Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) has written the script for a virtual reality game, A Killing at Hastings’ Rock. After software developer James Lindstrom is killed (irl), young computer whiz Alex (Shawn Phelan) tries to hack into Lindstrom’s password-protected files to figure out the secret behind a mysterious locked door in the Hastings’ Rock world. Jessica is right by Alex’s side. From the Murder, She Wrote episode “A Virtual Murder” (October 31, 1993):
“Oh, man, this — it's unreal. I've run my random character generator, my password algorithm. I've never met a computer I couldn't crack in less than ten minutes.”The screen shows the password as OPEN DOOR, space included.
“Alex, James Lindstrom was a genius, right?”
“Oh, he told you too, huh?”
“Often what stymies the rest of us about genius is its ability to reduce the complex to the simple, to the obvious. I mean, what about something basic, like “open door”?
[Types.]
“That's it! We're in!“
“A Virtual Murder” is a hoot. In addition to extended glimpses of Jessica Fletcher wearing what purports to be a virtual-reality headset, there are repeated references to “source codes” (plural). Here’s an appreciative commentary on the episode.Related reading
All OCA Murder, She Wrote posts (Pinboard)
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Play fair. Keep it clean. No potshots and no derailing. Thanks.
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