(also called Quincy) is an American mystery medical drama television series from Universal Studios that was broadcast on NBC from October 3, 1976, to May 11, 1983.
Jack Klugman starred in the title role as a Los Angeles County medical examiner who routinely engages in police investigations.
John Vernon, who played the Wojeck title role, later guest-starred in the third-season episode "Requiem for the Living".
Quincy's character is loosely modeled on Los Angeles' "Coroner to the Stars" Thomas Noguchi.
were broadcast during the 1976–1977 season in the extended format, Quincy was spun off into its own weekly one-hour series without a typical 60-minute pilot.
Instead, a two-hour episode kicked off a thirteen-episode shortened run of the series, which concluded the 1976–1977 season, while NBC canceled the Mystery Movie format in the spring of 1977.
The Quincy series often used the same actors for different roles in various episodes, a frequent occurrence on many Glen A. Larson TV programs.
The series starred Jack Klugman as Dr. Quincy, a resolute, excitable, ethical and highly proficient Medical Examiner (forensic pathologist) for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, working to ascertain facts about and reasons for possible suspicious deaths.
While engaged in para-police investigations, Quincy frequently comes into conflict with his boss, Dr. Robert Asten (John S. Ragin), and the police, in particular, LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg).
It is revealed in the episode "The Last of Leadbottom" that Quincy is a retired Captain in the US Navy and remains in the Naval Reserve.
In the episode "Crib Job”, he notes he originally wanted to be a railroad engineer, after revealing a number of facts about the dangers of the occupation.
In the Mystery Movie installments and earliest first-season episodes, Quincy has a regular girlfriend, an airline flight attendant named Lee Potter (portrayed by Lynnette Mettey) who sometimes accompanies him on his cases (such as in "...The Thighbone's Connected to the Knee Bone...").
Later seasons' episodes began to introduce themes of social responsibilities; Quincy would find himself conducting his own para-police investigation that reveals situations such as a disreputable plastic surgeon and the reasons his botched surgeries are not stopped, flaws in drunk driving laws, lax airline safety, dumping of hazardous waste, the proliferation of handguns, autism, anorexia nervosa, hazing, teenage alcoholism, Tourette's syndrome, orphan drugs and an infamous episode about the dangers of Punk Rock.
Klugman himself even came to testify before the US Congress about some of these issues (such as orphan drugs in 1982),[6] describing what he had learned about a difficult or complex social concern as a result of its use in one of the show's episodes.
was the first American series to regularly present the in-depth forensic investigations which would be the hallmark of later detective shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS, Diagnosis: Murder, Crossing Jordan, et al. Klugman appeared twice on Diagnosis: Murder, as, respectively, Dr. Jeff Everden and Det.
Klugman refused to appear in this episode because he disliked a scene when a body delivered to the morgue turns out to still be living.
Marc Scott Taylor, technical advisor for the series beginning in season four, also appeared in the recurring role of Mark, a lab technician.
Anita Gillette was cast as the late Helen Quincy for the flashback scenes in the episode, "Promises to Keep", before being hired as Dr. Hanover.
The series was normally billed in TV listings magazines as simply Quincy, as in the UK a medical examiner is called a forensic scientist; and it was felt the M.E.