Jessica can’t even go to a polo match without family in-fighting and murder, as Denton Langley falls off his horse and dies. His dog, Teddy, gets the whole estate. But is the pup a murderer?

Season 1, Episode 4: It’s a Dog’s Life (November 4, 1984)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

Rich people, trained animals and, as always, murder.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury, and were they in any exploitation movies?

Denton Langley, whose death sets all of this off, is played by Dan O’Herlihy, who has been in everything from Luis Buñuel’s Robinson Crusoe to Imitation of Life, Fail Safe and The Tamarind Seed. But for us, he’s best known as “The Old Man” in RoboCop, Grig in The Last Starfighter and Conal Cochran in
Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Marcus Boswell is played by Dean Jones. Once, I wrote about how much I hated Jones in Disney movies because he’s always in a bad mood. I hate to bring it up now and get more hate mail. He’s also in Antonio Margheriti’s Mr. Superinvisible, which was distributed by K-Tel.

Morgana Cramer is Cathryn Damon, who you may remember from Webster and Soap. She’s also in the 1981 made-for-TV Satanic shocker Midnight Offerings.

Lenore Kasdorf plays Trish Langley. She’s also Rico’s mom in Starship Troopers and appears in Amityville Dollhouse and Missing In Action.

Spencer Langley is Jared Martin, who is in a ton of movies that I love, including Twin Sitters, Aenigma, Karate Warrior, The Sea Serpent and Warriors of the Year 2072. And how could I forget — The Lonely Lady.

The Sheriff is Roger Miller, who sang “Dang Me,” “Do-Wacka-Do,” “Chug-A-Lug,” “Little Green Apples” and, you knew it, “King of the Road.”

Abby Benton Freestone, who is Jessica’s friend in this, is Lynn Redgrave, who was a serious actress and well above most of the movies I like. Except, you know, movies like Midnight, The Happy Hooker and Disco Beaver from Outer Space.

Forrest Tucker is Tom Cassidy, and man, his IMDB is like my heaven: the Klaus Kinski TV movie Timestalkers, The Crawling Eye, The Abominable Snowman, and two guest spots on Flo.

Isiah Potts is Gregory Walcott, who, of course, is Jeff Trent from Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Echo Cramer is actually Cherie Curie! Formerly of The Runaways, she was also in Wavelength, Parasite, Foxes and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Small parts include Byron Cherry (who ruined many a child’s 1982-1983 TV season when he was Coy Duke and replaced the Duke boys with his other cousin Vance for 19 episodes), James Hampton (Uncle Howard from the Teen Wolf movies), Sandy Ward (Bette Midler’s dad in The Rose), Robert Cornthwaite (seemingly typecast as a doctor in movies like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Primevals, the original The Thing, Mant! within Matinee, The War of the Worlds and Time Trackers. This too, because he’s the coroner), Donna Anderson (Count Yorga), Greg Norberg (who produced Hot Shots!) Bernard McDonald and Brian Mozur.

What happens?

Jess’ cousin Abby is the horse trainer for rich guy Denton Langley. He is celebrating his 80th birthday with a fox hunt, which turns into a hunt for something else once he gets a look at Jessica. His family is pretty much the absolute worst, and soon, the fox hunt claims his life when his horse jumps too high and he’s thrown.

“Push, Teddy! Push!” I have screamed this in Lynn Redgrave’s voice so many times. This episode features a trained dog who is the highlight.

Soon, a VHS will reveals that all $3 million of the estate will go to the dog. Jessica wants to leave, but her cousin begs her to stay. Everyone is after Teddy, but all the money goes to an animal charity if he dies. But that night, Trish, the drunken daughter, comes home late and gets out of her car when the gate doesn’t work right. Then, the gate comes crashing down on her head, killing her and Teddy is revealed as the culprit! Could this dog, trained by Abby, be the killer?

Who did it?

Trish killed her father, but when she wouldn’t split the money with Marcus the lawyer, he had her killed and set up Teddy.

Who made it?

Director Seymour Robbie was a busy TV director—he directed 21 episodes of this show, 17 of Remington Steele, 3 of the Father Dowling Mysteries, 3 of Hart to Hart, and the Desi Arnez Jr. movie Marco and C.C. and  Company.

It was written by Mark Giles and Linda Shank, who wrote “Sticks and Stones” in season 2.

A fact…

Forrest Tucker and James Hampton were on F Troop together. This was Tucker’s last role.

Does Jessica get some?

No, but if that guy hadn’t died…

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

No. Trust me, you’ll get sick of it soon.

Was it any good?

This is one of my favorite episodes because of Teddy.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Marcus Boswell: Let me tell you something, Spencer. You are talking about a perfectly normal dog as if he’s possessed! You’ve been seeing too many Stephen King movies.

Got a TV Guide ad?

No, but how about a picture of Teddy?

What’s next?

Jessica goes to Seattle for a lecture and, surprise, someone dies.