Since I’ve completed my summaries for all the Season 9 episodes, I wanted to find out what fans think is the best (and worst) of Murder, She Wrote‘s Season 9 episodes set in Cabot Cove. (I specifically focus on the Cabot Cove episodes because, if you ever ask a Murder, She Wrote fan what their favorite episodes are, they almost invariably respond with: “Any episode set in Cabot Cove!”). I have previously run similar polls to find out which Cabot Cove episodes are fan favorites in Season 4, Season 5, Season 6, Season 7, and Season 8, and so this post is a continuation of that.
As is the case for most other seasons, Season 9 includes 5 episodes that take place in Cabot Cove. I’ve listed them all below, and if you need a refresher on what each episode was about, you can click on the episode title to take you to my trivia summary for that particular episode.
- Episode 2: Family Secrets
- Episode 9: A Christmas Secret
- Episode 11: Final Curtain
- Episode 17: The Big Kill
- Episode 22: Love’s Deadly Desire
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).
Edit (October 26, 2023): The survey results have now been tabulated! Exactly 46 people responded to the survey since it was published a little over two weeks ago.
The image below summarizes the breakdown of their votes for each episode.
Based on these results, the episode “A Christmas Secret” is a clear winner — exactly 20 people thought it was the best episode; while “The Big Kill” appears to be the definitive loser — with an equal 20 number of people giving it the worst ranking.
The ranking and average score for each of the episodes is summarized below:
- First: “A Christmas Secret” (average score = 2.33)
- Second: “Love’s Deadly Desire” (average score = 2.74)
- Third: “Final Curtain“ (average score = 2.96)
- Fourth: “Family Secrets” (average score = 3.17)
- Fifth: “The Big Kill” (average score = 3.80)
Regardless of the average scores, it’s notable that the votes for most of these episodes were quite spread out (see the vote spread for “Love’s Deadly Desire” in particular), indicating that there are widely diverging opinions when it comes to the Cabot Cove episodes this season. Additionally, although the average score for “Final Curtain” was better than the average score for “Family Secrets“, a closer look indicates that “Family Secrets” may be an overall more liked episode as it was ranked among the top-3 episodes for 30 fans in comparison to “Final Curtain” which was ranked among the top-3 episodes for only 25 fans. And even though “The Big Kill” got the most “worst” votes, there were nonetheless still some fans who thought it was the best episode — just like there were some fans for whom “A Christmas Secret” was their least favorite.
Although the results have now been tabulated, the survey itself will remain open in case anyone else still wants to cast their vote. I will occasionally check on the results and will update this post again if the results change significantly. You can access the survey here: https://forms.gle/NVRV9494drBp2qwY9
Murder, She Watched 
This one was hard to rate. I like them all! But for sentimental reasons, I have to put the Chrismas episode on top!
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This one was really tough. I had to put Christmas first, because it’s got heart, no one gets killed, and there’s sweet holiday interaction between Jessica, Seth and Mort, who clearly sings carols with family members. And Family Secrets is so dark, it’s last for me, Final Curtain 2nd to last, almost as dark. But it’s tough to rank The Big Kill, which I don’t enjoy but love because of Eve Simpson getting a big part and a happy ending. Is it higher or lower than Love’s Deadly Desire which has great elements, a superb cast, old timey smugglers, and a reunion between Angela and her Harlow costar Carroll Baker.
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