Throughout the run of "Murder, She Wrote", Angela Lansbury often got breaks from the weekly grind of making a TV show. These episodes often began with her character introducing the show...and leaving the entire rest of the show for other actors. I can only assume the production company did this because Lansbury wasn't exactly a spring chicken. Regardless, most of them are pretty disappointing.
In the case of "The Szechuan Dragon", instead of having Lansbury introduce the show, she gets much of her week off by appearing a few times alone...with her nephew Grady and his wife watching Jessica's home in Cabot Cove. Ostensibly, she's in England for some play...but it's just an excuse to give her time off. Now, considering I also find Grady to be terribly annoying in all his previous episodes, this doesn't bode well for the episode.
In the case of "The Szechuan Dragon", not only is Lansbury mostly absent from the show and Grady being the star, it also has a script that seems incredibly bad...with ridiculous characters such as a sea captain (who looked a lot like he should be selling Gorton's fishsticks), a Cambodian martial arts expert and two world-class thieves....all converging on tiny Cabot Cove, Maine! To make it even worse, Grady manages to be even stupider and more ineffectual than usual*!
My advice is that unless you are a completist who wants to see every episode, this would be a nice one to skip. Just pretend it was never made in the first place since the quality is so much worse than usual for the episode.
* Even after a sea captain arrives at the house that Grady is watching and the captain is killed, again and again, Grady keeps opening the doors for ANYONE who shows up! First, Mr. Kung Fu shows up and tries to kill him. Second, a damsel in distress (one of the crooks) shows up in the middle of the night...and he just lets her in without questions. Can anyone be that dumb? In real life, no...on this show, of course!
In the case of "The Szechuan Dragon", instead of having Lansbury introduce the show, she gets much of her week off by appearing a few times alone...with her nephew Grady and his wife watching Jessica's home in Cabot Cove. Ostensibly, she's in England for some play...but it's just an excuse to give her time off. Now, considering I also find Grady to be terribly annoying in all his previous episodes, this doesn't bode well for the episode.
In the case of "The Szechuan Dragon", not only is Lansbury mostly absent from the show and Grady being the star, it also has a script that seems incredibly bad...with ridiculous characters such as a sea captain (who looked a lot like he should be selling Gorton's fishsticks), a Cambodian martial arts expert and two world-class thieves....all converging on tiny Cabot Cove, Maine! To make it even worse, Grady manages to be even stupider and more ineffectual than usual*!
My advice is that unless you are a completist who wants to see every episode, this would be a nice one to skip. Just pretend it was never made in the first place since the quality is so much worse than usual for the episode.
* Even after a sea captain arrives at the house that Grady is watching and the captain is killed, again and again, Grady keeps opening the doors for ANYONE who shows up! First, Mr. Kung Fu shows up and tries to kill him. Second, a damsel in distress (one of the crooks) shows up in the middle of the night...and he just lets her in without questions. Can anyone be that dumb? In real life, no...on this show, of course!