Jessica narrates a story from 40 years ago when another female mystery writer helped to solve a mysterious murder aboard the Queen Mary.Jessica narrates a story from 40 years ago when another female mystery writer helped to solve a mysterious murder aboard the Queen Mary.Jessica narrates a story from 40 years ago when another female mystery writer helped to solve a mysterious murder aboard the Queen Mary.
Photos
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFilmed on board the Long Beach docked "Queen Mary" with the episode intended as a television series pilot. The interior corridors and state rooms, medical office, Captain's quarters were filmed at Universal Studios. The pilot was specifically filmed as a period 1947 scenario, with the "star cast" featured for the TV series pilot premise. Murder, She Wrote (1984) producer Peter S. Fischer first offered the pilot to CBS, which rejected the project. Peter Fisher then was rejected by ABC TV, and finally by NBC Programing.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Jessica Fletcher: Oh, the weather's so beautiful. It should be a wonderful day. But it isn't. It was in the paper this morning. A wonderful person died a couple of days ago. She was very dear to me, even though I never actually met her. The paper said she was 101, though she could have been a lot older. Lady Austin was like that, an enigma shrouded in mystery, very much like the books that she wrote. Abigail Austin. When it came to mysteries, she was very simply the best. Her books will live on long after mine are gone and forgotten. You know, the obituary reminded me of something that I'd forgotten. Years ago, she was involved in a real-life mystery. Oh, yes. As you know, that's something that I'm familiar with. But for Lady Abigail, I think it was, well, a somewhat disconcerting situation. It was two years after the war, and she had sailed aboard the Queen Mary, which was one night out of New York City when the trouble started.
- SoundtracksMurder She Wrote Theme
Written by John Addison
There is no personal bias against the book-ends, where Jessica appears only to introduce the episode and then leave a few concluding remarks. There are a few good ones, while others suffer from her absence and not having a compelling enough character to fill her shoes. This is true for "The Grand Old Lady", which tries hard and had an intriguing premise but it should have been much more interesting than it actually was.
June Havoc tries but overdoes it as a character that not only doesn't convince as a seemingly Agatha Christie-modelled sleuth but is not a compelling enough, both bland and somewhat annoying, lead character to find clues and solve the mystery. Do agree that "The Grand Old Lady" has too many characters and story lines, some more interesting than others and some not adding much to the story at all.
It also suffers from the same potential problem of anything to have more than one case, in this case two. That of one being significantly more interesting and better developed than the other, when the episode would have fared better just having one case. The whole stuff with the counterfeit is intriguing and it was a pity that the amount of effort put into that didn't come over in the dreary, underdeveloped and sometimes confused murder mystery that begged for a clearer explanation. The script doesn't always flow and the pace tends to be dreary.
On the other hand, the supporting do a good job, particularly Robert Vaughn, Mark Lindsay Chapman and Gordon Thomson. The cruise ship setting is suitably grand and the fashions are to die for. Some of the clues are clever and the counterfeit mystery is done well.
Photography as ever is slick and stylish. The music has energy and has presence but also not making the mistake of over-scoring, while it is hard to forget or resist the theme tune. The writing does have moments where it has a light touch and provokes thought.
In summary, watchable episode but less than grand. 5/10 Bethany Cox
- TheLittleSongbird
- Sep 25, 2017