Quincy is a lot like Jessica Fletcher from "Murder She Wrote" because whenever either goes on a vacation, you KNOW that something horrible is going to happen!! Bodies pop up right and left whenever either of them or folks like Charlie Chan are trying to take a break from their jobs--which never seems to happen! Heck, for the good of mankind, all these folks should work 24/7 and never take a vacation!! In the case of "Snake Eyes" (parts 1 and 2), Quincy takes his first regular girlfriend of the series (Lynette Mettey) on their second attempted vacation (the previous one to Catalina Island ended in death, of course). This time it's to go to a conference and do some gambling in Lake Tahoe--with guest Buddy Hackett on hand for a bit of color as, what else, a standup comic, and Van Johnson (who needed a haircut) as the resort manager.
The show begins with a lounge singer becoming sick while she's performing. Soon, guest of the resort also become sick. The manager is worried--but he's more worried about his resort getting a bad reputation. So, at first, they are slow to respond to the growing crisis. Eventually, they get three pathologists at the conference to help them with the epidemic--and soon several of these victims die! What could it be? There's a worry that it COULD be the dreaded Legionnaire's Disease (here called 'Legion Fever').
This episode is pretty timely, as only a year earlier Legionnaire's was first seen--and by 1977 they STILL weren't exactly sure what caused this to occur. It's also well written, very interesting and among the best shows of the series so far. Episode 1 ends with panic beginning to grip the resort's guests--see part two to find out exactly what occurs next.