Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger
Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger
Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger


Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger
Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger
Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger


Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger

Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger

Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger
Columbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary HershbergerColumbo goes to college Guest stars Stephen Caffrey & Gary Hershberger






PLOT: Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman are college students at Freemont College. Their tutor Professor D.E.Rusk is making life difficult for them and is threatening to throw them out of the college. Finding they have cheated an examination is the last straw for Rusk. It is also the last straw for Rowe and Redman, who come up with a plan to murder Rusk. Justin feels he has little to lose, as his father will kill him if he is thrown out. Justin asks Rusk if he will meet his father at a restaurant later that evening as his father would like to discuss things with him. Rusk reluctantly agrees. That evening Lieutenant Columbo is giving a lecture at the college about what his job is like. Rusk leaves the lecture to see Justin's father. Justin and Cooper, who are in the lecture, have a mini TV and switch it on. They see Rusk enter the car park. Justin presses the button on his car key and Rusk is shot dead. When they are leaving the lecture hall they encounter the body of Rusk. Justin manages to get the video camera footage from the security camera. At first Columbo seems totally baffled by the case. No one was seen leaving the scene and the killer was not in view. He has several possible suspects, including a woman he was having an affair with and the security guard's brother, who did time for GBH. Columbo befriends the students and Justin and Cooper help him with his enquiries. This is not the usual scenario of Columbo showing up asking the murderer to help him. The murderers keep showing up offering to help him and Columbo hasn't got an inkling that they might have done it, because they were in the room with him when the homicide occured. Columbo meets Justin's father Jordan Rowe (Robert Culp), who has got some information that he thinks will assist Columbo in his enquiries. It is clear Jordan doesn't think Columbo knows what he is doing and he is very patronising towards him. Columbo knows that the security guard's brother Dominic Doyle has previous and hasn't got an alibi for the murder but Columbo doesn't think he is the man who did it. Then, out of the blue, a video of the murder shows up on the evening news. Columbo is stumped. So are Justin and Cooper. The video was shot by a man watching a satellite station nearby. It was a televised programme. Columbo is most baffled by this as he can't understand why anyone would want to televise the murder. He also sees that the camera angle is not taken from any of the security cameras. It shows no one in the picture other than the victim. The penny then begins to drop and things start to fit into place. Columbo knows that Cooper's jeep was parked in the car park on the day of the murder right in the same area as the footage was taken from. Justin and Cooper still think they are leading Columbo up the garden path, but they are wrong. Columbo calls round at their house and while he is there he takes a phone call from headquarters. They have traced Dominic Doyle's car. Columbo says the registration audibly and says the location of the vehicle. Later that day Justin and Cooper plant a gun in what they think is Doyle's car. However, Columbo has played a trick. Later that day he is at the college giving another lecture. He shows the students how the killer did it. He has worked out that the gun was triggered by the locks of the car clicking down on the trigger. He then shows how the killer televised it so they would know when the victim was in the right position. They then go to the car park and shoot a dummy in the same way the killers had murdered Rusk. Cooper and Justin know Columbo is on to them but they think that Columbo has the evidence to arrest Doyle. Columbo then tells them that he had set the phone call up and the car registration he read out was of Mrs. Columbo's car! They were the only people who knew what it was so Columbo had proof.

VERDICT: This is a really ingenious episode. Murder by remote control similar to How to Dial a murder, only cleverer. However, the young killers were so pleased with themselves they led Columbo up the garden path rather too obviously. Unlike most episodes, Columbo didn't suspect the killers until quite late on, as he had no reason to suspect them and he was an eyewitness to their alibi. Robert Culp, in his fourth Columbo episode, is in fine form as Justin's controlling father Jordan Rowe. Columbo seems unwilling to cross him and Jordan thinks Columbo is useless! But as usual Columbo wins in the end, and in this episode one feels he particularly deserves it.

Written by Mark Wilson

(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.

CAST:
Justin Rowe........Stephen Caffrey
Cooper Redman.....Gary Hershberger
Jordan Rowe............Robert Culp
Professor D.E.Rusk..James Sutorius
Dominic Doyle......William Lucking
Joe Doyle..............Jim Antonio
June Clark........Katherine Cannon
Mrs Rusk............Bridget Hanley

 
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