I agree with the last reviewer that this episode is fantastic. There's a very good reason. BARNABY JONES was part of the CBS Sunday night mystery lineup, along with MANNIX. They were up against COLUMBO on NBC. So producer Quinn Martin needed some solid mysteries. He got them.
In fact, I always thought the first season of the series was the very best as the stories were compelling, and kept you in suspense. Unlike Mannix or Cannon, Barnaby couldn't really beat guys up at his age, so he relied on his laboratory and solid investigative work, much in the tradion of CHARLIE CHAN! Hence, at the opening of each show the puzzle pieces falling together, right? Here, William Shatner plays the ultimate villain, a wealthy playboy named Carlyle who wants to stay wealthy and fake his own death --and start a new life with beautiful Janice Rule. A lot of fans forget that Bill Shatner also played bad guys to perfection. This is a classic example.
Bottom line, Shatner plays an embezzler (with his present his wife's money), then makes it look like he was killed in a boating accident. The fun to it all is watching him try to squeeze out of this dilemma.
Credit director William Hale, a director's director, who got the most out of his cast. He handled such shows as the cult classic INVADERS, among many others. This is also a very well written episode by Ben Maselink, behind such shows as the FBI, later STARSKY AND HUTCH.
This is the definition of a cat and mouse story that kept BARNABY JONES chugging along. Also to note is that co-star Janice Rule, after many years, earned a PHD in psychoanalysis, later known as Dr. Rule and practicing in Los Angeles, but she never gave up acting either. Good for her.
For all us fellow travel buffs, this sceneic episode was filmed up in Ventura county at Lake Sherwood, outside Thousand Oaks. It's about 40 miles from LA, and the home to many stars. The population count was only at 1600 in 2020. Could you imagine the population number when this was filmed in 1973? If you are a true movie buff, many classic TARZAN movies were filmed there in the 1930s and 40s. It must have been a time.
This was the second episode, SEASON 1 remastered CBS dvd box set.