Ships in the Night: A Martha's Vineyard Mystery

4/10 - bad writing and worse-than-usual acting plague the newest installment in this Hallmark mystery series

I don't know why, but this Hallmark mystery series has never drawn me in like some of the others and is so far from my three favorites (Hannah Swensen's Murder She Baked, Aurora Teagarden and Mystery 101), that it is almost not worth reviewing.

There is so much going on in this episode that it feels scattered instead of like a comprehensive and completely story. The returning characters seem to be a barista who is our main character's friend...but they have no chemistry and barely exchange a few lines an episode...let alone nothing in common, a doctor potential love interest who moonlights as the M. E. And her father the chief of police who is always trying to talk out main character into going back to work for the local police.

Our main character is a male and a former Boston police detective who was forced into early retirement do to a shooting which killed his partner and left him with a bullet in his back. This gets brought up every episode...I wish they would just solve that mystery and move on! Also, all through the episode we get to see him working out...running, boxing, etc.

In this episode someone is killed at a local art gallery...then the former doctor ends up dead in his home...while he was trying to build a medical device that could have helped many.

Meanwhile our two love interests keep having to cancel their dinner plans.

Best part of this episode was the romantic exchange in the last 5-10 seconds of the whole show.

This is starting to be a hard pass for me and I can't really recommend it.

Jeff and Zee confront the deaths of two community members on the eve of a fundraising regatta. Eli (Fred Keating), a doctor and Zee's mentor, gets chucked out the window by someone who appears to want a portable dialysis machine that he's been tinkering with. Across town, Bernie (Kehli O'Byrne), manager of the Winchester Art Gallery, is clubbed with a sailboat sculpture. It's unclear if and how the incidents are connected. In any case, two deaths might be one too many because no one picks up on poor Eli's demise until deep into the second act.

There's something relaxing about this mystery, perhaps it's the beach and the chilled atmosphere, but it's quite nice. The acting is adequate, Sarah Lind is very pretty, the investigation is standard but diverting. It's an adequately made TV mystery.

From the running and moving Jeff' role has him doing - why is he not paralyzed from the bullet lodged close to his spine? Why is there no vineyard in the series, only seaside village? Why is Jeff buff when he doesn't exercise?

Also why is Dr Zee wearing high heels on hospital duty, on the beach, everywhere? Why is she not practicing being a dr. Instead of an investigator?

Dialogue is better than most of the Hallmark series movies. A little corny but too funny about the inconsistencies in script.

In this third instalment of this mystery series I was really hoping it would improve. But sadly, it did not, and the acting was even more stilted and unrealistic. Jesse, as Jeff, is easy on the eyes but just does not do justice to the Jeff character of the wonderful Phillip Craig series. Sarah, as Zee, is just too superficial to lend any credence to the story. She is a doctor but did not spend one minute in a hospital. The chemistry (which sizzles in the books) is just not there at all between Jeff and Zee. And the great character of Joe Begay is not part of the movies. He would be a good addition and provide some diversity. The best part of the movie was the scenery, much of which I have seen in person. If you have not read the books you might enjoy this movie. For those of us that have, it is an insult to the characters and stories portrayed.