Murder, She Wrote: Complete Series 10/1/13 (1 Viewer)

[jimmyjet]

odo dropped by for this one.

i like it much better when the police captain is smart, as opposed to some bumbling fool.

linda purl is quite pretty.

 

[jimmyjet]

i didnt know that angela lansbury was so pretty when she was younger.

https://www.google.com/search?q=angela+lansbury&client=firefox-a&hs=lJh&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NRxCU7TcEOaNygGooYCwBQ&ved=0CLoBEIke&biw=1014&bih=621#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=JXQsX2abcRMfoM%253A%3B7AcBLrRq1C2MbM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.biography.com%252Fimported%252Fimages%252FBiography%252FImages%252FProfiles%252FL%252FAngela-Lansbury-9373383-1-402.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.biography.com%252Fpeople%252Fangela-lansbury-9373383%3B402%3B402

 

[Matt Hough]

Yes, Angela was most attractive during her MGM years except that usually she was playing much older than her actual age.

 

[jimmyjet]

she has credits all the way back to the 40s.

i am fairly familiar with that stuff, as i have always liked older movies.

started watching them as a kid.

back then, old movies were shown every week.

the local stations (5, 9, 11, and 13) did most of the broadcasting of that stuff.

i just dont recall ever hearing the name of angela lansbury ?

 

[FanCollector]

She was a character actress in the movies from the 40s through the 60s, and then became a Broadway musical leading lady in the late 60s and the 70s. When the series was pitched to CBS, it was proposed with the understanding that Jean Stapleton would play the lead. Ms. Stapleton withdrew from the project and the producers heard that Angela Lansbury was interested in a TV series. They were big fans of hers, but feared that CBS would want a bigger name. CBS was happy to have Ms. Lansbury though, and the rest is history...

 

[jimmyjet]

thanks fc.

hi matt,

just watched murder through the looking glass.

from a writing standpoint, it may be the best one so far, in terms of the plot being fairly deep.

however, there is one thing that i dont understand ?

when jessica is talking to the "priest" on the bench, it shows the team at the safe house listening in.

on what i am guessing was a bug that the safe house put on jessica, without her knowledge ?

so i was expecting that to play a big role in the episode ?

but i could not see that it played any role ?

i suspect that i missed something ?

if you get a chance, watch that one again, and tell me what you think ?

btw, karen valentine still looks pretty good. as a young boy, i had a crush on her in room 222 !!!

 

[jimmyjet]

just one good show after another

very good writing

very good year for murder -

gowron has a small role in this one.

eli wallach is just one of the best actors ever.

the more i see him, the more i appreciate just how good he is. he carried clint eastwood in the good, the bad, and the ugly. he had all the hard acting parts.

a kristian alfonso had a darling cute face - wow !!

this show must have had high ratings during its run to get all these good actors to show up.

 

[Matt Hough]

Oh, yes, the show was among the biggest hits on CBS for eleven of its twelve years. The twelfth year, CBS in a desperate move plucked the show from its Sunday night roost and put it opposite Friends on Thursday night. It dropped from a top ten show to a show in the 50s in one season. Angela hadn't been consulted about the move and was furious about it. In fact, it's one of the few negative comments I ever heard her utter about the business: her fury over CBS moving her show to an impossible time slot.

I remember "Murder Through the Looking Glass" quite well but will have to rewatch to see the scene you're talking about. I remember clearly who the killer was.

 

[jimmyjet]

from your comment, i guess friends was a more popular show ?

and msw could not compete with it ?

i can see a "desperate" move to move a show away from a too popular show, but i do not understand the sense of moving a popular show to face an even more popular show ?

if friends was that popular, i think i would have moved one of my dog shows in that time slot, knowing i was not gonna get ratings with any show anyways ?

 

[Rob_Ray]

from your comment, i guess friends was a more popular show ?

and msw could not compete with it ?

i can see a "desperate" move to move a show away from a too popular show, but i do not understand the sense of moving a popular show to face an even more popular show ?

if friends was that popular, i think i would have moved one of my dog shows in that time slot, knowing i was not gonna get ratings with any show anyways ?

That was classic counter-programming in the pre-DVR world of television. CBS assumed that the audiences for "Friends" and "Murder She Wrote" were different enough so that CBS could score respectable numbers against "Friends", rather than just give up and cede the timeslot. Sometimes it works (Gunsmoke vs. Laugh-In), but more often it doesn't. But CBS also knew that MSW was on its last legs, so I suppose there was less to lose. Wasn't Angela tired of the show by that point, anyway?

 

[Matt Hough]

But CBS also knew that MSW was on its last legs, so I suppose there was less to lose. Wasn't Angela tired of the show by that point, anyway?

She probably was (she wasn't even bothering to learn her dialogue any more; she used cue cards), but her statements have always mentioned the hundreds of people thrown out of work by CBS' move to try to tame Friends, and I think Angela would have kept it going simply for the sake of her cast and crew if the ratings hadn't been so depressed that CBS canceled the show. They certainly called on her to reprise the character in TV movies over the next few years.

As for the show being on its last legs, it ranked 8th in the ratings for the season prior to its move.

 

[FanCollector]

As satirized by the last episode of the series, "Death By Demographics," MSW was still doing well in the total aggregate ratings, but its 18-49 demographics (which is what sets advertising rates) had gone way down over the years. Early on, the show upended industry expectations by having strong ratings among young people in spite of the format and the casting. By the end, those demographics were no longer defying expectations and the show was highly rated but not so financially valuable to CBS anymore. I suspect the rationale for moving it to Thursday was that the younger demographic wasn't watching the show anyway, so being opposite Friends wouldn't really cost them anything.

 

[jimmyjet]

hi fc,

does that mean that by the time we hit 50, we have finally wised up enough that we arent influenced any more by silly advertisements ????

 

[Rob_Ray]

hi fc,

does that mean that by the time we hit 50, we have finally wised up enough that we arent influenced any more by silly advertisements ????

Go to the head of the class!

 

[FanCollector]

Yes, that's the idea. But it makes it a lot harder to find TV shows that want to get you to watch...

 

[Matt Hough]

thanks fc.

hi matt,

just watched murder through the looking glass.

from a writing standpoint, it may be the best one so far, in terms of the plot being fairly deep.

however, there is one thing that i dont understand ?

when jessica is talking to the "priest" on the bench, it shows the team at the safe house listening in.

on what i am guessing was a bug that the safe house put on jessica, without her knowledge ?

so i was expecting that to play a big role in the episode ?

but i could not see that it played any role ?

i suspect that i missed something ?

if you get a chance, watch that one again, and tell me what you think ?

btw, karen valentine still looks pretty good. as a young boy, i had a crush on her in room 222 !!!

I did not have a scene in the episode in my box set that showed the team listening in to that conversation. The whole point in them going outdoors to a park was so they wouldn't be eavesdropped on.

I also rewatched the Eli Wallach episode and agree that it was a very good mystery. I had forgotten Billy Zane was one of the grandsons.

 

[jimmyjet]

ok matt,

i sure must have misunderstood something !!

just watched benedict arnold - this one was a bit of a clunker, for me.

 

[Matt Hough]

Once again, I think they were going for a lighter tone with the Benedict Arnold-themed murder story, and those episodes almost always fall flat. There's nothing amusing about murder, and the grasping characters so eager to pillage that house of any treasures were most unsavory.

 

[jimmyjet]

it is amazing how well you remember some of these episodes.

i dont keep the details of any show like that !!

 

[Matt Hough]

The first five years of Murder, She Wrote are sort of imprinted in my memory banks. I watched the show every week and all the reruns, videotaped them for later rewatching when nothing else was on, and, of course, have watched the DVDs many, many times. So, I'd be pretty bad off if I DIDN'T remember it after having seen the shows so often over the years.