Valleyview begins with an elderly man dying following an injection by an unidentifiable staff member of the Valleyview nursing facility. The grandson of the deceased, David Phillips (Ed Begley, Jr.), later shows up at the coroner lab to request that Quincy (Jack Klugman) perform an autopsy as he does not believe the cause of death was a coronary as reported by the facility. Quincy determines that the cause of death listed was inaccurate, but he cannot pinpoint the exact cause of death and also learns that the deceased had pancreatic cancer. His suspicions are heightened when a young girl with mental health issues also dies very unexpectedly, leading him to believe there might be a mercy killer among the staff of Valleyview.
This is a decent Season 2 episode of Quincy which features an interesting murder mystery with multiple victims and several suspects. I was pleased to see that the producers made the focus of this episode a murder mystery where the crimes committed are mercy killings rather than making this solely an episode focused on the social issue with no crime or investigation component. This was the right way to do it in my opinion and I wish all of the episodes featuring a social problem were written in this manner. There are some good guest stars and the drama continues right up to the climactic conclusion.
I usually never comment on the appearances of the actors in these shows here, but I found Carolyn Jones' hairdo in this episode to be so bizarre and unflattering that I have to mention it as it was a constant distraction throughout which I could not stop staring at. It is cut so short that it makes her look more masculine than her male co-stars who were all sporting longer locks which were the style of the time (remember this was 1977). It also looked as if a child took a pair of scissors to her bangs which were all zig-zagged and crooked. I don't know if it was one of the hairstylists of the show that was responsible for this chopped mess or she had it done on her own, but whoever it was should have been fired and had their cosmetology license pulled!
This is a decent Season 2 episode of Quincy which features an interesting murder mystery with multiple victims and several suspects. I was pleased to see that the producers made the focus of this episode a murder mystery where the crimes committed are mercy killings rather than making this solely an episode focused on the social issue with no crime or investigation component. This was the right way to do it in my opinion and I wish all of the episodes featuring a social problem were written in this manner. There are some good guest stars and the drama continues right up to the climactic conclusion.
I usually never comment on the appearances of the actors in these shows here, but I found Carolyn Jones' hairdo in this episode to be so bizarre and unflattering that I have to mention it as it was a constant distraction throughout which I could not stop staring at. It is cut so short that it makes her look more masculine than her male co-stars who were all sporting longer locks which were the style of the time (remember this was 1977). It also looked as if a child took a pair of scissors to her bangs which were all zig-zagged and crooked. I don't know if it was one of the hairstylists of the show that was responsible for this chopped mess or she had it done on her own, but whoever it was should have been fired and had their cosmetology license pulled!
