My buddy Lee Goldberg links to the piece on memorable final episodes of TV shows and makes the point that a lot of these are unnecessary stunts. Not every show's continuity cries out for some sort of lasting resolution. Maybe the network's need for ratings in a sweeps period do but the nature of the series often does not. Sometimes, I suspect, viewers would be happier to think that their favorite characters were still doing what they did when we enjoyed watching them.
Meanwhile, Johnny Achziger writes…
I watched The Fugitive when it originally ran, and anxiously awaited the finale. But when I watched it, it really outraged me and I thought the whole thing was stupid (and I was maybe 12 years old). I haven't seen it since, but this is what I remember. Dr. Kimble returned to his home town (I believe) and somehow confronted his brother-in-law (I think the one armed man was there at the time), and it turned out that said brother-in-law was present and watching while Mrs. Kimble (his sister) was being murdered, but did nothing because he was too afraid. So he saw the one-armed man, but not only did he not report the facts (out of fear his cowardice would become known), but he let Dr. Kimble take the rap.
I've never seen it since, and like I said, I was about 12 then, and it came across to me as a really lame ending. Maybe it was more dramatic to adults, but it me it was really disappointing.
The way I recall it, there was a neighbor (not the brother-in-law) who witnessed the murder but who kept silent because he was being blackmailed by the one-armed man, Fred Johnson. When the neighbor and Johnson meet at an amusement park, Richard Kimble confronts him, chases him up a water tower and then, just when it looks like Johnson will kill Kimble, Police Lieutenant Gerard shoots and kills Johnson. By this point, because of what he's overheard, Gerard fully believes Kimble is innocent…and since the neighbor is no longer being blackmailed, he can testify to that effect. So Dr. Richard Kimble is a free man.
I thought that was a satisfying ending. In fact, I suspect regular viewers would have felt cheated if it had turned out almost any other way. Kimble had to be proven right about the one-armed man; that it was that guy who'd killed Mrs. Kimble. There was speculation before the episode aired that it might turn out that the one-armed man was actually a witness who could finger the guy (not Kimble) who'd killed the wife. Naw. That would mean our hero was not completely right all those seasons he went around saying a one-armed man had offed his wife. Audiences also craved to see the bad guy pay for his crime…and not after a long trial where Johnson could argue his innocence. We don't like lingering questions or non-immediate gratification in our TV justice. That's why when Perry Mason would figure out who the real killer was, the real killer always confessed, thereby dispensing with any doubt.
So that's why the one-armed man had to confess, then die, plus there had to be someone around who could swear that Kimble was innocent…say, a heretofore-undisclosed eyewitness to the crime. Plus, we wouldn't necessarily like Kimble if he'd been the one to kill the one-armed gent…and he'd have been foolish to do so since it would just have clouded his legal situation at a time when we were aching to see him become a free man. By having Gerard kill him, that kept Kimble's hands clean and it also redeemed Gerard. He'd spent years pursuing an innocent man and now he'd saved that innocent man's life. All very neat and tidy.
But here's what I wonder about. The finale of The Fugitive got one of the highest ratings ever recorded for a TV show. Still, when the shows went into syndicated reruns soon after, they didn't do so well. Was it because the show had had that real, finite ending? Was the problem that America now considered the matter of Dr. Richard Kimble a closed book and there was no point in reopening it? We'll never know but it wouldn't surprise me. It also wouldn't surprise me if on some shows since, when it's proposed they do a "last episode," someone at the studio says to someone else, "Hold on. Don't we want to make money in syndication with these shows? Remember what happened with The Fugitive."