Columbo Revisited

In the 1970s, television and home entertainment was an entirely different world. There were only four major television networks and home video recording was in its infancy. Unless you wanted to shell out the money for a trip to the cinema, you had to watch what was on television. An entire countrywide audience was up for grabs, and the competition between networks was fierce– this rivalry led to many gimmicks to grab viewership.

One such gimmick deployed by NBC starting in 1971 was the NBC Mystery Movie. Airing on either Wednesday, Tuesday, or Sunday nights, this anthology series was an umbrella title for a cycling set of television mysteries. These were high-fanfare events, with large budgets, feature-length runtimes, and a litany of high-profile cast members. While several series would be aired within the block, Three main series aired under the NBC Mystery Movie flag: Mcloud starred Dennis Weaver as a rural New Mexican lawman transplanted to the NYPD. Mcmillan and Wife starred Rock Hudson as a hotshot San Francisco police commissioner who fights crime alongside his wife played by Susan St. James. Finally, there was Columbo, which followed a mild-mannered, lethally intelligent homicide detective played by the incomparable Peter Falk. Originally airing on a monthly schedule, the extra time allotted for each episode’s production resulted in polished, 90-120 minute-long films of a much higher quality than other television programs of the time.

Set primarily in the affluent world of Los Angeles, Columbo is a different style of murder mystery than what modern audiences might be familiar with. Most crime shows today are police procedurals that follow the ‘whodunnit’ formula. That is, they follow the heroes’ journey as they uncover the identity of the killer, the grand reveal of which is usually saved for the finale. Columbo, on the other hand, uses a different approach: sometimes referred to as the ‘howsolveit,’ Columbo instead has the episodes opening with the killer’s identity being revealed immediately. The audience bears witness as they plan and execute a murder, which usually takes up the first 15-30 minutes of the episode. These crimes are designed to be airtight– from the audience’s perspective, there is almost no conceivable way that the perpetrator could be linked to their heinous crime. 

Enter Lt. Columbo, a homicide detective for the LAPD. Disheveled, seemingly confused, and constantly engulfed within an ill-fitting raincoat and a cloud of cigar smoke, the detective hardly seems to be a threat to the murderers he is pitted against. This dim facade is a clever mask, however. Behind his dawdling exterior, it quickly becomes apparent that Detective Columbo is much more than he seems. Each episode chronicles a tense tete-a-tete between detective and perpetrator, a battle of wits that tests the supposed perfection of the crime committed. Columbo wears his opponents down with dogged, astute observations disguised as off-handed banter. He sticks in the craw of  his suspects like a piece of popcorn stuck between your teeth– just when you think he’s gone, he’s popping back in, uttering his catchphrase “Just one more thing!”

Light on blood and heavy on dialogue, Columbo fits firmly into the cozy murder mystery genre. There was once a time when Columbo may have been a hard sell for modern audiences. However, a recent surge in the show’s popularity seems to indicate otherwise. Despite its slower pacing, it’s not hard to see why Columbo has enjoyed enduring popularity. In addition to being cleverly written, the character of Columbo in itself is memorable. In a series where most of the criminals come from the posh upper crust of the West Coast, Lt. Columbo is a true, unpolished everyman. He gives the audience a character to subconsciously relate to.

 Though not created for him, Peter Falk truly came to embody the role of Lt. Columbo. Played exclusively by Falk from 1968 onward, he created many of Columbo’s bumbling mannerisms himself on the fly. According to an interview with Falk, it kept his costars off balance and annoyed with the character, leading to a more genuine performance.

  Speaking of costars, there was quite the tally of talent that appeared alongside Falk. Nearly every episode featured a famous guest. Examples include Hollywood royalty such as Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, and Leonard Nimoy, among dozens of others. Even musicians were invited to play nefarious roles; Johnny Cash portrays a murderous gospel singer in the 1974 episode “Swan Song.”

The last episode of Columbo aired in 2003, over thirty years after it premiered in earnest. Though there were some whispers of a final send-off episode for the series, it never happened. Eight years later, Peter Falk passed away at the age of 83 in 2011. Clocking in with 69 feature-length TV movies, Columbo long outlived many of its contemporaries and continues to be popular with both old and new fans today. With the resurgence of the classic mystery in the last few years, a Columbo reboot would not be out of the question, though how well it would be executed is certainly up for speculation. Until that announcement comes, however, the entire series is available to stream for free on Tubi.