Quincy, M.E.: Season 03 (1977)

Jack Klugman returns as the titular medical examiner in the third season of Quincy, M.E.. Also back on the job are Robert Ito as Quincy's lab assistant, Sam; John S. Ragin as Dr. Robert Astin, our hero's superior at the L.A. Coroner's Office (not as pompous and bureaucratic a character as in the previous two seasons); Val Bisoglio as Danny, owner of Quincy's favorite restaurant; and Garry Walberg as police lieutenant Monahan, who officially must resist Quincy's chronic habit of playing detective as well as pathologist, but who privately welcomes the good doctor's assistance in solving murders and other baffling crimes. Other recurring characters include Eddie Garrett as Eddie, Joseph Roman as Sgt. Brill, and a newcomer to the series, Marc Scott Taylor, as Marc. The season opener, "No Deadly Secret," finds Quincy perplexed over the fact that a body upon which he had been performing an autopsy -- and the results of that autopsy -- have completely vanished from the morgue. In subsequent episodes, Quincy proves that a boxer who supposedly died in a ring accident was actually murdered; he exposes the questionable and dangerous procedures at a fashionable health spa; he employs his forensic skills to locate a kidnap victim after the kidnapper dies in a car crash; he clears a man of murder, even after the man confesses to the crime without coercion; and he goes on a personal crusade to solve the suspicious death of his favorite western movie star (played by veteran stunt man Chuck Roberson). Perhaps the most fascinating episodes of season three are "Passing," which was obviously inspired by the 1976 disappearance of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa; and the year's final episode, "Requiem for the Living," a Quincy-fied variation on the 1950 film noir classic D.O.A.. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi