[Previous entry: "Undercover chuggers"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "The next series of The Apprentice"]

04/07/2006: "Quincy ME"

One of all-time favourite American TV shows is Quincy. For those readers too young to have had the pleasure, the eponymous hero is a Medical Examiner (ME) or Coroner on the West Coast of the States who's always sticking his nose in where it's not wanted. The movie that followed the TV series was called Go fight City Hall to the death, which gives you a flavour of his crusading zeal.

In the US, the Coroner's Office apparently supplies its chief scientist with a police-type badge and wagon, complete with flashing lights. Quince, played by the always-entertaing Jack Klugman, tackled a different social issue every episode. Ones that particularly spring to mind are the right of women to practise midwifery in certain American states (where it was previously considered to be the kind of dangerous mumbo-jumbo of the village wise woman) and the control of firms that used dangerous dogs as security patrols.

On ITV3 this morning (around 8 o'clock), the Quincester was campaigning against hazardous loads being carried on commercial airliners. We certainly made our own entertainment back in the late 70s.