Columbo (1971-2003):
It seems fitting that the first TV show I post about on this journey is the first one which I can actually remember being an obsessive fan. Columbo first started airing when I was just past my 9th birthday. Sure, up to that point I had watched TV, especially Saturday morning cartoons, but I really only got into watching TV by the time I hit grade school. There were a few shows that interested me before then, including Hawaii Five-O, but until then there wasn't really any show that I made an active effort to be at home when a new episode aired.
The essence of the hook for Columbo was not trying to figure out "who done it". We, as the audience, already knew who done it. We knew the motive. We knew the intricacies of the set up of the murder and how the murderer attempted to establish his or her alibi. The attraction, the fun of watching an episode was watching Peter Falk as the title character, Lt. Columbo, try to sift through all the details and try figure out how to nail the culprit. Quite often Columbo had his suspicions early on that the murderer was the "guest villain", but he had to deduce how to work out a way to nail him (or her).
The appeal of Columbo, for me, was the great "guest villains". The fact that the show broke the mold by revealing the murderer at the very beginning was only secondary, and the concept may have worked well in the long run with just nobodies in the role of the villain, but seeing familiar (and sometimes shockingly out of character) faces in that role helped make it such a great series. Of course, if the detective hadn't been such a consummate actor himself, such as Falk was, it may have still stumbled. So, yes, it required both. My favorite episodes are based on who the actor or actress was who was battling wits with Falk as Columbo, however.
Over the course of the series (before it's initial run ended) there were several actors and actresses who really shone as the adversary to Columbo. Sometimes it would be someone who you had no problem with them playing bad guys; Robert Culp or Robert Conrad or Robert Vaughn (something about the name Robert just says "bad guy", I guess). But then, sometimes you'd get somebody who would be the last person you'd think of when casting a villain... Dick Van Dyke? Leonard Nimoy?... Ruth Gordon???
My ultimate favorite actor to go head-to-head with Falk as villain vs. hero was Jack Cassidy. Cassidy made three appearances on Columbo as the guest star (Murder by the Book, Publish or Perish and Now You See Him). He might have gone on to more, but unfortunately he died in a fire not long after the filming of the Now You See Him episode.
Now You See Him - Columbo episode (original air date February 29, 1976):
The setup is that The Great Santini (Jack Cassidy) is a renowned stage magician. But he has a secret past. You see, years ago he was a Nazi prison guard and had somehow all these years escaped being caught and tried for his war crimes. But his partner, Jesse Jerome (Nehemiah Persoff), knows about his past and has been blackmailing him under the threat of revealing his secret.
When Santini gets tired of the blackmail he arranges an elaborate ruse, staging Jerome's murder while he, Santini, is supposedly doing his famous locked in a box trick. Of course, even the most clueless viewer would know that the magician isn't really locked in the box the entire time, but the alibi hinges on the fact that Santini could not have left the hiding place under the stage without being spotted by many people who would recognize him. We, as the audience, see how he accomplishes that; he disguises himself as a waiter.
Columbo's task, therefore, when he is brought in to investigate, is to first break down the alibi. But then the real task is trying to establish a motive, and that may be the hardest part. See, Santini had destroyed all the evidence that would point to his secret past, and Columbo, who has his suspect, has no idea why Santini would do it, even though he is pretty sure that he is the guilty party.
The task for Columbo involves proving that Santini was capable of pulling off several things, including being able to open a special "unpickable" lock that Jerome had installed on his office door, as well as being able to establish an alibi that he was somewhere else during the murder. One of the key scenes is when Columbo interviews a guy who runs a magic shop (played by Thayer David).
There was always a "gotcha!" moment in the Columbo reveal moments, when the detective finally was able to put together all the evidence he needed for a conviction. The "gotcha!" moment here involves the villain being unaware of new developments in technology that caused him to overlook taking care of destroying the evidence of his crime completely. When Santini muses that he thought he had committed the "perfect murder", Columbo gets to deliver one of the most satisfying end lines of the series:
"Oh I’m sorry, there’s no such thing as a perfect murder. That’s just an illusion."
The interaction between Columbo and the villain in each episode almost always hinged on the dichotomy of class as well as perceived superiority of intelligence. Columbo represented the common man, going up against someone of a higher class (rich or privileged). But also, since the criminal thought that Columbo was a bumbling boob (a persona that Columbo cultivated to put is prey off guard), they almost always though they were much smarter than this fool of a detective.
Happy TV watching
Quiggy
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