Murder, She Wrote

Series producers Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link thought Lansbury would be perfect for the part of Jessica Fletcher but did not think that she would be interested in a television series. Earlier, she had acted in two film adaptations of Agatha Christie's mystery novels: as Salome Otterbourne in Death on the Nile and as Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (1980). When the latter film did poorly—despite an all star cast including Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, and Tony Curtis—the offer for Lansbury to reprise Miss Marple in three more films never materialized.[9]

When she made it known she would be available if the right project came along, the three creators sent her the script and almost immediately, Lansbury felt she could do something with the role of Jessica Fletcher. With Murder, She Wrote debuting on Sunday, September 30, 1984, the producers were able to parlay their "mystery writer/amateur detective" premise into a 12-year hit for CBS. It also made Lansbury, known previously for her motion picture and Broadway stage work, a household name for millions of television viewers. The title comes from Murder, She Said, which was the title of a 1961 film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel 4:50 from Paddington.

The show revolves around the day-to-day life of Jessica Fletcher, a widowed and retired English teacher, who becomes a successful mystery writer. Despite fame and fortune, Jessica remains a resident of Cabot Cove, a small coastal community in Maine, and maintains her links with all of her old friends, never letting her success go to her head. Exterior shots of Cabot Cove were filmed in Mendocino, California. The fictional "Cabot Cove" name for the series' coastal town was derived from the name of an actual bay harbor inlet in Kennebunkport, Maine, located near the town's center, on the road where motels and lobster shack dives are located.

The show mostly starts with a preview of the episode's events, with Jessica stating: "Tonight on Murder, She Wrote..." Jessica invariably proves more perceptive than the official investigators of a case, who are almost always willing to arrest the most likely suspect. By carefully piecing the clues together and asking astute questions, she always manages to trap the real murderer. Murder occurred with such regularity in her vicinity that the term "Cabot Cove syndrome" was coined to describe the constant appearance of dead bodies in remote locations. Indeed, if Cabot Cove existed in real life, it would top the FBI's national crime statistics in numerous categories, with some analysis suggesting that the homicide rate in Cabot Cove exceeds even that of the real-life murder capital of the world.[10]

Jessica's relationship with law enforcement officials varies from place to place. Both sheriffs of Cabot Cove resign themselves to having her meddle in their cases. However, most detectives and police officers do not want her anywhere near their crime scenes, until her accurate deductions convince them to listen to her. Some are happy to have her assistance from the start, often because they are fans of her books. With time, she makes friends in many police departments across the U.S., as well as with a British police officer attached to Scotland Yard. At the start of season eight, more of the stories were set in New York City with Jessica moving into an apartment there part-time in order to teach criminology.

In August 1988, Lansbury expressed weariness of her commitment to the series as she was not sure, at 63, that she could continue at the pace now required of her; she specifically cited the change from seven to eight days to shoot each episode. Thus, Murder, She Wrote went into its fifth season that fall with the distinct possibility that it would cease production at the end of it and the series finale would air in May 1989.

A solution was worked on, however, which enabled Lansbury to continue but also give her time to rest. This also enabled some secondary characters to get significant stories. For the next two seasons, Lansbury reduced her appearances in several episodes, only appearing at the beginning and the end, to introduce stories starring several friends of Jessica, like PI Harry McGraw, reformed thief Dennis Stanton or MI5 agent Michael Hagarty. The "experiment" ended in 1991.[11] The next year, Lansbury took on a more extensive role in production as she became one of the series' executive producers.

By the end of the 1994–1995 season, Murder, She Wrote's 11th season, Lansbury again was considering retirement due to her advancing age; this would have made the upcoming twelfth season the final one for the veteran drama. CBS, however, essentially would make the decision for her in what would prove to be a mistake.

When the network released its schedule for the 1995–1996 season, it decided to go in a different direction for its Sunday night lineup and placed two sitcoms, the top 30 hit Cybill and the new Almost Perfect, into the longtime home of Murder, She Wrote. CBS then put the series in its lead position on Thursday nights, anchoring a lineup that included the new drama New York News and the newsmagazine 48 Hours.

The move put Murder, She Wrote in direct competition with the first hour of NBC's Must See TV lineup, which had been drawing the highest ratings of the week for any network for years. Despite protests of many of the show's fans (who believed CBS was intentionally setting the show up to fail in its new timeslot), CBS refused to budge on the new timeslot. Murder, She Wrote plummeted from eighth to fifty-eighth in the yearly ratings as a result; the series lost nearly 6 million viewers and fell below a 10 Nielsen rating as the audience was not willing to follow it to Thursday. It also proved unwilling to watch anything else on CBS on Sunday either; Cybill saw its ratings drop significantly, Almost Perfect was quickly shuffled to Mondays in an attempt to boost its ratings and replaced by The Bonnie Hunt Show, which was quickly cancelled. (In addition, New York News was also cancelled after a few weeks and so was its replacement, the long-running Rescue 911.)

CBS eventually decided the drop in ratings was too much and cancelled Murder, She Wrote after twelve seasons. After a three week hiatus in April 1996, the network returned the show to its longtime Sunday night home to conclude its run; the finale aired on May 19, 1996. The network also agreed to commission four Murder, She Wrote movies over the next few years. The first was South by Southwest (1997), with three more following as A Story to Die For (2000), The Last Free Man (2001), and The Celtic Riddle (2003).[12]

Lansbury stated in May 2011 that she would like to make a comeback appearance as Jessica Fletcher.[13] However, in a 2015 interview, she quashed the idea of reprising the much beloved character, stating, "I think it would be a downer. In some way, we’d have to show her as a much older woman, and I think it’s better to maintain that picture we have in our mind’s eye of her as a vigorous person. I’m still pretty vigorous, especially in the garden … but if I wanted to transform myself back into the woman I looked like then, it would be ridiculous. And I can't do that."[14] She then expressed interest in revisiting the character again in 2017.[15]

• Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher (1984–1996; 264 episodes), a retired English teacher who, after being widowed in her early 50s, becomes a very successful mystery writer.
• William Windom as Dr. Seth Hazlitt (1985–1996; 49 episodes), the local doctor of Cabot Cove and one of Jessica's best friends and most intrepid supporters. There is a hint that Dr. Hazlitt may want to be more than a platonic friend but this possibility was never explored. In the season one finale, Windom portrayed Sam Breen, a lawyer who jointly murdered the victim in that episode.
• Tom Bosley as Sheriff Amos Tupper (1984–1988; 19 episodes), Cabot Cove's sheriff at the start of the series. Tupper later retires and goes to live with his sister.
• Ron Masak as Sheriff Mort Metzger (1988–1996; 38 episodes), a former NYCPD officer who takes Tupper's place as sheriff in the mistaken belief that he would be living in a more peaceful place. His unseen wife, Adele, a former Marine capable of prodigious acts of strength, teaches self-defense classes. In an earlier episode, Masak portrayed a different character, a store owner in trouble with the IRS, trying to get out of trouble by selling his business. He also portrayed a police officer investigating the murder of an author in another season one episode.
• Louis Herthum as Deputy Andy Broom (1991–1996, 25 episodes)

• Michael Horton as Grady Fletcher (1984–1995; 12 episodes), Jessica's not-so-lucky favorite nephew, who (through no fault of his own) always seems to get in trouble with the law. After many romantic disasters, he gets married later in the series. In real life, Horton is married to actress Debbie Zipp, who played Grady's eventual wife Donna Mayberry in several episodes. (The two were married before working together on Murder, She Wrote.)
• Madlyn Rhue as Jean O'Neil (1993–1996; 4 episodes), the local disabled librarian in Cabot Cove.
• Jerry Orbach as Harry McGraw (1985–1991; 6 episodes), an old-school private investigator who becomes friends with Jessica. Orbach was popular enough to garner his own, short-lived spin-off series in 1987, The Law & Harry McGraw.
• Len Cariou as Michael Hagarty (1985–1992; 7 episodes), a British MI5 agent who would appear when Jessica least expected him to drag her into a dangerous case. Cariou had previously starred with Lansbury on Broadway in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as the titular character.
• Richard Paul as Sam Booth (1986–1991; 7 episodes), the genial, ineffectual mayor of Cabot Cove whose main campaign promise is that he will do nothing, and that's exactly why the people of Cabot Cove vote for him.
• Julie Adams as Eve Simpson (1987–1993; 10 episodes), the Cabot Cove realtor with a great love for men, both single and married, and for gossiping.
• Ruth Roman as Loretta Speigel (1987–1989; 3 episodes), Cabot Cove's lovelorn hairdresser, also an inveterate gossip.
• Keith Michell as Dennis Stanton (1988–1993; 9 episodes), a suave English former jewel thief turned insurance claims investigator, who always solves his cases using unusual methods, and often sends a copy of the story to Jessica afterwards. Stanton's assistant, Rhoda, who appeared in most or all of the Stanton-related episodes, was played by Hallie Todd. Many of the episodes starring Dennis do not involve Jessica, and usually begin with her introducing the story to the audience, breaking the fourth wall.
• Wayne Rogers as Charlie Garrett (1993–1995; 5 episodes), a disreputable private investigator who usually gets into trouble and needs Jessica's help.
• Claude Akins as Ethan Cragg (1984; 4 episodes), Jessica's fisherman friend.
• Herb Edelman as Artie Gelber (1984–1995, 10 episodes), a NYPD Lieutenant and Jessica's friend. Edelman initially appeared as a New York City bus driver in the series premiere.
• John Astin as Harry Pierce (1984–1985, 3 episodes), a local real-estate agent attempting to organize big land deals around town. In his final appearance, Pierce becomes Sheriff when Amos Tupper retires, but then turns out to be a murderer. Astin originally appeared as Ross Hayley, director of a movie based on one of Jessica's books, in the show's third episode.
• Genie Francis as Victoria (1984, 1987, 1990, 3 episodes), Jessica's niece.

The Third Season episode of Murder, She Wrote entitled "Magnum on Ice" concludes a crossover that began on the Seventh Season Magnum, P.I. episode "Novel Connection". In the episode's plot, Jessica comes to Hawaii to investigate an attempt to murder Robin Masters' guests, and then tries to clear Magnum when he's accused of killing the hitman. The Magnum, P.I. episode originally aired on 11/19/86 with the concluding Murder, She Wrote episode following four days later on 11/23/86.

The Magnum, P.I. episode of the crossover is included on the Murder, She Wrote Season 3 DVD set, as well as the Complete Series Set. The Magnum, P.I. Season 7 DVD set, as well as its Complete Series set, includes the Murder, She Wrote episode.