As mentioned in another post, I know folks don't like chatting about 90's episodes, but...

I just watched "Butterfly" today. Shatner makes a great murderer, the clues are super (the final cell phone clue was perfect), but I just can't get over how completely lame the murder was.

If Fielding was talking with Jerry on the phone, not 20 feet away, wouldn't Jerry have heard him? And wouldn't there have been an echo on the answering machine? What a stupid idea. How come every time Shatner is on the show he uses some silly technological scheme that turns out to be so lame, like the VCR in "Fade in to Murder"? (Ok, the VCR was a pretty good alibi back in the 70's but, speaking of stupid things that murderers do, he should never have shown it to Columbo.)

I agree, the murder was pretty lame, but Shatner did play his villain to the hammy max (all politics aside, cause I'm politically non-denominational, but his performance perfectly fit the hamhanded radio buffoon he was spoofing), and it was cool to have a '90s climax with an actual sense of menace and suspense, rather than Columbo walking the witnesses up to the killer at the conclusion, as if they were picking up fast food orders, a la Murder With Too Many Notes and Ashes to Ashes.

If anything, that ending pointed up the problem with the '90s episode -- no creative imagination or theatrical grandeur. The best Columbos wrapped up on a crescendo: Columbo's manic office confrontation with Nimoy; the cliffside conclusion with Pleasance; the emotionally powerful ending of Forgotten Lady. The only modern Columbos that came close to that kind of smash ending were Murder, Smoke, and Shadows and Columbo Cries Wolf (easily the best "new" Columbo and maybe with Murder: A Self-Portrait, the only one that can stand up with the classics).