In the past, I've cited Columbo's scene with Vito Scotti in "Candidate For Crime" as a case of "filler time" at its worst. Columbo goes through a whole rigmarole about a new jacket etc. for minutes on end before getting to the heart of the matter of did Nelson Hayward order a new jacket. This kind of stalling is ridiculous because it makes Columbo look just silly. He should do the stalling around bit with a *suspect* because that way it comes off as part of his underlying brilliance but when he does this with someone who is NOT a suspect and Columbo certianly knows that, then we have a case of the writers trying to fill time with shtick.

"Columbo" was not the only Mystery Movie title guilty of this. "McMillan and Wife" is loaded with filler scenes that are basically (1) Mac and Sally have romantic byplay and (2) Enright has a comical scene. These scenes never advance the storyline or the plot whatsoever but again are clearly of the "how do we get this padded to 90 minutes and two hours?" Those who love to watch the actors will generally not mind but if you are concentrating on the plot too much it really gets annoying.

As much as I like BOTH scenes, in Death Lends A Hand, Columbo takes two different scenes to tell Ken Archer that he doesn't suspect him at all. I'm not sure if that could be called padding or if he's deliberately letting him "stew" so he'll tell him the whole truth, or both. I guess I mean that as a question more than anything else.

Many of these filler sequences are used to inject humour. The scene with Vito Scotti in 'Candidate for Crime' and several of his scenes in other episodes are good examples. Another would be the scene with the driving instructor in 'Negative Reaction'. Given the whole of 'Columbo' is a heavily sanitized version of an actual crime investigation I don't see a problem with this.

Unfortunately it does backfire on a few occasions when the fillers don't really work, such as 'Make Me a Perfect Murder' and the tuba episode already mentioned. To this I add the 'waiting for Lewis Lacey's address to be printed' scene in 'An Exercise in Fatality'. This is unusual in that Columbo comes across as impatient and just a bit annoying, in a way he doesn't when time's being wasted elsewhere.

Another one is In Blueprint for Murder when Columbo goes to the city offices to find out about digging up the pyle. He walks into office after office only to find a mile long line and at the end of it gets told, "Lunch hour. Come back. 1:00." While I do find this scene funny, it's unnecessary to the plot and could be cut down to end after the first guy tells him what he needs to do.

I think the Ken Archer scenes in "Death Lends A Hand" are different. That shows the early Columbo not weighed down by "gimmicks" who is doing some genuine investigating. He might know that Archer didn't do it because of the ring issue but he also from an investigating standpoint needs the full information on Archer's relationship with Mrs. Kennicutt. He has to make him sweat just a little bit to get that information and *then* he can tell him he's in the clear.