You can scare me, but you can't stop me. -- Quincy

Everything in existence has a point of origin, but sometimes it is damnably difficult to find. This is true even in television, a medium which is not even a century old and by its nature is extraordinarily well documented. The effective origin of the forensic or medical detective show was QUINCY, M.E., which ran from 1976 to 1983 on the NBC network. It is remembered as "the first drama series to regularly feature detailed forensic investigations" [Google] and is thus the Big Bang of this particular genre of television. A search I conducted on reality and scripted medical detective series turned up 96 in English speaking countries alone, and this list only ran from the early 1990s. It does not include a number of series which came in the intervening decade between '93 and '92, including DA VINCI'S INQUEST, CORONER, HOUSE or even PROFILER, which wobbled on the borderline of this genre but probably falls within its reach.

I could a tale unfold about the history of this genre and what I truly feel precipitated its explosion in popularity, but let us stick to cases -- the case of Quincy, the crime-fighting coroner from Los Angles with the big nose, big mouth, and big heart, whose absence is felt as keenly, in my own heart anyway, as his once-overwhelming presence.

QUINCY was originally envisioned by legendary TV producer-writer Glen Larson as a series of TV movies in which a crusty, hot-tempered, skirt-chasing L.A. County coroner would utilize his knowledge of forensic pathology to solve seemingly impenetrable murder mysteries. At the time, the "holy trinity" of TV was composed of doctor shows, lawyer shows and cop shows: QUINCY offered something different: a doctor show in which all the "patients" were already dead, combined with a cop show in which the coroner outhustled and outhought the police. Hell, it even threw in a fair amount of legalese, and thus seemed to cover every base, at least partially. Cast in the starring role was a reluctant and combative Jack Klugman, co-star of THE ODD COUPLE, who didn't see himself in such a role and had little patience for the sort of weak, by-the-numbers storytelling which abounded on TV (then as now). Indeed, Klugman's determination to bring something "more than just screeching tires" to the boob tube led to the more orthodox-thinking Larson being elbowed out of his own show, and Klugman became, in effect, not merely QUINCY's star, but his own executive producer, showrunner and executive story editor. This act of aggressive egotism was to have profound consequences for the whole history of television.

Why? Because the ratings success of the four QUINCY TV movies led the show to be bumped unexpectedly to a weekly episodic series, and Klugman, who had a ferocious temper and was legendary for his screaming fits and stinging insults ("There are a lot of people in Hollywood who can type," he once remarked acidly. "There aren't many writers."), forced the ever-changing writers' room to bring him scripts which were actually about something. This led QUINCY to develop a unique identity as "the show with a cause."

Actually, "the with causes" would have been a better description, for although there are many QUINCY episodes which are simply forensic murder mysteries without societal commentary, every season devoted a hefty number of stories to questions of social justice. The way these topics were approached was by dressing them up as mere murder mysteries, and then -- usually by the second commercial at the latest -- revealing the underlying societal evil the producers wished to address, combat and correct. Without consulting the internet, I can think of dozens of causes the show dragged into the light of day for discussion: a random sampling would include autism, alcoholism, industrial waste, fad diets, orphan drugs, illegal immigration, airline safety, Tourette's Syndrome, PTSD, affirmative action, bureacracy, gun control, illiteracy, big pharma, pollution, the federal grand jury system, DUI laws, juvenile crime, incest, domestic violence, elder abuse, mental health, drug culture, child pornography and human trafficking, drug use in sports, medical insurance, Down's syndrome, abortion, vigilantism, PCP, holistic medicine, ghost surgery, and numerous issues within the medical community itself, such as incompetence, negligence, ethics, and addiction. Some topics were visited several times from different angles. What is particularly striking about this sampling is how timely most of the causes remain, even viewed through a distance of half a century. If ever we needed a reminder that some social problems are always with us, watching QUINCY rage, in 1978 or so, about topics we see in the 2023 headlines on a weekly basis, will surely fill the perscription. I myself have noted in my professional life as an advocate for victims of crime how ahead of the curve QUINCY was about lax drunk driving laws, or the loopholes the criminally insane or sex offenders used to wreak yet more havoc. In the case of so-called orphan drugs -- drugs developed to fight extremely rare diseases, which are therefore not profitable to manufacture -- QUINCY was actually instrumental in getting laws changed. It was a case of life consciously choosing to imitate art.

Klugman's performance as the crusading coroner deserves especial mention. While some of the dialog defeated his acting abilities, and his own acting range was not especially wide, his passion for the role generally overflowed even the weaker scripts and more hastily-constructed storylines. He is one of those performers who is just a joy to watch, as much for his flinty charisma as for his actual thespianism. The heavy New York accent ("coffee" is pronounced "cawfee") only adds flavor to a delivery already spiced by his deep, raspy voice. He is of that category of actor whose acting is less important than his presence -- and that he has in spades.

Quincy the character was given very little background. We never even learned his first name, not in eight years and 156 episodes ("I have one," he informs his soon-to-be-wife in the final season, "but nobody ever seems to use it.") We only knew that he was a surgeon who chucked his practice following the death of his wife from a brain tumor; that he lived on a boat and did not own a car; that had devoted his life to forensic pathology; that he was a womanizing workaholic with a fiery temper and a restless social conscience; and that his penchant for liberal muckraking belied a naive belief that we fight the fights that need fighting and that one man can make a difference if he pushes hard enough. QUINCY, the show, was at its heart a harsh civics lesson using forensic medicine as a kind of sugar-coating: beneath the sophisticated jargon and flashy science and the curiosity about whodunnit, it ceaselessly and shamelessly preached the need to get involved, to petition, to protest, to vote, to march, to meet, and to treat democracy as a cranky pull-motor that needed a lot of elbow grease and forehead sweat to get going. Quincy the character hated injustice and cruelty, fought for the little man against the big man, and preached a never-ceasing sermon against apathy; he believed the truth was holy.

Quincy was supported by, and often fought with, his good natured but long-suffering assistant Sam Fujiyama (Robert Ito); his equally long-suffering boss, the paper-pushing but principled Dr. Robert Asten (John S. Ragin); fiesty homicide detective Lt. Frank Monohan (Garry Walberg) and his sidekick Sgt Brill (Joe Roman); and sarcastic ex-con Danny Tovo (Sal Bisoglio), whose dockside restaurant was Quincy's favorite hangout. These co-stars were archetypes frozen in personality, changing not a whit over the course of eight years, but their very stolidity buttressed the show's theme that right and wrong, while not oversimple concepts, were fixed and not situational. Aside from the transition from periodic TV movies to series, only really atomic change in the show was Quincy's marriage to Emily Hanover (Anita Gillette) in the final season, but even this was more a nod to the fact that the story needed an ending than a desire to acknowledge the passage of time.

QUINCY reflected the spirit of its age, the 1970s, which was a curious mixture of post-Vietnam exuberance, post-Watergate cynicism, and Cold War nihilism. It had a tendency toward naivete in dialog and often tacked on unrealistically happy endings onto stories, though this was certainly not the case in episodes like "Scream to the Skies," "Headhunter," "Guns Don't Die," or "Into the Murdering Mind," to cite just a few examples. Its sense of humor was quite lively and stinging, though it could often be cringe-inducing and silly. Some of the funnier running gags were Sam's inability to keep dates because of Quincy forcing him to work late hours, Quincy bitterly railing about the taste of the office coffee, Asten's merciless penny-pinching, Quincy insisting on parking the coroner's meatwagon outside Danny's restaurant, and Danny's jokes, which were almost 100% at Quincy's expense. Though its politics were generally left of center, it generally gave at least lip service to critics of the "causes" in question, and while it took some pains to actually reflect the racial and cultural diversity of Los Angeles, by today's standards, a lot of the humor at Sam's expense was flat-out racist. Additionally, it sometimes saw boogeymen where none were present: its most notorious episode "Next Stop, Nowhere" memorably and laughably presented the extended musical belch that was punk rock movement as an imminent societal threat. Other "causes" such as look-alike drugs and midwifery, did not stand the test of time. But in the last analysis, QUINCY had an almost eerie sense of timeliness, of prescience. It -- by which I mean Klugman and his producers and such writers as survived his temper and his purges -- had a remakable ability to sense which headlines really mattered, which evils needed to be fought and defeated. The speech Quincy gives railing against big pharma's effect on society -- From birth, children are told by newspapers, by radio, television commercials that they needn't put up with one moment of mental anguish, that relief is just a short reach away to the nearest bottle of pills. It's become a form of escape and a form of recreation. -- is more relevant now, in 2023, than when it was given, in 1979. And it is but one of many which have remained relevant, despite the feeling, when one watches an episode now, that one is looking into an unrecognizably distant past.

So where does that leave QUINCY after an interval of almost fifty years? Does the show still matter in this age of unremitting cynicism? What is its legacy?

As I said above, QUINCY feels enormously dated, more because of the heavy-handed way it presents its stories rather than because of the stories themselves: it tends toward naivete or at least a fairly shiny idealism, towards a belief that despite every manner of villainy, the universe bends toward justice. It can be terribly, almost irredeemably cheesy, especially when it insists on unrealistic happily ever afters. And yet, if one can get past the thick, stale layers of this pasteurized product, one cuts through to a heart which is still powerfully beating. I have often praised the tendency of older television shows to come down on the side of decency, chivalry, honor, etc. rather than cyncism and moral ambiguity: QUINCY is a mighty spear-carrier for this cause, but it carries its spear in a more mature way than you might expect. It insists, shrilly and insistently, that people have to get off their ass if they want to live in the world they actually desire, rather than the shitty one they actually inhabit. It pokes the chest of its audience like an ill-tempered ethics teacher trying to get a stoned, cheetoh-eating teenager to vote. It underscores, with a large red marker, the fact that democracy is everybody's job. In the age of Trump, of Putin and Netanyahu, this is more important than ever.

QUINCY went off the air forty years ago, but if you want to see its practical legacy, you have only to look at the monkey-branch of forensic and medical detective shows that have proliferated since it went off the air. QUINCY is not solely responsible for them -- Thomas Harris, who wrote Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs is probably the real culprit, and QUINCY was predated and probably heavily influenced by WOJECK, a Canadian forensics show from the late 1960s which also embrace "causes" -- but it is the series which brought forensic pathology to the broad masses, and in a way that made science approachable and even sexy. Quincy didn't beat people up; he outthought them. His weapons were a microscope, a scalpel, the scientific method, and a belief in "civility," meaning not merely politeness or nonviolence, but an abiding faith in human civilization. SEINFELD was once aptly described as "a show about nothing." QUINCY was a show about decency -- how hard it can be to achieve, and how impossible it is to live without.