User Reviews

"Last Day, First Day" begins with some dirt-bags setting up a murder to look like an accident. However, the body flies out of the car and the killers' hope that the body would be incinerated are dashed. So, the drug dealers decide to cover this up by forcing Dr. Moore (Harry Townes) to fake the autopsy results.

At the same time, a new resident comes to the department. She follows Quincy during some of the episode (including during a great scene where Quincy talks to a young boy about the death of his father). Quincy also suggests the lady do some tests for herself--duplicating the work of another autopsy. However, by chance, she does this for the one that Dr. Towne fakes--and her results completely contradicts his. What's next? See this one.

"Last Day, First Day" is a fine example of writing--better than usual. It manages to combine decent comedy (the softball game and the guy in the cold room crack), pathos (the death of the boy's father) and an interesting crime. This episode has it all--and the show was firing on all cylinders. Well worth watching.

Quincy M.E.: Last Day, First Day starts as Dr. Asten (John S. Ragin) introduces new trainee laboratory technician Harriett Bowlin (Sarah Rush) who has just arrived straight out of University, it's up to chief medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman) to show her the ropes. Meanwhile forensic pathologist of over thirty years Dr. Gill Moore (Harry Townes) comes under pressure from his drug dealing son Tony (Bill Beyers) to fix an autopsy on a guy named John Rubio to make it look like he died in a car accident rather than being murdered from a huge overdose of heroin by local mobsters. Tony says the people behind Rubio's murder will kill him if he doesn't fix the results, his father agrees & lies about the autopsy findings but since Bowlin took her own samples to process as experience his plan starts to fall apart...

Episode 3 from season 6 this Quincy story was directed by Leslie Martinson & Last Day, First Day was a really good episode until the rushed ending which spoilt everything. I liked the setting inside the laboratory & that a crime is being committed there in the way that it was, I think it's different from any other episode in the show thus far & the character of Dr. Moore was quite well conceived as someone who has integrity but ultimately has to put his son first. There's a couple of assassins in here as well, a comedy subplot about Quincy making a fool of himself at a baseball game a few days earlier, a new trainee lab technician & a Rabai. There's a fair amount going on & I suppose it's no great surprise that the production team run out of time & just when you think Dr. Moore, the assassins & Tony are all going to be exposed & caught the episode shifts to Danny's with all the regulars sitting around a table for thirty seconds of exposition where Quincy says the killers were caught & Moore lost his job which is a rather rushed & unsatisfactory way to finish the episode off after I had invested the best part of fifty odd minutes in the character's & the story. How annoying. Worth watching for sure but the rushed ending just doesn't feel right & the plot doesn't feel like it has any closure.

There's a really bizarre car crash at the start of this episode which in reality would be impossible, for a start the car is pushed over the edge of a cliff & it explodes in mid air without actually touching or crashing into anything. How did that happen exactly? Then the driver Rubio who is already dead is thrown from the wreck even though neither doors open & I also think he would have been toast since the car blew up as soon as it left the cliff edge. How did that happen exactly? The two bumbling killers suspect that the seat beat broke. How? Seat belts just don't break. Car doors don't just fly open for no reason. The whole sequence is very clumsily put together & thought out. Harry Townes makes the third of his four guest appearances on Quincy each time playing a doctor although different doctor's. Pete the security guard fans should take note he probably has his biggest ever role in Last Day, First Day. The acting is alright but all that painfully fake laughter at the photo slides of Quincy trying to play baseball sounds really bad & forced.

Last Day, First Day was going really well until the last two minutes in which the makers try to tie everything that has happened in the episode up in the space of one thirty second conversation at Danny's & needless to say they don't pull it off satisfactorily.