Murder, He Wrote! (Season 3, Episodes 14-16)

Episode 14 - "Murder in a Minor Key"

This is the episode that made me think Murder, She Wrote had really made it. Although the ratings were really high at this point, and they were luring bigger guest stars than ever, it's when the show felt comfortable to start taking narrative chances that I thought it had turned the corner. 

This episode is both ambitious and a little odd: Jessica Fletcher appears only has a sort of narrator, breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the viewer, describing the plot of her newest novel, Murder in a Minor Key. The remainder of the episode features the fictional characters of her book as if they were real, and so Jessica doesn't actually solve the crime. 


Instead, there is an obvious stand-in for Jessica, a law student with the improbable name of Chad Singer. Singer is appropriate, since the murder is of the dead of a university's music department - as wretched a villain as the show has every produced, surely. Chad's friend Mike is blamed for the killing, but he was just there at the wrong time. Chad (and, by extension, Fletcher-as-author) has to solve the crime before Mike is railroaded. 

Good acting in this one saves the rather complicated plot and the oddness of Lansbury not directly participating (I wonder if she was on vacation). Law student Chad is Shaun Cassidy! Yes, that Shaun Cassidy - '70s heartthrob and successful singer of several top 10 hits. He also appeared in The Hardy Boys Mysteries I watched in reruns as a kid, and is now a successful producer. His framed friend Mike is played by Paul Clemens, who was in the 1982 cult classic horror film The Beast Within.

Rene Auberjonois has a part here as another professor; he known for many roles including Boston Legal (71 episodes), Benson (135 episodes), and a great turn as Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (173 episodes), at least two classic Robert Altman movies (MASH and McCabe and Mrs Miller), as well as many, many voiceover parts. Herb Edelman also stars here, as a broadway produced; this is his third of seven parts on Murder, She Wrote (!), and the last one before he steps into his recurring role of NYPD detective Artie Gelber. 

Finally, the murder victim here - and boy did he sorely deserve it - is played to the hilt by Geroge Grizzard, a TV veteran of many many shows (this is his second time on Murder, She Wrote). Wife of the murder victim is also well played, by Karen Grassle, who appears in several TV westerns but is best known for the role of Caroline Ingalls on the long-running hit Little House on the Prairie. 

Episode 15 - "The Bottom Line is Murder"

A good one with a *really* strange cameo by George Takei that I'll cover in a bit. Jessica visits a friend in Denver, whose husband works at a TV station whose biggest hit is a consumer protection show whose host is a total sleazebag. The sleaze, of course, is rapidly murdered, and Jessica has to help out her friend when the friend's husband is framed. 

I liked this episode for the look inside grimy '80s local television (I remember shows not too far from the fictional one here). I also liked how nearly every character was amoral, just trying to succeed in a cutthroat business. The police detective, as always, is a bumbling crumbum who Jessica must lead with carrot and stick to the correct answer. And the villain here is a little more disturbing than usual, as he genuinely seems deeply troubled and willing to murder at the drop of a hat with relatively little understanding of the wrongness of his actions - murder is his first, and only impulse. Creepy.

But George Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek, and now a major Twitter celebrity and champion of LGBT rights) steals every single scene he's in. He plays the station's janitor, "Bert Tanaka" (Bert?) and has to be seen to be believed. He adopts an extremely broad (almost offensively so) caricature of an Asian accent, speaks with really strange, stilted phrasing, speaks as much to himself as to anyone else, and - best of all - is DYING to show Jessica Fletcher his prized collection of "garbage of the stars." That's right - he collects trash tossed out by famous people. He has apple cores (lovingly bronzed), salami wrappers, etc. He is especially happy to have something discarded by Pat Boone, which I assume was an in-joke inserted by Takei. The role is beyond weird, but also super fun to watch.

Besides Takei, the great Adrienne Barbeau appears for the second and last time - the first time we saw her, she was the leader of the women's prison gang in the episode "Jessica Behind Bars" back in Season 1. The inept police detective is Barry Corbin, who has appeared in many shows and movies including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Honkytonk Man, WarGames (as General Beringer), nine episodes of Dallas, and the role of Maurice Minnifield on Northern Exposure (110 episodes).  

The murder victim Kenneth Chambers is played ably by Rod McCary, who has appeared in many shows and movies, including Harper Valley P.T.A. (30 episodes), and Just Our Luck (13 episodes). Another employee is played by Clare Henley, known as Cruise Director Judy McCoy on The Love Boat (55 episodes) and other parts. An extortion victim is played by Joe Santos, television veteran known for shows like The Rockford Files (112 episodes), Hardcastle and McCormick, Magnum P.I., and The Sopranos. Finally, the framed man Jessica must liberate is Robert F. Lyons, who has appeared on many shows starting in the mid-1960s. 

Episode 16 - "Death Takes a Dive"

This one has a metric ton of guest stars, and a really interesting setting: the seedy, grimy, dirty, corrupt world of professional boxing (especially the lower rungs). It's also extra-long at 90 minutes. Guess who's back? Harry McGraw! This time he ropes Jessica into investing into a prize fighter whose contract McGraw inherited - literally, inherited from a dead friend. What a crazy guy McGraw is.

This episode is more for Harry McGraw than anything else, since he catches Jessica up to the events leading to his arrest by narrating it in the style of a film noir. That's OK, Orbach is full of charisma - even though he gets his ass handed to him more often than not, and thus is a little silly (which I think is intentional). Well, a shady promoter gets gunned down and McGraw is the prime suspect, since he had attempted to rough up the promoter and had some financial conflicts with the man. When the episode is handed back to Jessica, she goes to bat for McGraw and quickly applies her wiles to the case with great success. There's also a mini-montage, clearly modeled on Rocky, as Jessica helps train her boxer Blaster (!!). 

The murdered promoter is Adam West! Famous for his role as the original television Batman in the '60s, he is fantastic here, evil, slimy, and calm all the while. His enforcer? Ernest Borgnine! Famous himself for many great roles, including McHale's Navy (138 episodes), Airwolf (55 episodes), The Single Guy (43 episodes), and classic movies like From Here to Eternity, Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure, and my personal favorite - as Cabbie in Escape form New York. He's a legend.

LaVar Burton! The legendary host of Reading Rainbow, and famous for his role as Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Here he has a magical flattop haircut along with a pencil moustache. Also appearing is a longtime favorite of mine, John Amos; well known for his role as the stalwart, hopeful, cynical father of the Evans family on Good Times (58 episodes), he's also famous for Roots, for the role of Weatherman Gordy on the Mary Tyler Moore show, The West Wing (21 episodes), and also the movies like  Coming to America and Die Hart 2. 

Finally, the two boxers: the Irishman Sean Shaleen is played by Michael McGrady, known for movies like Trancers, The Babe, Mr Baseball, Wyatt Earp, and shows like Ray Donovan (11 episodes) and The People v. O.J. Simpson. The other boxer is Harold Sylvester, who I know and love from his role as Al Bundy's coworker at the shoe store on Married With Children (44 episodes);  he's also in movies like Uncommon Valor, Vision Quest, Innerspace, and appears alongside Ernest Norgnine in Night Club.