Filmed in Atlanta, The Arly Hanks Mysteries screenplay was based on the book Malice in Magoddy, by Joan Hess. The Arly Hanks Mysteries pilot film premiered on August 20, 1994 on CBS Channel but didn't do well in ratings so it was not sold  for a TV series. "It's kind of like 'Picket Fences' and 'Northern Exposure,"' Kate Jackson explains. "It takes place in Arkansas. (My character has) been in New York living with my husband who ran off with a foot model. So I've gone back to Arkansas where my mother and this whole cast of characters live. I am the sheriff, entry-level position. It's an ensemble piece, so, hopefully, I won't have to be standing in front of the camera for it to turn."

The small town of Maggody, population 775, Stump County, Arkansas, has a new Police Chief – Arly Hanks (Kate Jackson), who has returned home from New York City after a messy divorce, her former husband having been shamefully found in bed with a foot model.

A high number of the inhabitants of Maggody carry the surname of Buchanan, which does tend to lead to a certain amount of confusion amongst visitors, especially as the most prominent member of this prolific and devious clan is Jim-Bob Buchanan (Ron Perlman), gas-station owner and larger-than-life Mayor of Maggody.

But Maggody is under threat. A strip-mining company is trying to set up business just outside town, and while Jim-Bob is a slippery character, his heart is in the right place – after a fashion. He and his two cronies, car salesman Hobert (Ray McKinnon) and teacher Larry-Joe (Harrison Page) begin to scheme and plot to prevent the company claiming the land. And so Jim-Bob approaches the delightfully scatty, good-hearted but beautiful Jay-Lee (Julie McCullough), a lady with a weakness for male company – any male company. Jim-Bob appeals to her sense of honour by telling her that she has to distract the company representative long enough for him to miss filing the claim, and then the town would be safe.

But things go dreadfully wrong when poor Jay-Lee turns up dead. Jim-Bob and his two friends kidnap the poor mining representative Drake, and it takes all of Arly’s deductive skills to solve the murder, involving - among other things – Withers, an escaped convict with a sugar buzz, a missing-presumed-dead hound dog, a skunk, and a desperate Drake in a dress ….