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Columbo: The Final Years
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Fabulous Films Review written by and copyright: Peter Neal (13th December 2024). |
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The Film
 "Columbo" With Peter Falk riding high from newfound success on the big screen courtesy of films like The Princess Bride and Wings of Desire at an age where other actor's careers would be winding down, the time was ripe to cash in on his situation and bring back his most beloved - and lucrative - character. But there was a problem. During the 80s, Columbo head-honchos Richard Levinson & William Link were living high on the hog through their hugely successful show Murder She Wrote, which presented the Columbo format in almost half the time. In spite of Levinson's untimely death in 1987, the show cranked out a whopping 264 episodes in 11 years, as it splayed out the mechanics of Colombo for all to see, but preserving the whodunit element which its predecessor largely ignored. But in spite of that differing route, the damage was done. The compressed run-time stripped out the much-needed distractions and allowed audiences to spot the plot points purely through having to cram everything in during a 45 minute slot. Such breathing room allowed Columbo's ingratiating patoise to nicely drew attention away from the mechanics, but Jessica Fletcher was solving them on a weekly basis, six months of the year. It was a string of sausages, and quite fitting that one of those involved was named "Link". Audiences were now primed and ready for such misdirection, so how would our man in the mac fare in this brave new world of audience awareness? Before we take plunge into the stories contained in Fabulous Films' HD package, it should be noted that when it comes to categorising series and episodes, things become rather muddy. Columbo was initially brought back as per the original format, that of a series where the episodes were played in succession, as was the case in the 70s. But after 1991, the format was abandoned during what is usually called the 10th series, becoming an ad hoc run of TV movies, cranked out whenever Falk could be bothered/needed money, etc. Sure, some of them were knocked out in the same year, but were still on the "as and when" basis. OK, here we go... 
Season 8 Columbo Goes to the Guillotine When renowned psychic Elliot Blake (Anthony Andrews) is trying to get a big contract with the US government, the last thing he wants is his old mentor and prison-buddy Max Dyson brought in to debunk him. But the tables are turned when Dyson lets him off the hook as a way of making up for leaving him to rot in a Ugandan hell-hole, as Max still burns with anger at the betrayal and plans to get revenge by silencing him for good. Cue a very messy demonstration of a guillotine, and the return of the only detective in the world who'd attempt to use one to cut his cigars with... Anthony Andrews was an odd choice with which to kick off the return of the beloved detective, as you'd have a expected bigger, more obvious name to bring in audiences. But the fact is that Andrews was perfect for the role, bringing a sincerity to the character, making it more dimensional than a load of his predecessors. He's arrogant, aloof and smug, but he's also a survivor, and one who still burns with anger at being sold out by Max. When he dispatches his betrayer, there's no immediate sense of satisfaction - he regrets that he had to do it - this is a rare quality in a Columbo baddie! But what of his victim? The dependable Anthony Zerbe is on hand to supply an avuncular quality to the role of mentor-turned-Judas, and anything other than great would be beneath him. When he buys the farm in the bloodiest dispatch in the show to date, it's a satisfying demise for the audience, but a heartbreaking one for Blake. This is excellent work from both. But what of the story itself? Well, the ESP element is rather messy, going off on a tangent alien to the show, one which might not have been too good an idea when having it as Columbo's big relaunch episode. But you have to juxtapose this with the clearly laid-out fact that Blake is a phony, employing all the tricks in the book to boost his credibility. It was risky, as the closest Middle-America had got to witnessing such testing was the commercial where Col. Sanders was wired up to a lie-detector so as to finally get the secret blend of 11 herbs and spices from him. Not only that, but as well as the obvious "paranormal/magic" element, this also treads similar ground to the previous story Now You See Him, wherein someone attempts to blackmail an associate with a dubious past, with expected results. Why isn't it quite as effective this time around? Well, Now You See Him was tightly-plotted, and kept things bouncing along nicely, but Columbo Goes To The Guillotine has far too much repetition and filler, and as someone who loves exploitation movies, the mechanics of the cheaper ones always try to use as many sets as many times as possible, usually with the same actors nattering away - talk is cheap, especially using the same sets and set-ups. This is the problem here, as the testing area is used too many times for it to be effective, and we're told things time and again, either to burn screen-time or to make sure the entire audience "gets it". It this had had the classic 75min Columbo running time, then it would have been a seriously good episode. Much has been said about how the decade+ has treated Falk, and how it's impacted his ability to play the character, and his performance here sets things out for the rest of the run. We get flashes of past greatness, but time and gravity are against him, his increasing age making Columbo noticeably slower and his usual bumbling routine sometimes makes him just look like some old boy who'd sit on the bus and fart when they cough. There were certainly times when he upped his game, but Falk clearly knew that his options as an high-earning actor were starting to narrow, so playing things writ-large was seen as the way to keep casual audiences (and money) rolling in. This episode also marks the first time Columbo takes extreme risks to bag his prey, which was effectively devolving the detective, taking away the logic and good sense in favour of splashy, audience-appealing spectacle. It's good, but running it through the guillotine a few times would have made it great. Murder, Smoke and Shadows When young, slick-as-pigshit wunderkind director Alex Brady (Fisher Stevens) is threatened by an incriminating piece of film proving a fatal onset accident was his fault, he promptly murders the enraged relative of the deceased, electrocuting him on the backlot and moving the body to a less conspicuous location. With the studio pressuring him to finish his latest film for Easter rather than a Summer release, this'll be the least of his problems when a certain shabby detective starts nosing around... If there was an award for "Smarmiest Columbo Villain", then Fisher Stevens would be advised to both stock up on Brasso AND buy a bigger mantelpiece for his turn as Alex Brady. He's so slick on the surface, but with steely streak of the total bastard running through him that he has the credibility to have achieved so much at such a young age. In that respect, there's more than a touch of the young Steven Spielberg about him, and rather fitting, as any Columbo fan worth their salt knows that his masterful handling of the initial episode got the series off to a flying start. Where things fall apart is with the pacing. Jesus H. Christ, this is possibly the ultimate example of a tight 73-minute story being stretched out to over 90 and killing it the process - I'm surprised that the script pages didn't look like Filo pastry when they were finished with it! Once again, we have an example of Columbo writers employing Gypsy Rose Lee's famed Hesitation Waltz method of preventing things from running-under. Why have plot points told in one scene when you can give each their own in multiple exposition-dumps? You can imagine the producers mulling this all over: "Well, Falk's game, so let's have him screw around with numerous things found on a film lot? That should burn a good few minutes of airtime". As with the terrible Knight Rider story Fright Knight, Murder, Smoke and Shadows seems like a cost-cutting exercise, with both set at Universal Studios to keep the budget down, and featuring gratuitous, lingering looks at the Universal Tour in hopes of giving the aging attraction a bit of a plug. Hell, it's not the first time this has happened on the show, as Columbo stopped by the Jaws exhibit during Fade Into Murder, where ol' Bruce was lumbered with an hilarious set of comedy choppers, as well googley eyes for added insult. Anyway, setting the story in and around the backlot serves to make it rather claustrophobic, but this is usually the case with bottle-shows. That Falk was trousering well over half a million dollars for his efforts at this point might well have had something to do with events staying in-house. The deeply cute Molly Hagen has a small but crucial role, and does a lot with a little but best of all it Nightmare on Elm Street 3's ghostly nun Nan Martin as Brady's hash-slinging secretary, who really hates the little shit, and audiences everywhere are right on her side. As for Falk - who knows? There was too much arse-farting around to stretch things out of really assess how he is here, surrounding him with full-pelt Hollywood blather and getting him to do that AWFUL ringleader piece at the end points us in the right direction, though! Oh, and it did give me the irrits that it suggest Brady takes credit for supplying the visual effects on Battlestar Galactica... Sex and the Married Detective Life is good for renowned sex-therapist Dr Joan Allenby (Lindsay Crouse). She has a legion of fans, all clamouring for her advice on spicing up their marriages and making a success of relationships. But when she finds her lover (and business partner) David Kincaid (Stephen Macht) screwing another woman as he viciously mocks her, the good doctor snaps, and hatches a plan to close his filthy mouth once and for all. Taking the roleplay scenario right from the pages of her own books, she dresses as a seductress and manages to lure Kincaid away from a party before shooting him dead. Changing back into her normal clothes, she slots back in and all fingers point to the mysterious siren. But one certain detective isn't going to let sex get in the way of finding the real killer... If ever there's a good argument in favour of the old adage that "it's all in the presentation", then the transformation of Dr Allenby from snub-nosed frump into elegant, mysterious sex-kitten Lisa closes the debate for good! Crouse puts in really good work, and you could make the case that she's playing three characters, those being Dr Allenby, Lisa and Allenby AS Lisa, the latter being as her back's against the wall when unexpected hiccups occur in her murder plot. You can see the change in the character after the murder - not in the obvious way we witnessed a murderer blossom in Lady in Waiting, but Allenby becomes a much colder woman after the killing. On the other side of the bullet is Stephen Macht, one of "those faces" who's been in so many things you've watched, but never really was a "star". It's a hell of a complement, as it reinforces his abilities as an excellent character-actor, and here he shows just how much of a heartless scumbag he can be when required. This isn't a sneering, "kill the old bitch for her money" type of baddie, all trust-funds and boardrooms, no. He's a guy who is screwing around on his other half with a much younger woman, and mocking everything about her in the nastiest way possible. In their own individual ways, Crouse and Macht are superb, even if the latter was given significantly less screen-time. The murder plot itself is genius, and works as well as it does due to Crouse. It's all as tightly planned and executed as the one seen in Make Me a Perfect Murder, both executed with cold precision with by their respective perpetrators, with only unexpected variables causing problems, including the aforementioned hiccup. With Dr Allenby, it's the attentions of a "not a chance, pal" party-goer, who really wants to get his sweaty hands on the Femme Fatale, with his dubious attentions providing a vital clue for Columbo to work with. Another plus is that the victim really was asking for it. OK, Kincaid was screwing around on the good doctor, but it's his mocking ridicule which really makes you feel sorry for her, and firmly paints a target on his head. It's genuinely mean, and something you wouldn't have expected to find in an episode of Columbo - but this is a story which delves into the world of sex, an avenue down which the 70s only glanced when the dishevelled detective flipped through an arty nudes book, so all bets are off! There's a lot of good work to be found here, but it's derailed by the most grating, illogical, pointless piece of whimsy ever to grace the show. I've always lived in dread of my wife ever getting her hands on a tuba, and the sight of Columbo getting stuck in with this particular instrument validates my fears. It's the most out-of-character moment during the entire run, and pathetic way to appeal to casual audiences by smacking over the head with wackiness until their brain is damaged enough to join the merriment. It's pathetic and demeaning, especially when Falk is on as good a form as he is here, aided and abetted by decent writing and lack of coincidence, so to pony up the episode up with crap like this is almost an act of self-mutilation. Falk is really good (tuba aside) and plays really well against Crouse, with the writing having Columbo taking a genuine liking to Allenby really helping things. There are a few stories where the good detective is almost apologetic when he has to take in a killer, but we certainly have one of those here. He empathises with a woman pushed too far, and has come to know her over the course of the investigation, even looking to her for personal advice. The respect between them endearing, and rounds off a solid story. If you mange to erase the tuba scene from memory, you have an excellent neo-Columbo. Grand Deceptions When Col. Frank Braile's (a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0289343/">Robert Foxworth) shady money-siphoning operation to fund war zone arms-deals is threatened with being rumbled, he takes matters into his own hands, arranging a convenient "accident" for the whistleblower whilst protecting his own financial future. That he's also having it off with the young wife of his wheelchair-bound superior officer shows that he has a taste for living of the edge, but trying that stuff with Columbo's wife just ain't gonna fly... Robert Foxworth has always been a favourite character actor of mine, probably stemming from watching his work in Damien: Omen II in my formative years, and having the pleasure of seeing equally cool performances in so many other things, so the prospect of a turn as a Columbo baddie? It couldn't fail!! But it really does. The character of Braile is so flatly written that he couldn't have given it any signs of life, even with a lightning storm, an assortment of Tesla Coils and assistant named "Igor". This is the man who -through voiceover alone - was able to beat the live action cast of the Transformers' movies as beloved Autobot Ratchet in the charisma stakes, but he still can't do anything with the sheer flatness of the writing here. Columbo's varying fascinations with things pursuits which conveniently come to the fore of his investigations are at it again. This time, he takes a shine to the older General's toy soldiers collection, really getting into the old boy's good books through offering his take on the legendary battle immortalised with his lead figures. Those of a cynical nature will know that it'll play a key (yet initially throwaway) role in solving the case, and with everything else surrounding it, such holdover contrivances only hurt the flimsy story even more. The only interesting angle ('arf) is the cuckoldry sideline, where our man in the chair is fully aware that his less-than-half-his-age wife needs a sexually active stud to keep her satisfied. It's an angle (arf') which hasn't really been explored in Columbo, especially of the consensual kind, but it's - again - done to flatly that it fails to add sizzle. The previous story definitively covered and closed the door on all sex-related matters on the show, and this somehow seems like necrophilia. Hmmm... now THAT would make for an interesting neo-Columbo! The irony is that for all the lethargy in the writing, direction and presentation, Falk is pretty damn good in this. He drops the pocket-searching, the b-i-i-i-i-g theatrical gestures and playing the fool for to have people drop their guard - this is a laser-focused detective working a very sensitive case, which could have governmental ramifications. There are other episodes which could have been undisputed masterpieces if Falk had played it this straight, but Grand Deceptions got the straight-arrow treatment? There really isn't any justice on TV! And the crowning idiocy is the closing shot, where a toy-soldier-type figure of Columbo appears on the General's table - all to the overused theme-tune of "This Old Man". Some would call it a deeply cool piece of "meta" writing, whereas others view it as a desperately crap way to end possibly the worst episode of the beloved TV series, right down there with Last Salute to the Commodore. Both threatened the future of the show - the former by design, the latter by quality control. And this was the one they decided to use to lure audiences back for the next series of their beloved detective's return to the airwaves? 
Season 9 Murder: A Self Portrait Noted (and eccentric) painter Max Barsini (Patrick Bauchau) is living the good life, with his first wife, his current wife and his vying-to-be-next wife all under one roof. He's getting is on with all three, and they all just about tolerate each other. The problem starts when the wife no.1 wants to leave, taking her deep-routed secrets along with her, ones which she's been holding over him for years. Hatching a plan to dispatch the nagging shrew whilst providing a rock-solid alibi, all goes well until the body washes up at Columbo's feet, and the deceased's psychiatrist informs the detective of some very Freudian dreams she'd been repressing... Let's cut to the chase: aside from the format-breaking dream-sequences, the real winner of this particular episode is the "crumpet" factor. Given the range of Barsini's women, there's someone for all tastes, be it blondes, brunettes, teens or MILFS, Barsini's got you covered, and you can only admire his eye for the female form. From an artistic point of view, of course. OK Falk-wife Shera Danese is probably the least in the acting stakes, as the incredible beauty/cuteness of Isabel Lorca makes up for any inexperience she may have had, but veteran thesp Fionnula Flanagan leaves almost the entire cast the dust as the runaway wife. Really taking to the role of a avant-garde artist, Patrick Bauchau is a real force of nature, as Barsini. He's a acquired taste, as his portrayal can split audiences right down the middle when it comes to seeing him as an artist or an arsehole. Infamous for (allegedly) being tiddly and slurring his lines during some of the View To A Kill shoot (and the jury's out on some of his dialogue during the simultaneously-filmed Phenomena) he's a presence which never falls into the category of "dull". Bringing a slimy charm to a role which might have been played for a degree of comic relief (see Sam Franklin in Suitable For Framing), one would hope that Barsini's incredible success with women has to do with the size of his brush, than his explosive temper having them drop at his feet. Some really don't like the dream-sequences, either considering them pretentious or that they just don't fit in with the Columbo format they all know and love, but I'm not in that camp. I think they're really well done, nicely filmed and add a very nice dimension to the story, which might have been flatly told through dialogue and pained expressions. The story surrounds art, so going full-bore with these sequences ties into the whole thing very nicely - even if the interpretations are a bit of a stretch. What else is good? Well, there's Barsini's superb fourth-wall breaking at the very end of the 1st act, where I defy you not to chuckle! We get the final appearance of the hallowed Vito Scotti, notching up his sixth role in the show, and Columbo was missing something after his death just a few years later. And let's not forget the incredible beauty of Miss Lorca. Shallow? Yep. Murder: A Self Portrait was a very odd choice for the episode picked to keep audiences watching after the turd which closed the previous series, as it's best described as polarising. There's just too much odd and/or new elements to it for the traditional Columbo fans and casual viewers alike. Columbo Cries Wolf Skin-mag founder Sean Brantley (Ian Buchanan) is living the high life in his Beverly Hills mansion, surrounded by the cream of American totty and all thanks to the acumen of his business partner/lover Dian Hunter (Deidre Hall). But when Brantley announces his engagement to one of his Bachelor's World centrefolds, with some bimbo taking her rightful place by his side, she snaps. Threatening to sell her shares and put the kybosh on his luxury lifestyle, she sets off on a business trip and - in the words of Plan 9 From Outer Space - "left that house, never to return again". But are things all that they seem? Has our lady with the stock innocently disappeared? Will a man in a shabby raincoat ever get past security at the Bachelor's World mansion? Time to find out in one of the very best neo-Columbo has to offer! Opening to the strains of Fine Young Cannibal's She Drives Me Crazy, the blast of freshness blows through right from the outset - there's energy, vigour and a vitality lacking from the past few seasons. It even manages to pull the rug right out from under the audience's feet, with a twist which few saw coming, providing a very welcome break in the format. And that isn't even the denouement! The only disappointment is that it once again draws on the Tec's curious on/off fascination with technology to bring about the Poe-inspired conclusion. While direct references to other stories are few and far between on Columbo, we get a corker of one here. How about the good Lieutenant checking out the dirt on Brantley by leaving a message for his old friend Chief Superintendent Dirk "at Scotland Yard"? We don't hear from him (which is a shame, as Bernard Fox was alive and very well at the time) but it's nice that our man with the mouser provides him with a piece of the puzzle. Then we get to Scots actor Ian Buchanan as Brantley, who might well be the most smug, arrogant baddie the show has ever seen. Sure, Fisher Stevens was right up there, but this is another wee beastie entirely - he's everything a Columbo baddie should be, and in a single episode, firmly stakes his claim to Jack Cassidy's crown. He's packed with more confidence than the out-patients wing of a hair-weave clinic, is more oily than Bob Monkhouse dipped in Vaseline and comes with a shit-eating grin as though chewing on an elephant turd. The choice of song to grace the credits isn't just a cynical ploy to make Columbo hip, but planting the seeds for the story as it makes clear that Dian really gets on his tits, and what more permanent solution is there than to make her disappear? It's a stroke of genius, and hallmarks this superior instalment. This is top-draw Columbo. Agenda For Murder Marking his return to Columbo is the mighty Patrick McGoohan, here playing high-flying lawyer Oscar Finch, who's assisting a local governor on his path to the Whitehouse. Unfortunately, corruption from his past stands in his way, in the form of a "mislaid" a piece of evidence decades earlier, but Finch won't let blackmail get in the way. One ingenious fake-suicide later, all has been swept aside, but like a mouse after a piece of cheese, along comes the LAPD's oldest Lieutenant... Somebody must have either blackmailed him or wired McGoohan's testicles to the national grid, as he delivers a pretty restrained performance here. It was all too easy for ol' Pat to waltz into the realms of whimsical, especially if he'd been on the sauce, but here he plays it pretty straight, with the gravitas one expects of an incumbent Attorney General. A shame the same can't be completely said of Falk, who's clearly under McGoohan's influence a couple of times, and resorts to some annoying capering, including going down on all fours sniffing out a clue like Dog looking for a fire-hydrant . Other than that, he plays it straight, which is almost a miracle, given director McGoohan's propensity for wackiness. It was a near-miss, but the bullet whizzed comfortably past. It's a damn shame that a reference to Candidate For Crime wasn't deployed, as it would have nicely papered over Finch seemly not knowing both the best detective in LA, and how he had previously brought down another politician on the eve of victory. Another minor wrinkle is that those familiar with the Ted Bundy case are already about 50% ahead of Columbo, but there's still so much to enjoy in this top-flight episode, and one which shares the quality of the original run. Both leads are having a ball, and this trickles down into us mere mortals sharing it with them. While it's a pity that No more from me - just watch and enjoy!! Rest in Peace, Mrs Columbo Vivian Demitri (Helen Shaver) is a wronged woman. Her husband was imprisoned for manslaughter when an associate ratted him out to the cops. His death in prison was a body-blow to the mild-mannered real estate agent, who plans to get revenge on those who put him behind bars and deprived her of their last remaining years together. Murdering said associate brings in Lt Columbo to investigate the killing, but far from bunging a spanner in the works, it's all according to plan! For the good detective was the other person responsible for her husband's incarceration, but her intentions here are much more twisted: she want him to experience the same loss she has endured: she's going to kill Mrs Columbo!! Oh, and also off the good Lieutenant himself once he's suffered enough!! This was a format-breaker which still sharply divides the fans to this day. Not only is it missing the expected murder at the beginning to trigger and investigation, nor that it dares to strike at both at the good detective and his wife, but that it ALSO manages to alienate by having the first absolute, concrete proof that Mrs Columbo exists, and that she isn't just a device used to ingratiate himself among his suspects. We also get a story told in flashback (necessary for the premise of the show) as well as inner monologues, taking away the warm comforting blanket the fans are used to. Helen Shaver is one of the very best actors to play a Neo-Columbo baddie, bringing real chops to the part of a mentally ill woman desperately fixed on taking out those who've destroyed her life. This isn't the gleeful deviousness of Jack Cassidy, or the icy confidence of Robert Culp, but a three-dimensional woman whose life and sanity have gone to shit. Her planned murder is superbly thought out, and the way she layers elements of mystery around her alibi like the leaves of an artichoke in ingenious, having to peel away each element before ultimately feigning resignation and revealing it. When opportunities to even the score with others involved present themselves, she's not as meticulous, but still wily, and this goes to bolster Demitri as one of the most credible villains on the show. Her emotions compel her to seize opportunities in her vengeance, even if they probably aren't a good idea. This is a real person, saddled with the grief, anger and fallibility of human beings, turning what might have been merely a femme fatale into a relatable human being. Shaver brings out the best in Falk, too, raising his game when confronted by a seriously great actress delivering the goods. Columbo is -once again - mercifully stripped of the pantomime gestures and theatrics, opting to play the lieutenant as a straight-ahead detective. Given the nature of the story, anything else would have derailed the whole thing, and Falk turns in one of his best takes during the revival run, and it even bests a few for its original series. Although as alienating as mentioned above, one particular bit has Falk displaying the most genuine, affection for his wife we've ever seen - it takes her out of the Schrodinger's box and shows just how much the woman means to him. We might not've ever seen Mrs Columbo, but this is the closest to her we've ever gotten. Uneasy Lies the Crown Wesley Corman (a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0416856/">James Read) is a pretty crap dentist. OK, he's got some celeb clients on the books of his father-in-law's practice, but with too many hushed-up disasters and a string a bad investments eating away at the family finances, he's not only about to be drilled out of the business - his wife wants a divorce, too! She's happily crewing a Hollywood star on Corman's books, and he plans to get revenge via a temporary crown and a deadly dose of Digitalis. He may have been miles away at the time our slice of beefcake drops dead, and the cause of death is suspiciously similar to the death of the wife's first husband, but our man in the raincoat isn't quite convinced he has a double-murderess on his hands... If this all sounds familiar to fans of 70s American detective shows, well, that's because it comes from an old script which failed to make the grade 20 years earlier, before being dusted off a few years later after being shelved when used on fellow 70s detective series McMillan & Wife! Third time certainly wasn't the charm with this one, and tips you off that this wasn't ever going to be grade-A Columbo. The script contains numerous twists and turns, but hares off down too many dark alleys, with gratuitous scenes which only pad out the running time and cause nothing but frustration. The most interminable of these has to be the poker-party of the stars. Corman establishes his alibi through playing cards with his showbiz clients, where he routes a desperate 911 call to the party rather than the emergency services, putting him there rather than at the scene. Naturally, Columbo has the guests all brought in again so as to both interview and marvel at them. Who is at his Valhalla of Hollywood? Well, we get Dick Sargent and his famous hair-hat, annoying impressionist John Roake (Naked Gun 2 1/2), Baseball legend Ron Cey and Falk's Murder By Death co-star Nancy Walker around the table. Walker was suffering from the bout of lung cancer which would kill her two years later and some say that Falk gave her the easy, quick-money job as a favour for a friend in need. Others say that her career didn't escape the fallout from her single directorial effort: "Can't Stop the Music". Yes, THAT one. Still others say that she scored the role though being a regular on McMillan & Wife, being a tip of the hat to the show which lapped up its sloppy seconds. But in the end, the whole thing just doesn't gel. We all know that doctors are smart and have acquired level of dispassion to separate themselves from their work, but here Wesley Corman is only possessed of about 1/2 of the above. Sure, he's a really cold bastard, more than able to operate within an emotional vacuum, but there is little genuine emotion to him. While it makes for a really believable killer, it makes you wonder how he can feel passionately enough about a woman to actually want her. He's also rather sloppy in the planning stages, allowing himself to leave honking-great holes in his murder plot - the premise of which proves his intelligence, but is defeated by everything else. Oh, and Falk is up to his excesses again, and not just when fawning over the "stars" at the poker game. He's all grand gestures, comedy-stupidity and everything else which makes the fans rip their hair out at the roots in frustration. It's fair to say that this one isn't considered one of the greats. Or even one of the best of the revival run. Murder in Malibu Wayne Jennings (a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002989/">Andrew Stevens) is the kept man of hugely successful author Theresa Goren (Janet Margolin), enjoying the lifestyle of a playboy with none of that pesky working for a living of mortal men. That'd be fine, but he's also a lothario, screwing around on Ms Goren, who has now decided it's time to get hitched. Jennings decided she's got to go, and sets about staging her murder whilst crafting a rock-solid alibi for being nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time of death. Can he get one over on the local police? Will he get his leg over on the next foxy chick to smile at him?? Will he ever keep it in his trousers??? Will Columbo stop going through women's underwear???? These questions, and many others, will be answered on the next episode of Soap... Here we enter murky waters, as this is an episode almost universally loathed by the fans. The performances are of the melodramatic soap-opera kind, and the writing offers up little surprises. It's almost as though it was conceived as a parody of daytime soaps, but someone thought it best to play the whole thing straight, robbing it of the satirical edge with which is was intended. The same thing happened to the movie version of The Phantom, where a parodying script was filmed straight, leading to a rather confusing tone - to add a Columbo connection, someone clearly neglected to tell Patrick McGoohan of the change, as he plays The Phantom's father with all the pop-eye'd intensity of someone doing broad comedy. Here, you expect Stevens' character to be called "Ted" or "Chad", something in keeping with the soapy feel of the piece. They could have gone with an ironic twist at the end, and had the credits come up in exactly the same, garish, tape-based style of the average daytime "story" to claim that they were in on the joke all along. Speaking of the lead guest, this is an interesting companion-piece to Stevens' appearance in an early episode of Levinson & Link's Murder She Wrote, where he played a gerontophile accused of murdering an old lady, with his eye fixed on Jessica Fletcher. Spoilers for a 40 year-old episode ahead: he turns out to be innocent, but is still a creepy bastard, ending the episode on a really sour note with a freeze-frame as his world caves in around him. Why bring this up? Well, Stevens is playing a very similar character, but without the mystery of if he did it or not, and lacking any kind of moral ambiguity which made he his earlier performance rather disturbing. He's fine enough, but not putting in nearly as much enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, if he hadn't have interacted with Columbo as much as he did, he'd have faded into the background and probably gotten away with it. What do we get here? Well, the really good-looking, ill-fated MILF Janet Margolin makes for a great victim, oozing class and sophistication, and making you wonder just why the hell she's hung around with a shallow guy like Wayne Jennings for so long - although I suspect the aforementioned word "hung" plays a big part of it. She died only three years later, and it's a shame that her final movie performance was as the obnoxious prosecutor in Ghostbusters II, only there to let Bill Murray do his usual anti-authoritarian shtick. Oh, and be dragged off and r*ped by one of the ghostly Scoleri Bros - she's seen smoking a post-coital cigarette during the credits. Hardly a classy end to a respected movie career. Brenda Vaccaro really needs careful handling to get good stuff from her, and here is an example of how you don't do it - she plays it really broad, as though shot with a combination B12, caffeine and good, old fashioned speed-based diet pills. Nobody comes away smelling of roses, even if they'd have wrapped themselves up in the entire boot-load of them found in Jennings' car. It's a mess, and someone should have realised just how creepy it is to have a guy in his 60s, wearing a raincoat, rummaging through a deceased woman's undies drawer. OK, they made allusions to such things when Columbo is demonstrating such things in a ladies' department store, but this is the same detective who'd probably serve breast of chicken in a bra to avoid possible embarrassment. If you approach it with an open mind and low expectations, it's a passable time-filler, but this far short of the Columbo we know and love. 
Season 10 Columbo Goes to College Or "Money For Old Rope". Yep, Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", as it goes, being another retelling of the infamous Leopold-Loeb case, where two little bastards of superior intellect plan the ultimate murder with the intention of getting away with it. When annoying, privileged smart-arses Justin Rowe (Stephen Caffery) and Cooper Redman (Gary Herschberger) plan to murder an "inferior" fellow college student, they aim for the perfect murder, one which will prove their superiority and show that they are above the law. But when a certain disheveled detective delivers a seminar on campus, these two little shits think they've gotten one over on Columbo. We probably all know how this is going to end... There's not much to say about this one, except that It's considered one of the very best episodes from the revival run, and with good reason. It's tightly plotted, we have really despicable bad-guys you really want to see come unstuck, a great performance from Falk - whose Columbo exploits his quarry's egos and plays dumb. The minor problems are that it brings together the two great exasperating conveniences of the show's writing, those of "Columbo luck" and the detective's on/off interest in technology. I won't say exactly how it plays out (for the benefit of those few going in cold into one of the best neo-Columbos) but it has to do with overlapping broadcast frequencies. These are almost trifling minuses in a story which should have been an example to the showrunners in how high the bar was set. Oh, and we also get a victory lap from the mighty Robert Culp - if this name means nothing to you, then stop reading right now!! There were only about three stories which really pulled it all together and attained the same lofty heights as the original 70s run, and this is certain one of them. As with the later Columbo Likes The Nightlife, it brings together two different generations in successful fashion, although the later was mandated by the network. I won't say anything else, as it might well spoil things for the uninitiated. This is vintage Columbo, and must be treated with the same care as a bottle of 1945 Farrier port. Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health Wade Anders (a returning George Hamilton) is riding high with his hit TV show Crime Alert, being the very bastion of morality as he ferrets out those of shady morals. Trouble looms in the form of a jealous rival who threatens to expose Ander's past career as porn star, specifically the time when his arse was going like a fiddler's elbow with an underage co-star. Not wanting to wait for his chain-smoking blackmailer to drop dead from lung cancer, and desperate to save his career, Anders devises a murder involving nicotine poisoning and replacing his dirt-files with squeaky-clean ones. Will our one-time Johnny Wadd get away with clean pair of heels and a neatly-trimmed bush? If there's a single detective in LA who knows tobacco, it's the one assigned to the case... The great George Hamilton struts his stuff again, in an era when thick shagpile carpets weren't going to trip him up - be it literally or metaphorically, and he's good! As smooth as an iron fist dipped in Crisco, he's completely credible as a man who's worked his way up from porn in and into a life of money-raining fame. There isn't a hell of a lot to do aside from covering his tracks at every turn, but he rises above the underwritten role. Compare this to William Shatner's later return to the series, and you'll see that coming back requires more than just coasting. The episode is very much of the time, when the 80s drive to give up smoking bled into the 90s as the cover-ups from the tobacco industry became common knowledge, and the underage porn element was clearly based on Traci Lords, which threatened to take down the entire porn industry, if it wasn't for the pivotal matter of a stolen driver's license. Kicking down another of the great damnable elements of time, evidence of the cigarette-butts is one was too obviously being used as a socio-political statement, and its deployment as the damning clue was make one so obvious it had audiences slapping their foreheads in frustration, as anyone carefully planning the murder wouldn't have handled so clumsily. Other problems arise when vital clues almost come with a neon sign over them, making sure that nobody missed them between swigs of beer. Speaking of neon lights, one of the most hated scenes among Columbo fandom comes in the form of our favourite detective heading into a porno store to get find information about Ander's past career. Get this: a man dressed in identical clothing to Columbo takes a look at his wardrobe and says: "I hope we both have fun tonight, pal..." before giving him a lecherous wink. I freely admit to spending far too much time in certain shops in Soho during the 90s, and will attest that this kind of thing NEVER happens!!! It's pretty cringe-inducing stuff, which is a shame, as the rest of the scene is pretty good. For all it's faults (and very convoluted title) this is still an entertaining romp, with Falk and Hamilton playing off each other nicely in a way only those who've worked together in the past could. OK, Columbo got over his technophobia to crack the case once again, but compared to a few of others on the way, this is still pretty decent. Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star When Hugh Creighton (Dabney Coleman) one of the most famous defence-lawyers in America discovers that his wife is not only screwing around on him, but plans to leave him, and also threatens to blab that his 100% bating average in court comes through bribery and corruption, he decides it time for her to go. Killing her and drugging her lover to frame him for the murder, he thinks he's gotten away with it, but another proponent of law and order is on the case, and has just as impressive a batting average... Right from the start, credulity over Coleman’s antics in court is stretched beyond breaking point - are we supposed to believe that one of the best lawyers in the country would resort of distracting testimony though loudly clearing their throat or pouring water from a jug in noisy, exaggerated fashion? Such hick-town tactics would have seen him thrown out of so many courtrooms that he'd have probably found himself disbarred. Why are they in there? Because they play to big audiences, who wouldn’t' be bothered by matters such as integrity and all that high-falutin stuff - that's why. When ratings were less certain for the show, they often played big. Into the mix is thrown Trish (Shera Danese, again...), a legal underling of the successful lawyer who has figured out exactly what happened in all this, and teases Creighton with her knowledge. The price for her silence? Junior partner and full marriage partner! It didn't work with Adrian Carsini, and 't probably going to fail here! Danese really isn't suited for anything other than hanging clothes on or rubbing her legs together to kindle a fire, and when playing a lawyer, her limitations are in full evidence(!) This is the infamous episode where Shera Danese's unprofessional behaviour caught up with her, leading to a blazing row with Falk and her going off shopping rather than filming a key scene and a big hole in the plot when trying to cover over her absence. Her absence meant that the courtroom stuff had to be worked around, and blows huge holes in the prosecution, which would have left Creighton walk free with his dignity intact, and credibly put all the blame on Trish. Speaking of unprofessionalism, many have been bemused by a scene where Falk is wearing - for no reason at all - a baseball cap with the letters "NFI" on it. Some have pondered if it was from some military branch which Colombo had been associated, or that the good detective was wearing it to be inconspicuous, but no - nothing that sensible. Whilst the scene was being shot on location, someone around the shoot was wearing the cap, and Falk asked him what the letters stood for. Finding the answer hilarious, he borrowed the hat and wore for the entire scene, either out of protest to the producers or just to be unprofessional and screw integrity. It stood for: "No F**king Idea". It's a shame, as it's a scene with the great (and underused) actress Deborah Rose, who demonstrates world-class irritation as Columbo rakes through the house she's in the middle of keeping. A pity that a twat in a hat distracts from a really fun performance by a woman who deserved a bigger CV than she ended up with. There's death via injected bottles of champers, some arseing around in a Japanese garden, some berries dropped from a tree and the small matter of a speeding-fine photo presented for the defence. It's ironic that a story about a hotshot lawyer has the flimsiest evidence seen in the entire run of Columbo. How much you enjoy the story will depend on both your tolerance for Coleman's character and the script so full of holes you could use it as a tea-bag. Death Hits the Jackpot Soon-to-be divorcee Freddy Brower's (Gary Kroeger) life is about to change forever - he's just won the lottery, but wants to keep his winnings out of his future-ex's hands. In a scheme proposed by a wealthy relative, his Uncle Leon (Rip Torn) offers to cash the cheque in his own name and act as a buffer until the divorce comes through. When too much time passes, and too many excuses are rolled out, Freddy calls Unc's bluff and the scene is set to hand over the money, all during a costume ball. When the body of a supposedly destitute man who inexplicably spent $500 on champagne turns emerges as a result , it's up to LAPD's shabbiest to figure it all out, as he points the finger of suspicion at Leon and say: "It could be you..." As any Columbo fan will tell you, this a "good-un". It's got a great villain in Rip Torn, who's at his oiliest and most ingratiating, some terrific twists and a great script. Along with Columbo Cries Wolf, Columbo Goes to College and Agenda for Murder, this marks one of only a handful of times during the revival run that Columbo managed to live up to the peerless highs of it's 70s iteration, and is one which is curiously overlooked when discussing the show as a whole. It's also stands as one of the very few feature-length stories to have virtually no padding to it, which really takes some doing in the writing department. We also get Friday the 13th's original serial-killer named Voorhees Betsy Palmer, and I'd still love to know if her great piece of casting was ironic or not! On the minus-side, we get the return of that old favourite "watch-smashing", done so as to throw of detectives establishing the time of death, but Columbo sees straight through it, just as he's done a number times before. Poirot didn't fall for it on the Orient Express nearly 60 years earlier when the trick was new, so our man with the cheap cigars wasn't going to let it throw him off the scent, tobacco odour or not! While that was a throwaway detail, if there's a genuine weakness in the writing, it's the crucial element of the Chimpanzee, which is too bizarre an element not to be a crucial plot-point later on. OK, Torn is excellent, we know that, but what of Falk? He's pretty damn good, and that goes towards an all-round solid episode. He plays the good Lieutenant straight, without the endless capering and grand gestures he could fall into. Sure, we see his unhealthy interest in ladies' undies again, but it's all in the line of duty and doesn't seem creepy or gratuitous this time around. He's back to the pre-McGoohan meddling iteration, with a laser-focus and not averse to letting his prey know he's on their tail, and all the better for it. Many other stories during the revival run would have benefited from this version of the character, rather than arseing around with tubas and all that crap. Just a shame that the show had to hit one of the lowest points in its history next time around... 
No Time to Die Our favourite detective swaps his mac for a tux and a set of dancing shoes to attend his nephew's wedding, but before the festivities even commence, the bride (Joanna Going) vanishes from the hotel without a trace (Joanna Gone!). When a chloroform-doused rag is recovered from the scene, it's time for the mac to come back... Scrabbling for story ideas, producer Falk optioned a couple of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels as possible material for the show, not stopping to think just how outside of the trusty Columbo format it would take it. The answer to that one is obviously "a lot", as the lone-wolf detective is magically part of a team, all pulling together in an unbelievable manner which suggests they've been doing so all along. It just feels synthetic, in the same way that giving John McClane a pre-fab bunch of colleagues in Die Hard with a Vengeance felt forced and hollow in that respect. One assumes that the title was ironic, as there's no murder, but a lot of twisted menace as the psycho has the bride in his clutches, intending to marry her himself. It's nice that a fair amount of the running time focuses on the predicament of the bride, who's a little more worried than just facing the prospect of committing bigamy by association, and the killer is a pretty twisted bastard, all knife-wielding antics and stories of dead relatives, and the refreshing that we also follow the bride plotting her own escape in case her new uncle-in-law doesn't get his arse in gear! But as good as they are, it can't help that this just isn't Columbo. The McBain novel on which it was based (So Long As You Both Shall Live) just wasn't the right material, and the man himself seems like a peripheral character in his own show. It's the one unifying episode among the fans. They ALL hate it. Sticking Sherlock Holmes into an adaptation of The Desperate Hours just wouldn't gel, and putting Columbo into a psycho-thriller doesn't work, either. Still, at least we get Donald "The Thing" Moffat as the distraught father! A Bird in the Hand Harold McCain (Greg Evigan) is a loser. He enjoys the life of a swinging playboy, but he's still a loser - both in personality and financial terms. He's blowing money on gambling at an alarming rate, and has eyes on his rich, football team-owning uncle Big Fred (Steve Forrest). Trouble is, he's also having it off with Big Fred's wife Delores, and as the money runs out, he figures that the only way to set them both free is to kill Big Fred and pocket his money together. But when the plan to take him out goes unexpectedly pear-shaped, the wrong person dies, with Harold now under the gaze of the singular sharpest eye of the LAPD.... There are many delights to be savoured here, including the lead-up to the bomb going off, where it almost literalises Hitchcock's philosophy on the difference between shock and suspense. We're privy to Big Fred being unexpectedly killed in a jogging accident, and that there's a car-bomb waiting to go off when the first poor sod gets in it. It's a bit of a throwback to the climax of Short Fuse, but we know that Harold can't do a damn thing about it, as it will completely blow both his cover and probably his balls off, too! What else is there? Well, I'm not going to reveal it, but as with Columbo Cries Wolf, there's a pretty neat twist in this, one which many might not see coming. OK, it's somewhat signposted, but it's a brave decision to go through with it. Harold is supposed to be slick, shallow and obnoxious, with Greg Evigan being the perfect casting choice. He's copped a lot of flack for his lack of range over the years, but he's tailor-made for this one. You really want to see him get caught, which is always the mark of a good Columbo baddie. Tyne Daly is decent enough, even if her role didn't give her much to do aside from either being drunk, smouldering or a smouldering drunk. Well, until a certain twist, of course. The incestuous relationship with Harold is strangely alluring, but I've always had a thing for older, cuddlier women. Also along for the ride is the wonderful Frank McRae as Columbo's fellow Lieutenant, and with his beloved role as Jim from Used Cars in mind, I would have KILLED for his character to see a trace of blood at the scene, only for another officer to dispute the colour of it: "That mother****er's red!!" For the second time in the revival run, Columbo nabs his quarry through careful examination of video footage, but this time, it's even more tenuous than before. I won't blow the surprise, but anyone familiar with the infamous bit with the gun going off in North by Northwest will have a head-start. It all doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, but it's a fun ride, with a nice twist and some titillating incest with everyone's favourite MILF. Butterfly in Shades of Grey Homophobic radio shock-jock Fielding Chase (William Shatner) is a scumbag who enjoys both inciting hatred and huge audiences, but he's also in love with his foster-daughter Victoria (Molly Hagan), and when the opportunity to have her first novel published and gain a life outside of Chase's claustrophobic attentions, he intends to stop it! Chase murders the her link to the publishing world and fames his boyfriend for the crime. Thinking he's gotten away with it, LAPD's oldest is on the scene, and instantly finds that something stinks - and it isn't Chase's aftershave... It's difficult to know if time has been kind to this one or not. Shat plays the radio "shock-jock" to the hilt, spitting venom at minorities, with a number of comments being even more abrasive these days than intended when written. That the victim in this episode is gay, and Chase framing the ex-lover for it is pretty insensitive, but the bile-laden host goes on to infer that his lifestyle was the cause of his murder, and this kind of thing was inherent among "those people". Yes, he's supposed to be a scumbag, but this would irk a hell of a lot more people these days. Yes, there's representation of gay men, but certainly not the most flattering of depictions. As a Star Trek fan, I'm going to hate saying this, but: it's representation, but not as we know it. Urgh... But what of Old Bill's second bite of the Columbo scenery? Well, here we have a very cartoonish Shat, as though in training for his bewildering performance in the upcoming movie Spy Hard, where he pushed the very limits of histrionics among regular actors and even Shat himself (arf). When playing a character this nasty and homophobic, it really helps to play it as straight as possible, otherwise it's insulting - and that's a big part of the problem. Whilst on the radio, Shat's playing a persona of Fielding Chase, with big performances and sweeping inflections deployed for the purposes of getting his point across to the widest audience. It's no surprise that it's with this that Shat really excels, but he's back to all of the mannerisms when playing a normal human being - or at least his interpretation of a human being. Fun, but it would take the Enterprise four days at maximum warp to get anywhere near reality. Oh, and he joins the ranks of the very few characters who've considered killing Columbo in order to avoid arrest, too! But what about Falk? Well, if we want to stay with the Star Trek motif, then he appears to be just like the titular character in the TNG story The Perfect Mate, where someone will absorb the characteristics of those in close proximity and emulate them so as to fit in. Here, Falk has absorbed the excesses of Shat and he's doing everything he can to keep up with him! It's right down there with the worst of his Columbo performances. Best of all, though, is the return of Molly Hagen as Victoria - she's a stunning-looking woman, and I've had a bit of a thing for her ever since she starred in ill-fated TV series Herman's Head. Apple-cheeked and corkscrew-haired, she's both adorable and an actress of real charisma, and gives real credibility as to just how much Chase doesn't want to let her out of his clutches. She really shone in her brief appearance as the dead starlet in Murder, Smoke and Shadows, and it's great that she's given something really meaty to get her teeth into. Make your own jokes... Something which would only be funny without explanation to Star Trek fans is that the recurring photo of Chase is from the jacket of his Tek War novels, albeit with a rather obviously drawn on moustache to bring it in line with Shat's look in the episode. There must have been original cast-members from Star Trek queuing up to be the one to draw on the moustache! Speaking of his facial furniture, you'd have to be Geordi La Forge not to notice the way Shat's mouser keep changing shape and thickness throughout. Shat once said that he forgot to grow his "Starfleet" sideburns for one of the movies, with Hair & Makeup having to cut a fake moustache in half to serve as fake ones. It's unclear if Fielding Chase's lady-tickler was a former pair of fake sideburns, though... It's All in the Game Wealthy socialite Lauren Stanton (Faye Dunaway!!) has it all, including a handsome young Italian fiancée, but things aren't as clear-cut as they seem. He's sneaking around on her, and when he heads away from the festivities to sleep with younger bit of spare (Claudia Christian), we find that he's a sadistic bastard who's mutilated her in the past, and plans to do it again if she displeases him. A figure appears at and shoots our man with the oily comb dead. Out of the shadows steps... Lauren! The two women scramble to cover the body in an electric blanket to fudge the time of death, and plan their way to freedom. But such tactics might not be enough to fool the one detective who's seen it all before... Rather like Liz Taylor turning up in General Hospital, it was one hell of an unexpected coup to have Faye Dunaway appear on a TV show, and makes for possibly the biggest star to ever grace an episode of Columbo. She brings real sense of classic Hollywood to the story. Even though it's essentially the story of two killers and the detective out to get them, it effectively becomes a two-hander for Falk and Dunaway, as they move and counter-move their way around each other, with Lauren trying to seduce the Lieutenant in an attempt to cloud his senses and thrown him off his game. The chemistry between them is what makes it work so damn well, and even though we know that Columbo only has eyes for his wife, there's every chance he's getting drawn into Lauren's web and being played for a fool. Yes, they're THAT good. As for Christian, well, I've never been a fan of hers, probably triggered by certain excesses she displayed on Babylon 5, but her usual arm-waving performance is reigned in here, which is both commendable and appropriate, given that she's playing a survivor of domestic violence. Those reading the credits might well have spotted that Peter Falk is listed as a writer on this one, and it's in no way a token gesture. He came up with the story 20 years earlier during the original run, but it seems the big-wigs were rather uneasy about a story where Columbo is genuinely caught up in the attentions of a suspect. Falk's newfound producer status meant that no such obstacles were in his way this time. It would take an exceptional woman to divert the good detective's objectivity, and the casting of Dunaway was exactly what was needed to help make the leap credible. She delivers movie-star power, and makes it all work, with the Emmy she snagged as a result testament to just how good she is in it. But let's not forget the twist. I'm not going to ruin for the uninitiated, but its the most unexpected one ever to grace the series - possibly even moreso than the momentous one found only a few episodes back. Some would look at it and be blown away, while others might consider it a bit of a cop-out when compared to the narrative it debunks. It's great, and so damn unexpected, which can only be attributed to the careful handling along the way. 
Undercover When parts of a map to the location of $4m of stolen loot suddenly start to turn up on the streets of LA, scumbags from the underworld set about trying to located them all to get their hands on it. Sometimes, unusual measures are called for when dealing which such cases, and Columbo goes undercover to infiltrate the slime who'll stop at nothing to find all the missing pieces. When wading through sewers, don't expect the good Lieutenant to come up smell of roses... Falk's desperation to find new material to mould into Columbo scripts led him to his second (and thankfully final...) use of an Ed BcBain 87th Precinct book, this time his 1972 novel Jigsaw. Again, we find Columbo with a pre-fab group of fellow officers who seem to be him constant companions - which also never rings true - but this time, there's a Maltese Falcon-esque element, with a race to solve to acquire the pieces of a map in a treasure hunt. It's all very un-Columbo-like, and the material surrounding it just isn't very good. You know something's deeply wrong when a great character-actor like Burt Young is phoning in his role, one clearly beneath him in the writing stakes. Speaking of "wrong", the presentation of the titular Lieutenant here is probably the worst in the show's entire run. This time round, he's the average hard-boiled detective, all kicking-in-doors and drawing his gun - is this really the same guy who feigned his way out of taking his firing-range test? He's also "off" when it comes to his personality, much more in keeping with Ed McBain than Levinson/Link, which also includes our hero being knocked unconscious at key moments, ripped right from the pages of dimestore detective fiction. Oh, and Columbo changing into a new pair of strides affords us a look at much more Falk-flesh than we ever really wanted to. With all that's shite, is there anything good about it? Well, we get the deeply cool Harrison Page (Russ Meyer's Vixen!, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, TV's Sledge Hammer!) playing Columbo's captain, and a real tonic he is, too! We also get a repeat visit from Tyne Daly, rolling up again after her turn in A Bird in the Hand, and really showing her thespian chops this time around. Here, she's a past-her-prime hooker, in possession one piece of the McGuffin map they're all looking for, and almost walks away with the episode despite only a few minutes of screen-time. The chemistry between her and Falk is instant, and brings a welcome touch of class to such a piss-poor episode. In the first use of swearing in Columbo, Falk's wife (and abrasive actress) Shera Danese sums up the entire sorry mess in one word: "BULLSHIT!" Strange Bedfellows Graham McVeigh (Cheers' George Wendt) is very frustrated man. He's a top-flight racehorse breeder and making pots of money... if it wasn't for his loser brother frittering it away on illegal betting. With an untried champion about to race, he tips his worthless brother off to put a huge bet on it winning. Wanting him out of the way once and for all, McVeigh slips his horse a Mickey-Finn and stages a phony “revenge" hit, keeping his hands clean and planting "evidence" to connect it to the mafia. When things spiral out of control, and the local Don (Rod Steiger!!) ramps his reprisals, it's up to another Italian to get to the bottom of the mystery... The casting of the portly Wendt is a curious one. Sure, he was riding high as Norm at the time TV's Cheers was in process of calling time, and it's logical to cast a beloved actor in the midst of their popularity, but to have a thespian of Wendt's distinctive build in a role which requires him to wear a disguise to avoid detection is like sticking a Groucho Marx Disguise-Kit on a bear in hope of not drawing attention. Steiger, on the other hand, is perfect casting. He brings real gravitas to the role of Vincenzo Fortelli, and bagged an Emmy for his troubles. The scenes between him and Falk crackle with energy, and both clearly respected the other, bringing out the best in both of them. It has to be said that many fans HATE that Columbo would collude with the mafia, which wasn't limited to having his suspect roughed up by both the men in shark-skin suits AND the boys in blue! To a number of ardent enthusiasts, the good lieutenant's integrity goes flying out the window faster than a fart from a speeding car. Sure, there are plot-holes and inherent risks to the gambit, but Columbo walks away from the situation with his suspect in once piece, in spite of how his reputation might appear. What really irritates me personally about this episode is two-fold. Firstly, Columbo tells Mafioso don Steiger than his Italian has fallen into disuse, no longer being able to speak it. Now, this is crap, as he was shouting accusations at poor Mario in his native language in Murder Under Glass with linguistic ease and alarming ferocity. The other irritation is that there was the opportunity for the perfect closer to the episode, but never realised. By the close, the Shabby 'Tec has earned the don's respect - even admiration - and they part on good terms. All they needed was to have the walking-off Falk turn round and say: (cue translations) "One more thing, Sir - a good Italian NEVER forgets...". This would signal that Columbo has been privy to all supposedly private conversations held by the mafia, genuinely got one over on the don. Even more admiration gained! It's a rather odd Columbo story, one where a more considered choice of baddie would have taken care of, and a few qualifiers regarding a reluctance to go into partnership with the mafia might have stopped concerns before they arose. Still, the only way was down from this, to... A Trace of Murder Abrasive billionaire Clifford Calvert (Barry Corbin) is being sued over supposed bad-investment advice. Seizing the opportunity to finally get shot of her husband (when a divorce would have left her potless) his shrewish wife Cathleen (Shera Danese) teams up with her lover (the LAPD's forensics supremo) to kill the plaintiff and frame Clifford for the murder, allowing them to dance off into the sunset together with his money. The trap is baited and the scene is set, with the key planted "evidence" against Clifford being some fur from the victim's cat, which mysteriously winds up on Clifford's jacket. Put into production so as to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Columbo (even though it came out a year late...) this was not as bad as others, but comes with problems all its own. Shera Danese (aka Mrs Falk) is cast in the leading role, and even her most subtle work overshadows Tom Baker's full-on "flashing eyes, flashing teeth" excesses, and putting her into such a key part of the production harms it no end. OK, that's bad casting, but surely the script is air-tight? Nah. Another member of the cast of Sledge Hammer is always welcome, and as assured as David Rasche always is, he can't overcome his character being the most incompetent head of forensics in the history of dramatic writing. This is the guy who almost literally wrote the book on cutting-edge detection, yet drops so many clangers you'd swear he'd been on a rampage in the Oliver Postgate studios! Their murder plot is incredibly easy to poke holes in, and surely not the work of someone who should be in a position to plan the perfect murder. As those working on the show will attest, it probably wasn't the first time Shera Danese's furry pussy has caused trouble. Beaming a ray of sunshine onto the project is the legendary Barry Corbin, who brings his unbeatable combination of pomp, redneck bluster and fun to the table and practically walks off the with episode as the unjustly accused Clifford Calvert. Even just his pronunciation of our man in the mac's name is hilarious when coming out of Corbin's mouth: "Col-um-BO", giving it an almost musical quality and using it as a metaphorical choke-chain every time he says it. With a character this fun, it seems a shame to partner him with Shera Danese, but the mis-matching helps to strengthen the story when dealing with plotting to frame the old boy. A Trace of Murder was an attempt to both celebrate the legacy of Columbo, whilst bringing it up to date with modern forensics, but both missed the mark. The cost of bringing in the new tech is that of having it to have it work around the usual Columbo style, and that sees it fall apart under microscope of logic. The other cost is to have Falk explain all this new stuff to his fellow officers, coming across as really patronising to his brother cops, when in reality, it was a way to make sure that Billy-Bob in his gator-infested swamp understood every little scrap of it. This obviously doesn't matter, as the script tends to urinate on it anyway. It's certainly a step up from dreck like Undercover, but when you have a piece of laminated deadwood as your leading lady, with all the range of a 1980s walkie-talkie set, coupled with a script shot so full of holes it could have been resurrected as Robocop, then you've got a dud. Celebrating its quarter-century? The shovels and the holes it digs for itself say otherwise. Ashes to Ashes ... funk to funky, we know his car's a pile of junky. It's time to don the black armbands as Columbo digs deep into the funeral business. When famed mortician Eric Prince (yep, it's McGoohan again!) is visited by gossip-columnist and former spouse Verity Chandler threatens to destroy him through an upcoming article about his pilfering from corpses, he turns her into a very much ex-wife and burns the evidence by stuffing her body into the coffin of another client. With the prospect of a free buffet right at the Mortician Of The Year awards under his nose, the LAPD's most food-obsessed detective is going to be filling the pocket of his raincoat with vol-au-vents aplenty - good for him, but not so great for Mr Prince... Rue McClanahan and Sally "Espers are merely people with insight" Kellerman, and all the elements that usually make for a great Columbo. So why am I setting this up to knock it down? Well, the problem is (once again) McGoohan, who indulges his penchant for whimsy to the hilt, with no-one brave enough to say: "That's a bit crap, Paddy - we're not doing it". The worst element is the aforementioned Mortician of the Year ceremony, where McGoohan has free reign and turns in the most toe-curling, teeth-grating, ball-aching thing you've ever seen on TV. Noel Edmunds included. It's dreadful, goes on forever and is insufferably smug, with tap-dancing, unfunny lounge-lizards and all the un-fun of the fair. While it was a good idea to have A Clockwork Orange star Aubrey "Nyeeeeeeeesss" Morris as MC - a man who was capable of adding a sense of irony to anything through delivery alone - even his talents couldn't do much for this. Speaking of things coming back, we get the return of a favourite plot element, that of planting a false story to throw off the cops. It almost worked in Murder by the Book, and didn't do too badly in Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous To Your Health. You'd think that Columbo would have seen through this in a millisecond, if just from experience, and audiences would be wondering why it's taking him so long to figure it out. Another minus is all the arseing around with a "funny foreigner", in the shape of funny-foreigner specialist Richard Libertini, who played such things throughout his career. We get a very Westernised version of Middle-Eastern culture, and such depictions - while wryly eyebrow-raising at the time - haven't aged well at all. The ratings for the episode were almost infamous. Here was a Columbo story starring and directed by one of its most beloved aluminises, with a decent script and lined with both recognisable and good guests, but it really tanked when it went out. YET, the pretty lousy (and alien) No Time To Die snagged a hell of a lot of viewers, so you never can tell. However, when it comes to Nielson-numbers, there was a saviour waiting in the wings (it had to wait around for two years...) to lift those numbers back up, but with McGoohan at his most interfering, it would come at a heavy price to the show's reputation... Murder With Too Many Notes Award-laden film composer Findlay Crawford (Billy Connolly) is struggling to deliver the goods the way he used to. Taking on silent partner Gabe McEnery (Chad Willett), the younger tunesmith plays Cyrano De Bergerac and passes on his work to win over audiences for his past-it mentor. But sick of living in his shadow and being denied credit, including when his work bagged Crawford an Academy award, Gabe's attempts to step out from Crawford's shadow are met with a staged "suicide" involving a fall from a great height. The community is shocked. But one man in a raincoat isn't so surprised... The backstory to this is infamous, but for those who don't know, take a gander at this: young aspiring writer and movie-music buff working at Universal submits an excellent spec-script to the Columbo producers about a murderous movie composer, and the execs are keen to get it made. Selecting Patrick McGoohan to star, he declines, instead choosing to direct, but sets about "revising" the script so as to (allegedly) secure a lucrative solo writing credit. Writer complains, it goes union arbitration, where he receives a "story by" credit only, with McGoohan bagging "screenplay by" , and the original script which Falk himself described as "ingenious" became a self-serving turd at the hands of an aging, Narcissistic drunk. This kind of stuff happens all the time in both TV and film - try looking up the events in the writing of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country or (for more explosive stuff) Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. What did this burned out, 90-proof thespian add to the script which he considered "improved" it? How about the toe-curling sequence where Crawford plays a selection of classic film scores and get Columbo to guess the titles? It's a crap premise, with choices so obvious that a child could have guessed them (at the time, of course) but our man in the mac has trouble putting a name to the pieces. The crowning idiocy is when the theme to Jaws plays, and Columbo eventually lands on: "Da fish picture...". Is this really the same guy who knew Nora Chandler's films inside and out, or knew that This Gun For Hire was the one where Alan Ladd "had the broken wrist..."? It's capering, pure and simple. Hell, his buggering around with the script even gums-up Crawford's alibi, concerning the position of the lectern. Original scribe Jeffery Cava turned in a rock-solid script, which had the mechanics of Swiss watch. McGoohan stripped some of the vital clues - you know, the ones which function as cogs - and filled it with his beloved capering, such as the 10 minutes of filler with Falk and Connolly arseing around in their cars. Yep, this was deemed more important and necessary than perfectly constructed plot mechanics. This load of old bollocks was filmed not long after Ashes to Ashes (explaining the consecutive involvement of McGoohan, and his reluctance to be the lead again so soon) but was deemed so mediocre that it sat on the shelf for two years before Universal finally vomited it into the TV schedule. Connolly was coming to the end of his surge of popularity in 90s Hollywood, and he was still a recognisable name to big audiences, and an inexpensive option for producers. With the injection of capering and comic relief which hallmarked the revival run, Connolly seemed the perfect choice to connect to flagging viewers. The major problem is that we just get Billy Connolly being The Big Yin and not much else. He has no credibility as a composer (although he wields a baton in much more convincing fashion that John Cassavettes...) and it's almost the perfect example of stunt-casting, choosing a "name" to play a role where it might have been played better by anyone else, but with the added minus of choosing a someone so explosive that he detracts from the story. There's little I can say which is positive about this, as it really rubs me up the wrong way, but I'll give it a go. This shares thematic similarities to the 1988 remake of D.O.A, including an exhaled creative running out of ideas, a young gifted nobody, pilfered ideas and the staged suicide from a great height of said nobody to cover all traces. That it at least has some connection to an entertaining film is something, I suppose. Bottom line is that if McGoohan had left the script alone - and the casting department had been less lazy in their choices - this would have been a real winner, rather than the irritating insult to a talented emerging writer who deserved better. Columbo Likes the Nightlife Justin Prince (Matthew Rhys) is on the verge of achieving his dream: rising from his success on the underground rave scene with the opening of a prestigious nightclub, all with the help of his fellow business partner. But when his girlfriend Vanessa (Jennifer Sky) accidentally kills said business partner (and ex husband...) whilst waiting for a cheque to clear, they attempt to hide the body and pretend he's still alive but only missing. Little do they know that a scumbag tabloid journalist has seen them clearing up the scene, and blackmails them. Blackmailing a killer is never a good idea, and a phoney suicide is duly staged. Unfortunately, the deceased partner kept his family-life a secret from even his wife: that his father is a mafia Don. But when the mob start closing in, Prince is going to hope that a certain other Italian is will get to him first... Up from the Ashes to Ashes came a rose of success, as our favourite wily Lieutenant takes his curtain-call. However, despite the horrifying notion of immersing Columbo in the world of Techno clubbing, this is a really decent farewell for our man in the mac. Sure, the aging 'Tec wins the hearts of some of the lovely ladies dancing the night away, but he just takes it all with bemusement rather than trying to be hip or treating their attentions as an invitation. We see Columbo doing more proper detective work than the rest of the revival run combined. He's going through files, cross-referencing, chasing up leads and everything else which usually gets crime solved. Special mention must got to the scene where he interviews the hotel maid about the missing guest - what starts of rather frosty (and vaguely patronising ) becomes a great double-act, and Falk clearly has fun with it, showing some genuine amusement and really endearing those watching. It's a relief that Falk plays things almost completely straight this time round, with none of the grand gestures and overblown mannerisms which had plagued the character since Patrick McGoohan told him to dial everything up to 11 during the shoot of Last Salute to the Commodore. It's refreshing to see such a focused Columbo, and many suspect that the initial stages of Falk's mental decline played a part in this, as it left him depleted of "fight", and just played things as they were on the page, rather than trying to embellish it with the usual capering. Evans is also really good, playing an arrogant bastard who was probably a perfectly reasonable guy before circumstances turned against him. His scenes with Falk are a joy to watch, as they share a real chemistry, even getting an unscripted chuckle from the veteran actor at one point. The two met when working together on the BBC's adaptation of The Lost World two years earlier, and he clearly liked Evans enough to cast him in Columbo. It's no secret that the network wanted younger actors cast in leading roles this time around, dictated so as to help get "the kids" watching, but it really works! Evans is great, and former model Sky is wonderful to look at, even if her character is relegated to "problematic worrier" status. Latching onto the trail of stardust is the casting of Sopranos star Steve Shirripa as a personable mobster, and - once again - is another actor who really plays well off of Falk. Everything just works here. In line with the decent police-work running right through this story, he's joined by an entire department in his efforts to make the bust. His interaction with the rest of his fellow officers comes across as genuine, as opposed to the synthetic bunch thrust upon him in the two Ed McBain-derived scripts. They're clearly used to Columbo's eccentricities, and let him go about his business, harnessing his unique perspective and dogged determination. Sure, they may look incredulously as he sniffs the mouth of a "suicide" case, or wonder what the hell he's doing when taking off the same victim's shoes & socks, but they clearly know his methods deliver results. He's gone from oddball radical to elder statesman, and what better way to bring things to a close? Speaking of which, It's fitting that it ends with Columbo respectfully turning down a favour from the Mafia, demonstrating his integrity on his final bow. But... ...unfortunately, the same wasn't the case with both Falk and Columbo afterwards. it was around this time that Falk was nabbed by the producers of Alias, bringing him in for a special showreel celebrating 50 years of ABC. Condescending in tone, the scene was that Columbo was brought into the high-tec show to make "easier to follow", which is a pretty damn insulting comment about Columbo, and that given that Falk is notably slower and more fragile than seen in Columbo Likes The Nightlife, it all adds up to something which really tarnished what was ended up being the last time Falk played the character. While Columbo Likes the Nightlife is a fine capper to the series, this wasn't intended as the finale. There were attempts to squeeze out one last story, originally entitled Hear No Evil, but changed to the more pointed, viewer-catching Columbo's Last Case. The script is really good, with a pretty nifty "gotcha" to be found, and some great scenes with "Dog", who even helps unmask the killer! But no matter how good the script was, it was rejected by every network in town, all of which believed that the 80-year old Falk was no longer a draw, relegating Columbo to the past.
Video
This is probably going to break a number of hearts, but all episodes are presented in 16:9 widescreen, with all but a couple cropped to this effect. The framing seems natural enough, but there are always going to be those who strenuously object to this presentation. It's not simply a case of lopping off sections of the image, as further examination shows extra information at the sides on the widescreen presentations, usually favouring the left-hand area. A consequence of opening up the entire frame and using the extra visual information on the fringes is that there are frequent occurrences of "vignetting", where a mild dark haze is sometimes seen in that area. I was OK with the re-framing, as there aren't that many instances where things look cramped, making the image a little more cinematic and freshening up the format. Cinematographers always say that an interesting composition never has its subject in exact centre of the screen, and with this in mind, the re-framing of Columbo's opening up the frame meets this criteria, and the difference is appreciable, giving it a more artier look. If the doggedly 4:3 TV series Minder can be convincingly reformatted to 1.78:1, then Columbo wasn't going to be too much of a problem! During Universal's 4K remastering, there's a real laziness to how the credits have been done, and those on Agenda For Murder are a case in point. The show closes with a freeze-frame of Falk and McGoohan, leading to a fade-to-black. The same image is used under the end credits, but the 4:3 image is now stretched across the 16:19 screen so as to take the easy/cheap way out when presenting them. They could have just used a grab from the final shot and keyed-out the titles for quickly/cheaply recompositing them over it. Oh well... Comparing grabs from the US Kino Lorber edition, it seems as though the egregious filtering isn't nearly as heavy-handed on the Fabulous Films release. While some shots in titles like A Trace of Murder almost look as though they were painted in water-colour, they certainly don't look that way here. Kino attract a lot of criticism for their encoding, and it's possible that any filtering was done at the mastering stage rather than being a fault with the original materials as supplied. Looks like Fabulous Films have won this round!
Audio
Nothing bad to report here, as the DTS-HD-MA tracks are clean and uniformly presented, with a pleasing amount of dynamism, but preserving the all-important dialogue. Never once a fatiguing experience, this is a bang-up job.
Extras
You get a booklet with an episode guide.
Overall
Well, that's all folks. This has been a marathon session, going through every single episode of the entire run and refusing to merely do a "technical review". Introduced to the show by the wife (after decades of ships-in-the-night syndrome) I've watched Columbo more times than is probably healthy, but the breadth of great scripts, along with quality of actors dropping everything to appear on the show is enough to keep things on heavy rotation. With this consignment, Fabulous Films have FINALLY made good on their initial promise from six years ago and delivered all of the shambolic detective's tales, each from rock-solid 4K masters. The revival run wasn't as good as its peerless 70s innings, but it was the toughest act in the world to follow. What we get is a wider mix of the OK and the great, but all a hell of a lot of fun, with Falk as game as ever. There are some cracking guests, and some brilliant twists, and all are worthy of your time. There are few shows which have enjoyed a legacy like Columbo, where it's playing at any given time all over the world, something only Star Trek can claim equal status to. Other shows have fallen by the wayside through changing tastes and brought down by political correctness, but the man in the shabby raincoat is still out there, and showing 'em all how it's done. 
Amazon UK link Fabulous Films link
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