He was a great asset to the show. Just last night I watched him give Columbo the table next to the kitchen door, based on Columbo’s lack of sartorial splendor.* And it was done with unmatchable style and panache.
*in Any Old Port in a Storm; Scotti playing a restaurant maître d’.
But at least, when you die, you feel happy. You feel fine.
Amazon has seasons 2 through 7.
Tubi has seasons 1 through 16.
The French policeman in the “Transporter” series appears complacent but really figures out a lot. He just can’t prove it.
Columbo is shown on Spectrum cable all the time.
This seems appropriate here:
Make Columbo a lady P.I., transport the character to Roaring Twenties Australia, and you get someone like Phryne Fisher.
The filming and broadcasting schedule was unusual from the start - it was rarely a normal show with regular weekly episodes of the same length. That was mainly due to accommodating Peter Falk’s movie career. And also from the start it was hugely acclaimed - Steven Spielberg directed the first episode, and you can really tell.
One of the other most unusual things about the show is that it has no theme tune.
My GF’s a huge fan, I’m a fan, and it’s shown all day every day on Sunday on Channel 5 (UK). I think I’ve watched every episode at least ten times and my GF’s probably watched at least double that. This Christmas I got her a Columbo finger puppet to go with her Columbo apron (showing him in the episode where he made an eight-egg omelette) and a canvas shopping bag with “just one more thing” on it.
Skywatcher, what are the similarities? I honestly can’t think of any. She’s a wealthy semi-aristo with a wide variety of skills, is physically extremely well-groomed, definitely doesn’t pretend to be dumb, has a cast of minor characters who assist her, etc etc. I’ve only seen a few episodes (my GF’s also a fan of this one, so there’s one connection!) so maybe some of them are howcatchems, or I’m missing something else?
The main similarity is that culprits tend to underestimate her – a society lady in that time period going around solving crimes! Lampshaded nicely by her aunt.
IIRC, the Christmas episode (set in July) is both a whodunit and a howcatchem – Agatha Christie style.
It’s definitely strongly Christie-inspired and doesn’t hide it (which is fine by me). Poirot was always underestimated by the people he was investigating too, of course. “That little mountebank!” “That foreigner!” “He was such a dear, silly little man.”
Sometimes, the show gave plausible reasons why people talked to Columbo even though it eventually led to their undoing - Columbo was very good at using social pressure on politicians and other public figures to lead them to keep talking (challenging a magician on stage to open a lock, etc.).
P.S. Has anyone else seen this clip of Japanese Columbo
I loved Columbo as a kid. I was one of those kids that didn’t glorify criminals or the mob and hated arrogant people who hurt others in self-interest. I would watch Colombo intently and, smarmy as it is to say, he was a hero to me.
I loved watching him with his ‘radar’ pinging about until it ‘locked on’ the killer. I don’t think people realize that sometimes he would let the killer know he was onto him/her but portrayed the bumbler enough that they thought they could ‘talk him out of it’. I think there was more subtlety and dynamic going on than many realize.
I also think Colombo was very, very intelligent. There was one episode where he dealt with extremely smart people and the leader/killer of the group basically said so. However, as Colombo often said, “I don’t have to be as smart as you as I have been doing this my whole life and you have to get it right, the first time with no mistakes and no practice”.
I do wish they would have put in more thought into the ending ‘gotcha’…as some were great but more than necessary were kind of lame.
And don’t forget the BIG DEBATE…which I do not understand because, to me, it is extremely obvious. There was no Mrs. Colombo. 
I might agree with you that Mrs. Columbo was simply a mind-screw, but NBC insisted otherwise. At least for the first five episodes
And then there was a phase shift in quantum reality, and not only was she never Mrs Columbo, she had a different (ex) husband. And no one noticed!
Don’t mess with quantum reality! NBC: Never Bother Columbo
There was a woman who claimed for a short while that she was Mrs. Columbo, but the poor woman had a mental condition. She later thought she was the Captain of an intergalactic spacecraft, for Christ’s sake. Last I heard she ended up in a womens’ prison, which is too bad because she needed to get proper therapy.
ETA: Haha, @BlinkingDuck, ninja’d ya! 
No no no. That was a Federation Starship captain that was knocked into the past and lost her memory and just thought she was!
I like your explanation better.
Interstellar, please. 
The only intergalactic ship we know about belonged to the Kelvans. Maybe the planet killer, too. Maybe.
Oh right…I’m not a huge Trek fan but I should have remembered all the Star Trek incarnations took place strictly within the Milky Way galaxy. 
Even Voyager, which was sent by some catastrophe like 70 years from home even at top warp speed, was only the Delta quadrant of the Milky Way or whatever, right?
Well, I really enjoyed your Columbo analysis. I agree there was a lot of subtlety about how Columbo kept the bad guy on edge, putting them at ease and then bringing up their defenses in turn, keeping them off balance until they made a mistake, or series of mistakes. He was like the good cop and bad cop at the same time.
I watched “Ransom for a Dead Man” last night. It was 1971’s “second pilot” for the series, after 1968’s “Prescription: Murder” with Gene Barry.
I have some major problems with it, starting with
(a) Lee Grant not wearing gloves as she prepares the ransom note, and with rubber cement yet! Her fingerprints would have been all over it.
(b) Lee Grant leaning over her husband’s body bareheaded as she wraps it in a bedspread. A single strand of her long red hair would probably have been enough to ensure a murder conviction.
(c) Lee Grant liquidating most of her assets to raise $300,000 for the alleged ransom. Granted, she’ll continue to have a healthy income from her legal practice, but what the hell is she going to do with all that hot money? She can’t spend it, since the Feds presumably recorded the serial numbers.
(d) Truth be told, the Feds don’t come off that well in this episode at all. They’re easily taken in by Grant’s play acting, while Columbo sees through her right from the start. They also don’t seem to do much in the way of searching for or analyzing forensic evidence.
(e) On the other hand, Grant and the Feds are both damned good aviators. How else could they find the drop zone so precisely flying through Los Angeles airspace at night under VFRs?
(f) What the hell is the deal with the victim’s car keys? Did Grant keep them somewhere as a trophy? And how did the cops find his body after it was bundled up and dumped in a canyon? Did they notice the buzzards hovering overhead?
(g) Grant supposedly caves in to her stepdaughter’s demands and gives her a briefcase filled with ransom money to take back to Switzerland. Assuming she’ll get through customs with it (we are talking about the Swiss here, after all), is her bank going to accept the cash blindly and not check the serial numbers?
(h) The stepdaughter is cute, but she’s a lousy actor. Her voice sounds like it was dubbed in with someone else.
(i) The episode is paced excruciatingly slowly with lots of pretty photography, fancy camera work, and “Mystery Movie” music—very early '70s style.
You say you have a few questions about Columbo… at some point, are you going to say “just one more thing…” ?