“Dead how? Of what dead?”

Justin’s rating: Wilford Brimley’s giant fur hat is so distracting that I genuinely didn’t hear anything in any of the scenes where he was wearing it.

Justin’s review: Are you ready for a WHODUNIT IN SPACE? Golly, the audiences of 1985 certainly were and stacked up in front of their television sets, sometimes six deep, just to see this Canadian masterpiece.

A masterpiece, I should mention, that was aired without an ending. Intentionally. The idea was to give the audience enough clues within the partial film as a contest to figure out who the murderer was. Then after the guesses were sent in, the final portion was shown. I mean… that’s certainly a novel way to go, although I don’t think I would stand for a movie missing an ending even if it’s for a good cause.

Murder in Space stars a much younger-looking Michael Ironside (Total Recall) as Neal Braddock, the captain of the Conestoga, a ship returning from Mars with a small multinational crew. The ship goes quiet on the way home, plunging the world into curiosity about what might’ve happened. When communication is reestablished, everything seems fine… until one of the Russian crew members ends up strangled by an unknown suspect.

Something’s happening on this super dysfunctional ship, and before the Conestoga lands, mission control wants them to find the killer and figure out what’s going on behind the death. Down on Earth, Wilford Brimley (Ewoks: Battle for Endor) — who I guess was eternally 62 years old — does what he can as the mission commander to put the pieces together.

But that it would be far too simple to solve ONE killing, thus soon enough we have another. And another. There’s so much weird crap happening on the Conestoga that one truly wonders if any of the crew was properly screened by psychiatrists before being shipped off into deep space.

Murder in Space has a germ of a good idea but overcomplicates the mystery and spends too much time on Earth.

What’s the worse sin, in my opinion, is that the Conestoga is a sad excuse for a spaceship. The exterior model is decent, but the interiors simply look like a lot of nondescript sets with some blinking light panels, hanging sheets of plastic, and curved hallways. It doesn’t feel like a ship in motion, especially with the unexplained artificial gravity. And don’t really expect any cool special effects save for an occasional ship flyby and one (1) explosion.

The misstep here is all of the Earth stuff. This would’ve been a better story if the ship was out of comm range, a murder happened, and the paranoid crew had to figure out who did it without any external help. Maybe the filmmakers got Brimley on board and couldn’t justify turning him into a Quaker Oats astronaut, so the writers came up with this whole Earth subplot.

Unfortunately, every time the story shifts to Earth, it comes across as soap opera hysterics and pointless filler. All poor Wilford Brimley has to work with is a string of invectives that makes him sound as if he’s constantly caught off guard and frustrated about it.

Murder in Space isn’t short on novelties, but it is lacking the pacing of a tight plot, relatable characters, and a backstory for Brimley’s super-floofy hat. It’s a moderately interesting TV movie but not one that I can shove at you with any assurance of your approval.

Intermission!

• Did I catch a “niner” in there? Were you calling from a walkie-talkie?
• In the future, they like to listen to their Sony Walkmans
• This is the fastest I’ve ever seen Wilford Brimley walk
• The Vice President’s office is truly sad
• This is a very spacious ship with full artificial gravity
• “Am I interrupting something?” “If we said yes, would you leave?”
• “If my body now offends you, I’ll cover it.”
• The girl gets murdered but we don’t see the discovery of her body seems strange
• No intergalactic viruses? That’s a shame.
• They sent an astronaut with diabetes to Mars?
• “We drove six miles so you could have a bowl of chili?”
• Space law is in its infancy
• That’s a really dorky scarf, let’s spend a whole lot of time focused on it
• Better circle that name TWICE just in case we didn’t grasp the implication the first time
• Space captains have the right to execute crew
• BUT WHEN WILL HE BE A GRANDPA? I NEED TO KNOWWWW