Jeri Ryan- the Columbo connection

[Christopher]

T'Cal wrote:

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And, I also remember the show "Mrs. Columbo" with Kate Mulgrew in the title role, but the producers of "Columbo" said that she wasn't the wife of Peter Falk's Lt. Columbo.

They're not the only ones. The idea went over so badly with viewers that even Mrs. Columbo abandoned it after just five episodes, pulling the show from the schedule and retooling it, then bringing it back the following season for a final eight episodes, with Kate divorced and using her maiden name (Kate Callahan) and the show retitled, first as Kate the Detective, then as Kate Loves a Mystery.

I mean, it never really made sense anyway. From what Columbo said about his wife in the original series, we know they were high-school sweethearts, thus surely within a year or two of each other in age. Peter Falk had already graduated from college by the time Kate Mulgrew was born. At the time Mrs. Columbo/Kate Loves a Mystery was on, Falk was more than twice Mulgrew's age. There's simply no way in hell that Mrs. Columbo was canonical within the Columbo universe. It was a ridiculous idea and it died quickly.

I remember that in one of the revival movies, "Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo," we were shown what was supposedly a photo of Mrs. C, but it turned out to be a relative of hers instead. I often wondered in the years that followed if the photo had been of Kate Mulgrew as her cousin Kate or something, and it was some kind of in-joke nod. But I just looked it up online, and apparently it was of her sister Ruth instead.

[plynch]

It looks like Jeri Ryan to me. There were Columbo books!?

[Greg Cox]

plynch wrote:

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It looks like Jeri Ryan to me. There were Columbo books!?

Tor//Forge published a few of them, along with The Rockford Files. This would've been sometime back in the nineties, I believe.

[Christopher]

MCA Publishing's Popular Library also did a series of 6 Columbo novels in the '70s, the first two of which were original, with the rest being episode novelizations. There was another original novel from a different publisher in 1980.

[jayrath]

Forget Jeri Ryan. That's Donald O'Connor on the phone!

[Forbin]

Looks more like Rose McGowan to me.

[Christopher]

Forbin wrote:

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Looks more like Rose McGowan to me.

I don't see that either. I'm vaguely reminded of Michelle Trachtenberg, but it's not a strong resemblance.

[inflatabledalek]

Christopher wrote:

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I don't see any significant resemblance to Ryan. Anyway, the timing's a bit iffy. The book's publication date was August 1996, which means the cover art was probably done months earlier. And Dark Skies didn't premiere until September 1996. So would promotional photos from the show have been available early enough for the cover artist to see them? It's possible, but I'm not sure it's likely.

Plus Ryan wasn't part of the original Dark Skies cast (IIRC she first turns up around the middle of the season) so there'd definitely have been no photos of her and Walsh together (well, not from that show anyway) when this was done.

[Christopher]

^Ahh, good catch. She was in the final 8 episodes of the series, beginning with episode 12, which aired in January 1997 and thus was probably shot somewhere around October or November '96, months after the book was published and long after the cover art was done. So there's just no way this cover art had anything to do with Ryan's role in Dark Skies.