Just One More Thing: Dead Weight

Notes and screenshots for Dead Weight: Originally broadcast on October 27 1971, starring Eddie Albert a a Major General with a lot to lose, Suzanne Pleshette as next on his list, Tim Carey as -- you guessed it -- Bert, and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"At his lakeside home, a retired major general shoots and kills a Marine colonel who's involved with him in a fraudulent military contract. A beautiful, easily manipulated, divorcee is the only witness to the gunshot."

-IMDB Summary

"Going back, back, back to season one, as Carolita Johnson (The New Yorker, carolita.org), Jon and RJ try to find something less blah about “Dead Weight.” War hero Eddie Albert’s cornered when congress threatens to investigate his defense contracts. Shooting his way out of the situation, he didn’t count on the one-two punch of Lieutenant Columbo and a depressed, constantly negged divorcee, played by Suzanne Pleshette, who witnessed the crime with her awful, awful mother. By the end, the podcast figures out a way this episode could have been a bit better, but it’s 40-odd years too late."

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 6: That's A Lot of fruit Salad with guest Carolita Johnson

Dead Weight
Season 1, episode 3
Writer: John T.Dugan

Director: Jack Smight

Eddie Albert plays a decorated war hero who seduces the only witness to a murder he’s committed, and boy is he a rough cast. Did you know Albert was a legit war hero in real life? Saved the lives of almost fifty Marines under enemy fire.

Never mind Eddie Albert as the septugenarian* seducer of young Suzanne Pleshette. Booshwah. Has Pleshette ever gotten the credit she deserved? She’s given some thin gruel in this role but she infuses it with energy and subtlety, there’s a scene over a kiln where she broadcasts an array of emotions like a manic-depressive radio antennae on “scan”. There’s a scene over a kiln, I say. 

*I know, he was only in his Sixties.

Next episode: Suitable For Framing