Columbo: just one more thread

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knox: Oct 28, 2004

I was surprised there wasn't already a thread for the Columbo superfans so figured I'd make one. Not sure what made me watch it during covid lockdown, possibly :filez:

though I do know the series was having a surge in popularity/people watching it likely because of whatever streaming service promoting it I guess and some articles being written so maybe that piqued my interest. I can't think of a more beloved character whose appeal spans every country & generation, shoutout Peter Falk man. It's overtaken The Office as my girlfriend's comfort show; she's become obsessed with Columbo/Peter Falk in general.

I've read a lot of Columbophile blog posts, watched interviews with co-creator William Link, and just generally looked into more of the history of the show. Link said the original inspiration for Columbo came from the Dostoevsky novel Crime and Punishment, the detective character Porfiry Petrovich. I loved hearing this because Dostoevsky is my favorite novelist by far, makes a lot of sense one of his characters would be the inspiration for the archetype. He also said after the 2 pilot films did really well and NBC wanted to run 20+ episodes a year, Peter said hell no because he didn't like having no social life when he was doing Trials of O'Brien series, so he only agreed to do the 9 Columbo episodes a year as part of some rotating group of shows. If he wasn't such a degenerate we could've gotten 60+ prime yung Columbo episodes, but what can ya do. Obviously the first 7 seasons are of higher quality than the rebooted modern episodes, though there are a handful later episodes that are still good- Columbo Goes to College and the one with the guillotine comes to mind.

Discuss your top 5 episodes / worst 5 / favorite killers / whatever.

Shoutout Lupin III for showing us Columbo's kid Boronco is a straight shooter.