Quincy M.E. (TV Series) Women of Valor (1983) User Reviews

Another quality of care debate

[rayoflite24 · 5/10 · 2 February 2016]

Women of Valor begins with midwife Olivia Allen (Lynn Hamilton) being approached by a neighbor asking her to help a pregnant woman in a difficult labor at home. Olivia initially refuses because she has never seen the pregnant woman before, but when she finds out that she is an undocumented immigrant who refuses to go to the hospital, she relents and assists in the delivery. When the baby is delivered, there are complications and they are rushed to the hospital anyway where the newborn dies. The treating physician is furious over this and blames Olivia without having all of the facts which leads to charges being filed against her. At the request of another doctor that knows Olivia, Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts another autopsy of the newborn in the hopes of being able to exonerate Olivia while there is a debate over whether unlicensed midwives truly help or are harmful.

While we do see Quincy performing an autopsy in this story and there are several scenes that take place in the coroner lab, really the issue of unlicensed midwives is in the spotlight here and everything else is secondary. There is no crime or mystery whatsoever as we see what happened in the opening scenes, so this episode becomes a sounding board advocating for natural childbirths and protecting those that support this practice. It makes for a rather dull episode and given that we have already seen many episodes in the Quincy series that deal with quality of care type issues, it is not very original either.

Overall this is a pretty below average late Season 8 episode where we do get to see Quincy doing what he does best in the coroner lab but the plot doesn't have very much going for it and will likely leave you feeling a little bored while watching.

More rubbishy outdated moral issues raised in the most boring way.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 9 January 2008]

Quincy M.E.: Women of Valor starts as unlicensed midwife Olivia Allen (Lynn Hamilton) is approached in the street by a woman who begs her to help deliver her friends baby, against her better judgement Olivia agrees but there are complications & the baby suffers from breathing problems. Olivia takes the baby to Charrington Hospital but dies while Doctor's try to revive it, since Olivia is unlicensed & has no medical training the D.A. decides to go ahead with a murder charge on the assumption that if the baby had been delivered in a hospital it would still be alive. Meanwhile a woman is transfered from Charrington while in labour but the baby dies in the ambulance en-route, concerned about the issues she is witnessing Dr. Katherine Reed (Elizabeth Huddle) ask's the county coroner's office for independent help, Dr. Asten (John S. Ragin) puts his best man Quincy (Jack Klugman) on the case...

Episode 20 from season 8 this Quincy story was directed by Georg Fenady & I have to say Women of Valor is rubbish & coming straight after the brilliant Murder on Ice (1983) it is even more of a disappointment. I personally like the Quincy episodes where he has to solve or prove a crime using his detective skills & medical expertise & conversely I hate the episodes where Quincy barely features & the entire show is hijacked by some awful, dull, irrelevant & outdated moral issue. Here the script tries to argue the case for midwives in California, unfortunately here in the UK we have always had midwives so the basic message is totally lost & irrelevant over here as well as many countries around the world. Add that to the fact that times have changed in America too & I would suggest Women of Valor is one of the most redundant, pointless & when viewed today meaningless Quincy episodes ever & believe me it's up against some strong competition especially during the generally awful season eight. Quincy is barely in it & Women of Valor focuses on the character of Dr. Katherine Reed & her troubles as her association with Olivia causes her all sorts of problems, cue lots of boring personal drama of the dullest kind.

There's not much to comment on Women of Valor, it's bland & shot in a pretty dull way. Strangely this one doesn't feature Quincy's wife Emily at all despite being the episode after they get back from their ill fated honeymoon featured in Murder on Ice. The acting is alright but I really hate the way Quincy is getting less & less screen time, almost like he is being forced out.

Women of Valor is rubbish, when it's good I love Quincy as a show but I'm not blind to it's bad episodes of which there are a fair few especially during season eight & when it's bad damn is it bad! Disappointing in all aspects.

Preachy and dated.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 2 July 2013]

While I didn't dislike this episode as much as the other reviewer currently listed on IMDb, this is NOT to be taken as an endorsement of "Women of Valor". The show is yet another super-preachy episode and one that features very little of Quincy.

The show begins with an illegal alien in labor and a midwife (Olivia Allen) being brought into the case. Apparently, the woman has been in labor an extraordinary length of time and there is definitely something wrong with the baby when it's delivered. So, the mother and child are rushed to the hospital where the child dies. Almost immediately, the hospital is pushing for murder charges against this unlicensed midwife and the rest of the show becomes a long diatribe about natural childbirth, midwives and the like. I say diatribe because the characters seemed pretty black & white--and the show wasn't exactly subtle! I also was amazed how much the case for midwives was overstated. I think midwives are great--but hearing births they supervise as 'beautiful and sensual' sounded silly.

As I have said so many times before, I really preferred the shows where Quincy was more involved in crime investigations instead of preachy episodes about social issues--so that's one strike against "Women of Valor" at the onset. In addition, the preachy style undermines what, at time time, might have been a valid issue (though nowadays midwives and natural childbirth are much more accepted and in use).

Another Great Episode

[r_mastroianni · 10/10 · 14 June 2024]

Quincy went on another fantastic crusade to help a woman wrongly accused of inadvertently killing a baby during delivery. The other incompetent medical examiner from the hospital determined that the baby's neck was trapped against the pelvic bone of the mother.

How wrong he was since he never sectioned the baby's brain.

Enter Dr. Quincy. He entered a phone booth and changed into his greens.

Super Quincy. Faster than a speeding....oh you know the rest.

He worked diligently and discovered the baby's lungs exploded as a result of too much oxygen being pumped into it...."burst like an over-inflated balloon" is how Quincy described it. That's what killed the baby. Quincy said that there was nothing anyone else could have done to save the baby because the complications were too severe.

And Quincy was in plenty of scenes. I have no idea what another reviewer is talking about....then again neither does he.