(TV Series)

(1983)

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6/10
Good Quincy episode without much Quincy.
poolandrews16 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Quincy M.E.: The Law is a Fool starts as Carl Norman (Jeff Pomerantz) kidnaps a young girl named Debbie Hillman by taking the place of her usual cab driver. A search gets underway & Quincy (Jack Klugman) is brought in to help with any forensic evidence, however after a picture of Norman is broadcast on the news he turns himself in to the police. He won't tell anyone where Debbie is & demands to be tried for her kidnap, all of the D.A.'s evidence is circumstantial & if he is acquitted the double jeopardy law comes into effect in which he cannot be tried for the same crime twice no matter what happens. Norman says that if he is acquitted he will tell them where Debbie is for a small half a million dollars & even if he does tell them therefore admitting to the crime he can't be tried for her kidnap because he'll have already been found not guilty...

Episode 11 from season 8 this Quincy story was directed by Georg Fenady & is a decent episode of Quincy even though he only gets about 5 minutes worth of screen time & is probably one of the few episodes where he doesn't perform an autopsy on anyone. Since this is the moral heavy season 8 there just has to be a social issue here & it comes down to believing in the law or whatever you place your faith in & sticking with it as it'll work out for the best in the end & won't let you down if you put the effort in, I mean they were always going to find a way to nail Norman weren't they? The lack of any real Quincy related action does hurt this episode somewhat & I'd have liked to have seen Norman get away with it & his plan work which technically it should have but you can't have everything I suppose. The Law is a Fool is a perfectly entertaining way to pass 60 odd minutes although as usual it's rather predictable & has a bit too much moralising & not enough detective work.

This one looks alright, lots of studio bound offices & prison cells you know the sort of thing. You know based on the evidence I don't think Norman would have been acquitted either, the fact that his were the only finger prints on the steering wheel, the cab drivers testimony, the lack of any other suspects, his connection to Debbie's Grandfather & the fact he didn't deny kidnapping her would have probably been enough for a majority verdict, what do you think? The acting here is OK but nothing Oscar worthy.

The Law is a Fool is an OK Quincy episode for sure, it's a fine way to pass an hour but Quincy's barely in it & he doesn't perform an autopsy either which just seems plain odd, a Quincy episode without much Quincy.
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6/10
Kidnapping and legal maneuvering story
rayoflite2424 January 2016
The Law is a Fool begins with Carl Norman (Jeff Pomerantz) kidnapping the granddaughter of a former congressman, hiding her somewhere and making demands for her release including $500K and a quick, thrown trial by the DA so he cannot be prosecuted again for the crimes. Quincy (Jack Klugman) works with the police to try and identify clues as to the location of the girl while the DA goes through the motions of meeting the demands which concerns everyone involved as they fear Norman will get away with the crimes.

This is an odd episode which features a lot of legal wrangling and a smug, narcissistic culprit which I didn't particularly enjoy. While there is a mystery surrounding the location of the girl and whether she is truly alive, this wasn't really enough to overcome some other problems such as the obvious strategy which the DA was using that didn't occur to anyone else. Considering that these are supposedly law enforcement professionals with a lot of experience in all types of cases and prosecutions, this came across as rather foolish and naive. Another issue was that the minimal forensic evidence collected and analyzed really didn't help the investigation much at all and the police had to rely on the kidnapper to disclose the location, so this isn't an episode where science or the coroner lab saves the day!

Overall this is a below average Season 8 episode where Quincy doesn't have much to do in the story and as a result is not on very much which makes it less entertaining.
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3/10
If I understood what the DA was doing, why didn't the others understand?
planktonrules8 June 2013
"The Law is a Fool" is a very unusual and neat episode---provided your brain is in neutral. Otherwise, there are TONS of holes with this one...tons. So many that I found the show rather annoying.

A kidnapper abducts a child. He's soon caught but won't tell anyone where the child is. What's more, he's very cocky and behaves as if he'd expected to be captured. While at first he talks about the abduction being for revenge, it's soon obvious he just wants the money and has planned it all out. His deal he proposes to the DA--prosecute him for kidnapping and deliberately throw the case while agreeing to press no other charges against him AND $500,000! When this case is thrown, he will let everyone know where the child is--and she'll be unharmed. Fortunately, the DA has an ace in the hole--one I CLEARLY understood and foresaw--yet, oddly, no one else did!! Basing an entire story on a plot twist that most anyone would easily guess--that makes for a bad episode--especially since all the other supposedly intelligent characters were clueless.

The biggest other thing you'll probably notice about this one is that Quincy is barely in the show at all and he really has little to do with the case until a BRIEF scene near the end. I assume Jack Klugman was taking a vacation or needed a break from the show. But it sure didn't seem much like "Quincy"!
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