A Candidate Too Clever by Half

It's election time and Columbo has to solve a murder close to a senate candidate played by Jackie Cooper. "Candidate for Crime", a 1973 episode of Columbo, makes things more complicated when the candidate himself turns out to be a murderer. His scheme is pretty clever, too, and Columbo untangles it with appreciable credibility. But the best part of this episode is watching Columbo going about his business.

He shows up to the crowded crime scene and has trouble paying attention to the top brass, continually getting distracted by this or that thing and by asking questions of the beat cops. The scene ends nicely with Columbo (Peter Falk) probably looking incompetent to everyone in the vicinity while in fact being the only competent person present, having collected all the actually relevant forensics.

Later he's pulled over by some cops who are concerned by the sight of his famously dishevelled automobile. He takes it into the shop and doesn't have enough cash to pay for the repairs. He tells the mechanic he's a cop. "Are you undercover?" asks the mechanic. "Underpaid," says Columbo. He had a way with words.

Hayward (Jackie Cooper) kills his advisor with a clever set up to make it look like one of the loonies who normally send death threats to political candidates accidentally shot him. Hayward wants him dead because he knows about Hayward's affair with his wife's secretary. Why would Hayward cheat when his wife wears this perfectly 1970s sensible gown?

And it turns out she's none other than Joanne Linville, the Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident", an episode of the original Star Trek. Some guys just don't know how good they have it.

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