Murder, She Wrote (TV Series) Time to Die (1994) User Reviews

"Going to Spray All Night, Singing to Knock Them Dead. Bet Big Money on the Pigeon Gray; Somebody Bet on the Red."

[WeatherViolet · 6/10 · 16 March 2010]

Laurence Heath joins the "MSW" production team in Season Ten, as Screenwriter for 10 episodes and co-producer for the remainder of the series. "Time to Die" becomes his fourth script, this based in New York City amid a rash of graffiti defacing, with pigeon racing competitions, amateur band concerts and an inner-city school in which students write compositions about murder.

Graffiti artist Chris Garcia (Billy Gallo) strikes again, defacing edifices, as law enforcement officers arrive to herald his hasty departure onto a fire escape leading to the roof of his apartment building, upon which his late father has left Chris his stable of breeding pigeons.

When his mother, Maria Garcia (Marta DuBois), had married his step-father, Frank Garcia (Robert Beltran), Chris had received a new surname, but Maria often must intervene between loan-shark Frank and Chris, who do not get on well even though Frank doesn't know that it is Chris who defaces his buildings.

Alida Alvarez (Gladys Jimenez) convinces Chris Garcia to sign up for a writing course at the mission-house of Saint Julian's Church, for which noted Mystery author Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) serves as instructor.

Jessica expresses delight with Alida and Chris' assignments and now presents them, along with the rest of her class, to essay five family member characters who discover that a sixth has bilked them of the family fortune.

Manny Castillo (Gregg Thomsen), meanwhile, objects to Alida's attention to Chris and her participating in writing courses because Alida belongs to their five-member band "Full Moon," along with Tammy Fisher (Bridgid Coulter) as its lead singers.

Mario Fernandez (Rudy Ramos) hosts "Full Moon" at his nightclub, "Koffee Kafe," to perform an "anti-graffiti" benefit concert, to rid the neighborhood of the menacing artist.

Principal Barbara Fisher (Janet MacLachlan) attends the concert, which features her daughter, Tammy, along with Barbara's dear old college friend Jessica, who joins Alida's brother, Detective Sergeant Laughton (Stan Shaw), in its audience, which also includes Maria, Chris and Frank Garcia, who donates four infra-red detection cameras to film buildings at night, to attempt to detect the identity of the graffiti artist.

Within hearing distance of Maria and Chris, Frank makes an unrequited pass at Alida, who shuns his advances, but later is coerced into accompanying him, when Frank drives into the streets and knocks Barbara to the pavement as Jessica escorts her to a taxicab, while Chris witnesses the incident while defacing another building with graffiti.

Joe Mancuso (Ronald G. Joseph) operates a pigeon shoppe and organizes racing events at "Montauk Pigeon Racing Club," with clocking devices to time each pigeon's performance. Frank Garcia and Mario Fernandez challenge each other with a $10,000 wager to the owner whose pigeon finishes first.

Detective Boyd (Rick Dano) joins Jessica and Detective Sergeant Laughton in the graffiti investigation as evidence seems to point a guilty finger in Chris' direction. But when the three investigators ask Maria to lead the way to her son's hiding places, Maria stumbles across a body, thus turning the focus into a murder investigation, for it has become "Time to Die."

This episode marks the most recent appearance to date by Gregg Thomsen, as well as the second of two "MSW" guest roles each for Janet MacLachlan and Robert Beltran, the first of three for Rick Dano, and the third of three "MSW's" for Stan Shaw.

A loan shark bites it.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 2 August 2023]

"Time to Die" stars a couple familiar faces to "Murder, She Wrote". Stan Shaw appeared in two previous episodes and just a few episodes prior to this, he played Sgt. Lofton...and he reprises this character in this show. Additionally, in season 9, Robert Beltran played a priest...and here he plays an evil loan shark/hit and run driver!

In this episode, Jessica is getting jiggy with a group of mostly Hispanic students. You can tell they are Hispanic because in this and prior episodes, they are often angry and feisty...a weird sort of stereotype.

As for the crime, a loan shark runs over a woman and he uses his evilness to try to weasel out of prosecution. But karma sucks...and soon he's murdered.

This is a good episode...not great. Original and worth seeing, though the folks in the show certainly seemed very very 'white bread' for kids raised in the Big Apple.

Not too bad

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 1 June 2022]

Jessica sets out to prove the innocence of a talented teenager in her writing class, who is accused of killing his stepfather. Racing pigeons, a loan shark and graffiti-fiend feature heavily in this serviceable episode. Not the best one, but it is watchable, though the way the killer concocted the plan is a little perplexing.

Something of a disappointment.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 5/10 · 24 July 2023]

A new pupil of Jessica's, Chris, is accused of killing his stepfather Frank Garcia, a stepfather who was recently witnessed by Jessica driving off from a hit and run incident.

Series ten has been very strong overall, this however, is the first episode that I've struggled with, for one reason and another, I just didn't like the story, I didn't care for the story, I thought some of the acting was a little sketchy, the whole thing simply didn't gel.

So many strands and ideas, reading pigeons, hit and run, a band, a murder and a graffiti artist, there are some great concepts, sadly they just don't link with one another, the overall plot lacks cohesion.

I thought the ending was ridiculous, it didn't make any sense, and that stuff about feathers and clocks was nonsense.

In terms of visuals, it's great, there are some wonderful shots, the camera crew did a great job, sadly the script writer didn't quite match the standard.

It was nice seeing Stan Shaw back as DS Laughton, he's great, what a shame the character only appeared in two episodes, a shame he didn't feature in a few more.

It's watchable, but getting through it was an effort.

5/10.

Pigeon Racing

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 24 May 2018]

One thing out of this Murder She Wrote story that I learned is that carrier pigeon racing is a sport and one can make quite a lot of money on the betting as well as the prize money. It sure is a lot less expensive than horse racing, you don't need a big track or huge stabling facilities.

Local loan shark Robert Beltran makes quite a bit of money off the racing as well as his normal activities. His stepson Billy Gallo shares in the hobby but otherwise the two don't get along. It's all the wife and mother Marta Dubois has to do to keep them from each other's throats.

Angela Lansbury is teaching her creative writing class and Gallo shows promise. But when Beltran is found shot to death on a rooftop where his pigeons were stored it's Gallo looking good for it.

The police are represented in this drama by Sergeant Stan Shaw who wanted more than anything to nail Beltran for his criminal activities and now has to catch his killer.

I'll say this Jessica Fletcher sure picked up on the nuances of pigeon racing and it was that knowledge that helps to catch the real killer who thought he had a solid alibi.

JB Fletcher is one quick study.

Time to Fast Forward

[damaraferguson · 2/10 · 9 March 2024]

Go ahead and hit the fast forward on this little number darlin! Love love love Jessica Beatrice Fletcher. Yet this episode was wack jacked and booted! Not sure whose genius idea it was to come up with this completely unbelievable story line. The part with her teaching in the beginning is fair and swell. But are we really meant to believe that the Dame of England would be at some crotchety hole in the wall bar-club. Then she was slow dancing and doing the waltz at the club too? Lol no people. This won't do. I wish the writers would have dug deeper on some of the story plots later in the seasons of Murder She Wrote. There's only so much we can pretend!!!

Doesn't even have camp appeal

[TheLittleSongbird · 3/10 · 17 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.

"Time to Die" is not only to me the worst episode of Season 10, a variable season but not as badly so as Seasons 9 and 12, but also one of the worst 'Murder She Wrote' episodes in general. Very rarely give out this rating, the only episodes prior to "Time to Die" to get the rating were "The Szechuan Dragon" and "The Mole". Very little about it works, not even on a camp level, coming from somebody who actually made a real effort to find some value in it that way.

It does have a few redeeming qualities, and there is a big emphasis on few. The best thing about it is Angela Lansbury, again doing a great job as Jessica and showing such professionalism with deserving-much-better material.

The production values are slick and stylish as ever, the theme tune is irresistible and some of the music achieves a balance of the understated and having presence without going too far in either direction.

Mystery-wise, it is here where "Time to Die" nearly single-handedly sinks. It is a truly ridiculous story, this is hardly the first episode of the show that's silly but this was overkill and on a whole new level, that also manages to be very difficult to get into. Attempts are made to spice it up, with the graffiti and pigeons, but they ended up distracting from the story and confusing it. On top of that, the denouement is one of the show's most far-fetched and convoluted ("Menace Anyone?" is still the most convoluted, but this is one of few to come this close to beating it), pace-wise it also felt rushed. It's one that tries to be clever with a unique "how the murderer could have committed the murder" method but ends up making little sense.

Further disadvantages are the bad writing and acting. "Time to Die" has one of the show's worst scripts, the writers seemed to have forgotten what tone the show usually takes (light-hearted and cosy, it was too drab and heavy here) and everything here comes over as stale and contrived. The characters and their situations are far too obviously written, being blatantly obvious from the start who the victim will be, who the prime suspect will be and what the outcome of their predicament will be. The only not so predictable thing here is the identity of the murderer, even that is wasted by how badly executed the ending is.

Lansbury's performance here is the only good one, the guest cast are uniformly poor. Robert Beltran is the one that tries the hardest, but the character is too much of a cartoon and Beltran struggles to give any kind of subtlety. Everybody else are not worth mentioning. "Time to Die" even throws in some fusion music that just feels out of place here and one can be forgiven if they have to check that this was made in the early 90s, because the music would sound out of date in the 80s. It is too hard to believe that Lansbury has performed on Broadway and sung on soundtracks to great acclaim, yet reacts to this music like somebody who has no sense of rhythm.

Overall, a very bad episode that fails on the camp appeal. 3/10 Bethany Cox