Columbo featured an eclectic range of guest stars, including Faye Dunaway, Dick Van Dyke, and Johnny Cash. Several performers associated with Star Trek also appeared, among them Leonard Nimoy, Kate Mulgrew, and William Shatner. In “Fade In to Murder,” Shatner was joined by Walter Koenig, best known as Chekov.
Koenig played Officer Morella, while Shatner portrayed Ward Fowler, a television celebrity facing blackmail from a former lover. She threatened to expose his desertion during the Korean War, a revelation that could ruin his reputation and career. Disguised in a ski mask, Fowler staged a robbery at a delicatessen and shot her in the back.
Morella's brief appearance required him to reconstruct the apparent robbery for Columbo. However, when Koenig filmed opposite Peter Falk at 2 a.m., Falk objected to the scripted account: it resembled Columbo's own description too closely. With insufficient time for a proper rewrite, Falk outlined what he wanted and asked Koenig to improvise.
Koenig responded with a detailed account of the crime, describing the robber taking cash, attacking the man behind the register, and shooting the fleeing woman. The sequence included the robber striking the man with a pistol and warning the woman not to move. Rather than merely adjusting a few lines, Koenig supplied the dialogue for his entire scene as filming proceeded—and completed it in one take.
