Category Archives: Made for TV Movie

Murder, She Wrote S2 E16: Murder in the Electric Cathedral (1986)

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Jessica must find the murderer of her close friend whose will is in contention between family members and a popular evangelist.

Season 2, Episode 16: Murder In the Electric Cathedral (February 16, 1986)

Jessica’s old high school teacher, Carrie McKittrick (Mildred Natwick), wants to leave all of her money to Reverend Willie John Fargo (Steve Forrest) and Sister Ruth Fargo (Judy Geeson). Her family flips out, and Jessica gets involved.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Dr. Mark Bannon is played by Jack Bannon. His nurse, Sue Beth? That’s Barbi Benton!

Frank Bonner from WKRP In Cincinnat, i Earl Fargo.

Sam McKittrick, the grandson of Carrie, is Art Hindle (!), while her daughter-in-law Alice is Jeannie Wilson from Simon & Simon, and her stepson Harvey is Richard Herd.

DA Fred Whittaker is, of course, Dick Van Patten.

In smaller roles, Tammy Lee is played by Jill Hill, the director is Donald Craig, the driver is Owen Bush, Ethel is Belinda Beatty, Don Brodie plays a neighbor and Huck Liggett, Pat Poole, David Bowman, Bob Lee, Toni Lamond, Paul Bradley, Peter Eastman, Richard Patrick, Leoda Richards and Arthur Tovey are background characters.

What happens?

Right after the fight with the family, Carrie is hospitalized and dies. But Jessica finds a suspicious syringe, and yes, I know I have this theory that Mrs. Fletcher is the killer, but let’s move on.

As good as Carrie was to her — inspiring JB to be an author and teacher — Carrie’s son is horrible, abusing his wife. Then again, his father is just her stepson. It’s not her DNA, nature vs, nurture, all that.

Let’s discuss Willie John, who may start like your typical televangelist but is actually a good person who wants to use the money for good. A genuine surprise.

So if all these people — other than the preacher — want the money, who really would kill for it?

Who did it?

Ruth, the preacher’s wife! She was totally Tammy Faye, loving the lifestyle but sick of being a preacher’s wife. Yes, she was ignoring the sex she wanted to have. The scandal of a divorce would destroy her life, so she tried to blame it on her husband. As for Carrie’s family, they get to spend her money, but only if it goes to charity.

Who made it?

Another episode directed by the best TV movie director of all time, John Llewellyn Moxey. It was written by Dick Nelson.

Does Jessica get some?

No. I’m starting to rethink this question, as well as the next one: Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

Was it any good?

Yes, other than being sexless for JB!

Any trivia?

Take a look at the will. It’s actually a page from a Jessica Fletcher novel!

Pat Poole and Dick Van Patten were married at the time of this episode.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Rev. Willie John Fargo: I’ve decided to go away for a while… to Africa, Asia, South America, any place the simple folks need me.

Jessica Fletcher: Well, I wish you luck, Willie John, and I hope that you find what you’re looking for.

Rev. Willie John Fargo: Oh, I will, Miss Jessica. I will, indeed, the good Lord willing.

What’s next?

Jessica finds herself in a tough spot when one of the auctioneers of a diary is murdered, and she has to rely on Harry McGraw to help her out.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: The Great Satan at Large (1991)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Hail Satan!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Before the internet, if you wanted your opinion on a matter to be known, you had limited options. You could write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or periodical. You could go down to the town square, stand on a soap box, and annoy any and all passers by with your rant regarding the topic about which you were most passionate. Or you could book time on your local public access television station, free from the limitations and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission.

Probably my own previous experience with public television was the Wayne’s World sketch on Saturday Night Live. If my hometown had a public access station, I never knew about it when I was a kid. Eventually, I did discover one public access station in my hometown in Louisiana once I moved back from college. Every Friday night, this station would broadcast an auction of the most ridiculous items. Forget going out to the club or bar or whatever third space was around in the late 1990s. This show truly was must see TV. 

Apparently larger markets had stations devoted to public access. Thanks to AGFA, I recently discovered the show Decoupage!, a Los Angeles based program featuring the performance artist Craig Roose and his alter ego character Summer Caprice. A drag character, Summer Caprice would host a talk show where people as diverse as Susan Tyrell and Fred Willard would come through for unhinged interviews. And where else might you find Karen Black singing a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang with the band L7? Nowhere but public access television.

A more pertinent recent discovery is The Great Satan at Large, a program that aired a single time in Tucson, Arizona in 1991. In retrospect, perhaps the station airing it at 6 PM was not the best idea. Wanting to provide an alternative to the televangelism he saw on a lot of local stations, Lou Perfidio created a talk show where he portrayed Satan, complete with red suit, pitchfork, and devil horns, spewing the most profane statements imaginable while images of Hitler and swastikas were projected on a screen behind him. Like most talk shows, Satan had a panel of guests. God was there. And a perpetually masturbating court jester. There are special guests—a sadomasochistic couple who show up to perform some simulated sex acts. And here is where Perfidio landed in legal trouble with an obscenity charge as the female in the couple was only 17 years old (he later pled guilty to the delinquency of a minor). Meanwhile, it is also a call in show, and incels across Tucson dialed in, asking Satan to push the boundaries further and further.

The show is indeed pretty hellacious, and perhaps a better glimpse into Hell than even Ron Ormond and Estus W. Pirkle provided in their series of Christian exploitation films aimed at scaring viewers into accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. After 45 minutes of The Great Satan at Large, I was on my knees asking for forgiveness. I kind of want to watch it again right now though. But that’s just the way sin is I guess.

Perfidio did appear on another program on the Access Tucson network entitled 666Israel, where a televangelist character and Satan have a…well…I’m not sure how to describe their interaction honestly. You just have to see it to believe it. And thanks to the wonders of the internet, you can. It’s right there at your fingertips, along with every other perversion you can imagine. Hail Satan indeed.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 17: The Amy Fisher Story (1993)

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17. A 90s Horror Film That Was Made for Television

Yes, a horror story. Within a few days, NBC’s Amy Fisher: My Story, CBS’s Casualties of Love and ABC’s The Amy Fisher Story all hit the small screen, and people did not go unmoved.

This time, we have Drew Barrymore playing Amy, and yeah, I’ll make a statement: I would kill someone for 1993 Drew Barrymore.

Director Andy Tennant would go on to work with Barrymore again on Ever After. He also made Fools Rush In and Sweet Home Alabama, so if you dated someone in the 90s, you saw his movies. It was written by Janet Brownell.

It all begins with Amy in bed, barely alive after a suicide attempt and wondering where it all went wrong. Oh yes, it was when she slept with Joey Buttafuoco (Tony Denison). Made a year after Drew was in Poison Ivy, this finds her playing yet another dangerous young girl who shouldn’t be using sex the way she is, but we all want to see it. You know, an exploitation film.

Fisher would go on to be with another old man bad for her, Louis Bellera, and even made an adult film — against her wishes, so she said — in the early 2000s. On March 6, 2008, Fisher was a guest on the Howard Stern Show to discuss the video. After the first phone call from Mary Jo Buttafuoco’s daughter, Jessica, Fisher left the show quickly. In 2010, she appeared in Deep Inside Amy Fisher alongside Lisa Ann, Tommy Gunn, Dale DaBone and Marcus London. She also appeared in Amy Fisher Is Sex (of course, Evan Stone is in that), My Wife’s Hot Friend 10, Amy Fisher With Love, Fatal Seduction (at least Katsuni is in that), and Seduced by a Cougar 22.

She reunited with Mary Jo Buttafuoco for appearances on Entertainment Tonight and also did the coin toss with Joey for the 2006 Lingerie Bowl, which was a thing. The New York Euphoria beat the Los Angeles Temptation 13-12.

Anyways: Casualties of Love was about Amy being crazy, while Amy Fisher: My Story  had her being taken advantage of, and this one says, “Both things can be true.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

Murder, She Wrote S2 E15: Powder Keg (1986)

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The justice system is tested when a group of angry rednecks form a lynch party and plan to hang a murder suspect.

Season 2, Episode 15: Powder Keg (February 9, 1986)

The second episode, set in Roper County (also in “It’s a Dog’s Life“), features Jessica and Ames Caulfield (Craig Stevens, Peter Gunn!) traveling down South to attend a writer’s convention. Coincidence strands them at a hotel owned by an old lover of Ames, Cassie Burns (Mariclare Costello, Emily from Let’s Scare Jessica to Death). She runs the place along with her son Matthew (Brian Lane Green). But hey…let’s get into it.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Other than the cast above, that is!

Frank Kelso is played by Pat Corley, who also was Sheriff Joe Corley in Kiss My Grits.

Linda Bonner is played by Cindy Fisher.

Jackie Earle Haley! He’s Billy Willetts.

Sheriff Claudell Cox, the law here, is Dorian Harewood, Shredder on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

Peter Fargo is played by John Dennis Johnston.

Charlie Demsey is Bill McKinney, who was in Deliverance, First Blood and Back to the Future III.

Jeff Osterage is in the role of Ed Bonner.

The elder Bonner is Stuart Whitman in one of his four appearances on the show.

Larry Wilcox is also in the four-timers club. He’s Andy Crane in this.

Smaller roles include W.K. Stratton as Deputy Morgan, John Alvin as Dr. Frazier, Debra Dusay as a desk clerk, Dave Adams as a barfly, Hartley Silver as a man, Muriel Minot as a woman, Renna Bartlett as a literary conference attendee and Bud Hazlett and Helen Kelly as background characters.

What happens?

Ames goes to watch Matthew play in a band at a bar that has a Confederate flag on the stage. Soon, Linda’s brother Ed and his sons Andy and Billy show up looking for him. And Matthew, who turns out not to be her son but is a lover, is involved.

As you guessed, Ed is dead in the morning, Matt is suspected, and Ames wants JB to help him. Maybe Ed was a drug dealer. Who can say? Well, everyone, because no one seems to like him even after he just died.

Jessica gets a gun pulled on her by a bartender when she’s snooping around. She knows more about guns than he does, and as you can imagine, this gets him rock hard. JB is told to leave people alone, and now look, she’s blue ballsing an NRA member.

But no matter who you think it is, as the townspeople all come to jail to kill Matthew, the surprise is…

Who did it?

The bartender. Yes, Frank Kelso caught his wife pounding it out with Ed, so he killed her and got blackmailed by Ed. Finally, he decided to shoot him with the very gun Jessica saw him pull on her.

Who made it?

This episode was directed by the best TV movie director of all time, John Llewellyn Moxey, and written by series creator Peter S. Fischer.

Does Jessica get some?

No, but Ames had it on his mind before his ex cock blocked him.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

I wish.

Was it any good?

Yes, this is the best kind of episode, where JB is a fish out of water, wins everyone over and solves the case.

Any trivia?

Jeff Osterage was also in season 1’s “Funeral at Fifty-Mile.”

Give me a reasonable quote:

Jessica Fletcher: Oh, Ames, I’m so grateful to you for inviting me to loll around your estate for a few days. You know, that writer’s conference really wore me out.

Prof. Ames Caulfield: Nonsense. You loved it. And they loved you, he admitted enviously.

What’s next?

Art Hindle! Barbi Benton! Frank Bonner! Jessica must find the murderer of her close friend, whose will is in contention between the family and a popular evangelist.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 12: Anemia (1986)

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12. MOROSE CODE: Nestle into your favorite dark place to view a Gothic horror piece.

Directed and written by Alberto Abruzzese and Achille Pisanti, this was described by Abruzzese as a “hypersensible journey among the literary and cinematic genres…a game of displacements.” Based on the Abruzzese novel Anemia Storia di un vampiro comunista, it was first shown on Rai Tre television on October 27, 1990.

Umberto (Hanns Zischler) is a high-ranking Communist Party official who learns that he has become a vampire. He leaves behind the real world and goes to the house of his grandfather, which is all a comment on how the Italian Communists became the Democratic Party of the Left.

It’s more cerebral than Italian horror, but hey, Gioia Scola (Obsession: A Taste for Fear) is in it.

I’m trying to watch every Italian Gothic Horror movie ever — here’s the Letterboxd list — and sometimes, you get to watch The Vampire and the Ballerina or Kill, Baby, Kill. And other times, you watch this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Cute Devil (1982)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Today’s theme: The Sweetest Taboo!

Hold onto your penmanship medals! Nobuhiko Obayashi (Hausu) brings us a version of The Bad Seed, with a child perhaps even more devious than Rhoda Penmark.

I would say that The Bad Seed was a gateway horror film for me, but I was born in the 1970s. The idea of gateway horror had not been invented. Or even considered. One of my earliest memories is watching Carrie on our little television in the trailer we were living in. The pig’s blood dropped and I ran out of the room. Carrie was aired on CBS in 1978. Sure, they made a few edits, but a 3-year-old me would not have been able to notice. The real question is why would my parents let me watch it in the first place?

Sort of the blessing and the curse of being Generation X. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My mom loved Alfred Hitchcock and she would often tape his films or television show any chance she got, and we would watch it on the weekends (along with a week’s worth of All My Children). But the film I most fondly remember is The Bad Seed. Taped off of WGN, complete with commercials for K-Tel records and Empire carpet (588-23 hundred Empiiiiire), we would watch it all of the time. Oh, how I wish I still had that old VHS tape! The Bad Seed had so many aspects that fascinated me. I was too young to understand the concept of translating a stage play to film. We do not see the evil Rhoda commits. We just hear about it. It might have made the idea of such an evil child more effective. Also, I’m still not sure what excelsior is exactly. But apparently, it is highly flammable.

As much as I love The Bad Seed, it is possible that Obayashi’s version is superior in many ways. He totally cuts out the psychological mumbo jumbo that drags down a significant portion of the original film. Our child killer here, Alice, is just a sociopath from the beginning. Is it possible that the suicide of her father is the root cause? Who cares? It doesn’t matter. We are just here to watch Alice bludgeon her teacher to death in order to get a prized doll. 

Obayashi also deviates from the original story by bringing in an aunt as the main protagonist. Ryoko ends up in a mental institution after believing she has caused her boyfriend’s death. I mean, she did wish death upon him as he was walking out the door, only to be struck down by a car. On that same day, Ryoko’s sister Fuyoko is getting married (why Ryoko isn’t there is not explained, other than she is studying music in Vienna). After Alice asks Fuyoko if she can have her veil when she dies, Fuyoko says yes, not expecting to be violently tossed out of a window minutes later. Years pass, and eventually Ryoko is convinced she was not responsible for the death of her boyfriend. Her brother-in-law (I guess—he was only legally married to her sister for mere minutes—talk about early release) asks Ryoko if she would come and be governess to Alice, sweet Alice. She does, but quickly begins to believe that Alice is responsible for the mysterious deaths happening around the family.

We do not approach the insanity that is Hausu of course, but Obayashi does have plenty of tricks up his sleeve. He foreshadows this glass vase so hard that you know something is going to happen with it. But I could have never expected what actually does happen. I thought “there it is”, immediately thinking that it is something that would have easily happened to one of the girls in Hausu.

The Leroy character, the guy who knows the truth but would have difficulty proving it, is even scummier than the guy in The Bad Seed. And Alice does not need to rely on him sleeping on a bed of excelsior to ignite those flames. 

All around, a great companion piece to both Hausu and The Bad Seed. I could watch both of those films back-to-back right now. Similar to other remakes of The Bad Seed in the United States, Cute Devil was made for television. I seem to be stacking up MFTV movies this month. A seemingly endless fount of goodness that unfortunately does not seem to exist anymore. 

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Face of Evil (1996)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Made for TV Movie

Ah man, Tracy Gold was always a good girl until this movie. She plays Darcy Palmer, an artist who loses her mind, leaves her man at the altar, takes all his money, heads to New York City and kills a college student named Brianne Dwyer (Mireille Enos). Then, she starts life all over again as a college student in New Hampshire.

She soon becomes friends with Jeanelle Polk (Shawnee Smith) and goes home to meet her father, Russell (Perry King). Before you know it, she has him fooled, and she’s cutting his ponytail off in the shower.

Directed by Mary Lambert and written by Gregory Goodell (lots of TV movies, but also the director and writer of the video nasty Human Experiments), this has the lovely daughter of TV’s Growing Pains stuffing dead bodies into her suitcase, ruining eyes with acid eyedrops and even trying to stab our good girl with scissors. She’s killed ten people in six cities and keeps changing who she is, somehow staying ahead of cops. If this were a Giallo, they’d be amongst the dumbest of all movie police, as a festering suitcase filled with a dead body can stay in a dorm for days and then at a construction site for months and no one notices.

Perry King also wears a jaunty scarf for the scene where Gold bites him and screams, “I’m an artist!”

Also: Total square up reel of all her crimes while Perry King is like, “I guess we were lucky.” And yet, he slept with her. I’m sure it was amazing.

You can watch this on Tubi.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: When a Stranger Calls Back (1993)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Today’s theme: Made for TV Movie!

“And maybe for the college boys, the truest mirror is the toilet bowl staring back at them in the morning after a toga party.”

This insightful line of dialogue is “uttered” by a faceless ventriloquist’s dummy during a set at a strip club in When a Stranger Calls Back, a copy/paste sequel produced by Showtime in 1993.

Starting with a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1984, Showtime produced many original films during a run that lasted until around 2007. Never reaching the acclaim of HBO Films, and never reaching the depths of Cinemax Friday After Dark programming, Showtime was able to carve out an interesting middle ground, particularly in the horror genre. The first film that comes to my mind when I think about Showtime is John Carpenter’s Body Bags. But Showtime was also the home of films such as Psycho IV: The Beginning, The Birds II: Land’s End, as well as Jim Wynorski’s remake of The Wasp Woman. Pursuing the list of films now, I feel the need to find some of these potential hidden gems. Once this month is over, I might have to seek out The Tiger Woods Story, a 1998 film directed by LeVar Burton, starring Keith David as Tiger Woods’ dad. 

When a Stranger Calls Back gets the gang from the first film back together. Carol Kane as Jill, the babysitter who was tormented in the original movie, but she has since turned her trauma into a career as a counselor, while finding time to take self-defense classes on the side. Charles Durning as Detective John Clifford, using his skills to track down men who harass babysitters (a very niche skill set). And director Fred Walton. Not much to say about Walton other than he also directed April Fool’s Day, followed by a string of made-for-TV films, including a remake of William Castle’s I Saw What You Did.

Not only did the director and main stars come back, but the basic template from the first film returns. The most often heard complaint about When a Stranger Calls is that the film loses steam after that iconic opening sequence. But what film could possibly match the energy and suspense crafted in that first 20 minutes? People rarely talk about how great the last 15 minutes are as well. Truly scary.

While the bookends of When a Stranger Calls Back does not match the intensity of the original, it makes a decent effort. We get a legendary scream queen as the tormented babysitter (Jill Schoeien), and a killer who is creepier than the one in the first film. Kind of a Francis Dolarhyde meets Peeta from The Hunger Games. And I think that the second act here is more interesting than the one in the first film. Of course having more Carol Kane is always a good idea in my book. Watching Carol Kane’s stunt double do a jumping scissors kick against her attacker? Peak cinema. 

Murder, She Wrote S2 E14: Keep the Home Fries Burning (1986)

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Poisoned strawberry preserves served at the Joshua Peabody Inn result in murder.

Season 2, Episode 14: Keep the Home Fries Burning (January 19, 1986)

Are JB, Sheriff Tupper and Dr. Hazlitt in a triad relationship? No, they’re just going to dinner at the Joshua Peabody Inn, where several people get food poisoning and one lady dies. Of course, Jessica thinks it’s murder.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Sharon Acker (Happy Birthday to Me) plays Wilhelmina Fraser.

Norman Alden is Mercer Hawthorne.

Orson Bean plays Ebeneezer McEnery

Ted Stully is Gary Crosby, the son of Bing.

His wife, Helen, is played by Rosanna Huffman.

Anne Lloyd Francis (Forbidden Planet) plays Margo Perry.

William Lucking plays Bo Dixon.

John McCook (The Bold and the Beautiful) is Harrison Fraser III.

Cornelia Montique is played by Donna Pescow (Saturday Night Fever).

Chef Alan Dupree is played by Henry Polic II.

Alan Young (The Time Machine) plays Floyd Nelson.

In smaller roles, Marcia Rodd is Betty Fiddler, John Donovan is an assistant, Patricia Wilson is a cashier, Leonard O. Turner plays Mr. O’Connor, Dion Williams is Jimmy O’Connor, Michael McCabe is an orderly, Dale Raoul is a nurse, Alxander Folk is a cook, W. Earl Brown is a chef, Dan Cotter and Joel Shultz are diners, William B. Ward Hr. is a prist and To Willett is a doctor.

Oh yeah! Sheriff Amos is played by Tom Bosley, and Dr. Seth is portrayed by William Windom.

What happens?

Sheriff Amos is quite excited that he now has another place to eat, aside from Dixon’s, and that the Joshua Peabody Inn is open. Even his favorite waitress, Cornelia, has started to work there. And it’s a Revolutionary War-themed joint! Oh man! What do they serve, pepperpot stew?

As our three friends — Seth, Am, Os, and JB — have breakfast, they notice a group of wealthy ladies named Wilhelmina and Betty eating nearby. That’s when they all learn that the fruit preserves are tainted. And then Betty dies.

Margo Perry of the Maine Health Department arrives in town to investigate the case, and Amos becomes panicked. Not because he has to work with her, but because he’s probably eaten a little bit of everything for breakfast, and surely he’s going to get sick soon.

Wilhelmina’s husband, Harrison, comes to town, and when she tells him that Betty is dead, he takes it way worse than you’d imagine, but then, you know, one figures that he’s been sleeping with Betty.

There are so many red herrings, and yet people who eat at this place together often hate each other.

Who did it?

Wilhamena. It’s pretty simple. The most basic of all reasons: when your best friend bangs out your husband, you need to feed her poisoned jelly.

Who made it?

This episode was directed by Peter Crane (The Initiation) and Philip Gerson.

Does Jessica get some?

No, despite my weird wish for Seth and Amos to make her airtight.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

Nope. I’m getting upset.

Was it any good?

It’s fine. The Cabot Cove episodes are usually more humorous, and everything gets serious when Jessica goes on the road.

Any trivia?

You may recognize the restaurant and parking lot set from The Rockford Files.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Sheriff Amos Tupper: Well, you know what they say. As Sheriff Tupper goes, so goes Cabot Cove.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Who says that?

Sheriff Amos Tupper: Everybody, when it comes to food.

Jessica Fletcher: I must be traveling in the wrong circles. I don’t recall hearing that.

What’s next?

The justice system is tested when a group of angry rednecks form a lynch party and plan to hang a murder suspect. Wow, what a cast — Larry Wilcox, Jackie Earle Haley and Stuart Whitman!

W.E.I.R.D. World (1995)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last week of Tales from the Crypt content, as I got through all of the Perversions of Science episodes. Do you have another anthology you’d like me to tackle?

W.E.I.R.D. (Wilson Emery Institute for Research and Development) It is a place where the world’s most intelligent scientists get unlimited budgets to come up with whatever they want, all under the watch of Dr. Monochian (Ed O’Neill!). Three of the stories of this scientific lab form the basis of this TV movie, which seems to have been a pilot for a show.

When you see William Gaines’ name on this, know that’s because these three stories — like Tales from the Crypt, Two-Fisted Tales and Perversions of Science — were based on EC Comics. Specifically, stories from Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, the science fiction books of EC. Unlike the other shows based on the comics, these are all part of an overall tale and are all directed by the same person, William Malone.

In one, Dr. Dylan Bledsoe (Dana Ashbrook) is spending just as much time making a virus as he is trying to hook up with Dr. Noah Lane’s (Jime-True Frost) assistant Diane (Audie England, who was Kitana and Mileena on the Mortal Kombat TV show and was a girl rolling around in bed in Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” video), all while robotics expert Lane tries to figure out if Bledsoe killed his last girlfriend, Catherine (Cyia Batten, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning). Meanwhile, Dr. Abby O’Reardon (Paula Marshall) and her husband Dr. Bryan Mayhew (Clayton Rohner) are constantly arguing — did any EC Comics creative have a good marriage? — and she wants a baby, despite all of that. And then there’s Dr. Patty Provost (Gina Ravera, Molly from Showgirls), who has figured out time travel, which leads to her brother Bob (Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Spider from Return of the Living Dead), a security guard, to sell out W.E.I.R.D.

Written by A.L. Katz, Gilbert Adler and Scott Nimerfro, this never reaches the levels of the other shows, but from all accounts — read The Schlock Pit — this was a troubled production. Does anyone know what comics this was based on?

You can watch this on Tubi.