# What was the best episode of Columbo
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted
**Created:** [June 13, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126 "2022-06-13T19:33:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2022, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/41 "2022-06-19T06:36:52Z")
This is still my personal favorite, due to van Dyke doing a slow burn during the whole investigation, and the expression on his face when he realizes how Columbo tricked him into giving himself away.
_Now You See Him_ is a close second, mainly because Jack Cassidy plays such a smug SOB that you are just _dying_ for Columbo to catch him.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2022, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/42 "2022-06-19T07:54:33Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#):
>
> I haven’t seen all of the episodes, but my favorite is Columbo vs. Mensa Guy. My favorite scene is the one where he drives up to a junkyard murder scene and a police officer tells him he can’t drop off his car because it’s a crime scene.
Wasn’t this scene in “Negative Reaction” (the one with Dick van Dyke)?
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/43 "2022-06-21T13:13:12Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> Almost as good is the one in which Columbo goes to a Catholic mission and is assumed to be a homeless man.
This was also in “Negative Reaction.” Columbo was looking for the derelict who was passed out in a junkyard car when the murder was committed.
The nun who took pity on him was the murderer in another episode.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/44 "2022-06-21T13:14:03Z")
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/45 "2022-06-21T13:57:21Z")
I tend to rank Columbo episodes based largely on the quality of the villain–I liked all of Robert Culp’s appearances for example ( I think he had at least four.)
I _really_ like “An Exercise in Fatality”, that featured Robert Conrad as fitness mogul Milo Janus. The scene where Conrad is exercising on the beach and Columbo (breathlessly) tries to keep up with him to keep asking questions is great.
My favorite Robert Culp appearance is in “Double Exposure”, where he is the guy who is an expert in subliminal advertising, it features a lot of cool technology stuff for that era.
“By Dawn’s Early Light”, with Patrick McGoohan as a military school commandant, is also good–McGoohan won the Emmy for this appearance. McGoohan was in two other Columbo episodes–and won another Emmy for “Agenda For Murder.”
Anytime I think of Columbo retrospectively I’m struck by the “high quality” of the show’s production for TV at the time, when TV production in general was often low quality and cheap. They had tons of very high-quality actors as guest starring villains, they had a number of very big directors and writers behind many of the episodes as well.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/46 "2022-06-21T14:50:57Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Anytime I think of Columbo retrospectively I’m struck by the “high quality” of the show’s production for TV at the time, when TV production in general was often low quality and cheap. They had tons of very high-quality actors as guest starring villains, they had a number of very big directors and writers behind many of the episodes as well.
I agree, and I did always wonder if a lot of that was Falk, who had a terrific film career, calling on people/resources other shows couldn’t get.
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### Author:  [@Kelby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelby)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/47 "2022-06-21T15:30:55Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> I tend to rank Columbo episodes based largely on the quality of the villain–I liked all of Robert Culp’s appearances for example ( I think he had at least four.)
>
> I _really_ like “An Exercise in Fatality”, that featured Robert Conrad as fitness mogul Milo Janus. The scene where Conrad is exercising on the beach and Columbo (breathlessly) tries to keep up with him to keep asking questions is great.
>
> My favorite Robert Culp appearance is in “Double Exposure”, where he is the guy who is an expert in subliminal advertising, it features a lot of cool technology stuff for that era.
>
> “By Dawn’s Early Light”, with Patrick McGoohan as a military school commandant, is also good–McGoohan won the Emmy for this appearance. McGoohan was in two other Columbo episodes–and won another Emmy for “Agenda For Murder.”
>
> Anytime I think of Columbo retrospectively I’m struck by the “high quality” of the show’s production for TV at the time, when TV production in general was often low quality and cheap. They had tons of very high-quality actors as guest starring villains, they had a number of very big directors and writers behind many of the episodes as well.
As an aside, some of the panoramic shots of L.A. left me aghast with the amount of visible smog in the air.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/48 "2022-06-21T16:16:42Z")
Part of the show’s high quality was due to it not being a weekly series—they had a lot of time and money to do things right.
One of my favorite murderers was George Hamilton, as the psychiatrist who programmed Lesley Warren to jump off a balcony. As in many other roles (like the Snob Man in _ **MAD Magzine** _’s satire “The Guru of Ours”), Hamilton was excellent as a smarmy villain who was certain he could outfox Columbo.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/49 "2022-06-21T16:25:59Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> McGoohan was in two other Columbo episodes–and won another Emmy for “Agenda For Murder.”
I believe he was in a total of four—as the Commandant of a military school, a CIA agent and former fighter pilot, a funeral home director, and a Senator’s lawyer.
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### Author:  [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/50 "2022-06-21T17:50:03Z")
> [@icon](#):
>
> I think Monk would have the greater problem here. Columbo looks so disheveled that it would give Monk fits!
I would have loved to see a Monk/Columbo crossover episode for exactly that reason. How fun would it have been to watch Monk have to deal with Columbo’s messiness?
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> > [@Andy\_L](#):
> >
> > A lot of Columbo episodes involved “high tech” by the standards of the time - like a fancy typewriter in “Now You See Him” (1976), or a multiple line phone system in “Candidate for Murder” in 1971
>
> And a VCR to create an alibi in the first Shatner episode.
And a digital watch to establish an alibi in one episode (I forget which one).
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/51 "2022-06-21T18:04:20Z")
^The one where Oskar Werner murdered his mother-in-law and used a doctored videotape to throw the cops off. Oskar owned a lot of different gadgets in this one.
One I know I saw but don’t remember much of had a woman murder someone by igniting a gasoline fire just as the victim pulled into his (or her) driveway. Columbo knew the accident had been staged because the trail of burnt gasoline was a long one.
Like the episode with Johnny Cash, I never see this one repeated any more.
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### Author:  [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/52 "2022-06-21T21:14:21Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> One I know I saw but don’t remember much of had a woman murder someone by igniting a gasoline fire just as the victim pulled into his (or her) driveway. Columbo knew the accident had been staged because the trail of burnt gasoline was a long one.
That’s an early one, “Requiem for a Falling Star.”
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2022, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/53 "2022-06-21T21:54:15Z")
How many Columbo episodes have murderers or victims who are intended to be recognized as versions of particular people. Johnny Cash is a special case, since he’s playing a murderous version of himself, but there are others.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2022, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/54 "2022-06-22T03:51:58Z")
> [@Leaper](#):
>
> > [@terentii](#):
> >
> > One I know I saw but don’t remember much of had a woman murder someone by igniting a gasoline fire just as the victim pulled into his (or her) driveway. Columbo knew the accident had been staged because the trail of burnt gasoline was a long one.
>
> That’s an early one, “Requiem for a Falling Star.”
Thanks for the ID. 👍
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### Author:  [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2022, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/55 "2022-06-22T05:59:26Z")
The killer in “Murder, Smoke, and Shadows” is said to have been based on Steven Spielberg, but given that he directed the first episode and all, it always seemed kind of too mean spirited to be true (at least to me).
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### Author:  [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2022, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/56 "2022-06-22T11:04:47Z")
> [@Leaper](#):
>
> The killer in “Murder, Smoke, and Shadows” is said to have been based on Steven Spielberg
In Mind over Mayhem one of the characters was named Steve Spielberg. He was the boy genius.
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