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Columbo Season 3 Episodes
Season 3 Episode Guide
8 Episodes 1973 - 1974
Episode 1
Lovely But Lethal
Sun, Sep 23, 197373 mins
Viveca Scott runs Beauty Mark, the cosmetics company whose products are in every woman's home. With sales dropping, she's counting on the miraculous new beauty cream created by her chief chemist to boost sales and overtake her rival, David Lang, but the chemist's assistant steals the formula. Scott attempts to negotiate with him but, in a rage, knocks him over the head with a heavy microscope, killing him. Her rival's secretary finds out and attempts to blackmail her, but the cosmetics queen's worst news is that the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo is on the case.
Episode 2
Any Old Port in a Storm
Sun, Oct 7, 197396 mins
Adrian Carsini runs a California winery owned by his younger half-brother who reveals he's about to sell it. This enrages the older wine connoisseur who knocks the young playboy out cold and ties him up in the wine cellar. Soon Carsini has committed a murder and makes it look like a scuba diving accident. The rumpled Lt. Columbo is on the case and is willing to harass everyone - even Carsini's cold but devoted secretary - until he's discovered the truth.
Episode 3
Candidate for Crime
Sun, Nov 4, 197398 mins
It's a week before the election and Senate candidate Nelson Hayward seems to have a good chance of winning, particularly since his campaign manager Harry Stone started rumors that someone was out to kill him. Hayward has now had a good deal of publicity over standing strong in the face of danger, but the demanding Stone now insists that the married Hayward drop his girlfriend Linda Johnson. Hayward kills Stone and uses Stone's own rumors of political assassination as the reason behind the killing. His alibi for the time of the killing is that he was at his wife Victoria's birthday party. Colombo is puzzled by a number of things, including how a killer could have killed Stone in the dark or how Hayward knew to order a new jacket to replaced the one damaged in the shooting before the shooting occurred. To allay growing suspicions, Hayward tries to stage another attempt on his life but Colombo is one step ahead of him.
Episode 4
Double Exposure
Sun, Dec 16, 197370 mins
Dr. Bart Keppel has a very high opinion of himself. Notwithstanding that opinion, he is being fired by Vic Norris, so Bart plans a murder, constructing a perfect alibi for himself while building evidence against the victim's wife. He kills Vic while running commentary on a promotional short film; but, even in the most perfect planning, there are bound to be some failures, and you can be sure that Lt. Columbo will find them out.
Episode 5
Publish or Perish
Fri, Jan 18, 197473 mins
Riley Greenleaf is a publisher and Alan Mallory, a successful writer, is his principal asset. But Alan Mallory has decided to change publishers. Riley threatens to kill Alan. Then he hires Eddie Kane, a Vietnam veteran, to murder Alan and to leave evidence that the killer is Riley himself, who has an excellent alibi. But a key will betray him.
Episode 6
Mind Over Mayhem
Sun, Feb 10, 197473 mins
Dr. Marshall Cahill is the director of a government institute that employs various scientific geniuses, including the elderly Dr. Nicholson, who knows that Cahill's son Neil has plagiarized a dead man's theory of molecular structure. When Nicholson threatens exposure, Dr. Cahill murders him and cleverly makes the killing look like the job of a heroin junkie who needed his fix. But clever or not, another kind of genius is on the case: the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo.
Episode 7
Swan Song
Sun, Mar 3, 197498 mins
A popular folk singer's plane has crashed. Two passengers have died, and one has escaped with minor injuries. Was it really an accident? How could it not have been? Or, was it really a nearly perfect murder? Columbo is called in to find out.
Episode 8
A Friend in Deed
Sun, May 5, 197495 mins
Hugh Caldwell kills his wife Janice and in despair asks for the help of his friend and neighbor Mark Halperin. Mark helps a friend in deed, of course, so the death appears to be the job of a thief, but Lt. Columbo has some doubts. There is not a single fingerprint of the deceased in her house and he begins to suspect Halperin. Unfortunately for Lt. Columbo, Halperin is the deputy police commissioner.