SPLAININ TO DO: TRADE-IN CARS

'THE SAINT'

"THE GOLDEN FROG"

When Simon Templar landed at the airport in San Carlos, the capital city of the South American country of San Carlos (That's right - "La ciudad tan agradable lo nombró dos veces"!), he asked a taxi driver if he knew of the Crown & Heather.  When assured that he did, Templar got into the taxi.

But then we saw him pull up to the Crown & Heather (a Scottish pub run by an old friend) for the first time......

I've seen this thing happen before.  When Lt. Columbo was in London, he and Detective Chief Superintendent Dirk drove over to the estate of Sir Roger Haversham after the report of the theatrical producer's death.  But the car they arrived in was not the same car in which they left.

I suppose I could have come up with some wild TV splainin for the change in the cars; perhaps along the lines of Transformer televersions.  But I will invoke Occam's Razor instead.

During the trips for both Templar and Columbo, they had to stop and change cars.

For Simon Templar, the reason was simple: the taxi driver lied.  He had no idea where the Crown & Heather was located.  Once Simon realized this, he got out and hailed a different cab.

With Lt. Columbo, the first car supplied by New Scotland Yard broke down on its way out of town to the Haversham estate.  So a new vehicle was called for to take Dirk and his American visitor the rest of the way.

We didn't see these changes occur.  We didn't have to.  So many things we never see but we take it on faith that they happened.

Would you really want to see Archie Bunker taking a dump?  Bad enough we would hear him flush the toilet, which usually served as a punch-line rimshot.

So I think these are the simplest splainins for both TV shows.....

OTHER SHOW CITED:

'Columbo' - "Dagger Of The Mind"

BCnU!