[Updated on June 7th 2022 with survey results]
If you ever ask a Murder, She Wrote fan what their favorite episodes are, almost invariably their response would be: “Any episode set in Cabot Cove.” But given that there are almost 60 such episodes, there are definitely episodes that stand out more than others. I have previously run polls to find out which Cabot Cove episodes are fan favorites in Season 4, Season 5, and Season 6. Now that I’ve completed my summaries for Season 7 episodes, I therefore wanted to find out what fans think is the best (and worst) of Murder, She Wrote‘s Season 7 episodes set in Cabot Cove.
In the past, I found that the best way of collecting this information would be to set up a survey using Google Forms which allows fans to rank the episodes from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). While the results of the survey have now been tabulated, you can still submit your vote by following this link: https://forms.gle/BrAM4NBNLH6YuJt59. I will be checking the results periodically and may update this page if the ranking changes significantly.
Since this post was first published, there were 23 Murder, She Wrote fans that took part in the survey. They were asked to rank the five Season 7 episodes/stories set in Cabot Cove from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). According to their votes, the following ranking emerged:
- “A Body To Die For” (episode 6) — average score: 2.1
- “Moving Violation” (episode 13) — average score: 2.8
- “The Skinny According To Nick Cullhane” (episode 22) — average score: 2.9
- “The Prodigal Father” (episode 17) — average score: 3.4
- “Deadly Misunderstanding” (episode 2) — average score: 3.7
(Clicking on the links above will take you to my summaries for those episodes.)
Complete details of the survey responses are summarized in the graph below. The bars represent how many people gave a particular ranking to each episode.
One thing I found interesting about these results is just how divided opinions are regarding “The Skinny According to Nick Cullhane“. Similarly to “The Szechuan Dragon” from Season 6, there were almost an equal number of people who ranked the episode as best as there were people who ranked the episode as worst. Nonetheless, people for the most part agree that “Deadly Misunderstanding” is one of the worst, while “A Body To Die For” is one of the best.
Thanks to everyone who took part in the survey! And let me know what you think of these results in the comments.
Murder, She Watched 
“A Body to Die For” is *chef’s kiss* but my second favorite episode from this season breaks the Cabot Cove rule. “Who Killed J.B. Fletcher?” is so, so perfect.
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Very true! That one is definitely tops among the non-Cabot Cove ones.
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In our family we would rank them best to worst, 1 being best…
1. Deadly Misunderstanding
2. A Body to Die For
3. The Skinny According to Nick Culhane
4. The Prodigal Father
5. Moving Violations
We love everything about Deadly Misunderstanding, the storms, the cast and the writing make it a light-hearted romp. A Body to Die for is also fun dn funny but Mom hates that Hugh O’Brian is a)bad and b)murdered.
Nick Culhane is delightful and original, but it is surprisingly rough when Tony LoBianco gets violent. It is hard to see naughty Nick be killed but the Harry Mcgraw in Cabot Cove dynamic is aces. The other 2 are not ones we watch often at all, despite the fact that we LOVE Donnelly Rhodes. He played the dad on a lovely little Canadian show we watched in Disney decades ago called Danger Bay, and we have loved him ever since. Thank you for your wonderful recap, I have read some of your season 7 episode recaps but not all, will do that ASAP!
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