10 Best Columbo Episodes

Especially in its earlier days, Columbo had the distinction of relying upon the Universal contract system to ensure that A-list stars appeared in the show. Ray Milland was just one of those big name stars, appearing not only as the victim's husband in the first season episode, Death Lends a Hand, but later as the killer in the second season's The Greenhouse Jungle. His second (and final) appearance may be the better of the two, but it's a very close call.

Playing Jarvis Goodland, an irritable old businessman with a fondness for orchids, Milland (complete with a toupee) schemes with his character's nephew, Tony (portrayed by Bradford Dillman) to fake Tony's kidnapping and collect on a ransom paid from Tony's trust fund. Those orchids don't come cheap, you know!) What Tony does not know is that the plan also involves Tony's murder, which Jarvis plans to frame on Tony's unfaithful wife, Cathy (Sandra Smith).

Milland steals the show as the scenery-chewing Jarvis Goodland and his barbs to and about Columbo are likely to make you chuckle at the very least ("I had to be sure we weren't being followed by that Neanderthal policeman!"). Ray Milland and Bradford Dillman would go on to co-star (and have another fictional family connection) in the Roger Moore vehicle, Gold, two years after this entry into the Columbo canon.

The episode also introduces us to Sergeant Frederic Wilson, played by Bob Dishy, who is one of Columbo's more memorable colleagues. Dishy returned to the role four years later in the 1976 episode, Now You See Him (in which his character is curiously credited as Sergeant John J. Wilson), but he was far more effective here, introducing Columbo to a whole collection of gadgets to assist in solving crime, none of which the lieutenant shows much interest in.

Dishy's Wilson also unwittingly sets up one of the show's best bloopers, which was so good that it remained in the final episode. Finding Tony's crashed Jaguar E-Type at the base of a cliff, Wilson guides Columbo down the quickest (and steepest) way down, whereupon the lieutenant loses his footing and tumbles down the rest of the way. In true Columbo style, Falk took the error in his stride, telling Dishy that it certainly was the quickest way down, before taking the longer way back up the cliff when they are done.

Arlene Martel also makes her first appearance in the show here, portraying Tony Goodland's former secretary and suspected lover, Gloria West. She went on to feature in the following season's Double Exposure as Tanya Baker and as an alluring salesgirl in the 1974 episode, A Friend in Deed.