Anyone Here Watch Columbo?

[TRON JA307020]

Even in its day, the show was as resistant to modern trends as Columbo himself was, fighting against network pressure to put in car chases and gunfights and love interests for the lead, clinging to a very talky and deliberate format.

There was also pressure to get rid of his car for a newer one, but Falk had picked out the Peugeot himself from the prop cars already in the studio's storage lot.

I never knew Falk picked that car. Stroke of genius on his part. It went perfectly with the way Falk portrayed Columbo. Very cool.

 

[Christopher]

I know Columbo was played by other actors before but the early takes on the character just weren't as good.

But that doesn't mean nobody else should ever try. For every Jeremy Brett or Benedict Cumberbatch, there have been a bunch of forgettable or ill-conceived casting choices for Sherlock Holmes (Roger Moore? Matt Frewer??). We had to get through the mediocre ones to get to the great ones, as is true of anything. But if people had just given up trying, we wouldn't have gotten those later great ones.

The quirky detective trope is rather well entrenched on TV. Most of those shows don't do gunfights and car chases.

Good point. There was a lot of Columbo in Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

What makes 70s detective shows different from current ones is that starting with CSI there's been a focus on forensics. Colombo just mindf***ed the killers into revealing themselves, and that's far more compelling.

Well, strictly speaking, the first forensic-scientist detective in fiction was Sherlock Holmes himself. He pioneered the field, not only in fiction but in real life, since the stories popularized detection techniques that real police departments would later adopt, often inspired by the Holmes stories. All modern forensic police work is following Holmes's lead, essentially. (Which is why it can be tricky to make Holmes work in a modern setting where every police department already uses his methods. Sherlock and Elementary have to focus more on his exceptional observation skills and leaps of insight in order to justify why he's needed as a police consultant, since his scientific and analytical techniques per se are routine now.)

Quincy, M.E. was also a CSI forerunner, in that its detective was a medical examiner and investigated based on his autopsy results and lab work. (Well, at least until he gave up hunting murderers in favor of social activism. I always loved listening to Jack Klugman give a speech, but man, did that show get preachy.) I suppose the same might go for other doctor-detectives like Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis: Murder, but I don't think the medical/scientific side was stressed that much in that show.

And though it's not really a mystery show, there's a surprising amount of forensic science in Batman '66. I realized a while back that Batman and Robin in that show were basically the Gotham City PD's unpaid CSI division, always taking clues back to the Batcave to run lab tests on them with Commissioner Gordon's blessing.

 

[TRON JA307020]

I know Columbo was played by other actors before but the early takes on the character just weren't as good.

But that doesn't mean nobody else should ever try. For every Jeremy Brett or Benedict Cumberbatch, there have been a bunch of forgettable or ill-conceived casting choices for Sherlock Holmes (Roger Moore? Matt Frewer??). We had to get through the mediocre ones to get to the great ones, as is true of anything. But if people had just given up trying, we wouldn't have gotten those later great ones.

The quirky detective trope is rather well entrenched on TV. Most of those shows don't do gunfights and car chases.

Good point. There was a lot of Columbo in Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

What makes 70s detective shows different from current ones is that starting with CSI there's been a focus on forensics. Colombo just mindf***ed the killers into revealing themselves, and that's far more compelling.

Well, strictly speaking, the first forensic-scientist detective in fiction was Sherlock Holmes himself. He pioneered the field, not only in fiction but in real life, since the stories popularized detection techniques that real police departments would later adopt, often inspired by the Holmes stories. All modern forensic police work is following Holmes's lead, essentially. (Which is why it can be tricky to make Holmes work in a modern setting where every police department already uses his methods. Sherlock and Elementary have to focus more on his exceptional observation skills and leaps of insight in order to justify why he's needed as a police consultant, since his scientific and analytical techniques per se are routine now.)

Quincy, M.E. was also a CSI forerunner, in that its detective was a medical examiner and investigated based on his autopsy results and lab work. (Well, at least until he gave up hunting murderers in favor of social activism. I always loved listening to Jack Klugman give a speech, but man, did that show get preachy.) I suppose the same might go for other doctor-detectives like Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis: Murder, but I don't think the medical/scientific side was stressed that much in that show.

And though it's not really a mystery show, there's a surprising amount of forensic science in Batman '66. I realized a while back that Batman and Robin in that show were basically the Gotham City PD's unpaid CSI division, always taking clues back to the Batcave to run lab tests on them with Commissioner Gordon's blessing.

Yeah commissioner Gordon didn't have the Bat Analyzer. Probably one of the greats pieces of forensic equipment ever developed.

 

[Christopher]

In the episode that just aired on MeTV this weekend, Batman actually plotted to allow the Joker and the Penguin to sneak into the Batcave in the trunk of the Batmobile, solely so that he could have the opportunity to scan them with a new spectrographic analyzer and thus gain invaluable biometrics and scientific data about them for future use. The guy was really dedicated to forensics.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The quirky detective trope is rather well entrenched on TV. Most of those shows don't do gunfights and car chases.

Good point. There was a lot of Columbo in Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Don't forget that Monk is the anti-Columbo.

 

[E-DUB]

I think my favorite was the one where the murderer was Richard Kiley as a highly placed police official who tries to stymie the investigation by blaming a cat burglar.

 

[TRON JA307020]

I think my favorite was the one where the murderer was Richard Kiley as a highly placed police official who tries to stymie the investigation by blaming a cat burglar.

I haven't seen that one yet. Is it a 70s era ep or a revial era ep?

 

[Christopher]

^The Richard Kiley episode was the third-season finale, "A Friend in Deed," from May 1974.

 

[TRON JA307020]

^The Richard Kiley episode was the third-season finale, "A Friend in Deed," from May 1974.

AH thanks. The title sounds familiar. maybe I have seen it. I will watch for it on Hallmark.

 

[Bkuuzin]

I hadn't heard of the show until a friend of mine mentioned it and showed me a clip of it. I enjoy a detective show now and then. (Monk was so fun to watch!) I may watch an episode or two of Columbo later.

 

[ziptime]

Columbo is good show. I have watched 9 seasons of this show and i really like this show.

 

[ihno]

@Christopher and Pubert (and the rest) : I'm sceptic towards a reboot not only because Peter Falk shaped the image so much.

The show was originally a stageplay (as I have learned here, thanks).
I think with a reboot they* might say "Let's create something new and just use the name" "We need car chases, it's too boring and the stupid audience can't follow the psychological stuff anyway", "We need a sexy female assistent" "We need a big evil antagonist" "The Columbo character doesn't work, let's make him an alcoholic" etc. pp.

There were a lot of shows that were rebooted but couldn't compete with the original. Only Knight Rider pops to my mind I admit but there are plenty.

* It's always "them", isn't it? Please insert something of your liking: evil studiobosses, the NSA, the WVKA (West Virginia Knitting Association) or the Illuminati in general

 

[Christopher]

I think with a reboot they* might say "Let's create something new and just use the name" "We need car chases, it's too boring and the stupid audience can't follow the psychological stuff anyway", "We need a sexy female assistent" "We need a big evil antagonist" "The Columbo character doesn't work, let's make him an alcoholic" etc. pp.

As mentioned above, there's no shortage of dramas built around quirky detectives today, e.g. Criminal Intent and Monk and, of course, Elementary. I think the "car chases" concern is overstated. But giving Columbo a partner to talk to, probably female and of a different ethnicity, would be something the networks would probably push for. (Of course, there's no reason Columbo couldn't be cast as nonwhite -- or even female, if they found the right actress. Heyy, what's Kate Mulgrew doing these days...? Just kidding.) And there might also be pressure to make him more "troubled" like so many modern detectives, and to have a big conspiracy arc.

There were a lot of shows that were rebooted but couldn't compete with the original. Only Knight Rider pops to my mind I admit but there are plenty.

Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crud. For any given category you name, you can find plenty of examples that failed. But there's still that other ten percent that succeeds. So it's an illegitimate argument to say that something should never be tried just because some attempts failed. That's like watching a marathon and saying that, because only one person won and everybody else lost, nobody should ever bother to run a marathon again. Which is obviously preposterous. The existence of failure does not make success impossible. It just makes it a challenge worth striving for.

 

[ihno]

Yes. I liked Monk but I'm very happy he didn't have the name "Columbo". I haven't watched Criminal Intent and Elementary. I just think - if you change too much, give it a different name. That has nothing to do with the fact that most things are just variations of things that have been there before.

Making him female or have a different ethnicity (with italian background) would be no problem for me but turning him into a psychological wreck would be a reason to skip the show. Despite all the murder it was a positive show that sometimes even had a little consideration for the murderer.

Btw: William Windom made "special guest star" in his second appearance.

 

[Silvercrest]

In the episode that just aired on MeTV this weekend, Batman actually plotted to allow the Joker and the Penguin to sneak into the Batcave in the trunk of the Batmobile, solely so that he could have the opportunity to scan them with a new spectrographic analyzer and thus gain invaluable biometrics and scientific data about them for future use. The guy was really dedicated to forensics.

Forensics, yes. Crimefighting, not so much. You're saying he could have locked them in the trunk of his car but he chose to let them out?

"Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."

 

[MacLeod]

All this talk of Columbo makes me want to want to watch an episode fortunatly I have the comple box set the question is which to watch.

 

[hux]

When this thread ends and starts to fade away, I'm gonna bump it with the words...

"Just one more thing."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

What makes 70s detective shows different from current ones is that starting with CSI there's been a focus on forensics. Colombo just mindf***ed the killers into revealing themselves, and that's far more compelling.

Well, strictly speaking, the first forensic-scientist detective in fiction was Sherlock Holmes himself. He pioneered the field, not only in fiction but in real life, since the stories popularized detection techniques that real police departments would later adopt, often inspired by the Holmes stories. All modern forensic police work is following Holmes's lead, essentially. (Which is why it can be tricky to make Holmes work in a modern setting where every police department already uses his methods. Sherlock and Elementary have to focus more on his exceptional observation skills and leaps of insight in order to justify why he's needed as a police consultant, since his scientific and analytical techniques per se are routine now.)

Quincy, M.E. was also a CSI forerunner, in that its detective was a medical examiner and investigated based on his autopsy results and lab work. (Well, at least until he gave up hunting murderers in favor of social activism. I always loved listening to Jack Klugman give a speech, but man, did that show get preachy.) I suppose the same might go for other doctor-detectives like Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis: Murder, but I don't think the medical/scientific side was stressed that much in that show.

Yeah, Sherlock Holmes used forensics to prove the killer was guilty, but the was led there by an insight into human nature. That's a lot more interesting and suspenseful than just "Oh the blood spatter results just came back!"

And Colombo episodes were all about tracking down the killer. CSI-derived shows often make it about the social commentary and the investigation is background to talk about how deaf people have a hard time or how S&M isn't all that weird actually.

It's not the same as the verbal chess match Colombo plays with the killer.

 

[Christopher]

Forensics, yes. Crimefighting, not so much. You're saying he could have locked them in the trunk of his car but he chose to let them out?

He couldn't scan them while they were shielded within the Batmobile. The dang thing's probably radiation-proof. And he and Robin then proceeded to beat up all their goons (who somehow fit into the Batmobile trunk, proving that the Batmobile is either a clown car or a TARDIS) and knock out the Joker and Penguin with Bat-Gas.

 

[TRON JA307020]

All this talk of Columbo makes me want to want to watch an episode fortunatly I have the comple box set the question is which to watch.

Quite a problem. I would guess anyone you pick will be a great watch. Even the lesser episodes of Columbo were great.