TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we're feeling very Brian De Palma neo-noir.

Writer and sleuth Jessica (Angela Lansbury) joins her niece, Pamela (Belinda Montgomery), who is suffering from major PTSD after her husband, Johnny, has died, so they go on a girls' weekend cruise to get her nerves right.

You see, the husband just couldn't cope with his being... adopted? Really? That's the scandal that led to him taking his life? Ok, well, apparently that was too much for him, and now his birth mother might be back to torment Pamela into joining him in the afterlife? What a month.

Rather than wonder who's guilty of murder, most of our time is taken up by figuring out which woman of a certain age might be hounding our guest heroine, who seems on the brink of several breakdowns.

Perhaps it's sexy ship purser Diane (Lynda Day George)? Or is it the somewhat dotty secretaries on vacation (Vicki Lawrence playing straight man to Jo Anne Worley's scenery chewer)? A doctor (Rosemary Forsyth) with her newlywed husband (Lawrence Pressman)? They're all on board the ship that looks suspiciously like the Queen Mary.

Between scares and near-misses, we are charmed by the steward Ramon (Paul Carafotes) and enamored with sexy geek Russell (Andrew Parks) in their fitted era-appropriate trousers. And if you want someone a little more age-appropriate for Jessica, we even have Leslie Nielsen as the crusty but fetching Captain Daniels, in the role usually held by a skeptical police detective.

Gird your loins for some suspenseful hoochie coochie as MY JOHNNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN promises to be a rollercoaster that leads Jessica to reach for the wine bottle. Oh, Ramon!

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we're in New Orleans, everyone! Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is in town with a few days to kill... and someone's about to!

Legendary clarinet player Ben Coleman (Glynn Turman) collapses during a spirited party where everyone is mad at him. It might be someone in the band, his trusted confidante (Stan Shaw), his manager (Cameron Mitchell), or his jilted lover (the incredible Olivia Cole) who knows his terrible secret... or is it someone else entirely? And what does it have to do with a fired morning chat show host (Clive Revill)?!

Bradford Dillman plays our disgruntled detective, and the band features Bobby Sherman, George Kirby, and David Whitfield. While we're at it, let's throw in a fabulous cabbie who knows everything and quickly becomes attached to Jessica, Garrett Morris.

It's gonna be a hot time on the town tonight, so you may want to skip the cup of coffee and pop a piece of gum. Anything can happen when it's MURDER TO A JAZZ BEAT.

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we're putting on a show! And it's all very Judy Garland-coded.

Mystery novelist and always there at the wrong time Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is summoned to Boston by her nephew Grady (Michael Horton), who's part of the team bringing up-and-coming talent Patti Bristol (Lorna Luft), and her mother, legend Rita (Vivian Blaine), in their joint-starring production in rehearsals before it heads to the Great White Way.

When Patti and her brother Barry (Gregg Henry) are caught off guard in a mugging incident that lands Patti in critical condition and the would-be mugger dead, Jessica isn't convinced there's not more to it. But who's behind it?

Could it be the fabulous matriarch never out of makeup? The brother, who was never the talented favorite? Milton Berle; what is he doing here?! Round it out with an opportunistic understudy (Elaine Giftos), a total dick of a director (Robert Morse), a producer (Patrick O'Neal) who really needs a hit, and Grady's girlfriend of the month (Sharee Gregory). It's anyone's guess.

Fortunately, while our cranky idiosyncratic detective (Gregory Sierra) of the week is on an all-veg diet, Jessica is on the case while wolfing down street empanadas. Between scenes of three-card monte and street preachers, we even see two and a half musical numbers! And stick around for a performance from Angela Lansbury in the final act that rivals her manipulative mother role in The Manchurian Candidate; we couldn't be more in love or terrified.

Turn on the coffee pot, grab your old bottle of scotch and barbituates, and please do try to stay on pitch because it's going to be a doozy of a BROADWAY MALADY.