Mind over Mayhem story
When Dr. Howard Nicholson threatens to expose Neil Cahill for plagiarizing a paper from a recently deceased scientist, Neil's father, Dr. Marshall Cahill, director of a high-tech Pentagon think tank, kills Nicholson to protect his son's reputation. He programs a cybernetic robot codenamed MM-7 to take his place overseeing a war exercise. The elder Cahill steals a car from the motor pool and drives to Nicholson's house. In the driveway, Cahill runs over Nicholson, then carries his body into the house, ransacking it to make it look like a burglary. To cover up damage the car received from the impact, Cahill backs his own car into it, with many witnesses to the accident. Nicholson's wife happens to be Neil's psychotherapist. Final clue/twist: Columbo realizes early on that Marshall is the likely murderer after finding a burned match at Nicholson's home (Nicholson's wife doesn't smoke and Nicholson himself used a pipe lighter; therefore the match points to a cigar smoker, which Marshall is), but fails to unearth solid evidence against him. Columbo discovers that Marshall’s motive was based on his love for his son. Columbo frames and arrests the son, which causes the father to confess. This episode provides perhaps the most glaring example of Columbo using ethically dubious means to secure a murderer’s apprehension. Directed by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Robert Specht, Steven Bochco, Dean Hargrove, Roland Kibbee.
26 total · 4 choice · 8 major · 14 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| father and son | choice | Dr. Marshall Cahill was so obsessed with looking out for his son Neil that he committed murder in order to save the son from disgrace. Later he confessed to the crime only in order to save his son from the murder charge. The plot turns on the director of a prestigious research institute, Dr. Marshall Cahill, electing to protect his beloved son, Neil Cahill, from being exposed as a scientific fraud by the simple expedient of murdering Neil's outer, Dr. Nicholson, before he went to the press. |
| how to murder someone and get away with it | choice | Research institute director Dr. Marshall Cahill performed the following elaborate plot in order to save his son from scandal and rid himself of Dr. Nicholson: Marshall programmed a robot to do his job while he went to Howard's house and ran him over with a borrowed car. He also made it look like a burglary, and tried to cover his tracks by backing into the borrowed car with his own later on. Thus, covering over the dent made by hitting Dr. Nicholson. He would have undoubtedly gotten away with it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo. |
| paternal love | choice | In the end, Dr. Marshall Cahill confessed to the murder, which he had indeed committed, to prevent his beloved son from taking the rap. |
| the desire for prestige | choice | Neil Cahill was so eager to become Scientist of the Year that he plagiarized the recently deceased Dr. Finch's "theory of molecular" matter. The elder Cahill was possibly even more eager for his son, Neil, to win the award, presumably feeling that his son's newly acquired prestige would rub off on himself. |
| benefiting from someone else's work | major | Neil Cahill was named the Scientist of the Year for a plagiarized "theory of molecular matter". The plot turns on Neil's father resorting to murder to prevent his son from being outed as a fraud. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was a distinguished scientist killed in a botched burglary, or was he perhaps killed by a cigar smoking manslaughter to keep him from outing a certain research institute's son as a plagiarist and a fraud? |
| military related work | major | Dr. Marshall Cahill was the director of a high-tech Pentagon think tank. We saw various presumably high-ranking military type people performing strategical war games in a command center. |
| parental pride | major | Dr. Marshall Cahill took pride in his son, Neil Cahill, being named Scientist of the Year and resorted to murder to prevent Neil from being outed as a fraud. The elder Cahill said "I'm proud of you" to Neil, and later acknowledged to Columbo that he was proud of his son. |
| plagiarism | major | Central to the story was the idea that Neil had cheated in some non-criminal but highly unethical way by taking credit for a discovery that had actually been proposed, though never verified or published, by an older scientist who had died. |
| robot helper | major | The comically maladroit MM-7 programmable humanoid robot, who the viewer may recognize as Robby the Robot, was programmed to become Dr. Cahill's unwitting accomplice in the murder of Dr. Nicholson. MM-7 carried out tasks at a computer terminal so that it seemed Howard was there. It additionally understood natural language, could walk a dog, and proved to be a particularly sore loser at chess. In addition, Dr. Marshall Cahill programmed the MM-7 to take his place overseeing a war exercise. |