User Reviews

I've been bingeing the series, and I like the fact that this episode is not like so many of the others. I like the episodes where Kimble re-enters some portion of his life. Boy, did I hate that kid! That's a sociopath in training there.

An earlier reviewer identified the guest actor playing the police lieutenant as Floyd the barber from the Andy Griffith show. He actually played Howard Sprague in the later color episodes of that series.

Kimble reads of the illness of Dr. McAllister, played by actor Laurence Naismith, and comes to visit. Dr. McAllister gave Kimble his first job and was a mentor to him. Nurse Murdock, who knows Kimble, prefers he were not there, to avoid exciting McAllister and worsening his health.

Dr. McAllister is a crusader against pollution and works with the daughter of a rich industrialist who is causing a great deal of the pollution.

He gives Kimble a package to deliver to the plant, not informing Kimble it is a bomb. But he regrets his actions when he learns school children will be there when it goes off. Kimble must save the children and evade the police to make his escape.

I thought this was a good episode, in contrast to some of the other reviewers. It was atypical in a couple of things. The heroine, played by Lee Meriwether, didn't fall for Kimble -- maybe because she was a Miss America in real life and was still unofficially one of the most beautiful women in the world. Audrey Christie and Laurence Naismith took acting honours. Kimble was strangely casual throughout, unlike the furtive, hyped up "fugitive" one step ahead of Lt Gerard and the minions of the local force who are somehow always wised up about and on the alert for this one murderer in the whole of America. Kimble for some reason is so unaccountably comfortable about troubling his ailing mentor, and in the first scene he blows his cover to the hash-slinger in a diner -- Instead of behaving like a down-and-out drifter he turns his nose up at an insultingly presented wedge of apple pie like the gourmet he really is. One quirky note: Guest detective lieutenant in this was about to become Howard the Barber in "The Andy Griffith Show".

The police lieutenant was played by the actor who later became Howard Sprague in the Andy Griffith the show.

"Not a Whimper" is one of the strangest episodes of "The Fugitive" and almost looks like an episode of some other show. Why they made this one in the first place, I have no idea.

Apparently, years ago Dr. McAllister was a friend of Richard Kimble's and now that Kimble is in the area, he wants to see McAllister. Unfortunately, McAllister is quite sickly and his mind is starting to go BAD places. Specifically, the man is an anti-smog crusader who wants to go out with a literal bang...blowing up a nearby polluting plant! Kimble doesn't realize the package he was asked to deliver to the plant is the bomb...and when he finds out he's horrified as there are children visiting the place!!

As I said, this plot seemed very strange. But it also worked very poorly when Kimble went to the plant. There, a SUPER-strange child is running around with the bomb and the child seems like a little psychopath!! None of this made any sense...and left me wondering what I just saw!

I first encountered The Fugitive on A& E in the early 90's. This was an episode I remembered vividly years later. It almost reminded me of "Goldfinger", which was the biggest James Bond movie of the time. An old mentor of Kimble's is now a crusader against pollution, (which obviously was already becoming an issue at this date). He himself is dying and Kimble comes to see him. There's a similarity to the premiere episode of the second season, "Man in a Chariot" in that the old man, (a lawyer in that case) is strongly on Kimble's side but his loyal aide, (here played by Audrey Christie) , feels he is a threat to her boss and would just as soon see him leave- by any means.

The suspenseful ending comes when the old man, (Lawrence Naismith), has a bomb delivered to the polluting factory only to find that a class of schoolchildren will be touring the place at the time. Naismith is wheel-chair ridden so he sends Kimble to retrieve the bomb. Christie calls the police. Kimble is confronted not by Oddjob but by a rebellious kid who has grabbed the package and insisted that it belongs to him. Kimble has to get the package away from the kid without detonating the bomb, defuse it, and somehow escape from the police who have surrounded the building. It's the most exciting episode of "The Fugitive".

Yeah, what the previous reviewer said. I Iike the series, but this episode was pretty lame, at least the ending. Too bad the psycho kid didn't get blown up.

This was a show that didn't make a lot of sense from the beginning, and then ended not with a whimper, but with the worst decision in the history of law enforcement. It starts out with Kimble, who spends his meager earnings on out of town newspapers, second hand sport jackets, cigarettes and hair dye, even though the black hair is no longer an effective disguise, going to visit an old friend and mentor who is not doing so well. The guy is railing against air pollution, and Dick is sympathetic, even though he is polluting is own lungs with 4 packs a day. The cops know that Kimble is in town as he was spotted while ordering apple pie and coffee in a greasy spoon, so there's that. If Dick would only get an ear job, maybe he wouldn't be recognized so often. Anyways, the old guy is dying, so his plan is to blow up the evil air polluting industry in town. The bomb is set to go off at high noon on Saturday, when he thinks the building will be empty. Unbeknownst to him, a group of school kids is set to be there on a sort of field trip. There is no school on Saturday, but I guess that's beside the point. So Kimble is sent to save the day, and the kids. Only one of the kids is beyond even Kimble's ability to fix in a few minutes, and locks Kimble in a room with the bomb. Fortunately, there is a convenient drum of oil, which also serves a bomb defuser, in the room. Kimble ingeniously escapes from the room, but now the cops are waiting for him. So now we get to the illogical end. Dick attaches a bunch of test tubes and beakers together, walks outside and says he has a bomb. The police lieutenant, Howard Sprague, allows Kimble to get in a car with Lee Merriweather, who is attractive enough, unattached enough and feminine enough, but strangely has not fallen in love with Kimble over the previous hour. Sprague, the most inept lawman since Barney Fife, and quite possibly even including Barney Fife, sends no one to follow Kimble, who happens to be a convicted murderer with a bomb. He doesn't even make him promise not to blow up anything too important or kill too many people in the process. And poor Lee Merriweather is apparently just collateral damage. Sprague is probably having dinner with Mother, and has no more time to waste on Kimble. When Gerard hears about this, he will pull out the few hairs remaining in his head.