Murder, She Wrote1984

Perhaps because producers couldn’t rely on gee-whiz special effects or pounding pop music scores, there’s an unrelenting focus on character development in these episodes.

Great show. Highly recommend watching a few episodes if you've never seen it before. It's currently streaming on NBC's **** for free with no commercials. Oddly, though just about every episode has a murder in it, the atmosphere, music, and characters makes it feel calming and almost otherworldly. Even the murderers don't seem threatening and once caught give calm explanations as they are casually arrested. It's funny to think this tiny, idyllic town, Cabot Cove, is apparently murder and crime ridden. Each episode is full of twists and every character who isn't a show regular is made to appear suspicious. And that is perhaps the only real flaw with the show, it can be a bit formulaic and with so many episodes (around 12 seasons with 20 per season at nearly an hour each), it's hard to justify binge watching the whole thing. That time can be used for a lot of other things in our limited lives, even just enjoying other TV shows and films. I myself watch the episodes in the "best of Murder She Wrote" lists I found and some other special ones like holiday episodes and those set outside of Cabot Cove (actually Mendocino, CA btw). As is common with most "mystery" shows, every little thing can be a clue but they are often missing just enough details that you are not able to confidently figure it out before the main character (making sure you watch the whole thing I guess), at best, you can feel like you're solving at as Lansbury does but sometimes how she figured it out is just way beyond what was shown to the viewer prior.

I admit that somehow Jessica seems just a bit too slick and sophisticated - I miss the more idiosyncratic character of Miss Marple. But I'll take Jessica as is, if necessary, just as long as I can count on Angela Lansbury on TV every Sunday, right after 60 Minutes.