The sound of staccato typing drifts into earshot as a car drives down a sparse LA street. The camera continues to pull back, and back, and back, as if we’re in the opening minutes of Coppola’s hallucinatory The Conversation. The typing continues. The name of the show’s young director is stamped on to the screen: Steven Spielberg. We’re pulled back further until, finally, we’re inside the office of an author. He doesn’t know it, but he’s about to be murdered.
We’re watching the first episode of Columbo. Something equal parts refined and deftly chaotic is about to unfold.
I somehow dodged Columbo growing up. During lockdown, people began to recommend this beloved crime series more than ever, but its cultural reach is staggering. Columbo’s always been huge in Japan – in fact, the only place you can get the whole series on Blu-ray is Japan, where it’s sold in an actual cigar box. On an unassuming street in Budapest, there’s a lifesized statue of Columbo, accompanied by his dog, Dog. (The man is sublimely unpretentious.) The actor Peter Falk was once asked by the US state department to record a message for Romania, in order to prevent riots there when the show ended. (He even did it in Romanian.) And he roasted Dean Martin in character.
The show – and Falk – won multiple Emmys, and was graced by the likes of John Cassavetes, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick McGoohan, Martin Sheen, Dean Stockwell, Pat Morita and Vincent Price. And it’s been sitting there, untouched, by rubes like me until right now, when we need it the most.
Part of what made Columbo a worldwide sensation was its inverse pyramid narrative structure. Each episode starts with the murder, meaning we know who did it and how. Whether it’s a jilted lover forced to cover up a tragic accident or a machiavellian mastermind carefully constructing a murder plot of horrifying intricacy and guile, we know what they did; we’re in on the ground floor. But then … he arrives.
Frank Columbo might be … no, strike that, Frank Columbo is the greatest TV detective of all time. Falk’s turn as the titular hero is the stuff of legend. He brings a completely guileless charm to the shamelessly working-class lieutenant who, much to the chagrin of his frequently upper-class foes, is a genius.
He’s a rumpled, uncomplicated man, devoted to his offscreen wife and kids and his shitbox Peugeot 403 Cabriolet. But his ability to wander into a crime scene, swiftly form a hunch, and then apply an almost unstoppable, glacier-like logic to the problem always leads to a collar.
Also, he’s nice. This might seem inconsequential, but it means that the ocean of incredible character actors who saunter through the halls of Columbo often form fascinating relationships with him. More than once, he’s established something approaching friendship with those he’s zeroing in on (Johnny Cash might be the best example, in a particularly brilliant piece of acting in season three).
Columbo’s unwavering ability to remain polite in the face of abuse means that, with a small handful of exceptions, he never lets his ego push him towards making stupid mistakes. He’s a sweet, simple, salt-of-the-earth scruffball who calmly spots holes in an argument and simply will not stop until those holes are filled. I love the guy – honestly, if I knew it would get me three or four days of bantering with Columbo, I’d off someone in a needlessly elaborate manner tomorrow.
Lest we forget, there is also this lovely bronze work of #Columbo and Dog in Budapest, Hungary, which was unveiled in 2014. Every city should have one! pic.twitter.com/gVIIhz45BN
— Lieutenant Columbo (@columbophile) October 6, 2021
The problem with most shows revolving around (apparently) brilliant problem-solvers? The easiest way to make a villain and their plan seem smart – thereby raising the stakes – is to make everyone, including the hero, dumber. But you can’t dumb down Columbo and have him not know who did it – after all, we know. It’s finding out how Columbo is going to pin it on his suspect that forms the crux of the show.
We’ve seen the crime being carried out, so the writers can’t just use obfuscation and filler to pad out Columbo’s journey towards his conclusion. Columbo trusts us to become part of the deductive process.
Falk played Columbo in this sublime TV show’s initial run from 1971 to 1979. There was a lengthy hiatus, after which the show returned in 1989; from then, it continued sporadically until 2003. There are about 10 good episodes from the modern run, but the God-tier stuff is in the original series, and that’s where you’ll start watching.
Do yourself a favour. Serve up a bowl of chilli, turn the lights off, and dive into the first two seasons (which are, for now, all that are available to stream on Apple TV+ in Australia). And tell someone else to watch it once you’re done. They’ll thank you for it.
