Main Man begins with a high school football player collapsing and dying on the field during a game. Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts the autopsy and determines that the young man had a cyst in his brain which detached and caused a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. The condition is genetic and Quincy then becomes focused on the dead teenager's younger brother, Steve (Scott Colomby), who also plays football for the high school warning the father (Eugene Roche) that he must seek out immediate medical treatment to treat the condition. The father does not accept Quincy's recommendation and wants his son to play in an important upcoming game before seeking treatment.
This is another episode where there is no crime committed as the death is from natural causes and the plot centers around saving a family member from suffering the same fate as the deceased. As a result, it delves pretty deep into the drama surrounding the family which includes mourning of the teenage boy, questioning of the father's decision to put off treatment for the brother so he can play in a big game and the bitter divide between the divorced parents who no longer communicate.
In some ways this is not a bad episode if you can appreciate this type of dramatic plot without a mystery featured, it is just not my preference. I completely understand that they were trying to change things up every so often so the series didn't become too formulaic and I think they succeeded in that regard, but for me, these episodes lack that special something that made Quincy a hit in the first place. When I tune in to Quincy, I want to see a good murder mystery play out, plain and simple. Unfortunately, we don't have that here.