CHICAGO — Last month, writing about Hollywood’s recent tendency to turn a solid premise for movie into a multi-episode TV series instead (and not to the story’s betterment), I mentioned that even though seasonlong arcs have become the norm, television doesn’t have to rely on them in order to be good. And I noted my habit of returning to shows like “Murder, She Wrote” to remind myself of the ways a self-contained story can actually work, introducing a handful of new characters each time, and coming to a satisfying conclusion some 40 minutes later.
Not long after that column ran, I got an email from Chicago native Thomas B. Sawyer, who was a writer on “Murder, She Wrote” from its inception in 1984, later becoming showrunner for the last five seasons until the series came to an end in 1996.
At its height, the show was drawing 23 million viewers a week on CBS. Curious to hear his thoughts about why the show connected with audiences, I called Sawyer at his Malibu home.
