Day 256: Columbo, Columbo Goes to College

Show: Columbo

Episode Particulars: S10EP1, “Columbo Goes to College”, original airdate December 9^th, 1990.

Note: Here’s where things diverge a little. Wikipedia kind of lumps all the remaining Columbo episodes into one set, while The Columbo Episode Guide divides them up into Seasons Ten, Eleven, and then scattered specials. I’ve decided to go with Wikipedia on this one for simplicity’s sake.

 Summary: Freemont College students Cooper Redman (Gary Hershberger) and Justin Rowe (Stephen Caffrey) have been living the stereotypical fraternity life, apparently more interested in partying than studying. This comes back to bite them when their criminology professor, D.E. Rusk (James Sutorius) discovers they were cheating (or planning to cheat, this isn’t entirely clear) and plans to do something about it. Deciding the only way out is to murder their professor, Justin tells Rusk that his father (Robert Culp) wants to meet Rusk at a restaurant to talk about the incident. Then, when Rusk ducks out of his class during a guest lecture in order to keep the meeting, he winds up shot dead in the parking garage. While it’s very clear to the audience that Cooper and Justin are the perpetrators, we have no idea how they did it, and an investigation of both the scene and the security cameras reveal nothing out of the ordinary either. But that doesn’t really faze the guest lecturer, who happens to be a certain Lieutenant…

Standalone Thoughts: Now this is how you use conventional mystery tropes on Columbo. Instead of keeping who killed the victim from the audience, keep how they were killed from us but make it very clear who’s responsible. That way, the audience has something to work with but can still be surprised. A+ to whoever came up with the idea.

As for the execution of the rest of the episode, I’d say it mostly works. Caffrey and Hershberger are perfect in their roles; they really do come across as students who think they know everything and are overconfident as a result. Watching them think they’re putting one over on Columbo makes the impending arrest all the more satisfying, although I would have loved if the episode had had a moment where Columbo gives them a glimpse of what he’s capable of, and for only one of them to pick up on it and start to get a little nervous. I enjoy what we got well enough, but something like that would have put it over the top. Other things that work include the acknowledgement (in show and out) that Columbo sometimes resorts to shady tactics to get the job done, a continuity nod to “Agenda for Murder” (and possibly an implied continuity nod to “Murder in Malibu”), Columbo spending a large chunk of time doing real investigation work, and for the die-hard Columbo fans, a small role for Robert Culp, who had been a Columbo murderer three times back in the 70’s. Again, I might have liked his cameo more if he and Columbo had gotten along and kind of worked together, thus having him be the polar opposite of the roles fans remembered him for, but having that connection is good too.

There is, however, one weak spot about the episode, and it’s a fairly large one in my eyes, even if it was kind of foreshadowed by the show. Columbo gets a big break on the case not once, but twice, and both times by pure dumb luck. Like I said, he mentioned in his opening lecture that sometimes cracking a case comes down to luck, but this is less a lucky break and more Admiral Plot Device messing with the script. In the first case, Columbo gets a hunch that Rusk had ducked out of the lecture to meet someone at a restaurant. After asking around the nearby restaurants, he finds one that got a call from Rusk, asking the Maître D to apologize to Mr. Rowe because Rusk would be ten minutes late for their meeting. Later, Columbo learns that Justin’s last name is Rowe, and starts to get suspicious. The thing is, why would the Maitre D remember this, much less have a note about it? Rowe wasn’t actually at the restaurant, and once the Maitre D learned that fact, wouldn’t it be more likely that he’d dismiss Rusk’s call as a prank and throw the note away? And if that had happened, I’m not sure how Columbo would have eventually started to figure things out. Similarly, Columbo cracks the case because of a massive coincidence (one that might not be technologically possible today), which again might have made the episode impossible if it wasn’t there. The rest of the material is strong enough to make up for this, but I do feel like this is very weak writing.

If you can look past that, though, I think this is a fine episode. Yeah, there’s some padding immediately after the murder (but it works better if you think of it as Cooper and Justin deliberately messing around with Columbo) and the “fancy” technology involved in this episode looks incredibly normal or outdated today, but it’s creative and generally well-executed. It would probably be in the middle of the pack if I was ranking each individual episode, but I also think it would be closer to the upper middle.

Number of “Columbo-isms”: 5.5/6. Columbo’s car is seen numerous times; he fumbles in his coat and asks for a pencil; he literally says “Just one more thing”, and has a few more instances of it scattered throughout; he whistles “This Old Man” near the end of the episode; and while he only mentions his wife twice, one of them turns out to be very important. As for the .5, Dog himself doesn’t appear, but Columbo mentions him and we see him in a photograph, so I feel like it should kind of count.

Other: *This is another one of those rare instances where we see Columbo early on in the episode. In fact, he’s kind of on the scene when the murder takes place. But unlike his early appearance in “Make Me a Perfect Murder”, this one actually makes sense, so I approve this time around.

*I am slightly annoyed by the fact that the episode felt the need to label the college via text on the screen, instead of just giving us an establishing shot of the college’s name on a building or something. The latter feels natural, while the former is intrusive, especially since Columbo’s never done anything like that before. Maybe that was becoming the trend in media, but the crew should have resisted that impulse.

*I was very surprised when Cooper’s dad (Alan Fudge) blatantly came out and said that a woman Cooper had dated was having an abortion, with the implication that this isn’t the first time something like this had happened. I guess I just didn’t expect such heavy subject material to come up in Columbo. I’m not sure if it’s fortunate or unfortunate that it’s a toss-off line for the most part; fortunate because it’s not dwelled on, unfortunate because this doesn’t seem like subject matter you should bring up unless you’re really prepared to dig into it. But on the whole, it’s probably for the best that it didn’t become a plot point.

*Only college students would be stupid enough to come up with this idea;

A lamp/fishbowl combination seems like a recipe for disaster, but I can absolutely see college students trying it. I can only hope those wires are well protected.

*I like the fact that one of the places Columbo goes to for information has a sign that says “No cigars or pipes” on the doors…and then Columbo walks out of it holding an obviously lit cigar. Yes, he’s breaking the rules, but that’s also in keeping with the Columbo we know and love.

*We don’t see it for long enough that I can confirm this, but I could swear Justin was wearing that odd sweater I showcased in “Uneasy Lies the Crown”. Well, nobody else was going to be wearing it, so why not reuse it?

Would This Hold Up in Court?: Considering that Columbo set the boys up at least twice, I’m guessing not, especially since Justin’s dad is a lawyer. That may explain the look on Columbo’s face at the end of the episode.