Recap / Columbo S 03 E 06

Yep, that's Columbo shaking hands with a robot.

Episode: Season 3, Episode 6
Title:"Mind over Mayhem"
Directed by: Alf Kjellin
Written by: Steven Bochco, Dean Hargrove, and Roland Kibbee (teleplay), Robert Specht (story)
Air Date: February 10, 1974
Previous: Publish or Perish
Next: Swan Song
Guest Starring: José Ferrer, Lew Ayres, Robert Walker Jr., Jessica Walter, Robby the Robot

"Mind over Mayhem" is the sixth episode of the third season of Columbo.

Dr. Marshall Cahill (José Ferrer) is the director of a cybernetics research institute that conducts studies in a wide variety of fields, from military combat to drugs to natural gas-powered cars to advanced robotics. Unfortunately for Cahill, one of the senior scientists at the institute, Dr. Howard Nicholson (Lew Ayres) has some bad news. It seems that Marshall's son Neil (Robert Walker Jr.), who is about to receive a major scientific award for his research on "molecular matter", actually plagiarized everything from another scientist at the institute, the recently deceased Carl Finch. Marshall begs Howard to keep quiet, to avoid disgrace for Neil and embarrassment for the institute, but Howard, who cares about scientific integrity, says that if Neil doesn't confess he will expose him.

Marshall resolves on murder, and sneaks out with one of the institute's natural gas cars. Soon after Howard's much younger wife Margaret (Jessica Walter, three years after Play Misty for Me and nearly 30 years before Arrested Development) leaves to teach a class, Marshall catches Howard in his driveway and runs him down with the car. He attempts to stage a scene suggesting that Howard was killed by an unknown party who absconded with the heroin that he kept in his lab for research. However, Lt. Columbo, who sees a match in the ashtray that shouldn't be there and a shoe polish scuff mark on the wall, isn't fooled.

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Tropes:

• All for Nothing: Margaret convinces Neil to reveal the truth about his research, meaning this is in effect for Howard's murder.
• Batman Gambit: How Columbo finally breaks Cahill. He never does get his usual "gotcha" evidence, but instead arrests Neil for the murder, after producing a fake witness who pretends to have knowledge of an affair between Neil and Margaret. This leads Marshall to break down and confess, which was Columbo's plan all along.
• Car Fu: Cahill bumps off Nicholson by bumping him off the hood of a speeding car.
• Child Prodigy: Steve, who built MM-7 and has his own lab, is eleven. The entire concept is also deconstructed; anyone who knows Steve's genius feels uncomfortable around him over how a young boy is that much smarter than them, everyone sees him entirely as a prodigy to the point he desperately wants to be treated like the child he is, and he never even wanted to pursue robotics as a profession despite his knack for it, instead being railroaded into it. Columbo is the first person Steve meets that treats him as both a boy and a genius, and the two become good friends as a result.
• Cigar Chomper: Cahill is a cigar smoker, and for reasons science has yet to explain, leaves the match he used to light one at the scene of Nicholson's murder, leading Columbo to suspect him.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Not the first appearance of Columbo's dog, but this is the episode where we learn that Columbo calls his dog "Dog" because he and Mrs. Columbo were unable to agree on a name, and it doesn't matter what they call him because he won't obey any commands regardless.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Marshall Cahill may have been willing to murder a man, but he would never let his son take the fall for the crime. In fact, his son is the reason he committed the murder in the first place.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Marshall somehow doesn't notice a large dent in the car he uses to hit Nicholson until he gets back to the institute and everyone else is leaving. Luckily, everyone else in the institute somehow misses it too, which allows him to cover it up by "accidentally" hitting it with the back of his own car while pulling out.
  • He also fails to see that some of Howard's shoe polish scraped against his wall when he brought the body inside the house.
• Flipping the Table: MM-7 does this after losing a game of chess to Steve.
• Fake Alibi: Dr. Cahill programs MM-7 to run his complex war simulator while he goes out to kill Nicholson.
• Graceful Loser: Cahill confesses with an air of resignation and inquires as to how Columbo figured out it was him. Then they share a cigar together before the credits roll.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Steve may be a brilliant Child Prodigy, but at the end of the day, he still just wants to be a kid, and has aspirations (police officer) beyond simply being the smartest mind in the room.
• Idiot Ball: Dr. Cahill holds it with a titanium grip in regards to his murder plan. He might have saved himself a lot of trouble if he just ran Nicholson down, destroyed the evidence of Neil stealing Finch's work, and left the scene. He just makes things a lot harder for himself by bringing Nicholson inside the house and trashing it. He especially screws up by leaving a match in Nicholson's ashtray, burnt in a way which gives Columbo the idea that the killer is a cigar smoker... while Cahill himself is a cigar smoker.
• May–December Romance: Margaret is half Howard's age, but their single scene together shows theirs to be a loving and affectionate marriage.
• Meaningful Name: MM-7 is the seventh robot created by Steve. The MM comes from what his very first robot was: Mickey Mouse.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Neil receives his science award by stealing the research of the recently deceased Dr. Finch and claiming it as his own.
• Shout-Out:
  • The pre-teen boy genius who built MM-7 the robot is named "Steven Spelberg". This is a reference to Steven Spielberg, then the boy wonder who had earlier directed Columbo Season 1 premiere "Murder by the Book" and who had just graduated to feature films with The Sugarland Express (and would soon hit the big time with Jaws).
  • MM-7 is pronounced "Double M-7". When Columbo first hears it, he guesses it has to do with spies.
• Smart People Play Chess: Smart robots play chess, and boy geniuses beat them.
• Special Effect Failure: Cahill's alibi revolves around MM-7 typing out his war game. In universe it's fine, but viewers can clearly see it hitting several keys at the same time, which doesn't paint a good picture.
• Stupid Crooks: It seems Dr. Cahill is a much better scientist than a murderer.
• Technicolor Science: Howard's lab has the standard set of beakers and flasks containing brightly colored liquids.
• Too Clever by Half:
  • One could argue that all the things Marshall does after hitting Nicholson with his car is overcomplicating his plan.
  • Marshall destroys a batch of heroin Howard had in his lab to make it look like someone killed him for that. However, the container it was in was among several that labeled with their chemical sign on it (in the case of the heroin, C21H23NO5), and the average junkie desperate enough to kill a man to get heroin probably wouldn't know what the chemical sign is.
• Trophy Child: Nicholson has Marshall pegged as only pushing his son to commit fraud, not necessarily out of love, but mostly out of a badgering and ambitious wish to make his son into someone famous.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If Neil hadn't plagiarized his work, Dr. Nicholson may still be alive.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Neil's motive for publishing a plagiarized research paper, to win his father's respect. It backfires spectacularly.