Title:"No Time to Die"
Directed by: Alan J. Levi
Written by: Robert Van Scoyk
Air Date: March 15, 1992
Previous: Death Hits the Jackpot
Next: A Bird in the Hand...
Guest Starring: Joanna Going, Thomas Calabro, Doug Savant
"No Time to Die" is the fifth episode of the tenth season of Columbo.
The story begins at the wedding reception of Lt. Columbo's nephew, LAPD cop Andy Parma (Thomas Calabro). Andy has the extreme good fortune to be marrying a shockingly gorgeous model, Melissa (Joanna Going). Columbo gives a toast, people dance, champagne is drunk.
However, just moments after Andy and Melissa retire to their hotel suite for what presumably will be a night of vigorous sex, Melissa is kidnapped. Andy, naturally, calls his uncle, who is still downstairs at the party. Columbo, Andy, Andy's cop friend Dennis (Doug Savant), and the rest of the LAPD wait for a ransom demand, since Melissa's father is quite wealthy...but it never comes. Gradually the police realize that something far darker than a kidnapping for ransom is afoot. Led by the intrepid Lt. Columbo, the cops race to find Melissa before she meets a terrible fate.
Basically an In Name Only episode of Columbo in that it bears no resemblance at all to the traditional Columbo Reverse Whodunit murder story. It is actually an adaptation of the 87th Precinct novel As Long As You Both Shall Live by Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain. (Two years later another 87th Precinct novel was adapted into Columbo episode "Undercover".)
Just three months after this TV movie ran, both Thomas Calabro and Doug Savant got regular gigs on the prime time drama Melrose Place.
Tropes:
- Ax-Crazy: If it's not obvious, Rudy Strassa is not exactly all there.
- Bound and Gagged: When Melissa comes to in the stalker's house, she is tied up with tape over her mouth. He later lets her loose.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Andy, panicking after realizing that his wife has in fact been kidnapped, begs his uncle for a cigarette. All Columbo can give him is one of his iconic cigars. (A later scene at the police station shows Dennis giving Andy a pack of cigarettes).
- Cool Uncle: Columbo, whom his nephew Andy obviously admires.
- Cutlery Escape Aid: Melissa uses the vinegar and oil left with her salad to remove the rust and lubricate the door hinges of the room where she is being held. She then uses the fork to scrape away the rust and pop the pins out of the hinges to escape the room.
- Death by Adaptation: In the source novel, the kidnapper is shot but survives. In this episode he's killed.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: Melissa's father sits down heavily on the bed when he is told she's been kidnapped.
- Extremely Short Timespan: 15 hours and 2 minutes from the wedding reception to the cops finally breaking into Strassa's house and saving Melissa.
- Fanservice: Joanna Going spends most of the episode in nothing but a slip.
- Flashback: A basically unnecessary one that shows how Strassa got into the hotel room, subdued Melissa by threatening her with a scalpel, and knocked her out with chloroform.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: There's no murder! There's no Perp Sweating, there's no Reverse Whodunit, there's no And Another Thing... where Columbo annoys a suspect (well, he does say it once, but to a witness rather than a suspect), and there's a Race Against the Clock-style investigation playing out over an Extremely Short Timespan rather than the usual methodical Columbo investigation. He uses a gun! And while Columbo's endless babbling about his relatives was a Running Gag, this is the only time where we actually meet one. The episode plays out like what it is, namely, a completely different story (an 87th Precinct novel) with Columbo substituted in as the detective.
- Freudian Excuse: What drove Rudy Strassa insane. As a child he saw his father slit his mother's throat and then kill himself the same way.
- Foreshadowing: Strassa the psycho uses a scalpel as a weapon. The episode later reveals that he is a former med student who drives an ambulance.
- Happy-Ending Massage: Strongly implied with the "Arabian Nights Steam Bath" where Columbo's partner Sgt. Goodman goes to find a snitch. When the guy at the front desk goes into his spiel, Goodman tells him to knock it off and that the cops would have already shut his place down if they didn't think it was useful in keeping weirdos off the streets. The morbidly obese snitch is later seen getting a massage from a very good looking woman in a Bedlah Babe outfit.
- It's Personal: Lt. Columbo investigating the kidnapping of his nephew's wife.
- Lens Flare: Used for dramatic effect when Melissa, locked in a dark room, is first confronted by her psycho kidnapper who's wielding a bright flashlight.
- No Name Given: A tradition throughout the entire series, of course, but most awkward in this episode, where Lt. Columbo is introduced at his nephew's wedding reception as "Lt. Columbo". It's a party! Why is he being addressed by his LAPD rank?
- Out-of-Genre Experience: A kidnapping story rather than the usual Columbo murder story.
- Painting the Medium: Throughout the episode chyrons appear on the screen to mark the passage of time as the Extremely Short Timespan story plays out. At the end, after Melissa has been saved and Strassa has been killed, Columbo pauses for a bit and says "What time is it?" The last chyron pops up showing the time (a little after 3 pm) and the episode ends.
- Stalker Shrine: Melissa wanders into a room of Strassa's house and turns on a light switch. This starts up a slide projector which projects a series of Melissa's sexy modeling photos, while a stereo plays the traditional Mendelssohn wedding recessional.
- Stalker with a Crush: The bad guy is Strassa, a deranged stalker who kidnapped Melissa from her wedding reception, staged a faux wedding of his own, and was just about to rape and murder her when Columbo and the good guys burst in and save the day."I'm devoted to you, and I desire your love."
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: It's hard to feel total hatred for Rudy Strassa. When he was a child his father, a famous surgeon, was an abusive monster at home. One night he took the abuse too far and sliced Rudy's mother's neck open, killing her while Rudy watched. Realizing what he's done, the man kills himself in grief, again while Rudy watches. Yes, Rudy may be insane, yes he may have kidnapped a woman, yes he may even be planning to rape and kill her and himself... but he's got some serious and perfectly valid reasons to be as messed up as he is.
