Murder, She Wrote Season 8 Episode 1

From Season 8 forward, we see more of the "sophisticated" Jessica Fletcher, beginning with her taking an apartment in New York. The show incorporated more of her travels, her teaching and her deadlines and process of being a working writer. As a result, the "cozy" Christie style of mystery from Seasons 1-7 was largely left behind for more urban crime stories like this one.





Changing the show was a good idea (any show on for a dozen seasons HAS to change or it risks going stale). The problem with "Bite the Big Apple" is that, since so much of the story needs to be devoted to setting up Jessica in her new surroundings, very little time is left over to develop the murder mystery. As a result, it's an easy one to solve (the suspect shows up in the first five minutes acting suspiscious) and clues and deduction are glossed over.





Still, it's not all bad. Angela Lansbury and William Windom always had wonderful chemistry on this show, and this episode is no exception, as Seth comes to NYC to make sure Jessica is alright. And Eugene Roche does well as a blustery New York cop who grows more and more frustrated by Jessica's increasingly dangerous intervention into the case.