The BEST episodes written by Richard Levinson
#1 - Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 2 - Episode 6
Mrs. Logan calls Sheriff Ben Wister when she begins to believe that her neighbor Harry Jarvis killed his wife and buried her in his back yard. She notes that Harry has been acting strangely. He has been digging in the yard all night and has been drinkinf beer all day. She also notes that Mrs. Jarvis's annoying little dog has also gone missing. When the police interview him, Harry claims that his wife left him for another man. He also claims that his wife left her dog with him and that it died after an illness. The sheriff is unconvinced by Harry's explanation and gets a search warrant to dig up his back yard. When the police start digging they find a dead dog and believe Harry's story. Later, Harry visits Mrs. Logan who is in fact his secret lover. Harry did kill his wife and he and Mrs. Logan bury Mrs. Jarvis's body where the dog was once buried. They think that the police would never bother to check the dog's grave again. All goes according to plan until Sheriff Wister returns and te
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#2 - Crack in a Crystal Ball
The Fugitive - Season 3 - Episode 3
A scam artist posing as a psychic goes on TV to prove that he knows where Kimble will appear next-with a little help from an accomplice who is traveling with Kimble.
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#3 - The Adventure of the Disappearing Dagger
Ellery Queen - Season 1 - Episode 22
In the series' finale, Ellery probes the murder of a retired detective who was killed while investigating a five year old unsolved murder case.
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#4 - Day of Reckoning
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 1 - Episode 10
Paul Sampson murders his wife Caroline and is relieved when the police rule her death and accident. His conscience gets the best of him, however, and he decides to confess the murder to his family and friends. Unfortunately, no one believes him. They think the stress of his wife's death has gotten to him. Later he tells another friend, who also happens to be a judge. The judge, however, knew all along. He was Caroline's lover. Knowing that Paul's conscience is killing him, the judge chooses to remain silent. When Paul continues in his attempts to confess, he is eventually committed by his family to a mental hospital.
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#5 - Dear Uncle George
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 1 - Episode 30
John Chambers writes an advice to the lovelorn column under the pseudonymn Uncle George. He learns that his wife is cheating on him when a neighbor named Mrs. Weatherby, not knowing that John and Uncle George are the same person, writes a letter to his column asking for advice. Chambers kills his wife and then pins the blame on her lover. When he fakes shock when the police reveal his wife's affair, he is accepted as innocent because he doesn't have a motive. Chambers almost gets away with murder until Mrs. Weatherby tells the police that she mailed the Uncle George column asking for advice about the situation.
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#6 - The Adventure of Colonel Nivin's Memoirs
Ellery Queen - Season 1 - Episode 7
A WW II spy, Colonel Alec Nivin, is on a book tour in New York concerning his memoirs in which he accuses a variety of people of war crimes and treasonous acts. Ellery's galpal, Jenny O'Brien, finds the erstwhile spy dead in his hotel room having been stabbed with an antique dagger. Everybody except Jenny is a suspect in this one.
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#7 - Murder Case
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 2 - Episode 19
Lee Griffin is an actor who is reunited with his old girlfriend Diana at a London production of a play being financed by Diana's husband Charles Justin. Lee and Diana rekindle their old romance and hatch a plot to kill her husband who is a wealthy diamond merchant. Lee's first attempt to kill Charles fails, but he succeeds on his second try. On a trip to Paris, Lee assumes Charles's identity. Unfortunately, Charles was aware of Diana's unfaithfulness and murderer her before he wqas killed. He hid her body in a car which is being shipped to Paris. Customs officials find the body and Lee, who is posing as Charles, is arrested for the crime.
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#9 - Captive Audience
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 1 - Episode 5
Warren Barrow writes mystery novels under a pseudonymn. He sends his publisher a series of tape recordings that appear to detail either the plot of his next mystery novel or the plan for a murder he is actually going to commit. Using his own name on the tapes, Barrow describes how he renewed a friendship with a very attractive girl named Janet West. Janey, however, is married and wants someone to kill her wealthy husband. Blinded by passion, Barrow agrees to commit murder. At the last minute, however, he gets cold feet and later, out of guilt, decides to kill Janet. The tape ends, however. The publisher and another writer, Tom Keller, become convinced that Barrow is planning murder. The publisher calls the police while Keller heads for Janet's apartment. At the apartment, Keller discovers Janet dead and Barrow holding the murder weapon. Barrow is taken to the police station where he provides an ending to his novel and a complete confession, all on tape.
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#12 - Tiger Left, Tiger Right
The Fugitive - Season 2 - Episode 6
While working as a gardener on the estate of a wealthy couple, Mike and Laura Pryor, Kimble is mistakenly abducted by Harold and Irene Cheyney. Harold is a Korean war veteran and former factory worker whom lost the use of his legs after a truck owned by the Pryor's company hit him. After writing several letters to Mike Pryor asking about work and disability compensation, none of the letters were answered, so Harold decides to kidnap Mike for a $100,000 ransom. But since Harold and Irene have never met or seen Mike Pryor they happedned to abduct Kimble instead after seeing Mike's son, Glenn, give more affection to Kimble than his distant father.
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#15 - Portrait of a Dead Girl (aka Who Killed Miss U.S.A.?)
McCloud - Season 1 - Episode 1
McCloud escorts a witness from New Mexico to New York City, but loses him to kidnappers and finds himself in a murder case involving Puerto Rican nationalists, a lady novelist, a Wall Street lawyer, and a dead beauty pageant winner.
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#16 - The Adventure of the Lover's Leap
Ellery Queen - Season 1 - Episode 2
A wealthy heiress dies. She jumped off the balcony of her elegant home (or did she?). Was it suicide... or was it murder? The twist: she was reading one of Ellery's own murder mysteries at the time and she died exactly the same way as the victim in the book.
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#19 - The Murder of Sherlock Holmes
Murder, She Wrote - Season 1 - Episode 1
Retired schoolteacher Jessica Fletcher is shocked to find out that not only did her nephew send her manuscript to a publisher, but it's been accepted! Jessica is caught up in a whirlwind of publicity tours, book signings, and public appearances, but everything takes a turn when she attends a costume party and a private investigator dressed as Sherlock Holmes ends up facedown in the pool, shot. Jessica initially tries to stay out of things until her nephew Grady becomes the prime suspect, and Jessica decides to take matters into her own hands while fighting her attraction to Preston Giles, the first man to interest her since the death of her husband Frank.
#20 - Dagger of the Mind
Columbo - Season 2 - Episode 4
While on a work trip to London, to learn the techniques of the British police, Columbo gets involved with the murder of Roger Haversham, a rich old businessman who is financing the careers of two rundown theater stars. When Sir Roger threatens to end their careers, because he felt betrayed, he's killed. A short while after, his butler figures out the motives for his master's murder, and blackmails the actors, who have no other choice than to kill him and make it look like he commited suicide due to remorse, because he murdered his employer. Columbo stills manages to catch both the murderers, with the help of a pearl and a new umbrella.
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#21 - Services Rendered
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season 7 - Episode 10
Being hit by a falling plank of wood has rendered a young man with amnesia. All he has in his possession is a $1000 bill and a note with a doctor's address. Visiting the doctor jogs his memory, which is unfortunate for one of them.
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#22 - Profit-Sharing Plan
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season 7 - Episode 23
When a long-time employee retires with little in the way of thanks, the man decides to rob the company and run off with his secret girlfriend. His wife, however, has other plans.
#23 - The Adventure of the Wary Witness
Ellery Queen - Season 1 - Episode 15
Ellery's old college chum, Linville Hagen, is accused of murdering mobster Nick Danello and Ellery must find a missing witness who can prove his innocence. This missing witness was a woman wearing a green dress. This description, of course, could fit any woman in New York. Ole Frank Flannigan comes along for the ride too and this time he's not quite so antagonistic towards Ellery.
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