Television series
The Fugitive
A drifter with a death sentence hanging over him, Dr. Richard Kimble spends four seasons crossing America under invented names, hunting a one-armed man nobody else believes exists while an implacable detective hunts him. Equal parts weekly morality play and slow-motion existential dread, it pioneered the fugitive-of-the-week format decades before prestige TV borrowed its bones. Tense, earnest, occasionally corny, built for patient watching, not bingeing.
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The A-Team1983
Four wrongly court-martialed soldiers on the run, helping people who can't get help elsewhere while the military hunts them: it's Kimble's engine dressed up in explosions, mullets, and a giant good mood.
But Every problem gets solved with a cobbled-together tank and nobody ever seems to actually get hurt.
Kung Fu1972
Caine wanders the West doing good and staying one step ahead of the men who want him dead, same quiet moral rhythm as Kimble's exile, minus the murder charge.
But The pacing is meditative to the point of glacial, and the philosophy gets repeated a lot.
The Incredible Hulk1977
David Banner drifts town to town under a false name, does good, vanishes before anyone gets too close — the creators openly borrowed Kimble's rhythm and swapped the one-armed man for a green rage monster.
But The transformations are cheesy by modern effects standards and the tone rarely rises above earnest.
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Cowboy Bebop1998
Kimble and Spike are both men who can't stop moving because stopping means facing the thing that ruined them — one episode-of-the-week structure, two very different genres.
Spike Spiegel drifts from bounty to bounty solving other people's crises while a ghost from his own violent past slowly catches up to him — the same rootless-man-outrunning-his-history structure, reincarnated as jazz-scored space noir.
But It's anime, it's episodic sci-fi, and the emotional payoff arrives slowly across a whole season.
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North by Northwest1959
Cary Grant, mistaken for a spy, has to run before he can prove anything, sprinting across the country while everyone who could clear his name refuses to listen — Kimble's paranoia at two hours instead of four seasons.
But It's more comic thriller than drama, so don't expect the same grinding sense of injustice.
Les Misérables1998no page yet
An escaped convict spends decades building a new life while a lawman who cannot let go of the letter of the law tracks him down — the Kimble/Gerard chase rebuilt as tragedy in 19th-century France.
But It's a heavier, sadder watch than a procedural thriller, with none of Kimble's episodic relief.
Prison Break2005
A modern, serialized descendant: a man engineers his own escape to prove his brother's innocence, and the show never lets the tension of being hunted slacken for a single episode.
But The plotting gets increasingly baroque as seasons go on, and the last stretch strains belief.
Route 661960no page yet
Two drifters cruise the country in a Corvette, dropping into strangers' crises episode by episode — same anthology bones as The Fugitive, without the murder rap or the manhunt.
But There's no ongoing danger or mystery pulling you forward; each week resets completely.
Alias Smith and Jones1971no page yet
Two outlaws trying to earn a pardon have to stay clean and stay hidden at the same time, which makes for the same tightrope walk Kimble does every week, just with more horses and jokes.
But The comic western tone undercuts any real sense of jeopardy, so don't expect Kimble's dread.
Highway to Heaven1984no page yet
Michael Landon drifts from town to town fixing broken lives before moving on — the anthology structure and rootless hero of The Fugitive, minus the manhunt and the moral complexity.
But It's unabashedly sentimental and religious in a way The Fugitive never allowed itself to be.
The Wrong Man1956
This is the nightmare Kimble is running from, told without four seasons of adventure — the same premise, minus every comfort of fiction that makes it bearable.
Henry Fonda, quiet and terrified, plays a man arrested for a crime he didn't commit in a film based on a true case — Hitchcock strips away the chase and shows you the dread of being disbelieved from the inside.
But There's no escape, no manhunt, just a slow, suffocating study of wrongful accusation — bleaker and stiller than you'd expect.
Making a Murderer2015
Take away the fedora and the manhunt music and this is the fear underneath every episode of The Fugitive: that the system decides you're guilty and nothing you do will ever fully undo it.
A real man, twice convicted, twice fighting to prove his innocence against a justice system that seems to have already made up its mind — the actual machinery Kimble's fiction was always gesturing at, filmed as it happens.
But It's grim, contentious, and offers no tidy resolution — a true story doesn't owe you a one-armed man.
People
Cast
William ConradNarrator
Writing
- Roy HugginsCreator