Women's Murder Club (TV series)


Women's Murder Club is an American police procedural and legal drama, which aired on ABC from October 12, 2007, to May 13, 2008. The series is set in San Francisco, California, and is based on the series of novels by the same name written by James Patterson. Series creators Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain also served as executive producers alongside Patterson, Joe Simpson, Brett Ratner, and R. Scott Gemmill. The latter also served as showrunner, with Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts co-executive producing. The pilot was directed by Scott Winant.
Produced by 20th Century Fox Television, the series first aired on Friday nights at 9:00PM Eastern/8:00PM Central. On October 31, 2007, ABC ordered an additional three scripts.
On March 31, 2008, it was announced that Women's Murder Club would return with three new episodes, beginning on Tuesday April 29, 2008, at 10:00PM Eastern/9:00PM Central, replacing Boston Legal. On May 12, 2008, ABC confirmed that the series would not return for a second season.

Plot

Based on the best-selling series of books by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, the series revolves around the lives of four women in San Francisco – a homicide detective, an assistant district attorney, a medical examiner, and a newspaper reporter – who come together to use their expertise and talents in their respective fields to solve murder cases. Though they lead distinctly different lives, they are bound together by a strong bond of friendship, which leads the women to realize that pooling their resources during investigations leads to undiscovered clues and answers in both work and their personal lives.

Cast and characters

Main cast

The complete series was released on manufactured-on-demand DVD on 29 September 2014.

Reception

After reviewing the pilot and skipping the second advance episode, Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle TV critic, published a highly critical review assigning the paper's lowest possible rating.
New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley described many nuanced aspects of the show and concluded with, "Women's Murder Club is all right, but not good enough."
Robert Bianco, USA Today critic, wrote a positive review titled "'Murder Club': A simple pleasure worth living for" and ending with, "Still, the actors are enjoyable, and their series in large part does what it sets out to do. It isn't nearly as good as Friday Night Lights, of course - few shows are. But unlike so many fall clunkers, it's competent. This season, that's a rather select club."
Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times critic, wrote a positive review titled "'Murder Club' is worth joining".

U.S. Nielsen ratings

Season 1: #57, 8.964m

Weekly ratings

#EpisodeAir dateRatingShare18-49 Viewers Rank Rank Rank
1"Welcome to the Club"October 12, 20077.3132.5/810.82#1#1#26
2"Train In Vain"October 19, 20076.5122.0/69.69#2#1#37
3"Blind Dates and Bleeding Hearts"October 26, 20076.1111.9/68.90#1#1#41
4"Grannies, Guns, Love Mints"November 2, 20076.4111.9/69.47#1#1#35
5"Maybe, Baby"November 9, 20076.5112.0/69.70#1#1#36
6"Play Through the Pain"November 15, 20076.1103.3/98.93#8#3#45
7"The Past Comes Back to Haunt You"November 16, 20076.2111.7/58.94#4#1#41
8"No Opportunity Necessary"November 23, 20075.391.6/57.76#3#1#45
9"To Drag & To Hold"December 7, 20075.8101.8/58.58#2#1#32
10"FBI Guy"January 4, 20085.291.8/57.68#2#1#36
11"Father's Day"April 29, 20085.891.9/58.14#7#2#42
12"And the Truth Will Set You Free"May 6, 20086.1102.2/68.68#8#2
13"Never Tell"May 13, 20085.8102.1/68.46#2

International broadcasting

The series airs on and E! in Canada, Network Ten in Australia and TV3 in New Zealand.
Reruns of the show currently air on Mystery TV in Canada.
In Portugal, the series also airs on Fox Life and TVI, but the latter airs the series at prohibitive time slots, causing major criticism. The series is also airs on America Plus which is a part of Orbit Network.
In Hungary, the show aired on June 30, 2008, on RTL Klub.
As of September 5, 2008, WMC also started airing on the Belgian TV channel vtm. The channel officially announced that the show would "strengthen" their Friday Night programming on August 31.
In Latin America, the series is airing on the Fox channel.
In The Netherlands, the show airs on Net 5.
In the Philippines, the series is airing on C/S 9.
The Spanish Fox network also started airing in the beginning of September 2008 under the Spanish name "El Club Contra el Crimen".
The show also airs in South Africa on MNET Series. It premiered on September 11, 2008.
In Russia, the show aired on December 17, 2008, on TV-3.
It has also been aired internationally to the U.S. Military on the American Forces Network in 2008.
In Slovakia, the show began airing on January 7, 2009, on TV JOJ.
In France, the first four episodes were aired on March 7, 2009, on M6.
In Singapore, the show aired on November 11, 2009, on MediaCorp Channel 5.
In Italy, the show is airing on La5, but before on Canale 5 in July 2010.
In Germany, the show airs on VOX.

Novels

The following James Patterson Women's Murder Club novels have been released:
The show generated a series of spin-off games on the PC, Mac and Nintendo DS. For the PC and Mac, four hidden objects games were released: Death in Scarlet, Darker Shade of Grey, Twice in a Blue Moon and Little Black Lies. was released in 2009.