My main gripe with the latter-day "Columbo" installments, aside from the music, is that the 2-hour running time seems to force writers to drag everything out so that we may not even see the murder committed till the half-hour mark. Let's face it: there aren't many great guest stars in these late episodes, and there aren't any in this one IMHO. So to get Peter Falk in the plot almost from the get-go is a real gift.
The other big departure here is the fact that while we do, as always, know who the murderers are, we don't actually know how it's done till the end. Maybe other viewers pieced the clues together, but unless you had one big clue in hand from the get-go, you were probably as surprised as I was. It wasn't a cheat; the clues were there.
These guys. God you really hate them. The best villains have at least some redeeming qualities. It didn't take a Columbo-level mind to catch these a-holes; Barney Fife would've nailed them eventually.
The other big departure here is the fact that while we do, as always, know who the murderers are, we don't actually know how it's done till the end. Maybe other viewers pieced the clues together, but unless you had one big clue in hand from the get-go, you were probably as surprised as I was. It wasn't a cheat; the clues were there.
These guys. God you really hate them. The best villains have at least some redeeming qualities. It didn't take a Columbo-level mind to catch these a-holes; Barney Fife would've nailed them eventually.