Columbo

I got left at the port with this subpar episode. With the previous episode registering as my favorite, this outing has little to recommend including no distinguishing performances. Robert Vaughn is smarmy but unconvincing as the culprit and Dean Stockwell seems lost as the likely suspect. The captain and the bandleader were others that annoyed me more than they enriched the plot. The crime has no flair or any of the meticulous execution so prevalent in the series. Was there a motive? I can't remember offhand. I'm surprised by the score and praise lavished in the previous review. Danziger leaves the sniffers behind for Columbo to fish out of the pool but manages to pitch all the other critical evidence over the starboard side?? Didn't like it and didn't buy it. A forgettable effort in an otherwise superb Season 4.

The mystery is great, and the way Columbo figures it out and befriends Mr. Danziger is perfect. Danziger does not know whether to like Columbo, or hate him. The pace of this episode is perfect, it rolls along just like a cruise. The ship itself is also a wonderful backdrop for the episode.

During a break of the band, the singer is murdered. The Captain asks Columbo to help him to find the murderer. Everything seems like a member of the group is culprit, but Columbo finds the right advice to unmask the right man.



A key episode in the series, if only because so many thematic elements are gathered together which appear as well in "How to Dial a Murder", "Now You See Him", "Étude in Black", etc.



"Troubled Waters" is something of a lab experiment isolating Lt. Columbo to reveal the quanta of luck, fate, instinct, training, intuition and skill that go to make his character.