These poor guys had to pass out every episode after this season…
Quincy (Jack Klugman) is a forensic pathologist for the Los Angeles County Coroner. While his boss Dr. Robert Asten (John S. Ragin) tries to keep under budget and his coworker Sam (Robert Ito) tries to keep Quincy on track, Quincy refuses to quit until he discovers the truth about every patient that he finds on his table…even if it means butting heads with the LAPD Homicide lieutenant Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg).
Quincy, M.E.—Season 1 aired four ninety-minute episodes as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie (which also included Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan). The series was an amalgam of a Canadian series called Wojeck, a book called Where Death Delights by Marshall Houts, and the real life L.A. coroner Thomas Noguchi. The short first season is generally collected with the thirteen episode season 2. The episodes in this season were cut down to air in syndication.
Remember when Quincy had a steady girlfriend before he became a male whore?
Quincy is a weird concept for a show. In general, someone has to die for Quincy to help so it has to be an epidemic or someone else needs to be dying. The show generally turned from reactive to proactive with Quincy seeking out the cause of the problem before someone else died. In later seasons, the show became very issue driven (my favorite had to be Quincy’s battle with slam-dancing). Here the story is pretty standard fare with Quincy solving basic crimes.
The story hinges on Jack Klugman. This is odd in today’s market with older actors rarely being leads and Klugman being a non-traditional lead. In most of this season, Klugman has a steady girlfriend in Lee (Lynette Mettey), but other seasons he was quite a player. The series often featured Sam, Asten, and Monahan, but a third player in Danny (Val Bisoglio) often featured prominently as the barkeep at Quincy’s boatyard.
Quincy takes on muckraking tabloids!!!
The movie format of the series leaves a lot of episodes ending rather odd. You have one episode ending with a very Lee Harvey Oswald type shooting and another episode ending in the middle of a police raid. It is almost as if the show didn’t know where to go once the mystery was solved. I also like how so many of the actors in the series were reused in other episodes.
Quincy is often touted as the first “C.S.I.” style TV show, and Quincy does feel like a real precursor to these shows by doing inventive research like trying to get fingerprint impressions off of flesh, but as a kid, I always thought it was really cool that he lived on a boat. This season might be short but the show already feels a bit cliché. Though I know this, I can sit and watch Quincy whenever it is on…it is cheesy and predictable, but there is something reassuring in its predictability. You always know what you’re going to get when you watch Quincy.
Quincy, M.E.—Season 1 Complete Episode Guide:
“Go Fight City Hall…to the Death”
1.1 Go Fight City Hall…to the Death Airdate: 10/03/76
A woman is raped and murdered on the beach and a boy carrying her wallet is shot soon after. Quincy (Jack Klugman) questions if the boy could even be capable of raping and killing the woman. Going against LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg) and his own boss Dr. Robert Asten (John S. Ragin), Quincy is out to find the real killer before he kills again…and it be a conspiracy tied to city hall.
“Who’s Who in Neverland”
2.2 Who’s Who in Neverland Airdate: 10/10/76
A tell-all writer named Margot Bentley (Joanna Barnes) goes into hiding under assumed name…and is murdered. When Asten accidentally releases the body for cremation, tying Margot’s death to a dangerous killer strain of bacteria becomes difficult for Quincy and Sam (Robert Ito). Quincy uncovers what could be a conspiracy, and the killers could have Quincy in their sites.
“A Star Is Dead”
2.3 A Star Is Dead Airdate: 11/28/76
When a big star named Roberta Rhodes (Donna Mills) is found dead, Quincy finds a conflict of interest when a tabloid reporter named Paul Reardon (William Daniels) and Roberta’s mother (June Lockhart) indicates that Quincy’s friend and senator Charles Sinclair (Robert Foxworth) implemented in her murder…putting Quincy under suspicion.
“Hot Ice, Cold Hearts”
2.4 Hot Ice, Cold Hearts Airdate: 01/02/77
A Fourth of July trip to Catalina for Quincy and Lee (Lynette Mettey) turns into a murder mystery when a young man appears to die from the poison of a stone fish. As Quincy tries to determine if the beaches have become unsafe, jewelry heist is about to go down.
