Columbo episodes in order9/27/2023 ![]() Like, of course Columbo is going to catch the bad guy by the end of the episode-that’s how procedurals work. Process is SO much more interesting than manipulative tension, as far as I am concerned Columbo is an object lesson in exactly why. ![]() ![]() The joy of Columbo is in seeing how the superficially bumbling, absent-minded lieutenant both teases out the clues we already know, then uses those clues (along with a keen understanding of the human psyche) to thoroughly smoke out every successive murderer.Īs the person notorious in my friend group for always flipping to the end of a book before reading the middle, and spoiling myself on every movie/TV show I can, the fact that an entire (critically acclaimed! beloved!) series exists in which spoilers are praxis just floored me. Sure, as the audience we know that Columbo’s the real hero, and that he’ll always get his guy in the end, but in inverting the frame of its story, the show lets us see each crime through the eyes of some unlucky, murderous sod who truly believes that they’re the smartest one in the room. The show may be called Columbo, but in practice, it’s presented as though that week’s murderer is the protagonist, and Falk’s Lt. With most episodes, it isn’t until maybe 15 or 20 minutes in that Columbo even shows up on screen, and even then, he’s as likely to slip in behind his first responder colleagues as he is to show up on the murderer’s front step, detective credentials in hand. What I loved most of all, though, was the series’ inside-out premise, which inverts the entire concept of what a detective procedural ought to be by letting the audience start each episode inside the life of that week’s murderer, their personal trials and tribulations playing out like a mini-movie before they eventually, whether calculatedly or in the throes of passion, commit the crime that will bring Columbo to their door. (One of the gimmicks of Columbo, of course, is that each episode features a famous-for-the-era guest star as the murderer trying to get one over on Falk’s shabby little lieutenant, but this kind of smaller pre-frame cameo would end up becoming a series staple, too-see, among others, Jamie Lee Curtis in “The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case,” Katey Sagal in “Candidate for Crime,” and Pat Morita in “Etude in Black.”) That the episode’s director turned out to be Steven Spielberg, four years before Jaws turned him into the Steven Spielberg, ultimately felt like icing on the cake. The fact that the combination of the format and the pacing made the 76-minute runtime-in embarrassing contrast to today’s perennially tedious prestige dramas-feel absolutely natural. Which is all to say, everything about “Murder by the Book,” Columbo’s first official episode, came as a refreshing surprise. As in, aside from whatever small understanding of the series’ raison d’être I’d gleaned from Lavery’s Toast columns, the only real distinction Columbo held in my imagination was as “the one with Fred Savage’s cute grandpa.” I had enough pop cultural literacy to have developed a basic sense of the more foundational series, sure- Gunsmoke, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Rockford Files, Miami Vice-but when I say basic, I mean basic. In any case, I had never watched it and my dad was charmed by the prospect of going back to a series he hadn’t seen since it originally aired: Columbo it was.Ī 21st-century heathen whose formative TV-watching years came before the advent of streaming, I had very little practical understanding, before turning that first episode on, of what most pre-90s, non-sitcom television looked like if it never made it to either syndication on Nick at Nite, or DVD box set at my local indie video store, I never saw it. My mom long ago laid claim to Call the Midwife we’re working through it so slowly we may never finish.) A 70s-era detective series would be a real change of pace from the world of Sydney Bristow, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. (A TV fanatic in a family of TV fanatics, I generally have, for bonding reasons, at least one unique series going with each parent at any given time. But it was on Netflix back then, and my dad and I-having finally made it to the end of our decadently slow binge of Alias (RIP, all those wigs)-were in the market for something new. I don’t know what exactly gave me the idea that a leisurely paced, 40-year-old detective series starring Peter Falk would be just the thing to distract us from, you know, everything else going on in 2016 (though safe money would be on Toast-era Danny Lavery). I started watching Columbo with my dad in the fall of 2016. Come relive your TV past with us, or discover what should be your next binge watch below: ![]() Editor’s Note: Welcome to our TV Rewind column! The Paste writers are diving into the streaming catalogue to discuss some of our favorite classic series as well as great shows we’re watching for the first time.
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