Have always been quite fond of 'Murder She Wrote'. It is a fun and relaxing watch that makes you think as you try to unwind in the evening. If one wants more complex, twisty mysteries with lots of tension and suspense 'Murder She Wrote' may not be for you, but if you want something light-hearted and entertaining but still provide good mysteries 'Murder She Wrote' fits the bill just fine.
Season 12 is one of the weaker and most inconsistent 'Murder She Wrote' seasons. "Murder Among Friends" is not quite among the very worst Season 12 episodes, but is closer to the weaker half than it is to the better one. Like said previously, it also reminds me conceptually of Season 3's "Murder in the Afternoon" with obvious differences, with both having conflicts behind the scenes of television shows and murdered producers/executives. Except that this is vastly inferior to that episode.
There are a few things that save "Murder Among Friends" from being unwatchable. The production values as always are slick and stylish. Some of the scoring has energy and has presence but also not making the mistake of over-scoring, while it is hard to forget or resist the theme tune.
Angela Lansbury is as always terrific, Jessica Fletcher being one of her best-remembered roles for very good reason. Frederick Coffin is entertaining and has nice support with Lansbury, while Cindy Katz does her best in an unsubtly "victim stamped over forehead" role.
On the other hand, the acting from the actors playing the television stars is pretty amateurish. It is very difficult to root for any of them with such overripe dialogue (one of the particularly worst scripts of the show) and derivative soap-operatic melodrama written and delivered with little momentum, that way the tension and conflicts behind the scenes never becomes believable.
It takes seemingly forever to get to the crime, and once we do it is unsatisfying. There's not much energy and it reeks of predictability, all the way through to one of the season's, and show's, most unsurprising (for me actually it was too obvious too early having noticed what incriminated them quite some time before Jessica did) and poorly acted reveals.
Concluding, very lacklustre and not much fun. 4/10 Bethany Cox