Police Surgeon

Sam Groom carried this show all by himself. He was the kind of doctor we all wish we could find today -- kind, caring, benevolent, and respectful of your wallet. In other words, this show was Science Fiction -- OK I am kidding of course -- except for Sam Groom. He was cool. The last thing I ever remember him doing was commercials for AMC, plugging "The Tough Americans" in response to the Japanese automobile onslaught of the late seventies. Five-year-no-rust-through warranty. Oh -- he also did commercials for Quaker State motor oil -- "Bret Bodine finishes first" in North Wilkesboro -- I am dating myself seriously. Unfortunately, the "tough Americans" didn't play with the Howdy Doody generation. AMC is gone. But Sam Groom is still around somewhere. I wonder what he's doing these days. Sam, if you are out there, CHEERS.

One of the lesser remembered or liked syndicated shows of the early 1970's.

I recall this show in it's guise as 'Police Surgeon', on American TV. Fairly typical 'The Doctor as Detective' plot line, with no major surprises. Different, as it was set in Canada, and not some big US city.

I read that Jack Albertson wanted out of this program as soon as he could be released. He complained about the cheapness of the show. Several 'History of TV' books just rake this show over the coals, as plain B-A-D!

Sam Groom has gone on to better things, and appears in a few 'Law and Order' episodes.

"Police Surgeon" was in fact the second and third seasons of a syndicated half hour TV series that began life as "Dr. Simon Locke" in its' first season. Sam Groom, a likable enough actor, played as Dr. Simon Locke, a young doctor who, in the "Police Surgeon" incarnation of the series, moves from the Dixon Mills small-town physician of the first season to a surgeon with the medical unit of a big-city police department (Toronto?) for the second and third seasons. Larry Mann was also featured during the last two seasons as Lieutenant Jack Gordon of the police department. As seemed to be the norm in all hospital/doctor series of the time, Dr. Locke seemed to spend more time playing detective each week than did Lt. Gordon who would seem to show up close to the end of each weekly episode to "wrap-up" the case and take the criminal (pursued and apprehended by Dr. Locke) to jail.

Both "Dr. Simon Locke" and "Police Surgeon" were cheap, by the numbers, first run syndication TV series that ran from 1971-1974 but were watchable none the less.

I watched this show in England in the seventies, and actually preferred it to many of the other American series of the period that were treated much less harshly by the critics. It was formulaic, so I was puzzled why I felt that way. Eventually I decided it was because it was only 30 -minute episodes. Most of the hour-format series seemed to take 30- minute plots and stretch them to approach an hour, so that copious commercial breaks wouldn't hurt. Taking an exactly similar plot and pacing it for 30 minutes (showing in England, without the monstrous commercial breaks) was better.

"Dr. Simon Locke" and the ensuing "Police Surgeon" were both admittedly made-on-the-cheap, Canadian television series! With a writing/directing/production team that comprised (in part) veterans of such series as "The Fugitive" and "Mannix" (Wilton Schiller, Chester Krumholz, John Meredyth Lucas, et al), and guest stars that were among the most popular American episodic television actors at the time, both incarnations of the series hardly lacked for talent, yet, apparently the miniscule budget showed the most in the inferior production values! The late, great Jack Albertson starred in the first season of the later-retooled series---and he allegedly left after balking over the insanely primitive working conditions, once even claiming that there were no dressing rooms, and that actors were left with the only option of changing clothes "in the bushes"! If true, there's cheap, and then there's CHEAP! Which is sad, because there was a lot of legitimate talent attached to the series! Perhaps if the production "purse strings" were a little more charitably open, the series could've had a longer run, and been more memorable for the right reasons!