Murder, She Wrote (TV Series) Murder Takes the Bus (1985) User Reviews

Destination Portland, but death for a passenger.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 10/10 · 9 November 2017]

Amos accompanies Jessica on a bus trip to Portland, where she plans to give a speech. The weather takes a turn for the worse, and a worried looking man boards the bus, headed for Portland. As they continue on their journey they break down. All passengers head into a Cafe, as the bus driver remains outside to fix the engine problem. Jessica returns to the bus to collect a book, where she discovers the worried man, dead, with a screwdriver stuck in his shoulder.

There are many fans of the show that would place this episode top of the pile, for good reason. It is a brilliant mystery, has a true whodunit setup. It's dark, stormy, loaded with suspects, the principle cast are all cut off, and there's a big twist at the end. The music is arguably the best score to feature on the show. There are virtually no flaws to this episode, it's a wonderfully interesting cast, the villain has history, he's not just a bad guy upsetting all and sundry, even Amos Tupper shows a level of intelligence, proving he can observe and think, ahead of Jessica.

Every single thing about this episode is spot on, it's brilliant. 10/10

One murderous bus ride

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 17 July 2017]

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.

Alongside "Lovers and Other Killers" and "Paint Me a Murder" (would count the pilot "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes" here too), "Murder Takes the Bus" is in the top 5 best episodes of a generally solid Season 1 (even the weakest episodes are not bad at all). Would go as far to say that it is one of the high points of the whole show.

Can't find anything to fault "Murder Takes the Bus", suspending disbelief of the distance of the bus ride is such a nit-pick and is instantly forgettable when one is enjoying the episode so much.

It's a good-looking episode as always. Nicely shot and attractive fashions that makes one nostalgic for the 80s period (even to those who weren't even alive yet). The music has presence but also not making the mistake of over-scoring, while it is hard to forget or resist the theme tune.

The script is often charming and amiable, while the story is hugely compelling and suspenseful with lots of twists and an ingenious ending.

Angela Lansbury is terrific in one of her best remembered roles one of the roles that is most closely associated with me at any rate). Tom Bosley is good and Linda Blair, Rue McClanahan and Michael Constantine are particularly strong in support.

Overall, wonderful and one of the best. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Twelve Are Stranded by the Storm, and Then There Are Eleven

[WeatherViolet · 9/10 · 6 November 2009]

This episode marks the only "MSW" episode for guest stars Charles Bazaldua, Linda Blair, Terence Knox, Rue McClanahan, Albert Salmi and David Wayne. Larry Linville, Albert Salmi and David Wayne have unfortunately since passed.

Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) boards the Cabot Cove bus en route to Boston, as Sheriff Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley), en route to an officer's banquet experiences automobile difficulty as a result of a storm, and joins her aboard.

Ben Gibbons (Michael Constantine) operates the bus, which contains six additional passengers: Librarian Miriam Radford (Rue McClanahan) and her husband, Professor Kent Radford (Larry Linville), young couple Jane Pascal (Linda Blair) and Steve Pascal (Terence Knox), Cyrus Leffingwell (David Wayne) and Joe Downing (Albert Salmi).

Carey Drayson (Don Stroud) also experiences engine difficulties from the storm, and emerges from his station wagon to flag down the bus, while carrying a briefcase, before entering. The bus also stops to pick up a lone Gilbert Stoner (John Davis Chandler), who enters, recognizing one of its passengers.

But as the bus exits Cabot Cove County (Sheriff Tupper's jurisdiction), its engine also becomes flooded as a result of the downpour, yet manages to arrive at a remote diner, operated by Ralph Leary (Mills Watson), for most of its passengers to seek refuge from the thunderstorm.

Jessica observes the gathering from a vantage point, from which she is also able to scrutinize the bus' interior through its windows, to which she observes activity around the one passenger who does not enter the restaurant--for he has been murdered, and discovered after being stabbed with a screwdriver, with no sign of blood upon his clothing.

As the plot unfolds, Jessica learns that the victim has been paroled from a state penitentiary, after serving time, along with two other men, for his part in a crime which had claimed the life of a young girl.

During the course of the ensuing investigation, it is discovered that a book which the victim had been carrying on board has vanished, that a citizen's band radio in a back room of the diner has been destroyed, that one of the passengers is discovered carrying a concealed weapon, and that there is another door from the diner leading toward the bus.

Jessica and Amos (although outside of his jurisdiction) must now make the connections between the co-conspirators of the crime of which the victim had been convicted, and also a connection, if any, between the child who had perished and anyone else currently stranded at the diner, among the nine sequestered from civilization, who appear at the same time frightened and very guilty-looking, as "Murder Takes the Bus." The cast is rounded out by Man (Charles Bazaldua).

Murder on a bus

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 26 May 2018]

Murder follows wherever Jessica Fletcher goes, even on a bus that she and Tom Bosley are taking to different destinations.

This story is a homage to Agatha Christie's classic Murder On The Orient Express where John Davis Chandler is murdered on the bus. Turns out Chandler was a career criminal just released from prison who stashed a lot of loot from his last job before he was caught.

And like in the fame Christie classic a whole lot of the bus passengers had some kind of connection to Chandler even to one of them just being an insurance investigator hoping Chandler would lead him to the hidden loot. But greed is not the only motive for killing this man.

I have to say the murderer figured a clever way to give himself an alibi, just not clever enough.

We learn that Tom Bosley before he became sheriff drove a bus for a while. His knowledge of the operation of the vehicle turns out to be valuable.

One of the best of the series.

All the elements of a murder mystery make this one a gem

[FlushingCaps · 10/10 · 8 December 2022]

Jessica is accompanying Sheriff Tupper to a Sheriff's convention in Portland, traveling by bus. Jessica is to give a speech and Amos hopes to win a door prize-a large screen TV-he feels "like it's going to be his year."

The bus driver is unknown to our heroes, telling them the regular guy is sick. He is played by Room 222's Principal, Seymour Kauffman (Michael Constantine). Other passengers leaving from Cabot Cove are an old man name Cyrus Leffingwell (veteran actor David Wayne, best known for portraying Inspector Richard Queen, on the sadly-short-lived series Ellery Queen in the 70s, also created by Levinson and Link), a sea captain named Joe Downing, a middle-aged couple, the Radfords, played by Rue McClanahan and MASH's Frank Burns (Larry Linville), and a young couple, Steve and Jane Pascal, (St. Elsewhere's Dr. Peter White (Terence Knox) and Linda Blair.

As they are going, a man hails the bus from just outside a state prison and climbs aboard paying the driver for a ticket. Shortly after that, another man with a car off the road does the same. Along the route, a terrible rain storm forces them to take an alternate route. At some point, the bus driver says he has a mechanical problem and he stops just outside a roadside diner run by a man named Ralph. Almost everyone goes inside to wait while the driver, Ben Gibbons tries to fix the engine.

They all get better acquainted inside. Jessica observes through the window that two men appear to be having an argument inside the bus-Steve and that first man who boarded while the bus was on the road. Later, she returns to the bus and finds a dead man-I guess that's no spoiler on this series.

The rest of the episode deals with Amos and Jessica trying to solve the murder. Phone lines are down and the storm has caused so much flooding that trying to continue their bus route is dangerous. It seems the dead man was convicted of a big bank robbery over a decade ago, and had two helpers, one of whom is believed to now be one of the people involved with his death-someone inside that diner.

Now the one bad thing about this episode to me is the Miriam Radford character. She is supposed to be a librarian. She acts panicky about almost everything, frequently telling everyone that if the killer isn't caught, they'll probably all be killed. If this was one of those shows where almost everyone gets killed, I'd have voted for her to be the next one offed, just for our own sake.

Otherwise, I think this episode stands as one of the very best in the series. It has a really good mystery, with no obvious killer. More than one of the people is not what they first appear to be. We really were shown an important clue early on that could have led us to the killer long before Jessica figured it out. But when watching you don't feel dumb for not letting the clue lead you to the murderer because it wasn't painfully obvious, like they sometimes are. Amos appears to be a clever sheriff throughout, unlike a couple of the earliest episodes.

I think a roomful of, oh three dozen people watching this for the first time, if you could stop the tape just after the body is discovered and ask them who they think the killer is, would likely find everyone in the episode except Amos and Jessica getting at least 3 votes. Once they start revealing more information about the dead man and the people who were on the bus, there were reasons to shift your vote from A to B...or C...etc.

There was the threat of danger to the people in the diner, lots of clues to lead you one way and then the other, and plenty of decent suspects-all adding up to a 10 from this viewer.

Classic episode

[coltras35 · 10/10 · 22 May 2022]

Jessica and a slew of passengers are forced to take refuge from a storm at a remote diner when one of the passengers is found stabbed in his seat on a bus to Boston.

An excellent entry that is confined to one area, in this case a cafe. Trains have been well-established as a setting for Murder, this one is committed in a bus, screwdriver in the neck. It's revealed in the course of Jessica's investigation that most of passengers knew the dead man, who just been released from State Penitentiary for a bank robbery along other gang members. The plot is unravelled like fine silk, the twist comes like a sharp knife. It's also good to see Jessica and Sherrif Amos Tucker ( my fave character) working together.

Do the bus stop

[safenoe · 8/10 · 10 November 2022]

This is my first IMDb user review of Murder, She Wrote following the very sad passing of its megastar, Angela Lansbury.

Murder Takes the Bus is one of the better episodes of Murder, She Wrote, with genuine suspense as to who the murderer (or were there more?) was. Lots of big stars who were huge in their own series prior to this episode, e.g. Larry Linville, Rue McClanahan, Terence Knox, Albert Salmi, Mills Watson, David Wayne. And there were two big movie stars: Linda Blair and Don Stroud.

With the passing of Angela Lansbury, I think it's not too soon to revive a reboot that Angela in her quintessential manner trashed politely. Anyway, I'd a love a reboot with Victor Banerjee as the amateur sleuth. That would be poetic justice. Just google Angela Lansbury, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft and 57th Academy Awards.

Arguably The Greatest Episode (Spoilers)

[afmartin-11556 · 10/10 · 18 March 2024]

The fact this one parallels a bus trip and an isolated location at a diner, makes it automatically one of the best episodes in the canon. They do a good job of creating numerous potential suspects and even though it appears like not much can happen sitting in a diner, multiple events happen to build the tension. It's a great cast too, with Rue McClanahan, Mills Watson, Linda Blair, Michael Constantine, John Davis Chandler and Albert Salmi. I'd imagine when the show was at its inception this is the kind of episode they were hoping to create with the isolation factor, the bad weather, and the backstory pushing the murder itself. An all time classic.

First rate episode

[rgxdzrybr · 10/10 · 4 December 2023]

Rewatching this episode I am struck by the number of seasoned pros in this one. I think it works for the story but it also widens the potential suspects to nearly everyone involved. This is particularly important since the setting of the murder and the circumstances only allow for a handful of suspects to begin with.

All taking place on a bus and bus stop during a rainstorm adds to the atmosphere and nearly every character has something revealed about them . The mystery also takes a few turns before all is revealed.

This episode has just Jessica and Amos Tupper from the regular cast and it definitely one of the series best.

Murder Takes the Bus

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 4 July 2023]

Jessica Fletcher and Sheriff Amos Tupper take a bus from Cabot Cove bus to Boston and it ends in murder.

The victim is Gilbert Stoner who boarded the bus along the route. He is fresh out of prison for robbery and murder. When the bus develops engine problems, it stops at a diner.

Stoner is found dead on the bus and one of the people on the bus must be the killer. Jessica Fletcher finds out that many of the people who boarded the bus had some kind of link to the victim.

The story is a variant of Murder on the Orient Express with some bluffs and double bluffs. It relies on some clever observation from Jessica Fletcher to figure out the murderer.

There is a cast of well known faces. From Rue McClanahan to Larry Linville and Linda Blair.

Too bad John Davis Chandler was barely in the episode.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 October 2022]

John Davis Chandler was one of the scariest actors in Hollywood. He had a wonderful way of playing weasel-like psychopaths...cold, calculating and just plain nuts! Because of this, it's a real same that he's barely in the show. In fact, he barely gets anything to say or do, as he was the murder victim in this episode...and he died VERY early into the show.

As for the show itself, the plot seems very, very familiar...too familiar. I've seen quite a few films and TV shows that were much like this one in many ways.

Jessica and her friend Sheriff Tupper (Tom Bosley) are going on a bus ride to Portland, Maine. The night is very stormy and eventually the storm becomes so bad that the bus is forced to stop...and when everyone gets off the bus to hang out in a cafe, one of them can't...as he's dead. Obviously SOMEONE on the bus was a killer.

The story, as I said above, is filled with story elements I've seen quite a few times already. The stranded bus, the victim who was involved in a robbery where the money was never recovered and more...all stuff that murder mystery fans will remember from other shows and movies. Now that does NOT mean it's a bad episode, the acting is quite nice, but it cannot be a great episode with so little new and unique content.