History YMMV / TheFugitive

* TheUntwist: The series finale is a two-part story. In Part 1, the One-Armed Man is caught and held in jail for an unrelated crime, but is inexplicably bailed out by someone else. He tells the bail bondsman that he didn't kill Helen Kimble but saw who did and it wasn't her husband. When Kimble breaks into the bondsman's office later, he finds the bondsman dead, murdered, and sees in the bondsman's file that the name of the person who paid for the One-Armed Man's bail is... Leonard Taft, ''Kimble's own brother-in-law!'' In the week that passed in between the initial airing of both parts, speculation that Len would turn out to be the killer was so rampant that Las Vegas oddsmakers picked Len to be the odds on favorite for being Helen's killer. In Part 2, it turns out that, nope, the One-Armed Man was just lying to the bondsman whom he then murdered. He really did kill Helen. It even turns out that Len [[spoiler:wasn't even the guy who paid the One-Armed Man's bail. Instead it was a next-door neighbor who had witnessed the One-Armed Man murdering Helen and told no one about it, who paid the bail using Len's name.]]

** Chicago Police Department convicting an innocent man? [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/jacques-rivera-man-who-sp_n_1578973.html?ref=chicago&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D168078 Like that'd happen in real life.]] Got even worse in the late 2010s as several scandals erupted involving the CPD, including the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Laquan_McDonald murder of Laquan Macdonald]] and the revelation that [[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/10000-files-on-chicago-police-torture-decades-now-online/504233/ the Chicago police had been systematically torturing black suspects for decades.]]

* SpecialEffectsFailure: Although the visual effects overall are good, especially for the time (see below), the shots where Kimble falls from the waterfall use a very obvious dummy.

* HilariousInHindsight: In "The Breaking of the Habit", Marie (the student who rats out Kimble) is played by Heather North, the future[[note]]in the 1970s[[/note]] voice of [[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou Daphne Blake]]. She's even dressed in purple!

* HilariousInHindsight:
** Creator/HarrisonFord plays an innocent Doctor framed for the murder of his wife. Years later in ''Film/WhatLiesBeneath'', he plays a doctor trying to kill his wife.
** Kimble disguising himself as a hospital janitor is amusing given that Creator/NeilFlynn (the Janitor from ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'') has a small role in the film. That show actually does a CallBack to this scene by having the Janitor turn out to have been the actor in that scene within Scrub's universe.
** [[Series/{{Justified}} Art Mullen]] as the police officer who comes into conflict with Gerard.
** Three actors who appeared in this film would go on to appear in media adaptations of ComicBook/{{Batman}} (Creator/TommyLeeJones, who plays Gerard, would a couple years later play ComicBook/TwoFace in ''Film/BatmanForever''; Sela Ward, who plays the ill-fated role of Kimble's murdered wife would voice Calendar Girl in ''WesternAnimation/TheNewBatmanAdventures'' and finally Ron Dean, who plays the shortsighted Chicago police detective who arrested Kimble would play another police detective in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', which like ''Batman Forever'' also features the supervillain Two-Face).
** Harrison Ford is ''again'' falsely accused of murder in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny''. Indy's less graceful at HidingInPlainSight than Kimble, though.
--->'''Guy Watching Newscast:''' ''[chuckling]'' This guy looks like you!
--->'''Indiana:''' ''[laughing nervously]'' [[BadLiar Nah. No.]]
--->'''Guy Watching Newscast:''' It is you!
--->'''Indiana:''' N-n-no. Go home, pal. You're drunk!
--->'''Guy Watching Newscast:''' This is the guy! It's the killer!