Episode
The Fugitive: Trial by Fire
Overview
Kimble's sister Donna summons him home with a possible break in the case: a letter from James Eckhardt, a former U.S. Army captain who also saw the one-armed man fleeing from the Kimble's house on the night of Helen's murder. Kimble meets with Eckhardt who agrees to help the fugitive out. Eckhardt's story seems strong enough to clear Kimble. But unknown to either men, another witness comes forward: a convict in prison for drug dealing, who reveals that he used to sell heroin to Eckhart for a Korean War battle wound and that Eckhardt was on his way to see him that night to buy some drugs, which is more than enough for Gerard to discredit Eckhardt's testimony.
Details
- Series
- The Fugitive
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 4
- Air date
- 1965-10-05
- Runtime
- 51 min
Episode context
Trial by Fire is Episode 4 in Season 3 of The Fugitive. It aired on 1965-10-05. The runtime is 51 min.
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Episode 3: Crack in a Crystal Ball
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.
Episode 5: Conspiracy of Silence
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 chemical explosion, Kimble is pressed into service to care for the wounded, unaware that Beck still plans to turn him in to the army general leading the project.
More episodes from this season
Episode 2: Middle of a Heat Wave
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.
Episode 6: Three Cheers for Little Boy Blue
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 with 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
Episode 1: Wings of an Angel
Kimble is riding on a bus when the police stop it, not to arrest Kimble, but to capture an escaped convict who takes a woman hostage. Kimble disarmes the man, but gets stabbed during the struggle while the convict is shot dead. Not knowing his true identity, the police treat Kimble as a hero and transport him to a hospital for treatment, the prison hospital. When two inmates recognize Kimble in the prison infirmary, they threaten to reveal his identity unless he assists them in their drug smuggling scheme by stealing morphine from the medicine cabinet. Kimble goes along with it, but the drugs get discovered by a guard. One of the prisoners, a innocent orderly named Mickey Deming, gets accused being involved with the smuggling. Kimble recovers and is released. But he risks his freedom when he returns to try to clear Mickey of the charges.
Episode 7: All the Scared Rabbits
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.
Episode 8: An Apple a Day
Running from the police, Kimble hides out at a farm owned by a local country doctor, named Josephus Adams, who 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 allergic reaction to bee stings, Kimble risks his freedom to take her away from Adams to a hospital for treatment.
Episode 9: Landscape with Running Figures (1)
In Part 1 of a two-part story, Lt. Gerard and his wife are on a much-needed vacation. When Gerard rushes off to answer the call to duty, an angry Mrs. Gerard decides that enough is enough, and leaves town on the bus. Unbeknownst to her, Kimble is on the same bus. When the bus crashes, Kimble helps her get away from the wreck. Due to a head injury, she is suffering from temporary blindness and doesn't recognize Kimble. Kimble, unaware of who she really is, decides to accompany her to a phone where she can contact her husband. Along the way Mrs. Gerard starts asking questions, and is starting to form an image of Kimble, and is intrigued with what she learns. Will she discover his true identity before they reach their destination?
Episode 10: Landscape with Running Figures (2)
In the conclusion to Part 1 (from last week), Kimble accompanies a temporarily-blinded Mrs. Gerard to a place where she can phone her husband for help. Mrs. Gerard, who is as inquisitive as her husband, continues to pepper Kimble with questions about himself and his life. As she starts to put the pieces together, she realizes that this man may be Richard Kimble. She begins to form a plan to trap him.
Episode 11: Set Fire to a Straw Man
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 woman 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.
Episode 12: Stranger in the Mirror
Kimble is working as a custodian for the Saturday Morning Camp, a weekend camp run by Tony and Carole Burnell. Things become complicated when two police officers are found beaten to death. The police recruit Tony, a former policeman, to interrogate a local juvenile delinquent who is the main suspect in the killings. But unknown to everyone, the real killer is the schizoid Tony who blames the police for the death of his father who was a policeman and was sent to prison on a trumped-up murder charge and then killed by the dirty cops during a prison riot.
Episode 13: The Good Guys and the Bad Guys
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