Murder, She Wrote is such a cozy show.

I love how guilty people at the end of every episode confess Jessica everything, even when she doesn't really have any strong proofs and even when there are no cops around. There are often two guilty people and one of them says something like "Don't tell her anything!" and the other one, usually a female, replies "Oh, what's the point?! Yes, it was us!"

Why would anyone tell about stuff like that to some crazy nosy bitch who's not even with the police. Why don't they just tell her "I'm not saying a word without my lawyer, you crazy bitch!"

There's a specific genre called cozy mysteries. Murder She Wrote is a prime example. The sleuth is always an amateur, usually in an occupation unrelated to law enforcement or criminal investigation. The police are portrayed as incompetent (many times asking the sleuth, a civilian for help) and the murderer always confesses all of his or her crimes to the sleuth.

Cozy mysteries are meant to be light entertainment. They rely on the viewer (or reader) to suspend a lot of belief. Seriously, if you had a friend that found a dead body everywhere she went, would you really invite her to dinner?

Cabot Cove = Detriot for the murder rate

I wonder if you put Jessica Fletcher and Jane Marple onto the same case who would solve it first.

R1 It's even funnier how the killer sometimes apologizes to Jessica after confessing everything.

Jessica. She'll go out and beat some balls to find a killer. Miss Marple just hides behind things and eavesdrops.

Monk has a similar format.

I don't know, Jessica would often find sympathy for some of the murders. Miss Marple had an iron-clad belief in good and evil.

I love Seth Hazlitt.

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Poirot is a cosy mystery show. Morse, too

Does this answer your question, VotN?

I'm sorry, but Precious Ramotswe is a better detective than fucking Velma Dinkley.

And I think Jessica only takes the lead because her body count was so much higher.

And of course, let it not be forgotten that Dame Angela Lansbury did star as Miss Marple.

And that the title "Murder, She Wrote" was taken from Margaret Rutherford's "Murder, She Said."

Wheels within wheels.

Miss Marple would win. She knew psychology and behaviors from her life in St. Mary's Mead and employed that knowledge way more than did JF.

I think Midsomer Mysteries ranks up there with the great cozy mystery shows.

Marple was sexually repressed.

Miss Marple was a virgin in her 70s. Of course she was repressed.

Everyone knows Jessica was out climbing any pole she could find.

Yeah, watching MSW again as an adult, it surprises me how much they hint that Jessica is not celibate in her widowhood.

I doubt she and Seth ever did anything, but she and Michael Hagarty, the MI-6 agent were definitely fucking.

She has an affair with Leslie Nielson during the show.

I wonder if she still thinks about him parting her thighs

Anyway, to answer my own question.

Jessica versus Joan Hickson's Marple - Hickson

Jessica versus Geraldine McEwan's Marple - Jessica

Jessica versus Julia McKenzie's Marple - tie

Jessica versus Margaret Rutherford's Marple - they'd go out on the town together and solve crimes while having a marvelous time.

As I get older I want this sort of show that can be put on the dvd player and I can just drift off to sleep. I hate to watch anything on TV because the commercials are increasingly irritating.

That fake accent of Dr. Hazlitt, and it was always a good outlet for older Hollywood stars to show how they really have aged. There should have been a spin off of just the Beauty Parlor women dishing the dirt.

No one can come close to Joan Hickson (Miss Marple). I would love how the police inspector always considered her an old nosy biddy. She would stammer, get confused, knit but that was all in character.

I love how there's a tumblr page dedicated solely to Jessica's freeze frame laugh. We gay guys have way too much time on our hands.

R4 I'd say Jessica would solve it first as Miss Marple books were usually set over a period of days/weeks and Jess seemed to get the job done much quicker! Plus she has much more experience to draw on!

I like Jess out of Cabot Cove, same with the books.

MSW is the TV equivalent of comfort food.

I hated when Tom Bosley left. Sheriff Tupper added to the coziness. No wonder they gave him his own cozy mystery show. I never liked Ron Masek as Sheriff Metzger. Creeper.

Shriff Mort was to much of a tough guy. Amos was an old queen, like Seth.

I recently bought the MSW 4 Movie Collection DVD and was disappointed that none of them were set in Cabot Cove. And Angela's Southern accent in "The Last Free Man" was embarrassing.

I have that set, r32. I like the one set on the train, South by Southwest, but the rest didn't do much for me.

Yeah the tv movies were quite dull. They defo should have set one is Cabot Cove but maybe they had destroyed the set by that point?

That freeze frame tumblr just made my day

I keep missing the episode with Megan Mullally.

R36 It was called Coal Miner's Slaughter and was very good! Jessica is caught in the middle of a lynch mob, coming right at her in the middle of this hick town. If you have a dirty mind it looks like all the man are descending on JB to ravish her!