Women's Murder Club

Women's Murder Club
Genre Police procedural
Legal drama
Created by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain
Starring Angie Harmon
Laura Harris
Paula Newsome
Aubrey Dollar
Tyrees Allen
Linda Park
Rob Estes
Country of origin United States
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 13 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain
Joe Simpson
James Patterson
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run October 12, 2007 – May 13, 2008
External links
[[2] Website]

Women's Murder Club is an American police procedural and legal drama, which ran on ABC from October 12, 2007, to May 13, 2008. The series is set in San Francisco, California and is based on the 'Women's Murder Club' series of novels written by James Patterson. Series creators Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain also served as executive producers alongside Patterson, Joe Simpson, Brett Ratner and R. Scott Gemmill. The latter also served as showrunner, with Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts co-executive producing.[1] The pilot was directed by Scott Winant.[2]

Produced by 20th Century Fox Television, the series first aired on Friday nights at 9:00PM Eastern/8:00PM Central. On October 31, 2007, ABC ordered an additional three scripts.[3] The show was affected by the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike as only 10 of the 13 episodes ordered were produced.

On February 23, 2008, it was announced that the show would return in late April with three episodes; this came two weeks after the show was almost cancelled.[4] On March 31, 2008, it was announced that Women's Murder Club would return with three new episodes, beginning on Tuesday April 29, 2008 at 10:00PM Eastern/9:00PM Central, replacing Boston Legal.[5] On May 12, 2008, ABC confirmed that the series would not return for a second season.[6]

Contents

Plot

Based on the best-selling series of books by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, the series revolves around the lives of four women in San Francisco – a homicide detective, an assistant district attorney, a medical examiner and a newspaper reporter – who come together to use their expertise and talents in their respective fields to solve murder cases. Though they lead distinctly different lives, they are bound together by a strong bond of friendship which lead the women to realize that pooling their resources during investigations leads to undiscovered clues and answers in both work and their personal lives.

Cast

Main characters

Recurring cast

Episodes

The series has not been released on DVD, however, plans to do so have been announced.

Reception

After reviewing the pilot and skipping the second advance episode, Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle TV critic, published a highly critical review assigning the paper's lowest possible rating.[8]

New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley described many nuanced aspects of the show and concluded with, "Women’s Murder Club is all right, but not good enough."[9]

Robert Bianco, USA Today critic wrote a positive review titled "'Murder Club': A simple pleasure worth living for" and ending with, "Still, the actors are enjoyable, and their series in large part does what it sets out to do. It isn't nearly as good as Friday Night Lights, of course - few shows are. But unlike so many fall clunkers, it's competent. This season, that's a rather select club."[10]

Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times critic wrote a positive review titled "'Murder Club' is worth joining".[11]

U.S. Nielsen ratings

Season 1: #57, 8.964m

Weekly ratings

# Episode Air date Rating Share 18-49 (Rating/Share) Viewers (m) Rank (night) Rank (timeslot) Rank (overall)
1 "Welcome to the Club" October 12, 2007 7.3 13 2.5/8 10.82 #1 #1 #26
2 "Train In Vain" October 19, 2007 6.5 12 2.0/6 9.69 #2 #1 #37
3 "Blind Dates and Bleeding Hearts" October 26, 2007 6.1 11 1.9/6 8.90 #1 #1 #41
4 "Grannies, Guns, Love Mints" November 2, 2007 6.4 11 1.9/6 9.47 #1 #1 #35
5 "Maybe, Baby" November 9, 2007 6.5 11 2.0/6 9.70 #1 #1 #36
6 "Play Through the Pain" November 15, 2007 6.1 10 3.3/9 8.93 #8 #3 #45
7 "The Past Comes Back to Haunt You" November 16, 2007 6.2 11 1.7/5 8.94 #4 #1 #41
8 "No Opportunity Necessary" November 23, 2007 5.3 9 1.6/5 7.76 #3 #1 #45
9 "To Drag & To Hold" December 7, 2007 5.8 10 1.8/5 8.58 #2 #1 #32
10 "FBI Guy" January 4, 2008 5.2 9 1.8/5 7.68 #2 #1 #36
11 "Father's Day" April 29, 2008 5.8 9 1.9/5 8.14 #7 #2 #42
12 "And the Truth Will (Sometimes) Set You Free" May 6, 2008 6.1 10 2.2/6 8.68 #8 #2
13 "Never Tell" May 13, 2008 5.8 10 2.1/6 8.46 #2

International broadcasting

The series airs on and E! in Canada, Network Ten in Australia and TV3 in New Zealand.[12][13] Reruns of the show currently air on Mystery TV in Canada.

The series also airs on Fox Life (first-run) and TVI in Portugal, but the latter airs the series at prohibitive time slots (around 1 a.m.), causing major criticism. The series is also airs on America Plus which is a part of Orbit Network.

In Hungary, the show aired on June 30, 2008, on RTL Klub.

As of September 5, 2008, WMC also started airing on the Belgian TV channel VTM. The channel officially announced that the show would "strengthen" their Friday Night programming on August 31.

In The Netherlands, the show airs on Net 5.

In Latin America, the series is airing on the Fox channel.

In the Philippines, the series is airing on C/S9.

The Spanish Fox network also started airing in the beginning of September 2008 under the Spanish name "El Club Contra el Crimen".

The show also airs in South Africa on MNET Series. It premiered on September 11, 2008.

In Russia, the show aired on December 17, 2008, on TV-3.

It has also been aired internationally to the U.S. Military on the Armed Forces Network (AFN) in 2008.

In Slovakia, the show began airing on January 7, 2009, on TV JOJ.

In France, the first four episodes were aired on March 7, 2009, on M6.

In Singapore, the show aired on November 11, 2009, on MediaCorp Channel 5.

In Italy, the show is airing on La5, but before on Canale 5 in July, 2010.

Video game

The show generated a series of spin-off games on the Nintendo DS. These looked to tap into the casual gaming demographic and focused on recreating the narratives of the TV shows. The game was unveiled at E3 2009 to a mixed reception. Game People's[14] review found that the game focused overly on narration and not enough on gameplay. Wiiloveit.com gave it a 16/30, describing it as a very interesting title, with a rather suspenseful script" that's over way "too quickly". [15] It currently has a Meta Critic average score of 53%.

References

  1. ^ New shows begin off-camera shuffle
  2. ^ The Futon Critic
  3. ^ Breaking News - NBC Benches 'Singing Bee,' 'Heroes: Origins'; ABC Extends 'Murder Club' | TheFutonCritic.com
  4. ^ Ausiello Scoop: Women's Murder Club to Return in April - Ausiello Report | TVGuide.com
  5. ^ Breaking News - "Women'S Murder Club" Returns To ABC With All-New Original Episodes This April | Thefutoncritic.Com
  6. ^ Women’s Murder Club: ABC Kills Angie Harmon Series’ Chances for Season Two | TV Series Finale
  7. ^ The Kiss-Me-Not Killer
  8. ^ Goodman, Tim (2007-10-11). "'Women's Murder Club' - bonding over crime". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/11/DD0ASNIO8.DTL. Retrieved 2007-10-11. 
  9. ^ Stanley, Alessandra (2007-10-12). "Homicide and Heels". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/arts/television/12murd.html. Retrieved 2007-10-11. 
  10. ^ Bianco, Robert (2007-10-11). "'Murder Club': A simple pleasure worth living for". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2007-10-11-murder-club-preview_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-11. 
  11. ^ McNamara, Mary (2007-10-12). "'Murder Club' is worth joining". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2007-10-24. http://web.archive.org/web/20071024034457/http://latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-murder12oct12,1,4975293.story. Retrieved 2007-10-11. 
  12. ^ Ten picks up Fox, NBCU programming
  13. ^ TV lineup launch disrupted [1]
  14. ^ "Game People Women's Murder Club Review". Mark Clapham. http://www.gamepeople.co.uk/story_ds_womensmurderclubgamesofpassion.htm. 
  15. ^ Wiiloveit.com: James Patterson WMCGOP Review

External links