I love the Colombo series, and this episode "Troubled Waters" is VERY entertaining and well acted, with a superb cast - well worth watching.
But the "mystery" here is both poorly conceived from the criminal's standpoint, and only "solved" by the most outlandish luck.
First the crime: I realize that the crime needs unreasonable, illogical steps to give Colombo something to investigate. If the murderer just blows the victim away in the middle of the night with no witnesses, then they probably get away with it and Colombo has little to investigate.
But the murderer in this episode relies on the following elements to go PERFECTLY fine.
And MOST implausible, Colombo INSISTS he's "searched the entire ship" for the missing gloves, and he cannot find them. Yet even he refers specifically to the fact that he's only searched areas of criminal interest, leaving about 95% of the REST OF THE SHIP unsearched.
There's more wrong with this horrible story (script's okay, the story is bad) but I'm weary of pointing them all out. Again, enjoy the episode, but mock the story for the lazy, horrible effort it is.
And, Dean Stockwell has hilariously silly clown-style hair in this episode. Did someone actually style his hair that way for this production and tell him it looked good? Yikes!
But the "mystery" here is both poorly conceived from the criminal's standpoint, and only "solved" by the most outlandish luck.
First the crime: I realize that the crime needs unreasonable, illogical steps to give Colombo something to investigate. If the murderer just blows the victim away in the middle of the night with no witnesses, then they probably get away with it and Colombo has little to investigate.
But the murderer in this episode relies on the following elements to go PERFECTLY fine.
- He has to fake a heart attack, and not be found out. In this episode, he inexplicably leaves the ONLY evidence of wrong doing behind at the scene.
- He has to plant and then retrieve the murder weapon from the victim's own room without her finding it in the interim. Why he cannot hide the gun ANYWHERE ELSE on the entire ship is not explained.
- He feels he has to kill the victim in a very crowded environment (cruise ship) AND frame someone else for the crime - all while avoiding being seen by anyone of hundreds of possible witnesses. (Which is the biggest hole in his plan - WAY too many witnesses)
- His plan relies on incredibly precise timing in killing the victim during a brief performance break, rather than just killing her in the middle of the night. What's all the complex timing for? It achieves nothing.
- His plan relies on him NEVER being discovered missing by the nurse in the hospital area he is supposed to be sleeping in. There is NO reason that at ANY time he is missing, she would not look in on him and find him missing. This is perhaps the least plausible part of the entire plot.
- His pointless plan to frame the other man relies on him planting evidence (the gun) that would be much better left a mystery by throwing it overboard. Any evidence is much more dangerous in the possibility of being traced to him, rather than being useful in framing someone else. AND he has the PERFECT disposal area in the form of the open sea, but the writers would rather include the "frame up angle" to add drama.
- The whole angle of the GLOVES is used by the writers for HUGE jumps in logic and circumstance. The gloves COULD be any type, other than surgical, but Colombo has to insist there is no other option. Anyone ever hear of work gloves, costume gloves (for the showroom perfumers), wait staff gloves in the dining room, bad weather gloves for the crew, food service gloves in the kitchen, formal dining gloves with the guests, etc...
And MOST implausible, Colombo INSISTS he's "searched the entire ship" for the missing gloves, and he cannot find them. Yet even he refers specifically to the fact that he's only searched areas of criminal interest, leaving about 95% of the REST OF THE SHIP unsearched.
- The murderer has NO reason to take Colombo's bait to steal and plant the gloves with the powder burns - NONE. Is he trying to really "sell" the writers' lame frame-up story line? Again, if he leaves well enough alone, he gets off the ship at the end of the cruise, and walks away. Of course the murderer blubbers into the end of episode confession, which as we all know never happens in real-life, but is a staple of television crime writing due to time constraints.
- Colombo jumps to the conclusion and information about the master key being created by a car dealer's key cutter a LOT faster than the more logical conclusion, which would be that it was simply stolen.
- The murderer's wife never visits him in the hospital at any time, or even more realistically stays with him the entire evening he's in his room. Most people in a marriage would do that, giving him no opportunity to leave the room at any time.
There's more wrong with this horrible story (script's okay, the story is bad) but I'm weary of pointing them all out. Again, enjoy the episode, but mock the story for the lazy, horrible effort it is.
And, Dean Stockwell has hilariously silly clown-style hair in this episode. Did someone actually style his hair that way for this production and tell him it looked good? Yikes!