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richardweill says:

If I have one criticism of this book, it’s that it lacks more insight into the creation of the Columbo episodes. Three episodes in particular have always raised questions for me about the evolution of their scripts. Was Grace Wheeler’s brain aneurism in the original draft of “Forgotten Lady”? It’s so inconsistent with the meticulous crime she committed that it feels like an add-on, to make the ending better. Was Riley Greenleaf having a new key made, not knowing Columbo had changed the lock to Alan Mallory’s office, the original gotcha for “Publish or Perish”? Did the “you don’t kill off Rock Hudson” ending, and the scenes that go with it, come later? And how was the ending of “Suitable for Framing” constructed? Apparently, Jackson Gillis started from the premise that finding Columbo’s fingerprints will solve the case. How did he proceed from there? (In the book, William Link says that the episode was plotted backwards, but no details are given.)

My interests, I understand, focus on the writing, structure, and construction more than many others. But this was the one opportunity to get answers to these questions. Jackson Gillis and William Driskill (and Richard Levinson) are no longer with us, along with many other Columbo writers.

[This is one reason why, after the successful premiere run of my mystery play “Framed,” I preserved (in the book “We Open in Oxnard Saturday Afternoon”) every aspect of the play’s creation, revision, and production. See https://columbophile.com/2018/07/25/columbo-blog-contributor-rich-weill-releases-new-book/%5D