Pie to Die For: A Hannah Swensen Mystery

Hannah Swenson (Allison Sweeney) is back in "A Pie To Die For" on Hallmark. Sweeney is a charming actress. Her character runs a bakery, The Cookie Jar.

This series Murder, She Baked can be classified as cozy mysteries. They're light, amusing, and have good energy.

In this film, the favorite local actress is found murdered when Hannah delivers her pies for a party. She of course is all over the murder scene and involved in whodunit. Her mother (Barbara Niven) was a rival of the actress and becomes a suspect.

Victor Webster is slowly becoming Hannah's latest love interest. They make a good couple.

My only problem is that the series at some point became dependent on Barbara Niven as Hannah's zany mother. This time it was toned down, a little. I know Allison Sweeney finds her hilarious, and she is a wonderful and fun actress, but the character has been an author, a private detective, and now an actress. It gets to be too much.

This was good, and the romance is starting to ramp up. I will say when your dieting its not a great show. Hannah's baked goods are mouthwatering!

It was hard to watch this movie. I felt like it was drowning in bad bleach jobs and really really bad hair extensions.

Another problem I had was with the three Central actors Alison Sweeny and Victor Websters are well past their "Hallmark Leads" period. They are both so long in the tooth they could more effectively play the PARENTS of the characters they played. Webster was lethargic. Through the entire movie he acted bored and very blase'.

Barbara Niven is scary to watch with her mass of bad hair extensions and affectations.

This could have been an enjoyable movie with any other set of Hallmark Actors.

Not as bad as the last one, but there is still too little Hannah and too much Delores. If you are going to feature Barbara Niven, just change the titles so we know what to expect.

When did Andrea get a new husband (she calls herself Andrea Swenson Bennet)? Why is she suddenly back in Lake Eden? Supposedly she moved to Seattle - how does she afford to fly back to Minnesota so frequently?

The Chad-Hannah dynamic is better, but the fainting at the end was too contrived to be believed. It was nice to see them behave like normal people and date.

I'm puzzled by Chad's job - isn't he an attorney, not a detective?

While ke both Alison Sweeney and Victor. Webster, the characters just don't have the same fit as Hannah and Mike did. Hannah's cat, who liked no one in the past, is now everybody's best friend. I'm not sure how many names Delores gave Hannah, but she's gone from calling her Hannah Joann in " Just Desserts " to Hannah Louise in " A Pie To Die For". Andrea's last name has changed from Todd to something else. Since Alison is credited as an author on this episode, shouldn't someone have been checking for consistency through the history of the series?

Again, Delores's character is outsized and needs revamping. Delores has gone from scatterbrained and pushy, trying to control her daughters, to being off the rails with the PI stuff. There is some consistency with Delores though- she's always more than a bit of a diva!

I've been watching Hannah Swensen movies since they first came on. She has been bold and strong and determined and fearless. I mean, she confronts the killers when she's alone in a room with them, as she did in the first movie!

And now we are supposed to accept the fact that now, after all this time and all the dead bodies and killers she has found and confronted, that suddenly she's overcome and faints?

Unbelievable. Really, I don't believe it. It runs completely opposite of the character that she has created all these years ago!

Hannah Swenson FAINTING? Nope. Wouldn't happen. I completely can not understand how this got written into the script and no one said, "Wait a minute. Hannah does faint."

It was an okay movie but ended on a dumb move.