Day 262: Columbo, It's All in the Game

Show: Columbo

Episode Particulars: S10EP7, “It’s All in the Game”, original airdate October 31, 1993.

 Summary: Lauren Staton (Faye Dunaway) appears to have it all; beautiful mansion, lots of nice clothes, and a boyfriend named Nick Franco (Armando Pucci) who adores her. But Staton knows that Franco has been two-timing her, and has teamed up with his “other woman”, a younger woman named Lisa (Claudia Christian) to kill him and make it look like a robbery gone bad. For an extra touch, Staton will be the one to discover the body in the view of another witness, giving her an airtight alibi. When Columbo arrives on the scene, he makes it clear that he’s suspicious of the situation, so Staton, not wanting Columbo to put all the pieces together, throws herself into seducing him. And Columbo…seems surprisingly all right with this.

Standalone Thoughts: This may be one of those episodes where knowing one little fact may change your opinion of the whole thing. I say “may”, because I think my opinion would mostly have been the same, but knowing this fact puts things in perspective a little. It doesn’t impact it in an overly positive or negative way, but it did make my reaction to certain scenes a bit different.

You see, this episode was written by Peter Falk himself. And on the one hand, the opening where Staton and Lisa were planning and executing the murder was pretty solid. Plus, Falk wrote in several little clues of the sort that Columbo would get suspicious over and got in most of the tropes (see below), so he did seem to know what he was doing. The thing is, most of the episode seems to be taken up with Staton flirting with Columbo in an attempt to distract him from the case, even going so far as to kiss him numerous times. If you watch it without knowing who wrote it, it can feel like an odd deviation from the norm. If you watch it knowing Falk’s the writer, it starts to feel like self-indulgence, like Falk took advantage of the opportunity so he’d get a chance to kiss a beautiful actress. I mean, I certainly know the temptation would be there if I was in his position, but it still feels a bit unprofessional to me, especially since it’s such a big part of the episode.

Even if this episode had been written by someone else, though, I still would have had some problems with it. The flirtation scenes feel more like padding than Columbo and Staton doing the usual cat and mouse game, and the scene where Columbo figures out the solution to one of his “little things that bug me” definitely goes on too long. And personally, I’m kind of annoyed by the fact that Columbo seems to accept Staton’s advances. He does mention his wife early on before the flirtations begin in earnest, but never once does he even protest “I’m a married man, Ms. Staton”, not even once she starts kissing him. For a guy who’s really given the impression over the years that he’s devoted to his wife, this just feels wrong. Though this also leads into the other problem I have with this episode.

Simply put, I think Falk/the episode was trying to have it both ways. The scenes between Columbo and Staton were clearly intended to be sweet and charming (and they are if you look at them in a vacuum), and reminiscent of other episodes where Columbo had a good rapport with the murderer. But when Columbo’s on his own, he makes it very clear that he knows precisely what Staton’s game is and he’s not falling for it, thus suggesting that we’re supposed to read a “dancing around the issue” vibe into things. The problem is, the two tones don’t mesh very well, so I’m just left feeling annoyed that Columbo seems to be stringing Staton along while not actually doing very much to solve the case. I think this might have worked with a little tweaking, but as it stands, it’s a watchable enough episode that gets under my skin more and more the longer I think about it. Maybe this is an episode you need to shut your brain off for, though given the nature of the show, that’s not the greatest endorsement, now is it?

Number of “Columbo-isms”: 5/6 for sure, and I’m on the fence about the fumbling. He does poke around in Franco’s kitchen for foodstuffs a few times, but he doesn’t dig in his coat or ask for items like pencils, so I’m not sure if that should count. But there’s definitely a glimpse of Dog, several glimpses of the car, “This Old Man” on the soundtrack, a literal (albeit quiet) “Just one more thing”, and several mentions of Mrs. Columbo. Though as I mentioned above, not as many mentions as I think there should have been.

Other: *Just one today. Look closely during the establishing shot of Staton’s house early in the episode and you’ll see that the fountain is running backwards, which suggests that they had to reverse the footage for some reason. That’s not exactly a problem, but why on earth would they include something that would be so obviously out of place in the shot?

Would This Hold Up in Court?: By Columbo’s own admission, he had nothing unless Staton confessed, so no. Also, he obtained some of his evidence under questionable circumstances, which makes this even more complicated. And I don’t even want to think about what would happen if his superiors or the court found out about the deal he made…