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Season eight of "Murder She Wrote" had the slick feeling
of a machine perfectly designed and flawlessly executing
its task. Which is what a mystery program like this is supposed
to do and those who criticize the program for the lack of
innovation are missing the entire point--working within
a set formula is genre TV. Genre TV (particularly mysteries)
never got much better than "Murder She Wrote" (OK, "Columbo"
and "The Rockford Files" but both of those also sought to
subvert the formula to some extent and then settled into
their own comfortable formula. ***
As with the previous seasons Jessica Fletcher unravels
the latest mystery and nails the bad guys every time. If
this were real life (rather than reel life), I suspect local
law enforcement would be nice to her face but have a Jessica
Fletcher voodoo doll hidden somewhere in their office. Then
again, with her on the case local law enforcement could
easily have taken a nice long vacation. ---
Image & Sound:
As with previous seasons "Murder She Wrote" looks a
bit soft at time but colors are solid and pleasing throughout
the set. There's still occasional damage to the prints that
crop up along with some analog dirt and debris but it's
not all that prominent nor that disturbing. Digital artifacts--yep--there
are more than a few such as edge enhancement. The show shows
its age but most of the age is as well concealed as the
lines on star Angela Lansbury's face. ***
Audio sounds solid throughout with dialogue crisp and
clear. ---
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