Episode 7 - "Deadline for Murder"
Ah, how quaint - a murder of a newspaper publisher. Newspapers, remember those? Jessica is friends with an old-school hard-workin' reporter with the improbable name of Haskell Drake, who is fired by the heartless new tabloid monster who bought the newspaper. In fact, he's not just fired, he has a full heart attack (the publisher just barks "Get some photos of this!"), and Jessica comes to visit him in the hospital.
Well, it doesn't take a genius to know that the obvious jerk in the story is bumped off rapidly, and, sure enough, the publisher dies in the middle of a party. And, it's revealed, he dies an interesting death - aneurysm induced by alcohol combined with some obscure medicine. That's a first! So Jessica, in conjunction with her hospitalized reporter friend, goes to work solving the mystery - which one of the pubisher's many enemies snuffed him out so creatively? The solution is pretty good.
Old-school reporter Haskell Drake is played by actor Harry Guardino, known as a tough guy in movies like Dirty Harry, Capone, and The Enforcer, and a tough guy in countless TV shows. Eugene Roche appears here also, veteran of shows like Soap, Webster (50 episodes), Magnum P.I., Perfect Strangers, and many more.
Finally, the old evil publisher is played by respected actor Peter Mark Richman, who has been in shows like Cain's Hundred, Longstreet, Santa Barbara, Dynasty, and many more
Episode 8 - "Magnum on Ice"
Amazing! A crossover episode with Magnum P.I.! But, there's a big problem: this is the second part of the episode, the first part occuring on Magnum P.I. And the first part contains all the introduction and development. The episode does have an unusually long "Last Time on Magnum P.I." lead-in, which is helpful, but only just. Basically the viewer arrives in media res, and has to just kind of grab hold for the ride.
The good news is that Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) is fantastic (as always) and has good chemistry with our J. B. Fletcher. I had kind of forgotten that Magnum can be a little bit of a doof sometimes, sometimes stumbling or bumbling into the right solution or the lucky place at the right time.
The plot, as it were, is pretty convoluted. I would encourage anyone interested to hunt down both halves, because I really can't summarize the summary AND this episode with any justice. So I'll skip ahead to our guest stars...
Tom Selleck! Obviously. He's the best, and worth the price of admission. Another Magnum P.I. mainstay is Higgins, played by the redoubtable John Hillerman. He's also tops. And the charming Lt. Tanaka is here too, played by Kwan Hi Lim.
Non-Magnum guests include Jessica Walters, well known these days for her role as the matriarch on Arrested Development as well as the voice of Malory, the matriarch on Archer. John McMartin also appears, his second appearance (with two more to go!). Finally, Stephenie Faracy is here, she's been on many television shows with bigger roles on True Colors, His & Hers, and the movie The Great Outdoors.
Episode 9 - "Obituary for a Dead Anchor"
Cabot Cove is picked for a TV showcase (something akin to Spotlight, here called "Scrutiny"). It's supposed to a positive piece, along the lines of "Cabot Cove, ain't it great?!" But the star anchor Kevin Keats is killed while mysteriously fleeing Cabot Cove by boat. But wait! Is he dead after all? When the post mortem reveals the corpse only has eight toes by birth, and an ex-wife confirms Keats had ten, a murder mystery begins.
Good lord, Cabot Cove is a hive of murder. No one in town treats it like any big deal, but then again I guess I wouldn't either if bodies dropped like flies around me. Anyway, once the anchor is dead, the TV station changes the story to "Cabot Cove, this place is the freaking worst," and Fletcher and Sheriff Amos have to quickly figure out what happened before the town turns them out on their ears.
Kevin Keats is played by the great Chad Everett, known for roles in Manhattan, AZ, McKenna, The Rousters, Hagen, and a very very long-running role on Medical Center (170 episodes). The great Robert Hogan also appears here as Dr. Wylie Graham (filling in for Doc Hazlett); he's been a judge on Law & Order, the character Louis Sobotka on The Wire's second season, and many other character roles over the years. Keats' mistress is Kathleen Lloyd, who had roles on Equal Justice, Magnum P.I., and many guest parts.
Episode 10 - "Stage Struck"
I like episodes based on the theater - the personalities are larger than life, and people get hysterical fast, and the murders are always gritty and personal. This is no exception: Jessica visits a revival of a play she starred in with her late husband years before. But, predictably, hell is breaking loose.
The female lead is intimidated into quitting, her understudy is killed by cyanide ON STAGE, and the chief of police is also an actor, playing the butler. He asks, rather desperately, for Jessica to give him help, and she agrees. So she starts digging in to the deep past, 30 years ago, and finds some unpleasant things.
Bob Hastings appears here, who is known to many as the voice of commissioner Gordon on many cartoon incarnations of Batman; he was also in a lot of guest roles on shows like All in the Family and Jeannie. Don Most is here! He appeared as Ralph Malph on Happy Days, and to nerdy children of the '80s as the voice of Eric the Cavalier on the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons.
Edward Mulhare is also present, known as Devon Miles on Knight Rider (85 episodes), The Ghost & Mrs Muir (50 episodes), and many guest spots. Finally, the great female lead here is Eleanor Parker, in her second-to-last role; she appeared in many notable things over the years, including Of Human Bondage (1946), The Woman in White (1948), Detective Story (1951), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and not least as the Baroness in the Sound of Music (1965). That's a lot of winners on the resume, and I'm not even cherry picking.
Episode 11 - "Night of the Headless Horseman"
This is obviously a light satire on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but a good one - because it gets nasty, and gets REAL nasty. Jessica acts as the ward of a young orphaned writer named Dorian Beecher (really?), who is bold of heart, but not of body. He teaches poetry in a small Vermont private school (I wonder if those really exist), and has a thing for the local girl - who is also the object of affection for the local bully. And man, this bully is a piece of work - a nasty, venomous, sadistic tyrant.
And of course, he's rapidly murdered - found decapitated (!), not long after Dorian was terrorized in by a "headless horseman" near a covered bridge - against, shades of Sleepy Hollow. And of course, Dorian is the prime suspect so Jessica has to step in and figure things out. This is a good one, and grimy, but I felt the plot rushed to a conclusion a little too quickly.
Dorian is played by Thom Bray, known for his turns in the show Riptide (56 episodes), Harry (7 episodes), the movies Prince of Darkness and DeepStar Six, and more. Our gloriously awful villain is played by Barry Williams! Known as Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch (117 episodes). Charles Siebert is here (Trapper John MD), as is the prolific Doug McClure (Out of This World, Barbary Coast, Search, and especially The Virginian).
Worth noting is Judy Landers - whose sister Audrey we've already seen in Season 2 ("When a Body Meets a Body"). She's known for roles on Madame's Place (51 episodes) and B.J. and the Bear (15 episodes) and Vega$ (14 epiodes).
Episode 12 - "The Corpse Flew First Class"
I loved this one. A locked-room mystery - but the locked "room" is the first class cabin of an airliner going from Boston to London! This one has ALL the pieces of a good mystery - a necklace to rival the Crown jewels - and a fake! The necklace is stolen! The rich owner's chauffeur is murdered in his seat! A diamond cutter is on board! A suspicious couple who seem to be smugglers! A shady movie producer! And a Scotland Yard detective, one of the rare times the show doesn't treat the resident officer of the law as ignorant or hostile (or both). This episode has a particularly good resolution, too.
This episode was written very well by Donald Ross, his first of sixteen scripts for this show. He wrote many others from the era including Love Boat, Hart to Hart, Diff'rent Strokes, and several others. Sadly, he seems to have retired after Murder, She Wrote. We'll see another of his ("A Fashionable Way to Die") at the start of the fourth season. I hope it's as good as this one.
This episode has many great performances, so bear with me as I run down the best of them. The Scotland Yard detective, fantastically named "Errol Pogson," is played by David Hemmings, who is best known for his iconic leadingrole in the Antonioni film Blow-Up (1966) along with many first class movies like Camelot, Barbarella, Murder by Decree, Gladiator, Spy Game, etc.
Kate Mulgrew is here as the rich owner of the necklace; she's well known for her role as Red in Orange is the New Black, and for the starring role of Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager. The obnoxious producer is played by Pat Harrington Jr., known for One Day at a Time (200 episodes), voice work on Captain Caveman (40 episodes), and many other roles.
The murdered chauffeur here was played by Mark Venturini, who was a football star who transitioned to acting. He is actually quite good despite the smallish role, and I was very sad to read that he died at age 35 back in 1996; he is in a few movies, including Return of the Living Dead, Friday the 13th A New Beginning, and Out-of-Sync.
Finally, this episode was the final acting role of the great Gene Nelson. He appeared in small roles in many movies, and had a starring role as Will Parker in Oklahoma!; he transitioned to directing, and directed The Donna Reed Show (21 episodes), The Mod Squad (18 episodes), and many others. His wife in the episode is played by the great Mary Jo Catlett, who is wonderful as Pearl Gallagher on Diff'rent Strokes, has many other roles on television, and did many voices on SpongBob SquarePants.
Episode 13 - "Crossed Up"
Jessica throws out her back and is laid up in bed; while making a call during a storm, the lines get crossed and she - impossibly - overhears a murder plot being discussed. What are the odds?! She attempts to report it immediately, but no one takes her seriously (which makes no sense, as by this point she has solved at least 50 murders). But when a wealthy lumber magnate is in fact murdered, Jessica has to direct the investigation from her bed, a la Nero Wolfe. Grady goes out as her eyes and ears, and Jessica must figure out if it was one of the lumber baron's sons, his granddaughter, or someone else altogether. And then it gets complicated when a second body shows up...
Tony Dow is here! Yes, Wally Cleaver from Leave It To Beaver. Henry Brandon also appears, who I know from small roles in adventure movies dating back the mid-1930s - Garden of Allah, Buck Rogers, Drums of Fu Manchu (as Fu Manchu!), Bad Man of Deadwood, Joan of Arc (as serial killer Giles de Rais!), Robert Aldrich's Vera Cruz, and - my favorite of all - as Scar, the American Indian chief in John Ford's classic Western The Searchers (1956).
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