Doctor Death (Diagnosis Murder)

Member Name: west_jenn

Product:	Diagnosis Murder
Date:	18/09/05 (173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: i find it addictive

Disadvantages: cheesey and predictible

I’m a bit of a murder she wrote fan so when the last episode in the series aired some time back in May, I wondered what would fill the cheesey 2.40 murder slot. The answer a cheesey programme about doctors who help to solve murders hence the programme title.

So I decided to give Diagnosis Murder a go and now find myself sitting down to watch it most afternoons. I know I could be more constructive with my time whilst Scarlett naps, but there you go!

Diagnosis Murder is based round the activities Mark Sloan (dick van dyke of Mary Poppins fame) and his son, homicide detective Steve Sloan (his son in real life to). Either dick van dyke looks very good for his age or van dyke junior isn’t ageing well, either way the two look like brothers a lot of the time rather than father and son.

MARK SLOAN

Hes head of internal medicine at Community General Hospital. I’ve not worked out his medical speciality, like a lot of doctors on tv he seems to be able to do anything from open heart surgery to delivering babies. He’s a consultant for the LAPD . This and his detective son goes a little way to explaining the unlimited access he seems to have to what would surely be confidential police information.

He is always stumbling upon a murder either amongst his acquaintances or via the patients treated within the hospitals. Usually his son quickly gets involved, or on some occasions he gets involved in cases his son is investigating. He usually gets a hunch that always turns out to be right. If someone is arrested too early in the programme it is always the wrong person and by 3.10 Mark has worked out who the murderer is.

STEVE SLOAN

He always plays second fiddle to his dads powers of deduction and never seems to resent it and wonder if he should take early retirement as he never solves any crimes. He usually appears at the end to rugby tackle the murderer if they try and run of. These confessions usually rest upon amazingly flimsy evidence, the other day the whole case rested on a ladies preference for using coasters that placed her at one murder scene, but not at another. I think most criminals when confronted with that evidence would laugh rather than hold out their hands for the handcuffs. A lot of the time the confessions are tricked out of people in a way that would be inadmissible in court. In fact no one is ever read their rights, so I presume all the cases would be inadmissible. When faced with arrest most criminals are emotionless and unbothered.

AMANDA LIVINGSTONE

She’s a pathologist at the hospital and is the county medical examiner. She performs all the autopsies for the murder victims, she even managed to perform an autopsy in a hotel kitchen the other day. She’s good friends with the Sloans and Jessie Travers. The three doctors and Steve Sloan are often hanging out in a little gang trying to solve crimes at Mark’s big beachfront house. They always seem to be of work, or working at the same time. They often actively participate in what would usually be considered strictly police work.

JESSE TRAVERS
He’s the youngest of the group and an intern at the hospital. There is something of the boy scout about him such is his eagerness to help in the investigations. He has hair that looks a bit Princess Diana 1982, despite the fact its filmed in the 1990s. And he’s a man. The whole programme has a dated air to it, even though I think it ran up to 2001. It really does seem like it could be set in the early 80s sometimes.

In a recent episode a kidnapper accidentally leaves a message on Mark’s ansaphone about returning a kidnapped child in return for money. Mark and Steve go to the drop of point. Mark goes to talk to Ted, the desperate father who is waiting to get his child back. Ted panics that the kidnapper will be annoyed that he is not on his own. Ted is then shot dead. Mark feels guilty that his actions got Ted killed.

The next day Steve and Mark gather at the dead man’s house with his wife Sheryl and business partner Jason. Mark doesn’t need to go to his workplace everyday and everyone accepts that its perfectly normal for Steve to take his dad to work with him.Sheryl, like most bereaved relatives is remarkable composed and made up, considering that her husband has been murdered the day before. There is also an FBI agent there with whom Steve has a bit of history with and there is a fair amount of tension between them. She doesn’t have authority over the investigation though, Steve and the groovy gang have the last word on that.

The kidnapper calls and its arranged that Steve drops of the money, but it all goes wrong and they find that someone swapped the money for old magazines. Suspicion falls on the family au pair when she disappears and she is traced to an out of the way house where the missing boy is found along with her boyfriend.

Mark has a hunch that these two didn’t kill anyone and goes on to unmask the murderer who gives him a smack, this was unpredictable and very un diagnosis murder. Recent episodes have included thieves who let legionnaires virus free into a hotel so that they could steal the contents of the safes, whilst mark and his doctor buddies tended to the casualties. Also there was recently an IT specialist acting as a murder broker using terminally ill patients to kill people in response for keeping their medical insurance going.

I like diagnosis murder and have no idea why. Its predictable, the acting is appalling Steve Sloan is the most wooden. The characters are one dimensional. It has so many holes in it, it may as well be a colander, but I’ll be watching tomorrow!

Summary: cheesey and predicitble easy viewing