Quincy, M.E. (or simply Quincy) is the name of a United States television series from Universal Studios that aired from October 3, 1976, to September 5, 1983, on NBC (and can be seen in the UK on ITV3 and intermittently on the ITV Network, as well as in syndication on MeTV in Chicago, Illinois, on KDOC-TV in Orange County, California, and in Australia on cable channel TV1). It starred Jack Klugman as Dr. Quincy, a strong-willed Medical Examiner (forensic coroner) in Los Angeles County working to ascertain facts about suspicious deaths. In the process, he frequently comes into conflict with his boss and the police, each of whom have their own (often flawed) ideas about what's going on.
Many of the episodes follow this formula:
A quote from one episode gives a snapshot of a typical conflict. When Quincy is hospitalized, Sam Fujiyama (Robert Ito), Quincy's faithful co-worker, takes the reins and finds something fishy about Quincy's condition when everyone else sees no need for suspicion. Hearing this, homicide detective Lt. Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg) says, "You're pullin' a Quincy on me, and you ain't Quincy!"
Early seasons' episodes focused on criminal investigation; a typical episode would find Quincy determining the real murderer in a crime or the real cause of an unusual poisoning case. Later seasons' episodes began to introduce themes of social responsibility; Quincy would find himself involved with a police investigation that reveals situations such as a disreputable plastic surgeon and the reasons his poor surgeries are not stopped, flaws in drunk driving laws, problems caused by punk music, airline safety issues, dumping of hazardous waste, the proliferation of handguns, Tourette syndrome and anorexia among others. Quincy, M.E. was one of the earlier dramatic series to use a format like this to further a social agenda.
Although Quincy studies bodies in-depth at his laboratory, he also does plenty of police investigation work technically outside the role of a coroner for the purposes of the show. He could be considered a workaholic. In every episode where he goes on vacation, it is always interrupted by an intrigue that requires his skills. He then provides copious hours of free work to solve the case. He insists on being intensely thorough in all his work.
A well-liked man, Quincy lived on a houseboat, frequents "Danny's" pub, and was popular with the ladies. He was married once before but lost his wife Helen to cancer. Near the end of the seventh season Quincy remarried (Dr. Emily Hanover) and sold the houseboat (Quincy's Wedding).
The show was based on a Canadian television series, Wojeck, broadcast by CBC Television in the 1960s, but had more immediate local inspiration in the person of Thomas Noguchi, Los Angeles's "coroner to the stars". blank">http://www.who2.com/thomasnoguchi.html
The first half of the first season of Quincy was broadcast as 90-minute telefilms as part of the _NBC Sunday Mystery Movie rotation in the fall of 1976 alongside Columbo, McCloud and McMillan (formerly McMillan and Wife). The series proved popular enough that midway through the 1976-77 season, Quincy was spun-off into its own weekly one-hour series. The Mystery Movie format was discontinued in the spring of 1977; Quincy was the only one of the rotating series to continue. In 1978, writers Tony Lawrence and Lou Shaw received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the second-season episode "...The Thighbone's Connected to the Knee Bone..." (originally aired February 11, 1977).
Quincy and Sam are working as Coroners. Inspecting dead people they often see facts that don't match the theories of the police how or if really they were murdered. Written by Wolfgang Klimt
