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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 284977" data-attributes="member: 23">Uneasy Lies The Crown <img src="https://i2.wp.com/columbophile.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Uneasy-titles.jpg?w=813&ssl=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 558px" /><img src="https://i1.wp.com/columbophile.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Uneasy-races-3.jpg?fit=610%2C441&ssl=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 497px" /> One of the wittier episode titles, even if it’s a bit of a groaner. From the title I’d have expected it to be a spiritual successor to A Case Of Immunity. Instead it’s an episode about a killer dentist! If I drew similarities to any earlier episode, it’s A Stitch In Time, which had a similar scheme to murder the victim through a slow acting method some time after a fairly routine medical procedure. Naturally, Uneasy Lies The Crown throws in the obligatory soapy love triangle as motive. The revival series certainly has more of this kind of thing - at least it certainly shows us more of this kind of thing, which is not a change for the better. Did the indulgent profile shots of the cheating lovers tonguing one another add anything to the story? I think not. But hey: it’s the Nineties. Speaking of Nineties, the aesthetic of the episode is - to my eyes - one of the more unpleasantly Nineties, with lots of bland, washed-out muted colours, double-breasted suits and trendy chrome adorning nightclubs. The writing, though, feels very much like it’s in harmony with earlier Columbo, albeit not any specific episode (even though there were fragments here and there that evoked certain earlier events). There were a couple of moments I could have lived without. As a comedic little moment, I’ll take Columbo faffing about with his cherry light if I must. But the business with the drink vending machine that he couldn’t stop felt like pure filler. Mostly, though, the pacing worked well. There was a nice twenty four minute opening act (in PAL time), during which the well thought out scheme was put into effect. And I thought it was a particularly clever one. As it turns out, Steven Bochco had lifted this story from a 1977 episode of McMillan & Wife which he’d co-written (and in which Larry Hagman played the sneaky dentist). And while that’s a tad disappointing, it perhaps goes to show that the writing is king. A strong story is a strong story, and this episode surprised me with being a compelling watch when there was no real reason to think this was going to be anything other than a standard revival episode. continued...</blockquote>

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