The first of a number of appearances Patrick McGoohan would make in the series, and it's an inauspicious start. He ends up playing the same hard-boiled but flawed character that's all too easy for Columbo to trip up in the end. What's worse is, getting to the punchline is not worth the trouble.

A lot of Columbo fans tend to peg Dagger of the Mind as one of the worst entries in the series' classic run, but I go in the other direction, mainly because Baseheart and Blackman make for a wacky, refreshing turn as a loony, air-headed, over-the-hill villain tag team. It often feels like there are two separate stories going on that just happen to intersect at coincidental, key moments, which feeds into the anything-goes vibe of the episode. Underrated.

The last Mr. Bungle disc until the fateful year of 2020 has them going pop with a severe exotica bent, and blending in elements of their progressive-cinematic sound. It generally works, mainly because the tracks are short and don't meander around too much, but it's not foolproof. It's the most accessible of the three Bungle discs, but the drawback here is they are starting to repeat some ideas from the first two albums.

This was a quantum leap from the debut record which came out in 1991 and still retained at least some vague connections to the funk-ska-alt-rock scene which was the realm of Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Volante is a truly cinematic, very experimental, and much more mature album. A good chunk of the material has no relation to Western pop music whatsoever - tracks like "The Bends", "Violenza Domestica", and "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz" are indescribable yet somehow compelling thanks to the group's incredible dexterity. Those who like their music to play out like a very complicated mind puzzle will love this.

Everything about Hair of the Dog, from its’ Roger Dean-like album cover, to the huge, mountain-air sounds contained within, screams large with a capital L. A few things to recommend here - "Love Hurts", their mammoth rework of the old ballad which was their contribution to power ballad-dom, the talk-boxin' title track, their greatest contribution to the data bank of sleaze guitar songs which would really come to prominence in the 80's, and a general heavy, hard-rock atmosphere that would prove to sell big in the 70's and be massively influential years later. There are Nazareth albums before and after this one that are far more representative of the band, but somehow, like it or not, Hair of the Dog has become the flag ship of the franchise. The U.S. CD edition omits “Guilty”. Subsequent editions contain this track and list “Beggar’s Day” and “Rose in the Heather” as one combined track, especially the 30th anniversary edition, if you happen to come across it.