Murdered, She Was: Fondly Remembering Sunday Before Netflix Killed It

Netflix finds new ways to irritate me every single month by pulling away more programming and trading it out for new, less entertaining fare. Whether it's losing the BBC contract for Doctor Who or, in its latest showcase of brilliant negotiation, losing all programming from Food Network, DIY, HGTV, and The Travel Channel, they continue, by and large, to utterly fail in the promises they made when they first changed their business model to "encourage" all customers to move away from DVDs and to the streaming service.

Anyway, this is starting to get away from me. Though the exit of the Food Network is a big loss for us (my wife, kids, and I all truly enjoyed the programming), one of the most personal losses for my wife and myself is that of Murder, She Wrote.

For us, M,SW had become something of an unofficial Sunday afternoon tradition. We would send the kids upstairs for "Quiet Time" (getting our 9- and 12-year olds to agree to naps is a hill not worth dying upon), start the water boiling for tea, and turn on the next episode to see what Jessica Fletcher and all her friends in Cabot Cove have gotten themselves into.

And for the record, yes, I said "tea." Though my wife and I are resolute coffee drinkers, some things are simply right. When you play Halo, you drink Mt. Dew. When you watch football, you drink beer -- or the commercial swill that passes for beer. And when you watch Jessica Fletcher solve another murder, you drink tea.

For us, Jess, Doc Hazlitt, the Sheriffs, even McGraw and Hagarty, were old friends we invited into our homes every Sunday. We watched and laughed and sat, fingers to chins, trying to solve the murder along with our favorite mystery writer. We chuckled knowingly as she calmly fixed tea for her guest right before just as calmly accusing them of murder (my favorite part: she really was a gutsy old broad).

Eventually, if we wish to continue our tradition, I suppose I'll have to buy the series. Or hope Neflix eventually pulls their collective heads out. Probably, I'll have better luck with the DVD thing.

In the meantime, do you have a favorite mystery program or Sunday afternoon goody? Share it in the comments, and help the wife and me fill the deep hole left by Netflix's sucking.