(TV Series)

(1982)

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5/10
Not horrible.
planktonrules29 May 2013
I noticed that the other reviewer hated this episode and called it horrible. While I love the reviews by Mr. Andrews and think they are often better than mine for this show, in this case we just seem to disagree. While I do think the episode has problems (which I'll talk about below), overall it is decent.

The show suffers from two major problems. First, there really isn't much Quincy in the show. Second, there really is no crime to investigate. Normally, these would be the kiss of death for the episode and I must admit that "The Flight of the Nightingale" is weak in these ways. The best shows in the series were clearly the earlier ones--where REAL crimes were investigated.

Despite this, the show does point out a serious problem--the lack of respect professional nurses get from doctors. While I assume this improved since 1981, when I worked in a psychiatric hospital in the 80s, I could see this. In the case shown in this episode, a doctor screws up and blame is assigned to a nurse--and the nurses end up going on strike to get better pay and more respect. Actually, now that I think about it...this show was pretty weak as it had a higher than normal amount of speechifying and seemed a bit preachy. So, you have a serious legitimate problem that is addressed in a less than stellar manner. I say three cheers for nurses, only a minor single hooray for "Quincy"!
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5/10
Weak episode featuring lots of hospital drama
rayoflite2422 December 2015
The Flight of the Nightingale begins with nurses in a hospital complaining about long hours, low pay and not being respected by doctors and hospital administrators. Later in the evening, Nurse Lynn Buchanan (Georgann Johnson) notices that the prescribed heparin drip IV has been turned off for an ailing patient in pain, and when she cannot locate the attending doctor she turns it back on following the orders in the chart. The patient dies shortly thereafter and the doctor blames Nurse Buchanan accusing her of administering too much of the drip, whereas she argues that the doctor left incomplete notes. Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts the autopsy and must determine if it was actually the drip that killed the patient while the nurse's job hangs in the balance and her coworkers go on strike.

First off, I don't like these episodes where the story takes place in a hospital setting rather than the coroner lab. Quincy is not supposed to be a hospital drama, yet this is exactly what we have here. So how does this reconcile with the fact that Dr. Quincy doesn't work in a hospital you might ask? Well, it doesn't as we barely see him in this story and there is some contrived subplot about Dr. Asten (John S. Ragin) bringing his wife in for surgery after she collapses. I assume Barbara Tarbuck was not available at the time of filming of this episode as we now see Louise Asten being played by Cynthia Harris. Recasts are sometimes necessary and I get that, but between this and the fact that there was absolutely no mention of the boy that the Astens were fostering and trying to adopt earlier in this same season (For Want of a Horse) just made this whole subplot come across as very sloppy and inconsistent. I'm all for giving the regular players their own personal stories from time to time, but at least be constant about it!

Another problem with this episode is that the characters come off as total caricatures in that we have the benevolent and kind-hearted nurse, the angry and embittered nurse, the chauvinistic and condescending doctor, etc. It is a shame that all of the characters were written in this one-dimensional manner as there are some good guest stars appearing here, but there is only so much that you can do with a poor script.

Overall, this is a pretty weak Season 7 episode that does not feature any type of crime but does address the treatment of registered nurses and would have been more appropriately featured on a hospital drama series rather than Quincy.
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3/10
Horrible episode.
poolandrews9 August 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Quincy M.E.: The Flight of the Nightingale starts in Doctors Hospital where the nurses are overworked, underpaid & undervalued. Floor 4 head nurse Lynn Buchanan (Georgann Johnson) checks a patient named Walter McCowan & sees that he is in pain & that someone has turned off his heparin drip, a vital anticoagulant serum. Not seeing anything on McCowan's chart to the indicate the contrary Buchanan turns the drip back on, later that night McCowan dies & hospital administrator Brucher has no option but to suspend Buchanan who takes the blame for McCowan's death. After receiving great care at the hospital & from Buchanan in particular Dr. Robert Asten (John S. Ragin) ask's Los Angeles coroner Quincy (Jack Klugman) to try & find another cause for McCowan's death & try to clear Buchanan as the other nurses at Doctors Hospital decide to go on strike in protest...

Episode 17 from season 7 this Quincy story was directed by Gene Church & is one of those moralistic preachy Quincy episodes that I just can't stand. When Quincy is good & it's about some sort of murder or mystery that Quincy has to solve using his medical skills & knowledge & passion for the truth then I don't think there is a better crime drama out there. It can be funny, it can be intriguing, it can be be emotional & it can be surprising & original. Unfortunately The Flight of the Nightingale is everything that I hate about Quincy all rolled into one horrible episode that wasted fifty minutes of my life. For a start Quincy is barely in it, in fact he is relegated to a mere cameo & has no real impact on the main story. He never even goes to Doctors Hospital where all the trouble is happening & rather bizarrely he never even meets nurse Lynn Buchanan whom he is trying to save & exonerate which could be a first, I can't think of another episode of Quincy where Quincy doesn't even meet the other main character's. The whole episode is obviously a conscience pricking exercise in trying to highlight the job nurses do, the fact that they need to be paid more & given more respect & of course that they are essential to the running of a hospital. Yeah, yeah we get the point. There's no humour, there's no mystery, there's no murder, the character's are dull & the episode is just awful in it's outdated moralistic heavy handed preaching tale of social issues.

I would say Klugman gets about two minutes of screen time in this, one scene at the start at Asten's house & three laboratory scenes is his sum total. Snce Klugman is one of the best things about Quincy that's not good. The title obviously refers to pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale rather than the national bird of Iran the Nightingale! One of the few episodes which doesn't feature either Danny, his bar or a cheesy comedy moment at the end, in fact Quincy doesn't even appeal during the final ten minutes or so. Cynthia Harris makes the first of her two appearances as Asten's wife Louise.

The Flight of the Nightingale is the sort of outdated dull & moralistic Quincy episode that I quite simply hate. The story sucks, Quincy is relegated to a brief cameo, the drama just isn't well written or acted enough to be truly effective & at only fifty odd minutes it doesn't really have time to tell an involved story.
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4/10
I'd forgotten why I stopped watching this show towards the end...
AlsExGal21 December 2023
... and then I caught this episode and it reminded me of why.

A nurse helps cut red tape when Dr. Asten's wife needs emergency surgery. Then that same nurse makes a mistake when she restarts an IV drip that a doctor had stopped intentionally but had left no notes on the patient chart saying that he had done so and why. The patient dies and the nurse is on the hot seat. The nurse quits before they can fire her, and the other nurses in the hospital go on strike until their demands about working conditions, pay, and professional respect are met. Dr. Asten take an interest in the situation because the nurse helped his wife and that gets Quincy involved.

It's bad enough this was one of the "issue" episodes of Quincy that seems like an outdated episode of Sixty Minutes from 1970, but it doesn't even have much Quincy! The nurses are not regular characters on the show and don't have any real connection to those characters, and their issues seem very oldy and moldy at this point. They try to turn this into a "male employee (doctor) giving no respect to a female employee (nurse)" issue, but today with many nurses being male and many doctors being female, it just seems tired and boring.
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