Someone ranked every episode of Murder, She Wrote, and the summaries are straight out of Datalounge

He has good taste, I'll give him that.

I have never watched an episode but that list and summaries make it sound like great fun. I never knew what I was missing.

Murder Takes the Bus should have been ranked #1. I watch that episode at least once a week while I'm falling asleep. It has the best atmosphere of all the episodes.

This makes me want to watch it.

A fat bottom with enough time on his hands to rank every episode of Murder She Wrote - with summaries - is almost certainly a Datalounger.

I know why everyone loves "Murder Takes the Bus," but there's just such a campy Prisoner: Cell Block H vibe to "Jessica Behind Bars" that I share our benefactors choice.

Reminds me of PushingUpRoses on Youtube and her funny dissections of the craziest Murder She Wrote episodes.

Surprising that Edd Byrnes is one of the multi-episode guests. Others include Brenda Vaccaro, Lois Nettleton, George Maharis.

I just watched Murder on a Bus.......What the hell,this show is terrible. Now I know why I never watched it. I was expecting something a little more clever or at least campy but is wasn't either.

I'm nearing the end of season four of a Murder She Wrote binge. I've always loved the show (anything created by Levinson and Link). Not everyone's taste, of course, but even the bad episodes can be fun if you play my favorite Murder She Wrote games:

1. Pick the guest star(s) who worked with Angie back in the day. Every episode has at least one, from stage and/or screen. Lansbury was always extremely loyal to her friends, offering them work. Some episodes you have to play the reverse: who didn't work with her back in the day!

Look at her track record for casting her leading men from Broadway:

Hotel Paradiso -James Coco, Anyone Can Whistle -Harry Guardino, Gypsy - Rex Robbins, Sweeney Todd - Len Cariou

2. Which handsome guest in a minor role was gay? This game is a bit more challenging. Just as La Lansbury had a penchant for casting her old friends, she also appeared not to be able to stand an episode without a couple of hot young actors just starting out in their careers. Some went on to fame, but a large number were early victims of the AIDS crisis. While you seldom got shirtless scenes, you could always count on a few hot guys with their shirts unbuttoned one button too many. One of the shirtless exceptions was a young man by the name of Bill Maher, who did the show twice (as different characters) and showed off a surprisingly buff, furry chest!

Is this my long-lost twin? We have very similar taste when it comes to favorite episodes...

But I can't ignore his exclusion of When Thieves Fall Out and The Committee from the top forty.

I still wonder why they choose to set an episode in Quebec (Witness for the Defense) and make zero French overtures. They even cast a couple of very English actors to play the "QCs" including Hayley Mills -- she *might* even say Lefttenint in that way of hers. Like if the Queen Mother was on set she'd tell her to rein it in.

Then there's the scene -- where the eating popcorn gif comes from -- in which Jessica visits a suspects trailer and suddenly we're in Tennessee.

I would have put "Murder, According to Maggie" on that first list. Most of the Jessica Lite episodes suck, but that one is really good, mostly because of Diana Canova.

Ooh, he also doesn't like "Who Killed JB Fletcher?" Those are fighting words.

I did like the episode in which Helen Lawson played a Cabot Cove fisherman's wife who was murdered. Even if that bejewelled pantsuit she wore to the diner didn't suit the character.

There was some tension between her and Lansbury on set though. After her character was killed all the other townsfolk spend the rest of the episode trash-talking her; I bet Angie had a hand in that script.

I swear this wasn't me!

I do love the list though, I think I read it when it was first published.

Murder Takes The Bus is still my favourite..

Is that "I'm Not Bitter Damn It" Eve Plumb is OP's photo?

Yes! That's from the Women in Prison episode, Jessica Behind Bars.

JBB is just DL fantasy baseball.

Eve Plumb! Yvonne de Carlo! Vera Miles! Adrienne Barbeau! Margaret Avery!

Even better, Eve's character is named "Tug."

[quote]I still wonder why they choose to set an episode in Quebec (Witness for the Defense) and make zero French overtures.

Oh, dear!

Just needed Nancy McKeon to really dyke things up.

[quote] 1. Pick the guest star(s) who worked with Angie back in the day. Every episode has at least one, from stage and/or screen. Lansbury was always extremely loyal to her friends, offering them work. Some episodes you have to play the reverse: who didn't work with her back in the day!

So, and let me see if I have this right, you see an actor and try to determine whether they’ve ever worked together. Sounds like a blast.

*eyeroll*

Can somebody fill some blanks for me please? There was a cross over with Magnum PI, and I believe it ran over two if not three or four episodes in both shows. But the only thing I can remember is that the story started great on Magnum PI and then fizzled out with no real ending. Did I just miss an episode, or did heavy editing for syndication ruin the experience?

I think it was a two-parter. Part one was part of one show and part two part of the other.

Did you watch in the right order?

Lol R24 the ending was quite good on the second part, with Magnun jumping through a hotel window to save Jessica from the killer.

Quick question: before they high five, Magnum promises Jessica he won't do ???? if she doesn't get a PI licence?

I never watched it, not sure why, but reading the descriptions and Classic Hollywood guest stars makes it sound wonderful. I love 'Columbo', so I'll probably like this if I start watching.

[quote]I never watched it

I'm sorry, R26, but we'll need to confiscate your gay card.

The episode where Mary Crosby plays a suspected witch should have been ranked in the top3. It's a classic camp fest with Marian Seldes emoting to the back rows.

Love's Deadly Desire with Carroll Baker should have also been ranked higher.

Yes, R28, LDD is good. Ranked oddly low on IMDb. I swear at one point Deadly Misunderstanding and A Lady in the Lake were the highest ranked episodes there.

Or it couldn't have been TV.com.

Here are their rankings:

Of the Jessica episodes, I'm not too keen on Dead Eye, Murder of the Month Club, or Dead to Rights.

Which is the only episode where Jessica does not appear?

[R22] You've slightly missed the point. The challenge is to figure out (without IMDB) when and where the guest stars worked with Angela. If you can't name the film or play, then you try to at least get your Six Degrees of Separation. No, it's not the most exciting game in the universe, and it pales against fucking porn stars and YouTube influencers, but it's a pleasant diversion –Like Murder She Wrote itself. And, since even if you've not seen a given episode ten times before the murderer is usually pretty obvious, it adds a fun dimension of Trivial Pursuit to the viewing experience.

I luv ya, r33.

It's so interesting to watch the last season and episodes from season 1 back to back to observe the difference in Jessica's character and the way Angela plays her.

It's so interesting to watch the last season and episodes from season 1 back to back to observe the difference in Jessica's character and the way Angela plays her.

I liked it. It felt like a natural evolution. Her transition from an amateur small-town school teacher to a celebrated bestselling author happened over the seasons without much direct reference or trying, Lansbury's change in portrayal was one of TV's best because it felt organic.

R37 I agree, it felt natural and I liked that she never lost touch with where she started out in Camot Cove. She naturally became much more confident in herself as her life went on.

I've always felt like pilot is very tonally different than the series. It has most of the same tropes, but just seems a little darker and less cozy.

There's a greater Miss Marple air to it. Jessica is at her most doddering and provincial. Like in the scene in which she's walking on the streets of NYC at night and gets accosted or the scene on the bus.

R39 it was different, Jessica was attacked at knife point, she was treated like an idiot by the city slickers and she got to snog!

Maybe Michael Musto will do the same for The Golden Girls (anonymously, of course)?

I think Musto posts on DL so maybe he'll see that.

He used to post on the IMDb boards as "marvelass".

R40 or the scene in the beauty parlor where she has no clue what's happening, the stupid recommendation she makes to Preston Giles to eat more apples or her willingness to escape back to Cabot Cove before she solved the crime! Jessie of later years would not be like this!

Voice Of The Night always enjoyed these threads, I wonder if he's still around.

The Cabot Cove episodes were the worst--all those awful accents that didn't sound like Mainers. I liked it better when Lois Nettleton or some other trooper had invited her to someplace like Kansas City and some stiff turns up nearby.

One of the campiest is the episode with Betsy Palmer playing a predatory older woman. It's a hoot!

Jessica should have sexed yp her image to get the teens watching!

She did.

Yes, a few low cut blouses, some short skirts...

I'm sure that would've grabbed the young audience.

Should Angela have been cast in the Sunset Boulevard musical when MSW was cancelled?

As who? Norma's hitherto unseen mother?

I don't agree with all of this list but I admire the dedication

Bump

I especially enjoy the Cabot Cove episodes.

[quote] I just watched Murder on a Bus.......What the hell,this show is terrible. Now I know why I never watched it. I was expecting something a little more clever or at least campy but is wasn't either.

You have to watch the show pretty much from the beginning to get it. I never really watched the show when it first aired but started watching reruns few years back. It became fairly quick my feelgood show. You obviously have to watch it realizing it's from the 80s and early 90s, and that you're not supposed to take the show super seriously. It's fantasy and it's all a little bit silly.

What's the one where someone murders someone else by introducing botulism into the food at a seafood restaurant in Cabot Cove? That's the one I always remember because the plot was so evil,but also because you don't get to see people violently vomiting as you would had it happened in real life.

I think Jo Ann Worley is in it.

R56 That is season 2's "Keep the Home Fries Burning", no Joanne Worley in that one though. She's in "My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean" in season 1

Thanks, r57.

I clearly somehow combined the two episodes in my mind, since I remember Jo Ann Worley being with Vicki Lawrence, which was indeed in "My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean," but the plot I remember does come from "Keep the Home Fries Burning."

They just suspected it was botulism.

I love The Petrified Florist, set in sudsy LA!

It was a dream R60!

Is Trial By Error on there?

I was at a horror convention a few years ago and Meg Foster, Judy Geeson, and Bruce Davidson were there. They were all in a Rob Zombie movie. I was talking to Meg, who is the sweetest person, and she was talking about Judy and Bruce. I said you are all also Murder She Wrote killers. She got all excited and said to them, "We were all caught by Angela Lansbury ?" They all laughed. Bruce said "Yeah, the bitch got me ". It was a great moment. Everyone I've talked to who has been on the show say how wonderful Angela was.

I want to fuck Andrew Stevens in Lovers and Other Killers.

They really ended that one on a dark note. He looked like he might come back and kill Jess some day.

Jessica got a bit too cocky in the last few years