Series synopsis
Quincy, M.E. is an American crime drama mystery television series that premiered on NBC on October 3, 1976. It ended on May 11, 1983. It was created by Glen A. Larson. It stars Jack Klugman, Robert Ito, Val Bisoglio and John S. Ragin.
Los Angeles County medical examiner Quincy routinely engages in police investigations.
Premise
Los Angeles County medical examiner Quincy routinely engages in police investigations.
Cast and characters
Leading cast
- Jack Klugman as Quincy
- Robert Ito as Sam Fujiyama
- Val Bisoglio as Danny Tovo
- John S. Ragin as Robert Asten
- Garry Walberg as Frank Monahan
- Joseph Roman as Sergeant Brill
Guest cast
- Herbert Jefferson Jr.
- Tara Buckman
- Beverly Adams
- John Randolph
- Sammy Jackson as News Announcer
- Alan Stock
- Ana Alicia
- Heidi Bohay
- René Enríquez
- Joshua Shelley as Claude Whitley
- Ed Nelson
- Cassie Yates
Episodes
This series spans 8 seasons with 148 episodes.
| Season | Episodes | First aired | Last aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | 4 | October 2, 1976 | January 2, 1977 |
| Season 2 | 13 | February 3, 1977 | May 27, 1977 |
| Season 3 | 20 | September 15, 1977 | March 10, 1978 |
| Season 4 | 23 | September 20, 1978 | April 12, 1979 |
| Season 5 | 22 | September 19, 1979 | April 30, 1980 |
| Season 6 | 18 | September 15, 1980 | May 6, 1981 |
| Season 7 | 24 | October 27, 1981 | May 12, 1982 |
| Season 8 | 24 | September 28, 1982 | May 11, 1983 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Go Fight City Hall -- To the Death! A young woman is raped and strangled on a Los Angeles beach. Further down the coastline a young boy is shot and arrested for her murder. Quincy doesn't think that it would have been possible for the boy arrested to strangle the woman and decides that he is going to go out and begin a little investigation of his own. He visits City Hall where the woman worked to ask some questions and, after a little checking, finds out that there seem to have been a rash of unexplained deaths there. |
October 3, 1976 |
| 2 |
Who's Who in Neverland? Margo Bently is writing her first book, the contents of which could prove very damaging to a certain group of people. She is murdered and brought into the lab as a suspected alcoholic prostitute with cirrhosis but Quince thinks the body is telling him something different about her social standing. Quince is asked to present a seminar in Bufflo NY by Asten, while he's preparing his notes Asten takes over in the lab. In Quincys absence, Asten signs the body out to a phoney coroner and Quincy begins tracking her down. This leads him to a murdered literary agent in New York a race to autopsy him before he's cremated so he can prove a link. |
October 10, 1976 |
| 3 |
A Star Is Dead Roberta Rhodes, a famous movie star, is found dead in her bedroom. The police think that it was probably suicide, but Quincy thinks not. A gossip newspaper editor approaches Quincy and tells him that on the night of her death his friend, and prospective senator, Congressman Charles Sinclair was with her. Quincy cannot believe that his friend could have killed Roberta but if he didn't then why does he keep lying to Quincy? |
November 28, 1976 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Snake Eyes (1) Quincy, Lee and Danny are all in Lake Tahoe together. Quincy is there for a forensic Pathologist convention and the others for a weekend break. While they are there the guests and staff start coming down with some kind of strange illness. Quincy and a couple of other Forensic Pathologists are called in to help but when some of the patients start dying they still have no clue as to what is killing them. To make things worse the casino owner does not want to admit that anything is wrong, as it will affect his bookings and profits. |
February 4, 1977 |
| 2 |
Snake Eyes (2) The disease continues to spread and the rest of the hotel/casino's guests want to know what is going on. They want to get out of the building but Quincy and his colleagues know that they have to keep the disease, and the guests, contained. If the disease gets out of the hotel it could cause an epidemic that could quickly spread all over the country! |
February 4, 1977 |
| 3 |
... The Thigh Bone's Connected to the Knee Bone ... A thigh bone is found buried on the building site of a new student union building. Quincy is teaching a class at the university and soon involves himself and his students who the bone belonged to, how they died and possibly even who killed him. Not surprisingly Monaghan and Asten consider this a complete waste of time and want Quincy to get back to his job and stop bothering them. |
February 11, 1977 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
No Deadly Secret At 4 am one morning Quincy is awoken by the arrival of a man at his boat. He is in a very bad shape and he dies before Quincy can do anything to save him. He takes him to the morgue and does an autopsy on him. The next morning Quincy is surprised to find that his results and slides have not turned up. When he goes to find out why he finds out that they are not all that is missing, so is the body! Without any proof of a body everyone thinks that he must have been mistaken, especially when Monaghan visits the man's workplace and finds him there! |
September 16, 1977 |
| 2 |
A Blow to the Head ... a Blow to the Heart After a championship bout a young boxer collapses and dies. His wife thinks that it wasn't an accident and asks Quincy, a friend of her husband's trainer and the coroner on call, to see if he can find out how he really died. Once Quincy has completed the autopsy he begins to wonder if the woman is right, there is certainly something that does not seem to be quite right with the death, something that is made even more certain when Quincy is approached by 4 thugs who tell him in no uncertain terms that he better hurry up and make his report. |
September 23, 1977 |
| 3 |
A Dead Man's Truth A rookie cop and his partner are called to a break in at a shop, when they arrive they go into a dark shop and start to search it. The criminal is still inside and when they find him an altercation ensues and ends up with the rookie cop shooting the burglar. After an autopsy Quincy quickly discovers that the story the rookie is telling is not the truth. With a crusading TV reporter looking into police brutality Monahan wants Quincy to find out exactly what happened and why the rookie is lying before the reports condemn him and ruin his chance of a career in the police. |
September 30, 1977 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
The Last Six Hours Finally getting to spend a bit of leave time with his latest flame, Barbara, Quincy heads off away from Los Angeles. They nearly get run off the road and then witness an accident. Quincy then finds himself in a life or death race to isolate a mysterious poison, found in the woman's body, that has already claimed two lives |
September 21, 1978 |
| 2 |
Speed Trap After a racing car accident proves fatal for a former Grand Prix driver, Quincy's autopsy brands the crash a possible homicide. |
October 12, 1978 |
| 3 |
A Test for the Living Quincy's powers of persuasion are put to the test when he crusades for a 7-year old boys re-evaluation as an autistic child. |
October 19, 1978 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
No Way to Treat a Flower Quincy investigates the death of a teenager who smoked marijuana treated with a chemical that stimulates plant growth. |
September 20, 1979 |
| 2 |
Dead Last Quincy and Danny go to the tack and, while there, see a horse go wild in the stables. The horse kills one of the jockeys but, after completing his autopsy, Quincy thinks that it wasn't an accident! That someone murdered the man and tried to make it look as if the horse killed him. The problem Quincy has though is to actually prove his theory, and not even the purchasing of some horse hooves and the unusual step of autopsying a horse can help him. Though Asten has fits about the cost of both these steps to find the truth! |
September 27, 1979 |
| 3 |
By the Death of a Child The small nation of San Christos has a new progressive, America friendly, president. His hold on power is fragile and he could be toppled if the rumor of an American supplied Diphtheria vaccine is killing the children it is supposed to be saving. Quincy and Sam are sent to the country to find out the truth and save the children, if they can. |
October 4, 1979 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Last Rights A father finds his son dead, having taken a drug overdose. Knowing this will affect his wife he decides to report it as an accidental drowning. Quincy's friend Volmer is the local coroner and politics lead to him not being able to autopsy the boy. He asks Quincy to help him out. If that was not enough he also has to deal with a textile mill boss who refuses to fix irregularities at work and when an accident happens wants to hide the truth. |
September 16, 1980 |
| 2 |
A Matter of Principle Sam tries to persuade the authorities to take notice of a new process he has developed to help track down killers. His tooth print process shows that the man the police have as their suspect in a rape case is not the man who did it. The bite mark has to have come from another person. His process being unknown though means that it is not accepted or believed. |
November 12, 1980 |
| 3 |
Last Day, First Day Quincy becomes concerned when a medical student accuses a veteran staff doctor of covering up the causes of a homicide while doing an autopsy. |
November 19, 1980 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Memories of Allison Sam and Quincy are attending a job fair for students when a woman falls down an escalator, just after shouting at someone who has been following her. While she is in hospital it is discovered she has a severe case of posttraumatic amnesia. A high price assassin is caught in her hospital room not long afterwards and leads to even more interest in who she is and why someone would want her dead. |
October 28, 1981 |
| 2 |
The Golden Hour A young girl is injured in a car accident and rushed to a hospital by the paramedics. Her father who is severely injured is sent to a trauma center instead because he is a more serious case. The father survives and the daughter dies. The difference between a trauma center and an ER was what saved the man. City regulations make it hard for the center to get enough patients and it is about to get closed down unless Quincy can help. |
November 4, 1981 |
| 3 |
Slow Boat to Madness (1) Quincy and Janet finally get some time off and go on a weeks cruise. They are looking forward to some rest and relaxation together. Before long their holiday is interrupted. Quincy is visited, late one night, by the captain. One of his crew has been murdered and he would like Quincy's advice. The murderer is caught but he has died before the morning and an autopsy reveals that he could have died from an infectious disease. A disease that could already be spreading throughout the ship! |
November 11, 1981 |
| Episode | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Baby Rattlesnakes When a young girl is killed in a drive by shooting a young 14 year-old boy is quickly arrested. The boy, Ethan, was part of a special program trying to get kids out of gangs and trouble. Ethan denies having had anything to do with the shooting, but if he doesn't tell who did do it or if Quincy and the probation people cannot find them then not only will he end up in prison but the special program will be closed down. |
September 29, 1982 |
| 2 |
A Ghost of a Chance After a life saving heart bypass operation Ted Markham's brother dies from complications. He is incensed that his brother died from what should have been a simple operation. He wants, and pays for, an autopsy from the Coroner's office and Quincy is given the job. When he has completed the autopsy Quincy believes that the eminent surgeon, Dr. Royce, who was supposed to have done the operation didn't really do it. He thinks that a practice known as ‘ghosting' took place and that a young resident did the operation in his place. |
October 6, 1982 |
| 3 |
Give Me Your Weak When a young mother suffers from a nerve disease, Quincy fights the drug companies and the government to get her the medication she needs. |
October 27, 1982 |
Production
Release
| Original network/platform | NBC |
|---|---|
| First aired | October 3, 1976 |
| Last aired | May 11, 1983 |
| Runtime | 60 minutes |
| Status | Ended |
| Schedule | at 12:00:00 |