'Til Death Do Us Part

Some heavy use of commercials seemed to keep these 30-minute episodes down to a trim twenty-two minutes of actual story time for each half hour story. JOHN WATERS is the host, a sort of "Tales from the Crypt" sort of narration with his dry sense of humor poking fun at the ironic turn of events in each episode which begins with happily married couples suddenly at each other's throats.

The funeral parlor episode was well done with a clever twist on the story of an insanely jealous young man who murders his wife and almost gets away with it. The man runs a funeral parlor and after murdering his two-timing wife, he takes care of the burial and almost commits the perfect murder.

The second episode had the same theme: a wealthy older man connives with a sleazy lawyer to get rid of his slutty young wife who wants half his property when he seeks a divorce. They think they've devised the perfect plan when they try to dump her body in the ocean from a private plane, but they get caught anyway.

Both tales are done sort of tongue-in-cheek style, similar to Hitchcock's TV episodes on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Not bad, good for some fast entertainment--but oh those Court TV commercials!! Too much.

John Waters plays the host in this half-hour show that shows us true cases where people get married and eventually one murders the other.

The opening two episode feature last night was OK. The first has a young sex woman marrying an older man for his money. When it becomes obvious to him that she doesn't love him, he intends to divorce here. He figures the pre-nup she signed will protect him...but it might not. It's OK--pretty well-acted and done.

The second was better. A funeral house owner marries a beautiful woman. She eventually falls in love with a stud at work. She intends to leave her husband but he refuses to let go...at all. This episode was better acted and Had a real gruesome murder (within TV standards though).

John Waters was somewhat amusing as the host but he seems a bit TOO serious. Hopefully he'll lighten up in later episodes. The main problem was Court TV's LONG commercial breaks. They went on forever and got dull real quick. I think I might wait for this to come on DVD--the commercials really got annoying. Worth catching.

As soon as they announced John Waters was presenting a weekly mystery, I had it marked on the calendar. There is only one thing wrong with it - it should be an hour long rather than half an hour. With the dearth of good original programming to choose from, it shines bright on this household's weekly schedule. John's cynical introductions and commentary are appropriately ghoulish and his little voice over's during the show remind one of a sort of disembodied death angel commenting on the proceedings. Fun stuff! The material is fun, and so far the characters have been equally dis-likable so one doesn't feel sorry when one of them gets whacked and the other one gets punished...in fact we look forward to it. I hope John will appear in some of the episodes, like Boris Karloff used to do on his show, Boris Karloff Presents Thriller. Destined to be a classic, this show is totally entertaining and one of the few things I really look forward to each week. 10 out of 10!

Good show, just need to TiVo it to avoid the commercials. But the show itself is very good. Last night they added the 'Idol' thing where you can 'vote' on who's gonna kill whom. (Will he kill her? Will she kill him?) The 'text blah blah blah to number whatever' is annoying, but the show itself is interesting and amusing. You know someone's gonna die, it's just a matter of who and how. If CourtTV could just eliminate the annoying voting gimmick and let you concentrate on the show, it'd be even better. But I can't fault the show itself for the marketers trying to screw it up. It's like 'Six Feet Under Lite'. Waters is by far the best part of the show. The stories so far have been amusing but not insultingly stupid. I hope they get gorier and more twisted. But I'd watch John Waters reading the phone book. He's great. You go girl!