Columbo (season 8)

rdf:langString Columbo (season 8)

rdf:langString Boy genius Hollywood director Alex Brady , prior to becoming a success, made a 16mm movie in which a young woman, Jenny Fisher, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Brady and his cameraman conspired to pretend that the woman never made it to the filming, leading the official investigation to conclude that it was an accidental death. Jenny's brother Leonard Fisher shows up in Brady's office with a copy of a film that was left to him by Brady's recently deceased cameraman. Leonard vows to use the film to destroy Brady, who kills him, using one of his studio movie sets. Final clue/twist: When he realizes that Columbo is coming closer and closer to solving the murder, Brady hires two actresses to enact a scripted conversation in the studio commissary for Columbo to overhear, hoping it would misdirect him. Columbo is not fooled, noticing that one of the actresses was dressed as a nurse when there were no scenes filmed during the studio that day that required one. Columbo then beats Brady at his own game, using undercover cops to "play the part" of the commissary staff so they can overhear Brady trying to bribe his secretary to keep quiet. Molly Hagan co-stars as Alex Brady's girlfriend, Ruth Jernigan.

rdf:langString Elliott Blake is a "psychic" who, with his girlfriend/partner in crime Dr. Paula Hall , is attempting to scam U.S. military intelligence into hiring him to use his ESP abilities against the Soviets. Blake and Hall rig a test with a stock set of Zener cards, but the Army wants more proof of Blake's abilities. They bring in Max Dyson , a magician with a side job in exposing fake psychics. Dyson, who has never failed to expose frauds, comes up with a new test for Blake. Three Army officers drive to randomly selected areas and take pictures of whatever they see. Then they will attempt to transmit those images to Blake with their thoughts. To the surprise and delight of the Army officials, Blake passes the test. What they don't know, however, is that Blake and Dyson are old acquaintances who both did time together in a Ugandan prison, and Dyson helped his old friend rig the test for old times' sake. Unfortunately for Dyson, Blake holds a grudge against Dyson for ratting out his escape plans to the guards, getting himself an early release and getting Blake three more years. Given a chance at revenge, Blake takes it: he traps Dyson in Dyson's own homemade guillotine, and decapitates him. Columbo now has to solve the crime before the government whisks Blake beyond his reach, changing his identity. Final clue/twist: Columbo tricks Blake into a confession and attempted murder by taunting him with a promise to investigate him for the murder for as long as it takes to bring him down. When Blake tries to kill Columbo with the guillotine, he confesses while he's pulling the plug. But because Columbo has rigged the guillotine, he is unharmed. This was the first episode broadcast on the ABC network and was shown under the umbrella of The ABC Mystery Movie.

rdf:langString Colonel Frank Brailie is running a paramilitary mercenary school owned by General Jack Padget . Brailie is also having an affair with Padget's wife Jenny . Brailie is siphoning money from Padget's foundation into what he calls "The Special Projects Fund", which is secretly used to finance illegal dealings. The suspicious General asks an employee, Sgt. Major Lester Keegan to look into the matter. Keegan finds the evidence but decides to blackmail Brailie instead of reporting his findings. During a training exercise, occurring on the night of the General's birthday party, Brailie sneaks into the mercenary camp, wearing a ski mask, and stabs Keegan, then puts the body on a landmine that is detonated. He sneaks back to the General's estate and makes it look like he was assembling a diorama of the Battle of Gettysburg at the time. Final clue/twist: Columbo realized that a shipping box labeled as having contained books was too small to contain the number of books it was supposed to contain, and thus the box must have instead contained the toy soldiers for the diorama, and the books must have arrived in a shipment that arrived later . This meant that Brailie had swapped the labels on the boxes and had had enough time to set up the diorama over the course of the day, and therefore had no alibi for the time of the murder.

rdf:langString Sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby hosts a popular call-in radio show and has authored a best-selling self-help manual, The Courtesan Complex. She is also involved both professionally and personally with her business partner David Kincaid . That is, until late one night when Dr. Allenby makes an unexpected after-hours trip to her office and catches David in flagrante delicto with her assistant Cindy Galt in the therapy room. Dr. Allenby is incensed, and decides to kill David. To do so, she takes a page right out of her own book. She first disguises herself as a sexually aggressive, high-class prostitute named "Lisa", wearing a black wig and sexy black clothing, that she stashes in the women's bathroom of a fundraiser she's attending. During the fundraiser, she sneaks to the bathroom to change into her disguise. She then sneaks out in the disguise and goes over to a nearby bar where she's arranged for David to meet with her. Making sure to be seen, she tricks David into taking them both back to her clinic. Once there, she shoots him, then makes it look like the mysterious "lady in black" committed the crime. Final clue/twist: During their first meeting, Columbo notices that Allenby's new coat still has the price tag attached. He later makes the link connecting the new coat and the "lady in black" costume to the same store. He finds the tag in the trash and is able to contact the store where the salesperson who sold the wig to her was able to recognize Allenby from the photo of her in her book.

rdf:langString Jerry Ludwig

rdf:langString Richard Alan Simmons

rdf:langString Sy Salkowitz

rdf:langString Andy Romano as Lester Keegan

rdf:langString Anthony Andrews as Elliott Blake

rdf:langString Anthony Zerbe as Max Dyson

rdf:langString Fisher Stevens as Alex Brady

rdf:langString Jeff Perry as Leonard Fisher

rdf:langString Lindsay Crouse as Joan Allenby

rdf:langString Robert Foxworth as Frank Brailie

rdf:langString Stephen Macht as David Kincaid

rdf:langString #FF8C00

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString List of Columbo episodes

rdf:langString FF8C00

rdf:langString Columbo Goes to the Guillotine

rdf:langString Grand Deceptions

rdf:langString Murder, Smoke and Shadows

rdf:langString Sex and the Married Detective

rdf:langString This is a list of episodes from the eighth season of Columbo, nearly 11 years after the seventh season's end.