For "old-timers" -- reruns of "Murder, She Wrote"

It started with "Downton Abbey," my binge-watching of television series.   And then I branched out to Netflex and its trove of tv series -- "House of Cards," "Scandal," "Newsroom," "The Forsyth Saga," "Royal Pains," "Breaking Bad" (although I abandoned that one half-way through when the violence got too gruesome for me).    Add in "Rosemary and Thyme," "Last Tango in Halifax," "Grand Hotel;" and you see why I don't get much else done.

So far, I'm resisting "West Wing," simply because there are so many episodes -- at least until I either finish or break myself of the habit of clicking on "just one more" murder for Angela Lansbury to solve on "Murder, She Wrote."

One of the fun things about this 1980's series is seeing some great actors from the past playing older people in guest roles for one episode.   Besides the delightful star Angela Lansbury herself in every episode, I've recently seen Van Heflin, June Allyson, Jean Peters, Eddie Albert, Sonia Braga, Dinah Shore, Juliet Prouse, Evelyn Keyes, Gloria DeHaven, June Havoc, Jane Powell, Cornell Wilde, Roddy McDowell, Kathryn Grayson, Brad Dourif, Janet Leigh, Eli Wallach, Shirley Jones, Robert Vaughan, Elliot Gould, and many more that you'd have to be a senior citizen to recognize.

And then there are some younger actors who got a brief gig on the way up.   Long before Bill Mahar became a comedic talk show host, he did some acting in "Murder, She Wrote."   In season 5, he played a long-haired, sleazy public relations rep for the equally sleazy and murderous Roddy McDowell's mystery writer.   In season 6, he has a part as a con artist and murder suspect.

"Murder, She Wrote" is not great television;   it can't hold a candle to the British detective series.    But it's light fun, especially with these cameo appearances by actors I grew up seeing in movies of the 1940's and 50's.

Ralph