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8:18 a.m. - 2017-09-13 Coleman uses his "influence" with the legal system to try to control Columbo and the police investigation. There are several scenes in which Columbo is called before his boss and told that people higher on the food chain want him to give Coleman every courtesy and consideration during the investigation, and even to back away from viewing Coleman as a suspect. But since the influence and fame Coleman has acquired comes largely from making FOOLS of the police and district attorney on past cases, why would they be motivated to help him? Columbo eventually finds the holes in Coleman's alibi, just as we fans always expected. But one of the key bits of evidence is that a picture of Coleman at a stoplight doesn't have a shadow under the nose. Isn't that exactly the kind of argument that Coleman has spent his entire career destroying on cross examination? There are also a couple of odd touches in the episode. A private detective hired by Coleman to find out if his wife is cheating is named Sam Marlowe. (Sam Spade + Philip Marlowe?), wears a hat that would have been in style in the 1940s, and has an office complete with ceiling fan, window blinds, and the name of his agency cast in shadow on the walls lit by late day sunlight. And of course he spends a lot of time in this office with his feet on the desk. In one scene Columbo is wearing a baseball cap with the insignia NFI, which is never explained. None of the characters comments on the cap nor asks about it. I did a short search online, and found a story about someone who wore the cap to the studio. Peter Falk asked what "NFI stood for, and the visitor replied "No F*****G Idea." Whereupon Falk, thinking this was pretty funny, decided to wear the cap in that one scene. At the end of the episode Columbo is reading Coleman his rights. He stops at one point, squints, and says, "What the hell does that say?" Looked like an ad lib, and seemed to have Coleman fighting to keep a straight face. This seems to be a very laid-back version of Columbo, where the players and writers were having a little more fun than usual. It was enjoyable, but not up to the standards of the series as a whole.
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