User Reviews

So did Quincy need to repeat the phrase "flow mechanics" few few more times? He only said about 50 times in a row, so maybe someone missed it. It made me giggle thinking a technical term like that in a procedural show must have been impressive at the time.

Anyway, this episode was a little slow and doesn't play too well in 2022. Like another reviewer said, Quincy seemed way too quick to make his initial judgement, with minimal investigation, then his main focus is clearing the cop, not getting the truth. I couldn't help contrasting this with CSI, how they would investigate a police shooting, and how Grissom would behave. A completely different approach decades later.

The obvious problem is that the cop was corrupt yet Quincy and the others kept referring to him as a "good kid" who made a mistake. A woman turned in a gun to the station and the "good kid" kept it for himself, then after the shooting, he planted evidence. I don't get how that makes a good, innocent cop. He wasn't a killer, but he shouldn't have a job.

Not part of the plot but the two cop partners' voices were also super distracting. One was Dabney Coleman talking about an octave higher than he would in later roles. No idea if it happened by trying to hide his natural accent or if he later took lessons to lower it. The other cop sounded exactly like a woman at times. In fact, I was just watching a pretty poor copy of the show and when the opening teaser played, I did think one of the cops was going to be female. Nothing really wrong with that but it was just weird the 2 actors were cast together as partners. Obviously Coleman went on to do much bigger things, with a different voice. The best part of the show was getting to watch Coleman and Howard Hessman in early roles.

David Spielberg was great playing a sleazeball reporter. I recently watched the series version of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. He's so good as a likeable, funny schlub on that show, but here I just hated him, which I always figure is proof of good acting.

This episode really drags a lot in the middle. For much of it Quincy is just told what happened, like how the reporter was the one who discovered where one gun came from and he told Quincy about it, rather than Quincy doing the investigating himself. There's also a great deal of time spent on flow mechanics and office politics. Then the ending happened very fast. If the middle had been cut in half and the ending stretched out, it think there would have been more excitement and suspense.

So altogether a pretty uneven episode with positives and negatives. Ok to watch but I don't need to see it again.