Classic whodunit series Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury comes to VisionTV weeknights starting May 12

Once upon a time, the TV murder mystery was a genteel and tasteful affair. Then came the CSI franchise and its hell-spawn, trailing blood and body parts.

For those who prefer their whodunits without the autopsy footage, VisionTV has a special treat: all 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote, returning to the Canadian airwaves for the first time in more than four years.

VisionTV airs the classic series, starring stage and screen legend Angela Lansbury, Mondays through Fridays, beginning May 12, at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT.

First broadcast in 1984, Murder, She Wrote ran for 12 seasons on CBS, racking up more than 40 Emmy Award nominations (including an even dozen for Lansbury herself) and spinning off four TV movies after its cancellation in 1996.

Lansbury, whose credits include starring roles in big-screen classics such as Gaslight, National Velvet, The Long, Hot Summer and The Manchurian Candidate, as well as Broadway appearances in Sweeney Todd, Gypsy and Mame, plays Jessica Fletcher, a widowed mystery novelist living in the sleepy hamlet of Cabot Cove, Maine.

Wherever Jessica’s travels take her, murder follows, putting her abilities as an amateur sleuth to the test. Unlike Gil Grissom or Horatio Caine, Jessica doesn’t rely on DNA evidence and decomposition analysis to suss out the killer’s identity. A keen mind and common sense are the guideposts that lead her the solution – usually one step ahead of the police.

Tom Bosley (Happy Days), William Windom and Ron Masak are the other series regulars.

Over 12 seasons, Murder She Wrote’s list of guest stars included just about every breathing human ever to sign a Screen Actors Guild card. Some of the famous (or soon-to-be-famous) names that appeared in the credits include George Clooney, Courteney Cox (Friends), Marcia Cross (Desperate Housewives), Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City) and Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line).

Other notable guest stars include Jerry Orbach (Law & Order), Jessica Walter (Arrested Development), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Malcolm in the Middle), Robert Reed and Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch), David Ogden Stiers (M*A*S*H), Leslie Nielsen (The Naked Gun), Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), Martin Balsam (On the Waterfront), Shirley Jones (The Partridge Family), Bill Maher (Politically Incorrect), Jean Simmons (Spartacus) and Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond).

For more information on VisionTV’s comedy and drama programming, please visit www.visiontv.ca.