For Love of Joshua begins as a newborn with multiple conditions including Down's syndrome is denied medical treatment and starved under orders from his doctor (Alan Arbus) who convinces the parents that the quality of life would be so poor that the humane thing would be to let him die. A concerned hospital employee (Nancy Grahn) contacts another pediatrician, Dr. Barbara Ludow (Colleen Dewhurst), and she tries to intervene, but it is too late and the child dies. This leads to a debate and a coroner's inquest over whether the baby died from natural causes or neglect, and Dr. Ludow demonstrates to Quincy (Jack Klugman) that even children diagnosed with Down's Syndrome and having an extremely poor prognosis at birth can go on to lead productive and rewarding lives. To reinforce this point, Dr. Ludow asks one of the teenage children from a small group home to testify at the hearing.
While I usually prefer the murder mystery episodes of Quincy over the ones that address a social issue, I found this one to be a powerful and emotional story which was very well done. When I first saw that Tyne Daly was guest starring again, my initial reaction was that this is getting repetitive and tiresome as it is the third Quincy episode she appears in during a relatively short time period, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this role was my favorite of her run. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Ellen Travolta appears briefly as what might possibly be my most hated character of the entire series. It truly is a shame that they couldn't build a murder mystery into this episode with her female canine of a character as the victim!
All in all, the guest performances are top notch and I also appreciated the fact that the production team brought on children with Down's Syndrome to play these roles. Kudos to David MacFarlane (Daniel) for an amazing job done, his final scenes leave not a dry eye in the house! I don't know who won the Outstanding Guest Performance trophy at the Emmys that year, but it should have been him.
This is a truly standout Season 7 episode of Quincy that will surely move you and delivers an important message that we all can learn from. I highly recommend viewing!
While I usually prefer the murder mystery episodes of Quincy over the ones that address a social issue, I found this one to be a powerful and emotional story which was very well done. When I first saw that Tyne Daly was guest starring again, my initial reaction was that this is getting repetitive and tiresome as it is the third Quincy episode she appears in during a relatively short time period, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this role was my favorite of her run. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Ellen Travolta appears briefly as what might possibly be my most hated character of the entire series. It truly is a shame that they couldn't build a murder mystery into this episode with her female canine of a character as the victim!
All in all, the guest performances are top notch and I also appreciated the fact that the production team brought on children with Down's Syndrome to play these roles. Kudos to David MacFarlane (Daniel) for an amazing job done, his final scenes leave not a dry eye in the house! I don't know who won the Outstanding Guest Performance trophy at the Emmys that year, but it should have been him.
This is a truly standout Season 7 episode of Quincy that will surely move you and delivers an important message that we all can learn from. I highly recommend viewing!
