Baby Rattlesnakes begins with a young girl being killed outside of her home in a drive by shooting. Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts the autopsy and he later finds out that a teenage boy already in a juvenile probation program is being accused of the crime. The teenager maintains his innocence and the coordinators of the program, including Dr. Emily Hannover (Anita Gillette), a psychologist, come to his defense. They maintain that their program is working and Quincy becomes interested in learning more about their techniques as well as Dr. Hannover.
This is a pretty dismal Season 8 premiere episode where we have a lot of debating and preaching over how to properly address the problem of youth violence and gangs. There is a lot of corny dialogue between the youths in the probation program and the counselors, and in one particular ridiculous interaction a teenager is being yelled at to keep his hands in his pockets because he is caught making gang-related sign language to another. Seriously, is that your method to address the problem behavior?? While I'm sure that there are youth probation programs out there which have had some measure of success in getting teenagers to turn their life around, I just didn't feel that this story conveyed that in a believable manner which made it difficult to get on board with this crusade.
The Dr. Emily Hannover character is first introduced in this episode and I'm really not a fan of the pairing as she is an outspoken, stubborn loudmouth which is just way too similar to Quincy at times. Another annoying thing is that she is a psychologist, so you know that means more psychoanalysis and therapy story lines for this season to give her something to do which I had more than enough of during Season 7.