Just One More Thing

Next time, it’ll be Season Five’s “Now You See Him,” with Jack Cassidy doing his slimy best as a murderous magician. Yes, it is a do-over, for obvious reasons. Joining us will be Leigh Beadon (techdirt.com). It’s available on Netflix Instant and DVD.

“The Most Crucial Game” has ace Columbo foe Robert Culp as the frustrated manager of a sports team empire. When he sees a chance to kill the heir to the family business, he dresses as an ice cream man and puts the party animal on ice. But, not for any real motive that we can actually determine. The […]

It’s a Robert Culp! In this season two episode, he’s the day-to-day manager of a sports empire owned by dissolute heir Dean Stockwell. For hazy reasons, Culp kills the guy and, well, the episode just looks awful pretty, okay? Author Glen Erik Hamilton (Past Crimes, Hard Cold Winter) joins Jon and RJ to break it all […]

In “A Matter of Honor,” Ricardo Montalban plays Luis Montoya, a legendary matador and one of Mexico’s national heroes. When, retirement, he freezes up when trying to save a young man from being gored, he cannot let the potential humiliation stand, opting to instead murder the trusted assistant who witnessed the incident. Wouldn’t you know […]

When you’re one of Mexico’s national heroes, it just doesn’t do to have someone going about who has witnessed your act of true cowardice. That’s just the problem revered matador Ricardo Montalban faces in season five’s “A Matter of Honor,” and he finds no way out except murder. Laura Coleman (farrahda5hy.tumblr.com) joins Jon and RJ to […]

When a best selling author tries to leave Riley Greenleaf’s (played by Jack Cassidy) publishing company, the smooth, smarmy operator sees no choice but to have the writer killed, then blow up the creep he hired to do the deed. “Publish or Perish” is the last Jack Cassidy Columbo episode we’ll be covering, and it’s a […]

Our next episode is a Jack Cassidy one! He plays a sleazy publisher who hires a bomb freak to murder Mickey Spillane (really) and then kills the killer. It’s a darn good one, and Leonard Pierce comes back to the podcast to talk all about it. If you’d like to check it beforehand, it’s on […]

Four our forty-first show, we look at the series’ last, “Columbo Likes the Nightlife.” In it, we find Columbo bumping up against a world of Mafia sons, rave promoters, sleazy tabloid reporters and pastiches of late 90s-early 2000s indie murder films. Here’s the crazy thing- this final attempt to bring Columbo into the 21st century? It kind […]

For our forty-first show, we invite Zack Handlen (The AV Club) back to talk about Columbo’s last one, “Columbo Likes the Nightlife.” This 2003 final bow has Crystal Method songs, actors from future hits Lost and The Sopranos, and Matthew Rhys (The Americans) as the killer! The episode is available on DVD.

What do you do when you’re the host of a wildly popular crime show and a rival finds evidence of your past career in “party films”? Well, if you’re George Hamilton in “Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health,” you kill the guy with spiked cigarettes and hope no one notices. Well, Lt. Columbo […]

As George Hamilton returned to Columbo for season ten’s “Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health,” so does Aaron Bleyaert (Conan, How to Lose Weight in Four Easy Steps) return to Just One More Thing to discuss it. The episode is on DVD.

In “Old Fashioned Murder,” Joyce Van Patten plays Ruth Lytton, who has put her entire life on hold in service of the family museum. When her brother threatens to liquidate the collection and shut the joint down, she stages a robbery with an ex-con museum guard and murders both men. Columbo has to unravel the whole […]

From season six comes “Old Fashioned Murder,” in which Joyce Van Patten resorts to -cides both fratri- and homi- when her brother threatens to unload the family museum to which she’s devoted her entire life. Writer Jaime Fountaine joins Jon and RJ to discuss. The episode is available on DVD and Netflix Instant, if you’d […]

In “Ashes to Ashes,” Patrick McGoohan is Eric Prince, Hollywood mortician to the stars, who has no problem stealing from his clients, revealing their secrets and romancing their widows. When an ex-girlfriend/gossip columnist threatens to reveal these creepy practices, he violently murders her, cremates the body and passes off the ashes as someone’s late husband. […]

Season thirteen’s “Ashes to Ashes” sees Patrick McGoohan as a Hollywood mortician with several casketsful of sleazy secrets who murders gossip columnist Rue McClanahan when she threatens to crack one of the worst ones open. It’s the last time Falk and McGoohan (who also directs!) meet as Columbo and killer. Molly Eichel (The AV Club, Philadelphia Inquirer) […]

In “Forgotten Lady,” Janet Leigh is Grace Wheeler, an actress from the heyday of big movie musicals, who wants nothing more than to once again feel the white hot heat of stardom. When her wealthy husband refuses to put up the scratch for her big comeback, she murders him and tries to make it look like […]

“Forgotten Lady,” the season five premiere,  sees Janet Leigh as former song and dance star Janet Wheeler. When her husband vetoes the funding of her comeback, she murders him and makes it look like a suicide. Kevin Klawitter (who recently co-directed a stage production of “Prescription Murder”!) joins Jon and RJ to talk about the episode. […]

What happens when control freak director Alex Brady (Fisher Stevens) is confronted with a problem he can’t direct or FX away? Well, in season eight’s “Murder, Smoke and Shadows,” the answer is an old-fashioned movie backlot electrocution. And, as much as he’d like, no amount of 3-D holographic technology, rear projection or fancy soundstage lighting will […]

Season eight’s “Murder, Smoke and Shadows” has Fisher Stevens as a hotshot young director who resorts to murder when his past sins finally catch up with him. Abed Gheith (Rick and Morty, Channel 101) will be on hand to bring it all into focus.

In “Requiem for a Falling Star,” Anne Baxter is actress Nora Chandler, whose career is fading into obscurity. When gossip columnist Mel Ferrer tries to blackmail her, she decides to blow him up in one of the sloppiest murders in the show’s history. But whoops! Didn’t look closely enough- turns out she instead torches her longtime assistant, […]