Episode no. Season 6
Episode 24 Written by Joseph Calvelli Editing by Warren Adams | Directed by Jack Webb Produced by Jack Webb | |
Original air date March 19, 1974 (1974-03-19) | ||
"Clinic on Eighteenth Street" (also written as "Clinic on 18th Street") is the 150th episode — episode 24 of season 6 — of the television series Adam-12.
Jack Webb, whose production company had created Dragnet, Adam-12, and The D.A., had intended for this episode to be the pilot for a new series centered around the Fraud Division of the District Attorney's office, but no such series came to be.
Officers Pete Malloy and Jim Reed (Martin Milner and Kent McCord), who were the central characters of Adam-12, only made cameo appearances at the beginning and ending of this episode.
Plot synopsis
Diabetic patient Clark Watkins is sold a vibrating belt by Dr. Elroy Gantman, who tells him that as long as he wears it he won't have to take insulin shots anymore. Watkins dies soon afterward, and the belt he was wearing causes his case to be handed over to Abe Strayhorn of the Fraud Division of the D.A.'s office. His investigators Bardi and Carmichael trace Watkins and the belt to Dr. Gantman, who is also "treating" seven-year-old Maggie Fenton for blindness. Maggie's mother Marion had already been to several doctors and was told that the blindness was caused by a tumor that had to be removed, but Marion wants to believe Gantman's claims that surgery is unnecessary and refuses to listen to reason.
Strayhorn takes Gantman to trial for fraud and murder. In the courtroom, Gantman demonstrates the partial success of his "treatments" by shining a flashlight in Maggie's eyes and asking her if the light is on or off; Maggie gets it right every time. Strayhorn, however, notices that the flashlight makes a clicking sound when it's turned on or off, and asks to test Maggie himself. He tricks her into saying the light is on when it's actually off and vice versa, and she confesses that she's still completely blind and that Gantman had told her to play along if she wanted to get better. Gantman is convicted.