Good-Bye Charlie

This episode marks one of the last appearances by Robin Bach, who began his career in film and television in 1970, and who has roles in five "MSW" episodes. Stanley Grover and Ronny Graham have also since passed.

Although Angela Lansbury appears in each of the 264 episodes (265 hours) throughout this series, there are sixteen episodes in which Jessica's participation is minimal. In Season Three, we see the first of these, in which Jessica introduces an "adaptation" of one of her mystery books. Two additional such episodes follow in Season Six. In Season Four, we see an episode regarding Emma McGill without her cousin Jessica. In Season Six, we find an episode in which Grady and Donna discover a body while watching Aunt Jessica's residence while she is off to visit Cousin Emma in London. The remaining eleven of these episodes lie toward the center of the series and have come to be known as "Bookend Episodes," in which Jessica introduces a guest detective and later usually summarizes with an epilogue.

"Goodbye Charlie" is one of the three "adaptations" from the mysteries of J.B. Fletcher presented as an episode. For those keeping a body count, these three "fictional" accounts apart from Jessica's "reality" may or may not count among them. But writing about murder is Jessica's forte, and so onto her story....

It all begins in Hollywood, California, where a Businessman (Stanley Grover) escorts a Bimbo (Elizabeth Holmes) into a hotel room, but they are halted by the flashing of a camera bulb, aimed by private detective Frank Albertson (Maher). Jessica describes him as "a lost soul looking for one shot at the brass ring." (Why Jessica would name a character after a Classic Film actor remains a mystery in and of itself.) A defeated Frank returns to his apartment to feel salt in his wounds upon his discovering his wife, Sunny Albertson's (Faith Ford) speaking with a gentleman, Raymond Fleischer (Scott Palmer), in their private quarters, going through monogrammed personal effects belonging to Frank's uncle. Raymond, however, represents a legal firm handling the will of an Elizabeth from Detroit, who has left a sizable amount to her former beau, Charles Kenneth Albertson (John Finnegan). Frank and Sunny remain the only surviving relatives of their missing Uncle Charlie, who came to visit with them five years prior and stayed for three years, but has now been missing for more than two years, and was last heard from when staying in Reno, Nevada.

After Raymond tells them to get back to him in five years (because a person must be missing for seven years before being declared legally deceased), Frank comes up with an idea after reading a newspaper account of an unidentified body which had been hit by a train and discovered upon the railroad tracks in Huckabee, Nevada. He convinces Sunny to go along with his scheme to claim the body as their dearly departed Uncle Charlie.

From Hollywood, they telephone the office of the Huckabee County Coroner, Jack Yamoto (Clyde Kusatsu), to receive his assistant, Lon Ainsley (Robin Bach), to chart clues from alternate calls by Frank and Sunny.

But after Frank and Sunny head to Huckabee, Nevada, to represent themselves as the body's next of kin before Sheriff Ed Ten Eyck (David Huddleston), the Sheriff informs them that two other parties have also lain claim to the body. Aside, Frank tells Sunny that he could accept either party's claim, but, because there are two, somebody is lying, so now he must get a cut of the action.

Marcia Mae Bailey (Lisa Melilli), who reports her father missing, is represented by shyster attorney Bart Mahoney (Michael Callan), who pulls all of the punches to maintain that "poor little Marcia Mae" could make a jury weep as an orphan child. Bartender Jake (Ernie Lively) overhears the conversation and later provides Frank and Sunny a clue toward Marcia Mae's abandonment of innocence.

Tillie Bascomb (Lise Cutter) also claims the body as that of her husband, Mort Bascomb, who owned a micro-chip computer company with the assistance of her cousin Jerry Wilber (Bryan Cranston). Mort's wallet was obviously thrust from his pocket by the impact of the locomotive, she decides, giving Frank and Sunny an idea to scatter Charlie's monogrammed personal effects around the railroad tracks later that evening.

Frank then convinces Sheriff Eyck to enlist his son-in-law, Coach Lyle Coogan (Don Brunner), to employ the local youth team to scout the railroad tracks "to discover" Charlie's personal effects, thus giving the Sheriff an excuse to close the case in favor of the Albertsons, until he changes his mind and arrests Frank, tossing him into the slammer with hobo Clarence (Ronny Graham), who gives Frank an idea about the victim's shoes, which were discovered beside the body.

Sunny, too, gets into the act of investigating, and acts upon Jake's insinuation to trail Marcia Mae to the market, thus giving Frank a chance to investigate Tillie and Jerry, while the Sheriff continues to investigate everyone, thus leading to the discovery of another body, deciding that the second and the first are both victims of murder.

This episode begins with Jessica's describing one of her characters as "Bimbo" and ends with a very similar character named Doreen (Tessa Richarde).

If this is an example of Jessica's writing, I can't believe she ever sold a single book. The story is just ridiculous. It's boring and uninteresting, and the acting, from usually decent actors, is horrible! It actually seems like a parody of a mystery novel, with horrible characters, and a silly plot. The best Murder She Wrote stories are usually the ones that take place in Cabot Cove. The characters that live there are so much better than all the random people when they venture out into the rest of the world. Even people who wander into Cabot Cove are better developed and better written than the random folks. I may start skipping any episode not set in Cabot Cove; especially those, like this one, that are Jessica's novels.

This episode has Angela Lansbury telling us viewers the plot of her latest mystery masterpiece. This particular episode tends heavily toward the comic and it should with married couple Bill Maher and Faith Ford as stars.

Maher is a private detective, but hardly any Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler type hero. He's from the snap and trap school of detective with his ever present camera working divorce cases hoping to find an errant spouse cheating.

But one day a lawyer drops in and tells him that he could be a secondary heir as he is trying to locate his Uncle Charlie who was a real sponge of a relation while he was alive. But now some woman has left him a seven figure estate and it goes to Maher if he can prove his uncle is also no longer among the living. As he was last heard from near Reno, Nevada, they decide to head there and claim a body which was found near railroad tracks 30 miles west of Reno as dear old Uncle Charlie.

Maher and Ford work a good con. But two others made the same claim that this mangled corpse is one of their relatives.

I can't say much more other than in the process Maher helps Sheriff David Huddleston solve another murder. And there's a delicious double ironic twist involving Maher and Huddleston as a climax.

Lots of humor is laced into this Murder She Wrote.

Have always been quite fond of 'Murder She Wrote'. It is a fun and relaxing watch that makes you think as you try to unwind in the evening. If one wants more complex, twisty mysteries with lots of tension and suspense 'Murder She Wrote' may not be for you, but if you want something light-hearted and entertaining but still provide good mysteries 'Murder She Wrote' fits the bill just fine.

This may be a very broad statement for "Good-Bye Charlie", and one that not everybody is going to agree with, but that is just my feeling. That is not to say that 'Murder She Wrote' didn't have disappointing episodes before then, it certainly did (every season had at least one average, some barely, episode, even Seasons 2, 4 and 5, three of the show's better seasons). Many of them were lifted though by a good cast and a couple (like "Truck Stop") being visually unique.

"Good-Bye Charlie" did have good things, but they come too far and between and not particularly noticeable. It is one of my least favourites of the bookend episodes (coming from someone who doesn't have a bias against them, not all of them are bad) and, while not the worst 'Murder She Wrote' episodes, it is one of my least favourites of the show as well. It just doesn't feel like 'Murder She Wrote', and not just because Jessica isn't the star but mainly because the general spirit of the show isn't here. It doesn't work as a standalone episode. And it would struggle to pass muster as an introduction for a show of its own.

Not even a very young Bryan Cranston can save this. The cast do do their best, but they are ill-served by bland, ill-drawn characters (some not adding anything to the story and instead pad or confuse it, and the lead character is less than compelling) and a dreary script that has far too heavy a tone for a usually light-hearted show.

Crippling "Good-Bye Charlie" is the story and the pacing. On first viewing, this stood out as very hard to follow. Now, two viewings later (for fairness sake), it still is, the worst of it borderline incoherent and does nothing with the somewhat distasteful premise that is far too removed (even for doing something different) to usual. And no, this is coming from somebody who has no problem with stories that aren't simple (actually love the more complex, twisty stories more in fact) and comprehension is usually not an issue either. Still to this day, "Good-Bye Charlie" is in the top 5 of the most confusing 'Murder She Wrote' episodes.

Also have no problem with episodes/films that don't move quickly. There are examples of both that have slow pacing and still manage to be great and more. "Good-Bye Charlie" crawls along at a snail pace, dragging on and on, and dramatically is as inert as one can get. That the story is also hard to follow and never attention-grabbing makes the episode fall in the top 10 dullest 'Murder She Wrote' episodes. It's too between this and the Dennis Stanton bookend with the (if remembered correctly) Mark Twain manuscript as the dreariest.

For all these numerous criticisms, there are good things with "Good-Bye Charlie". Production values as ever are slick and stylish, with a nice location. The music has energy and has presence but also not making the mistake of over-scoring, while it is hard to forget or resist the theme tune.

Angela Lansbury bookends the episode well. There are parts where the writing is thought-provoking.

On the whole, one of my least favourites from 'Murder She Wrote'. 4/10 Bethany Cox

During the run of "Murder, She Wrote", the series aired a few so-called 'bookend' episodes. In these, Angela Lansbury introduces the show and in some cases narrates, but she does NOT star in the show. Instead some other amateur detective does the sleuthing. Most of these are, at best, okay. However, while they only did one such episode in the prior five seasons, in season six, "Good-Bye Charlie" is the fourth bookend THAT season....and considering this is only episode 12 I wonder how many more will occur this season. Was Angela Lansbury ill or have some other commitment this year? All I know is that they aren't generally welcome shows.

Frank Albertson (Bill Maher) is a down and out private detective who is one step away from bankruptcy. However, he sees a possible way out when he learns that his old Uncle Charlie has a fortune. But there's a hitch...no one knows where Charlie is. So Frank concocts a plan...to have Charlie declared dead. But when he learns that they need to wait seven years until such a declaration can be made, he comes up with a plan....to claim the body of ANYONE who might conceivably be Charlie. So he and his wife (Faith Ford) do some research....trying to find a town where a horribly disfigured man was discovered dead. Then, they'll claim the body...and Charlie's fortune. Once they find the perfect body, there's a hitch...two other folks have also claimed the body is their loved one! What's next?

This comedy episode is very different in style than other "Murder, She Wrote" installments...too different for my taste. It wasn't so much bad as...different. And, unlike other bookend episodes, I cannot imagine this one being made in to a regular series. Overall, a bit below average but enjoyable.