MotoMike

"I'd really like your help and advice on this murder mystery," said no cop ever in real life. But in every Hallmark mystery there's are more than a couple of conversations between the police officer (or a retired cop) and the cute, vivacious, perfectly coiffed lady detective, who, carefully following in the pattern of Jessica Fletcher and Miss Marple before her, assumes that she's indispensible to the case. The words,"Back off", or "Not your job", or "OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE" seem to mean nothing. Those crazy bureaucratic (trained, armed, experienced) cops - what do they know - even the good-looking ones? She'll show them, Bud! 'Cause gosh, he'll rescue her at the end, just when the real killer has pulled the gun! Or the knife! Ok, that being said, these Mystery 101 mysteries (this is for the four current ones) are some of the best of the Hallmark Mysteries. The two leads do actually try to solve the mystery, after the obligatory conversation noted above. I've guessed the villain in several but it's not obvious, and the misdirections and red herrings are well done. It's as Hallmark-y as all getout (partly a commercial for beautiful Canada, fine with me, no PDAs, lots of unrequited "like") but the mysteries are good, and I actually enjoy Jill Wagner's lecturettes about crime fiction. The rest of the cast a good job with the somewhat predictable lines they're given.

So I'm a fan of the 2000 film with John Cusack - it's a "watch every so often" movie for me because it's got so many great moments, as well as a heart. This 10-episode adaptation is just as good... but it just keeps getting better and better, mainly because it breathes; not only the main character, but her staff members in the store have a time for character development, and the writers don't fail them. But there are so many little things to appreciate about this: one to point out is the scene in the coffee shop where Rob won't leave Simon alone and won't shut up, totally missing his desire to pay attention to the barista and not her. I was nervous about Da'Vine Joy Randolph's role, because, hey, who can replace Jack Black, who made a valiant effort to steal the original film, but she's priceless as Cherise. Casting aside (have I mentioned that Zoe Kravitz knocks it out of the park?), the whole premise follows the original, albeit with gender role reversals, which looks like a stunt on paper ("Oh, how interesting this should be!!"), but really works, partially due to the excellence of the actors, partially due to the writing, but very much because the issues of love, self-worth, rejection, honesty, loneliness and everything else that both the movie and the TV episodes deal with apply to everybody. It's interesting to see the echoes from the movie: Catherine Zeta-Jones' Charlie replaced by Ivhana Zakhno's Kat, yet they're still the same character in so many ways; Lisa Bonet's singer replaced by Thomas Doherty, etc. The interest is how the new roles echo the old. I'm looking forward to how this continues after one season - especially because the "ending" of the movie has to be changed to not finish the plot. But I trust the writers to figure out how to do this.