It's A Dog's Life

Season 1, Episode 5
Nov. 4, 1984

Lynn Redgrave and horses and a beagle. Oh my!

Mmm Hmm

Jessica continues her tour of wealthy America c. 1984. What is it about horse racing that screams rich 80s? They go on a fox hunt.

In Virginia.

In 1984.

We are briefly introduced to a bunch of obnoxious rich people who I don't care about. One is named Trisha and another is called Echo. That about sums it up.

So horses. I feel that in the 80s it was shorthand to show people engaging in horse-related events. It meant they were very well off. It still might. They've done it on Mad Men.

Maybe, due to the cost, and the sort of incredibly drinks and polo aspects of it the whole world of horses just feels rich? I'm sure Mitt Romney sending his horse to the Olympics will not help change that.

Huzzah!

So then the patriarch of all those boring rich people dies in the most ridiculous way. His horse decides to jump a river or a bush or a cliff and Denton screams Tally-ho! and dies. It looks like this as it happens.

For several reasons the phrasing is odd. First...come on writers, way to make a death absolutely silly. I know this show tends to take the bite out of the violence by making with the funny but this is reaching.

Secondly, 'tally-ho' is what you yell when you see a fox or quarry. I'm assuming Denton did not see one. So is it a sly reference to HIM being the quarry? I doubt it. That is putting a lot of credit int he laps of the writers.

This is the first death that really looks like an accident. The man died because he fell from a horse. Everyone saw it. Case shut. Except not. Saving time. The horse was doped up and went crazy. Yawn.

Cut to the reading of the will. Which, because of the 80s is a video will. Denton reads his children FOR FILTH and proceeds to tell them they are terrible and get nothing. His art goes to the Smithsonian. His money...to his dog Teddy. Which delights Lynn Redgrave to no end since she hates the kids.

Lynn Redgrave is...

The only one we get to really meet is Morgana, who is psychic. Or sees ghosts. She reads tea leaves too. The only other kid we remember is Trisha, mainly because she dies next and also gets to say this line, which is the best thing on television ever:

"Electronic music. You know, tweeters, woofers, heavy metal."

Heavy metal? This is why I don't think the writers know a thing about what they are doing.

...deeply concerned. Also...holding a dog.

Lynn brings a sense of grace and calm to the proceedings. She clearly thought this was a real acting gig. Though she is pretty much only holding a dog and looking pensive the whole time.

A series of setting up the dog. He is drugged. Jailed. Sued to be declared mentally unsound. I wish I could make this up. I would guess that it's meant to be a comment of some kind about ungrateful rich kids and the whims of the very rich.

Of course people have done it in real life.

Trisha, the drunk daughter who hates music, dies in an unfortunate gate closing accident. IT WAS THE DOG! But Marcus Boswell, the family's lawyer, trained the dog to do it. He was milking the estate for money and he and Trisha drugged the horse to kill Denton. His stocks were going bad. He owed a lot to some stock broker. It is all poorly defined.

This is how I looked after this episode.

Jessica figures all of this out because of a split seam on a coat...and then uses an intercom to reveal the whole thing in a courtroom. For some reason. Again, ill-defined. Lynn is in jail, with the dog, but is freed. Which is good. And everyone goes back to their house to ride horses. The very rich dog gets to retire to a stud farm and make diddle with lots of dogs...because being rich is somehow genetic?

I just don't get any of it. Sloppy episode all around. But oddly high on the gravitas scale. Lynn's presence made Angela up her game. We get some serious FACE in the courtroom reveal.

And what can only be described as a short, half-assed Singing In The Rain homage. The episode is mainly worth watching because it makes no sense and is actually well acted. The script is probably the worst so far. Or the one that makes the least sense. But is does give us Jessica's second relative. Lynn plays a cousin of J. B. A trope that would eventually bring us dueling Lansburys.

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.