Murder, She Wrote was a long-time installment among my favorite television shows in middle school and high school, as I tuned in each week to find out how the amiable but ever-so-sharp-witted mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) would stumble across – and then solve – the latest crime. Over the show's twelve-year run, the show garnered a devoted audience and a measure of critical esteem for Lansbury in the lead role.

Jessica Fletcher is, of course, no more or less than a U.S. version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, the clever little old lady who managed to solve mysteries that baffled the British police. In fact, Lansbury had played Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd four years prior to the start of Murder, She Wrote. It's a revision of a beloved fictional character that actually works, thanks to Lansbury herself (who had a long and noteworthy career in film and theater before Murder, She Wrote, although this is likely the role she's best known for). Jessica Fletcher is an immediately likable and also recognizable character: the kindly, widowed aunt who's well known and loved in her small town, in this case the Maine town of Cabot Cove. What's perhaps most pleasant about Murder, She Wrote is how the show lets Jessica be both the warm-hearted, practical Yankee and the steely-eyed sleuth; in Lansbury's hands the otherwise rather unlikely combination actually works surprisingly well.

It's also nice to see an older woman (Lansbury was 59 at the start of Murder, She Wrote's run) in the role of an active, interesting character. In these first-season episodes, Jessica is ceaselessly active, whether going for a jog, riding her bike around the streets of Cabot Cove, or heading off on a book tour. Who says you have to be young and stylish to be an interesting protagonist?

That said, Murder, She Wrote is still a show that requires a certain nostalgic investment on the part of the viewer. Costumes and hairstyles are oh-so-80s, and the secondary actors have a certain "1980s television acting" style that rings a bit false in the present day. (In contrast, Lansbury hams it up but still always manages to seem much more natural on-screen than any of her fellow actors.) The show's consistent slightly comic tone also feels a bit awkward, a bit over-the-top, to me at this point. It's not so much the hammy acting, although that's certainly part of it, but the musical score that pushes the wrong buttons: the background music is very obtrusive, with blatantly obvious musical cues for comic moments. It's as if the producers were afraid that, without a laugh track to guide them, the audience might not notice the funny moment! Can't have that happen!

If your fondness for the show extends to putting up with its overdone sense of humor, as it very well may, given the show's general charm, then the episodes here in the first season are sure to offer many an hour of pleasant, fluffy entertainment. There's a decent variety of setting and circumstance in these episodes, as the writers wisely alternated between the Cabot Cove setting and various locales across the country for the scene of the crime. I've always liked the Cabot Cove stories the most, like "Deadly Lady" or "Sudden Death," but it would strain even the most willing sense of disbelief to have too many bodies pile up at once in this quiet little Maine seaside town. Sure, we have to accept the fact that Jessica is always tripping over bodies wherever she goes, but at least it's spread out to places like Seattle ("Lovers and Other Killers"), New Orleans ("Murder to a Jazz Beat"), or Wyoming ("Funeral at Fifty-Mile"). In addition to simply being an interested bystander to many of these crimes, Jessica is involved in many of them by virtue of being a mystery writer in episodes like "Footnote to Murder" and "Hooray for Homicide."

This set includes the 21 50-minute episodes from the first season, along with the 90-minute pilot episode "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes." While the pilot is interesting to watch because it establishes the character of Jessica Fletcher, it does feel overly long; the shorter episode length works better for the show.

The DVD

Murder, She Wrote: The Complete First Season is packaged in a nicely compact set, with the pilot and 21 first-season episodes presented on three double-sided dual-layer DVDs. The three discs each have their own keepcase and fit inside an attractive paperboard slipcase.

Video

Murder, She Wrote comes across as strictly average in its DVD transfer. Presented in its original television aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the episodes do have a decently lively color palette (apart from the faded-looking pilot) and adequate contrast, but they're decidedly soft-looking, with a fair amount of noise and quite a few print flaws as well. It's watchable, but I doubt it was cleaned up much, if at all, before the DVD transfer.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 mono soundtrack is unfortunately a bit sub-par here. The dialogue is flat and often quite muffled-sounding, and the overall sound is rather muddy. Other than that, there's nothing really wrong with the soundtrack. English closed captions and Spanish and French subtitles are included.

Extras

The chapter design is nothing short of annoying. Each episode starts with the short TV teaser that was originally used to promote it... but if you don't want to watch this clip, you have to fast-forward through it, as it's not possible to skip past it (or past the credits, either). That's an annoying user-unfriendly way to present what would otherwise be a cute minor special feature.

Apart from the teaser clips, there are no special features.

Final thoughts

A charming, lightweight series, Murder, She Wrote feels a bit dated at this point, but that's unlikely to change the nostalgic affection of long-time viewers for this mystery series, particularly if the comic touch is something viewers enjoy rather than simply put up with. The transfer is in the lackluster-to-ordinary range, but fans will at any rate be pleased at the release of the complete first season plus the pilot in one set. While it didn't stand up to repeat viewing for me as well as I thought it might, it's still a fun show, and I'll go ahead and give this set a "recommended."