Columbo (season 8)

Elliott Blake (Anthony Andrews) is a "psychic" who is trying to convince the government to give him a lucrative contract based on his ESP abilities. He conspires with an old colleague, Max Dyson (Anthony Zerbe), a magician, to verify his prowess, but settles an old score with Dyson by tricking him into being decapitated by his own guillotine. Columbo has to solve the crime before the government whisks Blake beyond his reach, changing his identity.

Final clue/twist: Columbo tricks Blake into a confession and attempted murder by taunting him with a promise to investigate him for the murder for as long as it takes to bring him down. When Blake tries to kill Columbo with the guillotine, he confesses while he's pulling the plug. But because Columbo rigged the guillotine, he was unharmed.

Karen Austin plays Dr. Paula Hall, Elliott Blake's research partner and lover. This is one of two Columbo episodes, the other being Now You See Him..., in which the magician was the murderer. It is also unusual in that Columbo himself discovers the murder victim during the investigation of the crime scene, rather than appearing later.

Boy genius Hollywood director Alex Brady (Fisher Stevens), prior to becoming a success, made a 16mm movie in which a young woman, Jenny Fisher, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Brady and his cameraman conspired to pretend that the woman never made it to the filming, leading the official investigation to conclude that it was an accidental death. Jenny's brother Leonard Fisher (Jeff Perry) shows up in Brady's office with a copy of a film that was left to him by Brady's recently deceased cameraman. Leonard vows to use the film to destroy Brady, who kills him, using one of his studio movie sets.

Final clue/twist: When he realizes that Columbo is coming closer and closer to solving the murder, Brady hires two actresses to enact a scripted conversation in the studio commissary for Columbo to overhear, hoping it would misdirect him. Columbo is not fooled, noticing that one of the actresses was dressed as a nurse when there were no scenes filmed during the studio that day that required one. Columbo then beats Brady at his own game, using undercover cops to "play the part" of the commissary staff so they can overhear Brady trying to bribe his secretary to keep quiet.

Sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby (Lindsay Crouse) hosts a popular call-in radio show and has authored a best-selling self-help manual, The Courtesan Complex. She is also involved both professionally and personally with her business partner David Kincaid (Stephen Macht). That is, until late one night when Dr. Allenby makes an unexpected after-hours trip to her office and catches David in flagrante delicto with her assistant Cindy Galt (Julia Montgomery) in the therapy room. Dr. Allenby is incensed, and decides to kill David. To do so, she takes a page right out of her own book. She first disguises herself as a sexually aggressive, high-class prostitute named "Lisa", wearing a black wig and sexy black clothing, that she stashes in the women's bathroom of a fundraiser she's attending. During the fundraiser, she sneaks to the bathroom to change into her disguise. She then sneaks out in the disguise and goes over to a nearby bar where she's arranged for David to meet with her. Making sure to be seen, she tricks David into taking them both back to her clinic. Once there, she shoots him, then makes it look like the mysterious "lady in black" committed the crime.

Colonel Frank Brailie (Robert Foxworth) is running a paramilitary mercenary school owned by General Jack Padget (Stephen Elliott). Brailie is also having an affair with Padget's wife Jenny (Janet Eilber). Brailie is siphoning money from Padget's foundation into what he calls "The Special Projects Fund", which is secretly used to finance illegal dealings. The suspicious General asks an employee, Sgt. Major Lester Keegan (Andy Romano) to look into the matter. Keegan finds the evidence but decides to blackmail Brailie instead of reporting his findings. During a training exercise, occurring on the night of the General's birthday party, Brailie sneaks into the mercenary camp, wearing a ski mask, and stabs Keegan, then puts the body on a landmine that is detonated. He sneaks back to the General's estate and makes it look like he was assembling a diorama of the Battle of Gettysburg at the time.