Nov 1, 2013 3 min read

Orange isn’t the new black. Remakes are. Those crazy network executives are convinced that we want to watch revivals of shows from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, instead of watching something brand new. They think they can throw a can of paint on an old house and sell it as new.

Oh, TV, you never learn. On the heels (or should I say wheels) of a brand new “Ironside” ratings catastrophe, those guys have decided to remake “Murder, She Wrote.” This time the show will feature Octavia Spencer instead of Angela Lansbury. Maybe Octavia will feed the killers some chocolate pie.

Let’s recap, shall we?

Back in the mid-to-late ’80s, some old broad, Jessica Fletcher (played by the incomparable Angela Lansbury), went around the United States solving murders. Every time she went on vacation someone died. Every time she visited relatives, someone died. Every time she went into town for groceries, someone died. I wouldn’t have invited this woman anywhere. Let’s face it, this biddy was dangerous. If she were my aunt, she wouldn’t be getting too many invitations to visit. I can’t count how many nieces and nephews of Auntie Jess’s were accused of felonies. I would have been all, “Aunt Jessica is coming. Hide the knives, guns and candlesticks.”

Surprisingly, she was never the prime suspect. She’d been at the scene of the crime to approximately 264 murders and no one ever suspected her of being the perpetrator. Not one cop ever thought, “It’s the little old lady from Cabot Cove.” I would have locked her up. I guess it pays to be friends with the town sheriff. He was also friends with Fonzie.

One time, my friend Sandy asked me, “Someone dies at the beginning of every episode; no one ever ends up just hurt or injured?”

I snapped, “It isn’t ‘Coma, She Wrote.'” Someone always had to bite it, preferably in the cold open (those precious few minutes before the credits rolled). Murder was in the title. I would have not watched, “Papercut, She Wrote.” Those poor friends and Fletcher family members! No one even said, “That’s funny, Aunt Jess, didn’t you just solve a murder last week?”

I had the same problem with “The X-Files.” Every week, Scully looked for a rational explanation to some strange phenomena. I would think after a few weeks of UFOs, werewolves and Bigfoots (Bigfeet?), that she would have finally said, “Maybe it is some weirdo thing this time.”

Whatever happened to Jessica Fletcher? I heard she was turned into an enchanted singing tea kettle.

The Blair Underwood “Ironside” show didn’t make it to three episodes, a detective who solves mysteries from a wheelchair. It wasn’t a great idea the first time, yet it managed to last 195 episodes when Raymond Burr was in the chair.

These remakes never capture the soul of the original. Rarely have they ever made one of these remakes successfully. I want something new and innovative. For the record, I would totally watch a show about a singing tea kettle that hops about the country solving murders, as long as it was Lansbury.