...The Thigh Bone's Connected to the Knee Bone...

The last of the 90-minute episodes of "Quincy" is probably the best of those shows, though it also demonstrates that changing the format to the standard 1-hour show may not have been such a bad idea. "Quincy" was at its best when our eponymous hero had the least to work with, and this episode, with Quincy literally building a whole human being from a single thigh bone, shows him at his best.

The episode begins with the apparent villain slugging a security guard at a campus construction site and then (rather easily) pulling bones, a gun, and some clothing out of the dirt where earth-moving equipment has already been working. But he misses a few pieces, and the next day the construction foreman tells his workers to dispose of the remaining bones found there — fearing a work stoppage over what might be an Indian burial site.

In the meantime, Dr. Astin has assigned Dr. Quincy to teach a forensic pathology class at the same university, and one of his students (played by Linda Kelsey, soon to take on the role of Billie Newman in "Lou Grant") obtains this bone through means not shown on-screen. Even though she's only planning to be a psychiatrist, and doesn't recognize it as a human bone, she nevertheless brings it to Quincy's class — after which, one might say, complications ensue.

Other commentators have complained — sometimes justifiably — about the trimming of this and the other early episodes of "Quincy" from their original 90-minute length to an hour for syndication. But in this case it might have been a blessing, because this episode has a number of sequences that are nothing but padding. The "Crazy Credits" note on this page, for example, observes that a scene with Tina Andrews (as a black protester) was cut out. With due respect to Ms. Andrews, however, that scene is completely superfluous; it did nothing to advance the story, and the other protesters either make noise or fall silent on cue, coming across like . . . well, like something staged for a television program.

Otherwise, besides Kelsey, the episode features a young Stephen Macht; a brief scene with Kelsey's future "Lou Grant" co-star Jack Bannon; and a small part by a pre-"Love Boat"/pre-Congress Fred Grandy. It's a fine illustration of what made "Quincy" enjoyable to watch, as our hero picks up clues from obscure things like the amount of fluoride in the dead man's bone, an apparent bullet wound and knee injury visible on the bone, and the possibility that the dead man was an early casualty of the Vietnam War.

The last point leads to an interesting, ironic link to this show. It isn't true, as stated in this episode, that American troops didn't go to Vietnam until 1965 — the earliest names on the Vietnam memorial were "combat advisers" whose deaths date from 1959. And the first mention on an American television program of a combat casualty in South Vietnam likely came during an episode of "The Twilight Zone" first broadcast in September, 1963. The episode was entitled "In Praise of Pip," and the character who mentions Vietnam was played by a gifted, intense actor ... named Jack Klugman.

This episode highlights Quincy's forensic skills as he manages to build a portrait of person from just a femur that was found.

The bone was found in a dig on the university campus and bought to a university class that Quincy is about to give a lecture to. However Quincy notes that there is a bullet nick and wants to explore more. It means shutting down the excavation which annoys the contractors. Also a security guard was knocked out during the dig site the night before.

Lt Monahan is irate at Quincy's actions who has now roped in the students to join him in his investigations. Dr Astin is once again put under immense pressure and has to reluctantly back Monahan, who is rapidly becoming California's worst homicide cop as he completely ignores the attack on the security guard. However one person cautions Quincy that his rash actions could place the students in danger and one of them nearly dies as one interested spectator watches all the goings on closely.

I watched the cut down version of this episode so it might not all make narrative sense. Also this is an episode where the they get a creepy looking guy to be the villain of the week. I was surprised why this person was able to walk around the university campus without arousing any suspicion. Then again Quincy's students were all on the mature side. Stephen Macht who is one the medical students looked about 40.

The biggest fault given that this was made in 1977 was how they could get the date of the Vietnam war wrong. The victim identified was supposedly to have died in the Vietnam war 20 years earlier. Very shoddy writing but it is still an enjoyable but far fetched episode.

... and that is not surprising since this was one of the Quincy movies at 75 minutes made to fit in a 90 minute time-slot and pared down to 48 minutes to fit into a 60 minute time-slot for TV syndication. I feel like some key plot points might have been extracted in that 27 minutes that were discarded.

The episode has Quincy teaching a college course on forensic pathology to some medical students. One of the students finds a leg bone at a construction site and brings the bone to class. Quincy notices that the bone has a bullet wound and thus wonders where the rest of the body is and how the person died, assuming it was foul play. The class goes to the site, but cannot find the rest of the body. Thus Quincy takes that one bone and determines through forensic science a lot about the physical appearance of the human it once belonged to.

There are lots of conclusions drawn in this episode, especially when the investigation segues from what the person looked like to WHO the person actually was. Some of the clues leading to the conclusions made do not appear to be in the episode with the emphasis being more on the dramatic moments as far as what got retained in the syndication version. The DVD set of the series has the complete movies rather than the syndicated versions of these episodes in case you are that curious.

As an aside, at the construction site where the bone was found, Monohan and Dr. Astin show up to chide Quincy for getting in way of the construction project there. Monohan is in his customary gray suit, but Dr. Astin shows up dressed like the white Shaft! I realize that 70s clothes look like something that is worn on a dare, but Astin's outfit is loud even by those standards.

I have seen some other reviews that do a very thorough job of giving synopsis of the episode, So I won't go into too much detail about the episode's plot. There are some plot holes if you watch the shortened version, that I am sure are addressed in the longer version. I remember a couple times wondering what was going on with a certain student of his, And why he was acting the way he did. But what I like about this episode is the interaction between the students and Quincy, And how once again he has to fight city hall to prove he is correct. Eventually you would think people would start believing him when he is always correct. What I really liked was that this was CSI before CSI was a thing. I always find it fascinating to watch '70s shows and looking in the background at what life was like back then as well. I know when I get into a Quincy binge, this is one of the episodes I always like to watch. Overall it's just one of my favorites.

The Thigh Bone's Connected to the Knee Bone episode starts off with a security guard being knocked out an excavation site and the assailant collecting bones, a skull, a gun and clothing out of the dirt beneath. Later, a student in Quincy's forensic pathology university class brings in a human bone she also picked up at the site while walking to class. After examining the bone and finding damage consistent with a bullet wound, Quincy brings the class to the site where he halts construction and declares it a crime scene. He also does the same thing later at the city dump causing further disruption to sanitation services and making Lt. Monahan (Garry Walberg) and Dr. Asten (John S. Ragin) irate because they are not convinced that a crime took place. Quincy and his students are undeterred and begin the monumental task of trying to reconstruct the entire body of the victim from a single bone in an effort to help identify him and uncover the truth about his death.

This is overall a good cold case style episode of Quincy, but it is not without flaws as there are a couple of far-fetched elements and technical inaccuracies. First of all, in the opening scene the guard is knocked out at the exact spot where the skeleton and other items are buried and the attacker knows precisely where to dig. How would this be possible when the victim was buried there 20 years ago and the entire lot has been torn up and excavated since?? Another element of the story is that the victim's father was told in 1957 that he was killed while fighting in Vietnam which was should not have been a plausible explanation at the time as the troops were deployed much later.

These issues aside, this episode is quite enjoyable to watch at times and I especially enjoyed the scene where Monahan yells "A bone does not make a crime" and Quincy shuts him down saying "Let me give you a lesson in anatomy! The thigh bone's connected to the knee bone, the knee bone is connected to the shin bone..." as the students snicker in the background. Quincy is a great teacher in this one getting the students out of the classroom and into the field where he inspires young minds, and I can't help but feel like I would have had more of an interest in science had he been my teacher. Look out for a very young Fred Grandy of Love Boat fame as one of the students in Quincy's class.

Sadly, this is the final episode where Lynette Mettey appears as Quincy's girlfriend, Lee. In one particular scene, she calmly advises him to rethink the level by which he is involving the students because this is an official investigation and could prove dangerous. He doesn't heed her advice and one of the students is later attacked. This combination of patience, common sense and quiet resolve was exactly what the Quincy character needed in terms of balance in a female counterpart as opposed to who he ended up with later in the series which I won't get into. I wish Lee would have stuck around instead!