Quincy M.E. (TV Series) The Golden Hour (1981) User Reviews

Flawed episode with lots of hospital drama

[rayoflite24 · 6/10 · 2 December 2015]

The Golden Hour begins with a man (Leonard Stone) picking up his teenage daughter (Heidi Bohay) from high school when they are involved in a serious car accident. The girl appears to be suffering from some broken bones only and is transported to the closest emergency room at Valleyview Hospital, but one of the EMTs (George DelHoyo) seeing the extent of the injuries to the father defies orders and takes him to a more specialized Trauma Center. When the girl later dies, Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts the autopsy and determines that her death was preventable as the Valleyview staff missed a critical injury which likely would have been properly treated by the Trauma Center. This puts Quincy on a mission to change the rules and allow more flexibility on where patients are transported in cases like this while also trying to help the Trauma Center obtain the funding necessary to keep their doors open.

This is an episode where the focus is trying to bring about changes to the system and there is no crime whatsoever which really aren't my preference. There are a lot of minor flaws as well which distracted me right from the opening scenes with the dialogue between the father and daughter coming across as extremely corny and phony. I also thought that she looked way too old to be playing a high school student, and sure enough when I looked up the actress on here she was in her 20s when this was filmed. It also seemed to me that the EMTs were moving extremely slow at the accident scene which may have been to fill air time, and I was further surprised to hear them mention "Valleyview" as the hospital ER where they were transporting the girl. In the Season 2 episode also called Valleyview, this facility was introduced as a nursing home and convalescent care facility which is not the same thing as a hospital ER! Maybe it was a huge hospital system that housed both, but this just came across as a glaring contradiction after the nursing facility was the entire focus of a previous episode.

While the story is not a complete duplicate of a previous episode, it felt like elements of previous plots were borrowed to come up with this one as we've already seen negligent medical care and patients being rerouted to other hospitals because of bureaucratic issues. Coincidentally, George DelHoyo also guest starred in one of the latter types of episodes in "For the Benefit of My Patients" during Season 5, so this adds to the feeling of this being a recycled story. If you enjoy the Quincy episodes where he is fighting the system to bring about positive change then you may appreciate this early Season 7 entry, but a lot of hospital drama coupled with a bunch of flaws just made this a weak one in my opinion.

Not especially entertaining....and preachy.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 19 May 2013]

A traffic accident occurs and paramedics respond. However, one of the victims is pretty bad off and they transport him not to the nearest emergency room but to the best--and this is against explicit orders. This badly injured man does survive, but his daughter who seemed much less badly injured died...at the closer emergency room. When Quincy gets involved, he is ready to go off on a crusade--to change the rules and get victims to the best possible emergency room. The 'Golden Hour' reference is referring to getting the best treatment within the first hour of the accident, as you'll either save or lose most folks during this period.

What this episode could have really used was a crime. Let me explain. The best "Quincy" episodes seem to be ones where there is a crime to be investigated and the worst are often the ones that are social issues shows. In this one, the social issue are the rules that govern how paramedics respond to emergencies. And, not surprisingly, the show is weak and full of Quincy grandstanding and arguing. Preachy "Quincy" episodes spend more time promoting an issue than trying to entertain the audience. Overall, a rather dull episode. While I might not say it's among the show's worst (like the other reviewer says), but I certainly agree that it is not a particularly good one.

Crime free Quincy.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 24 May 2007]

Quincy M.E.: The Golden Hour starts as Bruce Anderson (Leonard Stone) & his teenage daughter Sherry (Heidi Bohay) are involved in a car crash, the paramedics are on the scene in no time & get to work. Sherry seems fine apart from a few broken bones but her father looks in a bad way, Mike (George DelHoyo) the attending paramedic defies the rules & sends Bruce to Memorial Hills trauma center even though it's not the nearest hospital because he feels it's the only hospital in the area equipped to treat Bruce. Meanwhile Sherry is sent to the much nearer Valley View emergency hospital where she dies of complications & ends up on L.A. coroner Quincy's (Jack Klugman) autopsy table. Quincy comes to the conclusion Sherry died from internal bleeding which wasn't spotted, as he digs deeper into her death he becomes enraged when he realises patients are sent to the nearest hospital as opposed the best equipped & he decides to try & change the rules in favour of the patient...

Episode 2 from season 7 this Quincy story was directed by Georg Fenady & is yet another story where the basis firmly lies on telling a moral issue, generally I love the show but I don't like these dull moral crusades which revolve around some personal tragedy rather than than the intriguing murder mysteries in which Quincy has to use his knowhow to solve a crime. To make matters even worse with The Golden Hour the message it's trying to get across is totally irrelevant these days, I'm sorry but I simply do not believe any hospital in the Western world in the year 2007 would not have a team of in-house surgeons on call or could not cope with a road accident so that in itself makes this episode extremely dated & basically pointless. Sure we still get Klugman as Quincy fighting bureaucracy & red tape the way only he can but medical techniques have come a long way since The Golden Hour first aired in 1981 & this is one of the few Quincy episodes to have so badly dated to the point where it has absolutely no relevance at all. A disappointing story, not that much actually happens, it's a bit predictable & it's definitely not one of my favourites.

As I've mentioned The Golden Hour has not stood the test of time at all well, I simply don't believe hospitals & paramedics operate like this anymore & they certainly don't here in the UK. The guest cast aren't so great here with some poor performances. Since no crime takes place Lt. Monahan, Sgt. Brill & Dr. Asten are totally absent from this episode until the final couple of minutes in the obligatory 'light hearted feel good' climax in Danny's.

The Golden Hour has to be one of the worst Quincy episodes out there, I'm a big fan of the show but even this great series produced some poor stories & this is one of them I'm afraid, anyone new to Quincy & watching this as their first episode probably wouldn't go back for seconds.