Columbo: Murder without Mystery.

I’ve always been partial to consuming media that is often older than I am. Old films, old history, old shows, old music, I love it all. It could likely be a combination for gathering my knowledge and wisdom from as many different sources as possible and to also impress folk from previous generations, reminding them that not all newer generations are ignorant to what came before them.

I’ve shocked a local mum when I sang the Golden Girls theme song. I shocked an elderly co-worker at Disney when I whistled the tune in “Steamboat Willie”. I could go on.

Old TV shows I have enjoyed on the occasional episode, but I never enjoyed them enough to warrant hunting them down and watching them in their entirety.

Until I found “Columbo”.

Praised as one of the greatest mystery/detective shows and featuring one of television’s most famous detective’s, “Columbo” shook up the genre in ways that likely still resonate today.

And I cannot get enough of it.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, “Columbo” was a crime detective show as previously mentioned, but on all accounts, I technically can’t call it a murder mystery. It ran from the 60’s to somewhere around the 90’s, my dad himself recalls having watched it on occasion when he was a young tyke.

The show was episodic in nature, so allow me to paint a picture of what the average episode was like.

The first thing that makes “Columbo” stand out from every other show in its genre, is the setup of the murder.

You may be accustomed to the dead body being found, the suspects rounded up and then the sharp protagonist pieces everything together minute by minute until everything finally falls into place. Usually, the killer is revealed right at the end, and the way in which they committed the crime is also divulged. “Murder she Wrote” is a great example of this (this is another retro show I highly recommend. Angela Lansbury is fantastic).

“Columbo” on the other hand, quite literally, flips this entire process on its head, or should I say, in reverse.

Within the first few minutes of the average episode, we watch the killer commit the murder in its entirety with no curtains drawn. The victim, the murder weapon, the crime scene, it is even revealed the motive and build-up before the crime and why the killer was pushed to their homicidal ends.

Nothing is withdrawn and the crime is laid to us as bare as an open cookie jar in a preschool.

Then of course, we see the killer’s attempts to outmanoeuvre prosecution from the authorities.

Enter Lieutenant Columbo, a dishevelled, bumbling, unassuming, hum drum detective who seems to only be hanging around for the pay check, wearing what is probably the most chameleon-like façade I’ve ever seen. That and a long swaying raincoat and a thick cigar in his hand.

And so, in depriving ourselves of the mystery, we get something else altogether… intrigue.

Every single scene involving the killer becomes more tense and more entertaining to watch when you understand the context and their motivations as to why they behave the way they do.

Look at these scenes from a traditional murder mystery perspective assuming you don’t know who the killer is.

“A casual conversation about the case with the detective” becomes “desperately trying to sway suspicion away from myself while still being polite to the detective”.

“Taking a deep breath from a long and tiring day” becomes “Thank god the police have left my house, what a relief. Now I can properly dispose of the murder weapon”.

“Fainting from hearing how my husband might have been murdered” becomes “Fainting because Columbo randomly theorized in near perfect detail how I killed my husband, how did he guess it so perfectly? He doesn’t even suspect me at all yet… or does he?”.

In summary, “Whodunnit?” becomes “How is Columbo going to piece everything together and nail this sucker?”.

This is all without even mentioning the exceptional acting from Peter Falk, who I believe fully encapsulates the witty Lieutenant to a T.

It’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, Peter was just born for the role.

All his scenes with the killer are always top notch, his mannerisms always a hoot to watch. Fumbling around his clothes to find his pen, fussing with a match to light his cigar, hopping out of his bent-out-of-shape car, there’s always something that gets in the way.

Columbo almost always gets on the nerves of the killer too, diverting away from discussion about the crime to something random and arbitrary like a story about his wife (who is never seen in the entire show’s runtime by the way) or some distant family member, or pointing out something in the room. It’s like his mind is active and roaming like a curious puppy, never knowing how to concentrate on one particular thing.

Apparently, Peter himself would often improvise these tangents to irritate the actual actors he worked with. Personally, I think it shows. Especially when he always seems like he’s about to leave before turning right quick and asking for “just one more thing”, much to the torment and rolling eyes of the killer/actor.

But that is the beauty of Columbo’s character, it’s all a comical front. It is not until towards the climax of the episode when the killer is cornered that Columbo sheds the daft aura and reveals the keen, sharp, observational, intelligent, and ferociously cunning detective that lies beneath the shabby raincoat.

Nine times out of ten, Columbo already had the killer pinned down by the end of the second or even first act. After that, it was simply a matter of finding proof.

And it never gets old, you love to watch it happen every time, as the killer scrambles and makes every effort to evade the Lieutenant’s investigations to no avail.

If you have never seen the show, I highly recommend you check out an episode when you can, especially when each one has an average runtime of an hour and a quarter, like little mini-movies. That to me, is the icing on the cake, adding depth and time to dish out the slow burn. I don’t think a show with this premise could deliver the punch it gives in a half-hour slot, it’s just too good to put a cap on.

It's a timeless classic for a reason and it’s now my Sunday morning brunch show. Now I look forward to Sundays!

Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!

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• Daniel