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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 285132" data-attributes="member: 23">Murder In Malibu <img src="https://i1.wp.com/columbophile.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Malibu-titles.jpg?w=639&ssl=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 434px" /><img src="https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/columbo-murder-in-malibu.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=960&h=500&dpr=1.5" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 623px" />Jackson Gillis has Columbo writing credits going back to Season One’s Suitable For Framing. Unfortunately, he also seems to have a somewhat patchy record. Among other episodes, he was responsible for Short Fuse, Dagger Of The Mind, Requiem For A Falling Star, Lovely But Lethal and Troubled Waters. His last credited episode before this one was Last Salute To The Commodore. A red flag if ever there was one. This episode feels like it continues in that “almost but not quite vein”. Once again a promising premise is let down by a sloppy execution.Something felt off with this one from the beginning, with the “mysterious” angle of not showing “Theresa” when she phoned to call things off with Wayne. And with not showing the murder in full, but Wayne shooting Theresa whose body was already on the ground.There’s the twist and double-twist. Wayne killed her. No, he didn’t because she was already dead. Yes, he did because he killed her using two different weapons. It’s all very postmodern and Nineties: foreshadowing one of the killers in Scream getting taken in by the police mid-film in order to be taken off the list of suspects. But at the same time it’s all so unnecessary here. To the point of tedium. But most importantly, we the audience were excluded from the killer's "clever" little secret. Which just isn't on. I like a mystery as much as the next person. But not in Columbo, whose USP is that we're given the chance to gain a kind of rapport with the killer (and their victim) and to see their point of view before Columbo comes bumbling onto their horizon. Apart from not being what this series about, the addition of a mystery feels like a sign of poor writing. It’s as though the mystery is there to add interest because the story itself isn’t clever enough to stand on its own merits. And if I re-edit this episode in my head to remove the mystery and play things out in a linear way, that’s true. What we’re left with is an incredibly dull episode. Even the title is generic and uninspired. Brenda Vaccaro is always good value, here playing her usual bolshy bigmouth type. But even she seems less sparkly than usual here. Perhaps she might have made an interesting killer. As it is, Andrew Stevens is serviceable. He’s certainly convincing as the tennis bum living off an older, wealthier woman. But as a foil for Columbo he's strictly amateur. The bright spot is perhaps Floyd Levine as Lieutenant Schultz, but he's given very little to do (appropriately, otherwise he'd be stealing Columbo's thunder). The Gotcha was very unsatisfying as well. The label on the knickers was on the wrong side. So what? Who hasn’t dressed hurriedly and later realised their underwear was back to front or inside out or whatever? It’s all very tenuous. With some significant tweaks and a shorter running time, there’s no reason this couldn’t have been a decent episode. But it simply wasn’t. </blockquote>

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