Angela Lansbury, arguably the most popular actress in television today, hasn't always been particularly happy with her role on "Murder, She Wrote."

Not that she doesn't love the character she's played for the past seven years, crime-solving novelist Jessica Fletcher. But the workload of carrying a weekly hourlong show is difficult - so difficult that for the past couple of seasons Lansbury has "bookended" as many as five shows a year. (She introduced the episodes, then disappeared until the close of the show.)However, that's a thing of the past. Not only has Lansbury agreed to do an eighth season of "Murder," but she'll star in all 22 episodes. All this despite vows made that both the sixth and seventh seasons of the show would be her last.

"What really brought me back was the realization that `Murder, She Wrote' has really become a national habit," she said.

"I mean, it may seem like yesterday's mashed potatoes to you, but it is really linguini positano of the future," she told a gathering of television critics. "We are going into a new season of `Murder, She Wrote' - a rejuvenation, shall we say, of the character. A revitalization of our stories."

Not that any big changes are contemplated in the format of the very successful series. But Jessica will spend less time in Cabot Cove and more time in New York City, where she'll teach at fictional Manhattan University three or four days a week.

"Now, this immediately opens up a whole new venue for us," Lansbury said. "She has a pied-a-terre now in New York, so she is not just based in Cabot Cove and on the road. She's now in the city and she's vitally involved with the young group of people."

Lansbury thinks of "Murder's" weekly whodunnit as sort of a prime-time audience participation show.

"I think that's the reason (the audience) likes it. It's because they get to solve the crime along with me - if they care to keep their eyes peeled and their ear to the ground they're going to pick up on those various clues that we're going to give them," she said. "And they look upon it like a crossword puzzle."

And while that element won't change, the series has a new executive producer - Peter Fischer has left the show and been replaced by David Moessinger - and new writers this season.

Under Fischer, "His whole thing was that he wanted to keep it a close-ended mystery. He was going toward the Agatha Christie mold . . . almost a sort of American Miss Marple," Lansbury said. "And he kept (Jessica) very much within those parameters, which precluded me from having any room to operate as an actress.

"I solved the crimes, I became the lovable person that the audience got to trust and enjoy solving the crime with, but it was a very compact and an extraordinarily successful format.

"But for me, an actress, I wanted . . . to open up other areas. . . . And I don't think it's going to tamper in any way with what Peter established in the first place."

She did acknowledge that, after seven years, "Murder, She Wrote" had perhaps grown a bit stale.

"I think we got a little bit tired, shall we say - plotwise and so on. And my involvement in the scripts became more and more difficult, and more implausible. The people I was deal with were implausible, for my money," she said.

"Now, I think you'll find that I will be more actively and more interestingly involved in the plots."

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A couple of years ago, CBS announced that this would be the season Lansbury would star in a new situation comedy for the network. And while that project fell through, it's still a possibility somewhere down the line.

"It's still very much in the back of my mind - sometimes in the front," the actress said. "If somebody comes to me with an incredible idea for a half hour, I might say, two years down the line, yes, I'd be interested in that. Or one year down the line."

Even if Lansbury does decide that this will be the last season for "Murder, She Wrote," in all likelihood it won't be the end of Jessica Fletcher.

"You know, I've always said that if I stopped doing the series, I'd like to do, maybe two or three (movies) a year like `Columbo," which I think would be the way to perpetuate the thing," she said.

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