It was nice, intriguing. Not one of my favs because we basically follow this Viveca Scott character around, constantly. We don’t follow Columbo. That’s what this episode lacks, it hasn’t got enough Columbo. This show is all about him, and he should always be the main thing.
Anyway, the plot, a bit of details to explain what this is.
We are in pharmaceuticals I think, they make cosmetics, they have chemists and everything to invent new formulas and stuff. Viv owns the place where Karl works. He’s only an assistant, though. Dr Murcheson is in charge, and Viv is quite happy to launch their newest cream, that she will call Miracle. But then, Murcheson tells her that he lost the original formula, and was not able to do it again.
Lang is Viv’s competitor, and Shirley is his assistant, and yet she wants to help Viv, tells her lots of things because she admires Viv and wants to be just like her, I think. One of the things she says, is that there’s a new miraculous cream, ans a certain mr. Smith came to Lang to sell it, and Lang already arranged for a circular check for 200 thousands. Viv understands immediately what happened: Murcheson didn’t lose anything, Karl stole it and tried to sell it. She goes to his house. She knows where he keeps his key because they used to go out. She looked around but couldn’t find the cream. As he comes home, he looks at what’s inside the microscope, then slowly realises that someone searched around, so hurries to see if the cream is still there… and it is. Viv comes out and they talk, and they agree on a number, and then he says he also wants her, and she ahrees, and then he also wants to become her associate, and she starts to get pissed but then she agrees, because only he knows the original formula. Apparently it’s only in his head, not written down anywhere, so she agrees. Her company is losing more and more, she needs this new cream to be big again.
Just when she thouht they agreed, he turns on her, he wanted her vulnerable to shut her down, he hates her apparently. At that point, she lost it, grabbed the microscope and hit him on the head with it. Then she cleaned the place of her presence and went away. With the cream.
Columbo investigates. Karl had ordered a big vacation, clearly he was expecting money. Lang and Shirley say nothing. Viv is all charming, but says nothing useful, of course.
Shirley keeps informing her of everything that happens at Lang’s, and is sure that Lang did not kill Karl, and hints more than once at suspecting her. They meet alone, and Viv speaks of a great place for her, they’d be right next to each other, working together, she’d have a big office on the top floor… Shirley is ecstatic, hugs her and tells her she’s got nothing to worry about, she’ll never say a word. But as she drives away, she feels faint and crashes her car, dying. This is because Viv put something in a sigarette that gave her to smoke. Viv killed her, she planned it. This is not forgivable.
I find it very annoying the way they don’t ‘investigate’ their death. Columbo simply asks her: did you know her? And that’s it, basically. Viv will be arrested for Karl’s murder, not hers.
Both Colombo and Viv have been scratching their hands the whole time, and it turns out that it’s because they came in contact with some kind of poison ivy, and that it does not grow in California, and the only place they could have touched it was Karl’s place, he was studying it or something, it’s what he looked at in the microscope. This detail puts her right there, touching the broken glass of the microscope after she killed him. She had not realized that it was in the glass. She thought it was in the cream.
Columbo is Peter Falk, of course
Viveca Scott is Vera Miles
Karl Lessing is Martin Sheen
Shirley is Sian Barbara Allen
Lang is Vincent Price
Mrucheson is Fred Draper
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