Murder, she wrote - season 1

Angela Lansbury is Jessica Fletcher, her most famous character, as Columbo was for P.Falk . She's a widow, and apparently she started writing books to fill the long, empty days alone. Now, what we see is a lively woman who knows everyone in Cabot Cove where she lives, who is loved and respected by all of them, and also appears to have an unlimited number of friends and nieces spread everywhere. She's loving and kind, but also strong, intelligent and determined.
So often the cases, but specially the was she catches the murderers, appear to be so naive, seeing them now, but of course it probably was different then, it was 1984 after all, 30 years it's a lot of time.
ep 1 - Deadly Lady  - Jessica finds a man, calling himself Ralph, working in her garden because, he says, he doesn't want charity, he prefers to work. She invites him home, gives him food and also her husband's pipe.
Four girls were out to sea with their boat, now they come back saying he had an accident, and died at sea, and later one of them confesses his murder... but it was all a plan, their father wasn't on the boat, it was the man Jessica has know as Ralph. Unfortunately, later on the man is killed for real, and when it's found that he had with him Jessica's pipe, it's clear that her version is truer than the one the girls gave. How she catches the guilty one is so naive, she talks about a pair of shoes, and a girl says "she doesn't have pink shoes"... you can't miss such a simple thing, so obvious a ruse: J. never said the colour... so watching it now I didn't think 'good one, Jessica', instead I thought 'what a dumb girl' for making such an obvious mistake.
Also, in this first episode, we have the reason I love crime stories, all in one phrase that Sheriff Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley) says: "this is evidence enough for me!". There! Case closed huh? But the heroes of all the crime series don't think so, it's not enough. Their aim is not to simply close the case; it matters to them to find the person responsible, the one that really did it. They care ! It's the same in Columbo, when other policemen are satisfied with what it has been made to look like, and happy to close it like that and go home, but Columbo isn't, because he cares !
ep 2 Birds of a feather - Victoria wants to marry Howard, but he's accused of Mr. Drake's murder (Martin Landau), but fortunately her aunt Jessica is there to help, and prove that it wasn't him. It was another actor who wanted to free himself from the contract he had with Mr Drake.
ep 3 - Hooray for Homocide - They are making a movie from her book, but making far too many changes. Much more nudity and violence, that is. Jessica storms down there, saying "I'm going to do whatever I have to do to stop this film from being made!", and later "what I must do can not be done on the telephone", talking about her apologies to Mr Decker, after finding out that she had actually signed a contract enabling him to do whatever he wanted. See how words can be easily misinterpreted? When he dies, someone suspects her, at first. Fortunately, the lieutenant doesn't believe it, and lets her keep up her investigation. She discovers the main star was having an affair with her partner in the film, and after finding that out Mr Decker, or Liedecker, something like that, wanted to fire him, so she killed him, and the director had discovered that right away, and tried to get rid of the evidence against her to protect his film.
We learn also learn that she writes under the name J.B. Fletcher because she's called Jessica Beatrice.
ep 4 - It's a dog's life - A man died falling off a horse, and left everything to his dog :-) The lawyer had convinced the deceased's daughter Tricia to drug the horse, then killed her with the help of the innocent but well trained dog.
ep 5 - Lovers and other killers - Jessica is in Seattle for a lecture at a university, where her friend Dr Edmond Girard (Peter Graves) works.
David, a young man, volunteers, insisting, to be her assistant, then takes her out to dinner and acts all flirty, but he's then questioned by Lt. Andrews (Greg Morris) because the woman he had been seeing is dead (turns out it was a burglar, though), then a girl is killed but again it wasn't him, it was Edmond's secretary, in love with him and jealous of her. It ends at the airport, when David comes to say goodbye to Jessica, and to state openly how attracted he is to her; she says the best she can do is to make him a character in her new book. When he asks in which role : victim, suspect or killer, she replies "I haven't made up my mind yet" and it ends with a close shot of him, with a rough expression more similar to that of a killer than a victim, in my opinion.
ep 6 - Hit, run and homocide - At Cabot Cove Jessica, Ethan (Claude Akins) and other people see a man almost run down by a driverless car, and the next day another man from Boston is. When Jessica finds the car, it drives her into and out of town, so she realises the first man was never in real danger. Leslie turns out to be his accomplice; she's engaged to Toni, and Daniel the inventor is his uncle.
ep 7 - We're off to kill the wizard - Jessica is at her niece's: Mrs Donovan. So aunt Jess again :-)
"Horrible Horatio" Baldwin wants to see her because he wants to make a horror park off her books. She refuses, then he's murdered. Mr. Donovan is a cop, so she's easily in the investigation. The Baldwin widow is widow for the fourth time, but it wasn't her, it was the man working for him, and acting all cool.
ep 8 - Death takes a curtain call - It starts at home, while she's giving a piece of pie to Ethan. Then her friend Leo Peterson takes her to a ballet in Boston: not a very good ballet, in my opinion, they were all going their own way. Leo helps two ballet dancers to escape to seek asylum in America, and Ethan hides them at Cabot Cove, disguising them as new workers :-) A Kgb major is looking for them, and  Sheriff Amos is looking for Alexander and Natalie too. A dancer, Irina, killed a Kgb man to stop them from escaping, but Jessica finds out everything .-)
ep 9 - Death casts a spell - Famous hypnotist Cagliostro is killed by the journalist that was not in trance like the others. The funniest bit was when a woman insisted Jessica was someone else, even after she showed her the picture on the cover :-)
ep 10 - Capitol offence - A blackmailing woman is beaten to death by her accomplice, the man who drove Jessica around while she was working for the congress.
ep 11 - Broadway malady - Grady invites Aunt Jessica. There's going to be a new show on Broadway, a comeback for an actress and the debut for her daughter. When the girl gets shot, she recovers, and the show goes on. Then her brother almost murders their mother... and I suppose he had just the right face, because I immediately guessed everything, right, everything! Incredible, must have been something in that face, or in his attitude... Anyway, Jessica stops him in time, so Rita and Patti Bristol will go on with their show without him. This might  be  the only crime-episode where nobody actually dies :-) Or at least, one of the few.
ep 12 - Murder to a jazz beat - In New Orleans, a famous musician is poisoned by his best friend because he wanted to kill his own wife. And Jessica did always, casually get the same taxi-driver every time, no matter where she was in town....
ep 13 - My Johnny lies over the ocean - Pam is troubled after losing her husband over suicide, and her aunt Jessica convinces her to go on a cruise with her. Pam's father is apparently Jessica's brother, since he says "have a good time sis". Leslie Nielsen is the ship captain :-)
On the cruise, Pam is stalked by someone, cruel clues to make her think Johnny's doing it. When a woman is murdered, it's discovered that she was Pam's husband's real mother. Jessica is sure she was murdered by her husband, that he had planned the persecution and the murder! What I'd like to know is why the sailor called Ramon speaks italian instead of spanish...
ep 14 - Paint me a murder - Jessica goes on a small island for a famous painter's 60th birthday. When he's killed, Jessica uncovers Sir John's plan, to make a fortune out of all the paintings he had that now would be worth much more, after his death.
ep 15 - Tough guys don't die - A private investigator, Mr Miles, is working on an old case for Jessica when he gets shot in his office. His partner Harry McGraw (Jerry Orbach) investigates with Jessica, that he wants her or not! Mr. Miles was killed by a man working for him, who wanted to use the facts he had been able to find out to blackmail an important woman. Priscilla is played by Barbara Babcock :-)
At the end, Harry offers Jessica to work with him : McGraw and Fletcher :lol: It was all very 'noir' style :)
ep 16 - Sudden death - Jessica's uncle Saurus is dead, leaving her his 4% share of the local football team. A man with the 46% is killed, and suspicions are on an injured player with a beautiful, adopted little daughter, but Jess proves who the real killer is.
ep 17 - Footnote to murder - Horace is a space-out poet friend of Jessica. He's accused of Vietnam-War-author Hemshell Post, so Jessica starts investigating. The deceiced had stolen a girl's brother's story, than tried to assault her, and in self-defence she accidentally struck him with a little sword  hidden in an umbrella.
Here Jessica used the same trick with the glasses that Poirot used in 'Lord Edgware dies'.
ep 18 - Murder takes the bus - Jessica has taken a but to Boston with Amos (Tom Bosley). A man recently out of jail is killed by the father of a young girl he killed years ago.
ep 19 - Armed response - Jessica is in Texas to testify for something, but has a little accident to her feet and goes to a hospital. A doctor is killed at his home, and Jessica is asked to help by the Lt. Again, they used here the same method used in a Christie book :-) It's also funny how in these episodes they always confess.
ep 20 - Murder at the oasis - Johnny, the ex husband of a friend of Jessica, is killed. There are suspicions on all the members of the family, but she finds out the mob hitman undercover as the local investigator!
ep 21 - Funeral at fifty-mile - At the funeral of her friend John Carter, a guy comes saying he has his will, and that he inherits everything, that John left everything to him instead of his daughter Mary because he saved his life in Corea, and Jess tricks him so simply, by asking if he knew her husband : Tom Fletcher! Later four men together killed him because years ago he raped John's wife, and he was Mary's real father, but not even Jessica will ever tell her that!