Vigil of Fear begins with an aggressive community watch group patrolling their crime ridden neighborhood. Later that evening when they happen upon an armed robbery at a store, they chase the shooter into a dark alley and exchange gunfire killing a man. When Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts the autopsy, he determines that an innocent bystander was killed and this puts the neighborhood watch group at odds with the police who want to shut them down as they are not trained for this type of work.
The premise for this episode was not bad, but the execution is so poor and ridiculous that it nearly becomes laughable. Right from the opening scenes it gets silly in that we see a bunch of supposed criminals standing in the street face to face in a close huddle singing songs to each other until the watch group breaks it up and sends them on their way. Not sure about anyone else, but I had a hard time believing that this is how hardened criminals spend their time, singing happy tunes together out in the open while drawing attention to themselves. Then we have the watch group which consists of a bunch of caricature types reciting some of the most corny dialogue you've ever heard. Throw in the police and their speeches about not taking matters into your own hands and calling the proper authorities when you see something suspicious, and we have one of the worst episodes of Season 6 which I do not recommend.
This was the finale for Season 6 which brought the total episode count for that season to 18. I found that interesting because once again it is not really a "full season" by traditional standards for primetime series of the time as most featured 22 or more episodes. I don't know if that was all NBC ordered at the time or if it was cut back due to Jack Klugman wanting more time off like in Season 3, but this is a recurring trend in the Quincy series which lead to a much lower total episode count in comparison to other shows that also ran for 8 seasons.