‘Murder, She Wrote’ Is the Antidote to Today’s High-Stress TV

TV is stressful. Life is already stressful enough because [insert latest horror show headline here], but that truth also extends to the entertainment we consume to get away from reality. There’s so much TV on so many streaming services, and all of it demands so much attention. That’s why I’ve gleefully retreated back in time to the mid-’80s when the definition of TV drama was broad enough that it included a senior citizen happening across murder after murder and then solving them in between morning jogs and visiting with old friends (who are sometimes murdered). The first five seasons of Murder, She Wrote are now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video, and they are the antidote to today’s high-stakes and high-stress TV.

Let it be known that I’m a very recent convert to the Church of Jessica Fletcher–like, within the last week. I didn’t watch Murder, She Wrote during it’s 12-year run on CBS. I was too busy being a TGIF kid and then a Must See TV teen. CBS was shows for old people starring old people. Angela Lansbury wasn’t gonna swing through Central Perk or party with Jesse and the Rippers, so I had no time for her! But things have changed in the 20+ years since Murder, She Wrote went off the air–specifically I’ve changed and TV has changed. I’m tired and today’s TV is demanding.

Murder, She Wrote is typical of a lot of classic dramas: it has a cast of exactly one and features a rotating lineup of expendable characters played by before-they-were-famous actors (Megan Mullally was in a 1988 episode with the killer title “Coal Miner’s Slaughter”) or holdovers from ’60s and ’70s sitcoms (my beloved John Astin of Addams Family fame). Every loose end is tied up by the end of every episode, and the only part that carries on is the lead sleuth (and also sometimes the delightful Tom Bosley, playing a sheriff with a peculiar Maine accent). That’s it, that’s the show.

There’s a reason why I’ve plowed through most of Season 2 since the show was added to Prime at the start of this month: I find this format so refreshing. Modern dramas, the buzzy kind that we all binge on Netflix or eagerly await new episodes of on HBO or FX, ask a lot. They make you keep up with huge casts (Game of Thrones), untie all the knotted plot threads (Westworld), push you to the edge with cliffhanger after cliffhanger (Stranger Things), or drag your soul through the mud (The Handmaid’s Tale). None of this is bad, mind you! Mad Men’s my favorite show of all time and it does all of those things at one point or another! The thing is, it feels like every show that’s part of The Conversation is always asking for 110% of your brainpower, as if it’s the only show pulling out all the stops.

This goes quadruple for the modern mystery show. If Murder, She Wrote was rebooted today, what are the chances that it would look a lot like Jessica Jones or How to Get Away with Murder? Those shows devote whole seasons to a mystery Jessica Fletcher would crack in 40 minutes fast. There’s obviously nothing wrong with either format, and they’re both valid ways to construct a mystery. Would you really want Big Little Lies to wrap everything up in an episode? I don’t think so!

But this is why Murder, She Wrote is such a refreshing change of pace in 2019. The show delivers all the murder and mystery modern audiences want from TV shows, but it requires almost none of the commitment. In fact, every episode begins with a recap not of what happened last episode, but what’s happening this episode. By the time the opening credits (a lovely ode to being an active senior) begin, you usually know who’s getting murdered and have a grasp on who all the suspects are. The stakes are also never so high that you feel you can’t look away. Yeah, people are murdered, but everyone’s always pretty chill about it, especially Jessica. I used to think a rotating cast was a turnoff since you never get to know any characters, but now I see it as a selling point. You never know who’s going to pop up (a young Jackie Earle Haley in one, a parade of Golden Girls boyfriends in others) and episodes jump from wild setting to wilder setting. One episode takes place at a New England couples’ resort and the next jumps to an archeological dig for the Seven Cities of Gold in New Mexico! What is this show? It’s everything!

I think that after watching Murder, She Wrote, I get the appeal of all those CBS crime procedurals that millions of people/parents/grandparents watch but no one actually talks about online. There’s something refreshing about hitting “play” on an episode knowing you don’t need to have seen the previous one and knowing you won’t have to watch the next one either. It’s the ultimate comfort show, and it’s also about small town murder! I’m easily 30 years late to the game, but I finally get why Murder, She Wrote is so satisfying. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to spend 47 minutes watching Angela Lansbury solve a murder at a tennis tournament, guest-starring unknowns Bryan Cranston and Linda Hamilton.

Stream Murder, She Wrote on Prime Video