--- title: "The Fugitive" year: 1963 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/the-fugitive-1963" fi1m_score: 84 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-09-16T15:58:57.176008+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T15:58:57.682909+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Fugitive (1963) Created by Roy Huggins · 1h 00m · MPA TV-PG · Action & Adventure, Drama, Mystery **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* David Janssen looks tired enough without the police making it worse > David Janssen gives *The Fugitive* a tired, believable hero worth following through its mixture of crime, action and melodrama. We recommend it, with patience for the repeated predicament and the sometimes over-insistent narration. ## Synopsis Richard Kimble (David Janssen) is a doctor living under the pressure of pursuit. Lieutenant Gerard (Barry Morse) represents the law that he cannot trust to put things right. With the Narrator (William Conrad) telling his story, *The Fugitive* follows a weary, conscientious man trying to remain free while confronting institutions capable of getting things wrong. Crime, action and personal troubles complicate his position. Richard Kimble wants to stay beyond the law’s reach, but his concern for other people makes withdrawal difficult: keeping himself safe cannot be his only consideration. ## Review Roy Huggins’s [*The Fugitive*](https://film.one/film/the-fugitive) makes gripping television out of a predicament that cannot simply be cleared away after an hour. We recommend it for David Janssen’s Richard Kimble, a doctor whose weariness makes the continuing danger matter. The series combines crime, action and melodrama without treating the last of those as an embarrassment. Its principal limitation is the repetition built into keeping one man in trouble for so long, however effectively that trouble is varied. The troubling idea is that the law can be wrong and still possess the power to ruin a life. Richard Kimble has to live with that possibility, so authority offers little reassurance. Barry Morse’s Lieutenant Gerard gives the law a continuing presence, while the protagonist’s anxiety makes the threat personal. The programme asks us to spend time with someone who cannot assume that an institution will recognise its own mistake. David Janssen’s naturalism is essential to making that bearable. He allows Richard Kimble to be virtuous without making him seem inexhaustible, and the fatigue makes his goodness persuasive. We were moved by how tired his decency looked. There is nothing restful about being the conscientious person in this story, and the performance makes us feel the effort of it. A more assertive, invulnerable hero would make the danger easier to dismiss, and would be considerably less interesting company. The cinematography credits include Carl E. Guthrie and Robert Hoffman, and the editing credits include Richard Cahoon and Jodie Copelan. Their shared task is to keep the danger clear without crowding out the man experiencing it. That balance works: Richard Kimble’s capacity to keep going matters as much as the immediate excitement. The hour-long format also leaves space for the crime story and the melodrama to sit together, giving the actor something beyond the next threat to play. William Conrad’s narration is a less naturalistic element, and its emphatic authority can sit awkwardly beside the leading performance. We occasionally wanted it to trust David Janssen more. The actor already makes the strain of Richard Kimble’s position intelligible; the programme need not underline it quite so firmly. Still, the narration keeps the changing stories clear, and there is something reassuring about its firmness in a programme whose central character has so little reassurance available to him. The larger reservation is repetition. Across four seasons of 30 episodes each, there are a great many occasions to worry about the same man in the same essential trouble. His decency can also make him too dependable, with more opportunities to endure than to surprise us. The variety of stories helps, but cannot make the central predicament feel newly discovered on every visit. Expecting constant progress towards a solution is a good way to miss what the individual dramas offer. Against the pursuit thriller’s usual reliance on speed, this series gives unusual weight to the wearing business of being afraid. Its hero’s vulnerability remains interesting even when the pattern becomes familiar. It is worth allowing those individual dramas some breathing space, particularly if the older television rhythms take a little adjustment. Start with one episode rather than clearing the weekend. *Fi1m score 84, published 16 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (1) - **The AV Club**, Stephen Bowie (90/100, inferred): The series achieved a unique perfection of form as fusion TV blending crime procedural, action-adventure, and melodrama, with consistent high quality across varied episodes. It broke new ground with its premise of a perpetually paranoid protagonist at odds with the law and institutions that can err, anchored by David Janssen's naturalistic performance as the virtuous but weary Dr. Kimble. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-fugitive-broke-new-ground-to-become-an-unlikely-hit-1798240531) ## Details - **Created by:** Roy Huggins - **Creator:** Roy Huggins - **Director:** Jerry Hopper, Walter Grauman, Alexander Singer, William A. Graham, James Sheldon, Don Medford, Robert Butler, John Meredyth Lucas, Gerald Mayer, Abner Biberman, Ralph Senensky, Leonard Horn, Ida Lupino, James Goldstone, Gerd Oswald, Richard Donner, Andrew McCullough, Lewis Allen, Joseph Sargent, Christian Nyby, Leo Penn, Vincent McEveety, James Neilson, Alex March, László Benedek, Claudio Guzmán, Meredith M. Nicholson, Robert Gist, Mark Rydell, Jesse Hibbs, Murray Golden, Jud Taylor, Joseph Pevney, William D. Gordon, Sydney Pollack, Sutton Roley, Barry Morse, Richard Benedict, John Erman, Robert Douglas, Lawrence Dobkin, William Hale, Robert Ellis Miller - **Writer:** George Eckstein, Daniel B. Ullman, Harry Kronman, Philip Saltzman, Don Brinkley, Jack Turley, William D. Gordon, Barry Oringer, Stanford Whitmore, Arthur Weiss, Sheldon Stark, Oliver Crawford, Lee Loeb, Stuart Jerome, Al C. Ward, Sam Ross, John Kneubuhl, Michael Zagor, E. Arthur Kean, Richard Levinson, Robert C. Dennis, William Link, Leonard Kantor, Hank Searls, Anthony Wilson, Peter B. Germano, Larry Cohen, Norman Lessing, John Meredyth Lucas, Paul Lucey, Alan Caillou, William Wood, Howard Dimsdale, George Fass, William Bast, Chester Krumholz, Betty Langdon, Howard Browne, Robert Hamner, Edward Hume, Anthony Lawrence, Mario Alcalde, Joy Dexter, Peter R. Brooke, James Menzies, Barbara Merlin, Lawrence L. Goldman, Robert Pirosh, Walter Brough, Milton Merlin, Jerome T. Gollard, John D.F. Black, Robert Guy Barrows - **Story:** Jo Heims, Larry Cohen, James P. Griffith, Perry Bleecker, Mann Rubin, Glen A. Larson, Ralph Goodman, John F. Eastman, Zahrini Machadah, Otto King, Merwin Gerard, Robert Lewin, Robert Dillon, Fred Freiberger, John Hawkins, Sidney Ellis, Steven W. Carabatsos, Jackson Gillis, Barry Trivers - **Teleplay:** Jeri Emmett, Harry Kronman, John Kneubuhl, Barry Oringer, William D. Gordon, Stanford Whitmore, Arthur Weiss, Sheldon Stark, Jo Heims, Norman Lessing, Francis Gwaltney, Wilton Schiller - **Cinematography:** Meredith M. Nicholson, Robert Hoffman, Fred Mandl, Lloyd Ahern Sr., Carl E. Guthrie - **Editor:** Marston Fay, Robert L. Swanson, Walter Hannemann, Jerry Young, James Ballas, Jodie Copelan, Richard Cahoon, John Post, Larry Heath, James E. Newcom - **Producer:** George Eckstein, Quinn Martin, John Meredyth Lucas - **Cast:** David Janssen as Richard Kimble; Barry Morse as Lieutenant Gerard; William Conrad as Narrator; Gabriel Dell as Chester; Norma Crane as Mrs. Mavis Hull; Robert Ivers as Dave; George Savalas as Prisoner; James Broderick as Sheriff Owen Troop - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-PG - **Release (the US):** 17 September 1963 - **Genres:** Action & Adventure, Drama, Mystery ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, sd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The 39 Steps* (1935), Fi1m 88: An innocent man on the run, with considerably less time to worry. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-39-steps.md) - *Le Trou* (1960): Patient, practical suspense built around confinement, trust and the possibility of escape. - *The Prisoner* (1967): For a hero facing institutions that make even less effort to explain themselves. - *Midnight Run* (1988), Fi1m 88: Another determined pursuit, with room for exasperation, companionship and some welcome laughter. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/midnight-run.md) - *Phoenix* (2014): A quieter drama of damaged identity, carried by a similarly watchful central performance. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/the-fugitive-1963