Columbo!!

[Christopher]

^Oh yeah, those were two of the best ones. Although "Columbo Cries Wolf" is a prime illustration of the downside of the revival series, the tendency (no doubt insisted on by the network) to be a lot more sexed-up than the original series was. They usually managed to handle it with a fair amount of class, at least.

 

[An Officer]

I'm surprised you get that one on TV.

I'm in the UK.

 

[cooleddie74]

I'm getting ready to borrow the recent(2007)DVD set of COLUMBOs that aired on ABC at the end of the 1980s. Specifically, the episodes/movies from 1989. It's been so many years since I've seen most of the 80s and 90s stories that I've forgotten a lot of them.

 

[cooleddie74]

Responding to comments upthread...while Adrian Monk sometimes reminds me of Columbo, I feel that his true spiritial descendant is none other than Det. Robert Goren, as played by Vincent D'Onofrio on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Oh, indeed. Bobby even uses the "Oh, just one more thing" mannerism. He's basically Columbo with Asperger's Syndrome.

Remember when CI first premiered in 2000 or 2001? It had sort of a COLUMBO element to it in that you saw who committed the murder at the start of the episode and then D'Onofrio and Erbe would spend the rest of the show cracking them and bringing them to justice. That format quickly changed though and by the second seaon I believe CI had the same setup as regular LAW & ORDER and SVU.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Responding to comments upthread...while Adrian Monk sometimes reminds me of Columbo, I feel that his true spiritial descendant is none other than Det. Robert Goren, as played by Vincent D'Onofrio on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Oh, indeed. Bobby even uses the "Oh, just one more thing" mannerism. He's basically Columbo with Asperger's Syndrome.

Remember when CI first premiered in 2000 or 2001? It had sort of a COLUMBO element to it in that you saw who committed the murder at the start of the episode and then D'Onofrio and Erbe would spend the rest of the show cracking them and bringing them to justice. That format quickly changed though and by the second seaon I believe CI had the same setup as regular LAW & ORDER and SVU.

Which was when I stopped watching. I liked CI very much back then...I let it go after it became like SVU...

Rob

 

[cooleddie74]

An underrated classic COLUMBO is the one from 1970 or '71 with Ross Martin(Artemus Gordon in the original WILD, WILD WEST) as the self-absorbed, upper crust art dealer and critic who offs his uncle to try to inherit the estate and his art collection. That one had great supporting roles by Vic Tayback as a hippie starving artist and Kim Hunter(of APES film fame)as well as great dialogue between Martin and Falk. You can see Martin on the verge of strangling or beating the life out of Columbo through gritted teeth but he somehow keeps his cool.

 

[RobertScorpio]

An underrated classic COLUMBO is the one from 1970 or '71 with Ross Martin(Artemus Gordon in the original WILD, WILD WEST) as the self-absorbed, upper crust art dealer and critic who offs his uncle to try to inherit the estate and his art collection. That one had great supporting roles by Vic Tayback as a hippie starving artist and Kim Hunter(of APES film fame)as well as great dialogue between Martin and Falk. You can see Martin on the verge of strangling or beating the life out of Columbo through gritted teeth but he somehow keeps his cool.

yes...I recently got that one on NETFLIX. Well done episode. On that same disc was the one where this lady is planning on killer her over bearing brother (Oscar Goldman). Oh, playing her boyfriend, home Oscar frowns upon? Leslie Nielson...classic..

Rob

 

[RobertScorpio]

An underrated classic COLUMBO is the one from 1970 or '71 with Ross Martin(Artemus Gordon in the original WILD, WILD WEST) as the self-absorbed, upper crust art dealer and critic who offs his uncle to try to inherit the estate and his art collection. That one had great supporting roles by Vic Tayback as a hippie starving artist and Kim Hunter(of APES film fame)as well as great dialogue between Martin and Falk. You can see Martin on the verge of strangling or beating the life out of Columbo through gritted teeth but he somehow keeps his cool.

yes...I recently got that one on NETFLIX. Well done episode. On that same disc was the one where this lady is planning on killer her over bearing brother (Oscar Goldman). Oh, playing her boyfriend, whom Oscar frowns upon? Leslie Nielson...classic..

Rob

 

[Kail]

An underrated classic COLUMBO is the one from 1970 or '71 with Ross Martin(Artemus Gordon in the original WILD, WILD WEST) as the self-absorbed, upper crust art dealer and critic who offs his uncle to try to inherit the estate and his art collection. That one had great supporting roles by Vic Tayback as a hippie starving artist and Kim Hunter(of APES film fame)as well as great dialogue between Martin and Falk. You can see Martin on the verge of strangling or beating the life out of Columbo through gritted teeth but he somehow keeps his cool.

Interesting note, Ross Martin was at one time Peter Falks drama teacher.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^Oh yeah, those were two of the best ones. Although "Columbo Cries Wolf" is a prime illustration of the downside of the revival series, the tendency (no doubt insisted on by the network) to be a lot more sexed-up than the original series was. They usually managed to handle it with a fair amount of class, at least.

Eh, I like sexiness. The best Columbo for that was the episode that guest-starred Gretchen Corbett from Rockford Files, who spent a while in a bikini. She was absolutely gorgeous. Not only was it Columbo's sexiest scene ever, I'm pretty sure it was her sexiest scene ever.

 

[Christopher]

^I have no problem with sexiness, I just don't like network meddling. What was cool about the original Columbo was that it managed to defy all attempts by network executives to turn it into something more conventional. The execs kept pushing the producers to conform to more familiar TV formulae -- give Columbo a divorce so he'd be available for romantic entanglements, give him a youthful sidekick, have more gunplay and action, that sort of thing. But like the lieutenant himself, they just kept on blithely doing their own distinctive, unassuming thing and proving that you didn't need flash and excitement and glamour to be effective. The revival series' increased, often contrived preoccupation with sex just felt out of place, like something tacked on to a format that didn't need it. It was the one respect in which the revival series departed most drastically from the spirit of the original.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Huh, I had no idea there was pressure to do all those things. I wonder if that's why they had that young tag-a-long cop in Rest In Peace, Mrs Columbo. I also read that he uses a gun in one of the later movies. Neither of those things is bad, as a deviation from format; but for it to make an impression, you have to have the format to deviate from.

The divorce, or any marital issue, would have been supremely stupid, though, even as a one-time plot device.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, I don't know what kind of meddling there was in the revival series; I'm just extrapolating from what's there onscreen. The network "notes" I'm referring to were for the original series, and there were a couple of attempts in that series to set Columbo up with a younger sidekick (I think he appeared in "Last Salute to the Commodore" and one other). Maybe that happened in the new series too.

 

[cooleddie74]

Interesting note: Tricia O'Neill who played Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C on TNG? She was the mourning, alcoholic daughter in "Last Salute to the Commodore." Yet one more TREK luminary who's graced at least one episode of COLUMBO either old or new.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Interesting note: Tricia O'Neill who played Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C on TNG? She was the mourning, alcoholic daughter in "Last Salute to the Commodore." Yet one more TREK luminary who's graced at least one episode of COLUMBO either old or new.

and who also was good in an episode of HAWAII FIVE O I saw her in..

Rob

 

[RJDiogenes]

^Well, I don't know what kind of meddling there was in the revival series; I'm just extrapolating from what's there onscreen. The network "notes" I'm referring to were for the original series, and there were a couple of attempts in that series to set Columbo up with a younger sidekick (I think he appeared in "Last Salute to the Commodore" and one other). Maybe that happened in the new series too.

Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember the sidekick guy. It's amazing that the suits would want to screw with the core concept of something so successful; turning Columbo into Baretta is as stupid as wanting to turn Star Trek into nuBSG.

 

[cooleddie74]

It's hard to pick the "worst" COLUMBO from the original NBC run, but if I had to choose the one I like least it'd probably be the one set in England with Honor Blackman. It's not BAD per se. I just don't like it anywhere near as much as most of the others in part because it feels like too many MURDER, SHE WROTEs or other detective shows with stunt episodes that send their characters overseas for a grand international mystery(usually involving Roddy McDowall and Jamie Farr).

 

[judge alba]

just a question i've got up to series eieght on dvd how many series are there? been trying to get em all hopefully i've made it.

 

[cooleddie74]

just a question i've got up to series eieght on dvd how many series are there? been trying to get em all hopefully i've made it.

There were eight seasons during the original, classic NBC run in the 1970s. But COLUMBO returned on ABC in the late '80s and in the 1990s for new episodes and movies and many of those are now becoming available to buy on disc.

 

[cooleddie74]

An underrated classic COLUMBO is the one from 1970 or '71 with Ross Martin(Artemus Gordon in the original WILD, WILD WEST) as the self-absorbed, upper crust art dealer and critic who offs his uncle to try to inherit the estate and his art collection. That one had great supporting roles by Vic Tayback as a hippie starving artist and Kim Hunter(of APES film fame)as well as great dialogue between Martin and Falk. You can see Martin on the verge of strangling or beating the life out of Columbo through gritted teeth but he somehow keeps his cool.

yes...I recently got that one on NETFLIX. Well done episode. On that same disc was the one where this lady is planning on killer her over bearing brother (Oscar Goldman). Oh, playing her boyfriend, home Oscar frowns upon? Leslie Nielson...classic..

Rob

It's sorta hard to watch Leslie Nielsen in serious roles pre-1980s anymore. His work with the Zucker Brothers has made him one of cinema's all-time comic goofs. A lot of people don't even know he was once a very serious, grim character actor. He did at least two COLUMBOs including one as a CIA contact offed by Patrick McGoohan on a beach in L.A.