Sorry, I didn’t mean he saw the witness, I meant the witness said he saw the murderer. I edited, but you had already quoted me.
So we both thought that that was a lame ‘gotcha’, since it hinged on tricking the murderer into saying the witness is blind, when according to Columbo, there was no reason he should have thought that. But you and I had both thought the witness obviously appeared blind, so it was a reasonable assumption on the part of the murderer, not an admission of guilt.
But I put the question, did we as the audience also think he was blind because we have the same knowledge as the murderer, or did he actually appear to be blind, even though he was pretending to be able to see? So I ran it by my wife, who did not pick up on the possibility he might be blind at all.
I am surprised at your wife’s reaction, though. The first time I saw the episode, I thought Columbo really was trying to trick him into saying something incriminating by presenting the blind guy without his dog (i.e., as if he were sighted). That’s how convinced I was that the brother wasn’t play acting. (Until the reveal, of course.)
Well, sure; but, like Hamilton, you’d seen the blind guy before, and so you of course disregarded the fact that some dude (a) mundanely walked over when he got pointed at, and then (b) reacted like any sighted person in 1970s America would to a cop who silently relays a need for help lighting a cigar.
True, I did know about the blind guy. But I honestly believe I would have taken his sighted brother as blind whether I had or not. That’s how convincing I found him.
I watched my very last Columbo ep yesterday: Columbo Likes the Nightlife. Kind of sad that it’s over
Pretty good ep to go out on. A very young Matthew Rhys, looking almost like a teeanger, was the central bad guy (part of a team with his girlfriend). He plays a nightclub owner, allowing Columbo to interact with rave culture a mere ten years after it first became a thing.
At first I thought the central crime was only going to be an accidental death that the couple covers up, and I thought NO IT HAS TO BE 1ST DEGREE MURDER! MALICE AFORETHOUGHT! but it turns out to not only involve a love triangle among business partners that leads to the accidental death; also a blackmailer who Rhys murders and makes look like a suicide; and even a bonus, previous murder of a mob guy.
An aging Columbo is in pretty good form, instantly determining the blackmailer suicide is fake: “his breath is minty fresh! His toenails are freshly clipped! Those are the actions of a man getting ready for a date, not suicide.”
RIP, Peter Falk. There’ve been pale imitations of the formula (Monk), but there will never be another Columbo.
I’m sorry, Monk is NOT a pale imitation. He is his own character. If one insists he is an imitation, he’s a good one. Sharona/Natalie are much better companions than Dog.
No, I’m sorry, you’re right, I was a bit too hard on Monk. I did, not too long ago, rewatch every episode of Monk and enjoyed it very much. I like Tony Shalhoub as an actor, and he did as fine a job inhabiting his character as Peter Falk did.
I did have a little bit of frustration at times with the writing on Monk-- making the Monk character as naive and clueless as a child sometimes, then making him an expert on anything that the plot called for when he was in detective mode. And his ‘OCD’ symptoms were pretty inconsistent throughout. But that’s not on Shalhoub.
In the episode with the gum, he really had reverted to childhood!
Neither Natalie nor Sharona would stick their hands in a toilet bowl either. They’d all stand around waiting for Stottlemeyer to order Disher to retrieve the toenails.
Monk: “A tie on the door means that my roommate is organizing his closet”
Also Monk: “You were having a sex affair with her on that couch. The cushions are backwards. And one of her earrings fell off. It’s, um it’s right here. She must have torn her blouse. I can see it sticking out of her briefcase. Your Honor.”
"Big night discovering that Columbo was so big in Japan that there’s a series of books and TV movies called “Columbo of Shinano” about a detective that dresses and acts like Columbo, watching it without subtitles is basically a hallucination, still not sure this is real "
