Was the plot of BE lifted from an episode of Murder, She Wrote?

[John Bailey]

No, but this jokey wrap-up has plenty of echoes, and the episode in
question was from 1993:
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/underwire_0402_murdershewrote/

In a way, I might be more able to forgive BE's portrayal of the 2001
internet as some kind of magical transcendent space of possibility if
I think of the book as depicting the dominant mood of the era in
fictions such as this (there were no shortage), rather than anything
in meatspace. I mean, DeepArcher's closest referents (eg Second Life)
weren't nearly as interesting as DA is supposed to be. But the
entertainment industry had a lot of us believing that credible virtual
realities were just around the corner.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l