Quincy M.E. Necrophilia Perversion

I was thinking about the ‘80s autopsy/detective drama series ‘Quincy M.E.’ over the bank holiday weekend. I was particularly thinking about the title sequence, which has three things very wrong with it. Things that reveal the bizarre things that passed as normal in TV drama at the time as effectively as Quincy’s knife revealed the foul play behind the deaths of the stiffs in his refrigerated drawers.

1. WRONG! There’s an edit threaded into the title sequence where you’re led to believe that Quincy is examining a corpse – but the twist is that it’s really a gorgeous blonde sharing a glass of champagne on the deck of Quincy’s yacht (I’ll get to the yacht). Oh, what larks! The morbid associations this hilarious gag conjures up would keep Freud awake at night (mind you, all that cocaine didn’t help eh, Sigmund?).
2. WRONG! The fact that the horny old goat is shagging women young enough to be his granddaughter just reflects the male fantasies of the TV executives who produced the series. It’s often suggested that old men chasing young women are emotionally stunted misogynists. However, what really puzzles me is what’s going on in the heads of the women shagging him. How does an old man who makes a living cutting open dead people (and whose social life is limited to hanging out with a bunch of other old men in one pub) attract these babes? Is his charm? Is it the heady aroma of formaldehyde? Is it his yacht? Hang on - yacht?!
3. WRONG! Yes, Quincy lives on a yacht. On a coroner’s salary. I should fucking coco. I’ve never heard of a bent coroner, but if this wasn’t Hollywood TV lah-lah land you’d swear the old bugger was on the take.

Anyway, take a look at the titles now and see what you think…