This superbly scripted thriller marked the small-screen debut of an American TV legend. Peter Falk is now so associated with the role of shambling Los Angeles detective Lt Columbo that it is impossible to believe that anyone else could have played him. However, Thomas Mitchell was Columbo in Richard Levinson and William Link's stage play, and first choice for the TV series was Bing Crosby, who turned it down because it would interfere with his golf. In the event, Falk made the character his own and here the deceptively haphazard way in which he dismantles the master plan of smug, wife-murdering psychiatrist Gene Barry is a delight to watch.