Nicole Sullivan on Diagnosis Murder

"I'm going to be really pissed off if they don't show more Nicole Sullivan." - Number Six, about ten minutes into the airing of "Murder Most Vial"

In case you missed it, WXPN channel 31 recently rebroadcast an episode of Diagnosis Murder in which Nicole Sullivan made a guest appearance. Since this episode antedates Mad TV, I knew her role was likely to be a small one. And it was - in fact, her entire contribution was limited to about 30 seconds in the one of the show's opening scenes. (She played Nurse #1.) To add insult to injury, for some reason WXPN did not show the closing credits, so I didn't even get to see Ms. Sullivan's name in the credits. I spent most of the rest of the episode inveighing against the TV, demanding more Nicole Sullivan. But Number Six cannot alter the contents of televised reruns any more than Canute can change the tides. Still, even though this episode is not likely to satisfy any die-hard Nicole Sullivan fan, it means that I don't have a lot of work here. To put it as succinctly as possible, Nurse #1 (Nicole Sullivan) first appears about 43 seconds into the episode. She is the nurse in charge of reception; the camera zooms in on the soon-to-be murder victim, William Bissel (played ably by Ken Kercheval), and Nicole Sullivan is out of shot within 15 seconds of her first appearance. As the rest of the episode unfolds, Mr. Bissel, a publishing magnate, is murdered via a lethal injection; later on we find out that his wife and his heir-apparent at the publishing company conspired to commit the murder (sorry for spoiling the ending; sometimes the breaks in life can be tough).

Here's a movie of the scene (750 K).