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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Angela Channing" data-source="post: 282547" data-attributes="member: 33">After [USER=23]@Mel O'Drama[/USER] reviewed Last Salute To The Commodore I replied to a comment he made by saying this:I said that because 3 episodes immediately came to mind: Try and Catch Me ("the best episode of the entire series"), How To Dial A Murder, and this one, Make Me A Perfect Murder. Yes it's a flawed episode so I never would consider it to be one of the all time greats but there is so much that is good in it that I think it is a superior one.Although I previously said Try and Catch Me probably had my favourite murder, this one is up there with it. It a wonderful piece of television. Like you say, there is real tension in how the murder plan unfolds because it's done against the clock. The lead up to the killing when we see how the murderer is treated makes it's not difficult to have some sympathy for her so much so that I was rooting for her to get back in time to secure her "perfect" alibi. I think it was all a device to make her a more sympathetic character so the audience would be more conflicted and not be entirely against her as she tried to cover her tracks later in the show. I never really thought about it until I read your reviews but the last season of Columbo had some really excellent scores.I often wondered if the demand for a longer episode came quite late in the day so they added some scenes to pad out the time which wouldn't interfere with the main storyline. For example, I think the build up to the murder was probably extended and interspersed with shots of Columbo dealing with his whiplash injury (why did we have to see him in his underwear at a chiropractor?) The scene with the graphics on the scene was a new low point in Columbo and they didn't learn their lesson as there is a scene a bit like this (and just as ghastly) in Sex and The Married Detective in the revival series when fountains dance in time to some music. If they had dropped all the superfluous stuff from this episode and had a tighter edit, I think this could have been one of the all time great episodes: Premier League in a Champion's League position (apologies to anyone not getting the English football league analogy). The only good thing I could say about the scene when Columbo is playing with the screen graphics is that it provided a convenient opportunity to nip out to use the toilet without missing any of the action.Yes, he was great and it was rare for a black character to be given a reasonably prominent role in Columbo which was almost entirely filled with white actors (the exceptions were A Matter of Honour and A Case of Immunity which featured several Latino actors although in the latter they were playing parts which were supposed to be Arabs). It did seem like a bit of a come down for James McEachin because he played the lead in Tenafly which was another excellent series along with Columbo that was part of the Mystery Movie wheel. I couldn't imagine Peter Falk agreeing to play a small part in an episode of Tenafly.I think that's a fair assessment although I might place it a bit higher, maybe mid table, because I really like this one so I can forgive some of the fluff that was used to extend its running time.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?