Troubled Waters

Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Colombo podcast. I'm your host, Mike White on this episode, of course, mister Chris Dashu my co host. And you sucked the chrome up of my bumper hitch or my toe hitch or whatever. You know what. I'm talking about, some little basketball action, little bare Robert Bond for everybody.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of people know him, the guy who's a bad boy in Magnificent seven. We go right for basketball. We're nothing but class around here. Yeah, we're sophisticates as they would. Say, Yeah, were the aristocrats.

On this episode, we were talking about the episod So Troubled Waters. It is the fourth episode of the fourth season. Oh Man, my Numerology is kicking in. It was directed by Ben Gazzara from a story by Jackson Gillis and William Driscoll, with a teleplay by William Driscoll. It came out February ninth, nineteen seventy five, and as with every episode this season, it is a ninety plus minutter, though in my opinion, they don't waste a whole lot of time.

Maybe a little bit with some singing set in the stage here and yeah, otherwise I'm curious, Chris, what did you think about Troubled Waters. This might be one of the best episodes of the show we've seen so far. Holy cow, it's pretty good. It's solid. I think I like Robert Vaughan.

His involvement is a little strange. It is like sideways involvement, and I'm gonna help you solve the crimes, dude, Like this is a little obvious. I think the framing device is strange with Colombo's wife doesn't exist or she does exist, or what is happening here? Again, we've talked about Columbo's wife before. This is I think the first episode where Colombo's wife is a thing, at least more so than we've ever seen up until this point.

I enjoyed it. I think, Yeah, I don't think I needed to hear Hoope Bokar sing volare that much. Jesus Christ. That was a bit much, and by a bit much a lot. And hey, it's nice to see that even in nineteen seventy five, they were using poppers for something other than gay sex.

So gotta love Colombo, everybody. I was wondering that in the episode, like when Robert Bond pops that thing under his nose. I was like, is this guy doing poppers or oh yeah? I was like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's preparing for something.

There's a lot of plot to this episode, and I think that it benefits from the amount of plot that it has and just how intricate this murder is. And also I know this is not the first time that we've seen Colombo at the very beginning of an episode. I remember Kennedy for Crime especially. We see him right off the bat, see him here before we see pretty much anybody else. It's just him on this boat, on this mfor boat, and he gets to meet up with our old friend Benar Fox from the British episode, the English episode.

He is now Pursher Watkins. And we get to Patrick McNee, one of the two people from the Avengers in here as the captain. Yeah, we meet them first before we even meet Robert Vaughan. And yes we get the setup of Columbo's wife is somewhere on this boat and apparently McNee has seen her or he's just pretending in order to glomm off this guy and get him away from the real good passengers, the one that aren't wearing raincoats in the summer. What are you doing here?

Left Tenant? Colombo? Why are you dress so strangely? Love that Columba just rolls with the punch. Oh no, it's gonna be very hot in Mexico from White, I understand.

I do like how they called him lieutenant over and over again. This is the overwhelmingly British episode of Colombo, even more so than the British episode was, Like, they weren't calling him left Tenant in that episode, and having Patrick McNee in your episode more or less makes it pretty goddamn British because him and Bernard Fox are throughout the episode. Yeah, I actually enjoyed this episode of fair amount, and I really enjoyed the plot of the episode. I enjoyed where the episode went in terms of the story, and yeah, there's a lot of ground to cover. There's a lot of story to cover here.

And even funnier, this is an episode where the way Colombo catches him is the first thing Columbo finds out. Oh yeah, it's the first thing. But in a lot of ways. I like this episode so much because it Columbo knows it's Robert Vaughan, but he can't prove it until the very end. And he has to prove it.

We've seen this before where Columbo like gets them hardcore. This might be the first time where it's like this, this is incontrovertible. This guy doesn't really admit to it as much as like Columbo. He does admit to it at the end, but Colombo has him dead to rights in this episode period. And I'm not saying that hasn't been the case in a lot of the episodes.

But we've talked about it before. I'll mention it here again. Sometimes it's not as cut and dry as Columbo's got him. Sometimes it seems like, oh, they might be able to wiggle their way out of this one if they're rich enough, and not so much in this one. He has to get him without a shadow of a doubt, and he does.

But it has to go through the pistol, It has to go through the gloves, it has to go through the amal nitrate, has to go through just everything. There's everything that we see gets more or less talked about and dealt with in some way and connected to Robert Vaughan's character. Yeah, there's also the key cutter and the pass key that gets made, and that's crucial to Robert Vaughan's characters Hayden Danziger. He is the head of a group of used car salesman. I guess is what his deal is.

And he's got all these used car salespeople on this ship, not a boat, but a ship. And yeah, I like that. There's this whole thing where Danziger is being blackmailed or potentially blackmailed by Rosanna Wells played by and I'm going to scripup how I say her name Poope Bocar. I know Poope in French is doll, so I'm guessing that she's named after that. She is a singer with the band here on the ship where you've got pianist Lloyd Harrington played by our friend Dean Stockwell, who luckily gets to stay away from any chlorinated water on this episode, as well as the man of the hour for me, Artie Podell played by Peter Maloney, mostly known to me for being in the Thing and his incredible scene where he is half transformed and he's still got the monster arm and he lets out that crazy howl before he gets flamethrowed.

Great seeing them in here, and I like what they're doing. Some of the direction here especially when they're like, oh, we need to talk with Lloyd Harrington and then cut to Peter Maloney going Lloyd Harrington and I'm like, right, and that's nice. I like that. That was Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned it because I would have mentioned that as well.

The direction in this episode was really well done. It's not surprising given the fact that Ben Gazzara is such a good friend of our dear friend, mister Peter Falk. So yeah, look, I think this episode is really good for a whole host of reasons. A. It's well written, B it's well directed, and see it's well acted.

Robert Vaughan, I think the only issue I overwhelmingly have with this episode is his involvement in all of it feels a little tenuous. Columbo ran into him the moment he got on the boat, like this dude was fucked. Clump goes onto you before you've even done anything. This is like Columbo is Minority Report. In this episode.

He literally meets Robert baughd before Robert Vaughan is even clear to us as the guy who's going to be murdering someone he already knows. And Vaughan when he's talking with his wife who's played by Jane Greer, and he gets all snippy with her about his gloves being missing, and at first I was like, why is he so mad about his gloves? Then I realized, oh, he needs these gloves for the crime. But then he's going to get the gloves from the doctor's office or they keep calling it a hospital even though it's two rooms, right, but at least they can do an autopsy there. They get to autopsy Rosanna and not really fine much of anything as far as I know, but I'm guessing they're keeping her in the freezer section for the rest of this voyage as they go to Masatman in Mexico or apparently I think Alcapoco might be their final destination.

Riviera Baby. Oh yeah, that's where I like to go, right there with kan Kun. That's where I'm headed next summer. Oh wow, yeah, right there on the seven baby. It's great.

Yeah, how do you feel about the setting of this episode, because this is like that Cold Check episode that was set on a boat. Boat episodes are a dime a dozen. A lot of TV shows have them. X Files had one, Colchack ad one. This show had one.

I'm sure people will chime in and tell us all kinds of boat episodes. What do you think about a boat episode in Colombo. I think it's great. I really like it, especially because Colombo one point, he forgets he's on a boat. So speaking of the dead body or like the lieutenant, we're on a boat here.

Basically this corpse is going to start smelling pretty soon. Oh yeah, I forgot, And then he has to go back to the old police methods, the guys literally using a magnifying glass. And you've got two gentlemen in this cast that have played John Watson in various and so it's so nice that we have doctor Watson here watching Colombo as Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, no, I you mentioned the old school detective of it all. I like the fact that the boat setting forces that to be part of the story more than anything else, and because it really shows that at the end of the day, like Colombo is a detective, Like our show is called the Shabby Detective for a reason.

This isn't Batman via Zack Snyder detective. This is Batman via Matt Reeves. Like we actually get to see Colombo be a detective here and do detective work. And yeah, using the old school methods. I really like that aspect of the episode.

I think that setting it on a boat could have been a crutch that would not have worked in a less well written show. But this is not that. This is a very This is a consistently well written show, and I think that they realized because it is set on a boat, they have to cram as much into this as possible because the intro of the murder, that has to be the point of this episode, because the setting is not going to be It's not that it's not interesting, but while it is a big boat, it's really a small setting ultimately, like there's a lot you can do with it, but not as much as one would think. It cuts him off from the boys in the lab, which he's never been overly reliant on the boys in the lab, but they do help him out occasionally.

Oh what is the smudge here? Oh, that's actually shoot polish. What did he have for dinner last Oh it was lettuce and that didn't digest all the way. So the time of death is off. Like those little things.

He's cut off from that. He has no boys in the lab to do any sort of work. He's there doing it himself. Doing the whole thing with the graphite for the fingerprints and everything, which I love. And then you also get the added benefit of, as Columbo points out himself, you have the world's largest evidence dump where you can just throw these gloves into the ocean, maybe throw the gun into the ocean.

But why didn't he throw the gun. Why did he throw the gloves away? Why wasn't it the gun. So you've got that as well as far as we don't know where this evidence is going to, and it's really a not good thing for Colombo. And yeah, like I said, he has to go back to the old school methods.

I'm surprised he wasn't using like sticky tape along with the graphite to be like, oh, there's the fingerprints. Yeah, I was hoping for that. We didn't get any of that, but we got. Two thirds of the way there, really. I Yeah, I enjoyed the aspects of this episode that were essentially restrictive.

To what was going on with Colombo. You're totally right having Colombo have like a ticking clock too, because that's the other hole he's gonna get away essentially, right, Like, yeah. If that boat docks again, he's done for because yeah, Robert Von will just disappear. Yeah, and he'll do it. He's made it clear that he's willing to just dip out on everybody, and just because I don't know, it's weird though.

I think maybe the I understand why he kills Roseanna Wells, but it seems a little drastic, right. Not really. I guess he wants to keep like a Robert Cole thing, right, Yeah, he wants to keep her away from Sylvia so that she doesn't spoil his marriage. I'm guessing that Sylvia is probably pretty well off because in this position, he's probably okay as far as how much money he makes. But it really feels like Sylvia and I think she even says at one point, I'm an older woman, and you probably think that my husband married me for my money.

You're right if he absolutely did. But yet he wants to play around with Rosanna Wells, the hot singer of this band, and he's probably on an earlier cruise because obviously he gets recognized by McNee and Barnard Fox as being a regular person on this voyage. So yeah, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. And when Rosanna starts knocking saying, hey, you got to pay or play. He doesn't want any of that stuff.

He needs to get her out of the picture, and I can see him doing anything that he needs to. I love when he's talking with her and he's holding her by the neck and she's, oh, that hurts. I was hoping maybe she would have bruises on her neck. Later on that came up post mortem to give us one more piece of evidence as far as the size of the hands or whatever it was. But yeah, yeah, I can see he's very vicious and very well thought out too.

This whole thing of getting the gun and getting the receipt for the gun with Lloyd's name on it and then planting it in Lloyd's cabin. I thought it was really nice. And I love how Colombo, though, just completely disregards this l that was allegedly written on the mirror by Roseanna Wells, where I love I think it's Bernard Fox is just like, oh what about the L? He's like, or did you see the lipstick? And he's just like, oh yeah, I saw it, and it was just like so dismissive, and then he almost has play along.

I guess we should look for people with the letter ELA in their name and then he uses that against Vaughan later on, whereas any of your dealers have l's in their name that have taken this cruise before, because obviously whoever did this knows when the band goes. On break and then doesn't someone say something to the effect about the L. She would have died immediately, so how would she have been able to put the L on the mirror? Anyways? I like that thinking in this show where we need to use common sense and just the facts to diffuse the horseshit of the murder, and that's one of it.

Like, I don't know what Robert Bonn was thinking, but that's so bullshitty to put, like what. An L whatever? I like it though. I like that this episode has a lot of different directions that it goes in. In all those directions, all those doors have to be closed, as it were, so that we can finally get the one solution, which is there was just a feather on the ground, and the feather Like, how as someone who has only seen this episode two times now, you've been with this episode a lot longer, how do you feel about it being the feather?

I love that it's the feather. I love that he picks up the one feather in the cabin room and puts it in his pocket and then sees the other feather does the exact same motion with it later on, and it's just the simplest thing. That's the thread that he starts to unwind and start pulling on, pulls himself right into Robert Vaughan's room, just like, oh, I'm so sorry. Didn't know anybody who was in here, And I'm like, oh, yeah, sure you didn't. I loved it.

It's great he lies so much in this episode. But I like that we also get to see Colombo let others in on it because he lets the Stockwell in on it, Patrick McNee, Bernard Fox, Robert Douglas, like they're all in on it. Because at one point he's like, do you think that's the person who did it? And he's like, yeah, I do, like I do, And I was like, whoa. We normally don't get It's not that we don't get to see it, but this is a different episode because he can't go to anybody else.

These are the people he has to work with, and I really like that, and I like those scenes towards the end where Patrick McNee has to be like, it has to be explained to him, what's going on? Yeah, and then he's oh, okay. Like the thing with the heart like the thing with the fucking heart rate. Oh my god. The thing with the heart rate is another great avenue that has to be explored because there's some evidence in the camp of this guy did it, which in and of itself it's great because we have the things that he's trying to put out there that Colombo has to disprove, and then the things that Colombo has to prove.

I'm saying this is a This is one of the best episodes because it has a lot of evidence and anti evidence that it really clears up, which a lot of the episodes have not done any of this, and if they have, they don't do it nearly as well as this episode does. We talk about exercise and fatality and just how it felt like a jump drawer of clues with the ultimate clue being the shoes tied the wrong way. Meanwhile, you've got this one where it's just like this piece and they all add up and they all fit into this wonderful puzzle. This is what a Columbo episode should be. Keep your exercise and fatality.

Of course, there's some funny moments in it and all that, but I don't need it. I need more like this where it just feels like a ticking clock. This feels like a proper detective story. Yes, there are so many of these episodes of this show that it's not that they're bad, it's far from it. It's just they don't put in the effort that something like this does.

And it really feels like a well oiled machine, which is how these stories should feel when they're well written, Like everything slides into place seamlessly, to the point where yet you think Colombo's going with the gloves and then he's like, how did you know it was me? It's his fucking feather. We had him going through three quarters and we got him at the end. And that's how I felt that this episode. I remembered he picked up the feather, but I didn't think it was going to be like the true Danu maw of the episode is the feather.

But it's so smart because again it's like how did you know? It's not how did I catch you? It's how did you knows? And how did I get you onto my scent? Initially, and it's the simplest, Like you said, it's the simplest of things.

Ted Bundy left a wrench, this guy left a feather. Same fucking difference. And I'd like that towards the end when he's explaining quote unquote explaining things to Patrick McNee with that whole thing with the graph fight and the gun and the gloves and all those kind of stuff, that he is really explaining it to Robert Vaughan. I don't know if McNee knows this stuff or not. He's explaining it to us the audience, but really for me, he's explaining it to Robert Vaughan to be like, and this is how I catch you.

This is the uncut Gems moment, this is how I win. And hey, we haven't mentioned to you, but that fucking shirt that he is wearing in that scene, my friend, what is that? That's Colombo being stylish for the first time and in his entire higher life in this show, my lower. It's hilarious when they come down to wake him up because there's been a murderer aboard the ship and he's like, okay, yeah, give me a minute, and Bernard Fox looks a little put out and then he comes out and he's putting out his fucking tie. I'm like, it's got to be probably twelve thirty one o'clock a night, and you're putting your tie on as you walk up and about to talk to the captain and the doctor.

And by the way, the doctor Robert Douglas, he was both an actor and a director. He actually comes back in season six and directs an old fashioned murder, which I found interesting because it's not just this whole Gazara crew that has, you know, inroads into this that this guy was in one episode and then directs another I thought was pretty cool. Look, Ben Gazara kills it with this episode. The direction in this episode is great and it's not surprising, right Like Peter Falk John Cassavetti's did really well too, it's actually far from surprising. Peter Folk, I think, is a quality actor, and quality actors like to surround them with people that are going to sharpen them, as it were.

And I think Ben Gazara and John Cassavetti's clearly there's a reason Peter Foulk was friends with these people, and I think it was a good reason, because yeah, this is genuinely a great episode of the show, Like a genuinely great episode of the show. And I think a lot of it does have to do with the direction and the script writing. But everybody's great. But everybody in this episode's great and everything else they've been in, or at least the things I've seen them in, especially even someone like Dean Stockwell, who, like we've already mentioned, finally has a lot to do in an episode of the show. I wouldn't say he's unfortunately he's still sidelined as the Patsy character.

But I like him in this episode. I like him in this episode more than I do in the last one, that's for sure. Yeah, he's got a lot more to do in this episode, even though he's not in it for very much. Like you said, he's got that crazy hair and that big mustache going on. I love it.

And but you get the quality actor where he has that fight with her, which I thought was great. Oh if you're drowning now three at anchor, I'm like, oh, that's nice. It made this big display of things to really make yourself look guilty. That's great. And somebody like a Jack Cassidy would do that in order to cast suspicion upon him, where Dean Stockwell is just doing this because he's angry at this woman.

He's not causing a scene just to have an alibi. And meanwhile, Robert Vaughan is, Oh, I've got the alibi. I've got this popper. I'm going to put it under my nose and fake a heart attack in order to get these gloves, in order to get like a base where I know that the nurse isn't going to come in from eleven to eleven thirty, so I'll be okay with this. I'm like, oh, that's really nice.

And you mentioned Culp. I think Colp and Vaughn feel like they're cut from very similar cloths to me. Opios get that moment of explosion and you're afraid he's going to explode. Robert Vaughn is like a reptile or something where he's just always so cold and calculate, and I just am like, Oh, even though this guy is like essentially a used car salesman, Columbo's really up against this guy in a pretty good way because you don't know where where Robert Vaughan is going to go with this stuff. And up until the last moment, I've wanted that shit on purpose.

Wow, there's no way he wiggles out of this one. He's wiggled out of everything else, not this time, Pal. I like that moment. But yeah, Robert Vaughan is great. This is great in this episode.

I know we were talking about basketball at the beginning, and his role in that is nothing like this. But I think it just speaks to the quality of him as an actor that he can do both of these kinds of things. He murders someone in cold blood. This is a graphic episode of Colombo on top of everything else. I don't think we've seen anyone open back shot with blood on skin before.

There's a little bit of not graphic gore, but as graphic as this show has gotten. He's willing to shoot someone on a boat who's a real nasty dude. I feel, yeah. And then the silencer quote unquote, with the pillow and that being what gets them, then faking the l all of these things he thinks are really clever. He thinks that shooting her through the pillow is probably the most clever thing a person could do.

But that's ultimately his undoing and just this whole They don't have feather pillows in hospitals. They cause allergies. I'm like, oh that, I will say, though in all reality, shooting a gun through a pillow doesn't do fuck all. I don't imagine. I know you always complain with there's silencers in movies.

On a handgun. I'm just like, yeah, I know, this isn't a real thing, but it's definitely a good movie conceit or TV conceit. I'm surprised that they used a gun on a boat because that's a really loud way of killing someone. I would have thought that Robert Vaughan would have strangled her or something. Well, two boats, the two guns on this boat, the Magician's gun.

And I love that he uses the magician gun. That they set that up check off hello, and it's oh, yeah, by the way, here's this other gun that we have, and he's going to use that in order to get the powder burns on the gloves and you know, recreate what he did before. I'm like, oh, that's clever too. Just another thing that they set up earlier in the episode that comes. Back later a lot of as our friend rich HadAM would say, planting in payoff.

Yes, yeah, this is up there for me for some of the best, most tightly written episodes of the show. It does a good job of making sure that anything in everything that it has opened the way for is addressed, handled, and then used as evidence or anti evidence against Robert Vaughan. And I like that. I think that's been a complaint of mine from time to time in this show, is that the directions that it ultimately goes are unsatisfying. In the conclusion of the how catch him?

And this one is like beyond satisfying because everything else is ruled out or added into the mix, and then it's this one fucking thing though, And it's like that one thing, like you said with the hospital pillows, like it's just so smart. I think the only thing that maybe comes close was the thing with Leonard Nimoy where he's like, oh, it's in the in my pocket. Oh it's that level of Oh, you were so far ahead of him this whole fucking time, right, he was fucked the moment he ran into you on that boat and you hadn't even killed anybody. And apparently there were quite a few scenes where Gazara was not feeling well. A lot of the actors weren't feeling well because they actually shot most of this on an actual cruise line.

It was like premiere of one of the lines. I don't know if it was Princess or somebody else. It actually this episode made me want to go out and rewatch some old Love Boat episodes just to see that those scenes. I don't know if you're familiar with Love Boat, but there's this whole thing of you get to introduce all of the characters. At the beginning, as they're all walking up the way that the gameplank.

Maybe I don't know if that's what That's okay. They're all coming away and oh who is this person? Oh? Who is It's very fantasy island. There's a reason why those shows get confused sometimes because it's we all come on to the boat, we all come on to the island.

We get introduced to these people. They have the little adventures on the boat, and then when they're done, see I take care, where what's the state of these people that we welcomed here an hour ago? It looks like their marriage is saved. It looks like Robert Vaughn as Fox. And boy isn't he They just escort his ass off the boat and that's that goodbye, have fun in prison.

That's in prison. Oh, and poor Lieutenant Columbo still can't find missus Columbu. I love when Bernard Fox comes to his room to say, we have a problem. Isn't my wife she likes to party? Is basically what he's saying.

Apparently, there was originally a scene where he walks into stateroom and there's a woman with dark hair and she's brushing her hair in front of the mirror, and you're like, oh, it's Missus Columbo. And then she looks up and sees his reflection and goes, what are you doing here? And he's oh, was this fifty two S? And no, this is fifty two E or whatever. Oh, I'm sorry that walks out.

So they were really trying to play up the Missus Columbo ness of it. I'm glad that they didn't do that, and instead it's other running gags like the whole boat slash ship thing, and that's a nice payoff at the end. It could have been a little bump upup, but I actually thought it worked well. I think that's the ultimate question I have in this episode, because it's the thing that I do wonder about. What is the What is the fan consensus on Missus Colombo.

As far as if she exists or not? Yeah, because I know that we know that there's the show with Red from Orange is the New Black Jane Way from Voyager, So I know that Kate Moulgrew plays Missus Columbo in the Missus Columbo Show, which sounds like Fish. Like we'll have to watch one episode, like I know it's gonna be like pulling fucking teeth because Fish was like pulling Fish was just eh, it's like a physical reaction to that. I've seen episodes of Missus Columbo. It's definitely better than Fish, but it's I don't know, watered down Rockford Files or something.

Better than Fish is damning something with the faintest of fucking praise. A lot of the same writers show up on that, and a lot of the same talent is behind the scenes. But yeah, it's just it's not nearly as good. And she's just not the character that Colombo is. She doesn't have all of the ticks and things that he has.

And you don't feel and this is no offense to Missus Columbo, you just don't feel it that she that genius behind the shabby facade that he is, and that's what we like about him so much, the way that he disarms people, the way that he knows all of this stuff but then just placates people like, oh yeah, I'll look into people with the letter L for their first name. And they said, he already knows that has nothing to do with this. Yeah. Oh, I was just curious again with the Missus Columbo of it all. I know she's a real character, but is there a fan consensus on whether or not this woman actually exists?

I've asked, because this. Is a weird fucking episode now, because did he get on a boat? Okay, the question I have is why the fuck is Columbo on the boat if there is no Missus Columbo, because otherwise he's literally minority report. He is Tom Cruise, a minority report. He's just here to solve the murder, which again, that's how perfectly fine conceit.

I'm just as they say, I'm just asking questions. What happened was the government knew that this guy was on this boat, and so they faked a contest and put oh, I'm thinking of the fifth element. Never mind, you were talking about that m Night Shyamalan film Trap. Oh no, I haven't watched that one yet. Is that called thirst Trap?

I wish it was as Josh Harten in it. Oooh, talk about a thirst trap. I haven't talked with the fans as much, but every time that we've had an interview, I think for the most part, I've asked the interview subjects if they think that Missus Columbo is real. I think everybody thinks she's real, and I just like this whole thing of oh, you just missed her, but it's very oh gosh. I don't know if you remember the Bloodhound Gang, but you never saw mister Bloodhound.

It was one of those oh he just laughed. Oh he only comes in on the second Tuesday in the month, and today's the third Tuesday or whatever it is. So I like these missing characters that we have. It's almost like Charlie from Charlie's Angels, but at least with that you have the voice. Yeah.

If that's the point of the gag, I'm here for it. But that's my question because up until this point it's just been a gag. Now it's like less of a gag and more of what I would interpret to be like, this is the framing device through which the plot is operating. Yeah, and I had to look up what was it, the Holy Named Society or whatever she won the contest through, and I was like, oh, I've never heard of this group before. Very Christian kind of stuff, and okay, if that's your thing, that's great, and I'd love that it was some sort of sweepstakes or contests that she wins and gets to bring along the Lieutenant Columbo and yeah, there just happens to be a murder on the boat at the same time, and he happens to have introduced himself as Lieutenant Colombo because they're calling him mister Colombo, and he's so concerned.

They're so concerned about their titles that he then has to correct them and say, my title is lieutenant. I'm not just a mister. You're I'm going to call the purser captain whips my bad, I'm going to call the ship a boat or vice versa. Okay, if you're so concerned about words, lieutenant is my preferred pronoun. Thank you very much.

Yeah, hell with it or whatever he says at the end of the episode. I love that. Oh that's a boat. Yeah, that was fine. Yeah, Peter Faulk in this episode, he's really good.

He's great, and yeah, I like that we see him immediately. This is a heavy Columbo episode, which is fine by me. We did mention it. I do want to reinforce maybe cut that Vola scene down about Hans, because that's look Volarai is. There was a time where that song was clearly really popular in this country.

It was March of nineteen seventy four, a year before this episode came up. Like, I just Volari is such a weird song to be like front and center in your episode. If you listen to all of the other songs that the band is playing, it's quite a greatest hits of lounge music. I remember at one point it's so unusual by Tom Jones. I'm like, oh, okay, and just yeah other songs.

I'm like, yeah, I know all of these songs. This is really what's happening at the Palace hotel ballroom kind of thing. It's like, all right, get out the old time or things. You don't really get too much interaction with the other passengers, which I'm actually okay with. I'm glad there weren't like the funny couple, the handsome couple that I'm glad it wasn't an episode of the love boat.

It was just concerned about the murder the band, a couple members of the band, and the captain and his crew. I'm like, perfect, this is a even though you're on a fucking boat or ship with thousands of people, and these were real people that were on the ship, like they ran this as the Colombo Cruise, and it was like, we are filming this, you might be in this episode. If you don't want to be in this episode, do not be on the ship. So I thought that was cool, but that they didn't have to spend that much time with these other passengers and just concentrated on this really tight story. That was the thing I mentioned about Robert Vaughan.

The only thing I really have an issue with this episode is he feels forced into the investigation, and that's because they don't interact with anybody else on the ship. It's only him, and I think, to my point, I don't think it would have worked if they had interacted with anybody else, which is why the Robert VAUGHANOVI It all feels a little forced. But at the same time, I would prefer it to be. Yeah, like you said, a little bit more of a tight ball of an episode than having tentacles out into the usual bullshit these kinds of episodes trafficking. There's not a lot of just funny for funny sake, not at all, really, Larry Storage character, like none of these like side characters walk shit.

Yeah, exactly, there's none of that stuff, and it's just all here we go, here's the story. Other than to your point, the Valari segment, it's like, there's not a lot of stuff I would cut out of this episode. And for me, that's also a good thing where you are cross cutting between Valari and what's happening elsewhere on the ship, and I'm like, okay, that kind of works. But yeah, every time you cut back it's like, oh, we just started the chorus again. Though I'm like, oh.

My gosh, the fuck up. Come on, I've heard this. How many times can I hear the same thing? Yeah, it was a bit much. That was the one part where I was just like, when I came back to it the second time I watch the episode, I skipped it.

I'm not sitting here for five minutes or whatever the hell this is listening to this over and over again. And I get what you're saying about Robert Vaughan and just him being forced into it, but I like that he becomes this sounding board for Colombo where it's just we're thinking about this, or I'm just wondering about your other car dealers because this and just the way he's like laying out all of these things, it's got to be somebody who does this. The whole thing with the key cutter, It's like we were thinking that somebody had an extra key, but really what it probably was somebody that has the ability to cut these keys. My brother in law he lost his car. I'm just like, this is great, and I love that he's just there explaining his thought process to Robert Vaughan to be like, do you realize just how fucked you are right now?

My friend even does the Curtis clipper thing where he's and it's called a right Curtis clippers. Oh bro, what are you? No, you're fucking You're fucking what you just you willingly walked into that one, dumb fuck like he's an auto executive. Bro, you don't do that, like you just you might as well have just like stuck your hands down and said cuff me here, man, like, just get it over with. Yeah, that cracked me up so hard.

I was like, what God's name or you think he. Marched into that? Like that little kid on the Zoom conference call from BBC where it's the guy at the desk and his kid comes marching in with its arms waving. That's how you just walked right into that, Curtis Clipper, sir. Yeah, it was that was wild.

I laughed really hard when he's Curtis Clippers, man, you just fucking should not have done that. But okay, right, but yeah, I know, I like I said, I think that this is a good example of this show operating at its absolute peak and sets a pretty high bar for whatever the next episode is. And I think, honest to god, this has been like the best season of the show so far. Like every episode has been pretty great. The Robert Conrad episode, the Dick van Dyke episode, the last episode, the Patrick McGowan episode.

Like, we're hitting some real big hitters, and I am really enjoying watching this show hit its stride in season four. Next episode, though, we're gonna be talking about one called Playback, which adds a connection to the whole Gazara Cassavetes gang. We've got the star of a woman under the Influence herself, Gina Rowland's Rip. She's going to be in there. As far as I remember, She's not used very well.

But it's been a long time since I've seen playback, so I'm very curious to talk about that one next month. That's a fucking shame if that's the case, because Jesus Christ, Yeah, Rip is right that a woman under the Influence was I don't need to watch that again. That's one of the more uncomfortable things I've watched in a very long time, and that's because of her ability to just disappear into whatever it is she's doing. But it's a shame that if that is the case, that's a bit of a shame. But I'm glad that she's in it, even if it's a little bit.

But yeah, the John Cassavetti's of it all continues. Yeah, it's funny because when I think of a woman under the Influence, I just think of that dinner or breakfast scene, the spaghetti scene that just stuck with me so much. Man, every single time I think about that movie, I think about her sitting on the other side of the table from Falk, and just the way he's getting more and more mad at her. Yeah, God, that's for again. Like, I really like Peter Falk and he's great in the show, but the things that I've seen him in outside of the show, namely Corky Romano, he's a great actor.

I was kidding about the quirky Rano of it all, but Corky Romano is great. But yeah, a Woman on the Influence is just that's some prime fulk So hopefully they interact a little bit in the next episode, but I guess it remains to be seen. And I do have to recommend if you liked the Woman under the Influence I did Opening Night for another podcast, Falk makes a very brief appearance in there as Peter Falk, which is hilarious. But man, another just hell Or Rowland's performance. She is just magical in that movie.

And a great job of directing by Kuessa. Eddi's And what a shame she just recently passed away. Yeah, she lived quite a life, which is good. Yeah, she sure did. I would agree with you on that.

We've got two more episodes of this season and then we'll be taking a little bit of a break and we'll be catching up with what Levinson and Link we're doing around this time, as well as what mister Falk was doing around this time. I think we're going to be talking about Griffin and Phoenix pretty soon, and then we'll probably have to talk a little bit about murder by Death, but we covered that we're on week Up Heavy, So if people want to hear us talk about murder by Death, definitely check out Wakeupheavy dot com. And then I'm super excited to talk about Mikey and Nicky because that pairs Falk and Cassavetti's as actors, and then you've got Elaine May writing and directing that one. We like to go far a field sometimes, but we're never going too far afield on this show, thankfully.

I like to go Jamie Farrfield. Yeah, me too. That's a real smash cut that joke. That's a family guy cut to Jamie farr in address exactly you can. Yeah, I know I know how humor works.

Me too, I too. Went to the school of Seth McFarland. Until we come back and talk about playback, Chris, what are you up to these days? I'm just working on audio diversions over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where you can find this show and so many other shows, including the Culture Cast, which I've spent the last decade working on, So that's where you can find all the things that I work on. And yeah, what about you, mister Mike White.

Pretty much the same thing. I've just been working a little bit longer on my movie podcast. But not trying to brag or anything, but I'm really proud of what we've been doing together. Over on our patreons. If you join either Chris's Patreon at patreon dot com slash Culture Cast or my patreon at patreon dot com slash Projection Booth, you're going to get at the ten dollars and up level, you're gonna get a whole monthly show where we talk about James Bond.

Every month we talk about a new Bond. I'm going to pretty soon, I think we've got Living Let Die will be released, so that's going to be a great discussion the exploitation version of James Bond, which is fantastic. And then yeah, I'm super excited we're going to be recording pretty soon about the Spy who Loved me and I just finished reading that book and i can't wait to watch the movie because I'm sure it's going to be an exact adaptation of it. Oh my nore about to be sorely disappointed. I'm back next month.

I want to thank John Walker for our opening theme and Colin Gallagher for our closing thing, and I want to thank everybody for listening to this. If you like the show, go on over to iTunes, rate and review it, and please just say some nice things about us. So we get into that algorithm and get recommended, and now you can download Apple podcasts and iTunes. However you want to say it through your and Greid device as well. You just go to the website, bookmark that sucker there and you're off to the races.

It's not necessarily an app, but they actually work on your phone now, which is wild. How long have been has podcasting been around? It's only been that long. It's only been. Sixteen years, twenty.

Years, one of years, I forget. I was at the podcast convention and they talked to the podcn by mon sci Fi by Podcon. I was there in March. I think it's twenty twenty five years. Oh, it's twenty.

Yeah, it's twenty because we because you've been doing it a little over half and I've been doing it exactly half of the time. So yeah, brother, what the fuck? Twenty fourteen? And I listened to my first podcast in twenty sixteen or not twenty No, that wouldn't be right. Oh two thousand yeah, no, yeah, twenty yeah, twenty years.

So I listened to my first podcast in two thousand and six. It was Film Spotting with Adam Kempinar and Sam Holgren, which doesn't even fucking exist anymore. Mine was probably two thousand and nine or two thousand and ten, and I was probably listening to The Gentleman's Guide to Midnight Cinema and or Outside the Cinema. I'm big into cinema. Can you tell.

Big movie guys? These two folks here, would it be weird if they did a movie podcast and the rest, as they say, was history? So can sogno cosi none returning my pure he dip in Jevo La money, he Lah Fetcher, the Blue, Adim Proviso, Venevo, Daveino Rapito. Hey come in Java a lot and a cello infini. Boh, can't chi man blue depends on blue belly.

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