Columbo Episode List and Synopses

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The TV Movie (based on a play)

(1)

Prescription: Murder (2/20/68)

Gene Barry and his girlfriend kill his wife, with girlfriend pretending to be the wife and storming off a plane that carries Barry. Columbo gets girlfriend to fake death, then she hears Gene Barry admit to Columbo that he was using her.

The Original Series [NBC]

(44 episodes)

Ransom For A Dead Man (3/1/71) [2hrs]

Lady attorney kills husband, fakes his kidnaping, throws bag of "money" out of helicopter, and stepdaughter tries weakly to frame her. Columbo has stepdaughter offer to be bought off with marked money. [Pilot for the series.]

Murder By The Book (9/15/71, directed by Steven Spielberg)

Jack Cassidy is the non-contributing half of a splitting-up mystery writing team who kills his collaborator. Columbo finds that the method used to do the killing was the planned, but never written, plot of one of the team's books.

Death Lends A Hand (10/6/71)

Kelly Robinson (okay, Robert Culp) runs PI shop, kills a client (Ray Milland)'s wife who he's blackmailing, and tries to help and hire Columbo. Columbo puts the car that transported the body out of commission and convinces Robert Culp, whose ring matches the victim's marks, that a contact lens fell out in the trunk, then catches him looking for it.

Dead Weight (10/27/71)

Emily Hartley (okay, Suzanne Pleshette) is in a boat and sees Oliver Wendell Douglas (okay, Eddie Albert) kill someone, but no body is found. Columbo finds that the marine war hero (Mr. Douglas) kept the murder gun on display in a museum because it was his trademark gun.

Suitable For Framing (11/17/71)

Artemus Gordon (okay, Ross Martin) is an art critic who kills uncle to get collection, but it's not willed to him and he knew it wasn't. Columbo finds that the murderer's aunt (the inheritor) planned to give the collection away. Murderer plants paintings in her house and urges a search "to clear her" but the paintings, when found, have Columbo's own fingerprints on them -- he had touched them when murderer was carrying them, disguised as simple watercolors.

Lady In Waiting (12/15/71)

Lady kills brother who won't let her date one of his employees because he thinks that Leslie Nielsen is just a gold-digger. She kills him after taking his key -- when he comes home late, she has the security system on and claims she awoke thinking he's a burglar. Columbo finds that Leslie heard the shots before the alarm.

Short Fuse (1/19/72)

Young inventor (Roddy McDowall) about to be forced out of the family chemical business uses exploding cigar box to kill his uncle and his detective/chauffer. Columbo claims the cigar box never exploded, and produces it while in a tram with the murderer, who panics.

Blueprint For Murder (2/9/72)

A famous architect murders a Texas tycoon (Forrest Tucker) whose wife wants to back an enormous building project, and hides body. Columbo is convinced it is in the foundation of the building and has it dug up on urging from murderer. When murderer retrieves body to place into hole before re-filling, Columbo is there waiting for him.

Etude In Black (9/17/1972)

Orchestra conductor kills mistress before concert. Columbo finds he lost his lapel carnation at the murder site, uses TV footage to prove it, and the murderer's wife refuses to back up his alibi that he put on the flower after the concert.

The Greenhouse Jungle (10/15/72)

Ray Milland kills nephew after collecting ransom for phony kidnaping, then tries to pin it on nephew's wife. Columbo finds bullet in dirt proving frame used orchid grower's gun.

The Most Crucial Game (11/5/72)

Kelly Robinson again (okay, Robert Culp again) kills football team owner Al Calavivvi (okay, Dean Stockwell) during game. Columbo proves phone call (taped with Culp's secret knowledge by attorney for Al's should-be suspicious wife) not made from stadium box because clock chimes not heard.

Dagger Of the Mind (11/26/72)

Columbo is in London and solves murder committed by husband/wife Shakespearean acting team by eventually planting a pearl from a strand broken in the commission of the murder in the umbrella of the deceased, who has been enshrined in a wax museum.

Requiem For A Falling Star (1/21/73)

Former movie queen kills her secretary in an automobile fire, leading Columbo to believe the true target was a gossip writer. In truth, though, she was afraid her secretary would tell the gossip writer that the movie star killed her husband long ago and buried him in the backyard. Columbo suspects the truth, gets a shriner's ring that he claims was found near the gossip writer when she tries (for show) to run him down, and this makes the murderess run home to check the backyard.

A Stitch In Crime (2/11/73)

Spock is a heart specialist who is more ambitious than his weak-hearted colleague. So he uses dissolving suture while operating on him, but a nurse suspects, so he kills her in the parking lot. Columbo finds she was on to something, so Spock tries to throw suspicion on a former drug addict, who he then also kills after drugging up. But Columbo suspects the truth, so Spock has to induce an attack in his victim and operate to replace the suture, saving his life (Columbo saves the life of the intended victim). Columbo watches the operation and finds the replaced suture planted by the doctor on Columbo himself.

The Most Dangerous Match (3/4/73)

Deaf World Chess Champion kills the former champion who has returned to reclaim his title after finding that he cannot beat him. The initial murder attempt (a push into a garbage crusher) fails, and is followed up by providing improper medication after memorizing at a glance the list of his prescriptions to be given him at the hospital. Columbo finds out why the initial attempt fails -- the garbage crusher turns off automatically -- and concludes that only a deaf man would unwittingly leave the job unfinished. [Columbo is present at the death of the victim.]

Double Shock (3/25/73)

Rollin Hand (okay, Martin Landau) and his identical twin brother kill their uncle before he can marry a young wife and disinherit them. Turns out he already has, though, so they kill her and frame their lawyer. Columbo proves they electrocuted him using TV outage information obtained from high-strung maid and timing data that proved they had to work as a team.

Lovely But Lethal (9/23/73)

Cosmetics queen kills chemist when he won't give her an anti-wrinkle formula. She kills her industrial spy, a secretary for a competitor, when she begins to suspect the truth and blackmail the murderess. Columbo contracts poison ivy and determines it came from a broken slide from the murder weapon -- a telescope. The murderess has poison ivy too.

Any Old Port In A Storm (10/7/73)

Donald Pleasance suffocates brother, owner of the winery he runs, by tying him in the wine cellar (with the air turned off) then disposing of body after return from trip. Columbo learns hot weather had ruined the wines in the cellar.

Candidate For A Crime (11/4/73)

Political candidate kills his manager for being too controlling, and tries to make it look like an angry detractor did the deed. Columbo hounds him and he feels forced to fake an attempt on his own life to convince the police that he is being stalked. He uses the same gun, but Columbo finds the spent bullet in the hotel wall hours before the candidate fakes the assassination attempt.

Double Exposure (12/16/73)

Kelly Robinson (okay, Robert Culp yet again) is a human behavior expert who kills a client that was going to expose his blackmailing tactics. He kills him by feeding him salty caviar with no drink and subjecting him to subliminal movie frames inducing him to leave the screening to get a drink of water. Robert Culp shoots him while an audio tape gives him an alibi in the screening. Columbo suspects the truth, but has no proof until he uses subliminal cuts of himself, inspecting various spots in the murderer's office. This induces Robert Culp to go check the lampshade hiding place of the calibration converter that he used in the murder.

Publish Or Perish (1/18/74)

Jack Cassidy (again; this makes two) is publisher "Riley Greenleaf," and he kills Mickey Spillane because he was going to leave him for another publisher. Hires a would-be author who is a bomb expert to commit the murder and frame him, but an alibi is proven for him by an auto accident he caused. He tries to prove the murderer did it alone by killing him and planting an outline of the dead author's manuscript on him, claiming it was the bomb expert's idea to begin with, nine months ago, but the truth is that Zarabeth only came up with the ending in the outline a week ago. [Columbo mentions "Candidate for a Crime" in this episode.]

Mind Over Mayhem (2/10/74)

Director of a think-tank kills an associate to protect the fact that the killer's son is a scientific fraud. He uses a whiz-kid's project, Robby the Robot, to run his experiment while he commits the murder. Columbo can't prove it so he frames Charlie X and his dad confesses.

Swan Song (3/3/74)

Johnny Cash, a gospel singer, kills his sister(?) Ida Lupino, who was taking all his money for building a church and putting the kibosh on his sexual excapades. He crashes the plane he's flying her in after drugging her and he parachutes to safety. Columbo gets him to go retrieve the parachute by starting a big search, and outsmarts him when he says he is going out of town (rather than look for any parachute) because he doesn't return his rental car, so Columbo knows he's returning, and stakes out the mountainside.

A Friend In Deed (5/5/74)

Police Commissioner's neighbor accidentally kills his wife. Commissioner helps him cover up by blaming murder on a cat burglar, and then he kills his own (rich) wife and gets the first neighbor to return the favor while he patrols neighborhood by helicopter. Columbo suspects a frame, learns Commissioner's wife was killed in bathtub not pool, and gets the Commissioner to plant evidence in a decoy apartment.

An Exercise In Fatality (9/15/74)

Pappy Boyington (okay, Robert Conrad) is the owner of a health spa and gymnasium chain who kills a franchisee who was about to expose fraud. He sets it up to look like a barbell fell on him, and uses a tape to convince his secretary that he is talking to him from his home later, and that he is told by the victim that he has changed to exercise clothes and is exercising. Columbo finds that the dead man's shoelaces were tied backwards, proving that he was dressed by his killer, and the murderer is the only one who knew that he had changed.

Negative Reaction (10/6/74)

Robert Petrie (no, wait, Dr. Mark Sloan, no wait Dick Van Dyke) kills "kidnaped" wife, using ex-con as decoy. Columbo uses reversed photo to get Dick to identify the camera used to take picture of his "kidnaped" wife.

By Dawn's Early Light (10/27/74)

Military school owner plans to convert to co-ed, but general kills him at Founder's Day, making it look like accident caused by trouble-making soldier's poor cannon-cleaning job. But his presence at the cannon is proven by his action against the makers of a student still that was only visible at that time. [Patrick McGoohan won an Emmy for playing the murderer.]

Troubled Waters (2/9/75)

Columbo goes on a cruise. Passenger Napoleon Solo (okay, Robert Vaughn) fakes heart-attack, kills lounge singer while in sickbay. Columbo finds pillow feather, suspects murderer despite his frame of Al (we, I mean Dean Stockwell), a lounge drummer, and convinces the murderer to plant surgical gloves with powder marks. Columbo then finds Robert Vaughn's fingerprints inside the gloves.

Playback (3/2/75)

Oskar Werner is an electronics firm President who is running his mother-in-law's company into the ground, so he kills her in his electronics-laden house, showing a videotape of the murder to the security guard after he's left for a party. Columbo finds that the murderer's wife's automatic door opened by noise control at the true time of the crime and that the invitation to the party he attended is visible on the desk in the videotape.

A Deadly State Of Mind (4/27/75)

Hypnotist accidentally kills his patient/lover's husband to protect the book he is writing using her, then has her cover for him. Columbo sees through her story so George Hamilton hypnotizes her and gets her to leap off a balcony to her death. Columbo sees through this, but cannot prove her death a homicide. He does locate a blind man who was present when George Hamilton sped away from the original murder scene, and gets George Hamilton to be an eyewitness against himself when he is caught calling the blind man's sighted brother (who Columbo has stand in for the true witness) a blind man.

Forgotten Lady (9/14/75)

Janet Leigh is an aging dancer who plans a comeback funded by her husband but he won't pay, so she kills him while watching a movie in her downstairs screening room. Makes it look like suicide by leaving locked room via window, but broken film repair job outs her. Columbo lets her old partner take the fall for her because she's dying. [Only episode in which a murderer goes unarrested.]

A Case Of Immunity (10/12/75)

Hector Elizondo is a diplomat for an Arab country who kills embassy guard for state money to promote a rebellion against progressive king. Columbo can't prove he did it, and is forced to apologize, but gets killer to confess (he's immune) by claiming to be beat. The king listens in.

Identity Crisis (11/2/75)

Detective Frank Drebin (okay, Leslie Nielsen) is a spy killed by his disguised runner while the murderer was supposedly dictating a speech in his office. Columbo finds that the speaker used knowledge about Chinese Olympic withdrawal he couldn't possibly have had until the morning.

A Matter Of Honor (2/1/76)

Mr. Rourke (okay, Ricardo Montalban) is a retired bullfighter in Mexico who raises bulls but now freezes up in the ring. An assistant knows of his fear, so he shoots him with a tranquilizer dart and has a bull gore him. Columbo realizes the timing is wrong because the cape the victim was supposedly using wasn't wet down for strong winds at the supposed murder time, and Khan pre-arranged for use of a car he would only drive without the victim before he could know the victim wasn't coming. Columbo gets him in the ring where his fear is exposed to all, proving his motive.

Now You See Him (2/29/76)

Jack Cassidy (yes, this makes three) is a magician who commits murder while in the middle of a water tank escape trick. Uses walkie-talkie trick to create alibi that he was downstairs accepting wine from a waiter.

Last Salute To The Commodore (5/2/76)

Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn again) kills his father in law, a naval architect. No wait, he doesn't. He thinks his wife did, so he covers it up to protect her inheritance. But it's someone else in the end, who Columbo basically never talked to. It's a really crappy episode. I mean it.

Fade In To Murder (10/10/76)

T.J. Hooker (okay, William Shatner) is a TV detective whose producer is blackmailing half his salary from him for being a Korean war deserter. He wears a ski mask and kills her in a fake robbery while using videotape and a drugged, TV-watching, companion to create an alibi. Columbo finds that Captain Kirk didn't wipe the fingerprints from the bullets he put into the prop gun.

Old Fashioned Murder (11/28/76)

Celeste Holm runs a museum and kills domineering brother, framing a security guard and making it look like an attempted robbery foiled, ending in a simultaneous shooting. But she turned off the light when she left the scene, and Columbo knows a double-murder would be impossible in the dark. When she tries to plant a "stolen" museum piece on her neice, Columbo finds that the piece wasn't stolen at all, using an inventory record made the night of the murder.

The Bye Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case (5/22/77)

Sigma (Mensa-type) society member and CPA Oliver Brandt kills his partner to hide embezzlement. Uses computerized phonograph, umbrella, squibs, and falling dictionary to create alibi that he was downstairs with other society members.

Try And Catch Me (10/21/77)

Ruth Gordon, a mystery writer, kills husband of her neice to avenge her murder. Locks him in safe and he suffocates, but he leaves a dying clue in the form of the altered title page to the murderer's latest novel stuffed in the light bulb socket. [Probably the most "Columbo-like" episode in that Columbo's mannerisms are in very good evidence.]

Murder Under Glass (1/30/77)

Extorting critic kills restaurateur with poisoned wine. Columbo fakes being poisoned after he figures it out?

Make Me A Perfect Murder (2/28/78)

TV executive kills boss/lover when he refuses to promote her with him. She uses the alibi of having to change the reels on a film she is airing for studio heads. Columbo finds the gun she hid in the elevator's ceiling, and re-hides it there in plain sight, causing her to retrieve it.

How To Dial A Murder (4/15/78)

Man kills wife using trained dogs. Columbo figures out the word ("Rosebud") then retrains the dogs.

The Conspirators (5/13/78)

Irish author/gun runner kills supplier for supplying both sides. Columbo uses marked whiskey bottle and also uncovers gun-running plot by its needlepoint flag.

The Second Series [ABC]

(20 episodes)

Columbo Goes To The Guillotine (2/6/89)

Fake psychic kills magician/exposer with a rigged guillotine. Columbo figures out all his tricks, discovering his motive, and gets killer to incriminate himself by attempting to kill Columbo with trick guillotine that Columbo has, of course, pre-rigged for safety.

Murder, Smoke And Shadows (2/27/89)

Young film director kills old friend who learns of director's involvement in death (on movie set) of the friend's sister. Electrocutes him on wet brownstone set, but Columbo finds shoe heel, tour ticket bookmark, and sees through staged clues intended to throw him off. Columbo stages scene with director and his secretary, getting evidence of guilt.

Sex And The Married Detective (4/3/89)

Sex clinic doctor kills partner/lover for cheating by sneaking out of a society function in disguise and roleplaying a hooker. Columbo...

Grand Deceptions (5/1/89)

Robert Foxworth kills the figurehead of the military think tank he runs to cover up his misuse of a special project fund. His alibi is that he was setting up birthday present -- the general's Civil War miniatures. Columbo notices that a miniature is accidentally behind the books, and finds that murderer's claim that the miniatures arrived only just before the party is belied by the fact that the other half of the present -- the books -- fit in the later-arriving box, but not in the earlier-arriving box.

Murder, A Self Portrait (1989)

Control-freak artist kills his ex-wife while painting something for a bar owner. Columbo realizes there are no paint-stains where he was painting, finds that the victim was suppressing knowledge of the killer's responsibility for killing his agent years ago, and at the last minute discloses a truly major screw-up by the killer who deprived his victim of consciousness using a paint rag that stained her lips with his trademark color.

Columbo Cries Wolf (1989)

Men's magazine publishing team stages Diedre Hall's fake murder, uses Columbo to get publicity, then actual murder occurs. Columbo finds body second time using beeping wrist pager.

Agenda For Murder (1990)

Oscar Finch, would-be Attorney General, kills old client who can prove past judicial misdeeds. Columbo finds he walked in rain and wasn't at office, then nails him with teeth marks on cheese cube he ate at the scene of the crime.

Rest In Peace, Mrs. Columbo (1990)

Widow of murderer put away by Columbo kills her boss and plots to kill Columbo's wife then Columbo. Columbo gets her to confess by pretending his wife is dead and he is poisoned.

Uneasy Lies The Crown (1990)

Dentist kills wife's boyfriend to save partnership with monied father-in-law by poison under a dental crown. Columbo bluffs that this would have discolored the corpse's tooth, evincing a confession.

Murder In Malibu (1990)

Romance writer is killed twice by fiancee. Columbo finds he put her panties on wrong.

Columbo Goes to College (1990)

Pair of college boys kill professor with remote control TV and truck-mounted gun. Columbo leaks decoy car i.d. and location to them, and they plant gun in it to pin murder on security guard's brother.

Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous To Your Health (1991?)

George Hamilton is the star of an "America's Most Wanted" type of show. He kills the TV reporter who wants his job because he's being blackmailed for being in a skin flick with an underage girl. He puts nicotine sulfate in the chain-smoker's cigarettes, but Columbo notices the unpoisoned cigarettes that he planted were not smoked and that the victim left no fingerprints on the backside of a page torn from his printer. Columbo breaks his alibi because the hedges in front of his office (as recorded on the surveillance tape he used to prove his presence there) were trimmed the morning after the murder.

Columbo And The Murder Of A Rock Star (1991)

Dabney Coleman kills his live-in rock star girlfriend who was threatening palimony suit. Frames her boyfriend, but uses a two-star champagne cork in a one-star bottle. Then he pulls out a photo traffic ticket for use as an alibi, but Columbo proves it's just his new partner wearing a mask.

Death Hits The Jackpot (1991)

Man's uncle collects lottery prize for him, then kills him before a masquerade party. Columbo proves murder with monkey fingerprint on uncle's costume medallion.

No Time To Die (3/15/1992)

[The absolute worst Columbo ever made, hands down. No question.] Psycho kidnaps Columbo's nephew's new wife, a famous model, on wedding night. Columbo spends all night and next day tracking down the criminal. Change the channel. Really.

A Bird In The Hand (1992)

Football team owner killed by hit-and-run driver (his wife) right before his nephew(?) would have killed him with a car-bomb that eventually killed the gardener. Columbo finds that the nephew winced before the car bomb exploded. The nephew is murdered by the wife, since he is blackmailing her, but Columbo finds that he wasn't on his way out of town and that he had a lot of money, proving that Cagney or Lacey (I could never remember which was which) had lied to the cops about the circumstances of his death. [In this episode, Columbo witnesses a murder that he solves.]

It's All In the Game (1993)

Faye Dunaway and her daughter kill a gold-digger who was seeing them both after he threatens to kill the daughter (that Babylon 5 lady). Columbo pretends to be romantically interested in Faye Dunaway through the investigation. Clues like melted ice (due to electricity being turned off) and phone calls to the daughter lead him to the daughter, and this convinces Faye Dunaway to confess, and Columbo cuffs her.

Butterfly In Shades Of Gray (1994)

William Shatner is a radio talk show host who kills one of his staffers because he was trying to break Shatner's stepdaughter away from him. His alibi is that he talking to the victim on the phone and the answering machine taped it. Columbo realizes the cell phone he used to call 911 doesn't penetrate the mountains, so Kirk was actually on the victim's extension.

Undercover (1994?)

Columbo goes undercover in various disguises to track down pieces of a photograph pinpointing location of bank robbery loot. Each possessor ends up dead as he finds them, leading him to conclude (with help of fingerprinted coin in a parking meter) that Ed Begley, Jr., the insurance investigator, did it. [Far and away the second-worst Columbo.]

Strange Bedfellows (1995)

Horse farm owner (Norm) kills brother because of mob debts. The dead brother had told his girlfriend about the fixed race, which Norm had secretly "un"fixed before killing his brother. Then Norm kills the bookie, who he had framed for his brother's murder (claiming self-defense, saying the bookie had come after him for the debts). Rod Steiger, the mob boss, knows about the dead bookie's ironclad alibi, and deduces that Norm killed his brother, and offers to race Columbo to get Norm. Columbo gets Rod Steiger to harrass and scare Norm until he confesses to Columbo in order to keep from being snuffed.

Mystery Episodes [ABC, if anything]

(1 -- well actually, probably 0)

The Juggler

The Internet Movie Database has listed this episode name, but I am uncertain that this is reliable.

The 25th Anniversary Special [ABC]

(1)

A Trace of Murder (5/15/97)

Forensics expert kills a rival of his lover's rich husband to set up a frame. Columbo finds that the two know each other, that the cigar butt he left at crime scene was cut improperly, and that the cat hair and fiber on the Northern Exposure guy's jacket back was put there by his wife. Although he explains all the easy clues, the tricky one (that the forensic expert could not have seen the cigar butt, as he claimed, when first examining the crime scene, because of the cat's escape out the front door) was left unmentioned. For a new Columbo, not bad, but too much was laid out, and too easily. Were it an old Columbo, the non-sugar sweetener and the cat's escape would be all that were provided. The jacket back, the preference of the wife for riding in the front seat, and the fact that the cigar butt was wrongly cut wouldn't have been included. [Classic quote: Columbo asks murderer for help with something, saying, "Three eyes are better than one."]

Another Special [ABC]

(1)

Ashes to Ashes (10/8/98)

Patrick McGoohan (who once again directs the action) is a Beverly Hills funeral director, who has become rich and famous selling secrets about the dearly departed to his former paramour, a gossip show host (Rue McClanahan). She, angry at being dumped, finds out that he made his career by having stolen a diamond necklace off a movie queen's corpse a long time ago, and she tells him (stupid) that she's going to announce it on-air. So he kills her. He exchanges her body for that of a real-life soldier who made it big on the silver screen in war movies, and cremates it. When a thin guy dies, McGoohan packs the war hero in the same coffin as the thin guy and cremates them together. Columbo learns about the necklace from some clues left by Rue McClanahan (computer timing didn't mesh properly with an unfed dog, negative of a photo she had taken with her to the funeral home, etc.) and Columbo proves McGoohan had switched bodies when he finds shrapnel in the thin guy's urn. Pretty good for a new Columbo, but once again the coverup, not the crime, is what is planned. (I guess I like it much better the other way.) From dates mentioned in the episode, this movie was apparently filmed in 1997 and scheduled for airing in October of that year (rather than in October of 1998). A further clue supporting this (and perhaps an explanation for why its airing was delayed so long) is that Sonny Bono (who was alive at the time of filming, but who died in January of 1998) was mentioned twice as having attended the war hero's funeral.

And Another Special [ABC]

(1)

Murder With Too Many Notes (3/12/2001)

Patrick McGoohan again directs; this time his wife Anne is in it. The villian is Billy Connolly, the Scottish (or, as my kids would say, Scotlish) actor who I remember as the guy who ruined what was already a real crappy TV show called "Head of the Class." He convinced me he's that a creditable actor in this Columbo, though. He plays a movie score composer whose success is owed entirely to his uncredited apprentice. The apprentice (and victim) has an unfortunate habit of conducting from the roof of the recording studio, while listening to a miked studio below where the maestro conducts the orchestra. The "Head of the Class" guy uses this against him when exposure is threatened. He drugs the tuxedo-clad apprentice (who had received a congratulatory gift -- a baton -- from his girlfriend the night of what would be his big debut), who falls when rendered unconscious, opening a cut on his wrist (where Columbo later finds evidence of the drug in the blood), then puts the victim on the roof after putting his shoes onto him. As the culprit is being introduced for the concert, he sets off an elevator which opens the trapdoor on the roof, tipping the victim over the edge of the roof to his death. This is perhaps the best of the new Columbo episodes. The killer actually plans the murder, which is a very refreshing change -- I expected another very non-Columbo'ish crime of passion. Columbo wastes little time, and the clues, while sometimes basically pointed at by the camera work, are clever enough. Columbo cannot locate the victim's conducting baton until he learns of the elevator, then puts the crime together (the baton slipped down a crack exposed by the opening trapdoor and was found in the elevator). The victim's reluctance to wear tuxedo shoes was also a nice turn, which allowed Columbo to deduce that the victim's shoes were put on by a killer. Although it was missing the traditional final challenge of the accused ("sure, it's a great story, Lieutenant, but can you prove it?") after which Columbo pulls out the final proof (something I really wished it had, to be honest), the episode did end on a very touching note for what may well be the final Columbo ever made -- as the camera pulls away, Columbo is taught to play his ever-present whistling tune and theme song, "This Old Man", on the piano.

And Another Special [ABC]

(1)

Columbo Likes the Nightlife (1/30/2003)

I missed it! Aauugghh! But Mike Longo sent me a copy (thanks, Mike!) and here's my report. For a new Columbo, it really isn't half bad. It's sure no match for the original series, but it beats "No Time to Die" by about a hundred country miles. This apparently absolutely final episode in the series (long may it re-run) has our hero (who, I am sad to report, looks like he may have undergone a little -- far and away too much -- facial vanity surgery) solve the murder of a mob financier who finds out his ex-wife is seeing his investment partner, the owner of a nightclub that is about to open. Well, actually Columbo solves the cover-up of his accidental death (boo, hiss! no meticulous planning to expose; I hate that; it's like the writers of the new series didn't understand the key element of Columbo was watching for the mistakes in a well-laid plan). There is plenty of real detective work in the episode, but the final proof is, if you ask me, a bit unfair. Columbo is able to conclude from the fact that one of the fishtanks in the floor of the new nightclub has fewer fish in it that it must have a dead body inside. An infrared camera confirms it. As I say, unless I watch it again and see that there is sufficient camera time spent on the different tanks, and sufficient explanation about the tanks being identical in size, I don't think the audience was given a fair chance to find the solution. Over all, though, not a bad finish for the rumpled detective.