Critique, controversy, and a whole lot of bad theater on the Great White Way.
Season 4, Episode 21: Deadpan (May 1, 1988)
Jessica Fletcher trades Cabot Cove for the rugged Canadian plains of Queensbridge, Saskatchewan, where cowpokes, bulls, and bad choices run wild. But when the local circuit “doctor” gets torched in his own trailer, it’s up to our favorite mystery writer and a Mountie fan-boy to steer this rodeo straight.
Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?
Dean Stockwell (Elliot Easterbrook) holds a major place in horror/cult cinema history, starring as Dr. Henry Armitage in the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation The Dunwich Horror and appearing in David Lynch’s neo-noir masterpiece Blue Velvet.
John DiSanti (Danny O’Mara) appeared in gritty thrillers and cult favorites like Running Scared, The Star Chamber and the monster movie The Relic.
Christopher Norris (Denise Quinlan) is widely recognized for her television work, including a long-running stint on Trapper John, M.D.
Miles Chapin (Walter Knapf) played Geek in Tobe Hooper’s iconic carnival slasher classic The Funhouse.
Rich Little (Barney Mapost) is known for his celebrity voice impersonations, particularly of U.S. presidents.
Lloyd Bochner (Jason Richards) is a legendary genre face immortalized as the man who reads the famous book in The Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man,” and he later appeared in the cult occult TV movie Satan’s School for Girls.
Carole Cook (Shayna Grant) was a legendary comedic actress and Lucille Ball protegee.
Marilyn Hassett (Barbara Blair) won a Golden Globe for The Other Side of the Mountain and crossed into genre territory with films like Shadow of the Hawk and Messenger of Death.
Philip Abbott was a television veteran best known for co-starring in The F.B.I.
Eugene Roche (Lt. Aloysius Jarvis) was on Soap.
Penny Santon was a prolific character actress who popped up in everything from Fletch to episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
Smaller roles are played by Phillip Abbott, Don Correria, Robert Rigamonti, R.J. Arterburn, Barbara Beckley, Marcy Goldman, Sue Bugden, Michael Ashe, Robert Buckingham and Al Kahn.
What happens?
Playwright neophyte Walter Knapf has adapted Jessica’s book Murder Comes to Maine into a dubious Broadway play called Mainely Murder. Vitriolic TV critic Elliot Easterbrook savages it ahead of time, while rival print critic Danny O’Mara eggs on the public.
After a disastrous dress rehearsal featuring a scenery-chewing witch and broken pyrotechnics, opening night arrives. Easterbrook pans the show on his late-night broadcast, but the early morning editions bring a shock: O’Mara has written a wildly glowing, career-saving rave. Shortly after, Easterbrook storms off, vowing to silence his rival and the police find O’Mara dead with Easterbrook standing over the body holding the smoking gun.
Lieutenant Jarvis is ready to lock Easterbrook away forever, but Jessica smells foul play when she realizes a planted computer-generated review contains a fatal storytelling error that exposes the real killer’s elaborate timeline.
Who did it?
Elliot Easterbrook. His motive? Years earlier, a scathing review from O’Mara destroyed his burgeoning career as a playwright, driving him to abandon writing, become a critic himself and plot the ultimate revenge: to destroy his tormentor at his own game.
Who made it?
Directed by E.W. Swackhamer, who also made the Lookwell pilot and written by Mary Ann Kasica, Michael Scheff and Arthur Weingarten.
Does Jessica dress up and act stupid? Does she get some?
No disguises or fake accents this time around—she’s strictly in no-nonsense investigator mode in the Big Apple, though she briefly pretends to do research for a new book to ask a newspaper editor for computer data. As for getting some? Zero romance here; she spends half the episode trying to book a train back to Cabot Cove before her sense of justice traps her in Manhattan.
Was it any good?
It’s a wildly ambitious episode that leans hard into media satire, lampooning toxic arts criticism, early computer geek culture and chaotic Broadway productions. While it stretches logic with its intricate alibi-framing mechanics and a missing piece of physical evidence in the text onscreen, the powerhouse guest turns from genre icon Dean Stockwell and impressionist Rich Little make it an absolute blast.
Any trivia?
Allegedly, this episode is set in NYC, but the theater used for the exterior shots is the Ricardo Montalban Theater in Los Angeles.
Give me a reasonable quote:
Eliot Easterbrook: Good evening. Elliot Easterbrook with your “Live At 5:00 Mini Cam” at the Woolcott Theatre. Do you know that it has been said that the theater is a temple? If so, it is a temple which has frequently worshiped false gods. Only time and astute critical judgment will tell if Mainely Murder, which opens here tomorrow night, will honor the gods or, yet again, profane them.
What’s next?
Season 4 ends when Jessica comes to the aid of yet another dear old friend running as a senatorial candidate. When the candidate’s campaign manager is murdered, Jessica must help prove her innocence.
