Star Trek Fest - Away Mission - Columbo

Lovecraft wrote of duels better left unopened. To night. We open one anyway. The room feels familiar until the light falters, until the shadows linger. Step inside and find your joy in the dark.

Welcome back, Midnight viewers. Welcome back Star Trek Festival. Goorse, I guess that's what we're calling you, And welcome to an innocular episode. This is our first away mission. I don't know why anyway, Wow, anyway, Look, the Star Trek universe is fast, and the fact is there's just so much more than the cinematic universe.

But the fact is there's so much more than actual Star Trek because these people had careers that were long and varied and interesting, and in some cases they both ended up at the same TV show, so amazing. So in this episode of Star Trek Fest Away Mission, we're gonna be taking a look at two episodes of the seminal nineteen seventies television detective drama Colombo. They got to call it Cyumbo. Father Malone. When you gave when you told me the idea for the Way Mission offshoot of Trek Fast, this was the first thing that I thought of was the fact that we had episodes of Colombo that featured both WILLIAMS Shatter William Shatner.

Actually, by the way, he did two episodes of Columba, not just the one, but we're dealing with his first appearance and also in Leonard Nimoy. But I would say this in digging into this a little bit, there actually are dozens of Star Trek tie ins to Colombo, which I was surprised by a small sampling. Father Malone if I may Ricardo Montalban was also a villain in an episode called A Matter of Honor from nineteen seventy six. Lawrence Len, Bill Clingons. Right, Lawrence Luck and Bill Once in Future.

Cybock was a victim in Make Me a Perfect Murder. Michael Horton. Remember Michael Horton. We talked about him in Insurrection and he was also in First Contact, he Daniels, Yeah, it was that in the first In First Contact, he was just build a security officer. Oh, he got a name an Insurrection, Theodore by Kel, who is Wharf's adoptive father.

He was in the Bye Bye Sky High IQ murder in seventy seven. I'm vic Tayback was in suitable for framing as a bit part, not to mention Father Malone. Kate Mulgrew Jane Way actually starred in the short lived spin off series Missus Colombo alongside for the first couple of episodes Renee Auberjonnois. So there's a rich connective tissue between star Trek and Colombo, and I'm ready to dive in. That's fantastic.

You're a big fan of Columbo. Yeah, yes, Father Malone, I am a huge fan of Colombo. Columbo to me is one of the most comforting of TV comfort foods. It's got a fantastic feedback loop that you know going in. And of course Peter Falk is the consummate comfort food actor.

He's warm, he's quirky, he's funny, he's intelligent, he's shaggy in this. I don't think Colombo as a show is a concept. I don't know that it needs introducing. To the audience. I think everybody knows now that the big hook is you.

It's not it's a who done it? But it's not about discovering who did the deed. We already know who did the deed because in the first five to ten minutes you see the crime being committed by the person who committed the crime, the actual criminal. The joy in it is Colombo figuring out how they did it and eating away at their alibi little by little through the course of the show, through his unflagging politeness and tenacity. Very quickly about Colombo.

Years and years ago, listeners, HP said to me, Hey, you know what we should do. We should do a. Podcast about Colombo. And I said, you're crazy. No one would be interested in doing a podcast about Columbo or listening to a podcast Columba.

Now listeners have been in viewing my co hosts and former co host Mike White and Chris Dasher. They went off and almost immediately made a Colombo like almost the day after that. I was like, nobody would ever do something like that. So they have an entire show about Columbo. Mike White was particularly excited that we're doing these two episodes.

By the way, the Leonard Nemoy one in particular, and by. The way, there's a million Colombo podcasts also, not just the one on Weird and Way Media is great, but if you do a search for Colombo in your podcast the Choice podcast Deliverer of Choice, you'll find a bunch. So it's no secret. Nevertheless, I know you an apologie anyway, Colombo. Yes, everybody knows Colombo.

I mainly know Colombo through the many impressions that comedians have been doing of him over the years. And obviously Kevin Pollack did the fucking fantastic one because he could do the eye which nobody else could master, the one sprightly eye. But to be honest with you, this is probably the first time I sat through an episode or two episodes of Colombo. I've seen bits and pieces of it. I've seen whole snatches of the very first Columbo Murdered by the book, but that's because Steven Spielberg directed it, and I want to see what his visual style was looking like at that moment, around the time that he was doing Dual and then eventually Sugarland Express.

But what you just described that this isn't a who done it? It's a will he unravel how he did it? Or will the villain be able to cover up his tracks? Aspect of the show I think is what turned me off to the show, and what kind of still does honestly, because it's a weird sort of tension, it's kind of strung throughout that just makes me nervous. Is you afraid he's not gonna come up with the goods?

No. Look, I know it's a television show, and I know it's a formula. I know Peter Fux did it for thirty forty years. So it's not like I don't know he's gonna he's gonna solve the fucking thing. It's just that it's predicated on watching a desperate person doing desperate things while a slowly rumpled man follows behind, going I'm going to get you, I'm coming to get you.

It's just it's a dynamic that it. Computes in my mind, but it doesn't, I don't know, vibe in some way with me. Sure. But the other way to look at this is you're right, they're not always desperate, but they certainly are. There's a reason why they do these things and trying to protect their fortune or they're trying to silence somebody who's going.

To see that. So most times it's the detective trying to figure it out. Right Now, Ordinarily, when you flip that and you show the villain's perspective from the beginning, they at least you are, at least on their side in some way, you have some leeway there. These are just fucking horrible people doing fucking horrible things and just and sometimes just smirking about it the entire time. Yeah, So it just I don't know.

I don't want to spend that much time. I would rather not know who did it and have everyone being aratiating and me believe them and then go, oh, you villain, rather than watch the villain enjoy their villainy. I don't know. That's just personally me. But the smart way they go about it.

I hear what you're saying. But the thing of it is, for the most part, the villain. So this show always takes place almost without fail, in and around Los Angeles, and almost without fail, the villain is somebody of either high social status or has is rich. These are the rich and powerful that are committing these crimes. So for the viewer, there's a satisfaction in seeing the underdog, this rumpled, little diminutive man come in to high society, these places of great power and riches and just knock them down bit by bit and make them sweat and make them it's he and like I said, he does it in such a polite way.

It's always he walks away and he says, oh, just one more thing, and it's this idea that these people are never off the hook. They've always got this little nagging thing that's nibbling at them every step of the way, even if they will think to themselves they actually like and think this guy's funny, or he's smart or whatever, or they just dismiss him as being somebody that they can put the wool over. They never put the wool over Colombo. And that's the that's part of the brilliance side. I totally understand all of that, and I agree with all of that, but I would also enjoy the show if I didn't get anyone but Detective Columbo's perspective from the beginning.

That's all. It makes me see the world through their fucking eyes. So I now have to get invested and worried that Detective Colombo is going to expose them on just some human level. I have to fucking hope that this guy gets away because it's a cat and mouse thing, and I don't know, man, I never just go like, it's never a black and white sort of scenario, although this this is as black and white as you can get, because these are terrible people. Nevertheless, it's as terrible as it is in this scenario, it's still mister Spock, It's still Captain Kirk.

Like I'm not like I'm forced to watch them sweat and feel. I don't know, there's something troubling. That I'll never be able to really enjoy a Columbo. Okay, And I won't convince you, But what I will say is to your point, sometimes the reason for them committing the crime you can be sympathetic to. For example, we're gonna talk about William Shatner's character and why he does what he does, but you also can't deny that that the planning and the execution of the crime is just so brutal in most cases and so ugly that you can't.

For me, I can't help but root for Colombo to uncover the truth behind it all, because. I'm not saying I'm rooting for the criminal because I agree. There, I'm not shut up. I'm getting yeah, so you get what. I don't need to hear what you're saying.

It creates this nervous tension in you that you just can't get past. I have so much fucking nervous tension in my life. I don't need to feel it from a fucking horrendous human. That's fair. But let's all right, that's fine, but this isn't At the end of the day, this is not a Colombo podcast.

So at a minimum, we're dipping our toe in the water. You don't have to spend too long investigating Columbus. No, we're gonna start. We're gonna start. We're out of order because Nemoi's episode is from season two, so that's like probably prime, like everyone's tuning in for the movie of the week.

This is season six, episode one, Fade into Murder. It was released on or. It first aired on October tenth, nineteen seventy six. Happy Anniversary, America. What do you think?

I think that I had better try and help you. Would you? Oh? That would be an honor, Detective Lucern helping me. Wait till I tell my wife nonorious.

We still think it was premeditated moment. Oh, I don't know s what do youse saw? And here I thought you were in shock. You thought I was confused. You're right, perhaps scared.

You're amazing. Can you tell me that one more time? I'm gonna kill myself? Written by Lusha and Peter S. Fableman with Us from a story by Henry Garson.

This one is directed by Bernard I. Kowalski and stars Peter Falk, William Shatner, Bert Remsen, Alan Manson with Timothy Carey. Somebody called Heather. I was thinking, but he's so welcome here, you have to admit. We'll talk about him.

Yeah, Also lou Albright and in a surprise appearance, Commander Pavel Chekhov Walter Kanig. Such a delight to see. Him in HB. Tell us all about this, Stoy. You could take it from here, brother, because this is your domain.

Not a problem. And I'm gonna not all of this is known at the outset. I'm just gonna condense it all for you just but you know so. Ward Fowler is William Shatner's character. He's a he's an actor who plays this character called Inspector Lucerne.

It's the most popular show on the Network's he's making money handover fist. He's Colombo basically, he's one basically. But what's interesting is I'll tell you at the background behind it in a minute. But anyway, turns out Ward Fowler is actually a Korean war deserter who fled to Canada, Okay, where this woman who turned turns into his manager. Claire discovers him doing theater in Toronto.

She polishes him up and together they come up with this alias of Ward Fowler. Wood Fowler isn't his real name, it's an assumed name because he's again he's a war deserter. He becomes this sensation playing this TV detective. This TV detectives dresses like Truman Capoti. He's got a white suit, white fedora, he has a cane.

He's very affected. Like I said, the show is a smash to the degree that Claire and her producing partner basically have broken the network's back by pushing for an unreasonable raise for the actor. Now note, here's where the side note comes in. This is actually mirroring real life Peter Fock and this information comes from the amazing website Columbofile dot com, which I would recommend for anyone who wants more information on this. Falk headed an off and I'm partially quoting.

He had a very fraught relationship with the network and studio execs over his pension for perfection. He required endless reshoots. There were budgets and everything went over all the time, but he always played hardball when it came to renegotiating his contract, and he eventually ended up being one of the highest ever actors in TV. He was making three hundred thousand dollars per episode. This is in nineteen seventy six or whatever, so it's the equivalent of somewhere around at one and a half million today per episode.

Fottom alone and effectively had creative control. Right he. Fock always did things his way with Colombo, which is it's amazing. Didn't make him very easy to deal with, but he had to have it his way. So I always thought that was interesting that this plot of Ward Fowler and his manager holding up the network for an excessive a paycheck is basically mirroring real life, which is fascinating to think of.

And it also now it doesn't mirror, but the television series mad Men is a reflection of this episode because that whole series is about Don Draper, the creative director of an ad agency, but his character is a Korean war deserter who has assumed the name of the sergeant that he was a station with who was killed, and he took his dog tags and came back to the world, and that is hanging over his head and people blackmail him actually with it during the series. That's interesting. Shatner is the original John Ham. He is. So that's what's happening.

So his manager, Claire is forcing Ward to give her fifty percent of his salary right off the top in silver certificates. Ward decides he's had enough fathom alone, and he comes up with this plan, a very clever plan to get rid of Claire. No, it's not. It is very clever, you know, you know it's a better plan. Poison, but that wouldn't be There's plenty of poison on Colombo.

This, I think is something that we hadn't seen before. So what happens is. Here's here's a better plan. Let's go to Mexico together and go deep, go cliff diving. She fell.

That wouldn't be Colombo. Here's this is what we have. We're arguing realism with a TV detective bottom alone. So Ward has this gopher, this older man who is his gopher. He gets him his food and takes care of his needs.

On set, he has him over to watch a baseball game. Okay, unbeknownst to this gopher, Fowler spikes his drink with a sedative. Okay, can we talk about that just for a second, because he's like, I'm clean for eight months now, you know I haven't had a drink. That's a record for me. He's like, one won't hurt.

So not only is he breaking this man's sobriety, he is now drugging him and forcing him to be his alibi. By the way, I bet this guy would have just been his alibi. Probably if he'd just been come clean to the guy made he. Said, listen, here's the deal, and you know what, I'll cut you in for quarter of my salary if it'll take. But I can't be paying this woman anymore and she needs to go.

Okay, I'll help you do it. I could have been like that anyway. There is something twisted, like you said, in him breaking this guy's hard won sobriety for the sake of an alibi. But here we are. So he puts this little powder in the guy's drink, and during and at bad he makes a bet that, oh, this guy won't he won't hit the ball or whatever.

And now you're wrong. And in the midst of this, the guy passes out from the drug Ward goes over, turns on his new fangled VCR. He starts recording. From that point on, he sets the clock on the VCR to like an hour and a half or prior whatever, and he once he's asleep. You're going to gloss over the fact that first commercially available videotape recorder is the size of a shell Chevy Malibu.

And he says it costs him like three thousand dollars. In nineteen seventy seven, they do. A close up of some of the controls and somebody has made this hastily like good sign that says videotape recorder. And they put us just in case the audience said, no, what's happening here? This is a tape recorder that records video.

Yeah, we had one very It wasn't quite that size behemoth recorder, but we had one, a top loader like that. When I was a kid, we did too. We had a sony that you changed the channels by a rotary dial on the front. Clack, let's see what's on channel thirteen. Clack clack clack.

Yeah. It was a big appliance. Really, so this guy's passed out. Now Ward can enact as plan he's stolen a costume from the prop department, which probably isn't wise on its own, but maybe the. Why is he taking anything from his fucking sterdio?

Do you know how many fucking wardrobe houses and prop houses there are in Los Angeles? How many prompts does he just have lying around his house that no one's ever thought to account for? So he puts on this oversized ski park and a ski mask that covers him, and a pair of sunglasses. But crucially, he also takes out a gun from the prop department, which I would think they would probably have tracked that more assiduously than anything, but nevertheless not. I don't think in nineteen seventy six, I bet the prop room looked exactly like the one presented here.

So he knows he by talking to Claire earlier, he knows that she's going to pick up a sandwich from her favorite deli, Tony's Deli. So he goes and. Do they mention what sandwich it is? They just say my favorite sandwich. She just says my favorite sandwich.

I guess it's left to our imagination. I would imagine it's probably like a ham and Swiss with some It's very elegant to match this elegant lady. Do you think there was any dressing on the ham and Swiss for this lady? Maybe? Like vinegar, sure, a.

Little bit of vinegar and what kind of Swiss, like a baby Swiss? Yeah, like a like a lacey Swiss. In the Black Forest ham maybe? Or is that too rich for her? That might be too rich for her.

Maybe something lean. Like a nice but a honey because she's sweet and honey hamm was a delicacy for a while, is that right? Yeah? And she's I don't remember if she was going to or from some kind of dinner party or something, but she's very dressed up anyway, so you got to figure she was not gonna want to get all this stuff all over her. So she goes in.

She has a relationship with the proprietor, Tony, who's played by Timothy Carey. They she's known him since the place opened. Their buddies. So Ward comes in with his gun. He holds them at gunpoint.

He cruelly pistol whips Tony, who has his back to him. What the hell, man, It's. Brutal and you can crack someone's skull open with a pistol whip. It's dangerous, could have killed the guy. Yeah, he goes to town on him, like I thought he just hit him the one time, but he's like, nope, I'm intent on giving you brain damage.

Yeah. So she's Claire still got her hands up and he essentially reveals himself to her and she says to him, look, you're not going to do this. I'm gonna walk out this door. And she starts walking forward and damn, at the distance of I think twenty or thirty feet, he shoots her one shot dead. She falls, he leaves, He shreds ski mask in the parka and throws him in a dumpster.

He gets home. This is when he sets the time back on the VCR, and he even sets the time back on the Gopher's watch, and he starts playing back the game from when he started recording, which is the middle of this ad bat. So he starts it. He nudges the guy and says. Hey, Harry, wake up.

You know we want to miss this ad bat right, and they make this bed and they get whatever he hit. I told you he was going to hit it, and the guy passes back out. This establishes his alibi that Hey, it's still nine o'clock. Meanwhile, an hour and a half is actually transpired, but this guy doesn't know it because everything has been arranged by Fowler. He puts the guy to bed to quote unquote sleep it off, and then he sets all the clocks of r's.

Up right there. He puts them in his guest bedroom, which is decorated with two pachinko machines, a portrait of Shatner and then a giant bronze bust of Shatner. But every room in his house has a picture of him somewhere with the lucern hat on. Excuse me, sir, two pachinko machines. I love that portrait and bust.

Imagine coming to in that room, like you woke up in a hellscape. Right in the bed isn't even like a rectangular bed. It's sort of it's a Hefner special. It is. So he wakes up the next day, he's got to sleep a hell of a hangover.

At this point, they've discovered. Now, since then the crime has been discovered, Colombo goes. To, can I just say one thing about the crime sequence? Yeah, his man is super weird. It's kind of like a nose covered.

It has a cutout for the nose, but then a piece of fabric that hangs down. Over the nose. It's like Doctor Doom. It's very unusual. And the other thing they took away from that scene was I just kept thanking whatever cinema gods exist that it didn't end up him trying to do like a Robin Williams like black guy voice as part of his disguise.

He just comes out as I'm a rough and tough guy. I mean had money, and I was like, okay, good, thank god. He talks in a low voice, but it's very nondescriptive. I think there's even some conjecture whether it might have actually been a woman or a man. It's very hard to discern.

So Colombo now is at the deli investigating this robbery, and he runs into none other than Sergeant Chekhov. Right there, knig on the side of the law, hunting down Shatner. What could be better? It's this might be the only time I've heard him deliver lines in anything but a Russian accent, because he's just eh, sag And here's what happened. The guy got pistol whipped.

He's just ad he's a cop. It's refreshing to see him do that. I actually did a double take. Wait, that sounds like check off. But is that?

Oh my god, he's got like gull wing like gray like in his hair. Yeah, I'm in seventy six. I'm like, wait, weren't you just a child a few minutes ago. It's great, but immediately, this is very typical for Colombo. He'll talk to the reporting officer, and the officer will lay out how they believe it took place, and it's usually an open shut thing.

It was a robbery, the guy took off, took the money, whatever. But immediately Colombo's poking holes in the theory literally here Literally He's like, why because the guy took the cash, but he didn't take the credit cards or the woman's diamond ring on her finger, and the accuracy of the shot implies that it might be an expert marksman. It wasn't just a he didn't just shoot somebody who's running out of the deli. And he interviews Timothy Carey, who's weird as he always is. The guy can never deliver a line just straightforward.

There's always a twist. I always think of him in the Monkeys movie head. He will always be one of my favorite parts of that movie. It's just so bizarre but. Very Yeah, I believe Carrie probably he came out of the whole New York actors school, the same one that gave us brand of the whole method thing.

Like I'm sure he was buddy who's with Kensavetti's and Peter Falk because you can tell Peter Falk is tolerating his method bullshit here at the end where he's like he grabs hold of him and like tries to keep him in the frame longer, and like the Falk actually has to pull his hand away, but he can tell it's like it's all acting, so he's gonna let it go. Yeah, So eventually I'm not gonna We're not gonna go into every single permutation of what happens with this crime. But eventually this all leads Colombo to visiting the Inspector Lecerne set, and he basically, like like any good Colombo, he develops a rapport, it seems, with the villain. I will say that I was delighted when he shows up on sen and is walking amongst the flats behind the window.

So it basically looks like Colombo is like Godzilla, like but like Maam marching amongst the New York skyline. But it's always but Colombo is that's part of his mo He's always going to make a nuisance of himself because ultimately he wants you, he wants the criminal to underestimate him. Please underestimate me so that you will slip up and I will be there to catch your mistake. And was born so through the course of. This and because licern Is is Columbo's self or professed favorite show, him and his wife never missed an episode, He's delighted to meet Ward Fowler and be part of that world.

And they through the course of the show, as Colombo is poking holes in the theory and Ward Fowler is trying to send him on little tangents, he what essentially happens is Ward Fowler starts to take on more of the character of Inspector Lecerne, and that's how Colombo treats him until the last five minutes of this show, when finally Colombo has him cornered. It gets super bizarre, Father Malone, because what you have is Ward Fowler is talking and revealing all these details of his criminal past to Colombo, but he's doing it as Inspector Lecerne and talking about himself. Ward Fowler in the third person gets super weird. That's the part I really liked about it. Yeah, And can I just say that Shatner is in some ways good and in some ways this is proof of concept of what people think of when they think of William Shatner as really hammy and theatrical and way over the top, because in rewatching all the Star Trek things, I find him early to be those things.

But then I'm reminded when I see him in other projects, Oh yeah, he was. He could very easily go there. He's very hammy. But it's kind of delightful because and it's warranted. It is warranted because he is supposed to be an eccentric actor who is operating on all sorts of weird levels of meta because he's Ward Fowler, but he's pretending to be Inspector Lescerne, who is purported to be on the same level as Colombo, and Colombo is playing a clearly playing along with it, and that's where the method to his madness is.

He's stringing him along, trying to make him think that waiting for him to slip up and reveal crucial mistake. And in this case, the crucial mistake here is that he's done everything right. He's taken all the fingerprints off of everything. He even tried to frame Claire's husband as the one who killed her by taking a thread off of his sweater while he was hugging him, and sympathy, and he puts it on the gun when he puts it back into the prop house. But what he forgot about is he cleaned the gun of fingerprints.

But what he forgot to do is clean the bullets of fingerprints. So that's the big there's always some gutcha with Colombo, and that's his. That in shooting a woman in the back with our hands or above her head so that the frock that she's wearing will not match the bullet hole once the frock is now down, and there's a clear indication that this was not a robbery, this wasn't someone running away. This is an execution. Yeah.

And also the unit that he deserted from in Korea was artillery, So now Colombo knows that he was an expert marksman and board Fowler was a crack shot, so that also indicates that he could have shot this woman from thirty feet and hit her, because he hit her right in the heart and it was like instantaneous death basically. But it's again that's part of the fund. But really all the fun for me is the interaction with Colombo and a very flamboyant and a very let's say, and it's I'm never gonna say this is one of the strongest Columbos there ever was, because we're talking about there's a million Columbos and some are very good. I would rate this probably maybe aiming for the top, maybe somewhere in the middle, maybe a little higher than average.

But a lot of that is the good nature of their interactions. I think fok loved having a villain that he could have a rapport with and have fun acting against. And that's what you get with Shatner because he's a quirky actor. Let me pitch this for the perpetually nervous. It's just an episode where Peter Falk is hired as a consultant for a detective series and he hangs out and he and William Shatner have a good time for an hour.

That's there you go. It's a fun hang. I thought it was a clever way of establishing an alibi. There's always something that they miss. Like I said, it's not the best Colombo, but it's fun and it's certainly not the worst.

It's probably somewhere in. The middle average. I have nothing to compare it to, except I have one thing to compare it to. Let's go back in time, you and I. That's a very star trek thing to do.

Here. We'll go back to February the eleventh of nineteen seventy three. This is season two of Colombo and a Stitch in Crime. I believe it kills Sharon Wanton, and I believe you're trying to kill doctor Heideman. I said, Sponge's on your mind.

What possible reason could I have for Killair? You ask tough questions to happen serves a journey. This one has written by Shiryl Hendrix, directed by High Averbach, starring Peter Falk, Leonard Nimoy, Nita Talbot, Will Gear, Jared Martin, and Anne Francis. Just a few words about that cast. Nita Talbot, who plays the roommate of the victim or or the friend of Anne Francis's character.

Here she's in night Shift. She's one of the girls in Night Shift. And if you look through her if you look through her IMDb page, she's in every TV show ever made. Speaking of every being in every TV show ever made. Jared Martin, who plays the former drug addict boyfriend in the episode, I know him mainly for it from an excellent episode of Night Gallery he was in.

But again, if you want to see a journeyman television actor, he's in literally every He's in at least one episode of everything you've ever heard of in television. HP, My Columbo man, please tell us what this one is about. This is Night and Day from Fucking the Shatner Goofathon. This really is. This is remember, this is the beginning.

This is season two of Colombo. Peter fowk By now is very comfortable with the character. In later seasons he got a little too mannered and a little too quirky with his portrayal, but here he is the quintessential Columbo. So what we have here is Nimoy Leonard Nimoy is now the villain. And the thing of it is that this episode I think makes excellent use of Nimoy's vulcan esque reserve his poise, his air of superiority.

It's essential because of the character and what he does. So in this episode, Nimoy plays a surgeon, a brilliant surgeon named Barry, Doctor Barry Mayfield. He's ambitious, he's calculating. He's frustrated by his research partner, doctor Heideman's decision to extend the research period of a drug that he's eager to put out there and get credit for. It's a lot.

Of the Fugitive movie. Basically Novartis or no Provassic, that's the name of the drug there right. Mayfield wants all the credit for himself, so doctor Heidemann his partner in this. He's an older doctor. He's admitted to the hospital for a long delayed heartfel replacement.

What doctor Mayfield does is he colors dissolving suture. He dies it black during it, so when he comes in for the operation, when he stitches him up, the idea is it should have been permanent suture. But because it's dissolving suture. In a couple of days, the suture is going to dissolve away. It will look as if the heart valve has failed, and he will it will appear as if the doctor died a natural death and doctor Mayfield will not be suspected.

It's it's like this time bomb that's ticking and ticking. But the nurse, Sharon Martin is a friend of Heidemann, and she's the attending nurse during this operation. And she read this letter from the fucking company that said, hey, we want to We're going to delay testing because. We want to. Yeah, So she knows that he has a motive to harm her friend.

And she already mistrusts doctor Mayfield because she knows how calculating, and she just there's something about him that she just never loves. And Heidemann knows this, but he dismisses her concerns. So she discovers this suture and she says, there's something up with this. I've done enough operations I can tell this isn't the right suture. So she's going to arrange to talk to the chemical company that supplies it.

And doctor Mayfield now knows that she's on to him because she says to him, I know you did something, and he's, you know what, talk to the supply house. I have nothing to hide, but he knows that she could ruin his whole plan so to silence her, and this is one of the most brutal. A series filled with brutal murders, this is one of the most brutal. She's walking to her car in the garage and he emerges from the shadows with a tire iron and he beats her to death with a tire iron and Francis and but doesn't betray any emotion throughout all of this. He's he just he's he knows what he has to do and he does it with no emotion.

And then he goes to further alay suspicion. He breaks into her house after her roommate leave and makes it seem like a dope addict has broken in looking for drugs, and he's also taken some morphine from the drug cabinet. This was the days before you had electronic locks and things like that auditing of records. So he just takes a couple of aals and puts it under her sync to make it look like she's had these drugs. Now this guy's broken in and is trying to find them.

So see here's where the difference is between the last episode. In this episode where that guy Shatner had years to plan the perfect crime and seems to have the setup for it, and then everything is clumsy and stupid. This guy has to think on the fly, I've got to kill her now, and not only does it, but then immediately rushes to malign her character and to throw suspicion off toward he already knows she has this drug adding boyfriend can be thrown at her. Oh my god, anyway, please continue. It's insane and now but their first meeting.

So he the dog gets a call from somebody to tell him that this nurse has been murdered, and the supposition is he didn't know about that. So as he's on the phone getting this these awful news about this nurse that's been murdered, Colombe was walking in to tell him, unbeknownst to knowing that someone's telling about this murder. But as he's got this call going on, doctor Mayfield is calmly winding his clock and Colombo sees this and he's talking. He's you know what it's you doctors are amazing, because when I walked in, you were getting this awful news, yet you were just calmly winding your watch. Doctor, Like now you already know at the outset, Colombo already knows that this guy's up to no good, because if you got this crazy, awful, terrible news about this nurse that you work with, that she's been brutally murdered in the garage mirror hours before or whatever, the last thing you're going to be doing is just calmly winding your guest clock.

And the doctor plays it off. I guess I was just doing it out of habit or something. But this is the kind of thing that Columbo typically picks up on, and it's the seed of mistrust of this guy. So to further throw suspicion off of him, he Mayfield uses Sharon's kooky roommate to generate another lead for Columba to follow. He comes up with this former boyfriend, This this Vietnam vet who had PTSD and developed a drug problem, and Sharon had helped him get off of the dope, but broke it off because she didn't want to be just a crutch for him.

She didn't want to just be that for him. So this guy's just trying to put his life back together. He's a Vietnam vet, for goodness sake. He works at a petting zoo, he works at a petting zoo. This Jesus Christ, leave him alone.

He's a sad sack. But now when Colombo appears to dismiss this guy, Harry Alexander is his name. When he dismisses him as a suspect, Mayfield goes. Even more cold bloodedly. Oh my god, this is so fucking horrible man.

This is like amongst Columbo fans, this is considered one of the most brutal Death's brutal murders. Now there's some conjecture that he didn't actually die. Just keep that in mind. I don't think he did die honestly. Because it's never spoken of after that.

But what he does is still awful regardless. He breaks into this guy's shabby apartment in a pool side apartment somewhere. He waits for him. The guy comes into his room. He chloroforms this Vietnam vet and then pulls out a vial of morphine injects the guy with I don't know how much morphine.

The guy comes to he's in a psychedelic nightmare. He stumbles out of his house or out of his apartment. His vision starts boiling like an oil projector. Like an oil projector. It's this nightmare sequence where they've superimposed like an oil projection literally on the film.

So he's just and the music is scary, and you're like this. A lot of water phone on this soundtrack during this sequence, a lot of creepy seventies water phone. But this guy had nothing to do with anything. He's just trying to put his life back together. And now he's he's been like injected with morphine against his will.

He falls down the stairs, leaving some doubt as to whether he's dead or not, and Mayfield just walks away like it's nothing. He's done what he had to do to protect himself. But again it's always these little details that he screws up on. He's injected the guy into his left arm, but Colombo knows that this guy is a lefty. So Columbo's like, why would a left handed guy inject his left arm with this?

So that was all for not honestly, like he didn't, it's he didn't. Even stranger, can you shoot yourself up in the opposite arm if you have a feeling of companionship as you're getting high. It's a totally different sensation. Right. Eventually Colombo figures out about the dissolving sutures he gets a hold of.

He figures out that she was trying to call this chemical supply house and everything, and but Mayfield just laughs in his face when he brings it to him, like, literally laughs in his face. Now here's the thing for the moe. For one of the only times in the entire show's run of forty some odd years, Colombo loses his cool with the villain. Typically, he keeps up appearances until the very end at the gotcha but he went just something about him laughing at Colombo right in his face. This brutal situation.

Colombo picks up this picture off of his desk and slams it just to shut the guy up, just for the moment, and he basically says to the guy, look, you better hope that doctor Hydeman doesn't die, otherwise I'm going to order an autopsy and I will prove that there was dissolving suture involved. So now hide him in again. Is backed into a corner. He's got how's he going to get out of it? So he hes he.

Does this, of course because that guy is going to die right right, So it is on care characteristic of him to lose his cool, I suppose, but it makes sense that he would do it in this case to spur him on to save the life and then prove that he was tried to kill him. It's jarring for somebody who's a fan of the show because he's always smiles and ingratiating. This is one of the only times I can think of where he loses his cool and he threatens the villain in the process and says, you better make sure you better hope this guy doesn't die, because I'm going to come for you. I told you, I told you. Mike White mentioned that these two episodes, and that's specifically what he said.

Oh my god, you're gonna love it. He loses his cool and I'm like, is that good? Bad? Is it a rare thing? It's incredibly rare.

So now doctor Mayfield's I got to figure this out. So he messes with doctor Heideman's medication to simulate a hard valve failure. Now the guy's got to go back into operating room and they got to replace the herd valve. But as he's doing it, there's all this attention on him as he's doing it, and in fact, it's an operating theater and he looks up. At one point, the doctor looks up and there's Colombo in the operating theater, looking down, watching him with an eagle eye to make sure that he doesn't miss a thing.

He's watching him. And Colombo's is established as being very squeamish around hospitals and around blood, and so for him to be there watching him do this operation is a big deal. Anyway. They he finishes the operation, and all of a sudden, Colombo and all these other cops rush into the operating room and they seal everything off, and we've got to figure this out. The threat.

We're gonna find this suture. We're not gonna let you get away with this. They don't find anything, Columbo's and scrubs and everything. So Colombo finally confronts the doctor in his office after the fact that I think the doctor even try to push him away at one point. In the operating room.

He definitely tried to. So then he confronts him again in his office and Colombo's defeated and he says, look, I guess I got a hand it to you. Doctor. I couldn't find any evidence of this, because no one could find any evidence of the suture. So he takes off his scrubs and puts it on the guy's couch and leaves, and the doctor give lifts out this sigh of relief, and then I'll almost immediately Colombo comes back in and he's you know what, I figured it out.

Turns out when he got pushed by the doctor as he was interrupting this the end of this procedure, the doctor secret secreted the faulty suture into Columbo's pockets. I searched everybody except myself, and he pulls out the suture and the doctor is dead to rights, and that's it. The gotcha has happened. Why didn't he just swallow it? There's any number of things that I got done with it.

I thought he I thought he did, in fact swallow it, and I thought, oh my god, he's gonna get away with it. It's gotcha's go. I have to say, as much as I love this episode, and I would rate this one as one of my favorites, if not one of the better episodes, because of the quality of the villain this the gotcha was a little bit flimsy for me. The fact that he pushed Colombo and kind of secreted the suture on his in his scrubs. That was a little weak, but it's you know what I thought it was because they tell him that he can go after saying you have to stay here.

So there comes a point where they like, there is no it's why we can't find it, and nimoy as a fuck you runs his hand through his hair. You can't touch me. And I thought at that moment he was putting the suture into his hair and that Columba would come back in and go one more thing and then pull it out of his scalp. But they went for They put it in his pocket, hoping that Columba wouldn't put his hands into his pocket and go, wait, what's this? Hey?

What this is it? Yeah, the hair thing would have been a better solution to that because he could have obscured it because his hair is black, obviously, But even given that, Like, the point that I've been trying to make through both of these episodes is that Columbo is only as good as it's villain, and this doctor Mayfield is among the very best villains because he's cold hearted, he's smart, he's he's motivated, he's calculating, and he will stop at nothing to protect himself and and go to unreasonable length to do it. The business with Harry Alexander and the morphine. It's heartbreaking what he does to this poor guy who, like I said, he's working at a like you said, he's working at a petting zoo.

This guy's not hurting anybody, He's just trying to get through life. I don't know. There's something very chilling about that. To tie it back to Star Trek for a moment, it points to the idea that if they were to ever do like a serial killer Vulcan run on Star Trek, it would be quite terrifying because that is an aspect to serial killers. That cold logic that was quite chilling and at the same time tempered with how jovial and fun Nemo.

It's always weird to see Nemo just being Nemoy because I'm either to me he's either Spock or the host of In Search Of, both of which are kind of inscrutable. So to see him having a good time at always weird because we get him, we get a whole party sequence with him, and just like showing people around and saying hi ladies. One of the lines that struck out to me was a woman saying I enjoy being around middle to upper middle class people, Like I was, Okay. That's the thing, that's what I'm saying. These are all like upper class elite.

He's the cream of the crop of surgeons, and you want to see him get taken down. Here are some stray observations though, HP yeah. No, Pachinko machines in the Swiss. Fortune no not Yeah. That was one of the only drags because I obviously enjoyed this one so much more than the shadow one.

This felt like a real detective thing, Like I felt the buzz of panic a little less here because he was so villainous that I could not relate to him in any way. There's just something not human ultimately about the sociopath that we're following. But it's always good to see anyone in a turtleneck. So during that sequence, with the party sequence, and that was great. I will say that if Detective Columbo or Lieutenant Colombo, pardon me, if Lieutenant Colombo would maybe stop only eating or drinking orange juice and coffee, that might some of the nausea.

Also, is it common practice for the tective to show up unannounced at a party and just make himself a plate. I mean, I loved it. And he just starts making himself a plate of food. Yeah. Not only that, when he shows up to the crime scene at the very beginning, this woman that's they find the attire iron the murder weapon, and Colombo pulls out this hard boiled egg for his breakfast, and he cracks the hard boiled egg on the murder weapon.

I don't think that's very common practice either, but I was there for it. But let me point to an obvious example of Peter fall control on the show, the sequence where he interviews Nimoy at Nimoy's party where they're sitting out together, which, by the way, beautiful view of Los Angeles. Clearly they were shooting before eleven am because the marine layer is in full effect. But anyway, he's eating this plate of food. He's eating that plate of food, which means he no doubt said we're doing this in one take, and then sat there and ate the food for that scene and then that was it, because no actor was going to eat that amount of food twice.

It's crazy. One of my very favorite episodes of Colombo is Luis Jordan is the villain. He plays this food critic in LA and it's basically like Colombo takes an eating tour of La because every it's all a bunch of a chef is murdered and all these other chefs that love this guy. Every time he goes to investigate, they make him a big plate of food and they say, inspe Lieutenant, this is for you. You find the guy.

So he's got sue flays and desserts, and it's all. I just think Peter Fox loved to eat and he loved good food. It's so evident. But one of the great things about Colombo. I've said a lot of good things about Colombo, but a lot of the locations in and around LA, they're shooting at actual locations, like people's houses and different buildings.

When he's at Ward Fowler's house, that's a real house. When he's in and around Doctor Mayfield's. Same house that Abney Coleman was in in nine to five, by the. Way, So you're not only is it just it has a real versimilitude because you know that these are the rich and powerful houses that are around. But it's a wonderful snapshot of La in the seventies and then going into the eighties because these are practical locations and it looks La looks gorgeous in all of these all of these episodes.

You know, I'm a big proponent of grimy Los Angeles porn, like I just love the eighties sparkling. Grimy Los Angeles is my absolute favorite, but close second is this particular Los Angeles. So it's always good to see locations that you know that we've seen other scenarios and other movies and everything, but certainly not this time in this era. I will say this though, as fantastic as all the location stuff is, it always is a bit jarring because they'll go from clearly like Melrose Boulevard and then step onto it soundstage, and that all the studio stuff. Is never really well made.

It's it's I would like to go back and maybe watch the pilot beginning to end the Spielberg Pilot, because I bet the indoor stuff is just as gritty and real world looking as what's going on the exteriors. In fact, like not only from exteriors to interior. During the sequence where Nimoy is performing the surgery for the first time, where we spend a lot of time on the surgery. We spend a lot of time on both the surgeries. Honestly, Yeah, they keep cutting from b roll I think of an actual surgery to Nimoy like talking to Anne Francis on a sound stage, because the quality of the film goes from like documentary style to like prices right lighting.

I like the surgeries felt authentic to. Me because they probably were. Yeah, because my limited experience of having gone through the occasional surgery or what have you, it felt that felt real to me, and it felt I don't know, it just felt authentic. And it all just they build the character so well. I believed doctor Mayfield.

I believed he was capable of all of this stuff, and they Nimoi might have been the perfect choice for this role because he, like I said, he has that emotional distance that you get from mister Spock. But it applies so well here because this is just an amoral, logic driven character. One more thing, HP just a thought I was having when I was thinking about this episode. If you go back and you look at the sequence where they discover the vials of morphine that have been placed under her sink, his method of examining them is to take a handkerchief and then grab both glass vials with his handkerchief and then walk it to a tech and say, dust these. I just rubbed all the fingerprints off of these.

Could you can you find anything? Oh? Nothing? How did that happen? I guess there's only so much they could do.

But it didn't really hurt my enjoyment of the sh show. I could see where you fear ndpicking. Maybe you can pick up on that. I loved a midpick. But did you enjoy it?

Oh? Yeah, thoroughly. It was a great episode. And you mentioning that Louis jodan was in one makes me want to go watch that one too. I'm sure if I look at the cast list of the guest stars, there's no doubt seventies TV royalty this way, and that.

My favorite if you're going to see any one episode at this point, my favorite episode the one that I would recommend that you watch. The Louis Jodane one is a good second place, but the first place one is I think it's called Double Shock, and it's got Martin Landau, but it's Martin Landau playing two parts. He's playing twins. Who speaking of that actors group that from New York that Martin it all, it all works. It's a very closed system in LA and I think a lot of these people were contemporaries or friends or acting partners of Peter Falk.

But that one's fantastic because Landau is He's a great actor in it. But it has the added twist of that he committed the murder. But was it one twin or was it the other twin? And that's what you're not sure about, and it creates this interesting sense of doubt through the whole episode, and it's phenomenal. Was it both of them?

You see the episode and find out, Oh. God, damn it. Okay, I want to thank everyone for joining us here on Star Trek fest Away Mission number one. We will eventually look at specific episodes of Star Trek and and some of the more plugged in the fluvia to be found. But we had to start here because I don't know why did we start there?

Before we go any further, let me just let me just thank you Father Malone for indulging me. Obviously, anybody who's listened, who's stuck around for this whole episode can tell that I'm in a Columbo nerd. I love the show. And like I said, I jumped at the chance to have my two passions intersect Star Trek and Colombo, So I thank you for that. Totally my pleasure.

Man. So I guess hide all the patrons. You're getting this super early. I don't know when it's going to go into the feed, so I'm not necessarily going to recommend anything other than keep listening to Midnight Viewing and go to Patreon if you haven't gotten there HP, Where can people find you and such? When you're not treckfesting away?

Sure you can find me. I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast alongside Fathom alone here. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a band camp site Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. I can't tell you what's going on necessarily on Midnight Viewing right now, but I can tell you that there are more episodes of this, including an upcoming one about the City on the Edge of Forever that is definitely a full length episode and a full length discussion on that on many levels. Stay tuned for that or keep an eye out for that one, and until next time, everybody, try to enjoy the daylight A sa