I haven’t watched that episode in years, so can’t comment on the rest of your points. But it may be worth noting that this show–and its companions in the NBC “Mystery Movie” brand–were considered to be prestige projects for the network.
A lot of the Columbo episodes are distinguished by their top-drawer production values–which has contributed to their enduring popularity, I think it’s fair to say.
Oh, I’m glad you reminded me: How the hell did Margaret (the stepdaughter) find Columbo at Bernie’s Beanery? I don’t recall him telling her where he ate lunch.
Peter Falk floated that idea once, I think, but I’ve watched some of the later TV-movies and he’s spoken to her on the phone with nobody present. And one movie in the nineties had a killer plotting to off Mrs. Columbo as revenge via poison, proving that she DID exist and plenty of people knew who she was. The killer seems to have succeeded, as we see Columbo and others at her funeral, but when the killer goes back with Columbo to his house afterwards, he traps her into confessing, then tells her that this is a colleague’s house and that the whole death and burial was staged to flush the killer out–the real Mrs. Columbo had been whisked off to safety. After the killer is arrested, Columbo calls the missus (again, with no one present), tells her it’s safe now, and that he loves her.
Brilliant!
I also don’t see much connection between Columbo and Miss Fisher, other than they are detectives. On edit: I’ve seen a few people explain what they mean, but I still think it’s very tenuous.
I had to look her up on imdb. She had a very short filmography. She was only 52 when she died.
Yes, I saw that too. Such a young age—very sad. The only other thing I know her from is The Beguiled, where she was one of the girls at the Confederate boarding school.
As I said, she was cute (she looked a lot like a girlfriend of mine at the time), but not a great actress. To be charitable, this was probably due to her lack of experience or how she was directed. But her flat delivery still reminds me of Peggy Lipton in Mod Squad or Edward James Olmos in Miami Vice.
Oh, I almost forgot: I’ll take one of those shopping bags if I can!
I googled, and there are several designs being sold on etsy.
Oh, one more thing: They may have been very innovative at the time, but they do seem rather dated today, IMHO.
They could be irritating as well. My mother for one was always complaining that the “fancy camera work”* (e.g., repeatedly switching focus from close-ups to long shots and back again in the same frame) gave her headaches.
*Her words, not mine.
Well…yes. It was the 1970s. We were more into ambiance, subtlety, build-up, character etc etc than the nonstop fighting and explosions of today. Heaven forbid there is a slow moment! 
But yeah…as I mentioned I loved and still love Columbo…but my main complaint is too many of the ‘gotcha’s’ were weak and, when I rewatch as an adult, say that there is no way that will hold up in court. Even as a kid I would think I could have written a better gotcha than that. As for the other details, I don’t think they are too bad as the show doesn’t get into the specifics and focuses on the cat and mouse of Columbo toying with his prey. I think the writing is generally sound except it usually could have done with another run through to smooth it out/better gotchas.
As for the shows where people know Mrs. Columbo…well not all writers and directors were smart enough to catch on to the fact that Mrs. Columbo didn’t exist and was just another technique Columbo used to torture suspects/talk/bring up stuff. So you get what someone mentioned…plus the ‘Cruise’ episode where he kept missing his wife and people said she was just there etc. In general, I think most writers and directors knew this but there are always exceptions.
I’ve noticed a lot of transitions that are not smooth at all, like the aforementioned encounter at Bernie’s Beanery. They’re usually of the “How did you find me?” or “How did you get in here?” type and are explained with lines like “Oh, I just called your office” or “Your wife/secretary/stepdaughter let me in.”
I understand they could jam only so much story into 90 minutes, but I also think moments like these could have been handled better.
I watch a lot of old movies and TV shows, so slower pacing doesn’t bother me much (I prefer it to the way many films are shown today). However, I do think it was often carried to extremes in the early '70s just to fill air time and cover up bad writing.
I tend to agree. I do believe the scripts could have been gone over one more time to smooth them out.
However, I actually like the 'How did you find me"/bad reason as part of Columbo Schtick. There was much more behind that using his genius and the bad reason was deliberately bad in order to unnerve the murderer more 
In language school, I was in a play that was trimmed so much I (as one of the male leads) could barely follow the action. I was always asking questions like “How did he get back here before I did?” and “How come I know this and he doesn’t?”
The director’s wife/assistant finally told me “Txxxx, don’t complicate things!”
Fortunately, the audience didn’t seem to notice the plot holes (maybe because they didn’t understand the dialogue), or if they did they didn’t care. 
I think it is because people accept the play for what it is and it isn’t that knowledgeable to them.
For example…I am “that guy” when it comes to bad science, time travel paradoxes etc and it tends to irritate people…but when it comes to, for example, law stories/courtroom dramas I KNOW there must be wrong things in there but since I don’t know law I enjoy it for what it is.
I DO think, though, the “how did you find me”/Columbo gives a bad reason is his psychological torturing of the murderer though
It usually takes them by surprise, that’s for sure!
I mean…there is this dogged detective that I thought was an idiot and am realizing he might not be an idiot and so I make a large effort to get away only to have him show up…and I am like “How the hell did you find me” to just have him say “I called your office” when I KNOW that my office didn’t know where I was…would be unerving. If Columbo had explained it would have diminished the…menace…
GAWD I loved Columbo as a kid (and now). Like I said before…smarmy as it sounds, he was a hero of my childhood.
After 50 years, I still make it a point to see every episode whenever it’s on!
Especially the few that rely on “new technology” for their plots–the worst offender probably being the one in which a murderer’s ability to tape and play back a football game gives him an alibi. (Because home-video machines were so new that the other character would never have considered that the game he watched with the murderer was taped.)
That’s a fair point, I think. (We see the same sort of thing when watching older movies—the pacing seems ‘off’ given our current standards.)
Me, too. There are a few episodes I must have seen twenty or thirty times!
And as they come on do you say to yourself: …just one more time?
//i\\
My impression is that more than a few episodes depend on new tech or on tech that Columbo could plausibly pretend ignorance of (dissolving sutures, fancy phone systems that allow forwarding, typewriters with a type ball, VCRs, closed circuit tv, reversing a photographic negative, etc.)
We recently watched some of the episodes from 1972 or so and were kind of surprised at the amount of smoking, not that it would have been quite as unusual as today. No, it was Columbo smoking his cigar inside of other people’s houses, and no one tells him to put that stinky thing out. Later episodes seem to have him with an unlit cigar instead.
“Kid, it ain’t that kind of movie.”