Diagnosis Murder: Town Without Pity

I love the Diagnosis Murder TV series and finally watched all eight episodes. All five Diagnosis Murder Movies are on Youtube. Two after the series was over and three before the series began. I have not been able to find the pilot which was a Jake and the Fatman episode.

Oh, boy, is this every different from the shows in the series and the first 3 TV movies which were prequels. This one is shot entirely on site in some very small town. It does not look like any set I have ever seen. The staff is all in the little town and there is not one second that they are in a hospital.

There is a good suspenseful script and all the actors do a good job. The ending will be a surprise. I expected there to be more Van Dyke's but there were only 4 this time.

Well done but just very different. I guess the hospital set had been torn down or redressed for some other show and they did not have access.

For a D.M. fan, it is a must see. Just one more to go and I will have seen every episode and all 5 movies. Say goodnight, Dick.

Several cast members from Dick Van Dyke's Dr. Sloan medical mystery TV series reunited for this feature-length TV movie. Sloan's daughter and new husband have disappeared on their way to visit Sloan. Sloan and his law enforcement son head straight for where the newlyweds disappeared, a small desert town were the locals turn out to be largely uncooperative and some of them downright hostile. The plot makes little effort to disguise the bad guys' identities, so suspense is minimal. The movie goes on way too long, and would have been better as a one-hour feature. Van Dyke gets roughed up a bit but bounces right back, which I found hard to swallow considering his age.

The story is unexpected and it's just great to see the cast back again together. If you liked the series you will find this movie suspenseful. The comic relief part was obviously to take a lighter tone to the seriousness of the plot and I could have passed on that part.

Some of the Diagnosis Murder episodes and television movies were on the lighter side, but the 2002 feature-length Town Without Pity is extremely heavy. It was made after the regular series ended, and there aren't any scenes that take place in the familiar (or any) hospital. Dick Van Dyke gets a frantic voicemail from his daughter, and afterwards, he and his son track her to her last known whereabouts and begin asking questions. But in the small town "without pity", no one wants to answer his questions, and it seems fairly obvious they'd rather him leave than find his daughter.

The only lighter bit in the movie is the "family affair" element. Barry Van Dyke is in the film, of course, but so are siblings Carey and Stacey. But since Stacey plays the missing sister, is that really light, or does it add an even heavier atmosphere? If you like the usual charming tone of the series (even though they always involve a murder), you might not like this one. There's also a heavy element of racial prejudice thrown in following the 2001 attacks, and some perilous situations that make you wonder whether or not our beloved Dr. Sloan will make it out alive. It wasn't my favorite of the tv movies, but I appreciated what went into it.