User Reviews

Here Mark investigates murder on the speedway, with fingers pointing in all directions. Jesse gets all starstruck, meeting Tommy Kendall in a cameo appearance. Off-screen Jesse also meets Dale Earnhardt, who died only three years later. Here this episode dealt with the autopsy of a speedway star, which was kind of prescient.

I like Diagnosis Murder, and hopefully it can be rebooted. I nominate British actor Danny Dyer to star as Mark in a reboot.

One of the first big problems with this episode is the level of racing represented. During the race and in all the establishment shots of the track, we see a super-speedway such as Daytona. In fact, it very well may have been Daytona -- you can see "tona" on the walls in some of the shots.

BUT, when Eagin lead driver Matt Thomas spins out during qualifying, and again when "he" crashes at the end of the race, the car ends up next to hay bales, no wall in sight. Of course, there are no hay bales in a NASCAR venue. (They stopped using hay bales when they stopped racing stock cars.)

Next, the murder. Crew chief Eddie Wallace's son, Alan, gets into a fight with Matt that evening after qualifying. When Alan hits Matt he dies. Even though the fight was self defense, Eddie decides they need to cover up the death and make it look like Matt dies during the race.

Here comes lots of the impossible stuff. They hide the body in the infield. Where? How? Not explained. Alan shows up at the race car at the last minute in Matt's suit so everyone thinks it's Matt Thomas driving. After Alan wins the race he crashes the car, somehow expertly ending up near the body. Somehow (never explained), even though course workers are rushing to the crash and everyone in the stadium is watching, Alan manages to put Matt's body into the car -- unseen. Impossible.

I'm a bit surprised this episode didn't become "Diagnosis Murder"'s "Jumping the Shark" episode. Fortunately, it didn't and we get several more years of GOOD shows -- this just isn't one of them.

Just so you know, Eddie and Alan, while guilty of the coverup, are NOT charged with murder because the REAL cause of death was something else, which I'm not going to explain here. IF you think you can put up with all the impossibilities in this episode, watch it and find out for yourself.