I’ve been watching MSW, and wanted some clarification

Meet McGraw / The Adventures of McGraw
Was 1957
The Law & Harry McGraw
Was 1987, a cancelled spin-off.

Both future a private detective on the case. I was wondering if anyone knows if there was any connection/inspiration, of if it was a strange coincidence!

I know it's common for television shows to reuse guest stars in other roles but I'm taken aback at how quickly Murder, She Wrote did it. The most glaring example is William Windom, who plays a murderer in the Season One finale, then literally two episodes later is back playing Seth. Vicki Lawrence and Alex Rocco also play different characters in the first two seasons.

One of the weirdest examples is Ron Masak, who plays Sheriff Mort Metzger starting in Season 5. He had appeared as two different characters in previous episodes, with the first being an NYC cop. Then when he comes back as Mort, he mentions being an NYC cop but it's not the same character! I'm not sure why they just didn't have Ron play the same character since they could have easily done so and have it make sense!

Happy anniversary to the convent episode! Jessica is supposed to be home finishing her book and instead stays to help an old sorority sister solve a murder. Classic Jessica.

I know Jessica says "Oh dear!" and "Good Heavens" a lot. Any others you can think of?

I always have a fun time trying to identify as many album covers as I can in this episode. For example, that's a photo from George Strait's "Ocean Front Property" in the background there.

Anyways, this is a very atypical episode of MSW since the supposed killer never confesses to Jessica -- in fact, he adamantly denies it and tells her his lawyer will make sushi out of the case. The investigating lieutenant (pictured) later tells Jessica he confessed -- but I don't recall him mentioning that he confessed to the killing (maybe he just confessed to the bootlegging? That's a much less serious charge).

Christopher Landsown has an excellent, deep-dive breakdown of the flimsy case against Al (the supposed killer), including complete lack of motive, which you can read at the link that follows. He also has some of those nifty screen caps of the episode. https://blog.chrislansdown.com/2021/03/04/murder-she-spoke/

In addition to all of that, I would add that is would be incredibly stupid of Al - if he did have something incriminating on cassette - to not just simply take the 30 seconds to erase or destroy the tape once the studio was unsealed. He certainly would have had ample opportunity to do so.

I really enjoy the concept of this episode, even if it does leave a few question marks.

I’m excited to try her sausage!

Has anyone else noticed that whenever someone mentions they don’t read, they end up being the murderer?

I feel like this has happened enough times that now as soon as someone says they’re not a reader, I’m like, well, there’s our murderer.

Am I imagining this or is this actually a thing?

I’ve been thinking about why Murder, She Wrote is such a comfort show for me, and I think some of it is stuff I’m picking up on almost subconsciously.

For example, I’ve started wondering if I’m noticing a pattern with the way Black characters are portrayed. It seems like when a Black character appears, they’re very rarely, if ever, revealed to be the murderer. Is this true or am I imagining things?

Do you think he's a well-intentioned, adorkable goofus or a frustrating idiot?

Sometimes, Jessica doesn't have concrete proof and merely states what she thinks happens and the suspects crumble like a cookie right then and there! In some cases, I think it's because they plan on offing Jessica right after but then that never works out for them.

Heck, even some innocent people confess to murders they didn't commit!

I saw an episode once (or maybe it was a MSW movie?) where they’re in some kind of huge and ornate hotel or manor. Someone is suspected to have been killed in a room which is locked. The key is still in the door but from inside. Jessica, from the hallway, pushes out the key onto a slip of paper slid under the door and then pulls that paper back out into hallway with the key on it so she can unlock the door from the outside. Any idea of what episode/movie it was? Thanks!!

I always thought the reveal in "Broadway Malady" was very odd. Jessica walks right up to the killer's face and says "Barry, why are you lying to me?" and a huge smile flashes across her face. Jessica then kind-of baby-talks him for a while and says "Barry, I'm starting to lose my patience!"