Make Me a Perfect Murder

Kay Freestone (Trish Van Devere) is a West Coast TV executive whose boss, Mark McAndrews (Laurence Luckinbill), is also her secret lover. When he gets promoted to a position in New York, he dumps her—and even denies her the job he's leaving. Her consolation prize is a new Mercedes. She's more interested in the gun he drops on the bed—after he jokingly invites her to shoot him. Joking or not, she takes him up on it. Later, he's found shot to death in his office. Kay seems to have been in the projection room when it happened. She was screening her pet project—a violent TV film called "The Professionals"—for her superiors. When our rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) investigates, he learns this Emmy-winning producer can commit a bloody act just as well as film it.

This would have been a top-notch "Columbo" episode if about twenty minutes had been trimmed off. The first section of the film—the murder sequence and everything leading up to it—is some of the best stuff in the series. Freestone's use of a tape recording is an especially effective dramatic device.

After the murder there are two impressive scenes—one in an elevator with Freestone and Columbo, and another surreal sequence, where he harasses her via the multiple TV screens in her control booth. Most everything else is slack. There is a long, pointless scene where Columbo fools around with the TV equipment. There's a needless subplot with Lainie Kazan (who is too young to be playing an aging Judy Garland-like has-been). There's a limp scene where Columbo confronts Freestone at her old, now-abandoned home and offers sympathy.

Some of these scenes seem to be an attempt to make the villain more human than usual. That's fine, but the "Columbo" formula demands that any confrontation between detective and quarry be tense. "Columbo" works because of its formula, not in spite of it. The closer it hues to it, the better it is.

The formula also demands that what finally trips up the killer be a surprise. The ending here is very predictable. "Columbo" fans will want to watch this one, despite its flaws. Others, beware.

Trish van Devere makes for a good killer. A woman scorned, she murders her lover who she thinks is a partner producer for a TV network. She's cold and steely but also human and, like the best Columbo villains, very sympathetic, and not just because she's a woman.

The problem with this episode is the problem with the entire final Season 7, before the show was done... until returning years later, which don't really count in my book... For true Columbo fans, THIS was the show's final season...

Herein, Falk is no longer being natural as Columbo, but seems to be doing a Columbo imitation by acting like his Murder by Death character channelling Bogart. He crosses his eyes in a cartoonish fashion and his voice sounds like Bugs Bunny...

Here, though, he's kept in check, and it's mostly because of the villain, Devere, who the producers of Columbo obviously thought wasn't strong enough to lead the show in the usual 15 minute murder first after which Columbo rolls in to figure things out...

Instead, vapid scenes of Columbo getting his neck injured in a car wreck are spliced into the prologue murder, and with the exception to this episode's acting and writing, it's rather awkward.

This and Clive Revill's turn as an Irish Revolutionary poet in the final episode are the top episodes of this quirky final season when Falk seems done with Columbo, and he might've been trying to tell us something. If that's true, only a few caught on...

Trish Van Devere goes all out. A woman so ruthless and ambitious but also very flawed. I cannot figure out if she is "Bi-Sexual" or just pretending to be one or the other to get ahead. She does cover for her friend who has a melt down. But does not even hesitate to take out another lover who spurns her and does not reward her attentions with a new job. A very enjoyable episode. She makes a formidable and dangerous adversary

The ambitious lover and chief assistant to a top TV network programmer exacts murderous revenge when he gets promoted to a high-profile New York post and decides that she has not had enough experience to accompany him in that job.

Quite a freshly plotted Columbo episode considering it was made at the tail-end of the original series; it features quite an engaging and gritty performance from Trish Van Devere as the murderess who is very good at exhibiting her character's misfiring and impatient ambition.

The plot is cleverly and systematically developed: the murderess's grip on the prize job she temporarily acquire's after her lover's demise is dramatically loosened by the ironically erratic decision-making that her lover alluded to prior to his death, in line with the other harassment of Columbo's increasingly revealing investigation.

The main weakness of this Columbo adventure is that it wreaks of padding to satisfy a 120 minute slot - it could easily have been done in 90 minutes: the plot is bloated with prolonged scenes that add no value to the story, particularly the misjudged sub-plot involving a trouble-stricken actress on a TV show.

The circumstantial clues stack up against the murderess quite entertainingly and many of Columbo's intuitive observations are of a reassuringly high-standard, but the murder weapon scenario is rather unconvincing to say the least.

A Columbo story that probably would have had a higher mark but for its damaging protractedness; nevertheless, a story that is not without its merits.

Make Me a Perfect Murder sees Columbo take on the television industry. I remember watching this as a kid because of the final shot of the ring on the corner of the screen.

Kay Freestone (Trish Van Devere) is a determined television executive in California, taking the reins of an expensive television movie in the editing suite. Her boss Mark McAndrews (Laurence Luckinbill) has been given a promotion by the network in New York. Kay is her secret lover and expects to go to New York with him or at least get his job in California.

He gives her neither, citing issues in the way she works and makes decision meaning she is not ready to step up. As they were lovers maybe Mark should had told her of her faults earlier and how to remedy it because he ends up getting shot dead.

Personally I think Kay should had got away with the murder as Columbo should had been jailed for the way he was driving so recklessly early on in the episode!

When Kay is temporarily put in charge in the California station, she proves that Mark's criticism was correct. She makes mistakes, she is seen as cold blooded. Then she has Columbo on her case who uses his guile to trap her.

The episode needed to be tighter and some of Columbo's shtick seems to be wearing thin. There was no need for that bad driving scene.