Quincy M.E. (TV Series) Walk Softly Through the Night: Part 2 (1979) User Reviews

Flawed conclusion

[rayoflite24 · 5/10 · 23 September 2015]

Walk Softly Through the Night Part 2 begins with Quincy (Jack Klugman) visiting Brock Campbell (Michael Constantine) in a holding cell following his meltdown in front of Dr. Colella's (Charles Aidman) office. Quincy later visits Dr. Colella and chastises him for calling the police on Brock as well as handing out addictive prescriptions like candy to youth. Dr. Colella is also visited by Marty Hererra (A Martinez) who is trying to obtain more pills to help a friend ween off his habit, but Dr. Colella refuses him because of an unpaid bill. Later in the evening, Dr. Colella is found dead of two gunshot wounds in his office, and Lt. Monahan (Garry Walberg) arrests Marty who is believed to be the last person to see the doctor.

While there is a murder mystery featured in Part 2 of this story, it starts to get pretty sloppy. Despite there being only minimal circumstantial evidence against Marty, somehow he is arrested and almost immediately brought to trial. How would this be possible without further investigation, especially with all of the addicts who were going in and out of there. There would have been a ton of suspects!

I also found the attack of conscience and confession by the guilty party at the end to be pretty convenient. Another weakness of this episode is that half of it is spent in the courtroom and Quincy is never in the lab once doing what he does best. It just would have made for a better episode if Quincy was able to identify the killer through analysis of something left behind at the crime scene, which would have been plausible considering it was a crime of passion.

Overall, a rather disappointing conclusion to a two-part Season 4 story.

More of the same.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 5 June 2008]

Quincy M.E.: Walk Softly Through the Night: Part 2 starts as Los Angeles chief medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman) receives a phone-call from Lieutenant Monahan (Garry Walberg) saying that Dr. Mason Colella (Charles Aidman) has been shot & killed, Quincy's friend Marty Herrera (A Martinez) is the prime suspect since he was seen threatening Colella with a gun earlier that evening. Quincy finds it impossible to believe that Marty murdered Colella but all the evidence points to the fact that he did, in court Marty is made out to be a drug pusher & a murderer & will get life in prison unless Quincy can prove his innocence...

Episode 15 from season 4 this Quincy story was directed by Paul Krasny & didn't do much for me at all. The second part of a two part story Walk Softly Through the Night started with some narrator guy saying 'now the exciting conclusion to Walk Softly Through the Night', I am not being funny here but maybe he mixed his scripts up since he got the conclusion bit right but the exciting bit wrong. I mean conclusion? Yes. Exciting? No way. This second part is pretty much the same as the first & all that it is interested in is telling us how bad drugs are, how we can't ignore the problem anymore & if we didn't already get the message it tells that drugs are bad some more. At the end of the first part to Walk Softly Through the Night there was a brief preview & it looked like there would be a murder & therefore this second part would be a more traditional Quincy episode but that's not really the case at all. In fact this might be the only time in the entire series where there is not a single laboratory scene in the entire episode, not one. There isn't an autopsy to speak of, Quincy doesn't do any detective work, neither Sam, Dr. Asten or Danny feature at all & the real killers identity is so obvious I felt the writer insulted my intelligence. In fact the 'mystery' killer here is maybe the most predictable & obvious in the show's entire eight season run. Walk Softly Through the Night is one (or rather two) long anti drug message, there's no humour, the regular character's don't feature, there's no forensic detective work & there's no mystery.

During this episode we see Uncle Buddy's Hollywood mansion, wow all I can say is dressing up as a clown must pay really well considering the house he has! I wasn't too sure about certain elements of the trial either, I know Marty was trying to help his fellow students but he still brought drugs & sold them to his mates, surely by the letter of the law that is classed as drug dealing? I know there are mitigating circumstances but would that make a huge difference? Selling prescription only drugs to addicts would surely at least get you kicked out of school no matter what the circumstances? The acting is alright here with Klugman again head & shoulders above everyone else.

Walk Softly Through the Night: Part 2 is one long anti drug message, if you like your Quincy episodes moralistic & preachy then go ahead you'll love it. If however you like your Quincy episodes full of murder, intrigue, clever detective work & mystery then do yourself a favour & skip it.

A very weak conclusion to a weak two-parter.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 20 April 2013]

It's a real shame that "Walk Softly Through the Night" is such a weak story, as it's also a two-parter. Because of this, it becomes a big tedious and are far from the best "Quincy" episodes you can find--in fact, they are among the worst.

In part 1, Quincy investigates the death of a college student who was hooked on Quaaludes. But, this only occupied a small portion of the show. Most of it was a social commentary show with LOTS of scenes of Quincy and Brock (Constantine) trying to upstage each other in angry outbursts. Overall, it comes off as VERY preachy.

Here in part 2, one of Quincy's new friends (and he always seems to make a few in each episode) is a grad student (A Hernandez) who is doing something VERY stupid--he's doing his own unofficial detox program! But, when one of the kids he's trying to bring down off Quaaludes is going through withdrawal, he goes to an evil pill-pushing doctor and tries to force him, at gunpoint, to write a prescription. Later, when the doctor was found dead, naturally they assume the stupid grad student is responsible. Smart, this guy ain't!

What follows are some of the worst moments of the series during the courtroom scenes. Quincy doesn't testify so much as he's making a speech on the dangers of Quaaludes. But what was much worse were the scenes with Michael Constantine--who chewed up the scenery with his overacting. In addition, the dialog he had to speak was just god-awful and silly. I particularly was annoyed with the 'Perry Mason' moment--where the guilty dad admitted killing the doctor---even though there was no evidence he was responsible! Plus, he really was the only possible one who could have done it--so none of this came as a surprise! Overall, rather dopey and sad. I wish the show had just stuck to autopsies and not been like an extended public service announcement.