# 47 - " Murder Under Glass "

Comments : This is hands-down ( and if you have no hands , I congratulate you ; you're already there my friend ) the least-best of the forty seven originals ( Note : that is why it's first on the list , and also why I typed what I just typed , not to mention this ) . Most of the acting is exaggerated to an extreme , including , unfortunately ( and in one of the few instances ) , Peter Falk's . While Falk simply seems fake , the murderer is quite laughable ( in a blend of bad and good ways ) in the manner he carries himself throughout the show . ( One particularly funny over-exaggerated line : " How did the fugue - that might be spelled wrong- poison get into the bottle ?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!!!!!!! " ) Also , the murder victim is obnoxious , unsympathetic , and growling and grunting all during his , say , ten minute tenure on the show . Not , of course , that good episodes haven't had unsympathetic victims ( By Dawn's Early Light comes to mind ) , but atleast those guys didn't act as though they'd bite and claw you if you scratched'm in the wrong place . Incidentally , a scratch on the victim is mentioned in atleast one episode . Anyway , the musical score for this episode is weak , as well . It doesn't suit the mood of a murder mystery at all , but I suppose it slightly works in the episode because it sounds like what you'd expect to hear as the background music in a fancy restaurant . And I guess the murder scheme is fairly clever , but without good characters acting out the murder plot , it's all pretty close to an approximation of a waste .