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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 276517" data-attributes="member: 23">The Most Crucial Game continued... Lt. Columbo at times seems to have superpowers. How else can we explain his discovery that the water at the side of the pool was fresh rather than chlorinated? His walk down the steps into the pool, accidentally soaking his shoes gave us one of my favourite running gags of any so far, when he started questioning random people about where they got their shoe and how much they cost. I could almost swear one guy told him his shoes were from “Millets on Wilshire”, but I must have misheard. As sturdy as their footwear is, Millets were surely never the kind of place to be located anywhere so trendy, even if they had operated outside of the UK. Naturally Columbo balked when finding out how much so and so’s shoes cost. Perhaps the downside of always investigating the rich and famous. Speaking of lifestyles of the rich and famous, Robert Culp isn’t the only returnee. The Stahl House - first seen back in Prescription: Murder - is used quite heavily in this one. It’s a lovely building, gorgeously decorated and with a truly stunning outlook. It films incredibly well and it’s always good to see it.I have mixed feelings about this episode’s Gotcha. It’s a brilliant piece of deduction and certainly helps show how keen his investigative skills are. Certainly, I hadn’t noticed the clock chiming earlier in the episode (though I’m sure if I rewatched it immediately afterwards it would be there). But with all the trouble Columbo went to, he came up with a missing sound that suggested Hanlon might not have been in his office at the time of the second call. But there’s nothing to suggest where Hanlon actually was. Hanlon easily put a feasible (if not completely convincing) spin on the “chick” he had found for Eric by saying it was actually a housekeeper. He’s not going to worry about a little thing like absent clock chimes when he can say the clock has stopped or slowed down or was out for repair or was covered up or something. Anything. The ice block killing set my expectations high. I expected a really clever sting in the tail that would pull the rug out from under Hanlon and the audience. But, as it is, there’s no real proof. No murder weapon. No witnesses. Not even a real motive. Nothing more than a few bits of circumstantial evidence. Even suspending my disbelief, this is the first episode where I find it very difficult to believe that Columbo has any chance at all of nailing his quarry. This I could swallow if the writing acknowledged it. But it seems that the writer expects us to be satisfied with an ending that’s full of holes. John T. Dugan had previously written Season One’s Dead Weight, which was a fair episode. Far from the best, but with a satisfying enough gotcha. This is almost the reverse - a memorable episode that’s full of promise, but lacking at times in its attention to what should be its most important details. It doesn’t surprise me that The Most Crucial Game is his final Columbo episode. Still, there’s a brilliant cast, beautiful cinematography at some photogenic locations, and some memorable little Columboisms that make this an extremely watchable episode. Albeit one to watch with low expectations. </blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?