Today in the Department of Before They Were Star Trek Stars, Jonathan Frakes guest stars in "Ghost of a Chance," episode 2 of the eighth season of Quincy, M.E. (original air date October 6, 1982).
Frakes plays a young surgical resident working under an eminent heart surgeon played by Hollywood legend José Ferrer, who is padding his billing by booking more procedures than he can possibly do himself, and then leaving the actual surgery to be done by inexperienced, unsupervised residents without the knowledge of the patients.
Other Trek connections under the cut:
The family of a patient who dies as a result of this arrangement, who request an autopsy from Dr. Quincy, is played by future Next Generation guest stars. The patient's widow is Ellen Geer, who played Dr. Kila Marr, the Federation expert on the deadly crystalline entity in "Silicon Avatar."
And the patient's brother is Nicolas Coster, who had a memorable role as Admiral Haftel, the Daystrom scientist who tries to take Data's daughter Lal away from him in "The Offspring." It wasn't until I was researching this post that I learned Coster passed away just over a year ago. I rewatched "The Offspring" last night because I needed my heart broken again, I GUESS.
"She won't survive much longer. There was nothing anyone could have done. We'd repolarize one pathway and another would collapse. And then another. His hands… were moving faster than I could see, trying to stay ahead of each breakdown. He refused to give up. He was remarkable. It just wasn't meant to be."
Harry Townes, who portrayed the underground leader Reger in the Original Series episode "The Return of the Archons" plays the chief of staff of the hospital where Ferrer and Frakes practice.
The head of the Board of Medical Quality Assurance is played by character actor and Fifth Level Eyebrow Master Philip Pine. He also played Colonel Green, one of the "Evil" historical figures the Excalbians conjure up for the battle between the forces of Good and Evil they stage in the Original Series episode "The Savage Curtain."
Unfortunately we never get to see the face of the surgeon on the left, but he's played by Conroy Gedeon, better known to Trek fans as the agent who apprehends Dr. McCoy and takes him off to the "Federation funny farm" in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
