The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

Season 1, Episode 1
Sept. 30, 1984

The first freeze frame.

The movie-length pilot introduces us to Jessica, Cabot Cove, and Jessica's bumbling nephew Grady. It lays the tone down perfectly. That odd blend of conservative morals and abundance that the 80s trading in regularly. Upper-class shenanigans and goings on. With a side of murder.

We are whisked to a costume party at a sprawling estate. Jessica's publisher, Preston Giles, shows up in a flamboyant brocaded suit. Jessica is in a fairy-godmother get-up that reminds one of her Disney films.

She wants that jacket.

The music is piano-based bombast. Tones to indicate when the body is found. Tones when people look suspicious. The strings sing loudly.

In the end Jessica proves that her love interest and publisher, Preston, killed a private eye. She then boards a train for home. Grady's girlfriend shows up talking about two dead wrestlers. One was stabbed and one drowned. The bodies found in the center of an empty Madison Square Garden. Jessica seems disinterested, as she always does at first. She jumps on the train, refusing to listen. She claims to be tired of mystery, she wishes she had stayed out of the whole ordeal. Which Grady and the audience know better than to believe.

The train moves quickly down the platform. The camera pans over the moving train and the doorway comes into view. Jessica leans out realizing the strangeness of the murder and that face happens. That glorious, silly, amazing face. Then the frame freezes. We are left staring at those pursed lips and bugged eyes. And that familiar theme begins to play. The credits roll.

It is over the top and cheesy as hell. But somehow you go with it. The rules of the show allow you to. Here are some rich assholes. Someone will kill someone. Jessica will save the day. We will do it again next week. There will be a murder. And then a dose of silliness. A sort of palate cleanser.

Jessica is meant to feel safe, meant to make it OK that we are watching crime as entertainment. She is the least flamboyant in the room. Cardigans and apple pie. Breezy blouses and scarves. She sits in her adorable house in Maine and comes up with mysteries that get solved neatly by the final page. She is Agatha Christie for the 80s. She remains calm as the world around her goes insane.

And that insane world is the world around us. 1984. The Bells were broken up. The Macintosh went on sale. William Buckley was kidnapped and killed in Beirut. Vanessa Williams had to step down as Miss America because of nude photos. L.A. held the Olympics. Hezbollah bombed the US Embassy in Beirut. Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Ronald Reagan won a second term as President. The Cold War was near its height. The economy was not doing well.

The pilot is sometimes broken into 2 parts.
This shot ends part 1.

That is a long list but it was a time of fear. Fear of the 'other', fear of crime, fear of war.

Into this space an older woman will come and make sense of it all. Will make it unscary. Lansbury winks and nods her way through her scenes. Not chewing up so much as refusing to allow the walls to exist.

The most famous of her stage roles is Mrs. Lovett in the original production of Sweeney Todd. That role is the polar opposite of J. B. Fletcher. Lovett is evil, sarcastic, caustic. Jessica is kind, knowing, gentle. They two roles share one thing - Camp. They are both examples of pure camp. There is a beautiful series by J. Bryon Lowder over at Slate called Postcards From Camp. The 16-part essay is incredibly thorough and well worth your time.

Safe. Predictable. Stable. Even in the face of madness. J. B. Fletcher would lead us out of the strange tide of the 1980s and into the 1990s.

Manifesto

I've been watching Murder, She Wrote for a long time. I was 3 when the show premiered in September of 1984. I wasn't a part of the audience that night, but I came to the show in the late 80s and it has stuck with me since.

What is it about the weird run-ins of a 60-something with murderers that attracts? Even in the show's 11th season it was in the top ten shows on television. It was knocked from that pedestal when CBS decided to kill the show by placing it against Friends in the fall of 1995.

Jessica Beatrice Fletcher is an everyman. Albeit a very WASPy one. I think that is part of the charm though. The show, and Jessica herself, were so completely middle of the road to almost transcend that. To be an archetype of something very "America" in the 80s and early 90s.

I aim to get at that thing over the course of this blog. I don't know that I will get there. But I will try. This isn't going to be a blow-by-blow of each episode. That's what Netflix is for.

The first freeze frame.

The oddest part of the show has always been the final freeze frame at the end of each episode. After a grisly murder Jessica gives a strange look, usually a laugh or weird half-smile, to the camera and the shot freezes. The shots are 100% unflattering to Angela Lansbury. One could assume the editing staff hated her.

I plan on using that final frame from each episode as a jumping off point into uncharted waters of discussion. I hope to hear from readers. I would love to hear thoughts on the cultural and personal importance or lack thereof of the adventures of J. B. Fletcher.

Please join me in May for the beginning of the adventure.