Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 07/28/23

Murder, She Spoke. Rising multihyphenate Ansley Gordon, who also executive produced and wrote the teleplay, stars as true-crime podcaster Abby Broukes in this TV movie update of Murder, She Wrote (with Gordon playing a younger, somewhat hipper version of Angela Lansbury‘s Jessica Fletcher) premiering Sunday night (7/30) at 9:00 PM ET on the Great American Family cable network and streaming the following day on Pure Flix.  

IMHO: This certainly appears to be a pilot for an ongoing series – and, hey, if you’re going to work off a mystery series template you could do far worse than Murder, She Wrote which had an extremely successful 12-year run on CBS from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties. According to my reading of the current zeitgeist, I think the general public is in the mood for a return to this sort of escapist episodic fare that is engaging without demanding too much from the viewer. I personally think audiences are a little tired of over-hyped Murders in the Building-type formats that evermore absurdly stretch plots that might make for a diverting hour of television into a ten-hour overstuffed mega-movies.

Ansley Gordon’s Abigail Broukes is an attractive, likable heroine and her small, picturesque hometown town of Prescott (and its quirky denizens) make for charming backdrop and suitable stand-in for Murder, She Wrote‘s Cabot Cove. Like mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher, Abigail’s career as a true-crime podcaster offers plenty of at least semi-plausible reasons (which is all you need for a show like this) for her to be poking around crime scenes in her own backyard, across the country or (thinking two-hour season premiere here) anywhere around the world. All in all, there’s plenty of fodder for a long-running series should Great American Family and Pure Flix decide to go that route.

Now, this being a Great American Family/Pure Flix offering, you just know there’s going to some faith elements thrown into the mix. Abigail’s grandfather (Doug Waldo), for instance, is a minister who always has a Bible verse or two at the ready. Other supporting characters include her school teacher sister Sophia (Brit Laree) and churchgoing Prescott beat cop Matt MacAdams (Bret Green) who also checks the box as Abigail’s potential future love interest.

The movie’s plot also has Abigail chasing down clues left by neighbor/murder victim Marian Weston (Karen Abercrombie of Pure Flix’s Eleanor’s Bench) who, suspecting someone might be out to do her in, hid assorted biblical quotes here and there for the supersleuth to uncover in the course of her investigation.

That’s all fine for a pilot – and I’m definitely all for characters of faith being represented in TV shows – but, if the promising premise does move forward as a series, I think future episodes should go a little easier on the Bible quoting. Occasional insightful Bible-based insights from her minister grandfather are fine and could flow somewhat organically but to push it far beyond that would likely usually come off as forced and preachy.

One more thing (as that other classic TV detective Columbo would say), part of the fun and charm of light mystery dramas like this comes in the casting of familiar TV stars of the past in supporting and guest roles (i.e. murder victims, suspects and killers). Going forward, I’d suggest Gordon and the producers consider opening the budget purse strings just a bit to pay for that. Those kind of details really do help bring viewers in.

The Bottom Line: The Abigail Mysteries goes down easy and has all the makings of a broad-based TV hit. I want to see more! Recommended.
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Sound of Freedom continues to confound normal Hollywood expectations. The Angel Studios sleeper hit is upping its theater screen count to 3,411 as its box office revenues soar to $134 million. The movie, which was produced on a modest $14.5 million budget, opened on July 4th on just 2,634 screens.

As Angel Studios Head of Theatrical Distribution Brandon Purdie notes “Everyone in the industry knows that films are generally supposed to lose screens week-over-week, not add them. And yet, the incredible word-of-mouth driving Sound of Freedom continues to spread.”

Meanwhile, the studio is preparing to release the film internationally with a rollout that begins on August 18th in South Africa. Later openings planned in Australia, New Zealand, throughout Central and South America, as well as the UK, Ireland and Spain.

Starring Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ, TV’s Person of Interest), Sound of Freedom is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former US Homeland Security agent who risked his life on a dangerous quest to rescue a young girl from ruthless child sex traffickers.

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.