Murder, She Wrote – The Complete Third to Eighth
Seasons (Universal DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: C+
As the
hit Angela Lansbury series Murder, She
Wrote continued its long term success as a Sunday night hit, the show
became slowly more comic and less mysterious, which was good for ratings, but
not necessarily good for the show quality-wise.
Still, when you look at the arc between the third and eighth seasons,
you can see that tendency and how the show becomes “safer” in tone in a way
that is unfortunate. You can read about
my feelings on the show early on in this coverage of its second season:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3141/Murder,+She+Wrote+-+The+Complete
Starting
with the 1986 – 87 season, the show even started to noticeably lighten up on a
visual level, not that the show was ever The
X Files, but good form in even a broader Mystery TV show is needed. By the 1991 – 1992 Season, it was enough of a
hit that they could get some great character actors to appear and any hit show
looks good on a resume (Roxie Roker, Kate Mulgrew and Marcia Cross are examples
here) for a long term career, but again, this became like The Love Boat without
the boat.
As a sign
of desperation, Jessica Fletcher (Lansbury) leaves Cabot Cove for a teaching
job in New York. This did not kill the
show, which was only 2/3rds of the way finished in its run. The makers and star knew their audience and the
fact that it has made it to an 8th DVD box set shows how popular the show still
is. It also reminds us how good it is to
have scripted television, that even at its more stretched-out, is a pleasure
versus lame “reality TV’ and like junk.
The 1.33
X 1 image and Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound remains very consistent across all
box sets, though there is a little more aliasing trouble by the 8th
set versus the early ones, but at least these are shot on film. Sadly, there are still no extras, but they
have four or five sets left (a TV movie revival set seems inevitable) to make
up for that.
Lansbury
and other should be available and wouldn’t it be nice to have bonus features
when the series is reissued on Blu-ray?
- Nicholas Sheffo
