The WORST episodes of The Fugitive
Every episode of The Fugitive ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of The Fugitive!
Dr. Richard Kimble, wrongly accused of murdering his wife, escapes custody while on the road to prison and must elude the police to continue his quest to find the real killer.
#1 - Middle of a Heat Wave
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1965
While dating a local woman named Laurel Harper, Kimble breaks off their romantic affair and she angrily storms out of the bar they are in and into the night. The next morning, Laurel is found on an abandoned road unconscious and badly beaten. While she is taken to a hospital for treatment, Laurel's paranoid and suspicious sister, Sheila, convinces the police to hold Kimble for questioning.
#2 - The Chinese Sunset
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/1/1966
Kimble is working as the ""general factotum"" in a swank Beverly Hills hotel on Sunset Blvd. An undercover policeman, named Fred Bragin, checks into the hotel to survey Eddie Slade, a notorious mob bookie. When Slade leaves town for a few days to sort out some business of his, his girlfriend, Penelope, stays behind while Bragin focuses his surveillance on her. Penelope meets and turns to Kimble for help in mingling with the wealthy in-crowd of the hotel residents in which Kimble agrees to tutor her on the find art of socializing, manners, and better increasing her vocabulary.
#3 - Shadow of the Swan
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/8/1966
At a carnival, Kimble meets Tina Anderson, an attractive young woman whom helps him get a job and introduces him to her uncle Harry, whom is a retired police detective. But Harry soon recognizes Kimble and tries to arrest him. Tina helps Kimble get away and wants to run off with him, but he refues. Tina, whom is revealed to be an obsessed sociopath, plots to betray Kimble for him refusing her advances.
#4 - Stroke of Genius
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/1/1966
Gary Keller, a promising art student, tests his new rifle by firing a random shot which instantly kills his mentor, the town minister, who happens to be driving on a road right in the line of fire. Kimble happens to be in the car after the minister gives a ride to the hitchhiking fugitive. The car crashes and Kimble hobbles away to attend to his injuries. A guilt ridden Gary wants to confess, but his father, Steve, refuses to let him do so and destroy his promising career. The police arrive on the scene and after spotting Kimble, they think he is the killer and notify Geard whom arrives in town to track him down. Meanwhile, Steve decides to take matters into his own hands by finding Kimble and hiding him so he does not implicate his son.
#5 - This'll Kill You
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/18/1966
Kimble finds work at a Laundromat owned by Charlie Paris, a former stand-up comic and mob bookie who hopes to go straight. But Kimble doesn't know that that the underworld has put a hit contract on Charlie for testifying against some of their business ""associates."" Charlie hopes to make amends meet to his longtime girlfriend Paula, but she's more interested in Kimble. When a mob flunky offers Paula $8,000 for turning Charlie over to them, she does not pass up the chance and takes the money, while Charlie refuses to believe Kimble's suspicions that Paula plans to betray him.
#6 - Not With a Whimper
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/4/1966
Kimble arrives in the factory town of Hempstead Mills, West Virginia to assist Andrew McCallister, his longtime mentor whom is dying from lung cancer which he is confined to a wheelchair. McCallister's vigorous anti-smog campaign has earned him a reputation as a local crackpot. But the old man plans to go out with a bang; by having a bomb hidden in a package where he has Kimble deliver to the local factory. But when McCallister discovers that a group of school children will be inside the factory during a school tour at the time of the explosion, he dispatches Kimble to evacuate the building and deactivate the bomb before time runs out.
#7 - When the Wind Blows
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/28/1965
In rural Wyoming, Kimble seeks refuge from the local constable at a small hotel run by Lois Carter, a young widow whom hires him as a handyman. Kimble soon befriends Lois' son Kenny, a particularly sensitive young boy whom protects Kimble from the police when they arrive looking for him.
#8 - End of the Line
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/21/1965
After losing his wallet, Kimble steals another wallet to pay for his train fare. The wallet belongs to R.T. Unger, who owns a local dairy. Kimble finds work as dishwasher at a local diner in order to repay the debit. But when Unger finds his wallet missing, he calls the police. Kimble goes to Unger's house and gives back the wallet and money to Unger's daughter, Betty Jo, whom is pregnant by Neil, a disreputable youth whom works at Unger's dairy. Unger offers Neil $1,000 to leave town. But when Neil refuses, their argument turns into a fistfight where Kimble walks in and sees Neil kill Unger. Kimble flees and tries to find a way to get out of town before Neil decides to pass the blame for the killing on the fugitive.
#9 - The Good Guys and the Bad Guys
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/14/1965
In the small town of Drover City, Montana, Kimble stumbles onto the annual ""vigilante roundup,"" a carnival of sorts where locals ""hunt"" down anybody not wearing Western cowboy clothing. After being ""lassoed"" literally, Kimble is held ""prisoner"" in the local school cafeteria where the dance hall is. Meanwhile, Gerard arrives in the area after hearing reports of Kimble's spotting, has the state police set up roadblocks outside the town, and then enters looking for the fugitive. Gerard shows Kimble's mug shot to Charley Judd, the town marshal whom recognizes Kimble. But Charley mistakenly thinks there's a reward on Kimble (and Charley wants to keep all the money for himself). So, he sends Gerard away on a false lead and has his girlfriend, Laura, transport Kimble to the real jail at the police station. There, Kimble must persuade Laura to let him go by telling her that Charley is in it for his own selfish reasons, just as Gerard figures out that Charley has sent him on a wild-goose chase
#10 - Set Fire to a Straw Man
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/30/1965
Kimble reluctantly becomes involved with Stella Savano, the sister of George Savano, a mobster who runs the trucking company where Kimble works. Stella is an emotionally disturbed women with a dangerous attraction to Johnny, the adopted eight-year-old son of Jesse Stangel, Kimble's co-worker. Kimble learns that Stella is actually Johnny's mother. But Stella becomes so delusional that she thinks that Kimble is Johnny's father.
#11 - An Apple a Day
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/2/1965
Running from the police, Kimble hides out at a farm owned by a local country doctor, named Josephus Adams, whom treats his patients with little more than a dose of honey and a reassuring word. After one elderly woman under Adams care dies from a protracted bronchial infection, an angry Kimble intervenes and tries to help the patients. But in the meantime, Adams' wife, Marianne, stumbles upon Kimble's identity and tries to use that to her own advantage. When Dr. Adams teenage niece, Sharon, falls into a coma after having an alergic reaction to bee stings, Kimble risks his freedom to take her away from Adams to a hospital for treatment.
#12 - All the Scared Rabbits
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/26/1965
Kimble responds to a newspaper ad for a driver and is hired to drive a certain Peggy Franklin and her 10-year-old daughter, Nancy, to California. But Kimble doesn't realize that Peggy has abducted Nancy from her ex-husband, a pathologist named Dean Franklin. Nancy innocently removes a rabbit from Dean's research lab, unaware that the rabbit has meningitis. When Nancy contracts the sickness, Kimble risks keeping his secret safe to save Nancy before she dies.
#13 - Three Cheers for Little Boy Blue
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/19/1965
Kimble is working as a chauffeur for George Forster, a successful contractor who returns to his small Midwestern home town with big plans for the community. While Forster's homecoming is greeted by overall apathy and resentment, Kimble discovers that one of the townspeople is planning to kill Forster. Kimble must find out who it is before his secret is discovered
#14 - Conspiracy of Silence
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/12/1965
While working as a steward at a remote desert resort, Kimble is unaware that the area is a top-secret government test site for chemical weapons. Kimble tries to leave, but gets mistaken for a spy by Major Beck, the head of the project. When several staff members, including the staff physician, suffer from a resulting chemical explosion, Kimble is pressed into service to care for the wounded, unaware that Beck still plans to turn him into the army general leading the project.
#15 - Crack in a Crystal Ball
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/1965
A scam artist posing as a psychic goes on TV to prove that he knows where Kimble will appear next-with a little help from an accomplice who is traveling with Kimble.
#16 - With Strings Attached
Season 3 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/15/1966
Kimble is hired as a chauffeur by Geoffrey Martin, a 17-year-old violinist whom has grown weary of his career and would like to stop playing professionally for a few years when he decides to go away to college. But Geoffrey's demanding guardian/instructor, Max Pfeiffer, refuses to let Geoffrey go because under a contract, Geoffrey is obligated to continue performing until he is 21. In order to ""free"" himself from Mr. Pfieffer, Geoffrey manipulates his assistant, Ellen, and Kimble into believing that Mr. Pifieffer is emotionally destroying him.
#17 - Last Second of a Big Dream
Season 2 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/20/1965
Barry Craft figures he'll get some publicity by arranging to have Kimble captured at his wild-animal show.
#18 - The Old Man Picked a Lemon
Season 2 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/13/1965
While working as a ranch hand on a California citrus farm, the owner, Leland Hagerman, suddenly dies in an accident and the man's racist and sadistic son, Blaine, arrives to stake his claim to the place and sees everyone as expendable, including Kimble whom must find a way to quietly slip away with the help of the Hispanic workers before Blaine stumbles upon his true identity.
#19 - A.P.B.
Season 2 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/6/1965
Kimble hops onto a freight train and finds himself in the company of three escaped convicts (two of which are wounded during their escape). One of the convicts dies from his wounds while the second one, a brutal murderer named Neil Pinkerton, forces Kimble to treat his leg wound. Pinkerton decides to keep Kimble as a hostage as a safeguard against the police. Pinkerton, Kimble, and the other prisoner, named Matt Mooney, seek refuge in a farm house owned by widow Mona Ross and her mother whom recognize all of them and treat Kimble, Mooney and Pinkerton as their celebrity guests.
#20 - Runner in the Dark
Season 2 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/30/1965
A woman calls the police after she recognizes Kimble's picture on a TV quiz show and in the ensuing manhunt, Kimble hides out in a home for the blind. Kimble becomes acquainted with some of the residents, including the attractive Claire Whittaker whom he assists, as well as Pete Haskell whom Kimble discovers is not really blind and was actually temporarily blinding in a school bus accident months earlier which Pete blames himself since he was driving drunk at the time. But one of the residents is a certain Dan Brady, a veteran lawman whom was blinded in the line of duty and has now been put out to pasture. Brady remains bitter for having lost his position as the town's sheriff to the younger, more educated, but less experienced, Barney Vilattic. When Brady suspects Kimble's true identity, he sees an opportunity to capture the fugitive to reclaim his former job.
#21 - Masquerade
Season 2 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/23/1965
While traveling through an small Oklahoma town, Kimble is arrested, not because the police recognize him, but because they've mistaken him for Leonard Hull, a former numbers runner about to testify against a big-time racketeer, whom has run away from a witness relocation program in that very town. Kimble is taken to a motel where Leonard's wife, Mavis, knows he's not Leonard in which Kimble asks for her help to get away from the police, and a local hit man pursuing them.
#22 - Everybody Gets Hit in the Mouth Sometime
Season 2 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/9/1965
While working as a truck driver for a small freight company, Kimble discovers that his angry and bitter boss, Gus Hendrick, is being blackmailed by Lucia Mayfield, the wife of his late business partner, into paying her bills and for child support since Mr. Mayfield was killed a year earlier in a driving accident. But Kimble later learns that with Hendrick strapped for money, and Lucia merely squandering the blackmail money for her own selfish purposes, Hendrick plans to hijack one of his own trucks to collect an insurance settlement.
#23 - Scapegoat
Season 2 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/2/1965
A man who knew Kimble during one of his disguises, meets him again. He tells him that on one of his hurried, silent departures from a town, he left behind evidence which indicated he was dead and an innocent man is being held for his murder.
#24 - Fun and Games and Party Favors
Season 2 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/26/1965
While working as a chauffeur for a wealthy family, Kimble learns that the teenage daughter of the family is dating the pool cleaner. While chaperoning a party for the daughter's friends, Kimble throws out a unruly young man who crashes the party. But Kimble is soon faced with a little blackmail when the man turns out to be a crime buff and recongizes Kimble from a police magazine.
#25 - Nicest Fella You'd Ever Want to Meet
Season 2 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/19/1965
While traveling though a small town in Arizona, Kimble is arrested by the brutal and sadistic Sheriff Jo Bob Sims whom has political ambitions. Sheriff Sims (unaware of Kimble's true identity) subjects him to slave labor with a group of other vagrants he arrests on a daily basis for no reason other than to torture or humiliate them. When Kimble witnesses Sims murder another prisoner and has the equally corrupt mayor and town council cover it up to look like an accident, Kimble becomes aware that his own life is in danger.