today’s audio is my version of your childhood. well, if you’re a late genX-er or early millenial, or like me identify as a xennial.
from 1984 until 1996, twenty-two sunday nights a year, many of us sat on our parents bed, the den couch, grandma’s plastic covered carpet (yes! this was real!), and tuned in to watch the legendary angela lansbury solve crime. not just any crime - not capers, not hijinx, not theft, not espionage or blackmail, though sometimes those crimes were adjacent. in the guise of the famous author jessica fletcher, we watched a murder get solved every week. murder, she wrote.
beyond the iconic theme song, which is grooved into a deep part of my brain, i remember only bits and bobs from watching this show, but most notably I recall the lack of real fear at its premise. it was cozy murder! i am someone who even now cannot watch jump-scare horror movies, and with few exceptions, gory things make me faint. but murder, she wrote was something different. something awful (murder!) packaged as a puzzle for a smart, fearless, persistent woman.
years before the true-crime podcast boom, we were hooked on murder.
spanning my first year in kindergarten to my senior year in highschool, murder, she wrote, was Popular with a capital P. and there was a lot of it - imagine a world now where a show has twenty-two episodes for twelve seasons! in this era, ironically called "peak TV” what we really have is a lot of scarcity TV.
how many episodes total will ted lasso have when it wraps up its third and final season this spring? about 30. peaky blinders, after six seasons? 36. the wire? a relatively hefty 60. mad men? 92 hours of perfection, imho.
but murder, she wrote? 288! what??? how do i know this? because i have watched 103 of them since october.
why????
well, i don’t have a particularly good reason i started, nor that i am continuing, but i will say that i am committed to finishing.
last fall, at a rented apartment on chicago’s south side, the only app working on the television was Roku, which happens to offer the entire series of MSW. why not start at season 1, episode 1, i thought? see what i remember. it will be the perfect end-of-a-long-day, relaxing chatter for the background of my life. oops, it turned out to be something more.
i got hooked, hooked on the tidy plots, wrapped up in 45minutes, with the good guys on top, the bad guys in jail, and jessica’s look of bemused hilarity captured in freezeframe at the end of every episode. i got hooked seeing the clothes and cars of my childhood. i love how gullible the show thinks we are, claiming that the dry countryside of marin county or the backlots of los angeles could stand in for maine, georgia, nebraska, moscow, and any other manner of destinations jessica finds herself in. it is so low budget it’s practically kitsch, and i am here for every moment of it. literally.
the gender, racial, and geo-politics of the era also seep in. men make terrible jokes at the expense of women and trade on stereotypes. black characters are always underestimated good guys who surprise you with their intelligence. soviets are terrible. swedes are icy. cabbies are rough. jessica rolls her eyes at all these stereotypes, but there they are nonetheless.
by far, the most exciting part of watching episode after episode is the guest stars, as many as 10-12 new ones every week. this definitely does not happen on ted lasso. guest stars made shows like love boat what they were, but msw takes it to the next level. the writers aren’t booking a cruise, so they have to work extra hard and stretch the bounds of credibility to fill a weekly show with reasons for jessica to meet so many new and impactful people in her life. thus she has many cousins, nieces, nephews, old-friends, dear old friends, childhood friends, and former students that she stays in touch with, close enough to get the call when one of them is murdered, accused of murder, or witnesses a murder. it’s a lot of people and a lot of murder after awhile.
here is a partial list of some of the guest stars i have spotted that are still at it today:
lavar burton, courtney cox, george clooney, jeffrey tambor, charlotte rae, caitlin jenner, ernest borgnine, my kindergarten crush from V, jane badler, baby jaquin phoenix. i could go on. it’s truly outrageous.
hey yall! please allow me to interrupt with some fun announcements of live things.
if you’re planning on being on cape cod for memorial day weekend, please consider coming to see me open for the righteous all womyn led zepplin tribute band, lez zepplin. carl will be there headbanging with his very soft and floppy ears.
tickets have just become available for my august hiking concert here in western mass. grab them now, they went like hotcakes last year. here’s how it works: we hike, gently, to a nice spot, i play you a completely acoustic concert, we hike back. join us!
i know these gigs are massachusetts-centric, but fear not. denizens of seattle and atlanta, there are productions of MISS YOU LIKE HELL coming your way soon.
and finally, if you’re in the chicago-land area, you can come see a workshop presentation of my new musical OUT HERE. it’s hush hush, so here’s the link. all the other events are linked below or on erinmckeown.com/shows.
as always! tell a friend and thanks for listening or reading or both!
you may wonder, if at this point, i am tired of watching msw. the answer is yes. but i am committed. part of my identity is that i finish what i start. you can depend on me! i will persevere.
perhaps this is much like the actors and writers of msw themselves. being deep into season 5, i can sense a little bit of dullness creeping in. the sparkle of the original set of episodes has worn off, worn down by what must have been the extraordinary grind of producing so much content. they don’t call network shows “golden handcuffs” for nothing. if this is how it is in season 5, what will the next seven seasons be like? am i trapped in a dark hole of diminishing effort and increasingly outlandish plots?? we’ll find out, next week… on murder, she wrote.
the other day, i watched an episode and recognized a familiar face i couldn’t quite place. i keep my imdb open on my phone when i watch so i can put a name to any face i wonder about. this is like a kind of beer bingo, without the beer. who had dinah shore on their card?? lo and behold the face i recognized belonged to english actress judy parfitt. this name may not mean much to you, but she is a staple of one of my favorite shows and one of the few long-running series in today’s “peak TV”, call the midwife. she plays the ancient and habit-ed sister monica joan, but here she was youthful, sparky, red-haired and dressed in a killer sequined suit set with enormous shoulders. she is in her early 40s playing an import/export merchant turned book-agent that jessica meets at a cultural attache party in glasnost-era russia.
judy parfitt - you contain multitudes! as tired as i am, i am glad i am sticking with my msw project for moments like these. i find it kind of inspirational that judy parfitt is still around doing her thing on TV. maybe on days when i feel like giving up as an artist, i’ll think of her and the fact that now she plays an old nun on a hugely popular show. no hair or make up hours for her. she says a few pithy things each episode then totters away. some things are worth waiting for.
x erin
ps - because the next month or so is batshit with travel and creative obligations, fax of life is taking a little break. expect me back late-june or early july for a check in. because who has time for more than that in the summer?
pps - your carl content!
do i eat the pretty flowers? do i not eat the pretty flowers?
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
the world lost two of my favorite internet dogs this week: ann helen petersen’s peggy and saeed jones’s caesar. i loved both of these dog’s through their humans’ substacks. i imagine carl’s death all the time: how i would feel, what i would do. i know my imaginings can’t even come close to the future pain. i send all my love and best thoughts to ann and saeed.
ben james used to run a farm and farmer’s market here in western mass, but now he’s doing really wonderful digital journalism, audio, and photos. even if you don’t live here, you will love his eye and ear.
pop music used to have a lot of key changes and now it doesn’t. what happened?
the nfl draft was last week, and teams chose their new multi-million dollar prospects. i wish women’s athletics had this kind of hype, but i digress! some of the teams are using a new proprietary cognitive test that is taking the place of the problematic and infamous wonderlic.
as you might note from my social media profile images, i have always been a fan of colonial style profiles, especially as they are remixed by artists like kara walker. recently a trove of actual 18th century silhouettes got scanned and posted online. folks are helping identify some of the faces.
did you know colonial williamsburg has programming highlighting LGBTQ life in the colonial period??? tell. me. everything.
prince harry’s ghostwriter speaks. btw i *loved* their book together, SPARE.
UPCOMING SHOWS
May 27 - Provincetown MA
Supporting Lez Zepplin
TICKETS
August 12 - Dalton MA
Scenic Songs Hike + Concert at Notchview
TICKETS
Oct 14 - Nov 11 - Seattle WA
Miss You Like Hell at Strawberry Theatre
MORE INFO
March 8 -24, 2024 - Woodstock GA
Miss You Like Hell at Woodstock Arts
TICKETS
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
murder, they watched