Salzmank

Escape acts aren’t really my thing, but for whatever reason Miranda Allen’s escape was my favorite act this episode. It certainly wasn’t the “friendship” thing, which kind of seemed shoehorned in there… I’m not sure exactly; maybe it just felt unexpectedly exciting, well-staged. Iñaki Zabaletta and Keith Kong seemed to have impressive methods that took a lot of hard work, but (speaking as a non-magician) neither one wowed me. With Zabaletta, I’m thinking that was because of the lack of patter; if Ricky Jay (or Penn & Teller!), say, had done this trick, he would have told a story around it, gotten us emotionally involved. I highly admire technique, but a large portion of magic is also showmanship. (Cue The Prestige references.) I liked Guilherme Silveira, thought the showmanship was actually good, but the method seemed kind of obvious, largely because the e-mail was so weird and so much can be done with technology. (Watch, I’m wrong.) P&T were fun, as ever.

I'm a big fan of the show, but I can’t really disagree with anything you’ve written here. It was the wrong decision to kill off Poole, the show is repetitive (and extremely formulaic), the soap-operatics often seem forced, dull. Even the mystery-plotting—my primary interest in the show—hasn’t been really that good for several reasons. And yet I just enjoy it: the good cheer, the good settings, how nothing’s ever too dark (knock on wood), the humor. So I’m going to keep watching; Rolf Little, the latest DI, has really lifted my hopes for this show, acting- and humor-wise. Hope the plots start (re)improving…

Sorry to take so long to respond, but no worries! Agreed that Madeleine and Catherine look more like mother and daughter than Camille and Catherine. Oh, and BTW: I keep wishing they’d give Catherine more to do… She’s a lot of fun!

Just rewatched Prescription: Murder last night for the first time in years, and it makes my list. Columbo here is younger, less bumbling, harsher, more quick to anger; Falk (as ever) gives an exceptional performance, letting us see how Columbo would have been if they hadn’t retooled the character. Gene Barry’s murderer is almost unbearably smug, but he’s also much smarter than many of the killers on the show: he sees through Columbo’s bumbling act act right away. The plot is diabolically ingenious, full of twists and turns before the show became formula-based (admittedly, it’s great formula, but still). Columbo doesn’t really have a clue at the end—but the trap he sets up is brilliant. We get to see the Lieutenant working more closely with other cops, and with the department, than later on, and it shows just how good a police officer he is. Barry’s acting is as good as Falk’s, and he’s definitely one of the best Columbo killers. The conversation between the two foes is beautifully written, witty, clever dialogue; this whole thing could have been a play (and is clearly inspired by Dial ‘M’ for Murder). Definitely makes my Top 5—but, oy, what to bump?! EDIT: It was a play. Y’know, I actually think I knew that…

Hoping to get this thread up and going again after almost a year… Early this morning, I had a dream in which my best friend is leaving the country the next day, and we want to do something together. We go out to a beach where the waves crash over the boardwalk, and then we go back to my house (apparently—doesn’t look like it). There we meet a very pretty young woman with flaxen hair who’s apparently a princess! She tells us there’s a buried treasure in my basement. So we three go down there and end up in a long stone hallway. At the end is a wooden chest, but when we open it we see not treasure but a jump rope, board games, and keys. We take the keys (one of which has a square on the end where the “teeth” would be), walk to the end of the hall and turn the corner, and go over to an old-fashioned washer-dryer. My friend is trying to figure out how to put the square-key in and gets frustrated; I eventually figure out you have to push some buttons and put the square-key in a bottom slot. I don’t know what putting the key in actually does, but I think it made the washing machine swing out, a trick door to a secret passageway. Before we go in (or anything), though, I say to my friend, “Do you have to go?” He says, “It’s not till later tomorrow. We can keep looking now.” Soon after that I wake up—both excited and, more than anything, sad. For some reason I feel that I’ve forgotten a part of my life, a Goonies-esque adventurous part. I want to keep searching, I want to meet the girl, I don’t want my friend to leave. I’d like to know why the dream, which seems fun looking back at it now, seemed so painful and so poignant when I woke up. Any thoughts on it greatly appreciated.

It would be yikes indeed if I’d meant that, but I didn’t: Madeleine looks and is outfitted exactly like Camille, as I think my context clearly indicates.

OK, I remember writing some pretty negative stuff about the show the last time I commented here…and I still think that to some degree it lost its way when Ben Miller left, despite some excellent post-Miller episodes (“Stab in the Dark,” for one). Unfortunately, I didn’t really like Kris Marshall’s Humphrey Goodman, though I warmed up to him a bit more as time went by, and I thought Ardal O’Hanlan’s Jack Mooney could have been great if the writers had kept him Columbo-y (superficially bumbling and rambling, in reality as sharp as a whip) but was instead fairly colorless. (Also: whatever happened to his daughter? That whole plot line was a mess.) As I’ve noted above, the episodes written by show creator Robert Thorogood tend to be far and away the best, both on the mystery and characterization fronts. (I’m guessing he’s created each DI character, not just Poole? He always writes each DI’s introductory episode.) I am glad to say, however, that the show has won back my support on the character level. I like Ruby—surprisingly, as I expected her to be annoying—I like J.P., and I really like new DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little). Largely that’s because Parker restores the Poole dynamic: he’s not as stick-in-the-mud as Poole, but he’s not comfortable in the Caribbean setting, as Goodman and Mooney were. The whole point of the show, especially its comedy, is fish-out-of-water. Making Goodman and Mooney likable fellows who wanted to and eventually did blend in with Caribbean life made some sense because they didn’t want to copy Poole, but it deprived the show of its whole raison d’être. So Parker’s pettiness and (realistic!) quirkiness are a breath of fresh air. Little himself is excellent: sometimes I felt Marshall and O’Hanlan couldn’t sell the soap-operatics in addition to the humor, but Little can and does. The last episode I saw, “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t” (S9:E8), has some clichéd dialogue that manages to sound believable because of Little (and, in one key scene, guest star Frances Tomelty). Florence’s replacement, Madeleine Dumas (Aude Legastelois), is easy on the eyes but, unfortunately, not all that great an actress (maybe because of the language barrier?). Possibly because of that, the writers give her hardly anything to do. Heck, I’d bet Ruby gets more to say and do. Hilariously, Madeleine sounds and is outfitted exactly like Camille, to the point that I thought they were going to reveal she’s Camille’s never-before-mentioned sister. (Catherine, you didn’t tell us!) With how similar Parker and Madeleine are to Poole and Camille, it looks like Thorogood is trying to recreate the original season’s dynamic. Especially eight seasons later, I approve. I’m happier on the character than on the mystery front: even the last Thorogood-penned episode, “Switcharoo” (S9:E5), totally lacked clues despite a great idea (largely taken from Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun). Still, I’m getting reinvested in the show after dithering on whether or not I wanted to keep watching.

🤣 Touché, touché!

Yup!

Anyone seen last summer’s Mysteries Decoded with supposed actress/private eye/Navy vet Jennifer Marshall on The CW (Channel 11 for me)? Looks like it hasn’t been renewed for a second season, and rightly so: in many ways it’s a pretty awful show. Marshall’s not all that great a host, her sidekicks—particularly the guy in the Montauk MonTOCK Project episode—are jawdroppingly irritating, and the mysteries themselves are the basic ones that you see on every TV paranormal show (Lizzie Borden, Salem Witch Trials, Bermuda Triangle). In its Bigfoot episode, however, the show reached some kind of perverse brilliance. Marshall and her sidekick du jour meet up with some Bigfoot-hunters in the Pacific Northwest. That night, Bigfoot apparently rips down some tree branches and conveniently leaves other evidence of his existence. OK. The funny part is you can tell while watching that the Bigfoot-hunters are faking the evidence. Of course the show never tells you that, Marshall and sidekick treat it like it’s the most serious thing in the world, but you the viewer can piece the unintentional onscreen clues together and determine they’re totally faking it. It’s hilarious, the episode is basically an inadvertent mystery for the viewer to solve. It’s actually pretty enjoyable.

OK, reducing this long list from a year ago to a Top 5, as I’ve done with Columbo in its thread. I tend to prefer the mystery stuff over the soap-opera stuff—though Monk usually did the soap operatics well, largely because Shalhoub is such a good actor. “Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger” (S1:E7)—the kneepads are one of the best clues in any mystery TV show. One of the handful of Monks that demonstrate that, at the show’s best, its plots could be just as clever as anything from Death in Paradise or Jonathan Creek. “…Goes to the Ballgame” (S2:E3)—another ingenious cryptic clue: “Girls Can’t Eat 15 Pizzas”! Perhaps the best usage of the much-used-in-Monk Six Napoleons trick. “…and the Sleeping Suspect” (S2:E7)—some of the show’s best plotting, and its trickiest alibi. The trick is a bit unbelievable, but the sheer audacity of it is a delight, and it is fair-play. “…and the Garbage Strike” (S5:E2)—hilarious! One of the show’s funniest episodes, and the Alice Cooper cameo comes out of nowhere in the best possible way. Plot’s not half bad either. Just great. “…Is Up All Night” (S6:E9)—brilliant. The identity of the killer is not the shocker, but every element on which we thought the plot turned is wrong, with a hidden narrative underlying the narrative we saw. The last twist, about the woman with whom Monk is obsessed, is a bit unbelievable but emotionally and dramatically satisfying. Also: again, hilarious. Gah, but what about such gems as “…Takes a Vacation,” “…and the Airplane” (the Wings stuff is a hoot), “…and the Three Pies,” “…and the Secret Santa,” “…Goes to the Dentist,” and “…and the Genius”? This is hard.

EVEN MORE BRILLIANT! 😄

I like “Last Salute to the Commodore” as well, but we may be the only people who do—it tends to be one of the lowest-rated Columbo episodes! 😉 Admittedly, my fondness for it is more plot-based than anything else: I like how we’re led to think Vaughn is the killer based purely on our preconceptions about the show, without actually seeing him kill anyone. The trick would have worked even better with Robert Culp, though, because of how often Culp was a Columbo murderer! Otherwise, I think it’s OK, and I like the scenes you mention as well. If I had to guess, many fans just don’t like the playing with formula—which I get, but here I think it’s done well.

Oh, and as much as the writers’ decision to make Disher an imbecile irritates me, I just have to paste that video @LexieLily mentions above. It’s a hoot:

OK, speaking of a Top 5, here’s mine (no particular order). For me, the best Columbos have clever plotting (surprises, detective-work, and final clue), good dialogue, a good pace, and a memorable murderer. (Falk is always good, so the quality of his acting in the show isn’t even a question! 😉 ) “A Stitch in Crime” (S2:E6)—fans tend to be split on whether or not Columbo actually loses his temper (and bumbling façade). I tend to think he does, which makes the episode stronger, especially as Dr. Leonard Nimoy’s murder method is so diabolically ingenious. “Any Old Port in a Storm” (S3:E2)—a fan favorite, and I agree. The mutual respect between Pleasance’s vintner-murderer and Columbo is what makes the episode, but the final clue is one of those great “OF COURSE!” moments. Pleasance is at his best; he restrains his overacting impulses and delivers an excellent characterization. “By Dawn’s Early Light” (S4:E3)—Patrick McGoohan! Excellent comedy, combined with a memorable motive and method (exploding cannon!). McGoohan and Falk, friends in real life, are great together, and McGoohan’s characterization makes for one of the finest Columbo murderers. “Try and Catch Me” (S7:E1)—my (rambling) comments above, but ingenious twist, top-notch cluing, great relationship between Ruth Gordon’s murderess and Columbo. “Columbo Goes to Guillotine” (S8:E1)—maybe a quirky choice, but I love its Uri Geller exposé and the brilliance of the psychic-viewing trick. The kid’s a bit annoying (why oh why did writers/producers keep trying to saddle Columbo with a sidekick?!), and I wish Roddy McDowell had played “Geller,” but otherwise this is first-class, always a surprise in the rebooted seasons. Columbo’s (deserved) pride in figuring out the trick is one of my favorite moments in the show. Really hard to reduce it to 5 only; what about “Death Lends a Hand,” “Double Shock,” “Swan Song,” “Forgotten Lady,” “Now You See Him…,” and “Old Fashioned Murder”? That said, that’s my Top 5 now. Your Top 5s (or 10s, or whatever) more than welcome!

Columbo as Avenging Angel! It’s a great aspect of the character.

😄 Never seen the Lifetime, but when my mother found out Capt. Stottlemeyer was Buffalo Bill, her reaction was “What? What? WHAT!” Especially as, despite Dick van Dyke’s perpetual charm, Diagnosis Murder is a much weaker show than Monk—especially script-wise.

BRILLIANT! 😄 What’s weird is I have a cousin who looks exactly like Jason Gray-Stanford. Every time I see my cousin, I want to tell him (though I don’t know if he ever watched Monk…)—but I don’t want to insult him with the comparison!

I’ve been rewatching whatever episodes have popped up on TV recently; one channel has been doing a Monk marathon one day a week (Tuesday, I think?—so that’s tonight). My list of favorites, posted here a while ago, hasn’t changed, though I got to rewatch “…and the Sleeping Suspect” and think it’s my #1 episode now. At least plot-wise: the stuff with the ketchup bottles makes up for the weak acting and clichéd scriptwriting with Sharona’s ex. Also, have to say again: Natalie > Sharona. A million times over. Am I the only Monk fan to think that?—though I often have weird opinions on characters in mystery shows (I prefer Richard Poole to Humphrey Goodman in Death in Paradise and can’t stand Caroline Quentin’s much-loved character in Jonathan Creek). Anyone seen the recent coronavirus “special”? It was neat to see the gang again—they slipped back into their roles like a glove!—but it wasn’t funny. At all. I know it was supposed to raise awareness for the virus when Tony Shalhoub and his wife had it, but—c’mon. Monk’s a comedy, and the clip tried for comedy; there just wasn’t a single good joke in the thing. EDIT: Oops, I missed the discussion on the “special” above. Agreed with @LexieLily: all four of the main cast look pretty much the same as they did in 2009. If they do a revival (more likely after this?), though, God knows they have to figure out a way to make the Disher character less stupid. It grates! 😉

Heh—yeah, in most Levinson & Link mystery-shows (Murder, She Wrote, Ellery Queen, this), the evidence wouldn’t in reality be enough to sustain a conviction (although the police’s standard isn’t innocent until proven guilty, that’s the lawyers’ job). And it’s more pronounced here because, unlike amateurs Jessica Fletcher and Ellery Queen, Columbo’s a cop. That said, from a viewer-satisfaction angle I think it’s strong—it’s that “oh, of course that’s what that clue means; I should have known!” moment that I love in whodunit-mysteries. The group on a mystery forum once termed it “the Homer Simpson Effect” (“d’oh!”), the rare intersection of surprise and inevitability. Of course, that element isn’t just in mysteries—far from it—but it shows up often in the genre. As for the solution… Most “dying message” clues, yes, are strained: Ellery Queen (the pen name and fictional character, not the TV show) used them extensively throughout “his” books, and they all feel highly unlikely. In this case, however, it seems justified (at least to me): what else is the guy going to do in that safe for all those hours, waiting to die? If he’s going to die, at least leave some kind of evidence who his killer is, and he can’t make it too obvious or she’ll know. What I love about the episode, other than the Falk-Gordon rapport, is that it has these maddening clues for us to ponder—what, for example, is with the six burnt matches?—even though we already know who the killer is. In most mysteries, the surprises come from figuring out what the killer did; here, they come from figuring out what the victim did. In that way, it’s a bit like Dial “M” for Murder, which has a huge surprise solution based on what Swann, the accidental victim, did (the latchkey), even though we know the killer from the beginning. I think it’s a really clever, and satisfying, piece of plotting. As for their relationship, by the way: Thinking it over, I agree with Columbo’s decision to arrest Gordon at the end. I love Gordon’s character, but even if the nephew-in-law did kill his wife/Gordon’s niece (which we don’t know for sure), taking justice into her own hands like that was wrong—especially when her vengeance was so cruel (slowly losing oxygen must be one of the worst ways to go). Thanks for the reply—it really is a great episode! 🙂

Recently rewatched “Try and Catch Me” (S7:E1). Not my Number 1 favorite episode, but definitely within my Top 5. The main clue is super-brilliant, and the mutual respect between Columbo and murderer Ruth Gordon is delightful.

Been a long time since I posted here, but I watched this last night. It was a lot of fun…though none of the contestants’ tricks really wowed me the way some tricks in other season openers did. Is the show running out of magicians who want to be on? While I like seeing old-time favorites, the show should—is designed to—have new talent, especially when they’ve already done returning magicians multiple times. Farquhar’s trick was fine. I liked bringing elements from the last two tricks back; I didn’t like bringing the same jokes back. They made his routine seem far too schticky. Also, Penn says he and Teller knew what Farquhar was doing because they’d seen his first two tricks on the show. Was he really doing the same methods over again? That’s kinda disappointing here. Helen Coghlan—ugh, I didn’t want to see her again. Her smug attitude really bothers me, and to this layman it seemed like she won on technicalities both times (two different tricks to trip P&T up on one, or they couldn’t guess the exact method of escape [behind a partition, grr]). This trick, however, was decent, and felt like it took more work. The dancers, however, were just irritating. Teller looked bothered when the guy came up to him. Annoying that she’s a three-time winner, though. Ondřej Pšenička is always lots of fun, and I loved the trick(s). They felt more integrated with his past performances than Farquhar’s. Somehow, though, again it didn’t blow me away, give me a WOW, THIS IS MAGICAL! feeling. Maybe too much to ask for when magicians are working their butts off for these effects and professionals may get a wow for how difficult they are, but it’s always what I have looked for in magic (ever since seeing a magician do the floating-lady trick back when I was a little tyke!). And Gertner is always wonderful, though he always appeals more to my analytic side than my emotional side (hm, that’s a remarkable illusion, rather than, once again, that WOW!). The trick I really loved was Teller’s. I hadn’t seen it before, it wasn’t some jaw-dropping huge-scale effect, but it provided a sense of wonder. All in all, a solid episode. Definitely looking forward to the rest of this season!

Repeating what everyone else is saying, but this episode was great. Jordan’s taking down and field-dressing that moose was brilliant, why (as @humbleopinion wrote) we watch the show, even if hard to watch. One of the very best Alone moments.

Great! Will love to see what you think of it. I should note that it doesn’t really hit its stride until halfway through the Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) years, so those first episodes may be slow going.

Actually, it seems most murder-mystery screenwriters aren’t even as clever as Dwight! Most of the mystery movies I’ve seen go for the least-likely suspect automatically. That’s why, even though I didn’t really love (or even much like) this movie, I appreciated that the writer took the time to include clues and actual detective-work. On the other hand, the suspect I was hoping to be the killer was Black Panther’s dad. They suspected him early on and then cleared him, which, in mixed-up mystery logic, probably would make him Dwight’s medium suspect.