A Small Circle of Friends begins with a woman being pulled into an alley by a masked man and stabbed to death. He takes her identification with him but leaves her cash and jewelry behind. Meanwhile at Danny's, Quincy (Jack Klugman) and his latest girlfriend, Marsha (Jo Ann Pflug), are watching their favorite football team play on television. The team wins the game, and later in the locker room a player suddenly dies from an aneurysm. Quincy performs the autopsy and further identifies that the man had contracted a rare strain of gonorrhea resistant to penicillin. As it turns out, the woman who was murdered was also a carrier suggesting a connection between the two. Quincy must work with the Health Department to identify and treat anyone else who may be infected to prevent a breakout while also working with the police to find the killer.
This is an interesting episode in many ways as it weaves together a public health crisis along with a murder investigation whereas many other episodes of the series would feature one or the other as the plot. My only criticism is that the murder mystery seemed to take a backseat to the venereal disease containment for most of the episode, but otherwise I found it to be a quite reasonable and compelling story throughout. Kudos to the Quincy writers and production team for tackling a sensitive topic that most prime time dramas would have avoided back in 1979.
All in all, a good Season 4 episode entry which I would definitely recommend viewing.
This is an interesting episode in many ways as it weaves together a public health crisis along with a murder investigation whereas many other episodes of the series would feature one or the other as the plot. My only criticism is that the murder mystery seemed to take a backseat to the venereal disease containment for most of the episode, but otherwise I found it to be a quite reasonable and compelling story throughout. Kudos to the Quincy writers and production team for tackling a sensitive topic that most prime time dramas would have avoided back in 1979.
All in all, a good Season 4 episode entry which I would definitely recommend viewing.
