Years ago this series was popular enough to be broad-casted in the Netherlands(with subtitles). I watched it with my family for a while, but after a short time I got bored with it. I think my mother sometimes still watches the reruns.
Murder, She Wrote is a make-believe world that is safely, ordered, predictable, organized and nice. This is not the world of the A Team, Miami Vice or Hill Street Blues. And, for that matter, a very anglo-saxon world, with very few children. When this world is endangered the champion of this world, Jessica Fletcher, will turn up, intervene and in due time set things strait. A shiny knight hidden in the guise of an elderly woman.
The series is also an elaboration of the detective, like the Europeans had Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot so America got Jessica Fletcher, next to Columbo(and later-on Father Dowling). In fact Jessica Fletcher is an translation of Miss Marple. As Father Dowling is a translation of the Father Brown. Jessica is remarkable because in everything she is the epitome of plainness. She is a single, sexless, old woman(stress woman: she has nothing of the grandeur of being a lady). She has apparently no obvious weaknesses, no remarkable traits, no violent emotions: she is just plain dull.
This is partly to enhance the surprise effect, because underneath this plainness hides a skilled dedicated hunter of murderers. Like spiderman the normal person changes to become something else entirely. Surprise! Like a spider envelops her prey with strands of her web, so Jessica watches her environments for clues which will be the downfall of her victim, the murderer. It is interesting that Jessica Fletcher shares this chameleon aspect with Columbo(a shabby confused mind turns out to be a sharp detective) and Father Dowling(an innocent looking simple pastor is in fact a skilled investigator).
But another part of this surprise effect is to introduce an innovation in the overused detective genre. The presented stories hardly show Jessica's has a sharp mind. In this series most of the time the plot and clues are so obvious that only a halfwit would miss them. Therefore instead of making Jessica inhumanly smart, the series surrounds her with fools. The great point of it all being that average audience of the series can follow what is occurring and revel in the feeling that you don't need to be a Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Columbo, you can be an average (elderly) John Doe and be a detective.
However all of this pervades the series with a aura of dullness. It is like eating plain white-bread: tasteless. To make sure the intended audience can follow what is going on the series progresses at a snails pace. The level of violence is so low that it is surprising it's about murders. There is no blood, no messiness, no sloppiness, no dirt, no shouting, no fighting and no expression of high emotion. The humor witless and is mostly to show what a dumb guy the stool pigeon or side kick of the moment is. It is a tidy neat world in which the flowerbeds are mirrored by the flower-patterns on the dress of Jessica and the curtains of hotel she is staying in. A world of apple-pie and white sheets waving in the wind in the sunny garden, freshly mown.
This dullness finds it's logical conclusion when the perpetrator is caught, the clues presented, the mask is dropped, the criminal confesses the deed, and then is safely escorted away to jail, to trouble this world no more. We are never ever given a clue if the evidence will stand up in court. Instead we are made to believe that the confession is enough. The coming clean is to allow the audience to go safely to bed. It will also absolve the lawbreaker and the victim(s) of the violence. Order is restored. Be at peace, restless spirits.
The series ran a long time because by it's dullness, snails-pace, predictable clues and plot, invisibility of the main character,the inevitability to be caught on the flimsies of evidence(I know because the flowers where no lotus-blossoms, but begonia's), the confession gave the audience the feel of a safe stable world. By all means it is a dull world to.
Murder, She Wrote is a make-believe world that is safely, ordered, predictable, organized and nice. This is not the world of the A Team, Miami Vice or Hill Street Blues. And, for that matter, a very anglo-saxon world, with very few children. When this world is endangered the champion of this world, Jessica Fletcher, will turn up, intervene and in due time set things strait. A shiny knight hidden in the guise of an elderly woman.
The series is also an elaboration of the detective, like the Europeans had Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot so America got Jessica Fletcher, next to Columbo(and later-on Father Dowling). In fact Jessica Fletcher is an translation of Miss Marple. As Father Dowling is a translation of the Father Brown. Jessica is remarkable because in everything she is the epitome of plainness. She is a single, sexless, old woman(stress woman: she has nothing of the grandeur of being a lady). She has apparently no obvious weaknesses, no remarkable traits, no violent emotions: she is just plain dull.
This is partly to enhance the surprise effect, because underneath this plainness hides a skilled dedicated hunter of murderers. Like spiderman the normal person changes to become something else entirely. Surprise! Like a spider envelops her prey with strands of her web, so Jessica watches her environments for clues which will be the downfall of her victim, the murderer. It is interesting that Jessica Fletcher shares this chameleon aspect with Columbo(a shabby confused mind turns out to be a sharp detective) and Father Dowling(an innocent looking simple pastor is in fact a skilled investigator).
But another part of this surprise effect is to introduce an innovation in the overused detective genre. The presented stories hardly show Jessica's has a sharp mind. In this series most of the time the plot and clues are so obvious that only a halfwit would miss them. Therefore instead of making Jessica inhumanly smart, the series surrounds her with fools. The great point of it all being that average audience of the series can follow what is occurring and revel in the feeling that you don't need to be a Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Columbo, you can be an average (elderly) John Doe and be a detective.
However all of this pervades the series with a aura of dullness. It is like eating plain white-bread: tasteless. To make sure the intended audience can follow what is going on the series progresses at a snails pace. The level of violence is so low that it is surprising it's about murders. There is no blood, no messiness, no sloppiness, no dirt, no shouting, no fighting and no expression of high emotion. The humor witless and is mostly to show what a dumb guy the stool pigeon or side kick of the moment is. It is a tidy neat world in which the flowerbeds are mirrored by the flower-patterns on the dress of Jessica and the curtains of hotel she is staying in. A world of apple-pie and white sheets waving in the wind in the sunny garden, freshly mown.
This dullness finds it's logical conclusion when the perpetrator is caught, the clues presented, the mask is dropped, the criminal confesses the deed, and then is safely escorted away to jail, to trouble this world no more. We are never ever given a clue if the evidence will stand up in court. Instead we are made to believe that the confession is enough. The coming clean is to allow the audience to go safely to bed. It will also absolve the lawbreaker and the victim(s) of the violence. Order is restored. Be at peace, restless spirits.
The series ran a long time because by it's dullness, snails-pace, predictable clues and plot, invisibility of the main character,the inevitability to be caught on the flimsies of evidence(I know because the flowers where no lotus-blossoms, but begonia's), the confession gave the audience the feel of a safe stable world. By all means it is a dull world to.