The Worst Episodes of Columbo
Every episode of Columbo ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Columbo!
Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves all of his cases and secures all evidence needed for indictment. His formidable eye for detail and meticulously dedicated approach often become clear to the killer only late in the storyline.
Lowest Rated Episodes Summary
The worst episode of "Columbo" is "Grand Deceptions", rated 6/10 from 17 user votes. It was directed by Sam Wanamaker and written by N/A. "Grand Deceptions" aired on 5/1/1989 and is rated 0.1 point(s) lower than the second lowest rated, "No Time to Die".
6.0/10 17 votes#1 - Grand Deceptions
Season 8 Episode 4 - Aired 5/1/1989
Frank Brailie runs a private military foundation for wanabe soldiers owned by the wheelchair bound General Padget. The General has become suspicious of Frank as a great deal of money seems to be going to a Special Projects Fund. The General tells a close colleague to investigate Frank and the Special Projects Fund. Instead of reporting his fraudulent findings back to the General, he decides to blackmail Frank for some of the money, Frank agrees and starts to plan his murder.
Director: Sam Wanamaker
Writer: N/A
6.1/10 19 votes#2 - No Time to Die
Season 10 Episode 5 - Aired 3/15/1992
Columbo attends the wedding of his police officer nephew. While her husband takes a shower, the bride disappears from the bridal suite. The groom enlists Uncle Columbo's help in unraveling the case. Seems she has been kidnapped by a psychopath who intends to kill her once he consummates "their" marriage.
Director: Alan J. Levi
Writer: Evan Hunter
6.2/10 2,820 votes#3 - Last Salute to the Commodore
Season 5 Episode 6 - Aired 3/2/1976
The family and friends of brilliant naval architect Commodore Otis Swanson have gathered for the company’s annual party. The commodore, however, has become increasingly discontented with the way his son-in-law, Charles Clay, has developed the shipbuilding firm into a vast, impersonal corporation. He is tired of being surrounded by freeloaders like his alcoholic daughter, Joanna, his irresponsible nephew, Swanny, and of course, Charles. The only man he respects is Wayne Taylor, the head of the boatyard. In fact, the Commodore intends to sell the company. That night, Charles is wiping clean the belaying pin used to bash the Commodore’s skull.
Director: Patrick McGoohan
Writer: Jackson Gillis
6.2/10 16 votes#4 - Undercover
Season 10 Episode 9 - Aired 5/2/1994
A photograph is the only clue for Columbo when two dead men and a seven year old mystery with $4 million dollars involved as well as an obnoxious insurance investigator come into play.
Director: Vincent McEveety
Writer: Evan Hunter
6.3/10 19 votes#5 - Murder, a Self Portrait
Season 9 Episode 1 - Aired 11/25/1989
A famous artist, Max Barsini, lives with his wife Vanessa and a beautiful live-in model named Julie at his beach house/studio. Max's ex-wife Louise lives in the beach house next door. Together, these women comprise Max's own little harem. He loves them all in different ways, but, more importantly, likes to control them. In fact, Max derives a great deal of satisfaction from the fact that they all fight for his attention and are reliant upon him financially and emotionally. The competitive jealousy between the women reaches a head at the dinner table one night when Max asks each of them what they think of the other. Their answers prove the intense rivalry between the women.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Sy Salkowitz
6.3/10 18 votes#6 - Murder in Malibu
Season 9 Episode 6 - Aired 5/14/1990
An ambitious womanizer, rejected by the romance novelist he planned to marry, ends the story she was writing with a gun and makes the murder look like robbery gone awry.
Director: Walter Grauman
Writer: Jackson Gillis
6.5/10 22 votes#7 - Sex and the Married Detective
Season 8 Episode 3 - Aired 4/3/1989
A sex therapist catches her boyfriend with another woman when he thinks she is out of town. She then disguises herself and manages to kill him while in disguise, not realizing that a potential suitor saw her enter the bathroom as a dark-haired woman and exit as a blonde.
Director: James Frawley
Writer: Jerrold L. Ludwig
6.6/10 17 votes#8 - Uneasy Lies the Crown
Season 9 Episode 5 - Aired 4/28/1990
While investigating the death of a popular actor, Columbo must outwit a cunning dentist, who has set up his wife for a murder in order to keep up his image and expensive lifestyle.
Director: Alan J. Levi
Writer: Steven Bochco
6.6/10 16 votes#9 - Strange Bedfellows
Season 10 Episode 10 - Aired 5/8/1995
Graham McVeigh, a thoroughbred ranch owner, kills his brother, and frames a local mob bookie. Then, under the guise of making good on his brother's debt, he kills the bookie as well, claiming self-defense. Mob boss Vincenzo Fortelli starts to exert pressure on McVeigh. To solve the crime Columbo must work with the gangster.
Director: Vincent McEveety
Writer: Peter S. Fischer
6.6/10 17 votes#10 - Ashes to Ashes
Season 10 Episode 12 - Aired 8/10/1998
Mortician to the stars Eric Prince, kills gossip reporter Verity Chandler, who had knowledge of skeletons in Prince's closet. Columbo must figure out what happened to her and why.
Director: Patrick McGoohan
Writer: Patrick McGoohan, Jeffrey Hatcher
6.7/10 2,291 votes#11 - A Matter of Honor
Season 5 Episode 4 - Aired 2/1/1976
The owner of a bull ranch in Mexico gives his workers the day off, and then talks his number one man into fighting the bull who nearly killed his son. But instead he shoots him with a tranquilizer gun, and lets the bull kill him. Colombo, who is on vacation in Mexico, gets dragged into this case by an admiring colleague, but he has trouble convincing the Mexicans that the accident is really homicide. And how do you prove that the bull is a murder weapon?
Director: Ted Post
Writer: Brad Radnitz
6.8/10 18 votes#12 - Columbo Goes to the Guillotine
Season 8 Episode 1 - Aired 2/6/1989
Lt. Columbo delves into the world of magic, ESP and slight of hand as he investigates the death of a magician, and there appears to be a tie to a prodigal psychic supported by a government founded institute on parapsychology.
Director: Leo Penn
Writer: William Read Woodfield
6.8/10 18 votes#13 - Murder can be Hazardous to Your Health
Season 10 Episode 2 - Aired 2/20/1991
Wade Anders, a former security expert, hosts the show Crime Alert. A rival host, news reader Bud, discovers Wade was in a porno movie and plans to tell the world then take over his show.
Director: Daryl Duke
Writer: Sonia Wolf, April Raynell, Patricia Ford
6.8/10 15 votes#14 - A Trace of Murder
Season 10 Episode 11 - Aired 5/15/1997
Cathleen Calvert and her lover, crime scene investigator Patrick Kinsley, plot to get rid of Calvert's husband, Clifford, a powerful businessman, by killing an investment broker with whom he is currently feuding, and pinning the murder on Clifford. As long as he is alive and in prison, Cathleen has access to all his money. Columbo must uncover a criminal who is part of the team handling the investigation.
Director: Vincent McEveety
Writer: Charles Kipps
6.8/10 15 votes#15 - Murder With Too Many Notes
Season 10 Episode 13 - Aired 3/12/2001
Hollywood film composer and conductor Findlay Crawford has been mentor to a talented young composer who has been ghostwriting most of Crawford's work for the last few years, and penned Crawford's entire last movie score, which won an Oscar. When the protege wants to venture out on his own, Crawford, whose own talent seems to have run dry, concocts the perfect murder, made to look like a suicide.
Director: Patrick McGoohan
Writer: Patrick McGoohan, Jeffrey Cava
6.8/10 14 votes#16 - Columbo Likes the Nightlife
Season 10 Episode 14 - Aired 1/30/2003
The final Columbo story starring Peter Falk, Los Angeles rave promoter Justin Price helps his girlfriend Vanessa get rid of the corpse of her ex-husband, who was backing Price's new club, after he drops dead in Vanessa's apartment. When an investigative reporter pieces the crime together and threatens to blackmail Justin, Justin kills him.
Director: Jeffrey Reiner
Writer: Michael Alaimo
6.9/10 3,519 votes#17 - Dead Weight
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/27/1971
A famous general kills a business associate, then woos a neurotic female witness to thwart Columbo's investigation.
Director: Jack Smight
Writer: John T. Dugan
6.9/10 21 votes#18 - Columbo Cries Wolf
Season 9 Episode 2 - Aired 1/20/1990
Columbo is asked to investigate the disappearance of Dian Hunter, director of a men's magazine. Naturally, the prime suspect is her lover and co-editor Sean Brantley, who spends lots of time with the young girls he works with.
Director: Daryl Duke
Writer: William Link, Richard Levinson
6.9/10 18 votes#19 - Columbo Goes to College
Season 10 Episode 1 - Aired 12/9/1990
Lt. Columbo is invited as guest speaker in a Criminology course and squares off against two cunning students, who are confident they have duped the lieutenant with various leads, when their professor is found murdered.
Director: E.W. Swackhamer
Writer: Jeffrey Bloom, Frederick King Keller
6.9/10 15 votes#20 - A Bird in the Hand
Season 10 Episode 6 - Aired 11/22/1992
Given a deadline to pay his debts or else, chronic gambler Harold plants a bomb under the Rolls Royce of his uncle, sports magnate Big Fred. However, Big Fred is killed by a hit-and-run driver while jogging that very morning, and the Rolls Royce explodes when Fred's gardener tries to move it out of the way of the TV camera crews. Just when Columbo thinks he has the goods on Harold, it is Harold who turns up dead.
Director: Vincent McEveety
Writer: Jackson Gillis
7.0/10 3,102 votes#21 - Dagger of the Mind
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 11/26/1972
While on a work trip to London, to learn the techniques of the British police, Columbo gets involved with the murder of Roger Haversham, a rich old businessman who is financing the careers of two rundown theater stars. When Sir Roger threatens to end their careers, because he felt betrayed, he's killed. A short while after, his butler figures out the motives for his master's murder, and blackmails the actors, who have no other choice than to kill him and make it look like he commited suicide due to remorse, because he murdered his employer. Columbo stills manages to catch both the murderers, with the help of a pearl and a new umbrella.
Director: Richard Quine
Writer: William Link, Richard Levinson
7.0/10 2,480 votes#22 - Mind Over Mayhem
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 2/18/1974
The director of a government institute that employs various scientific geniuses commits a clever murder. But another kind of genius is on the case: Lt. Columbo.
Director: Alf Kjellin
Writer: Robert Specht, Steven Bochco, Dean Hargrove
7.0/10 19 votes#23 - Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star
Season 10 Episode 3 - Aired 4/29/1991
Lt. Columbo is pitted against an equally brilliant, nationally recognized criminal defence lawyer who murders his rock star girlfriend when he discovers she is seeing another man.
Director: Alan J. Levi
Writer: William Read Woodfield
7.1/10 3,278 votes#24 - Short Fuse
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 1/19/1972
A chemist rigs a bomb in his uncle's car to gain control of his uncle's company, then plants clues to make Columbo suspicious of the company's Vice-President.
Director: Edward M. Abroms
Writer: N/A
7.1/10 2,881 votes#25 - Lovely But Lethal
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 9/23/1973
Viveca Scott, the founder of Beauty Mark Cosmetics, is being threatened by her rival David Lang. When he finds out that her revolutionary cream formula actually removes wrinkles, he has the formula pirated.
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Writer: Jackson Gillis, Myrna Bercovici