TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE we--BAN THE BALLET--excuse us, we're having an interruption from the wings.  Anyway, what we have to see--BAN THE BALLET!--Ok look, we're trying to have a lovely little slice of culture over here. 

We and Jessica (Angela Lansbury) head to Boston to check out some Soviet dancers prance about; and our anti-ballet activist Velma Rodecker (Jessica Nelson) is having none of it, decrying the communist influence brought on by this treasured artform in 1984 counter-revolutionary America. 

Indeed, the Cold War is heating up in this episode, DEATH TAKES A CURTAIN CALL, particularly having noted sexy dancer Alexander Masurov (George de la Pena) and his beautiful consort Natalia (Vicki Kriegler) taking center stage. (Or not, as the case may be; scandal breaks out when they defect and miss their bows!) Oh, and someone turns up dead backstage.

Did the dancers do it to get away? Was it another of the ballet company in a moment of passion? The lecherous stagehand in-between passes made at The Other Pretty Dancer (Kerry Armstrong)? Or is it the aggressively patriotic demonstrator? Rhoda, say it ain't so!

Can Jessica solve the crime and avoid giving these naive, harmless Russian kids up to the KGB officer (William Conrad chewing the scenery like a fine borscht) hot on their tracks? Maybe, with the help of Sheriff Tupper (Tom Bosley), Captain Cragg (Claude Akins), and the man who got her into all this (Hurd Hatfield). 

Skip Fleming, Dane Clark, and (not that) Paul Rudd join the cast in this dramatic tale of love, intrigue, suspicious fishermen with limited vocabulary, and what we think really happened to have Claude Akins leave the series.