TV Show Review: Diagnosis Murder - Season 4

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: 26 strong episodes

Cons: A bit of cheese in the acting

The Bottom Line:

Murder, medicine

Combined with a dose of fun

Excellent season

“Is This the Part Where I’m Supposed to Break Down and Confess?”  “It Would Help.”

Looking back on Diagnosis Murder, it’s easy to see how the show would slowly transition over the years.  Some changes are immediate and obvious, like the casting changes last season.  Others slowly work their way into the heart of the show.  We can see some of those in season 4.

The bones of the show remain the same.  Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick van Dyke) works at Community General Hospital, but his love of mysteries and his ability to spot clues keep getting him involved in solving murders.  His son Steve (Barry van Dyke) works for the LAPD, and the two often team up on cases.  Helping them out are Dr. Amanda Bentley-Livingston (Victoria Rowell), the pathologist at the hospital, and Dr. Jesse Travis (Charlie Schlatter) one of the residents at the hospital.

One of those changes I am talking about happens in the form of who we don’t see as much of this season.  This is the final season for Michael Tucci’s Normal Briggs, the hospital’s administrator.  That isn’t that much of a surprise since, even though he’s in the opening credits of every episode, he only appears in a handful.  He goes out with a bang in the season finale, “The Murder of Mark Sloan,” which features a bomber out to get revenge of Mark, a plot line that the series would return to for the finale of the next season, albeit with a different villain.

So what kind of cases would the gang tackle this season?  When a cop is killed by friendly fire during a raid, Mark thinks it might have been murder.  An ice skater is Mark’s prime suspect in a murder.  In one of the two two-parters of the season, Mark faces off with a serial killer who is doing his best to catch Mark’s attention.  A body hidden in the walls of Community General leads to the solution of a decades old case.  And Mark solves a murder backstage at a country music awards show.

Near the end of the season, we began to see more of the stunt casting and theme episodes I will always associate with the show.  Andy Griffith plays Ben Matlock for a two-parter that finds him defending Jesse from a murder charge.  Several actors who have played TV doctors guest star in an episode where a doctor drops dead while operating on his mentor.  An episode of the TV show Mannix is revisited when Mike Connors and most of the cast of that episode reprise their roles.  And Harvey Korman and Tim Conway guest star as former comedy partners turned rivals who find themselves connected again by murder.

This season, the show also becomes more of a family affair.  Dick van Dyke’s real-life daughter Stacy appears in an episode as… Mark Sloan’s daughter Carol who is fleeing from an abusive husband who turns up murdered.  Meanwhile, Barry’s two sons appears in an episode as brothers also caught up in a murder.

The mysteries continue to be strong.  Once again, they are a mix.  Sometimes, we don’t know who did it until Mark reveals it at the end.  Other times, we know from the start, and the suspense comes from seeing if Mark and the gang will figure it out.  Either way, we are entertained for the entire run of the episode.

The tone of the show can vary from week to week.  Most of the shows are light, but occasionally they get into darker waters.  I especially found an episode involving a weaponized small pox hard to watch right now, but that’s due to timing more than anything else.

On the other hand, I love these characters.  I always enjoy watching them interact and the friendships that are formed between them.  The cast is just as strong as ever.  I’ll admit, the acting does take me an episode or two to get used to since it can edge toward the cheesy side of things, but that’s not a problem for very long.

Season four consisted of 26 episodes.  When it was originally released, it was released in two sets, but now I see you can buy all of it in one set.  Either way, these episodes are spread out over a total of seven discs.  The only extra in the set is the original Mannix episode that the show riffs off of in this season.  I enjoyed getting to watch it, especially since I know some of the guest stars who were in both the Mannix original and the Diagnosis Murder continuation from such shows as Murder, She Wrote and Scarecrow and Mrs. King.  The Mannix episode plays immediately after you watch the Diagnosis Murder update.  I’m not sure why it isn’t available by itself on the menu, especially since, when you watch them back to back, you can see the parts of the original story they ignored for the update.

All told, this is another fun season of murder with a medical twist.  Fans of the show will enjoy watching season 4 of Diagnosis Murder.