Sick and watching Murder, She Wrote

I love the episode where Amos' sister leaves her husband and everyone is face down in the chowder...

My favorite is the one where someone Jessica slightly knows gets murdered, and then she figures out who did it.

r1, that is a classic.

The one with her cousin Emma is good. Widow Weep for Me is a classic. Deadpan is another one.

Did you ever seeing Pushing Up Roses on Youtube?

Jessica Behind Bars.

If the DL did a a MSW episode, this would be the one. Right down to the casting.

R6 wins!

Full episodes of Maude are on Youtube. Just saying.

Vince Irizarry was on Locher Room the other day (soap opera webcast) and said Lansbury did the final scene (where she reveals in the killer) in one take

He also said that the Murder, She Wrote set was the most pleasant and professional set he was ever on, and that is because of the way Lansbury ran the set - making sure everyone was happy and working towards one goal - the best show possible.

The Corpse Flew First Class is a gem (mostly from a peerless guest cast, led by Kate Mulgrew).

Another vote for Jessica Behind Bars, which is hella campy but genuinely good tension and mystery.

I liked the crossover episode with Magnum, PI. Jessica goes to Honolulu to help build Magnum’s business. All of Higgins’s old friends start dropping like flies the minute Jessica arrives. Magnum discoers she is actually a serial murderer and dozens of Cabot Cove murders are reopened.

Of my favorites was the one where Jessica and Amos take a bus trip and get stranded (with other passengers) in a diner during a rainstorm

Another one was when Jessica was a jury foreperson (that episode was their Emmy submission for the Best Drama category)

So many episodes with hot, young, shirtless guys. A few went on to become names. More died from AIDS. :(

I really love the one where Jessica finally goes off the deep end, tracks down and violently murders each golden girl, commits suicide by police , and both series and the nauseating associated DL threads are cancelled and forgotten forever.

Three Words: Jessica. Behind. Bars.

Terrible show!

Just watched GG S3E1 "Old Friends." Fast forward thru Sophia's scenes on the boardwalk, but the little girl is terrific in her scenes.

r12's suggestions, Murder Takes the Bus and Trial By Error, are two of the best episodes the show ever did.

Some of the other can't miss episodes in my book:

- Keep the Home Fries Burning - A tacky Revolutionary War themed restaurant becomes the scene of apparent food poisoning...and murder. - If It's Thursday, It Must Be Beverly - A woman's death leads to a surprising reveal about her husband's private life. Agreat Cabot Cove episode that makes terrific use of the town and its people, is very funny, and has one of the best endings. Some of the episodes don't repeat as well once you know the endings (so the scenes dedicated to sifting through the red herrings can get boring). This one is so entertaining throughout that it's eminently rewatchable--AND has a great mystery. - Sticks and Stones - Amos steps down as sheriff just as poison letters flood the town. One of the best endings. (Season 2 was really great.) - Thursday's Child - A woman claims to have had Frank Fletcher's love child, and turns to Jessica to prove he's innocent of murder. Probably the most emotional episode, and Angela's Emmy submission that year. She should have won.

I'd also throw in Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble and The Sins of Castle Cove as fun ones.

Ugh...I'm sorry the formatting didn't work. Maybe this will be better:

- Keep the Home Fries Burning - A tacky Revolutionary War themed restaurant becomes the scene of apparent food poisoning...and murder.

- If It's Thursday, It Must Be Beverly - A woman's death leads to a surprising reveal about her husband's private life. A great Cabot Cove episode that makes terrific use of the town and its people, is very funny, and has one of the best endings. Some of the episodes don't repeat as well once you know the endings (so the scenes dedicated to sifting through the red herrings can get boring). This one is so entertaining throughout that it's eminently rewatchable--AND has a great mystery.

- Sticks and Stones - Amos steps down as sheriff just as poison letters flood the town. One of the best endings. (Season 2 was really great.)

- Thursday's Child - A woman claims to have had Frank Fletcher's love child, and turns to Jessica to prove he's innocent of murder. Probably the most emotional episode, and Angela's Emmy submission that year. She should have won.

I'd also throw in Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble and The Sins of Castle Cove as fun ones.

ohhh yea.

I preferred the Cabot Cove episodes.

At first I thought you said "Sick of watching [italic] Murder, She Wrote [/italic], and that we were going to have to confiscate your Gay Card.

r19, Thursday's Child was definitely her best shot at winning, but unfortunately it was up against Patty Wettig having cancer on Thirtysomething.

There's talk she was very close to winning a few years later (post- Cagney and Lacey & Thirtysomething/China Beach), when Sela Ward won her first. It's just gossip, but supposedly all five were whiskers apart, and Lansbury was thisclose.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall features a great guest turn from Jean Simmons as a once popular mystery writer now eclipsed by Jessica. Simmons was the only guest actor nominated for Murder She Wrote at the Emmys.

Wearing of the Green - a very funny send-up of Cagney and Lacey.

They had to move the nosy old battleaxeout of Cabot Cove because everyone was murdered.

"The Miami Maniac vs. the Maine Matron" was an excellent crossover episode in which Jessica vacationed in Florida and was stalked by the notoriously cranky Golden Girls neighbor, Freida Claxton. "I'll cut you just like I cut that old tree, bitch!" Freida tells a cornered Jessica at the shocking climax.

What a bad show. We were offered the Jessica role (and turned it down) before desperate, has-been Angela accepted it.

My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean

Jessica pretends to be a drunk and Vicki Lawrence.

There’s that episode where Jessica pretends to be a hooker. The woman from her hometown had two marriages.

The MSW episodes I find to be classics:

- The first episode with Michael Haggarty. Jessica pretends to be a snooty reclusive heiress. I think Cyd Charisse guest starred.

- Jessica goes to a woman's prison. All female guest stars, including Yvonne Craig and Eve Plumb (or one of the Brady girls).

- Jessica and Grady go to a Playboy Mansion-type place.

- Magnum crossover. Higgins is a fangirl.

- Jessica pretends to be her friend to investigate the friend's sister's death at The Garden of Eden hotel.

- Jessica gets trapped in a ski lodge.

- Megan Mullally (with a Southern accent) plays an old student framed for murder in an old mining town full of hicks.

- Grady gets married. One of the most humorous episodes of the series.

^ I saw the Megan Mullally one. It was pretty good

[quote] when Sela Ward won her first. It's just gossip, but supposedly all five were whiskers apart, and Lansbury was thisclose.

Well I saw the episode Sela Ward submitted and no one was going to beat her - It was a powerful episode that had her character seek revenge on the guy that date-raped her daughter.

Any one where she's with her old MGM friends as guest stars is a hoot--the chemistry is already there: Jane Powell (as a nun), Kathryn Grayson & Gloria DeHaven and Ruth Roman in the CC beauty salon episodes, Van Johnson. You can also see, sort of, why Angie is the one who has the series and they're not, in terms of acting style.

What's always strange to me is the actors who seem lost at sea in the Murder, She Wrote format (I'm looking at you, Gale Storm).

^ Her old Picture of Dorian Gray co-star, Hurd Hatfield, was also in one

Where to start? From the first season "Murder Takes The Bus" featuring Rue McClanaghan.

"Mirror, Mirror on The Wall" from Season 5, originally planned to end the series.

Careful to avoid the "bookend" episodes from Season 6 and 7 where Jessica barely appears.

Easy, OP: Season 5!

Episode 3 Mr. Penroy's Vacation

Episode 15: Alma Murder, with DL fave Jason Beghe, Dinah Shore... I call it the gay episode.

If you're a big fan of Angela, then there's the one from season 2 Sing a Song of Murder - the one set in London.

Also from season 2, the episode with Bryan Cranston is pretty good.

Considering the fact that wherever Jessica went, someone was murdered, I couldn’t understand why anyone would invite her anywhere. In fact, people should have run screaming whenever they saw her.

You can always think of each episode as self-contained and she only ever comes across the odd murder.

Snow White, Blood Red is the Season 5 episode where Jessica gets stuck at a ski resort where multiple murders take place. It's a ton of fun, and to its credit, despite the killer turning out to be somewhat obvious, by the time you get to the denouement, you could still believe 4 or 5 of the (large) guest cast might have done it. That's both good plotting and good guest acting (even Emma Samms is good).

Jason Beghe also turns up in the campy "A Body To Die For," as a local fitness guru whose female coterie (including Ruta Lee, the chick from Knight Rider, and Sally Struthers) fawn all over his hot bod. It's also funny as Eve Simpson acts like she and Jessica have been besties forever, though in earlier seasons, they are acquaintances and Jessica tolerates Eve's slutty behavior.

The beauty shop episodes always stand out, but it's noteworthy there were only three of them, as they always seem to have been there (I think Loretta must be name-checked in a dozen different episodes).

R41 that one is great. Starts out with an very obvious stunt person doing wild skiing then it cuts to Jessica pulling off the goggles. Hilarious

r43, it's one of my faves for when I just need a good entertainment in 45 minutes. I laugh, I'm genuinely scared at least twice in it, and I laugh some more at some of the overacting (which is effective for the overbaked tone of the episode).

Remember the "wake" for the dead guy when someone gets pissed they are "mocking" the murder victim? The pre-credits snippet makes it look very scary!

OP, thanks to you I got on eBay just now and ordered the first two seasons of MSW. I've missed it since Hulu dropped it. Netflix dropped it before that, and I'm tired of never knowing when or if I'll be able to doze on the sofa while Jess and Seth old person-flirt.

So thanks for lighting a fire under me!

R42 that's the one I meant! I got my Jason Beghe episodes mixed up. Back when I was watching the series in the 90s, this was the ONLY episode where I guessed who did it in the first few minutes.

OP here. I love any of the Cabot Cove eps, especially the one when Amos's sister visits and flirts shamelessly with Seth!!

r46, if you don't want to buy the rest, the show is available on the new Peacock streaming service. You have to watch commercials, but it's free. It has all 12 seasons.

Thanks, R49.

OP, I’m surprised you caught a cold! If you were socially distancing, wearing a mask, and washing your hands thoroughly and often like you should have been doing since March it’s not very likely to have happened. You need to follow a more rigorous regimen or you may end up with the Covid after all. You just need to hang in there for a handful of months more until the vaccine comes to save us all.

[quote]I have a cold (not COVID) and have been loafing on the sofa.

"Loafing"? Pittsburgh?

Anyone watching Jess?

I thought the opening comment was "Sick of watching Murder, She Wrote" to which I would agree.

I've been watching the NYC episodes on Peacock (never saw them before) but they're a bit disappointing. The last one I watched, with Jess in New Orleans after the death of a jazz musician, was pretty bad.

I think the show is much more realistic if you imagine each episode stands alone and Jess only ever solves that one murder.

Each episode happens in its own alternate reality

I enjoy Murder, She Wrote but it is so cheesy and unrealistic.

My favorite episode is the first one! I think it plays like a very well done TV movie. The idea that Jonathan Harris was the murder was clever.

It was also George H.W. Bush's favorite series.

Don't know the title, but I like the one where she pretends to be someone else who, as it turns out, inherited a whorehouse.

Or the dramatic one with Cynthia Nixon where she suffers from a repressed memory.

For me the ones with Grady are always great. Jessica adores him and always works extra hard to get him out of trouble.

The one with the lottery ticket in Cabot Cove was great, too.

Then they had one where the town thinks a new arrival is a vampire. Or the one with the fortune-teller who turns out was just a common blackmailer.

In a later season the show did a spoof on Friends (apparently there was bad blood between the two shows, because they were pit against each other - putting in the same time slot - and MSW lost viewers). That reminds me that the show did an episode at a Hollywood studio that featured the house of Psycho.

Jessica never had sex again after Frank died?

The "Bus Stop" one features Abby Dalton as librarian with a keen eye for books.

There was a very special episode where Jessica had a much younger fella crushing on her hard. That was a bit uncomfortable though.

I never understood why the battleaxe Jessica would show up anywhere after the first oh say 50 murders that happened in Cabot Cove. She knew, but always seemed shocked, that she would solve a murder. That aside, yes, I watch it on occasion but I watch to see the guest stars. That’s the best part of the show. To see who was out of work and desperate to get on the show.

I like "Christopher Bundy died on a Sunday." It is basically an Agatha Christie novel- bunch of people in a country manor for the weekend. Grady made an appearance. Guest stars were Burt Convy, Robert Constanzo, Jan Hooks, Alex Rocco, and Robert Stack.

R61 she became a bit arrogant later on, inserting herself like she was a cop.

The early seasons are the best. When you get to the later seasons, the show does feel like it's self. Jessica always in her Hillary pantsuits, the people of Cabot Cove don't feel authentic, familiar faces disappear. Grady disappears after season 7 and only returns once in season 11. His wife never comes back. Michael Haggerty, Eve Simpson, the ladies of the beauty parlor all disappear. We get Wayne Rogers doing a bad Harry McGraw.

r63, but she does deliver the murderer in the end, despite having to put up with the (usually male) cops getting into a pissing match with her at first.

Columbo aged so much better.

I switch between Murder, She Wrote, TGG, Maury, and The Nanny.

One of the most under-appreciated episodes stars Mary Crosby as a suspected witch who returns to Cabot Cove to star in the community play. It also features a campy performance from Marian Seldes. Crosby and Seldes are so hilariously bad in this episode that it's almost like a comedy.

Another over-looked episode stars Carroll Baker as a mystery writer with a cheating boyfriend.

I can't stand the witch episodes. Remember that replacement for Doc Haslitt?

Love the episode in which Cesar Romero comes upon Jessica muff-diving Miss Joan Collins on the ill-fated island for retarded children.

I like Dead Man's Gold with Leslie Nielsen as a former beau of Jessica's (Season 3, Episode 6). It's not so much for the central mystery, but she and Leslie Nielsen actually had believable chemistry. His character was the hot guy from her past who she knew deep down would never be reliable, so she let him go. Jess still has that Yankee practicality and maintains the same view of him, but she gets some flirting in.

I also like the ones with Keith Michell as Dennis Stanton, the former jewel thief who goes straight and recovers stolen items for an insurance company. I prefer the ones where he's with Jessica helping to solve the crime, not the ones where Jessica is absent. DL triva--In the some of the ones where he's on his own, his assistant is played by Hallie Todd, the actress who played Blanche's slutty niece Lucy in the Golden Girls.

I also like the Michael Haggarty episodes. He and Jessica have a believable flirtation, and they usually had an international spy flavor to them.

R9 I've talked to a lot of people who were guests on the show and they all said the same thing.

OP, given your current predicament, you should watch "Crossed Up" where Jess solves a murder over a crossed telephone line in a pastiche of Sorry, Wrong Number.

"Who Killed JB Fletcher," where old ladies in a Jessica fan club--who carry around IDs that claim they're JB Fletcher--have to help Jess solve a murder of one of the members.

"Jessica Behind Bars" for all the reasons everyone has already said.

"The Days Dwindle Down," more fascinating than good where footage of a film noir called Strange Bargain is incorporated (along with some of that film's cast) into the plot.

"The Last Flight of the Dixie Damsel" where Jessica has to clear Frank's name, and almost ends up shagging one of his Air Force buddies from WWII.

"Funeral at Fifty Mile," the first season finale and Jess' take on one of Agatha Christie's best-loved stories.

"Murder, According to Maggie," the only good Jess-lite episode, where Jess' former student, Diana Canova, solves a murder on the set of a cop show she produces.

"The Dead File." Harvey Fierstein is a (straight!) cartoonist, whose strips are revealing details of a murder.

"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall," to watch Jean Simmons tear into the scenery like a beaver.

Sheriff

What's the name of the episode where the Hardy Boys appear?

R75, I think that was Frank and Joe Flip Flop Fuck.

The show seems really awful now. I used to watch to see who hadn't died yet and if there weren't interesting guest stars, it was easy to switch off. the show got worse with the irritating recurring characters and plots. The idea that Lansbury "wanted the best show possible" seems laughable. It was pretty by the numbers as time went on.

Mary martin would have been really annoying in the role, but probably funnier. Doris Day would have been too perky.

Sandy Duncan would have been amazing playing that character too.

At its best, Murder She Wrote was a well acted, entertaining murder mystery show with great guest stars. At its worst, it was a campy soap opera with bad overacting from washed-up tv actors.

R80 it's worst acting was from young nobodies in the later seasons as they tried to appeal to a younger audience.

The key difference between a bad episode in Season 2 and Season 11 is that the Season 2 bad episode would be tempered by the side thrills (the guest stars, some of the weird bad acting choices, laughing at some ludicrous element of the plot), while the Season 11 episode would be excruciatingly unwatchable as the young actors (almost to a one, Cynthia Nixon a rare exception) would be making no acting choices, and the dialogue was always about how great Jessica was, and how great her reputation was, and how we needed to listen to her explain all exposition (even when there was no plausible way for her to have figured it out).

Oftentimes, too, the killer would inexplicably confess when the only evidence was something said to Jessica that would not hold up in court. That happens sometimes in early seasons, but it happens so often in the last few seasons that it becomes drinking game material.

I’m sick and tired of watching Murder She Wrote too

I love Angela Lansbury.

Jessica Fletcher was a nosy old busy body battleaxe!

It's started screening from Season 1 here in Australia - recommend me your favourite episodes!

I am currently watching We're Off to Kill the Wizard featuring a child Joaquin Phoenix in an exceptionally bad performance as Jessica's great-nephew who bugs her to take him to a medieval themed theme-park. I'm guessing casting directors just loved his big blue eyes or something. It's a fine lesson for any number of child actors stinking up the screen in bit parts: they too may go through puberty and uncover some talent.

I have noticed there are a lot of very good looking young (at the time) men in the series. Most of them never really went to do anything else...

Some episodes are unwatchable.

It’s so stupid when Jessica takes over an investigation from the authorities. They should be like get the fuck out of here you nosy old battleax!

I like the episode in which one of Jessica's ex-students writes a Peyton Place style novel about Cabot Cove and the town is horrified

R91 "The Sins of Castle Cove"?!

I get sick and tired from watching that shit too.

The Sins of Castle Cove is a wonderfully fun Cabot Cove episode, focused on the beauty parlor which, though mentioned many times, only features in 3 episodes. Page Hannah (sister of Daryl) is pretty shitty as the young author, but the other guest stars (led by Ruth Roman and Julie Adams) are having a blast.

season #1 episode "lovers and other killers" with grant goodeve coming out of a rec pool in a black speedo! oh yeah!...

The wardrobes and hairstyles of the guest stars and supporting characters run the gamut of the 1980s worst, but Jessica Fletcher always looks great: no feathered mullets or mall bangs for her, no linebacker shoulder pads or pastel jumpsuits as sported by the Golden Girls. Angela Lansbury always looked impeccable, tailored and classic. She must have had a say in choosing not to look like a fashion victim.

I’ve never actually watched it. What steaming service has it?

Are you American r97?

The show is available on NBC's Peacock streaming service (since Universal produced the show). You have to sign up for a free account, but all 12 seasons are available without having to pay for anything.

Link

The old smelly cunt battleaxe never got laid during the entire series. Not surprising as she was always being a nosy annoying old busybody.