Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced the release of
Murder, She Wrote - The Complete 3rd Season on DVD. The third of 12 seasons hits home on
March 14th, in a 3-DVD set with presumably double-sided discs in order to contain all 22 hour-long episodes. The season started with a two-part mystery called "Death Stalks The Big Top", which had quite a few guest stars: Courtney Cox, Jackie Cooper, Martin Balsam, Greg Evigan, Ronny Cox, Charles Napier, and Florence Henderson! As the season continued, other guests included Tom Bosley, Pat Hingle, Erin Moran, Bernard Fox, Ken Swofford, David Ogden Stiers, Marcia Wallace, Leslie Nielsen, Chad Everett, John Astin, Donny Most, Edward Mulhare, Judy Landers, Kate Mulgrew, Pat Harrington Jr., Tony Dow, Colleen Camp, Shaun Cassidy, Dinah Manoff, Rene Auberjonois, Karen Grassle, Adrienne Barbeau, Barry Corbin, George Takei, Jerry Orbach, John Amos, Ernest Borgnine, LeVar Burton, Caren Kaye, Adam West, Dick Sargent, George Clooney, Buddy Hackett, Arte Johnson, Charlene Tilton, Jeff Yagher, Harry Morgan, Gloria Stuart, and G.W. Bailey.
Whew! That's quite some list...and not even complete! We didn't even mention yet the
Magnum P.I. crossover yet! Yes,
Murder, She Wrote's 3rd Season contained an episode called "Magnum on Ice - Part 2", which aired 11/23/86 and picked up where the 11/19 episode of
Magnum P.I. (7th season) left off: at the end of the original network version of "Novel Connection", Jessica Fletcher - who had gone to Hawaii to act as an outside investigator to a case Magnum was involved in - found Tom Selleck's character standing over a dead body. Magnum was holding a gun, and the victim had been unarmed. What a cliffhanger! It took Jessica's skills to prove that Magnum was not the shooter, and that part of the story happened on her show's half of the crossover, with Tom Selleck and John Hillerman guest-starring. On the other hand, syndication versions of both halves of these episodes had different cuts, making them each a self-contained story. We have no idea which cut would be included on this DVD set. We're hoping it's the original network version...and if Universal really wants to make fans happy, they'll include the
Magnum P.I. portion of the story as a bonus episode. We hope Universal has considered this concept.
We don't know, though, since extras haven't been announced yet. The only other info we have about this release is that it will be in full frame, which is appropriate. No other specs are available, so we're waiting for that along with the extras (if any) and full-sized box art. Stay tuned!
