The Best Episodes Written By Robert Van Scoyk

An unpopular show-business personality discovers that elaborate security systems are no guarantee of safety.

Jessica reluctantly agrees to do an interview for an old friend, Paula Roman, but is surprised when Kevin Keats, a journalist who had been doing a series of stories on an art dealer who was really a drug dealer, shows up to do the interview, complete with cameras and crew. After Kevin is presumed dead when a boat Amos chartered for him explodes, Cabot Cove explodes with press and paparazzi, and the citizens blame Jessica for all the problems it causes, demanding that she solve the mystery. Unfortunately, once Keats is revealed to be alive and well, the real question is who the true target was.

First, the reform mayor dies in an ""accident"" and then the mayor's father is murdered after he demands an investigation of the ""accident"".

Mark McAndrews a top network programmer is promoted to a New York position. His assistant, who is very ambitious and his lover, expects to get his old job. But of course he feels she is out of her league and needs more experience. Kay, feeling betrayed, decides to seek revenge.

A famous food critic is threatened by a restaurant owner, and so the critic leaves. Soon after, the cook dies. Columbo's involvement is welcomed by all the other chefs in the area, but Columbo wonders why the dead restaurant owner slammed the drawers before he died. And how could the poison that killed him enter an unopened bottle without the killer even being in the room? Could it have been suicide? But then there's the cheques to a mysterious society, and the victim's calender. Can Columbo's cooking skills really match the food critic's taste?

Jessica's first book, The Corpse Danced at Midnight, is being made into a major Hollywood motion picture, backed by producer Jerry Lydecker. Jessica is furious to see how her book is being butchered by Lydecker and his crew. She heads out to Hollywood to confront Lydecker, but things take a turn when Lydecker is found dead on stage. Jessica ends up being the prime suspect in the murder, but luckily the officer in charge of the investigation believes she's too smart to be the killer and sets her up to find the real murderer.

While spending time at a lake, Jessica sees what appears to be a struggle and a woman falling from a boat into the lake.

Dr. Ernest Lydecker just wants peace and quiet, and prefers to putter around in his laboratory. His nagging wife Bernice is a constant source of noise. Dr. Lydecker decides to make his wife the guinea pig for his latest experiment: using special sound waves, he has made mice and chimps docile, so he tries it out on his wife. It seems to work, Bernice becomes quiet and docile. But there is a side effect; now Bernice cannot stand loud noises. She destroys a ringing phone, a chiming clock, a barking dog, and finally a loud neighbor. Dr. Lydecker figures he must reverse the experiment with an antidote-like sound treatment. But Bernice does not want to revert. She is happy and docile, unless some loud noises irritate her. Dr. Lydecker keeps ordering her, in a loud voice, to get the treatment-- and Bernice destroys anything that irritates her. [a typical ""married couple hate each other"" episode, only here the twist is that the hubby turned his wife into a killer.]

A beautiful fashion designer who has risen to the top of her profession hires Magnum to protect her when one of her two partners in a clothing firm is murdered.