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"Columbo" (1971) More at IMDbPro »

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Episodes: All (54)

Season: 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9
Year: 1971  |  1972  |  1973  |  1974  |  1975  |  1976  |  1977  |  1978  |  1989  |  1990

Season 1

Season 1, Episode 0: Ransom for a Dead Man

Original Air Date—1 March 1971
A lawyer comes up with a clever plan to murder her husband. After the deed is done, a seemingly slow-witted, slovenly homicide detective is assigned to the case--but he's not nearly as incompetent as he appears to be.

Season 1, Episode 1: Murder by the Book

Original Air Date—15 September 1971
Ken Franklin is a rich socialite living in a luxurious coastal mansion bought from his years of writing crime and mystery books. However, what he once wrote as fiction becomes reality as he murders a man and then desperatly tries to cover up his crime when he is blackmailed by a witness. As usual, Columbo arrives on the scene and begins to pester his suspect with questions about the murder. Mr. Franklin soon realises though, that no murder is perfect, and that one of his books may return to haunt him.

Season 1, Episode 2: Death Lends a Hand

Original Air Date—6 October 1971
Brimmer, a short-tempered private detective, is hired by Arthur Kennicut, a prominent Los Angeles publisher, to investigate the publisher's wife's activities under suspicion of an extra-marital affair. Although his investigation discovers an affair with a golf instructor, Brimmer chooses not to tell Kennicut about it and proposes Mrs. Kennicut to act, in return for Brimmer's silence, as a "pipeline" for information involving powerful persons with whom her husband is involved. When Mrs. Kennicut refuses to cooperate and threatens to tell her husband about Brimmer's unsavory proposal, Brimmer becomes enraged and accidentally kills her. He then transports her body across Los Angeles and dumps it in an industrial area, hoping her death will look like a robbery gone awry. Enter Lieutenant Columbo, the cigar-smoking detective in a rumpled raincoat, who does not accept the murder-by-mugging theory surrounding the woman's death. When Kennicut assigns Brimmer to assist Columbo in the murder investigation, Brimmer struggles to deflect Columbo's increasing suspicions that he was involved in Mrs. Kennicut's demise.

Season 1, Episode 3: Dead Weight

Original Air Date—27 October 1971
A war hero shoots and kills his business partner; an easily manipulated young divorcée is the only witness.

Season 1, Episode 4: Suitable for Framing

Original Air Date—17 November 1971
Noted art critic Dale Kingston kills his uncle for his valuable collection of paintings. Despite Columbo's suspicions, all the clues point to the dead man's ex-wife. Can the lieutenant reveal the true culprit before it is too late?

Season 1, Episode 5: Lady in Waiting

Original Air Date—15 December 1971
A mousy heiress murders her brother, pretending she thought he was a burglar. Lt. Columbo unravels her alibi.

Season 1, Episode 6: Short Fuse

Original Air Date—19 January 1972
A chemical plant's director gets threats and issues threats, and one of the employees develops and plants a bomb in his car. When the car turns out to be missing, Columbo is called to find out what happened.

Season 1, Episode 7: Blueprint for Murder

Original Air Date—9 February 1972
Bo Williamson comes back from Europe after a travel two months long and finds a surprise: his wife Jennifer financed the project of building a new town. Bo, crazy for horses and country music, is raving mad at this and confronts the architect Elliot Markham who had got the original idea. Then Bo disappears and it looks as a new travel is began. But his first wife Goldie thinks he has been killed and Lt. Columbo begins his inquiry.

Season 2

Season 2, Episode 1: Étude in Black

Original Air Date—17 September 1972
An amoral conductor murders the gifted pianist with whom he is having an affair. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 2, Episode 2: The Greenhouse Jungle

Original Air Date—15 October 1972
Columbo arrives at a kidnapping case, which at some point turns into a murder. Everything seems to be related to a trust fund, that is being managed by a man with a great love for orchids.

Season 2, Episode 3: The Most Crucial Game

Original Air Date—5 November 1972
The manager of a football team murders its callow owner, making it look as if the young man had had an accident in his swimming pool. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 2, Episode 4: Dagger of the Mind

Original Air Date—26 November 1972
Lilian Stanhope and Nicholas Frame are two actors in London. They have to act in Macbeth and the producer is Sir Roger Haversham who is Lilian's lover. Sir Roger finds out he has been deceived by the couple and he threatens to interrupt the performance. Lilian kills him accidentally during a fight and afterwards the two actors take the corpse to his mansion, staging an accident. But Lt. Columbo is in London to learn about the new methods to investigate used by Scotland Yard. And Columbo smells something fishy in the accident.

Season 2, Episode 5: Requiem for a Falling Star

Original Air Date—21 January 1973
A faded movie actress commits murder. Lt. Columbo, one of her biggest fans, is on the case.

Season 2, Episode 6: A Stitch in Crime

Original Air Date—11 February 1973
A surgeon has an ingenious plan for murdering his partner in a research project, but a nurse catches onto the scheme.

Season 2, Episode 7: The Most Dangerous Match

Original Air Date—4 March 1973
A chess player murders his opponent before a big match. Lt. Columbo must out-maneuver this crafty, but craven, killer.

Season 2, Episode 8: Double Shock

Original Air Date—25 March 1973
A smarmy TV chef and his identical twin brother, a rigidly proper banker, are suspects in the electrocution of their rich uncle.

Season 3

Season 3, Episode 1: Lovely But Lethal

Original Air Date—23 September 1973
The formula for a miracle wrinkle cream leads the founder of a cosmetics company to murder. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 3, Episode 2: Any Old Port in a Storm

Original Air Date—17 October 1973
A connoisseur running a California winery murders his younger half-brother to prevent him from selling the family business. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 3, Episode 3: Candidate for Crime

Original Air Date—4 November 1973
Senatorial candidate Nelson Hayward murders his domineering campaign manager, staging it to appear that Hayward himself was the intended victim of a mob hit gone wrong. Columbo hits the campaign trail to catch the killer.

Season 3, Episode 4: Double Exposure

Original Air Date—16 December 1973
A self-styled "motivation research specialist" uses subliminal cues to commit a murder. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 3, Episode 5: Publish or Perish

Original Air Date—18 January 1974
A publisher hires a bomb enthusiast to murder a bestselling author of sex novels. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 3, Episode 6: Mind Over Mayhem

Original Air Date—18 February 1974
The director of a government institute that employs various scientific geniuses commits a clever murder. But another kind of genius is on the case: Lt. Columbo.

Season 3, Episode 7: Swan Song

Original Air Date—3 March 1974
A gospel singer wants to be rid of his zealous wife. But a murder made to look like an airplane accident does not fool the wily Lt. Columbo.

Season 3, Episode 8: A Friend in Deed

Original Air Date—5 May 1974
A police commissioner provides a false alibi for a wife killer, but then expects an alibi in return.

Season 4

Season 4, Episode 1: An Exercise in Fatality

Original Air Date—15 September 1974
A health club owner murders one of his franchisees; Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 4, Episode 2: Negative Reaction

Original Air Date—15 October 1974
A photographer murders his wife and blames her death on a bungled kidnapping. But Lt. Columbo has an even sharper eye than the Pulitzer Prize winner.

Season 4, Episode 3: By Dawn's Early Light

Original Air Date—27 October 1974
The commandant of a military academy murders the chairman of the board, who wants to oust him. Lt. Columbo takes up residence in the barracks to expose the killer.

Season 4, Episode 4: Troubled Waters

Original Air Date—9 February 1975
Lt. Columbo takes a trip to Acapulco, but finds himself on a new case when a used car dealer commits murder on the cruise ship.

Season 4, Episode 5: Playback

Original Air Date—2 March 1975
A gadget-happy inventor murders his mother-in-law; Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 4, Episode 6: A Deadly State of Mind

Original Air Date—27 April 1975
A psychiatrist, who specializes in hypnosis, murders the husband of his mistress and convinces her to lie to the police; it's up to Lt. Columbo to discover the truth.

Season 5

Season 5, Episode 1: Forgotten Lady

Original Air Date—14 September 1975
A faded dance star of film and stage murders her husband and makes it look like a suicide; Lt. Columbo doubts her seemingly perfect alibi.

Season 5, Episode 2: A Case of Immunity

Original Air Date—12 October 1975
The first secretary to the Suarian king may have immunity from the consequences of committing murder; but Lt. Columbo is wilier than any foreign diplomat.

Season 5, Episode 3: Identity Crisis

Original Air Date—2 November 1975
A top CIA operative commits murder the way only a brilliant spy can, never guessing he'll have to contend with a man like Lt. Columbo.

Season 5, Episode 4: A Matter of Honor

Original Air Date—1 February 1976
When a famous bullfighter's trusted bookkeeper turns up dead in a bullring, Lt. Columbo suspects murder--with a bull as the murder weapon.

Season 5, Episode 5: Now You See Him

Original Air Date—29 February 1976
A stage illusionist kills his employer and makes it look like a contract killing; it's up to Lt. Columbo to trick the master trickster.

Season 5, Episode 6: Last Salute to the Commodore

Original Air Date—2 March 1976
Charlie Clay runs the ship building business of his father-in-law, Commodore Swanson, who turns up murdered; Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 6

Season 6, Episode 1: Fade in to Murder

Original Air Date—10 October 1976
Ward Fowler is an actor of a soap opera and his character is Detective Lucerne. His producer is Claire Daley, once his lover and now his blackmailer. Fowler decides to kill Claire and to do in such a way as to accuse her husband. Lt. Columbo begins to investigate and he is helped by Detective Lucerne who at a certain moment suspects the actor Fowler...

Season 6, Episode 2: Old Fashioned Murder

Original Air Date—28 November 1976
The Lytton family owns a museum. Ruth and Edward have devoted their life to the museum but things are not going well. So Edward has decided to sell it. Ruth doesn't agree and plans otherwise. She has a niece, Janie, whom she loves more than her mother does, and has hired Milton Schaffer, a petty thief who is the brother of her niece's lover. What scheme is in her mind?

Season 6, Episode 3: The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case

Original Air Date—22 May 1977
Columbo this time tries to tackle a murderer who has one of the highest IQs in the world. The victim is a business partner who threatened to expose the killer for stealing money from his clients. The murderer uses all his intelligence to plan the perfect murder.

Season 7

Season 7, Episode 1: Try and Catch Me

Original Air Date—21 November 1977
An aging but successful and wealthy crime fiction writer blames her nephew for the death of her niece. One night she invites her nephew up to the house to sign their wills and then gets to leave and return within a few minutes so she can set up her trap, which is locking him in a sound proof safe. Detective Columbo arrives and suspects the writer of murder but clues are few and far between.

Season 7, Episode 2: Murder Under Glass

Original Air Date—30 January 1978
Paul Gerard is a famous gourmet and his books about restaurants can decide the fate of a chef. In his way, Paul is a very powerful man. But Paul is threatened by Vittorio Rossi, the proprietor of a renowned restaurant and one night, after a fight with Paul, Rossi is poisoned by a bottle of wine he himself had uncorked. Lt. Columbo begins to investigate and we have no doubt that, between a steak and a Chinese dish, he will find out who killed Rossi, his motive and the way he did it.

Season 7, Episode 3: Make Me a Perfect Murder

Original Air Date—25 February 1978
An Emmy-winning TV executive kills her lover (who is also her boss); Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 7, Episode 4: How to Dial a Murder

Original Air Date—5 April 1978
Dr. Eric Mason is a self-controlled man and he teaches how to get control over one's own life. His wife died suddenly because of an inexplicable accident and his best friend is Dr. Garrison, or so it seems. Eric has two dogs and his two Doberman pinschers will be his arms to kill Dr. Garrison. But Lt. Columbo love dogs...

Season 7, Episode 5: The Conspirators

Original Air Date—13 May 1978
An IRA terrorist executes an arms dealer he considers traitorous; Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Season 8

Season 8, Episode 1: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine

Original Air Date—6 February 1989
An egocentric psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick.

Season 8, Episode 2: Murder, Smoke and Shadows

Original Air Date—27 February 1989
An egocentric wunderkind director murders a childhood friend who threatens to expose his negligent complicity in the death of his sister years earlier.

Season 8, Episode 3: Sex and the Married Detective

Original Air Date—3 April 1989
When a successful sex therapist with a best selling book and a hit TV show is crushed to learn her business partner/lover is cheating on her, she plots appropriate revenge.

Season 8, Episode 4: Grand Deceptions

Original Air Date—1 May 1989
After the head of a private paramilitary think tank who is embezzling funds murders a blackmailer, he has to match wits with the persistent Lieutenant Columbo.

Season 9

Season 9, Episode 1: Murder, a Self Portrait

Original Air Date—25 November 1989
Columbo investigates the apparent drowning of a famous painters first wife.

Season 9, Episode 2: Columbo Cries Wolf

Original Air Date—20 January 1990
When the business-savvy publisher of a "Playboy"-type men's magazine wants to sell her stock to a Rupert Murdoch-like media tycoon, she apparently disappears on a London-bound flight.

Season 9, Episode 3: Agenda for Murder

Original Air Date—10 February 1990
This time Columbo is put on a murder that was made to look like a suicide. However, he notices some loose ends, and asks a lawyer and a governor to clear these problems up.

Season 9, Episode 4: Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo

Original Air Date—31 March 1990
A woman who blames Lt. Columbo for the loss of her husband sets out to get back at him. But before she goes after him, she first goes after the man who informed on her husband and by showing the Lt. how it feels to lose a love one; by going after his wife.

Season 9, Episode 5: Uneasy Lies the Crown

Original Air Date—28 April 1990
The unsuccessful junior partner in a dental group, a bad husband and degenerate gambler, faces divorce and ostracism from his father-in-law's firm.

Season 9, Episode 6: Murder in Malibu

Original Air Date—14 May 1990
A successful writer of romance novels who is involved with a young, ambitious womanizer, is found shot to death in her Malibu home.

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