Across the Line

Across the Line begins with the police receiving a tip about a bank robbery and setting up a stakeout outside. As the robbers flee, one is shot by police and the other stops a passing motorist, jumps in and tells her to drive. When another police unit nearby sees the approaching vehicle, the officer shoots at the vehicle killing the woman driving while the robber flees. This initiates an internal affairs investigation and the husband of the victim files a wrongful death lawsuit while the cop maintains that he fired in self defense as the vehicle was aiming to hit him. Although skeptical at first, Quincy (Jack Klugman) comes around to believing the cop and decides to investigate further.

While this episode does feature an interesting investigation of a crime, there were a few problems with the set up that annoyed me. First of all, why was there no undercover police officers placed inside the bank after the tip was received? Instead of placing police in there to protect the employees and other customers if the thieves started shooting, Lt. Monahan (Garry Walberg) and crew sit outside waiting for them to rob the place and leave like a bunch of fools. Then we have police with assault rifles shooting at the suspects, really?? I could see if SWAT was present this is what they would carry, but detectives? Then with a ton of shooting going on footsteps away a woman drives right into the middle of it with her windows down and the police suspect nothing and don't see anything odd about it. The only way that she wouldn't have heard all of that gunfire was if she were deaf.

Aside from all of that, this is a fairly decent Season 8 episode which does feature a mystery and a bit of a plot twist towards the end which makes it much more interesting than most that we've seen during this season.

This episode of "Quincy" begins with the police about to apprehend some armed robbers in the act. However, it doesn't go as planned (probably since Monahan is in charge) and one of the robbers takes hostage and forces her to drive him away from the scene. A cop, standing in the road, sees them coming towards them and shoots the driver (the lady). It does stop the criminal but it also kills the woman and the cop is in trouble--especially when more is learned about what he was doing immediately before the shooting. It clearly looks like a major use of excessive force and, in a twist that makes no sense, Quincy agrees to represent the man in a police hearing.

While this is not a great episode and the cop sure isn't that sympathetic, it is a better than normal episode for season eight because it DOES involve a crime and not some social issue of the day. Worth seeing and satisfying.