A sensationalist TV presenter is killed, and suspicion falls on one of the clients whose products he maligned.

Season 3, Episode 15: The Bottom Line Is Murder (February 15, 1987)

J.B. is on the road to Denver, Colorado, to visit her old friend Jayne, whom she hasn’t seen in 7 years, and to give an interview at a station where her friend’s husband works. Despite being a widower of a certain age who continually has people die all around her, Jessica stays busy. Of course, as soon as she gets there, someone dies.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Adrienne Barbeau is Lynette Bryant. If anyone ever says a bad word about her, you can legally kick them. Look it up.

Jessica’s old friend, Dr. Jayne Honig, is Judith Chapman, who plays Gloria Simmons on The Young and the Restless. 

The law around here, Lt. Lou Flannigan, is Barry Corbin. The warden from Stir Crazy!

Pat Klous is Clare Henley.

Robert F. Lyons, from Avenging Angel, is Steve Honig.

Rod McCary is Kenneth Chambers. He was also in Stir Crazy, as well as Night of the Demons 2.

Joe Santos, Dennis Becker from The Rockford Files, is Joe Rinaldi.

Robert Warren is played by Morgan Stevens.

Celebrity trash collector Bert Tanaka? Oh my! George Takei!

In smaller roles, Brian Matthews is Ryan Monroe, Paul Tompkins and Robert Buckingham are reporters, William Ian Gamble is a security guard, and Mark C. Phelan is a cop.

What happens?

Kenneth Chambers is the TV newsman behind the hot news program The Bottom Line. So hot that it’s made at an independent Denver station, but whatever. He’s a total jerk, which, as we all know in the world of Murder, She Wrote, means that he will be the person who dies.

Anyway, Jayne is driving Jessica to the station and casually mentions that her husband Steve is super stressed and that she’s stopped being a career woman to help take care of him. If you guessed that he’s the producer that Kenneth yelled at, you’re right. They meet station manager Robert Warren, who remarks that he’d sure like Jayne to leave her husband — and his best friend — for him. That’s how people talked in 1987. So when you take your work sexual harassment digital test, that is also why.

Also: Robert was once one of Jayne’s patients, as she was once a therapist. 

Also also: When they are all at dinner, Steve leaves to go work late, and Robert cockblocks him after he leaves, saying that he worked late on the same night but was there alone.

Then George Takei’s character finds Kenneth dead, and if this were made in 2026, he would look right at the camera, Fulci zooms right in on him, and he would say, “Oh my!” Kenneth has been shot, and would you look at that, Steve has a gun in the back of his car. It’s not as if everybody didn’t want to kill this guy, but this being J.B.’s world, of course the husband of her best friend is the suspect.

There was just a mob guy who makes teddy bears that threatened everyone on the show’s life, and no one suspects him.

Jessica and junkman George Takei work together to spring a trap for the real killer.

Who did it?

Robert Warren, who didn’t want to kill the TV host, but really wanted Steve dead because he really wasn’t joking about being in lust with Jayne.

Who made it?

This is the first episode directed by Anthony Pullen Shaw, who is Angela Lansbury’s son. It was written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid? Does she get some?

No. I am getting enraged.

Was it any good?

It’s fine. 

Any trivia?

This is the second time Adrienne Barbeau was on the show. 

Give me a reasonable quote:

Jessica Fletcher: I don’t know how you spotted me, but you certainly had me pegged. I am a writer. Crime is my beat. Murder my specialty.

What’s next?

John Amos! Ernest Borgnine! LeVar Burton! Adam West! Jessica visits her old friend, private investigator Harry McGraw, in Boston, who has become embroiled in the high-stakes game of boxing.