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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 275635" data-attributes="member: 23">Lady In Waiting <img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjFmN2M5OWYtNTQ2Ni00OGQ1LWE4MzMtMzUwYWE0YTI2MDA3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDM1MzYzMzc@._V1_.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 533px" /><img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Filarge.lisimg.com%2Fimage%2F9047231%2F740full-columbo%253A-lady-in-waiting-screenshot.jpg&f=1&nofb=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 535px" />Of all the guest-stars yet seen, Richard Anderson is the one most familiar to me. He’s also someone I strongly associate with a particular role. Indeed, I’ve seen a great deal of him as Oscar Goldman very recently  when rewatching The Bionic Woman. As someone tall, imposing and very intense, Richard would seem a natural choice for the killer. It’s quite a bold move, in that case, to play against the obvious and have Richard as this episode’s victim.It’s a full twenty minutes before Columbo is seen on-screen, so the scene is set well and we spend a decent amount of time with Richard’s character, Bryce Chadwick and his little sister Beth. As they breakfast in the grounds of their opulent home we get insight into the dynamics of their relationship and the resentments. Bryce, unhappy that Beth has taken up with Peter Hamilton, an employee of their company, tells her he plans to sack Peter if it continues. Beth sulks and stews over her brother’s controlling nature. She reminds him he’s not father. He asks her to consider if Peter would be interested were she not wealthy. There’s no doubting Beth’s motive for wanting Bryce out of the way. Unusually, there’s a sequence in which we see the murder play out in Beth’s head as she fantasises while preparing for it. It’s a sequence that should probably come with a migraine-inducement warning, what with the eerie screeching strings and the out of focus rippling images. Nonetheless it’s very creatively filmed, and the scheme to make the shooting look accidental (by hiding his key and shooting him as he came into the alternative door into her bedroom) is enjoyably elaborate and clever. I’m not sure how it would have been received fifty years ago, but this “preview” would be a red flag to more sophisticated (and jaded) twenty first century viewers that the scheme isn’t going to go to plan. Even so, this sets up the anticipation of how it’s going to go wrong. And for this particular twenty first century viewer it was still a bit of a jolt when, as Beth waited for him to come in through her external bedroom door, the tense music was suddenly overridden by Bryce’s voice from inside Beth’s room. She hadn’t considered his hidden spare key. But she goes ahead and shoots him anyway.Another thing Beth hadn’t counted on was her lover Peter unexpectedly arriving to have it out with Bryce over the letter threatening his position with the company. Not only does this add a frantic urgency to Beth’s movements as she tries to hide the spare key and set the room up to look as though Peter had been near the exterior door when he was shot, it also means there’s a somewhat neutral earwitness, which will come back to haunt Beth in the final act. continued...</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?