Columbo (season 8)

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

Columbo
Season 8
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	4
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	February 6 (1989-02-06) – May 1, 1989 (1989-05-01)
Season chronology

Episodes

No. in series	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Murderer played by	Victim played by	Original air date	Runtime
46	1	"Columbo Goes to the Guillotine"	Leo Penn	William Read Woodfield	Anthony Andrews	Anthony Zerbe	February 6, 1989 (1989-02-06)	88 min
Elliott Blake (Anthony Andrews) is a "psychic" who is trying to convince the government to give him a lucrative contract based on his ESP abilities. He conspires with an old colleague, Max Dyson (Anthony Zerbe), a magician, to verify his prowess, but settles an old score with Dyson by tricking him into being decapitated by his own guillotine. Columbo 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 rigged the guillotine, he was unharmed. Karen Austin plays Dr. Paula Hall, Elliott Blake's research partner and lover. This is one of two Columbo episodes, the other being Now You See Him..., in which the magician was the murderer. It is also unusual in that Columbo himself discovers the murder victim during the investigation of the crime scene, rather than appearing later. This was the first episode broadcast on the ABC network and was shown under the umbrella of The ABC Mystery Movie.[1]
47	2	"Murder, Smoke and Shadows"	James Frawley	Richard Alan Simmons	Fisher Stevens	Jeff Perry	February 27, 1989 (1989-02-27)	90 min
Boy genius Hollywood director Alex Brady (Fisher Stevens), 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 (Jeff Perry) 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.
48	3	"Sex and the Married Detective"	James Frawley	Jerry Ludwig	Lindsay Crouse	Stephen Macht	April 3, 1989 (1989-04-03)	89 min
Sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby (Lindsay Crouse) 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 (Stephen Macht). 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 (Julia Montgomery) 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.
49	4	"Grand Deceptions"	Sam Wanamaker	Sy Salkowitz	Robert Foxworth	Andy Romano	May 1, 1989 (1989-05-01)	90 min
Colonel Frank Brailie (Robert Foxworth) is running a paramilitary mercenary school owned by General Jack Padget (Stephen Elliott). Brailie is also having an affair with Padget's wife Jenny (Janet Eilber). 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 (Andy Romano) 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 (which Brailie received earlier on the day of the murder) 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 (which Brailie claimed contained the toy soldiers). 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.

References

1. "ABC MYSTERY MOVIE, THE: COLUMBO: COLUMBO GOES TO THE GUILLOTINE (TV)". The Paley Center For Media. Retrieved 10 September 2013.