Murder, She Wrote: Season 6

The first episode of the sixth series of hit US crime drama Murder, She Wrote sees the ever-youthful Angela Lansbury not in Maine's crime-ridden Cabot Cove but stopping off in Athens on her way to Egypt. However, fear not, as the formula, is the same one we have loved from the previous series.

This season continues on from Athens and winds up in Sicily, along the way giving us such delights as a 1947 mystery on the Queen Mary that began life as an Ellery Queen script, and several episodes which were backdoor pilots for a show featuring Keith Michell as a reformed jewel thief. It never emerged. With one thing and another the focus shifts from Jessica many times this season.

With every new episode, Jessica proves why it's a dangerous thing to be a relative, friend or simply on nodding terms with her – enter Jessica's world and you'll either come to a sticky end or be outed as the perpetrator of the horrendous crimes that are as common in Paris and London as they are in Cabot Cove. (Wherever Jessica is, there's a murder, and she always finds someone to pin the blame on. Hmm . . .)

The regulars such as Sheriff Metzger (Ron Masak) and hapless nephew Grady (Michael Horton) are in evidence, along with a good selection of guest stars – the likes of (Baby) June Havoc, Ian Ogilvy, Richard Todd and Robert Vaughn make this series particularly watchable. While Jessica Fletcher (or J.B. Fletcher, to use her pen name) may not be Miss Marple, she always manages to bring the guilty to justice and, to the writers' credit, gives the viewer the opportunity to work out, using the 'playfair' clues, whodunit - something that can't always be said of the great Agatha Christie.