I love Columbo. Have almost all of them on DVD.
But Publish or PErish strikes me as one of the more poorly written episodes.
In particular, one giant inconsistency. Riley Grrenleaf has an alcoholic blackout, he claims, and has no alibi for the time his best selling author was murdered. Riley greenleaf is the authors long-time publisher and is being dumped.
He is examining his car with Lt Columbo, noting a great deal of damage. The phone rings and Greenleaf's attorney goes in to answer the phone. When he returns he gloats to both Columbo and Greenleaf, that the latter has an ironclad alibi even he doesn't know about. He was in Encino the night before, getting drunk. HE had an accident with his car, was eventually arrested and spent the night int he drunk tank until he, the lawyer, bailed him out that morning.
So my question is, if Columbo is there asking all these questions about where Riley Greenleaf was at the time of the murder, why didn't the lawyer pipe up with this information at THAT time? Instead he lets Greenleaf squirm. He just told us he, the lawyer bailed greenleaf out of the drunk tank that morning.
Makes me nuts every single time I see this episode.