I thought that this was considerably better than the consensus here seems to think. It was sufficiently complex that you had to pay attention, if you were going to follow things.

(Which, btw, one of the reviewers here did not do. The disheveled hotel room that Alex and Benjamin discover is where Courtney Jeffers was, when she was murdered several nights earlier. It was not an unentered room from 20 years ago!).

The ending was admittedly a bit of a stretch, but I don't believe it ruined anything. I actually liked how ending played out. The action was exciting and well choreographed. There was also surprise villain, even if clues made made us suspect the person earlier.

Alison Sweeney's character, Hannah Swensen, on Murder, She Baked, is, I suppose, more friendly and likable than Alison's character here--Alexandra "Alex" McPherson. It is a tribute to Alison Sweeney's talent that Alex feels like a different character from Hannah.

I find Alex more interesting and believable as an amateur detective, than Hannah on Murder, She Baked.

Stereotypical Hallmark (Let's add Acorn too.) cheap production, & seen many times before, borrowed script plots. Series checks all the public relation's selling points found in daytime soap for TV addicts as follows: Gender inclusion as one of the leads; romance w/eye candy actors (females usually blonde; males usiually a week's "manly" beard & tight t-shirt); personal issues to overcome; make-up is always perfect; clothing changes (never wrinkled) are frequent visual hooks; offbeat assistant researcher; crimes seldom seen; a cost saving meek capture of the least likely at the end.