FlushingCaps

The final black-and-white episode, and the final appearance of Pat Woodell at Bobbie Jo was a mostly disappointing episode.

The setup is that a guest has left without paying his rent and left behind a little notebook that indicates that traveling salesmen have guides for where they can get away with staying at hotels without paying, including noting that Uncle Joe is the one to deal with, while they should stay away from Kate because "she is murder." Then we see a group of people who represent a small traveling circus and they have the same sort of booklet with the same info for the Shady Rest. The owner of the circus and his wife find Uncle Joe and flatter him, saying they'd like him to work with their circus to rebuilt the act and they say just 5 people will be staying at the hotel, with the rest of the company staying outside town. What they really do is sneak a dozen or more people into the hotel, including one rather small person (played by Felix Silla, best known as Cousin Itt on The Addams Family) who hides inside a big valise carried in by a very tall performer.

The few official guests have their short friend hide under the dining room table and whenever Kate and the girls are in the kitchen together, they pass the contents of the big platters of food down to Felix who puts them in a big bag, and when the coast is clear, he hustles upstairs to the rooms and passes out food to all the unofficial guests.

When Kate demands-after 10 days-that the circus owner pay his bills, he appears eager to see the bill...but then he simply signs it and buffaloes Kate into letting him get away with it.

During the course of their stay, Kate one time spots Silla coming out of the hotel guests' bathroom, but when she reports to Uncle Joe about the small man she saw, he treats her like she's "seeing things." Later she sees one of the "unofficial" guests standing outside blowing fire out of his mouth, and again is treated like she needs a psychologist. Now I had problems with these scenes because these types of performers are widely known to be common in circuses and carnivals and it didn't make sense that Kate would be so stunned to see such things.

What really was troubling was how Kate didn't demand some sort of payment in advance for tying up four of her rooms. Or when the owner put her off by "signing" his bill, she didn't confront him and say she needs payment immediately. Her behavior makes those guide books for chiselers seem rather inaccurate-she can be bluffed as easily as Joe.

In the dining table scene, Kate and the girls are amazed at how much food those five people can put away-but nobody sticks around to see what is happening. Nor does anyone notice that although they eat a ton of fried chicken and corn on the cob, there seem to be no corn cobs or chicken bones left. I should think Kate wouldn't normally operate an "All You Can Eat" special at her hotel, since she charges so little for her rooms anyhow.

The ending is also unsatisfactory in how Kate doesn't seem to even try to get something out of the group. There wasn't really too much of a plot nor many laughs. I give it a 4.

The second of a two-part episode. We open with Kate being helped into the hotel again, having sprained her ankle at the end of last week's episode.

They learned the decision about a 40-person convention coming to the Shady Rest will be determined by the company president, a Hurley Feasel, who is to arrive in two days to look the place over. But Dr. Rhone confines Kate to bed, meaning everyone else will have to pitch in to help, while she stays in her bed.

Instead of just cleaning up the place, Uncle Joe directs most of the rooms and the lobby to all get fresh coats of paint, and the girls (while, Billie and Betty only, as Bobbi Jo is inexplicably absent in this one) undertake to do all the painting, never questioning Joe's crazy color schemes, even though we hear they know how bad they are as they refuse to put their guest into one painted with mismatched colors.

Feasel comes a day early and finds newspapers and wet paint signs all over, including where they put the guest register on the counter for him to sign. Uncle Joe has also brought in a singer named Smokey Harner, to entertain. Somehow, Betty Jo is allowed to dicker with him about how much he will be paid, and she gets him down to a workable price like an expert.

As we progress through the show, we learn that Smokey has a one-song repertoire, On Top of Old Smokey, the one song Mr. Feasel detests. Feasel is checking out early, totally unhappy with the hotel, including the miserable meals prepared by the girls.

Now the doc has pronounced Kate's ankle amazingly healed but she wants to stay in bed to let her family be proud that for once they are running the place nicely without her help. So Billie and Betty and Uncle Joe decide it will make sense to fool her into thinking the convention is still coming, to make her happy for now-as though she won't learn quickly from the total lack of guests, or income, when she finds out they didn't come. They play a record and make noises to fool Kate into thinking the 40 men have arrived. But Kate has decided to come down the stairs and let them see that she is healed, only to see they are fooling her. She quietly returns up the stairs and everyone looks sad.

We don't get any apologies, just cut to everyone, save for Bobbi Jo, sitting at the dining room table when Mr. Feasel returns. He explains that the 40 salesmen are all new and he wants them to start out with the worst hotel experience they will face so they'll be able to handle all the other bad places they will go to. Then he eats some food that Kate has cooked and loves it. Now he will not bring his convention there because the food is too good. Everyone laughs about how Kate's good cooking has ruined things.

Again, I don't see how these high school girls, raised helping Mom run a hotel that regularly serves meals, have not been taught anything about cooking by their mother. It made no sense to suddenly paint everything with company coming real soon-painting is time consuming, it takes some time to dry properly, and they had plenty to do with Mom out of commission to undertake such a thing at that time.

The Smokey character only knowing one song, but ready to open at a club in a nearby small town even though he only knows one song was not really funny, more of a distraction. Impossible to like much about this one-a 3 from me.

This is the first of a two-part episode. Kate has received a telegram from a man named Brooks T. Webster, who is coming to check out the hotel, thinking it might be the place for his company's upcoming convention of 40 salesmen. Trying to help, Uncle Joe has a notion that a nearby cave could be a place for the Shady Rest to create a wine cellar. We are not told exactly how far away it is, but as depicted it appears to be just a 3-5 minute walk from the hotel.

As Kate goes into the cave, Uncle Joe has found a horseshoe that was an errant toss, just sitting on the hill above the cave entrance. He says it was a bad throw from when he was playing horseshoes some time ago. I guess he treated it like a lost golf ball and just used a spare horseshoe to complete his game. We are also supposed to believe the hilly, bushy land all around was somehow a place where anyone would be playing horseshoes.

Picking up the horseshoe produces an avalanche, trapping Kate inside. She calls out that she's OK, and Joe panics and runs back and forth, before figuring the best way to get her out is to hike to the county road and get to Ding Woodhouse's farm so he can use his tractor to get her out. When he gets there, Ding says his tractor is broken, but he'll work all night and should be able to get Kate out by morning.

This is where we lost all touch with reality. Kate has found an opening so she can stick her head out where we see her, and the girls decide instead of doing something useful to get her out, they'll just sit there and talk, read, and sing to her to keep her from being bored.

Mr. Webster has arrived and is starving. He even turns down a chance for some spooning with Billie Jo, eager to do anything to get him to forget about eating. (Never mind the fact that she's supposed to be about 17, and he's clearly in his 30s.) Now they hatch up the notion of bringing campfire cooking items to the spot outside Kate's cave window, so she can direct the cooking of a large meal for their one guest, and Betty Jo races with the pots to the hotel where the food is served.

While there are delays, Webster likes the food and it seems the convention will come there-until he tells the gang that he's just the front man. The owner of the company never takes anyone's advice. He will come out himself to check out the hotel and decide. This of course makes us wonder what the front man is wasting his time for If the boss decides on his own, what is the purpose of sending someone else to the hotel?

The episode ends with everyone now wanting to make a big impression on the company owner. When they start to walk away from the cave to the hotel, Kate steps to the side to not follow the path, despite Joe's telling her that the way everyone else is going is safer. She says she's not taking any more advice from Uncle Joe. Then she takes one step and falls, spraining her ankle as the episode ends.

From start to finish this was a really, stupid episode with almost no laughs. Before this one, we knew Kate normally did the cooking, but we had seen one or all of the girls doing some of the cooking. Now, apparently, even though they are all in their high school years and have helped their mom in running a hotel that serves meals regularly, Kate has neglected to teach them a single thing about cooking. Another huge flaw is that apparently in this farming community, Ding is the only person around with a tractor. Nobody ever suggests finding another farmer with a tractor. Nobody ever suggests just getting some picks and shovels and digging out the opening to the cave.

As I've said in previous reviews, a comedy episode that starts with something really dumb but continues in a fairly-logical way can be hilarious, if done well. But when almost every plot point is totally stupid, the show has to be a dud. For that, I give this one a 2.

This episode never aired, so I saw it today for the first time as I finish the DVD set on the series.

After a fabulous first season where Bob is drawing his comic book character Mad Dog, the second season-I call it that loosely-consisted of 5 episodes that aired and three more that never went on the air. This is the next to last episode.

We open with a Christmas wedding scene in Bob's new home. One of many things that bothered me about this "Season 2" is that the McKays suddenly have a new home, with never a mention about moving or being in a new home. We see that Bob is best man for Whitey, the lead guy in the print shop part of his new job at Schmidt Greetings. We get a glimpse of the bride and are quickly whisked to memories of "last Christmas" when Bob was instrumental in bringing the couple together.

Now Bob is supposed to have just started running the company a few weeks ago. Did we suddenly time leap ahead a year? Otherwise, how is it he was running the company "last Christmas"?

At any rate, Whitey has suddenly become a character that makes Gilligan look like a Rhodes scholar. In this flashback-which is most of the episode-he tells Bob he's worried because his girlfriend is coming to the Christmas office party and he feels uncomfortable because he doesn't get to see her much because they live a couple of hundred miles apart. He says he's not happy with them being so far apart most of the time.

Bob flippantly says, "You could marry her." Whitey takes it almost like it was a direct message from God. He begs Bob to go with him to buy an engagement ring. Pete hears this plan and insists he go along because the others will be suckers and pay too much.

Pete does get the jeweler to drop the price 40% even after the jeweler's little granddaughter comes in asking if they'll be able to have lunch today. The man tells her they cannot afford it. Pete thinks they are being conned and still quickly gets him to drop his price.

We return to the office and Whitey's intended, Veda, comes in, looking like she's about to give birth. Before Whitey can panic too much, she reveals that she was playing a prank and removes a pillow from under her shirt. Whitey says he loves jokes, then adds, "that wasn't funny...thinking you were having some other guy's baby." Hilarious, thinks nobody watching.

Whitey quickly tells Veda he wants to tell her something. He suddenly starts searching all his pockets and panics when he can't find the ring. He then reveals he put it down on the desk that receptionist Chris uses.

I'm yelling time out! "Who would put an engagement ring on a desk in a central office that he does not use and leave it there while a few dozen people are milling about at this big office Christmas party?"

We learn that Trisha wrapped up the box, paying no attention to what was in it, as she was wrapping gifts for a dozen or so orphans who are in the next room. Again, how on earth does any agency or charitable group wrap up presents blindly and just distribute them to the children randomly? One present might be a toy good for a 4-year-old girl, that is presented to a 12-year-old boy, or vice-versa.

Whitey rushes into the room with the kids to try to find his valuable ring. Meanwhile, Veda cannot understand where he went and starts figuring he wants to break up with her. Chris, the always sarcastic one, tells her she's correct, and explains to Kaye that her lie will make Veda all that much more surprised.

We have a prolonged scene where Whitey and Bob have to make trades before getting the ring back, where Bob gives a little girl his high school ring in a trade for the engagement ring. The little girl would never be able to wear either the woman's or the man's adult-sized ring, but that is not something that is mentioned.

We return to this year's Christmas-I guess over a year after the last episode-and at the wedding the preacher asks the groom IF he has a ring to give the bride. Not do you each have a ring to give the other-the way it's normally been done for over a century. Of course, best man Bob has forgotten to bring the ring, so he whips off his own ring-which surely will not fit the bride at all.

Nothing in this entire show is more than mildly funny. It is mostly stupid. None of the plot points work, every one of them is quite stupid.

The episodes of Bob in charge of the greeting card company were all quite disappointing. Chris was a particularly annoying character, with a sarcastic, I-don't-give-a-darn attitude toward everything way. Almost every sentence is some sort of sarcastic put down. And most of them are things that nobody could think up that quickly-they sounded scripted.

Pete, the son of the company's owner is a most unlikeable, conceited, whining, dishonest person. He was, more than anyone else, the star of each episode this season-other than Bob-and he was so little fun to watch I think I'd say the way his character was written was the single biggest problem this second season had.

I think this was the worst of the second season's shows. I felt offended that they think I'm too dumb to realize the illogic of so much that happened. I can only give it a 2.

Saw this last night as I just got my DVD set. While I taped most episodes off TV Land, this one I never saw between September 1992 and last night.

We are introduced to Bob McKay and his wife, Kaye, who have a grown up daughter, Trisha who lives with them, mostly struggling to get work and keep a boyfriend.

Bob writes greeting cards, but in this episode gets an offer to revive a short-lived comic book he used to write called Mad Dog. He goes to meet the man he'll be working with, Harlan Stone, a young man who seems to have a horrific view of how to make Mad Dog a vigilante who actually kills the boy who was his trusted friend in the old books.

Outraged, Bob leaves in a huff. Harlan comes over late at night, apologetic, in a way. Kaye has a nice scene where she gets Bob to realize that he might be able to work with Harlan, showing how she can see that this is what he really wants, not to go back to greeting cards.

We see a big office where the comic book will be produced with all sorts of people milling about who never get any lines and who are never seen again after this episode. It is common in a pilot to have more people around for realism sake, than will be there regularly.

The cast regulars meet Bob. One, an older woman knew him decades ago when he had his comic book. She is Iris. She comes into the room and starts yelling because someone moved something at her desk, despite the big sign she put up saying, "Don't Touch My Stuff." Then she spots Bob, smiles and greets him, then seriously asks, "Did you touch my stuff?"

Chad is a unique character. He's soft spoken, but says all sorts of really weird things. We learn he used to draw caricatures at an amusement park, and sometimes he'd put leeches on the people's faces.

Albie is another young man who is a nerd sort who lets others push him around. He's more likeable than Chad, but weird in his own way.

Heard over various phones is the voice of Mr. Terhorst, the owner of the company that bought rights to Bob's comic book. The company is named American-Canadian Trans-Continental Communications Company. Right after Bob says that lengthy name, Trisha rapidly says, "Am-Can-Trans-Con-Comm-Co" so fast our heads are spinning. Terhorst seems to be listening in on many conversations held in different places. After all, it is his building, as he tells Bob.

I laughed out loud several times at this excellent episode, so I give it a 10. They did a good job of introducing all the regulars also.

This was one of the memorable episodes of this wonderful, but short-lived series I just watched again. Bob is hosting a bunch of longtime cartoonist friends for poker. They are played by Mr. Newhart's real life friends, with Bill Daily playing Vic, Steve Lawrence Don, Dick Martin Buzz Loudermilk, and Tom Poston Jerry.

As they all come over to Bob's house for their game, we get Vic coming in, entering with his old line from the Bob Newhart Show, "Hi Bob."

Jerry's wife of 30 years just left him, and there's a good scene just after all the men, including Bob's partner at the comic book, Harlan, are standing there, wanting to be sympathetic in a manly way. Bob says, "Jerry, we're going to just have a good time and we're not going to talk about anything serious, but I think I should say...you know."

The others all join with their own gestures-a shoulder tap, and saying nothing more than, "you know" or "yeah."

Kaye, stunned at how little support from her perspective they give their friend, sarcastically says, "To think I was here to see that."

As they play poker, Buzz keeps working Harlan trying to get a job. After Harlan tells him they're bulging with people, Buzz says "if you ever have a writer's strike, I scab."

Then Jerry is invited to the kitchen to help Kaye with snacks. She of course offers her support, telling him she's there for him if he wants to talk. They exchange a normal hug for the situation, but then Jerry's arms are seen reaching down and grabbing Kaye's butt.

Stunned, she orders him back to the living room. She'll forgive him. But when a second poker pal makes his own pass, she gets Bob out of the room to tell him. Bob is next seen shoving Vic out the door, saying he never wants to see him again. As Kaye tells him he wasn't the one, he learns which two did make passes at her, so he orders them out.

Before leaving, Buzz finally gets Harlan to agree to accept a resume. But after telling him how hip and up-to-date he is, he is dumbfounded when Harlan tells him to "fax" him the resume. (Well, fax machines were fairly new then.)

The subplot dealt with Trisha trying to teach crusty old Iris how to use a new computer that Harlan wanted her to use for her work. Iris is really funny in this episode, mostly without speaking. She gets into a staring contest with Harlan, and then stares blankly while Trisha does her best to make it a fun learning experience for her. Her reaction when Trisha is finishing, telling her how to save her document is priceless.

I just got the DVD set for this series. Previously, I had made do with TV Land reruns which almost always took out the funny scenes with the family cat, Otto. In this one, opening the episode, Bob is calling Otto back into the house at night. He steps away after calling, with the door wide open. While Bob is getting a drink of juice, 6 other cats come running in, going to another room unseen by Bob before Otto comes in.

A DVD extra shows an interview with the guest stars in this episode. It was hoped that the would be semi-regulars visiting in future episodes, kind of like Tom Poston played "The Peeper" on the Bob Newhart Show. Had the series not been so mishandled by CBS, maybe they would have.

I rate this a 9. It was great seeing all the poker pals interactions.

Jessica visits Los Angeles to do research on zoos for an upcoming novel. She runs into the MSW typical situation of a widely-unpopular person working for the business at hand, with several people who dislike the man, a number of romances, past and present, and some shady dealings we only get hints at, in the beginning.

As one reviewer has pointed out, the police lieutenant investigating this week's murder, played by Gregory Sierra, is named Gabe Caceras, who recalls working with Jessica before. Now Sierra has played a detective before on this series, but not with that character's name-except for the one episode where it was all a dream Jessica had. I guess we are to accept that at some point Jessica did assist Gabe, but they never made an episode about that incident.

As the title and early scenes suggest, there will be someone killed by a venomous snake. When it happens, the lieutenant fully believes the death to be an accident until Jessica points out how the location of the death makes that virtually impossible. The snake had no way of dropping down on the victim from above-as that breed is stated to do, and it seems impossible that the man would have let the snake wind around him climbing from the floor to bite him in the neck-where the wound was.

I don't think you need Sherlock Holmes to have immediately figured that a man standing in a room would never have been bitten in the neck by a snake.

Other things bugged me about this episode including the use of "animal park" instead of "zoo." At least a few times, including by the top man at the place, the term "zoo" was used interchangeably. Why use four syllables when one says the same thing?

We had way too-much soap opera stories about various romances. I know why but whenever they get too much of this it weakens the story.

The biggest bit of silliness involves Jessica's reason for being there. She lives in Maine and New York, but goes 3,000 miles to get some basic research information about zoos to help her with her next book? One of the pieces of information involved her seeing a young alligator and being told that he's too small to swallow the key item she was thinking of having a gator in her novel swallow. She immediately said she'll change her story in that regard. All she would need to do is have it be an older, much larger alligator. Since she hasn't yet begun her book, I cannot fathom how it would not be possible to write it with a larger gator.

Furthermore, she is given an empty desk space in the zoo's administration building to use. I do not see how she needed to do her work there, at night after everyone left, when she could easily have taken whatever info she had and typed it on her laptop in her hotel.

Actually, I do know the reason. It was so she could be at the zoo after hours, and see the various people's comings and goings to help her know about the murder. But it seemed so unlikely that even as a famous person, they would give her after-hours access to the zoo, working there all alone in the offices.

It wasn't a terrible mystery otherwise, but definitely below the usual for this fine series. I scored it a 5.

In viewing this episode, the old craft kit they used to advertise on TV comes to mind. I refer to the Bedazzler. I think the viewers here are supposed to be so bedazzled by the look at a virtual reality murder game that they ignore the ludicrous way the killer's guilt is revealed.

Jessica has written a script for some folks in the Silicon Valley to turn into a virtual reality game titled A Killing at Hastings Rock. I cannot escape mentioning how the game had very choppy, pixelated characters as Jessica looked around the room in testing the game using those special goggles most of us have now seen a few times, at least on TV shows. Thirty years later, the images would be laughably amateurish. I imagine the then-new, now-obsolete hard floppy discs these professional computer programmers used also draw guffaws from the youth of today.

There is an old Columbo episode where our detective is taught about how a video cassette recorder works, where the Lieutenant is amazed at the technology. Viewers decades later are perhaps bored, thinking Columbo must have been living in a cave.

Shortly after a body is discovered someone volunteers information to the police that seemed out of place-pointing the finger, to this viewer at least, directly at the speaker. The detective's reaction also seemed poor-assuming, as Perry Mason often said-facts not in evidence. (I am being purposefully vague so as to not clearly reveal the killer's identity.)

This one had all the usual elements: business-related intrigue with one or more people planning to leave one job for another, perhaps ruining the business where they now work; a couple of people romantically interested in the same third person; a young person whom Jessica befriends and who plays a key role in helping her solve the case; and a couple of red herrings to suspect, although I can't imagine too many viewers actually choosing them as the killers.

Accepting that this look at a new sort of video game was of high interest at the time, I must give it a decent score because it did take us away from much of the usual MSW type of business affairs. The weaknesses described do not totally ruin the enjoyability of the episode, so I am scoring it a 6.

Plot details I will skip-others have covered it. I have complained in the past about stereotypes in this series. One of them is that, other than Italians, killers are never part of a racial or ethnic group other than white Anglo-Saxons. So in this episode, everyone Jessica encounters in Hong Kong is Asian except for four-one being the husband of her 4,785th good friend Emma, played by France Nuyen, who used to be a doctor on St. Elsewhere. She and her husband Brian live in a mansion in Hong Kong, and it must have been expensive to move the Southern California home that used to be the governor's mansion on Benson over to Asia.

The two other main non-Asians are Brian's business assistants. We are given clear reason to suspect one of evil deeds early on, so when a white person is killed, we really know there is a "red herring" leaving the almost-only other white person as the killer. Sure enough, that's the case. There is one other white person featured, but never a hint of any personal involvement to make him a suspect.

More disturbing is that Jessica, once the killer is caught, explains what let her know who the killer was based on information from a phone call we saw her make-but we heard none of the message that was important, only her question to the person. She also told about seeing wet paint on a curb providing important info. Too bad we viewers never saw the "wet paint" sign on the curb as shown during Jessica's reveal.

They also had another trap Jessica used to get the killer to reveal their involvement. Like too many times before, once the killer got the needed piece of evidence from Jessica, there was plenty of time to kill Jessica with the gun in hand, but the killer thought it necessary to announce what was about to happen, giving the police time to rush in and prevent Jessica's murder. Time and again, killers in real life would have simply shot Jessica right before the police burst in, but the killers wait to talk more than necessary and that is how Jessica has survived all these years setting herself up in these traps. Luckiest lady in the mystery-solving business if you ask me.

I loved the wonderful Jim Hutton "Ellery Queen" series partly because every clue Ellery used was clearly seen or heard by the viewers. We just needed to be clever enough to put them together. Murder, She Wrote has done this many times. Usually we get most of the clues in sight or sound, if not all. This episode saw us get NONE of those key clues that let Jessica solve the case. There was one clue we did get but we had no way to tie it to anyone because the "who" involved there was never revealed to us until the final explanation scene.

I never saw this when it first aired. I had tired of the series some time before. Weak stories like this were surely the reason why a formerly wonderful series became so ordinary, or worse, by its last years. Too much of the same "formula" woven into all of the plots, along with the objectionable things I have pointed out make me give this one a score of 3.

A respected San Francisco physician, Dr. Richard Talbot (Kent Smith) has a loving wife and two children. Led by his wife Lucy (Rosemary DeCamp), the family adheres to a rigid schedule. Richard one day decides he wants to do something different with his wife-a weekend getaway. She says she can't do it this weekend, but neither of them ever even suggest a week or two in the future. Right there in this early scene, I couldn't help but think all Richard needed was to say, "We really need to break our routine. Let's go somewhere without the kids in the next few weeks, dear. You can pick the place and the weekend if you like, but we need to do something special, OK?"

Then Richard happens to meet a young lounge singer, Nora Prentiss (Ann Sheridan) who got into a minor accident. She lives across from his office. He becomes intrigued by her good looks and soon starts into having an affair. Now she knew from the start that he was married with children, but didn't care about the trouble she could be causing.

Like all of these 1940s melodramas, the adulterous couple soon find great unhappiness about sneaking around and not being able to be with each other more. The doctor has now changed from being home each night by 7 p.m. To "working" until 2 or 3 in the morning. Now much of that time must be spent sitting in the club watching his girlfriend sing. After that, I guess they cavort for some hours before he finally returns home, for 4-5 hours of sleep.

Things unravel when Nora tells Richard she's tired of sneaking around and thinks they should break up-that he should return to his wife and family and forget about her. Instead of taking her wise advice, he decides to go for a divorce. But the night he returns home late to tell Lucy, she meets him outside and tells how she saved him by assuring their daughter that he had not forgotten her birthday, but that she had purchased a nice birthday gift for him to give to her-and gives it to him, letting him seem like the loving father he used to be.

So he doesn't tell her about the divorce that day. The next day Nora has decided she was right in the first place and they should split up-she's even leaving for New York. Richard decides to write his wife a letter asking for a divorce, but then gets a different idea when a patient comes into the office when nobody else is there and dies on him.

The idea is abundantly stupid-he will pretend that he is the dead man, putting personal items on the body's person, taking it to a cliff, lighting the car on fire and pushing it over the cliff with the body inside so the unrecognizable body will be identified as himself. He figures he and Nora can now live in New York.

What he doesn't figure on is...well, practically everything. Such as an investigation when his wife learns he has been draining their bank account for several months. He was spending a fortune, somehow on Nora, even though they don't seem to have gone anywhere, nor has she suddenly come into possession of a fancy car or anything. The police think the doctor was being blackmailed and now seek his killer.

Richard is living off the big withdrawal of money he made the day he disappeared, fearing he cannot go anywhere in New York because in a city of 8 million people he is sure to run into someone who knew him from his home 3,000 miles away. He doesn't even shave off his little mustache for the longest time, and never seeks to change his looks in any other way.

Nora becomes furious because they just stay in their hotel-separate rooms, of course-and never go anywhere. She has been told he is waiting for the divorce to go through, but she cannot figure out why they have to be in hiding. She even claims, "We've done nothing to be ashamed of." I thought, "Well, I guess some people are proud of adultery and ruining the lives of what was a loving wife and two children."

What is never mentioned, is how he could carry on his affair with this singer for months in San Francisco and never be worried about being seen by anyone-particularly anyone who knew his wife.

Since Dr. Talbot is "dead," there seems no way in his new identity that he could secure a license to practice medicine. He hasn't thought through any of his stupid actions. Of course, had they found a way for a happier life, since she had no problem breaking up his marriage before, he should have asked, "What will stop her from leaving me for someone else whenever she is unhappy with me?" And Nora, knowing how quickly he dumped his whole family for her should be wondering what are the chances of long-lasting happiness with Richard. "As soon as I become boring, how quickly will he leave me for someone new and exciting?"

Troubled by how lousy his life has become, Richard turns to alcohol, leading to assumptions about Nora and her employer, who is nothing more than a longtime friend to her. This leads to an most miserable ending for all concerned.

I don't think they did nearly enough to make you think wife Lucy was unpleasant to Richard. She was polite and understanding particularly in making him look good for the daughter's birthday party. She appears to have been totally trusting of her husband and never suspecting an affair, when you'd think she would have been quite suspicious, as it was shown that he was out "working late" almost every night. The only real negative is that she was into "routines"-keeping things going like clockwork. This seems like little reason to want a divorce. Even at that, they did not demonstrate that she couldn't be persuaded to break the routine-only that she said no to breaking it in the weekend that was coming up the next day. Lots of people don't want to cancel plans made for the next day, but will gladly do so if given more than a couple of days to plan for it.

I guess this film held my interest, but in the end it was just mostly disappointing-a 3.

The script for this episode was much-cluttered with characters who added nothing to the plot or to the viewers' enjoyment of the show. The important parts were quite decent. If this were a novel, I'd say trimming it from 450 pages to 330 would improve it by about 33%.

We begin in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where a flight attendant is selling some diamonds to someone, who complains about the number she has being much smaller than he expected. He pays her, but not in American dollars as expected, saying it's hard to get those right now. We follow her further back in the U. S., learning her name is Monica, and that she lives near Jessica's NY apartment.

Monica has a neighbor who waters her plants when she is gone, and she also has a bookie to whom she is in debt (later stated to be "12 large ones-meaning 12 grand") and she also owes the neighborhood grocery store over $300 for her store charge account.

Now I thought this minor point very odd. The store owner reluctantly brings up how much she owes him as she has a sack full of groceries and is all set to leave, sounding as though he has not been pushing her at all for the money. If he was going to cut her off that day, he should have stopped her before she had a bag full of groceries ready to take home.

She tells him she can pay him tomorrow. He says today, or he will cut off her credit. That part would have worked if he had said to her something like, "Monica, you have been putting me off for four weeks now on your bill. I simply cannot extend anymore credit to you until you pay off what you owe."

Instead, she goes to the counter and tells the young clerk that she'll pay with a check, but opens her checkbook to "discover" that she doesn't have any with her. She takes the groceries, telling the approving clerk that "she'll be right back (with a check). The owner is now upset with the clerk, but she had a standing credit with the store and letting her come right back is the way my local grocery store would handle a steady customer today, so I can certainly believe that part, even though it is New York City.

The clerk is also a delivery boy, Tommy, played by Neil Patrick Harris. He is about to take a delivery to Jessica's apartment and is directed by his employer to stop at Monica's to get his payment first. Wouldn't it make more sense to make his delivery and then go for the payment, instead of lugging the big box of groceries around to Monica's?

It got confusing when we see Tommy inside Monica's apartment building-I don't know who buzzed him in, but instead of going to her apartment, he instead appears to be entering the laundry room where he stumbles upon Monica's apparent body on the floor with a man kneeling over her. The man looks up and stares at the boy before a shot is fired. Tommy drops the box and runs away, without apparently being chased at all.

We have additional scenes detailing Tommy's struggles with his father, who is also his coach on the high school swimming team, who doesn't believe Tommy is just "friends" with Monica, someone he frequently delivers groceries to-he thinks his son has a "crush" on her. He doesn't think it wise for Tommy to waste so much time writing stories, at one point claiming nobody gives scholarships for college because nobody fills an arena to watch someone write stories.

HUH? First-there are tons of scholarships for all sorts of things beyond sports, including such academic things as writing. Second-college swimming teams do not come close to drawing enough fans to pay for scholarships. Universities are very lucky if two (football and men's basketball) draw enough fans and bring in enough TV revenue to pay for their costs. The rest of the usual two dozen or more sports the schools sponsor are paid for either from their football revenues or from the school's general funds. Even the sports that draw decent numbers-such as baseball and hockey-do not draw enough fans to pay for themselves.

The plant watering neighbor seemed rather annoying and didn't seem to add anything to the story. More so, another featured character was "Susan" a Cabot Cove neighbor of Jessica's who was staying with her in New York because she is to prepare a fancy meal for a publisher and others to hopefully be able to arrange for a cook book to be published. Throughout the roughly two-day adventure connected with the murder Susan is always cooking, complaining about how nervous she is, and totally interrupting Jessica with every little food-prep mishap you can think of, while Jessica is trying desperately to write. Jessica has to pick up the phone to order-from that same grocery store-everything her Maine friend needs for her big dinner. Susan never really played a key role unless there was some intent to annoy us.

Another thing that made no sense involved one of the murder facts. After spotting the body and dropping Jessica's box of groceries and running away, Tommy raced to Jessica's apartment to tell her what he saw. She immediately phoned the police from the lobby-I guess she happened to be there when he raced in-there was no doorman on duty at the time. They go with the cops to where Tommy saw the body and find only the box of groceries he dropped. No blood, no body. Much later the detective tells Jessica he thinks the boy was lying, possibly because he dropped the box and broke items and didn't want to pay for them. He reports that they couldn't find any bullet in the area where he was when he says he was shot at.

But much later in the show, Jessica finds a bullet in a bag of sugar that was part of the groceries. That box was right on the floor when police began searching and since it was in the youth's arms when the shot was fired, it seems impossible the police wouldn't have found a big bullet hole in the box and then where the bullet wound up. Frankly, I would have expected Jessica to observe the bullet hole in the box when she and Tommy arrived at the scene with the police.

One reviewer states that Monica lived IN Jessica's apartment, (the show was not totally clear) but if so, it seems odd that the building manager seen later would be introducing himself to Jessica, who didn't seem to know him, nor he her.

We do finish with the killer, one who should know better, totally opening up to reveal all despite having only a couple of rather weak pieces of evidence presented. Killers confessing everything is an on-going weakness of this series, necessary because frequently all Jessica has is a couple of weak bits of evidence to suggest their guilt, likely not nearly enough to convict.

I also think the diamond smugglers are handling their business in a bizarre way. They give their courier-the flight attendant-an unspecified amount of gems to take overseas. She takes them to the dealer, who pays for the amount given and they trust her when she says this amount is all she got? I would think the supplier would have communicated with the European contact, "I have 25 gems and expect, say, $100,000 for them." Monica is just the delivery person. Instead, she takes out, say, 5 of the gems and gets only $80,000 and her employer is going to trust her?

It wasn't a terrible story, but they tried to do too much and had too many things going on that didn't make much sense. I give it a 5.

Sally Kellerman, Richard Herd (George Costanza's Yankee boss on Seinfeld), and Gergory Sierra (returning as a cop to this series, still best known for his regular role on Barney Miller) highlight the guest stars in this episode.

Jessica is visiting her, I believe, 1,953rd "dear" friend, this time in Hollywood, where she is the main person putting out a scandal sheet, with problems being that a rival paper keeps matching her papers' "exclusives." Of course there is a dinner party, where Jessica gets to meet all the usual suspects as we viewers try to figure out who's going to be killed?

From there we move on to what seems like a rather typical show of this type, chasing false clues, trying to figure out if it the murder had something to do with romance, or a financial problem, or something else. What other reviewers have hinted at, without giving away anything important, is that there is a real surprise at the end.

Sometimes part of the plot makes me lower my score because it makes no sense at all. In this case, if I had paused my DVR 5 minutes before it ended and thought about it, I would have said, "There's nothing bad about this episode, but nothing extra good either-a 7." But the ending makes me up it to a 9. Once you see it, you may not agree, but I hope you'll understand why I thought this such a great ending.

This is the quintessential Murder, She Wrote: Jessica is visiting the town of Easton, set in an undisclosed Midwestern state. She encounters people connected with a radio station, adulterous affairs, young lovers quarrelling, an employee unable to break a contract to leave for a better job, an executive who has more than one enemy...things that populate the scripts of this series as much as any TV murder mystery series we ever saw, from Perry Mason to Diagnosis Murder.

Easton is a community of farmers, mostly, but they seem to love their "shock jock" radio host Marcus Rule, who has raised the local radio station's ratings so much that he now has an offer for a much bigger job in Chicago. Of course, his contract with his current station is going to be a problem to get out of.

Whether its broadcasters, comedians, musicians, or actors, on this series employees are always bound by lengthy contracts they cannot end. If the real world was set up that way, nobody would ever be able to accept a better job.

Colin and Louise Crowe own the station, with Louise about to divorce Colin, leaving him the station. It is Colin who hired Rule and who supports his cutthroat style of radio. The success of Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh in the day inspired many fictional shows to depict someone as sort of a blend of the two. This episode's Rule has been likened by another reviewer here to Limbaugh, without any basis. Rush did not do interviews with guests in his studio or via telephone, other than big-name political guests once or twice a year. He absolutely would not have a fictional writer in his studio for a whole hour because that wasn't at all the focus of his national political program. Of course, the character here was so over-the-top rude to his guest you'd wonder how he ever gets any guests on his show.

Jessica encounters another of the young men she "has known since he was a boy", son of someone who works for her publisher. In fact, because the young man hasn't been in contact with his father, she agreed to come to this small town to check up on him. I think we've heard this a few other times on MSW. So before we truly know who will be killed, we have a pretty good idea of who will be charged with the crime.

That station is about to get a new transmitter, upping their power to 25,000 watts (not the 20,000 another reviewer stated), and it is at a public celebration at the tower that a body is discovered.

This episode cleverly planted a hint of a suspect without any close-ups or words, to give us viewers a chance to say, "Oh, I think it's going to be 'X' as the unsuspected killer." I bit into that one and was surprised when someone on the show fingered that person-knowing immediately how wrong I was. The real killer was, in the best murder-mystery sense, the "last person in the show you'd expect"-well, other than Jessica, of course.

Airing originally on Valentine's Day, of course the two young lovers are brought back together.

Probably the most enjoyable thing, given how we are supposed to totally dislike Rule, is how Jessica not only gives him tit-for-tat at the end of her interview, but he is tricked later into saying bluntly on the air some insults for his listeners-things that will surely kill any interest in the show, thus killing his local career-at least we suppose that.

"xbatgirl" reviewed this episode magnificently for its contradictions concerning this "small town" that is mentioned several times and how many of the sets used suggest huge metropolitan settings instead.

There are little things that weren't quite right, but they weren't essential, so I won't bother to point them out. There were enough characters to give us a choice of suspects even before we knew who would be killed. There was one clue that was important that was only subtly in view for us that likely slipped most people's attentions-it did mine. They avoided any obvious clues-sometimes they do not.

The "whodunit" part in this series is often criticized for either being too obvious or for the opposite-a "How we were ever supposed to think it was that person?" complaint. I believe this episode avoided both of those problems. I thus give it a 9.

We open with black-and-white footage from a bar in Coral City, Florida on November 24, 1963 where the bar's TV camera is reviewing news of the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald that day in Dallas, two days after the Kennedy Assassination. A man in that bar goes outside and is confronted by someone who wants some photos. When he balks, he is shot.

In short scenes, we then jump around to several places in "present day"-meaning 1993. They include Coral City, Chicago, Denver and Miami, the latter where we pick up Jessica checking into her hotel for another writers' seminar where she is speaking. Outside her room, she hears a very angry woman, Laura, who we viewers met in the Denver scene, loudly complaining about her room being ransacked and her privacy invaded.

Jessica strolls down the hall and despite the woman's complaint about her privacy, proceeds to stare into her room until the angry woman sees Jessica and storms over to the door and slams it shut.

Oddly enough, when we next see Laura she is apologizing to Jessica. Methinks it should be Jessica apologizing for intruding on her, especially on hearing her complaint. The women team up, with Jessica thinking that break-in might be connected with the recent discovery of a body that has proved to be Laura's father, Bernie, who disappeared in late 1963 when she was 7 years old.

Charlie Garrett (Wayne Rogers) now arrives from Chicago and he meets with Laura and Jessica. We learn that Laura's father was a private detective who was partners with Charlie in Chicago. Bernie was taking surveillance pictures of a woman suspected to be having an affair, and he somehow trailed her to South Florida and took some photos of her. He sent the photos to Laura's grandma, who was taking care of her in Iowa (her mother had previously died).

Jessica examines the photos and finds one of them to be of great interest. It shows the wayward wife and her boyfriend, standing in a public area that we must guess-it was never mentioned-was a shooting range of some sort. There are several rifles in people's hands in this photo. The couple the P. I. was trailing was on the far left of the photo, there were two men on the right, and in the middle were two other men, who both appeared to be holding the same rifle-suggesting one was handing it to the other. What Jessica notices is that the one man, the one in the dead center of the photo was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Most of this episode deals with people searching for the missing negatives from the photos that include the one with Oswald in it. We later learn that Charlie had them in an office file for 30 years and never looked at them. The man with Oswald is said to be a small time mobster, who is still around South Florida. The trio figures that Bernie was blackmailing the mobster and that's why he was killed 30 years ago. Now that Bernie's body has been found, that mobster is most anxious to either obtain the negatives or learn positively that they are destroyed.

It seems odd to me that the original killer in '63 didn't wait until he got the negatives before killing Bernie. But someone keeps breaking into the hotel rooms of everyone who has just arrived in Coral City looking for those negatives. The photos that Laura has were put into her motel's safe, but they are stolen by someone who beat up the desk clerk. We get a look at that safe and it looks like a toy, barely bigger than a toaster. I don't think the inside could have held a full-sized sheet of paper. So those photos-the only ones known to exist are now gone.

Later we see a man who we know to have been following Jessica and Laura, sitting behind the wheel in a car talking to someone in the front passenger seat, but who is unseen to us. He appears to be making arrangements to share in a blackmail scheme, but is stunned when his companion suddenly whips out a gun and shoots him in the chest.

The way this scene is staged, it would seem the angle to hit him in the chest was all wrong. It looks like he was shot from directly in front of him. When we see the car's interior later, there is a large, circular smear of blood about where the left shoulder would have been resting against the back of the seat, and four drip paths of blood, trailing down about 6 inches or so. But they are all going down diagonally, which makes no sense at all since the car was parked in some level parking space. Not only does the blood drip diagonally, but since there was no bullet hole in the car or any mention of the bullet exiting the man's body, I cannot figure out how there's a blood stain behind the victim at all.

Later, Jessica returns to her hotel and is given an envelope along with a couple of other pieces of mail. Charlie drops in on her, determined to get that envelope because he knows they contain the missing negatives-he sent them to Jessica. She figures he wants them back so he can blackmail the same mobster that killed his partner for doing the same thing.

Now here Jessica does something that seems not too bright. She leaves the desired envelope on top of her mail as she answers a phone call, almost inviting Charlie to snatch them, which he does. This leads to a scene where Charlie is on a dock with the negatives safely tucked inside his jacket pocket when he finds a need to jump into the shallow water to rescue someone who is shoved into the water. He first takes off his jacket. Before he brings the person back to shore we see the negatives falling into the water and sinking under. Later we are told they were never found.

Never are we given any clue as to who might have gotten the negatives out of Charlie's coat pocket and tossed them into the water-nor any reason why they would have done so. We viewers were supposed to have forgotten he put them in that pocket, and believe they drifted out of his shirt pocket when he dived into the water.

The impossible-to-believe script prompts many questions:

1. Why was Bernie such a miserable photographer as to have the subject of his picture-two people standing still, way over on the left side of the picture, that just happens to be centered on a famous real-life killer? I have heard of people not centering their subjects perfectly but not to this extreme.

2. Is it believable that Bernie, a Chicago P. I. would somehow know this small-time mobster from Florida?

3. How dumb was Bernie to think that it would be a way to make easy money by blackmailing someone connected to organized crime?

4. Why would that one photo be enough to think anyone would pay blackmail money to keep the photo out of the public eye? (Note: Our heroes never mentioned Oswald in more than one photo, but they always referred to "negatives" in the plural sense. I think that was just because the original negatives would have been for the whole roll of film, even though only one was of interest.) 5. Thirty years later, why was the mobster still concerned about those negatives so much? There could be many dozens of duplicates long made.

As to the last point: If the picture surfaced in 1993, the mobster could easily say something like: "You know I remember that day at the shooting range. Some guy I didn't know came up and asked me how I liked his new rifle. He held it out for me. I took a quick look and said it looked like a nice weapon. He thanked me and we parted ways. I never saw him again." He could have said many other things and it would seem there could be little chance of anyone to prove he was lying.

I will concede that at the time that photo could prove to be a trouble spot for the mobster as the FBI and others were hot to investigate anything about Oswald. But 30 years later, it would seem there is nothing to fear. It is suggested that our mobster was working for someone higher up, who might kill him if his connection to Oswald comes out because it could lead to someone higher up. But if that is so, the higher-up man could have just killed the lower-echelon man anytime over those decades.

Imagine that this mobster wanted to fess up in 1993 and he went to the FBI and said, "Here's a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald and me back in mid-November 1963. Here's my story about how I was hired to bring Oswald into this conspiracy to kill the president..." It's almost impossible to think anyone would believe him, not even if they could determine that the photo was genuine. Without him admitting to anything, there is no way the picture would lead anyone to information about the JFK killing.

Between the really sloppy blood evidence, to the pointless burglaries of hotel rooms, to the unexplained presence of negatives in the water when they should have never been there, to the presumed significance of a photo that really shows nothing of value, I cannot help but give this a low score. It was gratifying to see none of the earlier reviewers of this episode give it a good score at all. I say, rock-bottom-a 1 out of 10.

Jessica has advanced at "Manhattan University" from teaching a criminology class to teaching an English course on creative writing with the focus, at least in this episode, on writing murder mysteries.

The script centers on the Latino community, particularly around St. Julian's Church, run by Fr. Michael, who is seen playing basketball on the church's indoor court with other young adults. We get introduced to a family he knows, headed by Maria Galvan, who runs a flower shop with her young adult sons, Jose and Tony. Jose is one of Mrs. Fletcher's students.

Near the beginning, this family is shaken by a "not-guilty" verdict for Frank Fernandez, who was charged with killing Maria's husband Roberto, a city councilman, whose body has not been found. Frank has a grown son, Ray, who helps him as a landlord of low-cost housing units he is said to not keep up properly.

It is said that Mrs. Galvan pressured the district attorney to go ahead with the charges despite considerable lack of evidence. During the course of things we see much arguing among the families, as it appears the younger son Tony might seek revenge against Fernandez on his own, while his older brother, who intends to become a policeman, is quieter about such matters. Joseph, as he calls himself on his papers presented to Jessica, is seriously dating a young girl named Ruth. Meanwhile, Frank has learned that Ray is peddling hard drugs, including to many of his tenants.

Then the councilman's body is found, dead with a bullet that came from Frank's gun. Now the Galvan family is taught about "double jeopardy" because apparently they not only never watched any police/lawyer/detective show in their lives, but also went to poor schools that never taught this basic protection in our legal system. Jessica does point out that even if their hadn't already been a trial, that there would still be no proof that Frank fired the shot that killed Galvan.

The episode moves on to Frank phoning Fr. Michael, telling him he wants a private confession, and they agree to meet in about an hour. We see Frank entering the totally empty church and going into the old-style confessional where he is shielded from seeing the priest in the next booth by a heavy screen. Frank begins talking when the door opens and some sort of gas is transmitted causing him to gag. He staggers out of the confessional, followed by a figure wearing a "St. Julian's" athletic-style jacket, noteworthy because the letter "I" is missing, who runs away. We see that Ruth was the only other person in the church and she reports seeing the backside of the man with the "St. Jul_an's" jacket running away but could not see the man's face.

Seconds later, Fr. Michael shows up, just a moment late for his meeting and he gets Frank to the hospital, where he later dies.

Of course Jessica and the friendly police sergeant suspect poison and that is found to be the case, so they next focus on a text book called the "Toxic Handbook" which is one of the sources on reserve at the university, for the use of Jessica's students and they find that a Jose Galvan checked it out.

As Jessica investigates, she learns that this big-city university library allows students to check out reserve items by simply signing their names on a sheet of paper, without showing any form of identification. Indeed, Jose's name wasn't a signature, only printed letters.

One of my biggest complaints with this script is, like others, the killer was the absolutely most likely and obvious choice right from the start.

We also get a killing done in such a way that only a very few people would have had a chance to know that Frank had phoned the priest to arrange for a confession to take place an hour before it happened. There was no way the killer would have known the priest would be a couple of minutes late. Through the heavy screen window, blowing enough of the poison to kill the victim in just a couple of seconds seems quite unlikely.

Again the writers show to pay no attention to Jessica's methods of writing mysteries by doing careful research to portray things accurately. Here, they missed out on some basic things about Catholicism, like they have done in the past. Ten years before this takes place, a change in Canon Law prohibited priests from running for public office. Now in this episode's "goofs" section, one person has seen fit to suggest that this episode might have been set before that change took place, but that would mean that it happened not only before Jessica was a mystery writer, but a decade before she became a college instructor living in New York half the time. Sorry, but the episode is set in the mid 1990s, when it aired.

It would also be unlikely to meet the priest for a privately-arranged, after-hours confession in the otherwise empty, almost empty church instead of at the rectory, or somewhere else. Indeed, a face-to-face confession would have been, at least, more likely since anonymity was not possible here.

The biggest problem with this week's script is exactly what reviewer "The Little Songbird" wrote, calling it "a depth-of-a-saucer soap opera." All of the family arguing that consumed way too-much air time was a big bore, seemingly full of cliche-characters. We even have a laughably false confession by someone who obviously was trying to protect a loved one who was a suspect.

Once you see Jessica seeming to be friends with the Galvans, the list of suspects is amazingly short. Perhaps the writer wanted 99% of the fans to feel good by saying, "Hey, I picked out the killer for once!" The other one percent picked the priest. Spoiler-it wasn't him. I think a 2 is the deserved score here.

My review is to point out two huge flaws without truly giving away anything important.

We open with an office scene in San Francisco where Paul Marlowe is a top assistant to the head of some company about to merge with another. Paul is talking to his assistant and then to his boss, who praises him for his work in getting this merger to come-in the immediate future. Paul has a fiancée named Andrea we learn.

After Paul & Co. Leave the office, securely setting a lock for his office door, we see our old friend (Jessica's I mean) Michael Hagerty entering the office area and using some of his high-tech tools to enter the office, but an alarm goes off anyhow just as he sits down at Paul's computer. The security guard doesn't seem to fall for Michael's claim that he is to update the computer, or that the cleaning people let him in, or that he might have gotten the name mixed up, but the guard lets Michael sucker punch him when telling him to look at the writing on a paper.

Then we see Jessica checking into a hotel in San Francisco and finding Michael in her hotel room, and he insists he is not trying to get her involved in another spy caper. We soon learn that Andrea is Michael's estranged daughter and that he is trying to get her to listen to his warnings about Paul, who Michael believes is a big-time white-collar criminal about to get his company involved with a shady other company, involved in multiple criminal activities.

If we viewers hadn't already guessed, it would be obvious who tonight's victim was to be when Michael tells Jessica that if he can't convince Andrea that Paul is no good, he may have to kill him.

Sure enough, we get to see Michael following Paul into the recesses of Jessica's hotel, get conked on the head, and come to just in time for the hotel security to enter to find him next to the dead Paul Marlowe, and be arrested for his murder.

One of the people featured while investigations are taking place, tells Jessica something that we soon learn is a lie, based on what Jessica learned from another person-something that is clear-cut and obvious.

We also see two possible suspects talking together in such a way as to almost certainly eliminate either of them as murder suspects. This leaves us with almost no other suspects who appear to have any reason at all to be involved-and nothing happens to change this. There really seems to be one possible suspect and we really had a reason in one of the opening scenes to note something special that seemed to be a key visual clue-from the camera work-even though it wasn't mentioned again until almost the ending. This visual clue stood out to me and suggested a possible murderer before I knew who would be killed.

Now the light-hearted, somewhat comical episodes of this or any other TV detective series can get away with a fairly-obvious murderer. But when it is like tonight's MSW where there is nothing funny in the least, the drama has to have some mystery to it. At least one other reviewer has downgraded this episode because of a lack of suspects. The motive is one of the two main ones from any series, the killer's character has the type of role this series seems to pick to be the murderer perhaps more often than any other, and even the trap Jessica sets to get the killer to reveal guilt was more obvious than usual.

The two things Jessica spoke about when explaining what let her know who "dunnit" were two things that I was sure of from the get-go.

They did one other quite unrealistic thing--something they often do. Once Jessica traps the killer into doing something that proves that person's guilt, the killer, pointing a gun at Jessica and anyone with her, is happy to chat with them about just how things happened, why they did it, and while it is clear that they are about to shoot Jessica (and friend) they go on talking until ready to do it, and practically announce, "OK, now I have to shoot you on the count of 3, one...two..." and here comes the law officers of tonight's show, bursting into the room just in the nick of time."

My objection is how it is often staged to where Jessica would be a dead woman if the killer, while holding the gun pointing at her, didn't dramatically indicate he/she were about to shoot, but just fired away. That's what happened in this episode-maybe drawn out a bit more than other episodes with a similar problem. Now sometimes the police burst in before Jessica is quite that close to death, but often I have thought how their appearance would have been too late if the baddies weren't so slow to take care of their problem detective.

There were other issues with the script that also made this a weak episode. It wasn't terrible, but as I said, almost from the beginning we had too few suspects and virtually by the time the murder was committed we were down to one realistic suspect. The clues didn't need Columbo to be discovered. I think they tried too hard to make the viewers feel smart by figuring it out ahead of Jessica. I give it a 4.

This is the worst episode I have ever seen in this long-running series. The script was remarkably poorly arranged. I tuned in to hear details of the creation of the board game, familiar with the fact that Charles Darrow did not "invent" it but only adapted an already popular parlor game and sold it to Parker Brothers in the mid-1930s.

What we were presented was about two snappy sentences stating the old narrative about his "invention" followed by the speaker saying it isn't so.

Then we moved into a way too-long history of Lizzie Magie and her following of some radical economic theories by Henry George about the turn of the 20th Century, before we finally get to the story about Magie inventing "The Landlord's Game" and securing a patent for it. We heard that she had the purpose of advancing these economic theories through the playing of this board game. She even had two sets of rules: The first, apparently-this show did not go into any details about them-set up something like the game we know; while the second set was bizarrely written to have players paying into some general fund for the whole community. Again, the show did not reveal any details about her second version, played on the same game board.

Many people played their own home-made versions of this game, it appears none using her anti-monopolistic set of rules, but all enjoying the version where players try to gain the most properties and money to win the game.

After spending a brief time telling about Charles Darrow and wife playing the game in the early 1930s, we spend most of the rest of the show dealing with the San Francisco man who created a new board game, who was ordered to cease and desist because the patent owners got a court to agree his "Anti-Monopoly" was infringing on their copyrighted game.

We never explored the subject of how much Darrow revised the rules of the unprotected version he had played into the one he sold. This show spent far too little time on the game we know and how it copied from those other versions popular in much of the country at the time-with apparently no money going to Magie.

Instead we heard about her interest in this "single tax" system and the lawsuit involving the 1970s game and how that led to discoveries about the game before Darrow got involved.

We were also subjected to political opinions regarding the playing of games, how children learn, and other such things that further detracted from the story we thought we were going to hear.

I cannot give this a score higher than 2.

Five reviews here before mine and nobody has touched on the main reason this episode ranks so low. At least most reviewers agree is was sub-standard.

We start with a few stock shots of Milan, Italy (I understand why Russia's capital does not go by its Russian name, which would be "Moskva" which is tricky to say in English, but do not understand why "Milano" has to drop the last syllable in English, but I digress) before we settle in to totally interior sets for the rest of the show, keeping us from even feeling as though we are seeing parts of this great Italian city.

It's a film festival with one of the honored pictures being an adaptation of a J. B. Fletcher novel. We, of course, have a terribly unlikeable producer who is preventing a young director under contract to her from working on what could be the next Gone with the Wind-they suggest. So the victim is obvious almost from one minute after we first see her. There are two issues the victim is dealing with in running her business, one being the matter of this director, the other is a matter of expenses for a film that took it over budget for things she doesn't believe she authorized. If you are familiar with the way this series usually works, you can probably guess the murderer long before anyone is killed and even spot the big clue about one part of the caper. I did, even though I usually do not.

The one person Jessica is friendliest with is the director, so we can also figure out who will be accused-long before the murder takes place.

The problem is that if this person committed the murder, he arranged the stupidest alibi in the history of the motion picture: He claims he met her as arranged, in her hotel suite but had stepped into the bedroom to make a private phone call-that never got completed-a moment before someone else came into the hotel suite and killed her. He didn't even arrange for an open window to suggest someone else could have been in there and left while he was trying to make his phone call.

Given the known facts about the timing of the murder makes it extremely obvious who is the one person who could have set up the person who would be accused, making that person the obvious killer. Yet nobody including Jessica put this together for some time.

There is one other short scene that seemed totally ridiculous to me. The celebrities at this film festival are hounded by dozens of the notorious paparazzi photographers, but in one bit, as they are snapping away photos by the dozen, the celebrity says, "That's enough" and all the paparazzi people immediately stop taking pictures and move away. Is that not the opposite of what they are noted for, or what?

I hope this "spoiler" labeled review is vague enough to not truly spoil it for anyone reading before watching. I just think the script is quite lame for an MSW episode, thus I only give it a 4. Watch if you truly want to see them all, but otherwise, this would be a good one to skip.

Cabot Cove has a new doctor, Jonas Beckwith, who is much more comfortable following his computer in diagnosing his patients, and seems to get good results-but one of Seth's longtime patients, Harriet Wooster, just as she is about to sell her computer programming company, with the help of her lawyer-brother, suddenly has a medical emergency and is rushed to the hospital where Dr. Beckwith is unable to save her.

It seems there was something the doctor could not control that really caused her death...but Dr. Hazlitt believes it was still his fault for not properly realizing the minor discomfort he was treating her for was more serious.

A fair portion of this episode dealt with the two doctors realizing that both of their methods had merit and that working together they could each learn from the other. The humorous part of this one largely dealt with Sheriff Metzger getting a quick prescription from the new doctor for his coughing-without asking for it-and trying to hide that fact from his friend Seth, as Mort did not want to appear disloyal.

Jessica seems to be the only one around who thinks there has been a murder, and we can figure out much of what she's up to, but not all of it, as she checks on numerous facts, including a few phone calls to Bangor and more.

There were several possible suspects to consider, which always helps. Occasionally, there seems to be only about two possible suspects and that takes away from the fun in viewers trying to guess the killer.

The Reveal was most definitely one I did not expect. This one had the planning of most of Columbo's murder cases-which almost always led to more interesting episodes there and on any murder mystery than the ones where two people quarrel and one shoves or slugs the other and accidentally kills the person, but then goes to lengths to hide their involvement, figuring the police will not believe it was self defense, or a total accident.

Combining a good, realistic serious point about doctoring practices, some humor, and a well-above-average murder plan lets me give this one a 10.

We open with what appears to be a cat burglar sneaking into the window of a woman's hotel room at night. But instead of burglarizing her room, the black-clad intruder goes right over to her bed and plants a single kiss on her. She wakes up and smiles.

She not only knows him, but they conspire together to steal a huge diamond from another guest at this hotel in Monte Carlo.

Before we advance that part of the plot, Jessica arrives in Monte Carlo to visit another of her 9,054 "dear" friends, whom she hasn't seen in a decade. This friend owns the hotel, but is faced with losing it if she can't make a $1 million balloon payment on it by Monday. The guy who is planning to take it away plans to tear it down and build something else. Before long, we see that he must be the main victim tonight since everyone seems to have a reason for hating him. I say "main victim" knowing that is not a spoiler since the title of the episode tells you that two or more will be killed.

I won't recount the entire plot, but wish to write about three rather troubling scenes that do not really make sense. They are the basis for my low score, because otherwise this was a typically entertaining episode.

First was a scene in a glassware shop Jessica visits where she asks about a small figurine and the proprietor attempts to charge her a fortune for a piece he misrepresents. A friendly other customer in the store steps up as Jessica is dismayed at the high price asked. He speaks to the man in French, then the proprietor says it was a mistake, the piece is only (about one fifth what he had first asked for), to which Jessica says she'll take it. My problem: Her dear friend Annie recommended this store to her as a good place to go. Is it often her practice to steer customers to a dishonest shop owner?

Then there was the scene where one of the "suspects-to-be" is angry at the future victim. In the presence of at least two other witnesses, including the man's bodyguard, he picks up a large pair of scissors and reaches up as if about to do a Norman Bates attack on him, only to be stopped by the bodyguard, who wouldn't be blamed if he broke the man's arm in stopping him. It's a bit hard to root for someone who appeared about to kill a man in such a way, especially when he was not physically threatening him or anyone else.

Then there's the finale. The reason for the first murder was terribly, terribly weak. Committed by someone who you would not suspect (at least I didn't) it was just really not in keeping with the person's demonstrated character. I am purposely being vague to avoid spoiling the ending. There is actually a second weak point about that scene: Jessica truly put herself at risk without having anyone nearby to keep her from becoming another victim if the killer so chose. Frequently she appears to be doing so, but she has police hiding nearby who come to the rescue. This time, she trusted the killer would not harm her...for reasons that escape me.

So I feel forced to give this only a score of 3 out of 10. Those problems greatly take away from the nice parts.

We open with views of a 60+ year-old movie of a ballet where there are three figures-a man, a woman and a man in a costume to represent the devil who waves a skull around. It is a silent movie and there is a live narrator, it turns out, in a room with several people viewing. Our heroine Jessica is one of the viewers. We are hearing about this ballet which was only performed twice, including over a hundred years ago, and each of the two times, the female lead dancer died shortly after the performance.

Jessica asks about the lady in the film and is not surprised to hear she died from a heart attack because she observed her motions on the film where her left arm seemed to bother her-and one time she even grasped at it with the right hand. That suggested a heart attack to Jessica. I might have thought the lady had just gotten a mosquito bite on her shoulder-where she tried to grab, but...

Anyhow, Jessica is in San Francisco, once again, and the group is being told about this ballet by the head of a ballet company, struggling for funds, who wants to become the third group to perform this ballet and the head man's wife, a longtime ballet dancer has volunteered to play the lead role without fear that she will die.

Like most TV show/movie/play troupe Jessica encounters, there are the usual infidelities, scheming performers, financial woes, and double dealings going on in this group. I won't deeply detail all that went on-others have done so earlier.

I am putting in this review because I am stunned to see so many positive reviews. Here are the problems I have with this episode. First-it has us sit through too many ballet-dancing scenes that are too long.

Second-the person who became the victim was another totally obvious victim almost from the moment we me this person.

Third-the killer was the first one you would figure-either with or without having seen other episodes of this series. The motive was probably the most common one used in all murder mysteries.

Fourth-the means of the murder, once we learn how the victim was actually killed, leaves virtually no doubt as to the identity of the murderer.

Fifth-without giving away the details, the victim could easily have not happened to do the single act that led to death. You might say it is akin to a setup where the victim walks across a carpet in a large room to get to a window and to be killed steps on a small button under the carpet causing an explosion. Understand that is not what happened here, but the likelihood of someone happening to place their foot on that small button in my scenario is much like the method in which this murder was committed in the show. It's a rather risky way to kill someone because they could easily have "missed" the mark.

Sixth-most of this episode takes place before the murder was committed-I think it was close to 35 minutes not counting commercials. By the time we had a murder, the show was nearly over.

Seventh-the whole notion that this dance is somehow "cursed" because one dancer died from a heart attack after doing it on film and one other decades earlier also happened to die after performing in this ballet is, of course, ludicrous. Three people dying for no apparent reason in a span of a few years would still not mean there's a curse, but at least you'd understand why some people would think so.

If I loved ballets I would only give this show one more star point than I do. That is the smallest of my complaints about this episode. There just wasn't much to enjoy for me primarily because the murder came way too late, the victim and killer seemed obvious, and the means of committing murder seemed to rely too much on the victim's bad luck. So I settle for a 2.

After the season-opener where Jessica takes a New York City apartment for 3-4 days a week to let her teach a class on criminology at Manhattan University, this episode sees her meeting her new colleagues and begin teaching.

One faculty member she meets is the man who taught her course last year, Wallace Evans, who clearly resents her taking his place, although he still has other courses he teaches. In her introductory course, one student challenges her ability to teach them anything since she is a fiction-writer trying to teach a roomful of people, many of whom are actual police officers with experience in the real world of criminals. She does a Sherlock Holmes-type of observational deductions about this young man that convinces him, and the others who may have silently wondered the same thing, that her amateur talents which let her figure out several facts about the man may just be useful to others.

Another student in her class approaches her in the cafeteria to tell her how excited he is to be in her class because he's a big fan of her novels. Here we saw a very surprising reaction from Jessica. She figured that he might struggle in her class simply because he let her know he wasn't a cop or someone following a career in the subject, and that was fine. But instead of being the friendly lady she normally is, even with people who are kind-of rude to her, Jessica practically kicked him out of her class, harshly telling him that he will slow down the others in the class because he isn't serious about the subject.

College students (as Jessica would know) going for their bachelor's degrees have to take many classes that aren't in their intended field of study. Part of the discipline of college is learning to work hard to pass classes even when the subject isn't your favorite. My school had us all take a "basic intensive"-three semesters in one area, such as math, a foreign language, or other choices. My plans involved nothing where I would need these subjects-I took French, but didn't learn enough to converse with someone on a trip to Quebec because I never lived there long enough to truly be fluent.

It would have made more sense for her to be more friendly to a big fan, and nicely caution him that she hopes he knows that he will have to spend a lot of time in order to succeed in her class. Instead, she practically insisted that he drop her course right away-thus making an enemy her first day on campus. Totally not the usual Jessica to us viewers.

The main story deals with the campus being plagued by muggers accosting the female population, particularly at night-hence the title. Of course, someone gets killed and Jessica works to solve the case, helped by a young police officer who is in her class, who violates procedure by letting a civilian have full access to the case paperwork. If I am not mistaken, since this officer wasn't assigned to the case at all, he himself should not have had access to those papers. Anyhow he faces a warning from the captain about how he is not to violate protocol again.

This leads us to a derailment of sorts-leaving the investigation of the murder, while Jessica tries to find out what is troubling her young student by dropping in on him at home, where she meets his mother and learns much about the young man's father, also a police officer, and sees that his mother really doesn't want him to be a police officer at all.

Jessica also has one other altercation with that young student she was so nasty to earlier, as he approaches her in the library and lets her know he is still most upset at the way she treated him. I believe we viewers are supposed to wonder if this unusual person might be the mugger, or if he is a red herring.

As a personal note, there is a scene later when the college librarian violates policy by letting Jessica not only learn who has checked out a book she wants, but see a list of the last 5-6 people who checked it out. It's always interesting when a character has either my first or last name on a show. In fact, there is another episode this season where the killer's first name matched mine. In this case, one of the people on that list has the identical first AND last name of a former colleague of mine. I note that Jessica saw this list in a college library and that is the type of building where I worked with this lady.

I do agree with others who say the "bad guy" was rather obvious. He was tripped up in the usual MSW manner.

My final thoughts here delve into the vast energy Jessica Fletcher displays. She went from being a retired school teacher to a mystery writer, who spends most of her time meeting with publishers, traveling all around the country for book signings, radio and TV appearances and newspaper interviews. When at home, almost anytime a visitor comes over, she tells them she doesn't have time to do X because she has a deadline for her next novel and the publisher won't wait.

Without dropping any of those activities, she now has time to spend half of each week in New York City, where even teaching just one class will surely fill up many hours of her time, planning each class, grading papers, etc.

You would think she would never embark on such a time-consuming new adventure unless she was retiring from writing novels.

If Angela Lansbury had as much energy as J. B. Fletcher, she would never had wanted to do those "bookend" shows the past two seasons. I am NOT criticizing the actress at all, simply observing how hard-working Jessica never seems to tire of her busy schedule.

As for this episode, a 6.

We open with Jessica being driven by an assistant to her publisher into Lancaster, Pennsylvania on a Sunday morning because Jessica has decided to buy an authentic Amish quilt for her nephew Grady's first anniversary.

As shown, the driver, Reuben, talks while looking at Jessica much too long and thus he doesn't see an Amish buggy until the last second forcing him to swerve off the road. The car has some damage, but after the young man driving the buggy hastens away, Reuben suffers a back spasm while bending to look for damage to his car.

Jessica runs to the nearby town and interrupts their Sunday worship. The people, on learning about the accident are willing to help. Politely, nobody snickers when Jessica asks if they can phone for help. I thought it amazing that Jessica thought Amish folks would have phones handy.

Reuben is taken to a home and he and Jessica are invited to stay overnight and they can get help to fix their car tomorrow-on Monday. This leads to a more traditional MSW set of scenes to introduce the characters in the story and see who is going to be the most likely murder victim and who will likely be blamed.

I'm going to skip a more detailed description of the plot-other reviewers have done it well.

My complaints have to do with certain things. One is the pronunciation of this group of people. I have always heard AH-mish, with the first syllable being much like what the doctor tells you to say when he examines your throat-you know-say "Ahhhh." Several on this episode said it the way I would. The local sheriff who seems quite knowledgeable of these people calls them AY-mish. Jessica pronounced it AR-mish for reasons I do not understand.

Now Reuben and Jessica were not expecting to stay anywhere overnight, but to return to Philadelphia before their problems. So I ask, where did Jessica intend to buy an Amish quilt ON A SUNDAY, when they are famous for not doing any sort of unnecessary work on the Lord's Day?

EXTRA SPOILER ALERT: Sometimes a person is killed on this series when it wasn't murder, but there is normally another killing on that episode that was. In this episode, as depicted, the only person who died did so from a total accident. You wouldn't even have a manslaughter charge here. There is also an unanswered question concerning what happened with the body after the person died that would seem to not have possibly been done by the person present at the time of the death.

I wouldn't say this was a bad episode, but it sure wasn't one of the best to me-a score of 6.

We open with a young architect, Steve Landon, angrily confronting a contractor at a building site for not following the specs on building materials for a school being built that this architect designed. The contractor offers him a bribe to agree to re-done specs (while the contractor pockets the difference in building costs) but the angry Landon threatens to go to a city councilman, or even the newspapers.

I note here that one of the reviewers on this site incorrectly states that Landon threatened to "blast the site with dynamite" which absolutely never happened. This reviewer regularly writes wonderfully detailed reviews of the plot, but usually has an important fact or two noted incorrectly.

If you've read no other review for this episode, from what I have written you likely know who gets murdered and who gets blamed. The twist here is that the accused mother jumps to her son's defense and approaches Jessica in a unique manner. Once again the memory of Jessica's Frank is brought into the story in a dramatic manner, and we get a repeat guest starring role from Martin Milner, who appeared earlier in the series as Clint, a close friend of Jessica's late husband from their days in the Korean War.

Some might say Jessica's foray to talk to Clint was a distraction from the murder case. Technically it was, but I just accept that part of this episode's plot was to tell us more about Frank. The murder plot was still the main focus and it was done fairly well-killer's identity surprised me-with no huge holes in my opinion, and several possible suspects.

I cannot say what I wish to, not even vaguely, about one aspect of this script without truly spoiling it. I will just say that there was one element I found disturbing in terms of thinking about the characters as if they were people I know, but the situation winds up not being what I had been led to believe.

The good resolution raised my score for this 2 whole points. While I generally favor the humorous episodes, this was a well-done straight drama that I think deserves an 8 out of 10.

Jessica visits Kentucky and, naturally goes to the horse races, where she is seen betting $200 on a given horse. But we immediately learn that she never bets more than $10 for herself, this bet was for her friend Harry McGraw back in Boston. In a weird, though unimportant matter, we never see one second of that race, nor any other horse race in this show. Normally, an series episode focused on the subject will show us at least a few seconds of a race.

The plot focuses on two rival horse breeders feud, that involves-no surprise here-offspring of the two men, offspring who are engaged, with the female being a veterinarian who treats horses. In classic movie/TV murder mystery fashion, you believe you know who'll get murdered, and as soon as you learn you are right you KNOW who will be accused due to scenes you saw, and that will also be right. So obviously, the killer is someone else and they did a good job here in giving you a clue or two but not making it too obvious who the killer was.

One thing dragged this episode down, although I see others thought it was funny. Nanette Fabray plays a lady who seems to believe that she can not only talk to horses and have them understand her words, but that they answer her and she can translate it into English. She did this in her opening scene-OK, kind of amusing. But then she did it during the Reveal, and even though there was a reason for this, the way it was handled by those not in the know made it a rather ridiculous scene to me.

I cannot finish without mentioning that these last three episodes have had some interesting lawmen, particularly to people who remember The Beverly Hillbillies, Fernwood 2-Nite, and The Waltons. In MSW sequence, we saw lawmen in these three episodes portrayed by actors well known for roles that make the thought of them being police officers seem preposterous: Jethro Bodine, Jerry Hubbard, and Yancy Tucker. Barney Fife is Sherlock Holmes next to those characters. Of course, the actors who played those characters are fine actors and I have no beefs about their characters on this series; I'm simply enjoying the thought of a police force with their former characters all working together.

This would seem to be an MSW that gets few viewers thinking it one of the best and even fewer thinking it one of the worst. It didn't stand out much in either direction. I think it a solid six.