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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 276917" data-attributes="member: 23">A Stitch In Crime / The Most Dangerous Match continued A Stitch In Time features some classic Columbo queasiness when he visits a surgeon to discuss suture and ends up being subjected to watching surgery on a patient's stomach through one of those curious elevated operating theatre viewing rooms that crop up on American TV from time to time. I've assumed they're to allow medical students to watch and take notes, but whenever they're on TV people seem to wander in willy nilly for a little peek, which is rather creepy. I wonder if these are still a thing. Anyway, Columbo makes it through without fainting (barely) and without looking (mostly). The necessary exposition in this scene could easily have been dry and dull. Instead it's brilliantly combined with great humour and a wonderful character moment for the lead character. Likewise, Columbo visiting the scene of the crime is never dull. After Nurse Martin's murder he appears at the crime scene with a hard boiled egg and is chastised for dropping bits of shell into an area they're trying to keep untainted. At the end of the scene he is shown the murder weapon - a tyre iron - which he's told is free of prints. As it's about to be taken away, he asks the officer to hold it up in front of him. It appears Columbo is about to inspect it, but instead he produces his  egg and taps it on this crucial piece of evidence to break the shell. It's a laugh out loud moment. The entire crime scene is full of moments like this. We learn Mrs Columbo isn't well, and Columbo hasn't slept or eaten properly. He spends this scene - and indeed, the first third of the picture - trying unsuccessfully to obtain a cup of coffee in order to wake up. One of these requests - asking Leonard Nimoy if there's a coffee machine on that floor - feels like an ad lib, and is met with a very quick, very gruff, very definitive "No". I found it interesting that Mayfield’s motive and M.O. changed with each victim. The plan to kill Hiedemann with dissolving sutures after a heart valve operation to allow him to go ahead with publishing their research without further tests and with full credit was particularly cold and cunning. The two actual victims were because one knew too much and the other was an obvious frame to take the blame. Mayfield’s two victims were familiar faces to me. Suspicious Nurse Sharon Martin was the gorgeous Anne Francis, last seen making goo goo eyes at Roddy McDowall in Season One’s Short Fuse. Jared Martin is, of course, best known to me for Dallas. Another familiar soap face appeared in the following episode with the ubiquitous Lloyd Bochner - the future Cecil Colby - playing the victim’s coach. During the opening scenes of The Most Dangerous Match, I’d thought that Laurence Harvey was going to be no match at all for Columbo, and I enjoy that I underestimated him somewhat. He had an enjoyable quiet intensity. He proved very wily indeed. The plan to get his victim to write a note before killing him was a nice touch. There was also his reaction to being taken back to the diner by Columbo, where he was quite open about knowing he was there to be identified. I was convinced Clayton’s hearing aid was going to be some kind of radio device allowing him to cheat at chess. It did figure into the denouement, of course, but turned out to be far simpler than I’d thought. Watchable as I found it in the moment, I find that the latter episode is already fading into dimness in my memory, suggesting it’s not the most impactive or memorable of episodes. All the same, it works perfectly well. I suppose they don’t all have to be knockouts. But it's certainly an episode that's worth watching. The memorable opening nightmare sequence alone makes it worth the entry fee. </blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?