Just One More Thing: Troubled Waters

May 18, 2026

Just One More Thing: Troubled Waters

Notes and screenshots for Troubled Waters: Originally broadcast on February 9, 1975, starring Robert Vaughn as a conniving car salesman, Poupee "Volare Volare Volare" Bocar as his musical mistress and victim, a star-studded entourage of supporting actors including Dean Stockwell, Bernard Fox, and Patrick Macnee and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"Lt. Columbo and his wife win a pleasure cruise to Acapulco, but the lieutenant finds himself investigating a murder aboard the cruise ship when a married car dealer kills an ex-lover who's been blackmailing him over their past fling."

-IMDB Summary

"What was supposed to be a pleasure cruise to Mexico becomes a working vacation for Lt. Columbo in “Troubled Waters.” Also on board is used car kingpin Robert Vaughn, who kills the lounge singer who’s blackmailing him, while pinning the murder on her piano-playing ex. Though the crew is more than willing to buy the frame-up, Columbo can’t let it go, even on his vacation. Poor Mrs. Columbo. Back to travel the high seas of crime with Jon and RJ is comedian Richard Massara."

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 47: That’s the Biggest Garbage Dump in the World with our guest Richard Massara.

Troubled Waters

Season 4, Episode #4

Director: Ben Gazzarra

Writers: Jackson Gillis, William Driscoll

Going in to this episode, our guest Richard Massara mentioned having twelve pages of notes typed up (to be fair, a good number of his notes were juvenile variations on Poupee Bocar’s name. This is what we get for having a comedian on). RJ had, as usual, a handful of pages as well, and I filled a 9x12 sketchbook page with scattered thoughts and observations. I honestly didn’t think we’d have the time to cover everything we wanted to discuss, but nonetheless did. ‘

Why? How? Because this is one of the most engaging episodes of Columbo in the show’s original run. Whether you think it’s good or bad, that’s up to you, but it’s got so much going on that it absolutely demands attention.

Gazzara follows up his earlier directorial Columbo outing, A Friend In Need, with an equally stylish and seedy episode on the high seas. It’s a compelling instinct he apparently had to find the grimy, unsettling side of a pleasure cruise on a luxury liner ... but he did it.

Part of the success has to do with filming the luxury from a distance, or through low light, or in unforgiving high light. Part of it relies on the script and the affair between Poupee Bocar and Dean Stockwell, her contemptuous disdain and his rabbity rawness. And part of it is just the great chemistry between Falk and his screenmate. It’s also clear that Gazzara picked up a lot from Cassavetes in his direction. Macnee also shows a surprising ability to maintain a stern, unflappable pleasure cruise captain who is nonetheless fully engaged with this unglamorous business of murder.

Small notes in the script make it work as well -- Macnee asking Columbo if he was a Navy man, with such obvious delight that you become instantly aware that the captain had a Navy background (as Macnee did in real life, and so did Bernard Fox). The mention of the ship having a “discreet” photographer on board. There was a little bit of grit to be picked up on these well-swabbed decks, and Gazzara had an unerring sense of how to drag them to the forefront.

A fine episode, definitely worth watching in a double feature with A Friend In Need, although not the first episode I’d point a newcomer towards if they were just getting into Columbo.

Bernard Fox (May 11, 1927 -- December 14, 2016) , Welsh character actor, passed away the day before we recorded our episode covering Troubled Waters. In fact, for my part, I had literally just finished re-watching the episode for the purposes of the podcast when I shut it off, checked my phone, and saw an alert mentioning his passing.

Best known in the States for playing Doctor Bombay on three different programs (Bewitched, of course, its spin-off Tabitha and then, much later, genuinely weird daytime soap opera Passions), Fox had a tremendous career playing veddy veddy British characters of every stripe. A small sampling of his roles -- and the apparent contest being held among writers to create the most absurd British moniker possible -- includes:

Nigel Penny-Smith (General Hospital)

Alfie Wingate (Make Room For Daddy)

Eppy Brianstone (The Flintstones)

Malcom Merriweather (The Andy Griffith Show)

Viscount Alfred Wellecliffe (OK Crackerby!)

Squire Lester Moresby (Munsters Go Home!)

Rodney Babcock (The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.)

Dr.Horatio Occularis (The Wild Wild West)

Sgt.Charles Chitterly (Hogan's Heroes)

Clive Whitcomb (Lou Grant)

Nigel Hegland (Hart to Hart)

Sir Charles Wainright-Roberts (Gun Shy)

Col.Archibald Gracie (Titanic)

Capt.Winston Havlock (The Mummy)

and, of course:

Dr.Jinga-Janga (Pee Wee’s Playhouse)

Above, some examples of what the fashionable set is wearing, our own Lieutenant Columbo included.

The tough dames of Troubled Waters: Poupée Bocar, Susan Damante and Jane Greer.

A magic trick from Troubled Waters which either baffled or left unimpressed our trio of commentators. Personally, I think it’s a fine illusion, although the set-up left something to be desired.

If you didn’t catch it, it’s an old saw and I’ve seen it done well on stage -- the magician’s assistant fires a gun through several obstacles, including the magician, leaving him unharmed but the objects in front and in back of him punctured by the bullet’s passing.

In this case it went deck of cards > the magician > pane of glass, with evidence of the bullet having passed through everything except a human abdomen. The problem? Right behind that shattered pane of glass -- the demolished object which proves that the bullet somehow passed harmlessly through a living human being -- there was a whole orchestra just standing there. None of them even seemed particularly concerned. You woulda thought they’d at least protect their instruments, if there was any real danger...

Anyway, fun fact: The name of the magician, as represented on his case is actually the actor’s name, Curtis Credel.