Dean Gilbert's Mysterious Entertainment Blog

     Yes, this is a slight exaggeration but it struck me the other day as I was watching an episode of Columbo. The episode was titled "Any Old Port in a Storm" (S 3 E 2). The plot seemed familiar and I knew why by halfway into the story. My wife and I had just solved almost the exact same crime in "Underwood Cellars", a murder mystery party game by University Games. The game company had made enough changes to create entirely different clues, but the underlying premise was the same. Brothers own separate portions of a winery. One is found dead in a wine cellar accessible from the office of the other. The dead man's car is found in mysterious circumstances. If you have watched any Columbo stories you know that the murderer is apparent from the beginning. Not so in the Underwood Cellars game - you will have to work out a solution. There are many facts to sort through and not all are clues. Watching "Any Old Port..." Won't help you much. The solution ...

           I realized it was time to switch gears a bit and get just a bit into the puzzle aspect of mysterious entertainment. So here is a picture of my first puzzle build for this blog - a ring release puzzle. You can find the plans for your own version  at https://www.instructables.com/Trapped-Ring-Puzzle/ . The article also gives a link to YouTube video with the solution, but I found that the creator of the video obscures the critical moves a bit with his hand. I recommend this alternate video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nEsJAbIVVAs .     My build happens to match the article because most of what you see was originally intended to be a set of coat pegs with almost the same dimensions. I just omitted the middle peg, added the elastic and the ring.     Even if you don't want to build this particular puzzle, you will find plenty of other ideas by this author out on Instructables. And if you're into solving but not bui...

One of the things I have been doing to be well-informed in my craft and provide some material for this blog is to explore and many TV, podcast, radio, and other media-based crime entertainment series as possible. This gives me a chance to find things that my audience may like. It also lets me compare styles, themes, and plots of various shows. For instance, one episode of the Rockford files is actually a reworking of a Sherlock Holmes short story. Without ranking or reviewing at this point I just want to offer a list starting with the shows I am currently working through: Perry Mason - evening viewing Sherlock and Co. - podcast while commuting Columbo - TV movies during lunch hours Here are some others that I have watched. Unless marked "partial" I finished the entire series. Please don't take this list as recommendations. I would be very sorry, for instance, if you read this blog and then watched Broadchurch. I am sorry for anyone, including myself, who HAS watched Broad...