A Deadly State of Mind - S4-E6
Stupidity: In the final scene: Columbo lays a trap for the murderer (George Hamilton). The 'eyewitness' when Hamilton fled the murder scene was a blind man. Hamilton is aware of this. Columbo's gambit depends on Hamilton's assumption that Columbo has coached the witness to act as though he was sighted so as to convince Hamilton that there is evidence against him. In fact, Columbo has the witness' brother, who is sighted, pretend to be the eyewitness and identify Hamilton as the man he saw driving away. When Hamilton falls for Columbo's trap and, believing he is in the presence of the blind man, tries and fails to 'prove' the man can't see. By doing so he reveals his knowledge that the witness was blind, incriminating himself. The problem is, that only a minute or so previously, Columbo had placed Hamilton under arrest, and failed to read him his Miranda Rights. Considering that Hamilton's slip up is the ONLY evidence Columbo has against Hamilton, this was a spectacularly stupid move on Columbo's part. Regardless of how many officers were present to witness this, the fact is that Hamilton was under arrest and had not been advised of his right against self-incrimination; meaning nothing that he said when under arrest can be used against him.
Stupidity: When Brass and Sarah enter the locked storage cellar where the boys are hidden, Greg, a graduated rookie, straggles along behind them when he should have known better to stay put. As anyone could have come along and locked that cellar door behind them, trapping them inside.
Backlash of the Hunter - S1-E1
Stupidity: Rockford knows almost nothing about the guy who is tailing him except that he noticed him while he was grabbing a bite with his client. Regardless of that, he sends the same client to seduce him, just assuming that he won't be able to recognize her. And it works. Is Lindsay Wagner this hard to forget, that this guy just an hour or two later isn't able to tell it's the same woman his target was meeting?
And All Through the House - S1-E2
Stupidity: The woman could've blamed her husband's death on the maniac, she didn't need to go outside to retrieve his body.
Stupidity: The inspector knows that his house has been bugged; he does not know how many bugs and cameras are there, he just knows there are some. He does find a bunch of them with great ease when he gets back home - making you wonder how could he have ignored them to begin with, since all it takes is for him to raise his eyes, they are fairly big black cameras who do not camouflage at all for the most part. He then proceeds to make a phone call to the big baddie from his landline. Nobody in their right mind would do such a thing. Heck, you wouldn't want to use your home phone for such a call even if you didn't know that someone just put bugs all over your house.
Camp Redwood - S9-E1
Stupidity: Brooke leaves her apartment window open as she sleeps, even after telling her friends that serial killers (like The Night Stalker) strike during the summer when everybody leaves their windows open.
Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt - S3-E8
Stupidity: SPOILERS AHEAD: It has been a good minute between Hopper killing Grigory and Joyce turning the key. He could have used that time to run as quickly as he can towards her, instead of staring at her for 30 seconds. Also, Dustin didn't have to yell (through the radio) so panicky yet about closing the gate. While Mind Flayer was killing Billy, El and other kids could have used the time to run further again and get another 2-3 minutes, in that time Hopper would surely come to a safe place.
A Rough Whimper of Insanity - S1-E7
Stupidity: The hacker's VR goggles are not plugged in to anything (despite having a wire for this purpose) when he and Tom sit down at the computer in the teacher's house.
Stupidity: S1E8 Obsessed - Morgan and the detectives respond to the beach for a possible homicide. None of the detectives or Morgan are wearing protective gloves. Throughout the series, the detectives remind Morgan to wear gloves before touching evidence. However, she takes the pulse of the victim without gloves. (00:04:02)
Day 4: 11:00 P.M.-12:00 A.M. - S4-E17
Stupidity: When the couple is in the plant they call Jack on the cellphone, he instructs them to open the case and separate the book from the activation device. This was stupid, he should have told them to destroy it, since the codes had changed the moment Air Force One crashed, and it would take about 1 hour to make this work. This is explained later on in the show.
The Tale of the Dream Girl - S3-E10
Stupidity: A boy walking through the bowling alley stops and lets Johnny pass, even though Johnny is supposed to be a ghost no one can see.
Stupidity: The gang is brutal enough to have Lavington killed; considering they know where he lives and that there's just a single housekeeper, it would have been miles easier for them to just kill or tie her up and ransack the house themselves with all the time they wanted, rather than involving the most famous detective with an obvious ruse and hope he'd find the object.
Stupidity: The brothers are angry at Leo because they say he's responsible for them dying because he chose to save other soldiers instead of them, Leo also blames himself for the same reason and says he should have stayed and gotten them out. But in the flashback it shows Leo helping them and then running off to help other soldiers, after he runs off the brothers are killed just a few seconds later. Even if Leo had chosen to stay with the brother he couldn't have gotten them out in time, the only difference would have been Leo would have died with them, but Leo dies in the same war so he didn't live much longer. Leo's guilt and the brothers' blame don't make any sense at all.
The Stripper - S1-E3
Stupidity: The whole plot resolution can happen merely because, on top of Matlock's unbelievable guess on how to trigger someone's dormant personality - apparently murder wasn't enough, but a joke is - the transvestite has two entirely separate voices, one of which is a dubbed-in female one. Not quite believable even for the times.
Who, What, Where, Wendigo? - S2-E10
Stupidity: Dwight, Audrey, and Nathan all know Dwight's trouble is that all bullets are attracted to him, so why is he with them when they go looking for the killer, knowing every one is using a gun?