Murder She Wrote: The Complete First Season DVD Review:

Another show of the past that is familiar to many but remembered by few will be available to be watched or re-watched on March 29th. Murder she wrote is the show for which we all remember Angela Lansbury as the sleuth who never needed to rely on violence, even as she was pointing the finger of guilt at a murderer.

The series began in 1984 when Angela Lansbury was 58 and continued through 1996 producing 264 episodes for CBS. The sleuth show follows Jessica Fletcher, a widowed, childless English teacher from the fictional small seaport of Cabot Cove, Maine, as she stumbles into a mystery each episode. In the television movie that started the series we follow Jessica’s rise to fame after her nephew submits her mystery manuscript and she quickly becomes a best selling author. Because of a reputation she soon gets for solving crimes, Jessica helps the local police in the small town she lives in, including Sheriff Amos Tupper, portrayed by Tom Bosley, then Mort Metzger, portrayed by Ron Masak. She often finds herself in the wrong place at the right time outside of her hometown and solves crimes wherever that may be as well.

From the very first episode it is entertaining to watch how they will put Jessica in a place where she will have a crime to solve. It seems that she has an endless supply of relatives, specifically nieces and nephews, all of which find themselves in trouble at the exact moment Jessica happens to be visiting. The show also manages to keep a light feeling to it despite the fact that it involves murder. Jessica manages to make friends of everyone she runs into, including cab drivers and waiters, but manages to irritate many police officers as well. We all know that it is because they are jealous when she solves all of the crimes that they cannot. Another perk of the show is all of the great cameos, for which there are plenty.

Lansbury is a great deal of fun to watch as the most excitable and energetic elderly woman I have ever seen on television. It seems like she is often running wherever she goes, even when she isn’t out for her daily jog. Jessica always uses wit to stop the killer, never resorting to violence. Somehow she manages to get the killer in a way that nobody else can, even when it seems like she is putting herself in a threatening position.

The series comes in three double disc DVDs, all packed into the cardboard box that is very stylishly designed to look like a book itself. While there are no special features, and the menu is quite plain, the transfer looks rather good and it seems like there was some care in the preparation of this set. Any fan of sleuth, or Lansbury, will surely be pleased enough by the episodes alone.



Ryan Izay