While I enjoy this series, I feel like it sometimes suffers from a fatal flaw: Columbo will immediately suspect the criminal--invariably someone of great reputation in the community--without having any good reason to suspect him. As in this episode, when the prestigious doctor becomes a suspect from the get go. Columbo is openly hostile to him in their first meeting, as if the star surgeon at the hospital would naturally be the chief murder suspect after a nurse is killed. Now how realistic is that? It's really a case of laziness by the writers. They've already told us the scheme, but they don't have the patience to let it unfold naturally for Columbo. The better plots move gradually towards suspicion.
Review of A Stitch in Crime
