This 1990 addition to the "new" Columbo series has an intriguing enough premise: two college students ingeniously murder a professor who is about to expel them, whilst in a classroom lecture with Columbo.
However, it is an erratically paced and patchily entertaining episode at best which seems to take an eternity to to get to its resolution: it's mid-section somewhat drags and it is hard to judge at what point Columbo gets suspicious of the two college students, who start to mimic him. Furthermore, the story seems to spend an inordinate time focusing on other characters who have nothing to do with the murder.
Columbo has met smarter, sharper and more convincing murderers; the two actors portraying the murderers here perform adequately, but there is not much spark in the scenes with them and Falk.
Unfortunately, there are more crosses than ticks against the normal criteria for marking a Columbo story; watchable but not high-standard stuff.
However, it is an erratically paced and patchily entertaining episode at best which seems to take an eternity to to get to its resolution: it's mid-section somewhat drags and it is hard to judge at what point Columbo gets suspicious of the two college students, who start to mimic him. Furthermore, the story seems to spend an inordinate time focusing on other characters who have nothing to do with the murder.
Columbo has met smarter, sharper and more convincing murderers; the two actors portraying the murderers here perform adequately, but there is not much spark in the scenes with them and Falk.
Unfortunately, there are more crosses than ticks against the normal criteria for marking a Columbo story; watchable but not high-standard stuff.