Enjoyed it but Mark Valley has got to go. Get out of here with that stupid fake accent. Horrible. At first I thought he was joking with the accent. Then he spoke without it. Then with it. I thought he was just playing around. LOL He's just as bad as he was back when he played Jack on Days of Our Lives. Enjoyed the rest of the actors. I'm missing the Garage Sale Mysteries so much. Was my favorite. But these will do. Courtney is fun to watch.
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LtlHippo5 April 2020
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bkoganbing17 February 2019Courtney Thorne-Smith is back once again as our female Indiana Jones, Emma Fielding and this time she's back at Kenzer College. During the course of a banquet some valuable art is ripped off and when it resumes the president of the college who is retiring collapses and dies at the podium.
The theft, the death of the president and some secret society like Yale's Skull And Bones are all interconnected, but not quite in the way you would think. Emma Fielding's young friend Adam DiMarco was thinking of joining the elite group, but finds them not worthy of his time and the members not worthy of his company.
FBI agent James Tupper is back as well to lend a bit of legality to Smith's sleuthing. Looks like the Emma Fielding series will go on. -
crdnls13 September 2019She just happened to remember a tunnel system they ran under campus buildings but when the museum was built no one thought to be sure it couldn't be broken into and the square in the floor was left there? And she lifted 2 blocks of flooring up like they we're nothing and yet nothing seemed to support them and no floor joists ran through those spots. What!!!????
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He tried to sound British but it sounded a bit Australian at times as well...? Accent came and went. It took away from the show, especially since the show is about history and artifacts and clearly his accent was not even close to believable.
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SnoopyStyle22 March 2021It's the third episode of Emma Fielding Mysteries. Emma Fielding (Courtney Thorne-Smith) finds herself in another murder mystery when her supportive retiring superior Dr. Althea Harrison is poisoned during a banquet. The suspects include those fighting to take over. FBI agent Jim Conner (James Tupper) happens to be there after he got recruited by Emma for a speech. Meanwhile, her TAs Joe and Carey are growing closer and worked as servers at the party. The group is joined by pompous archeologist Duncan Thatcher with the bad British accent.
This is the best of the three episodes. It helps that the mystery is a fairly standard one. Essentially, someone is killed and all the suspects are in the room. It's classic. It also helps that the younger characters get their own romance. That takes the romantic pressure off the leads. While Tupper and CTS are really pretty people, their chemistry is set at a slow simmer. The younger couple is better and they provide a nice parallel relationship. This is not breaking any new boundaries but it is a very solid movie for Hallmark with the possibility of extending this franchise. -
ChRiS-80321 July 2019Look... check your expectations before going into a movie like this. It's very light entertainment for sure and is full of holes but it does the job. Courtney Thorne Smith is a commanding lead and the supporting cast do well. These movies are a nice throwback to the 1990s and 2000s before Marvel came in and destroyed cinema forever.
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cgvsluis1 June 2022This is the best of the three Emma Fielding mysteries so far, but still not up to the standards of my three favorites (Hannah Swensen's, Aurora Teagarden and Mystery 101). I am enjoying the relationship building between archeologists/professor Emma Fielding and FBI agent Jim Conner. I appreciated this episode because it introduced a romantic rival in fellow archeologist Duncan Thatcher.
There is a special event at the university organized by Emma, bringing in a veritable who's who in the archeological world...at least in North America. Emma has invited her friend Jim Conner to give a talk on antiquity fakes. On the opening night, the key note speaker and president of the organization is murdered as a sub plot, one of Emma's students is trying to become a member of an elite skull and crossbones like organization. One of the initiation activities involves stealing an artifact from the archeology department.
As mentioned this is my favorite of the three Emma Fielding Mysteries, mainly for the romantic developments...but there has always been something slightly awkward about the Courtney Thorne-Smith role and in this episode I found the Duncan Thatcher character to be equally awkward, especially as his accent seemed to come and go. The series is really a recommendation for me unless you are hardcore or have nothing else to watch, but if you are watching the series...more bitter than death is the best. -
carolynocean28 May 2021I love this series , I have seen a couple more , and have really enjoyed them.
There is something so likable about the two leads (Courtney Thorne Smith and James Tupper) , such a cute couple.
As a murder mystery whodunnit , it works !
Murder by poison , usual list of suspects , enough clues to help us figure it out, not too complicated.
And that is exactly what this movie is meant to do ..... entertain and amuse us !
And it works , I loved it . -
wfpetriejnr13 February 2021Borderline unwatchable for all scenes involving Mark Valley whose English accent is so appalling it actually gives me a headache to listen to it.
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ross_tm22 April 2019Hallmark mysteries are usually great when you're (a) in the mood for a mystery, but either (b) need to be doing something else while you watch, or (b') are too tired to do much deep thinking. They're the modern equivalent of the numerous light B-movie mysteries of the 30s and 40s.
The previous Emma Fielding mysteries were good examples of this. This one, though, is not very good.
The main problem is Mark Valley. Valley is usually a very good actor, who starred in two of my very favorite TV series: Keen Eddie and Human Target. He was excellent in both. In this one, though, he's simply terrible. Wooden, loud, and all in the phoniest of phony British accents. (So bad, in fact, that I was sure it was going to be a plot device.) Surely he knows better after starring in a UK series?
The rest of the acting is OK, though Sharon Taylor is also unexpectedly bad as the sheriff (is something wrong with her back?). Courtney Thorne-Smith is adequate, but doesn't seem to have her heart in it.
Unless you are desperate, give this one a miss. -
sambecca124 March 2019Awful acting & an actor who is clearly American, but decided to have a fake English accent. Choppy script & nothing flows. Plus, Courtney Thorne-Smith has had some awful work done on her face. Poor woman looks like the cartoon Skelatar.
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bjdk18 March 2019I loved the Dana Cameron books, but this---Nuts. The only thing that's the same is the subject of archeology in the Americas. Lousy script. A lot of running around to no purpose.
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editing_budgie3 May 2019The shooting and editing on these Muse entertainment crapfests gets worse with each new p-o-s they excrete out of their office.
Honestly, who watches these? -
michellemorley-397466 August 2021It was enjoyable but as a Brit, I'm insulted at the 'attempt' of impersonating our accent. It was like nails on a chalk board! Please just stop already!
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virnamsg4 March 2022Poorly witten. The acting is not good. It could have been much better. I read it was the best of the three. It's the first one I see of these movies and I don't think I'd be interested in watching the other two lol.
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Cilica2 May 2019When we were in elementary school, we all lined up and stood in a row to have class photos taken. Each of us put on an excited smile that stayed on for a while, and even longer until all photos were taken. This movie is exactly that except...the smiles go on forever, and are fake. Hallmark makes the most hideously acted movies with the worst scripts but I had another go round with this movie. Poor script with very strange characters and strange even stranger acting!
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takeheart-6777627 January 2022We love our hallmark mysteries. The Emma Fielding ones aren't my favorites, but episodes 1 & 2 weren't all that bad. However, this episode was something else. Now don't get me wrong, the storyline was decent and interesting enough. The dialogue, however, was terrible. Everyone had this haughty and snippy attitude that made it not enjoyable. Not worth the watch, unless you want to see grown adults acting like high schoolers.
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5/10 - purely average installment in the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries series
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heather-greg26 January 2020So all through this show, they talk about the victim having just returned from the country of Columbia. There's no such country. There's Colombia, pronounced as it looks: ko-LOM-bee-ah. Not kull-UM-bee-uh. Careless or ignorant direction?
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elisabethbeighton1 April 2024Jim Conner scrubs up well in a smart suit, compared with his persona as the scruffy FBI agent of previous mysteries, but then he does have to up the ante if he wants to compete for Emma's affections with the suave archaeologist with the Savile Row rip-off tailoring and the dodgy British accent. Meanwhile, as usual, she is more than capable of fighting off the villain herself leaving the rivals literally on the floor yet dapper as before. The mystery is why Courtney Thorne Smith's Emma would even give Mark Valley's Duncan Thatcher a second glance when she can have James Tupper's Jim Conner - the down to earth real man with a taste for burgers and casual wear rather than the fake Englishman with his tux and caviar.
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The writing was atrocious. Too many folks have pointed out the bad British accent, so I don't really need to go there. But the plot points were so bad that it was just funny. I lost count of how many times I shook my head and thought, "this would never happen".
It went downhill 30 minutes in, when the department chairperson collapses and dies at the podium before giving a speech to name her successor. No one called for help, no one asked for a doctor in the house, no one called EMS, just "Oops, she's dead" and mystery begins. Remind me not to die in that fictional town. Next, when the FBI agent, Jim, tells the sheriff that it is possibly murder, she completely dismisses him. What?! Since when is it NOT suspicious when a perfectly healthy, barely middle-aged professor dies in front of a room full of people?? Sheriff says, "Not enough to investigate so everyone can go home." Yeah, sure, because the FBI guy doesn't know what he's talking about. It goes down hill even further when Jim - who is interested in Emma - doesn't have the guts to tell her he likes her, but give advice to a college kid to do just that with Emma's daughter.
We finally hit rock bottom at the climactic fight scene, when we see our heroine, Emma tied to a chair listening to the pudgy and out-of-shape villain tell her why he did what he did. Neither the trained FBI agent, nor the world-travelling British archeologist, can rescue the heroine and are fought off by a man who looks like he's never been in a fight in his life. Emma is forced to rescue herself - she goes incredible hulk, breaks the arms off the chair, then beats off said professor with the arms of the chair still tied to her arms - while both men lie on the ground and groan from the beating they took during their rescue attempt. Both guys apparently need to hit the gym. This was amusing as a one-time watch, but I could not recommend this as a serious mystery. -
skipperkd19 October 2022Scriptwriting is weak. Dr Fielding is supposedly an intelligent academic, an archaeologist of some weight, yet the scriptwriters breach her characterization repeatedly by making her look like a nitwit. She risks her life in the most idiotic ways, recklessly and needlessly alone. Alone at night in the victim's office? Not locking or even closing the door?? Going underground alone and telling no one where you're going. Then going further even knowing no cell reception?? She should just die and increase the national IQ.
I guessed whodunnit early on. Seemed obvious.
The Oxford academic -- Duncan Thatcher -- had a laughable British accent. Lame.
On Hallmark channel I like the Murder 101 series and the Garage Sale Mysteries -but Jennifer takes dumb risks, sometimes too, which irritates me because writers could uphold her characterization as an intelligent woman better. Aurora Teagarden is also good except sometimes same issue.