I have been watching
Columbo. Lots of
Columbo. Some have suggested an unhealthy amount of
Columbo. Been watching some of it with my parents, and my dad sat me down for A TALK today which turned out to be a
Columbo intervention where he suggested he would not help me perpetuate this evidently deviant behavior.
There isn't a whole lot to say about this show, when you really break it down. It's another crime drama that happened to have a pretty decent cast much of the time. You watch this show for
Peter Falk, your episode count will only grow as far as you can tolerate seeing a grown man repeatedly knock things over and stumble unsuccessfully through his pockets for things he's misplaced. But I totally dig Peter Falk, and I don't normally give much of a shit about actors. There's some novelty in those everyman actors, those
Joseph Cotten types that just feel like some regular dude you spoke to for half a minute at the hardware store. If anything can be said for actors like that, it's that they can make otherwise grandiose or unreal stories more relatable, brings the action a little closer to home and makes it something that can potentially hit you a little harder. Falk does more with that than any actor I'm really aware of, and I think there's real beauty in his performances, going pretty far beyond how much more accessible he makes everything he's in.
Columbo is cool because you watch it and are immediately struck with the question "But wait, this guy is repulsive and pedantic, and yet there is beauty in how repulsive and pedantic he is. Does this mean I can be beautiful even though I am repulsive and pedantic." And Columbo is a great show because the answer to that question is invariably yes.
But again, there isn't much beyond that, really. I guess if anything it's a neat angle on crime dramas, where you see absolutely everything and then follow this exceedingly regular guy try to pull it all apart. And it's a nice antidote to all the super-edgy/super-violent cop dramas by featuring this genuinely harmless guy who doesn't even carry a gun, and even manages to make ultra-vanilla cop characters like Joe Friday look like Dirty Harry.
Just fun stuff, even if some individual episodes can be hit or miss.
PS I don't care about canon and shit, but Columbo is a lot more fun when you just elect to believe that
Der Himmel über Berlin is essentially part of the Columbo canon. This is NOT AT ALL PERTINENT INFORMATION but I am putting this here and you aren't going to stop me.