Murder, She Wrote (TV Series) Double Jeopardy (1993) User Reviews

Rough Justice.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 12 April 2023]

Frank Fernandez stood trial for the murder of Roberto Galvan, and is found not guilty, Galvan's sons Jose and Tony swear revenge, and soon they're implicated in his death.

When I first saw this episode I didn't care for it, maybe I was grumpy or a little but off colour, but I couldn't really follow it, however, on this second viewing, I rather enjoyed it, maybe it helped having seen it not so long ago, this time round I was able to put the pieces together.

It's a terrific production, the aerial shots look great, as do those out and about, however it's the scenes inside that exquisite Church that stand out, and look absolutely terrific.

That coat of Jessica's, wow, people say this era lacked glamour, that was stunning.

Maybe it's one of those that needs a second viewing, but overall it's rather good.

7/10.

Premature trial results in acquittal

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 15 May 2018]

Ismael Carlo, a notorious slumlord is acquitted of the murder of Rosanna DeSoto's husband, a New York City Councilman. Later on evidence is found that surely would have resulted in a conviction.

All that is most upsetting to DeSoto and her two sons who run a popular florist shop Raymond Cruz and Mark Adair-Rios. They attend an adult learning extension where Jessica Fletcher is a guest lecturer. The program is run out of Father Robert Beltran's church.

As for Carlo, he's got a son also running a business that Carlo doesn't even approve of. But when he's given an exotic poison and dies at the church itself there are lots of people for Detective Julius Carry to; sort through. Dan Ferro is the miscreant son and he's a piece of work.

Even though Carlo is a bad guy, he's a rather tragic figure in this story.

Double Jeopardy

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 13 August 2023]

The news about the dramatic murder trial of Frank Fernandez, who has been accused of murdering City Councilman Roberto Galvan (the father of one of Jessica's students) sends shockwaves to the community. Due to lack of evidence (and a lack of body, since Roberto Galvan had disappeared 11 months ago and was never found), Frank Fernandez was acquitted, but Galvan's family is sure he was guilty. When Father Michael intends to run for Galvan's council seat, Frank Fernandez threatens him, and its revealed to Jessica that Fernandez is his father. Frank then gets murdered and it's more likely that one of the Galvan boys did it.

Starts out with Jessica Fletcher teaching a university extension course in Creative Writing at St. Julian's parish, discussing unique murder methods. Jessica suggests the students consult her personal bibliography - which includes The Toxic Handbook, which is ironic when Frank Fernandez dies from poisoning.

It's a good mystery with plenty of soap opera style drama, an arresting plot, fine aerial views of roof tops, and good performances all round, however there some pacing issues.

A Latin soap opera

[martin-intercultural · 6/10 · 11 September 2017]

Jessica the multimillionaire New England celebrity is once again galvanized by the plight of underprivileged Hispanic residents of inner- city tenements. From there on, the script and the acting get rather sloppy. In fact, the viewer will start wondering if they are watching some kooky telenovela in a show- within-a-show format, like the one Salma Hayek created for Ugly Betty. The bad guys abruptly repent - which is just as well because, you see, they are blood relatives with the good guys anyway. If this was all a subtle send-up it would be awfully clever, and we might get to see the director yell, "Cut!" But I'm not convinced that it is. The murder mystery is strong as ever, but it gets drowned in this shallow melodrama.

Double jeopardy

[safenoe · 7/10 · 1 October 2017]

This episode of Murder She Wrote reminded me of the movie Double Jeopardy, and it had a cute Father Brown reference, and the Manhattan University extension course.

I think Diagnosis Murder is a product of the Clinton Administration, whereas Murder, She Wrote is progeny of Reagan-Bush definitely. Murder, She Wrote had a last gasp for survival by trying to await the outcome of the 1996 presidential election, but when it became clear Clinton would beat GOP candidate Dole, it was lights out for Jessica.

"Double Your Adventure; Poison the Fun; Jeopardize Life with the Double Spray Gun"

[WeatherViolet · 5/10 · 5 April 2010]

Saint Julian's Church, in New York City, sets the stage for much of the activity in this episode, featuring two sets of brothers, the sons of feuding widowed parents, or at least one mother is led to believe that she has been widowed at the hand of the other feuding family's father....

Maria Galvan (Rosanna DeSoto) operates a Manhattan exotic plant shoppe, while her young adult sons, José 'Joseph' Galvan (Raymond Cruz) and Tony Galvan (Mark Adair-Rios), must become "the men of the house," as the brothers' father, Roberto, a City Councilman, has been missing and presumed dead.

Frank Fernandez (Ismael 'East' Carlo) a wealthy landlord who collects rents without maintaining his tenants' property, is summoned to court with murder charges in connection with Roberto Galvan's disappearance, and is acquitted before the body is found. (Hence, if the body should pop up and if evidence points to Frank Fernandez as a murder culprit, then he would not be tried again because of the legal mandate of the "Double Jeopardy" clause in criminal law.)

Father Michael (Robert Beltran) serves as Pastor and Parish Priest at St. Julian's Church, which has its own indoor basketball court, for inner-city youth activity, as well as a basement classroom, for Manhattan University adult extension courses. Father Michael has already earned his doctorate, before turning to seminary, and coaching basketball, and now he campaign to run for the open City Council seat, in order to help the community against those slum lords.

Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) at this recurring venue instructs a Criminology course, for which its students include José 'Joseph' Galvan, Ruth Nelson (Judith Jones), who sees José socially, and Denise (Valerie Dillman), who sees Raymond Fernandez (Dan Ferro), the younger son of Frank Fernandez, who claims his father's innocence in any wrong-doing in connection with the disappearance of Roberto Galvan.

While the Galvan family faces double trouble in trying to operate the floral shoppe without Roberto, and to pass tests and to avoid altercations, the Fernandez family faces double trouble, as Raymond operates an illegal narcotics ring, against Frank's wishes, while Frank experiences confrontations with his law-abiding son, Father Michael, Frank's son to a mother who has passed before his half-brother, Raymond's, mother has passed.

Jessica, of course, instructs her students about various aspects of murder, but no one exhibits more surprise than she, to learn that anyone would check out from the library a copy of her "Toxic Handbook" in order to create a poisonous spray for use as a murder weapon.

This actually happens, as a perpetrator sprays a victim inside St. Julian's Confessional, but first, Manuel (Juan A. Riojas) joins forces with Raymond Fernandez to hunt down José and Tony Galvan at Maria's floral shoppe once a body surfaces in a NYC gutter.

Sergeant Bill Davis (Julius Carry) investigates both murders with the cooperation of Jessica Fletcher, who wrote the book on exotic poisons, which someone has secretly checked from the library to plot the course of the second murder, which occurs at the confessional, as Ruth Nelson witnesses while she's standing at the alter, awaiting her evening plans with José. (But she can't see the perpetrator's face and intends to protect José and Tony from possibly being identified.)

So, with two families in double crisis with brother against brother, and half-brother against half-brother, and family against family, and students trying to name their poisons, with young love hanging in the balance, Jessica and Sergeant Bill Davis face the challenge of "Double Jeopardy."

The cast is rounded out by Sonia Jackson as Librarian, Keri Johnson as Teen Boy, Cheryl Moore as Reporter, J.D. Walters as Reporter, and Larry Carroll as Telecaster.

This episode represents the first acting credit each by Valerie Dillman and Juan A. Riojas, and the most recent appearance to date by Keri Johnson, as well as the first of two "MSW" appearances for Judith Jones, Robert Beltran and Dan Ferro, the second of two for Larry Carroll, and the second of three "MSW's" each for Rosanna DeSoto and Ismael 'East' Carlo.

Julius Carry, acting in film and on television since 1979, has unfortunately since passed.

Bland jeopardy

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 4 November 2017]

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.

While it is a slightly better episode, as far as Season 9 episodes go, than the likes of "The Dead File", "Murder in Milan" and particularly "The Mole", "Double Jeopardy" is one of the season's weakest and a real let down after one of the season's best "Final Curtain". Not unwatchable but should have been much more compelling than it was considering the intriguing title. One that makes sense in context of the story but the jeopardy itself is bland.

"Double Jeopardy" does have good things. Acting-wise, it is solely carried by Angela Lansbury who can do no wrong even with less than great material, which says a lot about her professionalism. Robert Beltran and Ismael Carlo come off the least badly of the supporting cast, neither great as such but they at least try to do something with what they have.

Production values are slick and stylish. 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.

Conversely, the acting on the whole is very awkward, especially from the whole of cast playing the Galvan family, and the script is one of the season's sloppiest.

One has to wade through lots of excessively melodramatic and depth-of-a-saucer soap opera passing for story development, conflicts that are more awkward and anaemic than tension-filled and dull pacing, before finally getting to a mystery that sadly never fires on all cylinders. It is too simplistic and then has a denouement that those who have managed to stick with the episode are likely to find themselves shrugging their shoulders and thinking so what. The identity of the murderer and the motive didn't surprise me at all.

In summary, doesn't live up to its intriguing title and doesn't compel. 4/10 Bethany Cox

A melodramatic soap opera here with no real reason to watch

[FlushingCaps · 2/10 · 5 April 2023]

Jessica has advanced at "Manhattan University" from teaching a criminology class to teaching an English course on creative writing with the focus, at least in this episode, on writing murder mysteries.

The script centers on the Latino community, particularly around St. Julian's Church, run by Fr. Michael, who is seen playing basketball on the church's indoor court with other young adults. We get introduced to a family he knows, headed by Maria Galvan, who runs a flower shop with her young adult sons, Jose and Tony. Jose is one of Mrs. Fletcher's students.

Near the beginning, this family is shaken by a "not-guilty" verdict for Frank Fernandez, who was charged with killing Maria's husband Roberto, a city councilman, whose body has not been found. Frank has a grown son, Ray, who helps him as a landlord of low-cost housing units he is said to not keep up properly.

It is said that Mrs. Galvan pressured the district attorney to go ahead with the charges despite considerable lack of evidence. During the course of things we see much arguing among the families, as it appears the younger son Tony might seek revenge against Fernandez on his own, while his older brother, who intends to become a policeman, is quieter about such matters. Joseph, as he calls himself on his papers presented to Jessica, is seriously dating a young girl named Ruth. Meanwhile, Frank has learned that Ray is peddling hard drugs, including to many of his tenants.

Then the councilman's body is found, dead with a bullet that came from Frank's gun. Now the Galvan family is taught about "double jeopardy" because apparently they not only never watched any police/lawyer/detective show in their lives, but also went to poor schools that never taught this basic protection in our legal system. Jessica does point out that even if their hadn't already been a trial, that there would still be no proof that Frank fired the shot that killed Galvan.

The episode moves on to Frank phoning Fr. Michael, telling him he wants a private confession, and they agree to meet in about an hour. We see Frank entering the totally empty church and going into the old-style confessional where he is shielded from seeing the priest in the next booth by a heavy screen. Frank begins talking when the door opens and some sort of gas is transmitted causing him to gag. He staggers out of the confessional, followed by a figure wearing a "St. Julian's" athletic-style jacket, noteworthy because the letter "I" is missing, who runs away. We see that Ruth was the only other person in the church and she reports seeing the backside of the man with the "St. Jul_an's" jacket running away but could not see the man's face.

Seconds later, Fr. Michael shows up, just a moment late for his meeting and he gets Frank to the hospital, where he later dies.

Of course Jessica and the friendly police sergeant suspect poison and that is found to be the case, so they next focus on a text book called the "Toxic Handbook" which is one of the sources on reserve at the university, for the use of Jessica's students and they find that a Jose Galvan checked it out.

As Jessica investigates, she learns that this big-city university library allows students to check out reserve items by simply signing their names on a sheet of paper, without showing any form of identification. Indeed, Jose's name wasn't a signature, only printed letters.

One of my biggest complaints with this script is, like others, the killer was the absolutely most likely and obvious choice right from the start.

We also get a killing done in such a way that only a very few people would have had a chance to know that Frank had phoned the priest to arrange for a confession to take place an hour before it happened. There was no way the killer would have known the priest would be a couple of minutes late. Through the heavy screen window, blowing enough of the poison to kill the victim in just a couple of seconds seems quite unlikely.

Again the writers show to pay no attention to Jessica's methods of writing mysteries by doing careful research to portray things accurately. Here, they missed out on some basic things about Catholicism, like they have done in the past. Ten years before this takes place, a change in Canon Law prohibited priests from running for public office. Now in this episode's "goofs" section, one person has seen fit to suggest that this episode might have been set before that change took place, but that would mean that it happened not only before Jessica was a mystery writer, but a decade before she became a college instructor living in New York half the time. Sorry, but the episode is set in the mid 1990s, when it aired.

It would also be unlikely to meet the priest for a privately-arranged, after-hours confession in the otherwise empty, almost empty church instead of at the rectory, or somewhere else. Indeed, a face-to-face confession would have been, at least, more likely since anonymity was not possible here.

The biggest problem with this week's script is exactly what reviewer "The Little Songbird" wrote, calling it "a depth-of-a-saucer soap opera." All of the family arguing that consumed way too-much air time was a big bore, seemingly full of cliche-characters. We even have a laughably false confession by someone who obviously was trying to protect a loved one who was a suspect.

Once you see Jessica seeming to be friends with the Galvans, the list of suspects is amazingly short. Perhaps the writer wanted 99% of the fans to feel good by saying, "Hey, I picked out the killer for once!" The other one percent picked the priest. Spoiler-it wasn't him. I think a 2 is the deserved score here.

Incredibly melodramatic...and not one of the season's best.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 20 July 2023]

"Double Jeopardy" is a below average episode of "Murder, She Wrote". Much of this is because of a few angry and stereotypical characters...as well as some logical leaps for Jessica Fletcher.

A local slumlord has just been acquitted of murder and much of it is because the cops never found a body. However, some folks insists they KNOW the man is guilty of murder and it appears as if one of them took the law into their own hands. Of course, Jessica springs into action to identify the real killer.

The episode is watchable and decent...but not quite up to the show's usual standards. Not a bad one...but just all that good either.