and the One-Armed Man. Until the last episode.
• Police Are Useless: Apart from Gerard and a few exceptions throughout the series, most of the cops come across as rather incompetent, especially if they're attached to the police of some small backwater town.
• Police Brutality: Kimble becomes the victim in "A Clean and Quiet Town". Turns out the One-Armed Man is behind the attack and the city's entire police force is corrupt.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Blaine in "The Old Man Picked a Lemon", Carter in "Passage to Helena".
• Posthumous Character: Helen Kimble.
• Precap: Each episode opened with one of these, a brief clip of a single scene from that episode.
• Prison Episode: "Wing of an Angel", although Kimble just ends up in a prison hospital without having actually been arrested.
• Recurring Character: Captain Carpenter, Donna Taft, Leonard Taft, Mrs. Gerard, Phil Junior.
  • And technically Mr. Gerard, since he appears (outside of the title sequence) in only 37 of the show's 120 episodes.
  • The One-Armed Man only appears in ten episodes, six of which come in the show's final season. He also appears in the title sequence of Seasons 2-4.
  • Helen Kimble, also. She first appears in flashback mid-Season 1 (the same episode where the One-Armed Man is first seen, also via flashback), her body is seen in the opening credits of Seasons 2-4, has a voiceover in another episode, and one final flashback in the Grand Finale, revealing the one clue that finally clears Kimble: There was a third person in the Kimble house the night of the murder, who witnessed the One-Armed Man murder her, and kept silent solely because he didn't want to be exposed as a Dirty Coward.
  • Finally, there's Sister Veronica, a nun Kimble encounters in a rare two-part episode in Season 1. She turns up again in Season 4, becoming the only recurring character who's neither a Kimble family member, nor directly connected to Helen's murder.
• Recycled Soundtrack: Unlike many series of its time in the '60s (and subsequently), the series relied on a specially composed library of music by Pete Rugolo and licensed music written for CBS shows rather than have any episodes (even the Series Finale) receive an original score. According to QM music supervisor John Elizalde, the substantial royalties coming his way for the use of his CBS library music on the series were what led to Jerry Goldsmith agreeing to write the theme and pilot score for Barnaby Jones.
  • Which led to problems for the show's DVD release; specifically, the season 2 set was initially released with an entirely new score of synthesized music (in order to get around licensing issues), leading to an uproar from fans angered by the change.
  • Much of the music in season 4 is taken from Dominic Frontiere's scores for The Outer Limits.
  • For more about the show's music, go here.
• Red Herring: Mentioned in "Running Scared" when Gerard says that Mrs. Ballinger (Kimble's ally of the week) specialises in red herrings.
• Road Block: Kimble manages to get past these in a couple episodes.
• Rooting for the Empire: You get enough in-universe examples no matter which side you actually consider to be "the empire"...
• Rousseau Was Right:
  • Most characters that Kimble meet along the way are willing to help him escape the police when they get close to catching him. Often because Kimble's already done them favors and they realize he's not really a killer.
  • In the few instances people don't help, it's because they're either bad guys or because they're helping the One-Armed Man. One episode had Gerard surprised by a woman who was actively trying to get Kimble captured because she was secretly the One-Armed Man's girlfriend.
  • In a Real-Life example, actor Barry Morse (Gerard) would tell stories about running into fans of the show who, identifying him a little too closely with his character, would angrily tell him to "stop chasing that nice doctor!"
• Save the Villain: Kimble is put in the odd position of having to save Gerard's life in a number of episodes. Other episodes have Kimble rescuing Gerard's wife and son.
  • This ends up paying off in the finale, when Gerard captures Kimble, but in return for all the times Kimble saved him agrees to give him 24 hours to try and track down the One-Armed Man and exonerate himself before being brought in.
    • It's not just that. By this point Gerard is also convinced that Kimble really is innocent (his interrogation of the One-Armed Man in the first part was the turning point), and they go together to the final confrontation even past the deadline. He is also influential in convincing the witness to Helen's murder to testify, which is ironic because the one person chasing after Kimble for over four years ultimately is the one who helps set him free.
  • In "Wife Killer", he has to operate on the One-Armed Man after the latter sustains a critical head injury in an auto accident. Justified, since Kimble a.) is bound by his Hippocratic oath and b.) can't hope to clear himself if the One-Armed Man dies.
• Say My Name: "KIMBLE!"—It's practically a Catchphrase for Gerard.
• Serial Killer: Kimble is mistaken for this (and then encounters the real one) in "Moon Child".
• Series Finale: The two-parter "The Judgment" is one of the very first examples of the trope.
• Series Goal: Find the One-Armed Man and clear Kimble's name. This was one of the very first Series Goals to be successfully achieved in American television history.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: "See Hollywood and Die", "There Goes the Ball Game"
• South of the Border: "The One That Got Away", "Death of a Very Small Killer"
• Stairwell Chase: In "Running Scared"
• Stern Chase
• Stock Footage:
  • Kimble trying to hitch a ride in the darkness. Originally from "The Girl from Little Egypt".
  • Kimble hopping a freight pursued by two policemen. Originally from "Nobody Loses All the Time".
  • Beginning in Season 2, the Title Sequence features stills of scenes from earlier episodes.
• Sudden Name Change: Between Seasons 1 and 3, the names of Gerard's wife and son went from Ann and Flip to Marie and Phil Junior respectively (although Flip may not have been his legal name; it is a known nickname for Phillip; and if you have the same given name as your father, having a distinguishing nickname is common).
• Temporary Blindness:
  • In the episode "Landscape with Running Figures", this happens to Gerard's wife... while she happens to be with Kimble.
  • Kimble himself experiences this in "Second Sight".
• That One Case: What Kimble is to Gerard until the final two episodes.
• Token Romance: As the series progresses, these happen more and more often (while there are still a few women in love with Kimble in the earlier series, he tended to reject them faster and more decidedly).
• Trail of Bread Crumbs: In "Nemesis", Kimble escapes from Gerard and a sheriff by stealing the sheriff's car, which (unbeknownst to him) Gerard's son was hiding in the back of. The kid tries leaving a trail of football-player trading cards so his father can follow them, but Kimble catches him and confiscates the rest of the cards.
• Translation Convention: In "Death of a Very Small Killer", if it's plot-important, even the Mexican locals speak English to each other.
• Trunk Shot: Kimble hides in a few of them (f. ex. "The Other Side of the Coin" or "The Breaking of the Habit").
• Turn in Your Badge: Two cops who let Kimble go try to do this in "Echo of a Nightmare" and "Passage to Helena". Both get refused. The sheriff's resignation in "Other Side of the Coin" gets accepted, but he broke a lot more laws than just harboring Kimble.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: In "The One That Got Away". He wasn't even trying to get Kimble...
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story:
  • Urban folklore states that the show's premise was inspired by Dr. Sam Sheppard, who was falsely convicted of murdering his wife in an extremely high-profile 1954 court case, and served nearly 11 years of a life sentence before the Supreme Court declared the original trial a mistrial. He was subsequently re-tried, acquitted, and released from prison. The show's creators denied the inspiration, but the similarities in Kimble's and Sheppard's cases do lead one to wonder...
  • A more likely proximate inspiration was the 1946 David Goodis novel Dark Passage (better known for its 1947 film adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart), which also involves a man taking it on the lam after being falsely convicted of his wife's murder and then escaping. In fact, Goodis sued United Artists Television (which distributed The Fugitive) for copyright infringement; the case was eventually settled out of court following his death.
  • Some inspiration also came from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. According to his biography, Barry Morse spotted the similarities and, after creator Roy Huggins confirmed this, re-read the novel to help him play his character closer to Inspector Javert. In addition to Gerard's character, obsession and name, the similarities include the protagonist saving his pursuer's life, the chase being ultimately unjust (although for different reasons) and Javert/Gerard finally agreeing to give Valjean/Kimble time to do one last thing before their respective arrests after having refused to do so before.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: One of three opening narrations explaining the backstory happens every single episode. You'll know at least the last version by heart at the end.
• Villainous Breakdown: A no longer blind Mattie in "Dark Corner."
• Walking the Earth: what Kimble does during his chase for the One-Armed Man. The plot that he was wrongly accused helped solve a problem with earlier TV shows that had wandering characters getting involved with other people's problems: "Why won't the heroes take the problem to the local authorities?" In Kimble's case, he couldn't.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Appears in every episode. Gerard is once seen carrying an entire envelope full of copies when questioning the local populace one whether they've seen Kimble.
  • Oddly, said poster always shows Kimble with his pre-dyed grey hair. You'd think Gerard or the FBI or somebody would have updated it for all the times he's been seen with his new look.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kimble's old friend Dr. Andrew Emmett McAllister, in "Not with a Whimper". He wants to bring people's attention to the problem of air pollution by blowing up a factory that he thinks will be unocccupied.
• Where It All Began: Kimble returns to Stafford in "Home is the Hunted", "The Survivors", and "The Judgment". In "Running Scared" he meets his sister and her husband in nearby Fort Wayne.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The exact location of the fictional Stafford is never given. Here's one website that takes a few guesses based on clues from the show.
• Whole Episode Flashback: "The Girl from Little Egypt" has Kimble recalling Helen's murder and his subsequent trial, conviction, and escape while recovering from a traffic accident.
• Worthy Opponent: Kimble and Gerard have a great deal of respect for each other. Kimble calls Gerard a "brilliant" detective on several occasions (and Gerard often demonstrates this). While Gerard thinks Kimble is guilty, he's aware of the number of people Kimble's helped and believes Kimble will never kill again.
  • All of which makes their handshake at the end of the final episode that much more satisfying.
• Wrongly Accused: Kimble, of course.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Kimble does actually steal a fair amount of cars and often agrees to people claiming that he forced them to help him when they did so out of their own free will. It could probably have been enough for quite a case, but if the last scene is any indication, nobody ever bothered to look into it.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Kimble plays this in approximately half the episodes.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: On occasion. "The Ivy Maze" is one good example.
• "You!" Squared: Kimble and the One-Armed Man exchange a non-verbal one on seeing each other (for the first time since the night of Helen's murder) in "Search in a Windy City".