I absolutely love this show. Angela Lansbury was great as Jessica Fletcher and made the show her own.The weird thing about this show is that Jessica Fletcher rarely had a love interest. She may not have had a love interest but she did have a lot of male companions who would regularly help her solve the murders, like for instance Seth Hazlet. She would be pondering about the murder and Seth would say something and suddenly everything would fit together and she would have the murderer.
The show can be enjoyed by all but only if you see it as escapist fun that is not taxing on the brain. It shouldn't be seen as a realistic TV show, if viewers watch it expecting it to be realistic then they will be sorely disappointed. For instance to obtain evidence Jessica would break into offices, people who watch a lot of murder mysteries(like me) would know this evidence would be inadmissible in the court of law and the killer would get off scot free.
The show ended in 96 but I normally catch it on reruns. Although I am a fan of the series but I still feel it should have ended after the 93 season. After the 93 season the plots became increasingly tired and predictable. In fact I thought the story lines became far more soapy, it became more about the characters and less about the murders.
Out of all the murder mystery shows I watch I like this the most. It was fun to spot stars like Ceasar Romero (the Joker from the Batman T.V. series. Over the years most stars came on the show more than once but in different roles.
