THE FUGITIVE
Quibi, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: This is not a recommendation. Remember Quibi? The streaming world’s equivalent of New Coke? (For that matter: Remember New Coke?) Well, today it launches, in regular bite-sized bits, an extremely loose remake of the classic Sixties TV series starring David Janssen as unjustly accused murderer Richard Kimble, with Barry Morse as the dogged lawman on his trail. This Quibi Fugitive is completely modernized and overhauled: Boyd Holbrook of Narcos plays Mike Ferro, an innocent bystander at a terrorist bombing, picked up by surveillance cameras and accused by police and press alike. One detective, Clay Bryce, is particularly worked up, instructing his entire investigative unit to find and apprehend Ferro – while Ferro, in turn, is on the run and in search of the actual terrorists. That detective is played by Kiefer Sutherland, which gives this Quibi version of The Fugitive an unavoidable flavor of an unofficial 24 narrative. It’s troubling enough that this serialized version of The Fugitive takes that classic show’s title, but doesn’t even retain the equally iconic character names of Richard Kimble and Lieutenant Gerard. What’s worse is that, while money clearly was spent here, the writing doesn’t reflect it.