History YMMV / MurderSheWrote

** The episode ''Murder at the Electric Cathedral'' has Frank Bonner as a special guest star. [[spoiler:The very next episode has a murderer named ''Frank'' Kelson and a victim named Ed ''Bonner'']].

** Plenty of fans wish that Cabot Cove Deputy Marigold Feeny (who comes across a bit hung hoe and unprepared but turns out to be a decent ActionGirl) had been in more than one episode.

* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize:
** Occasionally subverted. In fact, many guest stars turned out to be allies of Jessica's or a RedHerring, while a character played by a much less famous person was the actual killer. Also a guest star has just as good a chance at being the VictimOfTheWeek. In "Murder Digs Deep," the shifty {{Jerkass}} financing the episode's dig is played Robert Vaughn. [[spoiler: He isn't the killer. it's his seemingly SpoiledSweet wife played by Connie Stevens.]]
** Played straight in "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS4E17AVeryGoodYearForMurder A Very Good Year for Murder]]", where [[spoiler:the family patriarch played by Eli Wallach]] was the murderer.
** Played with in [[spoiler: "Simon Says, "Color Me Dead"]] guest starring [[spoiler:Creator/DickSargent]]. The show actually deviates from its usual formula by having Jessica grill that guest star's character during the final six minutes of the episode -- which in any other episode would mean that the character is the murderer and Jessica knows it -- but stops in the middle of her questioning and realizes that while she ''thought'' that the character was the killer, she just realized that she was mistaken and that the character's ''spouse'' was the actual culprit (with the guest star's character being completely innocent).
** United with CastingGag in "Something Borrowed, Someone Blue", where the murderer is [[spoiler: played by [[Film/FridayThe13Th1980 Betsy Palmer]].]]

* [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct She Really Can Act]]: Lois Chiles, considered by critics to be a rather flat presence in films like ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' and ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'', improves considerably in "The Return of Preston Giles" - so much so that when she [[spoiler: fatally shoots Giles]] at the episode's end, she's almost chilling.

** Dorian in [[ClicheStorm "Night of the Headless Horseman"]]. He brings Jessica over so she can pose as his mother and does several stupid things no human being should ever do in his position under any circumstance - like trying to score a relationship with his crush, Sarah, who happens to be the daughter of [[{{Jerkass}} a snobbish, stuck up man only concerned with "pedigree" and being high class]]. [[BadBoss Oh, and he's Dorian's boss.]] Dorian is also an [[ThisLoserIsYou extremely unlikable caricature of the typical, orphaned loser nerd]] that can't speak his mind and attends a prestigious school. To be fair though, the writers at least seemed to know this, since at the episode's end Dorian [[spoiler: ''doesn't'' [[DidNotGetTheGirl end up with Sarah]].]]

** Kimberly, the granddaughter of the wealthy Henry in "Test of Wills." She's the only one who is truly upset when her grandfather is murdered, because she's arguably the only member of the family who really loves him, and then [[spoiler:her fiancé is also murdered. Her fiancé is exposed post-mortem as having been blackmailing her aunt, and meanwhile, her grandfather turns out to have faked his own murder just to see how the family would react. Not to mention the cruel words her grandfather had to share in his fake will alongside having to deal with a domineering bitch of a mother who doesn't give a shit about what she wants and is using her to get the grandfather's money.]] It's hard to blame her for the way she ends the episode. She essentially becomes a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds when it turns out [[spoiler: she accidentally shot her fiancé when she was trying to kill herself and tried to pin the blame on her grandfather and later her aunt. When she comes forward to Jessica with the truth she breaks down in tears over what happened, and is prepared to face whatever consequences there might be when she goes with Jessica to the police. At the very least, she's officially turned her back on her family and might have a chance for real happiness now that she's out of such a toxic home life.]]
** Donna in "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS4E19JustAnotherFishStory Just Another Fish Story]];" she's a very shy, easily hurt young lady who gets caught up in a murder investigation against her will. She's scared of disappointing everyone. [[spoiler: She's the killer in the episode, only it had been in self-defense.]] It gets worse in "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS5E9SomethingBorrowedSomeoneBlue Something Borrowed, Someone Blue]]" when we see how stressful her home life has been. Later episodes do give her a happy ending[[spoiler:, with her being happily married to Grady.]]
** George in "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS6E20ShearMadness Shear Madness]]", a quiet, sweet man who goes through most of the episode with the accusation of murdering his sister's fiances over his head. After the first one's death, he spent years of his life in a mental hospital and just after being released, a second gets murdered the same way, panicking him with the thought that he'll get locked up for life. [[spoiler: It's made worse by the fact that he only killed the first fiance accidentally in self-defense when the fiance tried to stab him for knowing too much, and blanked everything out from the trauma.]]

** Out of the recurring characters, Jessica's nephew Grady has quite the hatedom of people that get tired of his endless schtick of constantly being dumped by his new girlfriends, never having a steady job, failing at life in general, and taking up time in his episodes with unfunny comic relief. It feels like the writers kept wanting him to have his own show.

** In "It Runs In the Family", Emma [=McGill=], also played by Lansbury, laughs off returning to singing because her voice has "... more cracks than [[Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast an old teapot."]]

** Occasionally subverted. In fact, many guest stars turned out to be allies of Jessica's or a RedHerring, while a character played by a much less famous person was the actual killer. Also a guest star has just as good a chance at being the VictimOfTheWeek.

* EarWorm: The famous [[https://youtu.be/cgazW40joyc theme song.]]

** Dorian in [[ClicheStorm "Night of the Headless Horseman"]]. He brings Jessica over so she can pose as his mother and does several stupid things no human being should ever do in his position under any circumstance - like trying to score a relationship with his crush, Sarah, who happens to be the daughter of [[{{Jerkass}} a snobbish, stuck up man only concerned with "pedigree" and being high class]]. [[BadBoss Oh, and he's Dorian's boss.]] Dorian is also an [[ThisLoserIsYou extremely unlikable caricature of the typical, orphaned loser nerd]] that can't speak his mind and attends a prestigious school.
*** To be fair though, the writers at least seemed to know this, since at the episode's end Dorian [[spoiler: ''doesn't'' [[DidNotGetTheGirl end up with Sarah]].]]

** Donna in "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS4E19JustAnotherFishStory Just Another Fish Story]];" she's a very shy, easily hurt young lady who gets caught up in a murder investigation against her will. She's scared of disappointing everyone. [[spoiler: She's the killer in the episode, only it had been in self-defense. Later episodes do give her a happy ending, with her being happily married to Grady.]]

* ArchivePanic: Going for a solid 12 seasons and about 265 episodes puts the show in this category, to say nothing of the four spinoff movies and the novel series that (as of 2014) numbers somewhere in the 40s and is still going at a rate of two new books a year.

* TheWoobie: Kimberly, the granddaughter of the wealthy Henry in "Test of Wills." She's the only one who is truly upset when her grandfather is murdered, because she's arguably the only member of the family who really loves him, and then [[spoiler:her fiancé is also murdered. Her fiancé is exposed post-mortem as having been blackmailing her aunt, and meanwhile, her grandfather turns out to have faked his own murder just to see how the family would react. Not to mention the cruel words her grandfather had to share in his fake will alongside having to deal with a domineering bitch of a mother who doesn't give a shit about what she wants and is using her to get the grandfather's money.]] It's hard to blame her for the way she ends the episode. She essentially becomes a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds when it turns out [[spoiler: she accidentally shot her fiancé when she was trying to kill herself and tried to pin the blame on her grandfather and later her aunt. When she comes forward to Jessica with the truth she breaks down in tears over what happened, and is prepared to face whatever consequences there might be when she goes with Jessica to the police. At the very least, she's officially turned her back on her family and might have a chance for real happiness now that she's out of such a toxic home life.]]
** Donna in "Just Another Fish Story;" [[spoiler: She's the killer in the episode, only it had been in self-defense. Later episodes do give her a happy ending, with her being happily married to Grady.]]

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: In "Simon Says, 'Color Me Dead'", Sheriff Tupper bonding with Tommy Rutledge and acting as a father figure is pretty sweet. He even contemplates adopting him if his mother gets convicted.

** Creator/BryanCranston plays a tennis player named Brian East, who is the VictimOfTheWeek in Season 2's "Menace Anyone". A decade later, he would return to the show as another one-off character for the Season 12 episode "Something Foul in Flappieville". By this point he was a far more established actor in television and film but this was still before his star-making role in Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle.

** Creator/BryanCranston plays a tennis player named Brian East, who is the VictimOfTheWeek in Season 2's "Menace Anyone". A decade later, he would return to the show as another one-off character for the Season 12 episode "Something Foul in Flappieville". By this point he was a far more established actor in television and film but this was still before his star-making role in Series/MalcomInTheMiddle.

** Creator/BryanCranston plays a tennis player named Brian East, who is the VictimOfTheWeek in Season 2's "Menace Anyone".

** Played straight in "A Very Good Year for Murder", where [[spoiler:the family patriarch played by Eli Wallach]] was the murderer.

** ''No one in this galaxy'' likes Marty from "Showdown in Saskatchewan."
*** Well, when you [[YourCheatingHeart cheat on your wife (with whom you have a son)]], lie to your girlfriend about having a wife and kid, ''and'' [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking name your son Buster]], what did Marty expect? Marty should consider himself lucky that his girlfriend didn't tell his wife what he was up to...

** Occasionally subverted. In fact, many guest stars turned out to be allies of Jessica's or a RedHerring, while a character played by a much less famous person was the actual killer.

* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** In "My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean", Jessica manages to trick the murderer into exposing themselves by pretending to be drunk during the confrontation. It also crosses into a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome when [[spoiler:her niece and another passenger manage to help her expose them.]]
** Pretty much the entire episode "Who Threw the Barbitals in Mrs. Fletcher's Chowder?"
** In "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS4E1AFashionableWayToDie A Fashionable Way to Die]]", Jessica asks the inspector if she can come when he interviews more suspects. She requests this in a totally professional tone, yet the inspector convinces himself she's captivated by him.
** In "[[Recap/MurderSheWroteS4E7IfItsThursdayItMustBeBeverly If It's Thursday, It Must Be Beverly]]", Sheriff Tupper, wanders in on Jessica and Seth's dinner together for the second time in the episode. On the doctor's offer, he samples the food. Seth says it's escargot. He and Jessica are both clearly expecting [[IAteWhat a horrified reaction]] when Amos finds out what that contains.