"Murder, She Wrote" The Sicilian Encounter (TV Episode 1990) Poster

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6/10
"He Feigns Identity, Across the Sea, to Sicily, and Melee"
WeatherViolet15 April 2010
Season Six concludes with this "Book-end" episode, which closely trails Season Six's opener, each featuring British MI6 Agent Michael Hagarty (Len Cariou), this time around, however not starring Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), who appears to introduce the episode via correspondence from Hagarty.

Debonair Ian Ogilvy accomplishes a rare feat of portraying two "non-recurring" characters during the same "MSW" season (as very few other performers also manage this achievement). Ian performs as a Hagarty associate in "An Appointment in Athens (#6.1)," as well as a different fortune-hunting character in "The Sicilian Encounter (#6.22)," an occurrence which the narrative explains.

Gracious Deidre Hall performs the leading lady role, or, perhaps the dual role of Claudia Carboni and Jennifer Paige, which leads to the suspense surrounding her espionage activities in Sicily and Switzerland, along her trail of "the little black book," which various agents intend to procure from her possession should this wealthy widow manage to retrieve this.

Hagarty, likewise, goes under cover, this time presenting himself as Monsignore O'Shaugnessy, a Roman Catholic clergyman of the Boston Diocese, of Massachusetts, as he infiltrates the Carboni syndicate family, which scrutinizes the every move of young widow Claudia Carboni, while Hagarty and Peter Baines each has plans of his own to pursue Claudia's trail.

Mario Carboni (George DiCenzo), Gino Carboni (Robert Miranda) and Antonio Carboni (Vincent Baggetta) comprise the core of the Carboni syndicate, which crosses tracks with Hagarty and company, who attempt to double-cross in turn. (Although this series displays kindness and understanding to various ethnic groups, a few, as Italian, Russian and Cambodian characters, seem rather exempt from its graces.)

Hagarty, or Monsignore O'Shaugnessy, associates with Father Anselmo (Ralph Manza) and Priest (Joseph Cali), while reporting to MI6 Chief Daniel Trent (John Standing), in charge of the international intelligence operation in play.

Barton (Daniel Trent), Korshack (Daniel Douglas Anderson) and Llewellyn (James Garrett) are stationed in various locations, as Peter and Claudia fly from Palermo, Sicily, Italy, into Geneva, Switzerland, on the trail of that "little black book."

But when a stabbing occurs, murder complicates the plot of international intrigue, and Hagarty is forced to confront a killer before it is two late to resolve "The Sicilian Encounter."

The cast is rounded out by Marianne Bergonzi as Woman, Gina Minervini as Maid, Ralph De Lia as Pilot, Anthony De Fonte as Tailor, Stephen Poletti as Bank Clerk, Jovin Montanaro as Bellman, and Steve Natole as Waiter.

This episode represents the first acting appearance each by Marianne Bergonzi, Daniel Douglas Anderson/Daniel Anderson and Stephen Poletti, and the most recent appearance to date each by Ralph De Lia and Steve Natole.

This also marks the the second of two "MSW" appearances for John Standing, the second of three for Joseph Cali, the third of three for Vincent Baggetta, the second of five for Ian Ogilvy, the fourth of six for George DiCenzo, and the fifth of seven "MSW's" for Len Cariou (each in his role as British MI6 Agent Michael Hagarty).

Ralph Manza, acting on television and in film since 1955, and Daniel Trent, acting since 1976, have unfortunately since passed.
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7/10
Not the best that Michael Hagarty has brought to MSW
coachanthony794 March 2020
Some of my favorite episodes of MSW are the ones with the recurring characters, such as MI6 Agent Michael Hagarty and reformed jewel thief Dennis Stanton. However, this episode, featuring Hagarty, was a bit of a dud. Cliche lines, supporting actors that didn't bring much passion to their roles, and, truly, a bit of a dull plot.

This episode could have been so much better, and while it probably only rates a blasé 5, I over-ranked it a bit because of Hagarty. Worth watching once, but no need to watch it again.
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6/10
Enjoyable but disappointing as well.
planktonrules12 January 2023
Like WAY too many episodes during season six, "The Sicilian Encounter" is an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" that only features Jessica Fletcher in the beginning of the episode. She essentially introduces the show and leaves the acting to everyone else...in this case Len Cariou fills in the lead as Michael Hagarty...a guy who appeared in several previous excellent episodes with Jessica.

Diedre Hall plays a widow who is in Sicily to introduce her new fiance to her mobster family members Hagarty arrives disguised as a priest and obviously he's once again on a mission for MI-6.

The biggest problem with the episode is that without Jessica, the chemistry is not the same. Additionally, the story is just okay...not bad but weak for a Hagarty episode. Worth seeing....but also skippable as well.
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1/10
Worst Epiode Ever.
Robn809 February 2017
I know the Summary comment is a cliché, but this was literally the worst episode of Murder, She Wrote that I've ever seen. This was one of those episodes without Jessica, and those are never the best, but this was just dreadful and irritating.

The three main characters were annoying and smug, and were also partly responsible for the victim's death, so I don't know why we were supposed to care about or like them. The murder was almost incidental to the episode, with no ingenuity involved.

The plot was convoluted and boring, the dialogue was banal and prosaic and there were badly acted stereotypes who were too stupid for words.

At the end I wished that I hadn't watched it in the first place because it made me so exasperated.
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2/10
Convoluted plot that keeps us in the dark too long
FlushingCaps4 March 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Jessica appears only at the beginning to introduce this episode of her friend, Michael Hagarty's latest European adventure. Initially, we see Deidre Hall as a widow named Claudia Carboni, about to be remarried to a young man, Peter Baines, who she has only known for a few weeks.

The whole plot was designed to confuse us viewers because we were not given much, if any, information about what was going on. Michael wasn't even around for most of the first quarter of the show. Peter and Claudia seem almost unable to keep their hands off each other, but they have to wait another week until the wedding, in Sicily, because Claudia doesn't want to upset her former in-law family.

The family, we come to see, is a Mafia crime family named Carboni, featuring three stereotypical brothers who keep a close watch on Claudia-for reasons we have no clue about until the show is nearly half over. We do learn that they are giving the couple a honeymoon trip to Switzerland.

In a separate scene, Michael's contact is stabbed for reasons we know nothing about, and he is instructed, over the telephone to London, to use his ingenuity to make the needed connection that his now deceased contact was going to set up.

At the Carboni estate, Michael appears wearing a regular Catholic priest's outfit. As this series rarely gets anything correct in portraying religious people, he introduced himself as a Monsignor, which is a title limited to priests for one of three classes of papal honors. They wear a slightly different sort of clothing, with some red piping on their black wardrobe. Small matter.

We come to understand that Claudia is not only eager to marry Peter, and he her, but she is also much interested in getting to Switzerland to get into the safety deposit box at a certain bank to retrieve a boatload of money that came from her late husband.

Along the way, a man appears who says he is her former brother-in-law, and he is welcomed by the three brothers with kisses from each, on the cheek. As he comes to greet Claudia, she bluntly insists he is not the man he claims to be. Haggerty now claims to also know him to be an imposter. So the brothers quickly take him away and stab him to death, even though as far as we know, he really was the man he said he was.

Neither of these murders seems to be of any significance to anyone on the show. We are given a hint that Claudia knows Haggerty is not a priest, but not until much later is that confirmed. He goes through a hasty sham wedding ceremony in a church where we get to enjoy a bit part from Ralph Manza, best remembered as Banacek's chauffeur, Jay, who always thought he had the mystery figured out but as soon as he gave his theory, Banacek would explain why that theory was not possible.

I'm not going to divulge any details about the last 15 minutes or so, for those who care to watch it after reading this. I will state that most of what was really going on was not explained at all to us viewers until that last portion of the show.

We were just supposed to be enjoying another stereotypical depiction of Italians, including one woman casually telling someone else about a killing, saying, "and nobody saw anything"-as though she would just know that to be the case without having had a chance to talk to or listen to anyone saying such a thing.

Stories that provide only a few facts initially and later clue us in can be most enjoyable-Remington Steele had many episodes like that. But this show kept us so much in the dark, I found myself just grateful I didn't have to put up with commercials on the DVD, allowing me to get to the ending that much quicker.

We weren't given any reason to like any of the featured characters, save Michael, because we never had a clue as to what they were up to. Much of it seemed like a bedroom farce with Peter desperately eager to bed Claudia without waiting to be married and she seeming to want the same, but something kept coming up to prevent it. The two enjoyed a few scenes rather racy for MSW seemingly just to emphasize the pairs desires and for no other reason.

For an episode of this nature to work, we need to be able to feel like we have some understanding of what is happening before the fourth quarter of the show. Aside from money in the deposit box, we didn't know what the real target was or what the players were really up to for most of the show. Along with the absence of anything funny, like there was in the previous episode, which wasn't very good at all in the mystery portion, this episode just cannot receive a higher score than a 2 from me. If you buy the DVD set and a scratch of some sort makes this one episode unplayable, you should be happy to be able to put the time to better use in any of a hundred ways.
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2/10
One of the worst episodes, it's terrible.
Sleepin_Dragon27 March 2021
Michael has written to Jessica, explaining his latest adventure, fortunately the letter hasn't been intercepted by anyone important.

The previous episode was silly, but was at least fun, this is silly, but totally devoid of any good bits. It's plotless, far fetched beyond belief, and quite simply put, I think it's perhaps one of the main contenders for Murder she wrote's worst ever episode.

Len Cariou is very charismatic, I'll give him that, but even he can't save this from being a total and utter fiasco.

No Englishman on Earth would use the word purse to describe a handbag, especially not one in Italy. Ian Ogilvy is back as a Baines, only a few episodes on since The Greek affair, that was good, this isn't.

The accents are hilarious, genuinely funny to behold.

Appallingly bad, 2/10.
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1/10
A painful throwback to 80s soaps
martin-intercultural4 August 2017
Sweet ol' Jessica Fletcher and the grizzly world of international espionage were never particularly good bedfellows. Yet even the fact that she has 'outsourced' all of the action in this story to others, and only pops in at the beginning to say hi, doesn't help much. Mainly because the pack of "James Bond meets Godfather meets The Young and The Restless" clichés is simply overpowering. College professors could teach this tale in a course on 20th-century popular culture, it is so full of stereotypes, exaggerated accents and big hair that never moves. I purchased the entire box set, and was faithfully going to finish this very last installment in season 6 as well. But halfway through I realized that sitting through another 30 minutes of "You must-ah respect-ah da famiglia" was too unsettling a prospect.
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5/10
A not particularly compelling encounter
TheLittleSongbird10 October 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.

Season 6 has seen some great episodes such as "Dead Letter", "The Fixer Upper", "The Error of Her Ways" and particularly "The Big Show of 1965". Despite having one of the best recurring 'Murder She Wrote' characters in Michael Hagarty, "The Sicilian Encounter" while much better than the previous episode "The Szechuan Dragon" (almost any other 'Murder She Wrote' episode is better than that) is not one of them and finishes Season 6 on a mildly interesting whimper than a bang.

It's not one of the worst 'Murder She Wrote' episodes, "The Szechuan Dragon" and the worst of Seasons 9 and 12 (though am slowly getting through re-watching all the episodes but am sure that my opinion will still stand after that's achieved) are worse. It's also not one of the worst bookend episodes, "The Szechuan Dragon" (if it counts), "Good-Bye Charlie" and the worst Dennis Stanton episodes are worse. However, for a Michael Hagarty episode (although from memory his final episode from Season 9 is his worst), "The Sicilian Encounter" disappoints.

Despite "The Sicilian Encounter's" many problems, Hagarty himself is not one of them, again proving why he is one of my favourite recurring 'Murder She Wrote' characters. He is full of charisma, fun and charm and Len Cariou again does a very good job. Nor does the blame lie with Ian Ogilvy and Deidre Hall, both of whom are a lot of fun and bring much needed zest to the proceedings.

Production values are slick and stylish with a lovely exotic locations. The theme tune is irresistible and there is a welcome return to the never over-bearing or too low-key scoring after "The Szechuan Dragon" felt over-scored. Some of the writing is thought-provoking and doesn't take itself too seriously.

On the other hand, "The Sicilian Encounter's" story doesn't really compel. There are far stronger 'Murder She Wrote' mysteries before and since "The Sicilian Encounter", ones that are much better paced and make one concentrate hard without confusing them. For me the mystery was dull, lacking in suspense and mystery (the murder itself is not focused on enough and is lost amidst everything else, when it is focused on it's not a particularly tricky puzzle) and was too convoluted (have no problem on the most part with following things, particularly when it comes to 'Murder She Wrote' which is mostly not hard to follow, but some of the goings on went over my head) with clichés as long as one's arm.

This was as a result of having too much going on and having too many characters. Of whom only the three leads are interesting, the rest are exaggerated stereotypes with broad accents and even broader support acting and some of them were not even necessary to the story. Most of the script is leaden and half-baked.

All in all, love Michael Hagarty but this was generally un-compelling and one of his weaker episodes. 5/10 Bethany Cox
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3/10
Not my favorite by far.
olegl-553617 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I've been binge watching "Murder, She Wrote" for a few weeks now, starting from the beginning. I never watched them before. I'm finding the episodes with international intrigue not starring Angela Lansbury to be a bit tedious and this one was no exception. The focus did not seem to be on the murders and solving them, and in fact one of them was caused indirectly by the featured "good" characters! That has bothered me since viewing it. There are so many better episodes to watch than this one.
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