We open with a scene of someone at a kennel talking to an off-screen woman, who is soon identified as J. B. Fletcher. She even signs an autograph for a fan. Then the camera angle switches and we see...someone else posing as our heroine.
Later, we see this same woman being arrested after breaking into a company's files.
We switch to a hotel room where Jessica turns on the TV and is startled to hear a newscaster report on the arrest of J. B. Fletcher. It happened in a Texas town named Bremerton, which happens to be not far from where Jessica was at the time, so she arranges to go there.
I will interrupt to say that when people complain about things not being realistic, I have just outlined an example: She turned on her TV and heard a newscast. More likely, she would have heard a few commercials first. I'd also like to quibble with the reviewer on this board who complained about Bremerton being in Oregon, not Texas. Surely the reviewer has heard of fictional towns in fictional stories. I submit: Cabot Cove, Maine for one.
Jessica has one picture ID for the sheriff when gets to town, but his reaction is that the lady he arrested had one just like it-except with a different picture. To prove who she is, Jessica goes to a nearby drug store and buys one of her paperback novels to show him. That works, but for much of the story she is treated as a nuisance by the sheriff, who later learns she is useful.
Learning who bailed out her imposter leads Jessica to the home of Kit Parkins, who just happens to be hosting a meeting of the J. B. Fletcher Literary Society, whose members were tickled pink to see their heroine live and in person. I applaud the director for the way we viewers got a look at a large photo of Jessica on the wall in Kit's dining room before Jessica had a chance to notice it as she was meeting all these women.
Now longtime actress Jane Withers plays Marge Allen, used "her Jessica Fletcher ID card" when she was arrested because she didn't want to embarrass her husband by being arrested under her own name. She was actually playing detective trying to find out if this dog kennel was somehow cheating in dog shows-and Marge didn't even own a dog.
Unfortunately, Marge went to the home of the kennel owner and was seen looking shocked by an unseen person, and we next learned that she was killed. This led to the picture on IMDB for this episode-the newspaper with the headline claiming Jessica was killed.
Naturally, Jessica stays around to work with these ladies to find out who's responsible. They all have special connections that get access to the coroner's report, insurance company computer files, even blood donor information, which proved invaluable in solving the mystery. The ladies are positively giddy about working with Jessica to solve a murder-which turns into three murders, possibly making their community second in the country in per capita crime right behind Cabot Cove for that year.
One character who seems to not belong in town (thus making him a suspect) is a visiting state trooper named Boone Willoughby, played by Beverly Hillbillies' star Max Baer, who was on a previous MSW in a guest role playing a greatly different sort of character than he does here. I'd like to state that had he been given a chance, Mr. Baer might well have become famous for acting in many different sorts of roles. His wonderful skills as Jethro were perhaps the biggest key in making that 60's legendary series as successful as it was. He was smart enough to learn about all sorts of things he introduced his family to-that led to their comedic exploits at Marineland, or the movie studio, or dozens of other things, yet not so smart as to not have mishaps wherever he took them. I particularly loved all of his adaptations of spy gadgets when he wanted to be a "double-naught" spy like James Bond.
This episode was quite decent in the dramatic department as whodunit wasn't at all obvious and I'm sure only a few people guessed right early on. Yet it wasn't so complex you felt lost.
Mostly, it was a comedic episode with all of these women helping out, providing many pieces of useful information that Jessica was finally able to put together. I further praise them for depicting numerous older women as being far from any stereotypes we often see-one was really good on computers, which was uncommon for most people in 1991 when this aired unless they had a job working with computers; the others were all good in their own ways and they all came across as good people, not silly fools in any way.
I'm going to say that in a way, Seth even added to the humor even though William Windom wasn't actually seen or heard. Jessica, after reports of her death had caused her credit cards and even her prepaid phone card to be cancelled, was phoning Seth asking him to wire her money. Jessica was heard telling Seth, "Yes, I'm good for it" and we could picture him asking her if she was on his end of the line.
If they took out the humor, the dramatic part would like have let me score this one an 8 out of 10, but the humor seals it as an easy 10, definitely one of the series very best.
2 out of 2 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink