Never Just One More Thing: Analysing Columbo’s Second Act
From the Desk of a 21st Century Columbophile
It Is a commonly accepted view of television production that should a series go on for long enough, one can separate the show in question into three ‘acts’. The first act is usually (but not always) a stumble out of the gate followed by a mad dash towards adequateness if one is very lucky. The second is often (but not exclusively) the apex of the show’s run, a golden era where any bad episode can get lost in a sea of good to great ones and if one is very lucky history is made forevermore. And finally, the third can frequently (but not inevitably) be a decline ranging from the number of good episodes outnumbering the amount of great episodes and allowing the bad to shine through, to a nosedive into outlandishness or pointlessness. See The Next Generation for a very debated example of this. [1]
But Columbo is, as per usual, not like any other show of it’s kind. In this case, a fan’s response will usually point to the first run of TV movies from 1969 to 1978 as the greatest. From there we get varying responses as to the second era of the show, stretching from 1987 to 1993. “It’s good but it’s not a patch on the original run!”, “It stinks! Peter Falk had his day in the sun a long time ago!”, “Wait, aren’t they all the same thing?” and so on and so forth. [2]
But how did we get to this point?
Peter Falk had spent most of the eighties in much the same role as he had been in the sixties. That being a familiar, reassuring face that would always bring a decent performance to whatever role was given to him. He had spoofed his most popular character, or at the very least the public perception of him, in A Muppet Mystery and would later co-operate on Henson with Where the Wild Things Are. He’d preformed as a likeable thief in a remake of the French film La bonne année and had received decent reviews of his performance despite the limited success of the film proper. He’d played himself in Wings of Desire, albeit a version of himself who had descended from on-high and shed his angelic nature to become a normal person. And he’d become a touchstone to a whole new generation though at the time he would not know it as the grandfather in The Princess Bride. But it was his role in Big Trouble, a John Cassavetes film that had never really worked out as the director had wanted, that was on his mind when he got on the plane taking him back to the States. [3]
As he had finished up acting alongside Fred Savage in Shepperton Studios, he had thought about his friend John. The director had been angry and fed-up by the end of that last film, and the drinking had grown worse. A few years down the line, Cassavetes’s drinking would catch up with him and his liver would give way. [4] Falk did not know that it really would be their last film together, but a feeling of frustration had been passed from director to actor. A feeling that, as much as he was enjoying the film work, there was nothing quite like the sensation he had experienced with Columbo. For all his annoyance, he had been able to pour more of himself into that character than he had really thought possible. He had created something truly remarkable. Why, they’d even let him direct an episode and he had done well too.
Perhaps it was this nostalgia or indeed the proverbial dump truck that NBC drove up to his house, but when he read the offer for four new TV movies starring the rumpled detective, Falk was ready and willing. Even moreso once he had read the scripts! It was not long before the cast and crew were ready to work, and 1987 would be a return to the character that Falk had loved, hated and then come to love again.
But why this offer? Well, Richard Levinson and William Link’s other most famous creation was experiencing something of a problem. The schedule of appearing in twenty two episodes of Murder She Wrote had exhausted Angela Lansbury, and though her contract had her down for five seasons total with an option to extend it further, many suspected that by the time the fifth season ended, J.B Fletcher would have written her last book. Levinson and Link had stepped back after the pilot and the set-up had been worked out, but they were still trusted by the company and were asked to create scripts to tempt the bedraggled detective out of retirement. [5]
Tragically, Levinson suffered a heart attack during the production of the ninth season of Columbo. As he was on set, he was able to be stabilized for a limited time and would occasionally make return trips to the set as part of his recovery but he would pass away not long after the fourth and final of these specials had aired. [6] Levinson, grief-stricken by the loss of his writing partner and close friend, would remain in a executive producer role alongside Falk but would write no more episodes for the show. Several reoccurring writers were drafted in, some old and some new. Most noticeable in the new column was one Chris Boucher, of Blake’s 7 and Tom Baker’s Doctor Who fame. Having written for police dramas and the incredibly odd British hero before, one caught up to speed on the nuances of American police law he was the perfect person to work on the show. And whenever people struggled to find someone to write, a quick trip to the convention circuit would yield someone in search of a job. [7] This continued until the end of the fourteenth season whereupon Falk would take a three year break from the role with the offer that if he ever wished it, as long as he was hale and hearty, he could come back and do some more for NBC. He left behind him an additional twenty eight episodes to add to the forty five made in the seventies. Listed here, for your approval:
Season 8 (1987)
"The Vanishing Man" (Guest Stars: Patrick Troughton, Willie Rushton and Barbara Bach)
"Sound and Fury" (Guest Stars: Phil Harris and Peter Allen) [8]
"The Fright of His Death" (Guest Stars: Vincent Price and Norman Wendt)
"Columbo Cries Wolf" (Guest Stars: Brian Cox and Meg Foster)
Season 9 (1988) [9]
"Paying the Piper" (Guest Stars: Diana Rigg, Martin Jarvis and Barrie Ingram)
"The Smell of Sweet Success" (Guest Stars: Jon Pertwee and Gates McFadden)
"Rocking the Cradle" (Guest Stars: Mark Hamill and Joanne Whalley)
"The Sky’s the Limit" (Guest Stars: Michael Lonsdale, Carole Bouquet and Daniel Stern)
Season 10 (1989) [10]
"Columbo Goes to the Guillotine" (Guest Stars: Anthony Andrews and Anthony Zerbe)
"Murder, Smoke and Shadows" (Guest Stars: Fisher Stevens and Jeff Perry)
"Grand Deceptions" (Guest Star: Robert Foxworth)
"Sex and the Married Detective" (Guest Star: Lindsay Crouse)
Season 11 (1990) [10]
"Murder: A Self Portrait" (Guest Star: Patrick Bauchau and Fionnula Flanagan)
"Agenda for Murder" (Guest Stars: Patrick MacGoohan, Arthur Hill and Jonathan Frakes)
"Murder in Malibu" (Guest Stars: Andrew Steven and Brenda Vacarro)
"RIP Mrs Columbo" (Guest Stars: Helen Shaver, Ian McShane and Roscoe Lee Brown)
Season 12 (1991) [10]
"Columbo Goes to College" (Guest Stars: Robert Culp, Billy Warlock and Gary Hershberger)
"Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health" (Guest Star: George Hamilton)
"Columbo and Murder of a Rock Star" (Guest Stars: Dabney Coleman and Lora Mumford)
"Death Hits the Jackpot" (Guest Stars: Rip Torn, Jaime Rose and Gary Kroeger)
Season 13 (1992)
"A Bird in the Hand" (Guest Stars: Greg Evigan, Tyne Daly and Steve Forrest) [10]
"The Ascending Lark" (Guest Stars: Jeremy Brett and Alice Krige)
"Slow Boat from China" (Guest Stars: Beau Billingslea and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) [11]
"Governing Detective Columbo" (Guest Stars: Pat Buttram and Michael Rooker)
Season 14 (1993)
"It's All in the Game" (Guest Stars: Faye Dunaway and Claudia Christian) [10]
"Once Upon a Murder" (Guest Stars: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Michael Ansara)
"Butterfly in Shades of Grey" (Guest Star: William Shatner) [12]
"A Night to Remember" (Guest Stars: Tony Jay, Amy Jo Johnson and Elizabeth Hoffman)
This era of the show is surprisingly progressive, not just for the eighties and nineties either. Several times gay relationships are alluded to and shown to be harmless at worst or just as equal as heterosexual ones. There are rarely any ethnic stereotypes, save for two or three that have aged about as well as a cow’s carcass. Boucher’s anarchic writing of Columbo, despite him being a figure of authority, continues the theme and no doubt is responsible for a great many members of the gay community adopting him as one of their own. But is that enough for the show to be actually good? [13] For my money, I would like to put forward my reasons why the second act of Columbo is my favourite. Having written a book on the subject, I would be remiss if I did not include a link to my website or information on where you can get an official copy. But if you just want a simple breakdown of my opinions, perhaps they can be best expressed through my top twelve Columbo episodes from the revival:
12: "Governing Detective Columbo" (1992).
The infamous episode where Columbo accidentally brought down the real life government of George H.W Bush. Or so many people claim in hindsight despite it really being luck that this episode aired a month or two after the allegations against the President leaked. This episode makes the list due to it’s notoriety but the only really standout thing is Pat Buttram, an oozing pervert masquerading as a kindly governor who kills his lieutenant (Michael Rooker) and his wife when the latter refuses his advances. It’s a fantastic performance, though it is mildly hysterical that such a clear parody of former Democrat front-runner Bill Clinton ended up missing completely and taking out the Republicans that Buttram was so proud to support. It’s a damn solid episode apart from that, which is why I’m placing it here at number twelve to satisfy everyone. Or more likely, no one.
11: "The Sky’s the Limit" (1988)
Ah, how bitter is irony. Michael Lonsdale owns and operates an expensive mansion in France. It is atop a cliff, near an airfield where Americans stationed fly back and forwards. His daughter (Carole Bouquet) falls for a handsome stunt pilot (Daniel Stern) who is something of a novice to polite manners. As his attempts to buy and threaten him away from his daughter fail, Lonsdale resorts to creating an undignified death for the pilot at the controls. However, he happens to have picked the one day Columbo and his wife have come to see an air-show. Lonsdale is suitably menacing but balances it with a strange pathetic neediness that creates an interesting dissonance. His horror at what he has done gradually unfolding makes for dramatic stuff, even if Bouquet’s role is not as good as it could be and the solution is either too complicated or not complicated enough.
10: "RIP Mrs Columbo" (1990)
A wonderfully done idea, striking right at the heart of our dear detective. There’s no problems here that might prevent it from being higher on the list, save for the inevitable that there was never going to be any danger of Mrs Columbo being revealed nor killed off. You had to be there though, that night when everyone thought it might be the last Columbo ever.
9: "Columbo Goes to College" (1991)
When a pair of students (Billy Warlock and Gary Hershberger) are caught plagiarizing, their lecturer (Robert Culp) announces his intention to expel them. They take revenge on him as Columbo does a course explaining the methodology of the detective. You can imagine how well that goes. [14] In an expert piece of misdirection, Culp is portrayed as possibly the murderer as he had been in his previous appearances only to be killed. A great example of showcasing that it’s not only the older privileged men who are in need of a good taking down.
8: "The Ascending Lark" (1992)
It’s another depressing one, and this time it adds a good dose of moral ambiguity to the mix. Jeremy Brett plays a long suffering violinist dying of an intensely painful cancer, and is aided throughout by his daughter (Alice Krige) who bickers with him good naturedly. Despite his best efforts, he desires to die and end the pain he is in after one last concert, and despite his wishes, his daughter assists him. She does not co-operate with Columbo for the simple reason that she does not see what she did as murder, and as the episode goes along we see an intense battle to even get her to admit that she was with him when he died. Fair play to the writers for not copping out and giving a trite explanation either. Falk’s expression as she is taken away leaves me chilled as he ponders whether he has done the right thing.
7: "The Vanishing Man" (1987)
Often referred to as the cursed Columbo episode, it’s an excellent episode to begin with. Patrick Troughton's character was originally a famous actor, but he now plays a tramp who spends his time amusing the children as his brother and his ditzy wife (Willie Rushton and Barbara Bach) amuse themselves with his money. He is driven to murder when they make plans to introduce a pollution creating nightmare that will hurt the children. The Vanishing Man refers to the disguise he comes up with (The shaving of his real beard and the purchase of a realistic false one made by an old friend) and to the way that he is not looked at due to his homeless status. Falk and Troughton play excellently off each other both comedically and dramatically. Troughton would suffer a heart attack upon being taken from the set to a Doctor Who convention, witnessing one of his favourite serials before dying in his hotel room. The heart attack scared Willie Rushton into getting his checked up, which he credits to keeping him alive. Perhaps not so cursed after all. [15]
6: "A Bird in the Hand" (1992)
An excellent example of turning the formula on it’s head. When the lover (Greg Evigan) of a sports-magnate’s wife (Tyne Daly), decides that the husband has to die, he prepares a careful trap involving a car bomb and a very careful arrangement of alibis. He arrives the next day to discover the man run over in a seemingly random accident. All is well that ends well, naturally. Except it doesn’t end. And when it does, it is not well. Both Daly and Evigan play their roles excellently and Falk matches them beat for beat.
5: "The Fright of His Death" (1987)
Okay this one is just a blast. One of the strange decisions made in the original run of Columbo was the casting of Vincent Price not as victim nor villain but as a side character who appears in two scenes. They are very fun scenes, but even so, this episode corrects that injustice. Price plays, ironically enough, a moral crusader tilting at the slasher windmill and railing against perversity and violence and filth in all forms. This is the result of his own hang-ups which he communicates via Vincent Price level ham as he resorts to killing off the director of a film shooting next-door (George Wendt). It’s a grand old ham to ham combat between detective and killer, worth watching because it’s a delightfully camp piece of art.
4: "Once Upon a Murder" (1993)
One of two tearjerkers from the last series of the first revival, this one loses out only due to the unique nature of Number 3. A pair of old theatrical actors meet up to go over the last play in a cycle that they have been trying to complete all their lives. One (Peter Cushing) is left shaken up by the arrival of a third actor (Michael Ansara) who has bragged openly about his debauched lifestyle. Said lifestyle killed Cushing’s wife in a car accident. Killing him without any remorse, Cushing awaits the police’s arrival only for his friend (Christopher Lee) to invoke a favour owed to him to try and save him from going to prison. The two real life best friends play excellently against type as Lee fights hard to save Cushing’s life even as Columbo mournfully pieces together the whole mess. Cushing’s heartbreak at the loss of his real-life wife comes through here clearly, and the final scene where the two men embrace is all the more heart-breaking when you realize this was Cushing’s last acting role. [16]
3: "It’s All in the Game" (1993)
An episode full of twists and turns with a more romantic than usual Columbo giving way to the half-mockery, half-sincerity meme of the detective and his wife being in a polyamorous relation. Two women (Faye Dunaway and Claudia Christian) contrive the murder of a man that both were sleeping with. Why they’ve done it gets revealed as the detective and Dunaway play a dangerous game with each other. Both flirt and act warmly towards each other, and it becomes clear that neither of this is an act. Peter Falk wrote this episode and often punctures his own ego as he goes along, making for a romantic, dark story that shows the lieutenant in a new light.
2: "Columbo Cries Wolf" (1987) [17]
The last full script that was contributed to by both of Columbo’s creators and it’s a doozy. Arranged for the final of the eighth series, it tells of a married couple (Brian Cox and Meg Foster) who own a men’s magazine. Amidst the chaos of their marriage, she plans to sell her shares to a more powerful company. When she is due to get on the next flight, she vanishes and leaves Columbo with quite a mystery to solve. It’s full of twists and turns and the Hugh Hefner inspired character that Cox plays is wickedly enjoyable. One of the few times that the Lieutenant is flummoxed too, which makes his eventual triumph all the better. Possibly it should be first on the list and yet….
1: "A Night to Remember" (1993)
In truth, this episode should probably not be in the top spot. But it is my favourite, and I am the writer, so get off my back already! The last members of a family bloodline that is dying out feud over who gets to have the inheritance of one of their ancestors. Tony Jay plays a conceited head surgeon and landowner who happens to get one of his relations under the knife. He contrives to make it appear that his relation suffered a heart attack at the wheel of his sportscar. With her aunt (Elizabeth Hoffman) suffering from dementia, it’s up to the one good woman in his family (Amy Jo Johnson) to ask friend of the family Detective Columbo to investigate. Everyone is on point here, and there’s plenty of fun slob vs snob matchups. But what really makes it better is Columbo moving in temporarily to assist with the transition of the old lady to a care home and through fun intergenerational conflict is clearly considered one of the family by the niece. Once the chaos is all done, one of the nicest wrap-ups tops a good old fashioned Columbo episode. She asks if he will come back and see her. And with a gravelly chuckle and a shaking of the head, he agrees warmly before shambling off with Dog in tow to the triumphant notes of ‘This Old Man’. Sometimes it’s the old tricks that show how good the dog really is. [18]
[1] Debatable, obviously, but given that there are arguments with regards to the twist in TNG IITL I figured it would be a good shorthand to use.
[2] All echoing the OTL feeling to what we refer to as the ABC seasons.
[3] All, bar Where the Wild Things Are, according to OTL. I am willing to edit these if necessary.
[4] I can’t imagine that there would be an effective way to save Cassavetes given the amount of damage he had already done to his liver. At best, maybe he gets a year or two more than in OTL but I’m willing to state that he dies on the same date IITL.
[5] Both of these facts are true! Levinson and Link had stepped away from full time maintenance of Murder She Wrote after the first season, though they would remain credited forever after. I’ve had a hard time working out why in particular, TV Tropes suggests that it’s a result of Levinson dying but that didn’t happen until halfway through season 3. I’ve gone with them wanting a challenge here, but if there is a reason, I’ll update it. As for Lansbury herself, it’s generally accepted that the fifth season of the show was set up to be the last given the somewhat definitive ending that the two-part finale has. She was already feeling burned out on the series at that point, and for three or four seasons afterwards she has a dramatically reduced workload. Often you’ll see poorly disguised pilots, sometimes written by Jessica or sometimes about people Jessica knows and so on and so forth. Whether you want Murder She Wrote to end here is entirely up to you, I’ve left it ambiguous either way.
[6] I’ve fudged a little here, I don’t think it’s without possibility that Levinson might survive for a little longer if given prompt medical treatment but it would obviously be ridiculous for him to last the full year.
[7] Boucher will alternate between the US and the UK, mostly his job will be seeing that a good quality of scripts is maintained throughout. Among some of the others he’ll bring in are Lance Percival and Jeremy Lloyd, writers of the murder mystery-gameshow hybrid Whodunnit in the UK.
[8] I figure I’ll add quick recaps here for ones not covered in the countdown. Phil Harris acts as an old fashioned comedian/singer being upstaged by Peter Allen’s younger up and comer, so kills him. Not a bad one, but it’s definitely middling.
[9] "Paying the Piper"=Martin Jarvis and Diana Rigg conspire to kill a fellow politician to prevent him veoting their ascension to proper cabinet status. Columbo happens to be the UK at the time. The performances are great, the plot not so.
"The Smell of Sweet Success"=Pertwee plays a collector of rare orchids who is secretly selling them on the black market, he kills his shop assistant when she finds out. Pertwee plays well but his backstage friction with Falk over the changes in script produces an uncomfortable tension that mars a decent script.
"Rocking the Cradle"= Mark Hamill plays a spoiled rich kid grown up, infuriated that Joanne Whalley is not falling for his ‘charms’ he conspires to cause an accident with the intention of saving her. When she dies, he covers up and blames it on his rival. Again, it’s a decently average episode elevated by Hamill’s performance against type.
[10] Generally these episodes remain similar to their OTL counterparts save for the substitution of certain actors (i.e. Jonathan Frakes appears in Agenda for Murder to make it a more prominent role.)
[11] On his way back from vacation, Columbo meets up with an interpol agent played by Beau Billingslea on the trace of a notorious criminal from the Triad. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa seems to be the obvious target, but he is alibied when someone else is murder by the detective himself. A decent script and good performances from the three leads is marred by bad music, the occasional racist gag and a poor climatic reveal.
[12] With the renewed coverage of Columbo thanks to accidentally becoming very topical, the right wing starts to froth at the new leftist Columbo. The episode is thus very similar to it’s OTL counterpart but now Shatner isn’t just a Rush Limbaugh type but a right wing television host as well.
[13] Think the internet’s current obsession with Columbo amplified a good bit by a mixture of accidental and deliberate progressive attitudes and a general lack of traditional police tropes.
[14[ In OTL, Culp plays a practically one scene role as the father of the lead boy. He takes over the lecturer’s role to throw long time fans off the scent, and I substituted Billy Warlock in given his heartthrob image at the time.
[15] Okay this one is just pure indulgence on my part. I like Willie Rushton, it’s possible that he’s in better condition for the operation that kills him in OTL. Troughton’s fate is also as OTL, no way to butterfly that away given his work schedule.
[16] Technically, as per OTL, they finish work on a Hammer Horror documentary. But it’s here that they act together for the last time, and Lee serves as real life support for the ailing Cushing. Their relationship, and Cushing’s grief over his wife, is all OTL.
[17] According to research, it is the last script written by Link for the series and is credited with his partner as with all his scripts. It’s easy to imagine them coming up with the idea during that first season’s heavier involvement, otherwise it proceeds as OTL despite being made a few years earlier.
[18] Once the timeline moves towards the early 2000’s, I’d be happy to add another update covering the third and final act of Columbo. We’re at seventy-three episodes, four more than OTL ever covered. It would be interesting to see where we end up at the end of it.
