In my opinion this is a bit too far-fetched; you can find something like that (sympathetic murderes) in many other eps throughout the entire series.

But again, this is just my opinion :-)

None, except that misguided ideas are the reason I won't add seasons 6 or 7 to my Columbo collection.

roy springer said...
"None, except that misguided ideas are the reason I won't add seasons 6 or 7 to my Columbo collection."
huh??

fielding,obviously one can feel sympathetic toward all 3 of these murderers. there definitely could have been an intentionl reason on the part of the producers and writers. and you could even take it a step further and add abigail mitchell from the first episode in season 7.

I would only find sympathy for Ruth Lytton. Ward and Oliver were both a couple of jerks.

I think the sample size (three episodes) is a little small to make any generalizations. Dawidziak points out that there are some things about the episodes produced by Richard Alan Simmons (Bye-Bye Sky High, plus all the season 7 episodes) that makes them stand out from the earlier ones:

(1) It becomes clear to the murderer right away that Columbo is a serious threat - he spends little or no time being a funny little man that the murderer figures will be no problem.

(2) Columbo talks more about his past - in specific detail.

(3) The murderers have more defined back-stories; we learn more about what made them the people they are.

I don't know if the Simmons episodes are really all that different from what preceded them, but I find Dawidziak's thoughts interesting.

Was Oliver the Theodore Bikel character, married to the Samantha Eggar one? If so, it's easy to have mixed feelings about such a "vile wife."

yes, she was vile...

i half expected her to get murdered along the way, somehow.

I thnk I'd murder a dozen business partners to keep the Samantha Eggar character in those silk robes. Besides, I don't agree that the main character was a jerk. Theodore Bikel made him much too sensitive, especially in that last scene. The look he gives, when he realizes he's incriminated himself, almost makes you want to cry.