Hooray for Homicide

Season 1, Episode 4
Oct. 29, 1984

In this episode Jessica goes to Hollywood! But first we get to see some of her creative process as she strangles a dummy that kinda looks like a man with a sack over his head. Also. How white is her house?

No really.

Segregation on television really is fascinating. The 'white' and the 'black' shows. We have Family Ties and The Cosby Show. These divisions carried through the 90s and into the 00s. This division still exists today but there are way more shows with multi-ethnic casts.

I want to talk about race later though. Because Jessica Fletcher's first book, The Corpse Danced at Midnight is being made into a movie! By John Saxon no less.

A wild Saxon in the wild.

And he's a sleazy film producer. Which is very against type for Saxon. But not really.

What's he done to Jessica's book? He's turned it into a strange neon lit sex romp in a graveyard with...dancing...and sex. And more sex. He's also cast his live-in girlfriend/meal ticket, Eve. She can't really act, and is also maybe a drunk. It's unclear. But HOLLYWOOD!

Saxon admits that he only bought the rights because the title is kinda kick-ass. He tells Jessica to her face that he thinks her work is terrible and boring and for people who read.

I know it's difficult to take your eyes off Saxon's mighty chest hair but let's play a game. Let's think of stereotypes about Hollywood!

My list is short. Yours could be way longer. Feel free to add yours in the comments. Mine:

• Sleazy producer/director/etc.
• Casting couch/sex for roles
• Dumb actor
• Crass careless handling of 'literature' and writing as art
• Nepotism
• Extravagant/wasteful

We've already checked three of those boxes with Saxon alone. Needless to say, Jessica is pissed. She calls the whole production 'debasing'  and threatens legal action against the studio, her publisher, the universe. She gets a lawyer.

Yes. That is Horshack. He apparently graduated from law school. Of note. The previous episode featured Mr. Kotter. Her sweathog lawyer tells her she can't do anything since she signed away her film rights. Which was really dumb on her part. Even in the 80s books to film was a big time thing. Just ask Stephen King.

Jessica takes the logical step of crashing the studio. There she meets the writer, costume designer, and the stars of the film. The writer is a kinda slobby looking mope. The costumer is English and uppity. The stars are stupid. Horshack's uncle runs the projectors at the studio. Because everyone is in the business in LA. E V E R Y O N E.

Likes graveyards.

She also meets the director, Gomez.

Naturally, everyone hates the producer and Saxon gets bumped off in a fake graveyard. Jessica finds the body, as usual, but becomes suspect number one.

Then the only person of color shows up. And he is super short and wears silly yellow sunglasses and kinda fauns all over the elderly white lady for the rest of the episode even though he's investigating her for murder.

Angela Lansbury is a GIANT.

Why is everyone shorter than her in this episode? Every actor seems to be at least 6 inches shorter then her. Is LA full of super tiny people? Is it a sly commentary on the shortness of actors? Maybe it's just racist.

So Gomez takes over the film and there are claims of artistic integrity thrown about. Then they film that classic J.B. Fletcher scene of the woman dancing in the neon graveyard with zombies.

The whole thing is pretty soulless. It looks more like a music video then the clear riff on Suspiria it's meat to be. CBS was not the place to do slasher parodies apparently.

In one amazing scene we are told that an entire film's worth of costumes were dumped because the lead actress didn't like one outfit. Then we see the really terrible costumes while Jessica pretends they are the finest thing she's ever seen.

Eventually Horshack tackles Gomez, who has a missing button from a jacket that proves the drunkish actress killed her own lover/roommate/producer. Supposedly because he forced her to become a famous actress.

Jessica compliments her acting and the final scene plays out in an oddly sad way for the absolute wacky episode that came before it. Eve tearfully recounts how she actually loved Saxon. How he didn't love her. How she just wanted to live their life, etc. And then Jessica gives her the best contemplative look she can as the credits roll.

If the episode before this was a sort of send up of night clubs and cabaret acts. This episode is the 'film' episode. Looking at it now, it is hard to see that anyone thought this was anything but silly. That these tropes are with us still means they must have roots in reality.

But it's pretty cynical to create these sorts of representations of the thing that you are doing. But that kinda sums up the 80s.

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.