Colombo

Everything about the show is dated (set in the 70's). Very few details would survive strict legal analysis. Even the suspects behavior/participation in the investigation would be highly doubtful, but then there's the charm of Peter Falk's character and the Agatha Christie type crime involved.

The "perfect" crime is committed at the very beginning for the audience to see. Then the bumbling detective arrives on the scene to be under-estimated by the brilliant/sophisticated murderer. The murderer, anxious to help Columbo follow the false clues that have been created, slowly work themselves into a corner as the detective pokes holes in the perfect crime, and that's when Columbo lowers the boom.

Some cases are a bit more logical than others, some solutions are more viable, but the real point is if you enjoy the charms of Lt. Columbo and the process he uses to solve the case, then you'll enjoy watching these shows. I rec 1971 to 1978 episodes.

Throughout the entire run of the series which went over 30 years with revivals and such the LAPD never assigned Peter Falk some gang-banger slaying or a domestic dispute where a drunk and jealous husband might have carved up an unfaithful wife. No, Lt. Columbo always got the high profile stuff with prominent people as victims and perpetrators. Before there was Brenda Lee Johnson there was another disarming detective who got the job done every time.

Peter Falk created one of the most indelible characters ever on the small screen with Columbo. The rumpled raincoat in an area where rain is a rarity, the bumbling manner, the general obsequiousness all played into an image he deliberately wanted to create for the perpetrator he was trying to trap. We all knew who did it every week and we all knew that there was an elaborate plan involved that the perpetrator put into operation. Often it called for an attempt to frame someone else.

It would all unravel bit by bit. Even if the murderer didn't confess outright you knew it was all over. The best criminal lawyers didn't let anyone wriggle out of a Columbo trap.

Columbo was a great working class hero, an Archie Bunker, or a Ralph Kramden who took the police civil service exam and worked his way up to the top of his profession. It was why he was so popular.

And it's why he will ever remain so.

I just purchased the complete series DVDs and have begun watching. I had forgotten what a great show this is. It's quite interesting to watch as Falk develops the character over time into the iconic Columbo we all remember. In the earliest shows he not as much the sly and subtle adversary lulling the suspect into feeling he can evade justice by outsmarting him.

The "how's he going to nail him" rather whodunit approach also makes the show more watchable multiple times than many mysteries where if you remember the culprit it spoils things. It's a lot more difficult to remember how he figure it out and confronted the killer than it is with other shows to remember who did it.

... in that it commands your attention from beginning to end or else you will be missing some vital clue. In the first 15-20 minutes the crime as far as method and motivation is set up. The perp is almost always a well-off person who doesn't want to be less well off because of the threats or actions of the victim. Sometimes it's a husband who just wants rid of his wife without losing any money in the settlement, and other times it's a person with which you can truly sympathize. In each case, the perp knows that they'll at least be one of the suspects, so they come up with a very clever often elaborate plan. The crime is never just a run of the mill street crime/murder.

If it was the result of a street crime, there wouldn't be any need for Lt. Columbo, the most poorly groomed, most annoying, and most clever homicide detective in the history of the world. He's not annoying to anyone but the perp because he's always coming back to ask "just one more thing" pertaining to some detail he's picked up on. Besides gradually driving the murderer crazy with his tangents and questions to the point where they are counting Columbo's in their sleep rather than sheep, he goes off on lengthy amusing tangents (amusing if you are not the suspect) about his home life and his wife, who never actually pops up on the show.

Columbo ran in two parts - In the 1970s as part of the Sunday Night Mystery Movie that rotated with several other crime solving franchises, and in the 1990s. I never cared for the 1990s episodes. They were too Hollywoodized and too glamorized with often some sensational or licentious aspect. Columbo is very much a creature of the 1970s.

If you can dedicate 90 minutes to watching an episode I highly recommend it. But if you are so addicted to your phone that you can't put it down that long, go find some Netflix movie to watch that was made with people of short attention spans in mind.

There are a few "Columbo" episodes which were panned by some critics. I DISAGREE WITH THEM ALL. There is one VERY important reason for this. Regardless of the plot, regardless of any script, there is one irrefutable fact. Peter Falk OWNED the role of Lieutenant Columbo. The way only HE could and did that part made any other criticism of the show completely IRRELEVANT! As the ostensibly "bumbling" homicide cop, Falk was always believable as the policeman whose first name no one ever heard. He consistently fooled the murderer into a sense of false security, making them think he would never be able to pin the crime in question on them. But it never mattered WHAT the perpetrator might have thought - he ALWAYS got his man (or woman)!