"Quincy M.E." No Way to Treat a Patient (1980)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Georg Fenady

Writers:

Robert A. Cinader (writer)
Glen A. Larson (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Quincy M.E." (1976)

Original Air Date:

30 April 1980 (Season 5, Episode 22)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Crime

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Coroner | Murder | Cult Favorite | Courtroom | Amateur Detective

Cast

Jack Klugman	...	Dr. R. Quincy, M.E.
Garry Walberg	...	Lt. Frank Monahan
John S. Ragin	...	Dr. Robert Asten
Val Bisoglio	...	Danny Tovo
Robert Ito	...	Sam Fujiyama
Joseph Roman	...	Sgt. Brill
A Martinez	...	Dr. Tony Carbo
Duncan Gamble	...	Dr. Mike Sloan
Ana Alicia	...	Nurse Nancy Berger
Diana Webster	...	Nurse Russell
Chip Johnson	...	Pete
Paul Coufos	...	Pete's Assistant
Bernard Behrens	...	Dr. Warren
Martin Speer	...	Eddie Harris
Ken Scott	...	Police Officer

Good episode let down by a terrible ending.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Quincy M.E.: No Way to Treat a Patient starts as Los Angeles coroner Quincy (Jack Klugman) meets up with his old friend Tony Carbo (A Martinez) who is working at the Sunset Memorial Hospital. While working the late shift a man stumbles in with a gunshot wound to his lower back, Dr. Carbo treats him & sends him off to a bigger better equipped Hospital for an operation. However by the time the man gets there he is dead & suddenly has another bullet wound in his back, the man ends up on Quincy's autopsy table & he can't believe the medical records written by Carbo only list one bullet wound. Not the most popular doctor Carbo is accused of negligence & not noticing the second gunshot wound...

Episode 22 from season 5 this Quincy story was the final one from the fifth season & it was great until the last few minutes. For the majority of No Way to Treat a Patient there's a pretty good murder mystery & one of Quincy's friends is accused of incompetence so there's a couple of nice plot threads running through the episode but just as it starts to get good & the episode starts to get going we cut to Danny's bar at the end & Quincy merely says the killers were caught & Carbo was cleared. There's no investigation, there's no real detective work & the ending is just very unsatisfying all round as if the production team knew they were running out of time & just had to resolve the episode as quickly as possible. I liked the story about two assassins posing as ambulance drivers too, it's a shame that more couldn't be made of it. There's some funny scenes here, the authoritarian Nurse Miss Russell is played almost entire for laughs & she has a thick Scottish accent & at times sounds like Edward Woodward from The Wicker Man (1973)! Her & Quincy's arguing at the start is pure gold. You know I have always been surprised that more character's don't return to Quincy but here in No Way to Treat a Patient I think one does, or then again maybe he doesn't. You see Quincy & Dr. Carbo recognise each other & even mention the University, Dr. Carbo is played by A Martinez who starred in the Quincy two parter Walk Softly Through the Night (1979) from season four in which he played a student studying to become a doctor in University but in those two episodes his character's name was Marty Herrera so why the change of name? Is he meant to be the same character or not? If not why did Quincy recognise him & why is it made clear that they knew each other? Strange.

In this episode we get some good location footage of Sunset Strip with it's bright neon signs (one clearly advertising 'Filthy Magazines'!), prostitutes, pimps & a strip club called The Purple Peacock! A real document of the time, I doubt it's like that anymore. The acting is alright, oddly Quincy isn't in this one that much as there's a large twenty odd minute gap during the middle where he doesn't appear at all.

No Way to Treat a Patient had potential & was going really well until one of the most abrupt endings ever, it's still worth a watch but you will feel that a large chunk of it is missing.