The Jane Mysteries: A Deadly Prescription

Delightful little mystery series, based around the talented singer who becomes a sleuth to "right wrongs" and carry on her uncle's legacy, solving cold cases that have gone wrong. It follows the Mystery tradition that a murder demands resolution, so that becomes the MacGuffin to create the mystery. A bit on nice music, not much blood and gore ( huge plus), and a nice puzzle to try and solve before our sleuth figures it out. They come to a good end, bad guy caught, and everything put to rights in the end. Great for an evening's distraction. Jodie has a lovely voice, and makes it fun. Hope to see more of these.

A misguided but desperate son tries to rob a pharmacy at gunpoint in order to get prescription medication for his very ill mother. Ryan, was under age and railroaded into confessing to a murder he didn't commit in the police station without an adult guardian present.

Ryan is up for parole and his mother gets a note indicating someone knows what happened, with the implication that it isn't Ryan.

Jane gets her nose bent out of shape at a performance when John asks her to drinks but then bails with hardly a text message at the beginning of the film. The fact that the police may have used an illegal procedure to get a confession out of Ryan puts a further wedge between them.

This creates a bit of an awkward scenario as Jane does a lot of this investigating on her own without John and this puts her in danger more than once with the real killer is still at large.

The tenacious Jane is not deterred and determined to solve this one on her own and help the innocent Ryan. The conflict between John and Jane was hard to watch as he was sure these particular cops were innocent as he went to academy with them.

I like the "righting wrongs" foundation conceptually and the source material, books by K. K. Beck, is wonderful. I am hoping this is a hallmark mystery series that is going to get better and better. I am also hoping that the romantic aspect gets ironed out because I can see the potential in the two leads. This case was pretty twisty and I enjoyed watching it unweave.

SO MANY THINGS WRONG

I don't think the writers or the directors have ever seen a good mystery. No cameras in the pharmacy, really? For our interrogation of a 16-year-old without an adult or an attorney, really? The 16-year-old they just wants to fill his mom's prescription but wants to use a 45 to force the pharmacist to fill it? A van rear ends a car and they fix it up by using duct tape, really?

This is only a small sampling of all the weird stuff in this show.

If you're a fan of mysteries, cop, or lawyer shows don't waste your time. You won't like it.

Much like the first film in this series, it is entertaining for (probably) unintended reasons.

The acting is occasionally bad in the way you typically think of bad acting...but more often bad in the overacting sense. Especially the actor playing the teenager falsely accused of murder. But even beyond him...it's like a high school theater production.

The script is also pretty shoddy. Credit where due, Hallmark mysteries tend to be pretty well written. I feel like they're the best source for modern cozy mysteries. The main issue with this one was that it was both confusing and at times uninspired.

THE BEST PARTS In my opinion, Jodie Sweetin is a much better singer than actress (though I like the acting/enthusiasm she brings to singing). Her singing and the great costumes are probably the only reasons I watch this series.

I think Paris Jefferson as Sadie Da Silva's, Jane's aunt, is the best regular cast member.

The writing or direction has a lot to be desired. It feels like too many holes or dumb/incorrect things take place. I won't give them is that could potentially put review in the spoilers category.

And Jane does too many things that would put her in the dumb blonde category.