“See, You Do Know About Babies.” “I Read a Lot.”
When a series is established, writers will try something different to make a story stand out from the rest. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. The writers of Oh Baby, the ninth Mystery Woman movie, tried something new, but it didn’t really work out.
While Samantha (Kellie Martin) and her friend Cassie (Nina Siemaszko) are finishing up a round of golf at the country club, a murder takes place. However, Samantha doesn’t have time to get too involved since that afternoon, Suzi (Vicki Davis) comes into the Mystery Woman store. Suzi was a friend of Samantha’s uncle, and she was hoping to get some help. Naturally, Samantha offers to help instead.
Suzi has a newborn with her, baby Josh. However, the next day, Suzi disappears, leaving Josh with Samantha for safe keeping. As Samantha begins to suspect that Suzi and her husband, Johnny (Richard Lee Jackson) are involved in the mess at the country club, she has to juggle sleuthing with caring for the baby. Can she figure out what is going on?
A sleuth having a baby distracting them from gathering clues isn’t necessarily a new plot device. I do appreciate that the writers here tried to be realistic about it, with Samantha suffering from extreme sleep deprivation at one point. The added humor from the situation was fun.
However, it is really padding for a thin mystery. We can figure out early on that Johnny and Suzi are involved in what is going on somehow. And the rest of the characters involved are pretty obvious as well. With so few characters, we can get most of the way to the solution early on, and it’s only a matter of watching Samantha until she has the time to solve the rest of it for us.
This isn’t to say I didn’t have fun with the movie. I did. But the mystery was weak.
This movie, and the franchise in general, has a higher dose of cheese than modern Hallmark movies. It’s in the writing (a couple of the scenes made me cringe) and the acting as well. As long as you are expecting this, you’ll be fine.
Oh Baby will entertain fans of the Mystery Woman franchise. But anyone else can easily skip it.
I like this series but don't feel like it's the strongest franchise that Hallmark has.
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