As this episode began, I thought they had a fine makings of an excellent show. Adam Thompson (Will Wright) is the rich uncle of Harry Thompson (Bert Convey) and Elliot Carter (Joel Lawrence). Uncle Adam thinks someone is stealing from his wall safe. So he set his nephews up with a bit of juicy information about his next housing development. He draws a map of the development on a piece of paper and gives it to his private secretary. She, in front of the nephews, closes and locks the safe.
Uncle Adam does not tell anyone about his infrared camera that he has set up guarding his safe. The camera will capture the image of the person once the safe is opened.
The next day, there are no images on the camera. However, his juicy information has been leaked out and land where the development was written has already been purchased. Uncle Adam makes a straight line to the office of 'Perry Mason' for help.
This episode had all the makings of being one of the best from season three. Good actors, well written and a mystery that any viewer feels compelled by the evidence. But it was not to be.
For some reason the writers felt that the show needed more characters. All this did was add confusion to the show. It became difficult for the viewer to follow which characters were with which person in the cast. Not only the complex set of characters but they throw in a murder that appears to have been an afterthought.
The courtroom scene was suspicious in nature. William Talman (Hamilton Burger) has been fired after an arrest. Since it takes months for an episode to reach the airwaves, it appeared that had to re-shoot some of the courtroom scenes minus Hamilton Burger. The courtroom scene were choppy and we get a lot of the camera, for unknown reasons, stationary in front of the deputy DA for the show.
This episode had great potential but fell flat as a pancake as the show progressed. It never lived up to the interesting beginnings of the show.