Movie Review: Diagnosis: Murder - Town Without Pity

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: The acting is really good

Cons: Depressing, obvious, and lecture adjacent

The Bottom Line:

First reunion film

Too depressing for franchise

Worth skipping this one

Depressing First Reunion Movie

Since I didn’t start watching Diagnosis: Murder until part way through its run, I missed the three original movies when they first aired.  However, I watched both of the reunion movies that aired in 2002.  I remember being less than impressed with them both, so I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to rewatching them to close out my rewatch of the series on DVD.  But, I thought time and lowered expectations might help them both.  That wasn’t the case with Town Without Pity, the first of these post series movies.

This movie brings back Dr. Mark Sloan’s daughter Carol Sloan, played by Dick Van Dyke’s real life daughter, Stacy.  She was introduced in one season four episode, but we hadn’t seen her on screen since then.  But the movie starts with her and a guy nursing their car into a town in the middle of nowhere California.  They are going to miss Steve Sloan’s (Barry Van Dyke) birthday party in LA due to the car trouble.

But things get even worse when Carol calls Mark, which ends with the sound of a fight.  He worries so heads up to try to find out what happen to her.  The town where she was last seen seems friendly, but they also don’t see to be telling the truth.  As first Steve, then Amanda (Victoria Rowell), and finally Jessie (Charlie Schlatter) make their way up there, will they learn the truth?

What went wrong with this movie?  Where to start.

First, Diagnosis: Murder was always a fun, light murder mystery show.  Yes, they had the occasional more serious episode, but it was never this somber.  But somber is the only appropriate word for what we get there.  Even the subplot, which features Barry’s son Carey, doesn’t do anything to make this any more enjoyable.

Second, the mystery itself just isn’t very well done.  Even though we aren’t shown what happened at the beginning, it’s still very obvious early on what happened.  And we aren’t having any fun following Mark around to prove it because it is so personal to him.  We aren’t supposed to know until the second half what actually happened, but we do.  And then, when we “learn,” they couldn’t be any more obvious about the clue that is going to solve things.

As I was watching this, I was thinking we were going to get a lecture.  While this movie is does have that, they do provide a motive for what happens, which I appreciated.  They don’t shy away from calling evil evil, and they shouldn’t.  But, again, we could feel the lecture coming a mile away, and that’s not why I sat down to watch this movie.

Finally, almost the entire movie takes place around this town, and I missed the usual sets.  I get that a story set outside the familiar is good for an episode of the TV show, but it’s harder for fans to enjoy in a reunion movie.  The few scenes we get at Community General and BBQ Bob’s just make this fan want more of the familiar settings.

I will give the actors their due.  Everyone does a good job with the material they have.  Dick Van Dyke in particular gets a couple of powerful scenes.

This doesn’t make me hopeful for the final movie, but I will be watching it soon.  If it is as bad as Town Without Pity, fans will want to leave these movies alone so they don’t tarnish the legacy of Diagnosis: Murder.

This movie is part of the Diagnosis: Murder Movie Collection.