User Reviews

Quincy M.E.: Hot Ice starts at Los Angeles airport where after a twenty hour flight a man named Vito (Charlie Picerni) runs out in front of a bus & gets himself killed, Quincy (Jack Klugman) performs the autopsy & discovers 20 stolen diamonds worth two million dollars inside a fake pacemaker in his chest. Two customs officials Agents Bryce (John Karlen) & Niven (Edward Grover) asks Quincy to help them, they had been tailing Vito in an attempt to catch Las Vegas crime boss Andre Otero (David Sheiner) in possession of the stolen jewel's after the trade. It just so happens Quincy is on his way to Las Vegas to judge the Miss Coroner contest & is set up by the two custom agents to make the trade himself, what could possibly go wrong...

All the fives episode 5 from season 5 this Quincy story was directed by Ray Danton & for the first forty five minutes Hot Ice was set to be one of my all time favourite Quincy episodes, unfortunately there are too many loose ends & plot holes which spoil it for me although I still found it very enjoyable. I think the main strength & at the same time it's main problem is that Hot Ice tries to do too much, there's the sub plot where everything goes wrong for Quincy, there's the trip to Las Vegas, there are the two customs agents, there are the comedy relief scenes around the Miss Coroner contest, there are the diamonds, there is a death & an autopsy at the start, there's Quincy being tricked, there's the trade which goes wrong & then there's the climax which involves a killer who uses a poisoned cane & Quincy's fight for life as his friends desperately search for answers. There's just too much going on, while it's nice to have lots of things happening there isn't enough time to tie everything together. My main problem is the killer Eddie Parker, who is he? What did he want? Who was he working for? If anyone. I can understand why he killed Vito to try & steal the diamonds but why try to kill Quincy? He made no attempt to take the diamonds from him so again I ask why? Why not kill Otero & his men? They were the ones who ended up with the diamonds. Parker wasn't working for Otero either because if he was why did Otero order his men to hurt Quincy & make an example out of him if he knew Quincy had been poisoned & was going to die anyway? They certainly never met each other & there is no indication that Parker worked for Otero so who was Parker? What did he have to do with it? What was his plan? Nothing fits, it just doesn't make any sense if you think about it for more than a few minutes which is a shame because otherwise Hot Ice is excellent, it's funny, the character's are great, the dialogue is amusing, there's another great performance by Klugman & it's just a great episode apart from some glaring plot holes.

Not to be confused with the similar titled Quincy episode Hot Ice, Cold Hearts (1977) from season one also about stolen diamonds. There is also a sloppy script continuity error here, Quincy sees Otero with one of the twenty diamonds planted on him by the two customs agents. Otero finds the diamond & says he wants the rest, later the two customs agents give Quincy the rest of the diamonds in a pouch to make the trade but clearly state that 'all twenty diamonds are there' but if Quincy had been given one to temp Otero it should have been nineteen diamonds since Otero already had one. The final fifteen minutes of Hot Ice is very similar to The Last Six Hours (1978) during season four in which Sam is poisoned & Quincy has to find a cure only this time the roles are reversed. Hot Ice is also the second time in a year in which Quincy has been nearly murdered after he was shot by a suspect in Even Odds (1978) during season four. Custom agents Bryce & Niven would return to Quincy in another couple of episodes.

Hot Ice could have been one of the greatest Quincy episodes ever, it had it all with a murder, diamond smuggling, humour, funny character's, a race against time to save Quincy's life & a deadly cane wielding killer but it doesn't quite come together & ends up being a little bit frustrating.