Just One More Thing: A Stitch In Crime

Notes and screenshots for A Stitch In Crime: Originally broadcast on February 11, 1973, starring Leonard Nimoy as scheming surgeon Dr. Barry Mayfield, Grandpa Walton as a chief surgeon held together with fishing line, Anne Francis as a luckless nurse, more murders than usual and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"A surgeon has an ingenious plan for murdering his partner in a research project, but a paranoid nurse quickly catches onto his scheme, so he kills her. Lt. Columbo has a tough time figuring this one out."

-IMDB Summary

"“A Stitch in Crime” features Leonard Nimoy as Dr. Barry Mayfield, who commits two murders and purposefully botches a heart operation, all to get some revolutionary surgical technique out to the world before someone else does. Columbo has to work past his fear of hospitals and people’s open guts in order to figure out how to trap the doc in the act. Zack Handlen (AV Club) is on the show for some deep analysis and to help Jon and RJ figure out what kind of murderers they look like."

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 23: Look How Dr. Irving Is Sewing up That Colon with our guest Zack Handlen. 

A Stitch In Crime

Season 2, Episode 6

Director: Hy Averback

Writer: Shirl Hendryx

For being Our Stalwart Hero, Columbo doesn’t actually save many lives. Of course, that has a lot to do with the structure of the show - it’s an inverted murder mystery, and Columbo is a homicide detective. There has to BE a murder before Columbo can SOLVE the murder.

Still, I can name a couple of dozen of episodes where the murderer picks off another victim or two before Columbo is able to lower the boom, but only a handful where he manages to save the life of an intended victim. 

Stitch in Crime may be the ONLY episode, however, where I believe Columbo saves the life of the original intended victim, if even in a round-about fashion. Dr.Grandpa Walton’s surprising new longevity, in fact, comes at the hands of his intended murderer, thanks to Columbo’s constant hectoring of the suspect. 

It’s always interesting to recall that Columbo isn’t the protagonist of his own show, and in some definitions of the term isn’t even the hero - the protag is, surprisingly, the villain. It’s the villain who gets an arc, who drives all the action, who endures the trials of the story and very often emerges out the other side with a new understanding of themselves and their desires. 

Next episode: The Most Dangerous Match