TONIGHT ON MURDER SHE WROTE, Petra and Viktor just barely make their DEADLINE FOR MURDER... mostly because we're awfully busy talking about aubergine suits, bad A.D., and potentially gay newspapermen.

Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) returns to Boston to meet with a nearly dead writer (Harry Guardino) who suffered a heart attack while defending the lady from libel. The newspaper is run by a heartless shmuck (Peter Mark Richman) and a staff that doesn't seem to like him very much. When he ends up dead, the suspects include the businessman he edged out (Tim O'Connor) and his family (Ken Olin, Katherine Cannon), plus his subordinates (Glynn Turman, Sydney Walsh, Eugene Roch), who would all prefer him... indisposed. Except maybe his bodyguard (William Smith).

So much is occurring, from Jessica taking on the His Gal Friday part to determine how the victim bit it, if his past or present relates to his death, and how it all led to the man passing out at a fancy party.

Gretchen Corbett is our lieutenant of the week to butt heads with Jessica, and may be suspicious of our heroine always being around when a man falls dead, but likely needs her to determine who poisoned our terrible Scooby Doo Villain.

TONIGHT ON MURDER SHE WROTE, Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is reunited with a charming scoundrel from her past: Leslie Nielsen!

Once again, Jessica is tempest-tossed with David Everett (Nielsen), who's on a path for pirate treasure with a bunch of co-ed airheads. Is he on the level, or is he behind the near-death and eventual death of two of his helpers?

Find out with Petra and Viktor as we explore the pretty straightforward plot of DEAD MAN'S GOLD: greed, mob intimidation, and thirty-year-old teens.

TONIGHT ON MURDER SHE WROTE, Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) returns to visit her season 1 niece Victoria and her now-husband Howard (Genie Francis and Jeff Conaway) as they each stand at professional crosswords.

While Howard is struggling for recognition as an actor, Victoria is routinely demeaned and harassed at her job at the boys' club advertising agency as she handles the big deal fast food chain contract.

When the scumbag boss (Richard Kline) ends up dead, Victoria is a prime suspect--as is the lecherous king of corned beef (Ken Swofford), the pretty lady competition (Susan Anton), and whoever may have delivered the last sandwich he ever saw.

CORNED BEEF AND CARNAGE gives Jessica plenty to work with, from investigating suspects and potential witnesses, bothering busy deli workers, and bantering with our cop of the week, James Sloyan, over the likelihood of our righteous bludgeoner.

Marcia Wallace, David Ogden Stiers, Warren Berlinger, and William Macy all provide excellent performances in this glimpse of the cutthroat world of marketing in the era of shoulder pads.

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, it's as good a time as any that Petra and Viktor discuss eastern German politics of 1987. And it just so happens, ONE WHITE ROSE FOR DEATH is all about that!

Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is reunited with the charming scoundrel Michael Hagarty (Len Cariou) just in time for an assassination centered around two German sibling musicians (John Glover and Maria Mayenzet). This brother/sister team isn't quite on the same level of political passion, and their parents are soon in danger due to their attempted defection.

Soon, the suspicions heighten within this closed circuit mystery set in a British embassy when an agent winds up dead, and Jessica and Michael survey the potential perpetrators: Tony Bonner, Jenny Agutter, Michael Anderson Jr., and Bernard Fox.

Settle in for an evening of sophisticated intrigue and taut diplomatic nightmares, with questionable German accents, discrete stabbing instruments, and evidentiary flora.

TONIGHT ON MURDER SHE, WROTE, we enter a chapter of Dr. Seth Hazlitt's past... one he is barely in or has much to do with, it turns out. Indeed, this is a weird one. UNFINISHED BUSINESS largely focuses on the backstory of one police detective, Barney Kale (Pat Hingle), who seems obsessed with righting a wrong from years back.

Seth (William Windom) joins our other cast of suspects from a possible murder a decade plus earlier: Dr. Terence Mayhew (Lloyd Bochner), his former secretary and lover Cynthia Tate (Hayley Mills), and gruff fishing resort innkeeper James Sanford (Don DeFore), who welcomes them all as guests again.

Kale says one of them is responsible for that death that was deemed accidental; and now a fresh faced couple (Erich Anderson and Erin Moran) are pulled into the mix when the reunion is interrupted by another death and Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) has to match wits with another sheriff (J.D. Cannon) other than Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley) who's not quite as easy to push over.

It all comes together as a somewhat bizarre edit of a closed-circle mystery, full (and we mean stuffed) of characters about whom we learn bit by bit by bit, and a series of odd motivations that Viktor and Petra try to deconstruct and explain.

Wish us luck.

For our Season 3 premiere of TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we are enjoying a lovely time at the traveling circus: full of stompy elephants, tightrope falls, missing persons, and heavy enunciation.

Carol Bannister (a pre-FRIENDS and SCREAM Courtney Cox) asks Aunt Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) to go on a quest to see if her presumed-dead grandfather really sent her a leprechaun for a wedding gift (it'll sort of make sense in context). We are soon headed to the three rings in Arkansas. The cavalcade of clowns, carnies, and animal trainers is vast; among them are the ringmaster Preston (Alex Cord), the pretty showgirl Maylene (Lee Purcell), single mom rope walker Katie (Pamela Shoop), and handsome roustabout Brad (Greg Evigan). Soon, as these things tend to go, someone awful ends up dead, and we have to figure out whodunnit.

Jessica matches wits with an ambitious (and total dick) Mayor Powers (Ronny Cox), with a sympathetic sheriff in tow (Gregg Henry), to clear the name of the now-certainly-alive grandfather, Carl (Jackie Cooper), who is implicated because of course he is.

Is the circus truly financially solvent, or is this an inside job? Will Jessica manage to spare her not-dead brother-in-law in time to make it to the wedding? Gosh, we hope so, but a whole lot of obstacles stand in her way: lions, tigers, and Florence Henderson.

This is DEATH STALKS THE BIG TOP, and the greasepaint is smelling strong as the crowd roars on.

BONUS! TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE: In celebration of Petra and Viktor closing out the second season of our favorite cozy mystery, we are upping the cozy and adding some froth, saccharine, and a full Jerry Herman (LA CAGE, MAME, HELLO DOLLY) score of songs we think may have been in a drawer for a while. It's MRS. SANTA CLAUS, the post-Murder She Wrote television movie also starring Charles Durning, Michael Jeter, and Terrence Mann. If you've not yet experienced this overstuffed spectacle, you don't even have to whistle: we're here to get you through it.

In this musical that depicts early 20th century New York as a rich, clean, patchwork quilt of races that get along, on the cusp of women's liberation, and one that still sort of glorifies child labor as long as they're well-heated, Angela Lansbury takes on the the titular role as only she can: fully committed, utterly delightful, and surrounded by actors who can only try to keep up.

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, it's a full-season review with Viktor and Petra to share the highs and lows of our second year with Jessica Fletcher and friends. We've visited tropical islands, college campuses, archaeological digs, mansions filled with secret passages, and even prison.

In this special edition of the pod, revisit the femme fatales, studs, bonkers scenarios, a cast of old Hollywood, and those soon to be discovered, and (so much) more.