Diagnosis Murder: The Complete First Season

The surprise success of Murder, She Wrote sparked a resurgence in the popularity of classic TV whodunits patterned after the “fair play” mystery novels of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, which presented all of the clues and then challenged readers to solve the crimes along with the fictional sleuths. The formula was reworked—very slightly—for this long-running series highlighted by the “stunt casting” of Dick Van Dyke and adult son Barry as a father-son detective team. The elder Van Dyke played Dr. Mark Sloan, a consulting physician who stumbles onto murder scenes with remarkable regularity, while the younger was cast as Steve, a police detective invariably assigned to cases on which his proud poppa was working. The 1993-94 season (the first of eight) also introduced Scott Baio as Mark's protégé, Dr. Jack Stewart, and Victoria Rowell as Dr. Amanda Bentley. Carefully scripted, with solid attention paid to the minutiae of forensic investigation (making the show a precursor to CSI), the series scrupulously played fair: you could figure out whodunit and why (assuming, of course, you were as brilliant as Mark Sloan). Coincidentally or not, some of the best of these 19 first season episodes revolved around false accusations of murder directed at those closest to Sloan: Steve is framed by corrupt cops in the two-parter “Vanishing Act,” while Amanda falls under suspicion when one of her college roommates is found dead in “Reunion with Murder.” DVD extras include the bonus episode “It Never Entered My Mind” from Jake & The Fatman that introduced Dr. Mark Sloan. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)