Okay, I think I’ve found it.
I have found the best possible episode of Murder, She Wrote for me, a person who partakes
in video games and also adores murder mystery.
Just look at this.
This is everything I’ve ever wanted in my life.
Everything I’ve ever needed.
Jessica Fletcher playing a virtual reality game in a Murder, Mystery Show; I’ve hit
the top and I don’t wanna climb back down.
This episode is one of the more well known in the series do to pop culture osmosis and
memes; you’ve no doubt seen this clip before, but can you tell me exactly where it’s from?
No, sit down Murder, She Wrote fanatics; I know you know, I’m asking the rest of the
world, not you.
This gem of a scene is from episode 5 of season 10, titled “A Virtual Murder.”
Believe it or not, there is in fact a lot more going on than just this hilariously optimistic
vision of VR sets of the 1990s.
“It’s so lightweight and small” - said no one.
THIS is what a VR set ACTUALLY looked like in the early 90s.
As the episode starts we see Jessica discussing something with Seth, one of her lifelong friends
and Cabot Cove’s doctor.
He kind of goes into Old Man Yells at Cloud mode, expressing disdain for video games and
technology in general; not sure how I feel about hearing a doctor shut down new ideas
but Seth has the tendency to be crotchety.
Jessica however is her usual sanguine self and explains to him that’s she’ll be writing
the script for a new Virtual Reality game called “A Killing at Hastings Rock.
Jessica: “It’s a bit disorienting, as if you’re visiting this strange almost alien
place.
It’s rather wonderful.
I like her positivity, let’s see what the game looks like!
Wow, it looks like a shitty point and click.
Ah, nope.
It’s not a point n click at all, it’s a pixelated video that resembles the worst
parts of Phantasmagoria.
Jessica seems to be enjoying her time in the simulation, maybe a little too much, when
one of the characters begins to glitch.
This causes a lot of distress for the developers; they need the game to be ready in the next
24 hours for a press presentation.
The main developer, named Michael Burke, is played by Kevin Sorbo, otherwise known as
Hercules.
“Wait a minute.
This isn’t my world.
DISAPPOINTED.”
He also strongly, strongly resembles Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.
It’s uncanny.
So there’s a problem with the game; one of the characters, a server who is offering
some very questionable hor dourves, keeps bugging out.
What is this, though?
Looks like some pumpkin puree and canadian bacon on a cracker with a side of flower.
Okay so I found out later that they are hot dogs?
What?
Alex: “I’ll miss those little hot dogs!”
No.
Jessica tries replaying the scene where the game glitched, but alas, it’s still not
working, causing a LOT of needless drama between the developers.
Michael says they need to reprogram the servant girl, and I am just like, what???
Why?
It’s one bug, just fix it, how is the whole character screwed up?
Even better, just remove the character.
One of the main programmers, James Lindstrom, seems especially pessimistic about the bug
and suggests cancelling the whole conference.
James: “Not with my reputation on the line.
Cancel the reception.”
Alex, a young intern, proposes changing the script, and Jessica follows it up with what
I was hoping they would all do, because Jessica is in fact, amazing.
Jessica: “Would it create the same danger of a cascade if I were to simply write the
servant girl out of the story?”
There isn’t a lot of time to fix the story and the servant girl has a slightly large
role in the game, but Jessica is determined to make it work with the assistance of Alex.
Meanwhile, as James makes his way to his corvette (man corvettes were ugly in the 90s…), we
see a private eye snapping some, dare I say, very sexy photos.
Look at this guy; serving GQ man of the year.
While helping Jessica with her script, Alex makes a few quips about how protective James
is of his source code.
Or his source codes, rather.
Alex: “I designed a program to test the game at high speeds, but Lindstrom, the Prince
of paranoia, nixed the idea because I would have had to use his source codes, which he
protects like Fort Knox.”
I don’t buy this, he can’t just hide the source code from people… unless this is
a shitty working environment.
Wait...gaming company… with a shitty work environment.
Nevermind, I definitely buy it.
After some sappy office romance between Michael and Sharon, who was responsible for the servant
girl glitch, we see James and another gentleman named David Salt, show up at a company named
Redwood concepts.
James is intent on selling his source code to this company, which is why he was hiding
it from the rest of the developers at Marathon Images.
Because he has some leverage on this CEO, he can afford to ask for a large sum of money.
James: “It seems that the justice department has a very keen interest in the rather gross
methods you employ, to convince casino owners to use levit slot machines?”
This guy?
A criminal?
No way; he looks so innocent.
I’m sorry, I can’t look away from this guy’s chin… so...mesmerizing…
The CEO is determined to get James’s source code and I really have no idea why; these
guys are acting like they’re nuclear codes or something.
Alex: “If you had Lindstrom’s source codes, the ones he wrote for marathon’s VR game,
you wouldn’t need him at all.”
Please stop saying source codes.
Jessica successfully rewrites the script, because she is NOT an amatuer, making a few
minor script changes last minute.
James is annoyed with her tinkering and starts waxing philosophical about binary.
James: “The beauty of the binary system is that everything is reducible to 0s or 1s,
it either is or it isn’t.
Clean, precise, exact.”
Jessica: “Words that hardly apply to human behavior, wouldn’t you say?
“You know what it does apply to, though?
Murder.
Murder is definitely binary.
You’re either dead or your not, JAMES.
Jessica retries the game with the implemented changes, and it’s starting to look a lot
like Twin Peaks.
Not a complaint, mind you.
A Twin Peaks FMV game would be damn fine.
She also decides last minute to make a change to one of the weapons in the game; no problem,
this is GAME development.
Just bring up the weapons UI and click on sabers and it’s pixelated MAGIC.
It also tickles me that she gets 1,500 points just for talking to a character.
Intense.
During her playthrough, Jessica discovers a locked door that she doesn’t remember
writing into the game.
She asks to have it erased, but both James and Michael say it’s too risky to mess with
the program.
Jessica: “Well a locked door is unfair to the players, they will assume it holds some
significance.”
Holy shit, Jessica would make an AMAZING game designer - like… are you hearing this, Roberta
Williams?
Straight from Jessica’s mouth to YOUR ears, Jessica does NOT endorse moon logic.
And when Michael explains that there’s nothing they can do to change it, she responds with
understanding and empathy.
Michael: “Jessica, it’s too risky.
I promise we’ll fix it after the press reception.”
Jessica: “I understand, Michael.”
So she’s a great puzzle designer, and doesn’t explode when someone shoots down one of her
ideas?
Jessica Fletcher is the best person alive.
So James is dead.
NICE, I am SO glad he was found in the VR room during the press conference; it’s like
a death scene from The Colonel’s Bequest or the Dagger of Amon Ra - finding the body
in an appropriate yet somewhat bizarre location.
Wow, he was even wearing the headset.
We’re talkin’ bout MURDER ON THE DISORIENT EXPRESS AM I RIGHT?
THAT IS THE FUCKING BEST PUN EVER COME ON.
A detective is called onto the scene and everyone is interrogated about who may want to KILL
for James Lindstrom’s code.
Michael Burke suggests checking out John Crowley, the CEO of Redwood Concepts.
Detective Delcanto decides to follow up on some leads and suggests Jessica stay in contact.
Detective: “I was wondering what a celebrity like you was doing in the valley of the Kingons.”
“QAPLA’!!”
Okay, let’s speed this up a bit; The detective questions Crowley, who seems very cocky; doesn’t
provide an alibi.
The murder weapon, James’s OWN gun, is found in a bush with Michael Burke’s fingerprints
all over it and he’s arrested.
Jessica doesn’t buy that bullcrap.
She gets word about the Private Investigator that had followed James around and questions
him.
She pretends to be interested in hiring him but it’s a PLOY!
Hah, don’t hire this PI, he’s easily tricked.
Jessica: “Tell me what it was you were withholding from Michael Burke.”
Turns out he’s been collecting information from the people he was hired to spy on and
with holding it from his clients, instead selling it to the highest bidder.
She decides to speak to David Salt, who was present at the meeting with James and Crowley,
and he explains that James was just rather crackers and in general provided no help whatsoever.
Oh well, let’s do some hacking!
Alex decides to try and crack James Lindstrom’s software password so they can see what exactly
was behind that locked door in the VR game.
Alex: “I’ve run my random character generator, my password algorithm; I’ve never met a
computer I couldn’t crack in 10 minutes.”
Okay, well, ridiculous UI aside, at least some of those words were sensible.
Jessica ends up cracking the password herself by...guessing.
They open the door to reveal an ego.
A massive, massive Ego that seems to be reeling out of control.
Alex: “Aw man.”
I hear that.
James: “The truth of my accomplishments will be discovered by computer hackers like
yourself.”
James leaves a riddle behind the locked door, meant to be found by hackers.
It’s a vague clue but Jessica seems to believe it involves a virus purposefully put into
the game.
James: “HAHAHAHAHA.”
Goddamn this is confusing.
But whatever, the important part is that Jessica and Alex come up with a way to lure the murderer
out into the open.
At first the episode is like “Ohhh, is it this guy?
Is DAVID the killer?
Is your mind blown?” but then the episode is like “OHHHHHH NO, it’s THIS woman!
SHE has the source code.
Stop.
STOP.
STOP SAYING SOURCE CODES.
Sharon: “PUT IT IN.”
GIRL!
Sharon was in love with Michael and knew that James was trying to sabotage his game with
a virus, and apparently this was such a big deal that she KILLED in the name of her lover’s
legacy.
I...I just… we all remember that this is just a shitty lookin’ FMV game, right?
Remember the bologna hor dourves; We know that this isn’t worth killing someone over,
right?
Alex: “I’ll miss those little hot dogs!”
She nearly kills again when Jessica and Detective Delcanto interrupt.
Jessica explains that Sharon’s plans backfired when she made mention of hearing a page being
announced during the murder.
Jessica: “The only way you could’ve heard that page is if you were near or in that booth
with Lindstrom.”
Also, that is the cleanest killing I’ve ever seen; no blood?
Impressive.
For the record I do not recall any of that beeper evidence being discussed; it was foreshadowed
a lot but I was too distracted by the weird technology and character dialogue.
What I can say with certainty about this episode is that, all of THIS weird shit aside, it
does have a better, more complex story than the previous episode I reviewed, and the acting
is superior.
It’s actually kind of jarring to see Something Borrowed, Someone Blue then follow it up with
this, because it’s so much less wacky and doesn’t have an entirely ridiculous plot.
So yeah, that was “A Virtual Murder” from 1993; now you can see this clip and know exactly
what it’s from, and what it’s from is the most amazing Murder, She Wrote episode
ever.
Trust me, if you watch this you will not be “disappointed!!!”
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my episode review on A Virtual Murder, I do hope you
check it out.
If you wanna see more murder mystery content I’ve linked some on the screen, and if you
liked this video, then like it.
Cause I’ll like YOU if you do.
I also have a patreon campaign if you need to get rid of some extra money, links are
in the description.
As always, see you in the next one.