Review: Columbo, Seasons 4-7

In which I continue to make my way through the original run of Columbo. (The first three seasons discussed HERE). And even when the show falters, there’s Peter Falk. After this many episodes, there’s plenty of meh episodes as with any show, and by the end it’s clear that everyone is running out of steam, but I think that the second half of the show’s original run contains some of the best episodes they made.

"An Exercise in Fatality". Robert Conrad plays a fitness guru who commits murder and it’s amusing (and the fact that Conrad was working out, about to work out, finishing working out in pretty much every scene is amusing) and it’s well done, but overall just okay.

"Negative Reaction". Always nice to see Dick Van Dyke and especially nice to see him play against type, as he does beautifully here. The episode also has some emotional weight. There are episodes where you empathize with the murderer and there are episodes where you empathize with the murdered and he does a great job of setting a guy up for the murder of his wife.

"By Dawn's Early Light". Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner himself!) runs a military academy in this episode filmed at South Carolina’s The Citadel who murders the President of the Board to prevent the school going co-ed. Seeing Columbo spend a couple days sleeping in the dorm and bonding with the kids is fun. It doesn’t come together, in part because how he solves it isn’t great, but the individual elements are great.

"Troubled Waters". Ben Gazzara returns to direct an episode set on a cruise ship where Columbo and his wife are on vacation. We never see her, though we do see him shouting and chasing after her a few times. It guest stars Robert Vaughan, Dean Stockwell, Patrick Macnee. The story is fine, but overall the episode is enjoyable with great acting and lots of little moments, these small scenes of Falk walking around talking with people onboard that make it work.

"Playback". Not the first and not the last episode where it was all about the high tech gadgets used to provide an alibi. And it works and is well done but overall, just an okay episode. Though it does star Gena Rowlands (like Falk, part of the Cassavetes crew doing amazing film work during this same period) and Oskar Werner (Jules himself! Guy Montag! Ship of Fools!) as her murderous husband.

"A Deadly State of Mind". The last episode of the season and like the first one, it’s fine, it works, I liked it, but the biggest problem is how the murderer played by George Hamilton commits two murders. The second one is especially goulish, but it almost becomes an immediate afterthought as they’re trying to nail him for the first murder. And I get it, but emotionally, it doesn’t quite work and left me unsatisfied.

"Forgotten Lady". One word: Wow. Season five kicks off with an episode starring Janet Leigh, who we all know from Psycho, and here she plays an aging actor. It also features clips from an old musical of hers, Walking My Baby Back Home. Leigh is just perfect. And though i’ve seen her in many films over the years, the ones that stick out, the big films, she wasn’t the main focus, but here she shows that she had dramatic chops, that she could dance, that she could do so much more than we remember from watching Psycho and Touch of Evil. The story is great. The ending and the twist at the end are perfect, which is shocking but also makes perfect sense given everything we know. Honestly, one of the very best episodes of the series.

"A Case of Immunity". Sigh. It’s the 70s and it’s about an Arab diplomat murdering people. Also, none of the Arabs are played by Arabs. It was bad. I mean, it could have been worse. It’s no worse than a lot of shows have done in the 21st century, but still. Ugh.

"Identity Crisis". Patrick McGoohan returns - in an episode he directed - with he and Leslie Nielsen playing spies. AOf course there are a few good references to The Prisoner. I won’t claim that it was a great episode, but I loved it. Again, one of those episodes where Falk and the guest stars make it enjoyable and worth watching and more than the sum of its parts.

"A Matter of Honor". Not a great episode, but it’s saved by having a great murderer, in this case played by Ricardo Montalban, who is always amazing. But other than him, the episode is just okay.

"Now You See Him...". Jack Cassidy returns to the show, this turn playing a murderous magician. And it is a good episode and it’s well done in so many ways, but there’s one big problem. When the magician was a young man, he was a nazi prison guard, lied on his immigration forms, and he’s trying to keep this a secret. The problem is simply that there is an element of play in the series. In most mystery series, really. There are some characters you love and some you hate, but it’s a game, and making one of them a nazi who has no problem killing to cover this up, it’s impossible to have some distance and see it as a game. And honestly that ruins what would be a very good episode because quite simply, he’s not a man covering up his past and trying to get away with it, he’s a murderous nazi.

"Last Salute to the Commodore". This episode, written by Jackson Gillis and directed by Patrick McGoohan, is apparently one of the series’ most controversial episodes. And I can see why it’s hated, because it breaks from the formula. Personally that didn’t bother me. It wasn’t a great episode, which I think was part of the problem. (If you break the formula and deliver something great, that’s one thing, if it’s not great, well…). But honestly I enjoyed that we didn’t see the murder, we saw someone covering up the murder. That was the first clue that all was not as it seemed. And then that person ends up dead. So I didn’t hate it, and I appreciate them trying something different. It just didn’t come together. I mean honestly I had to pause and think about who was the murderer when typing this.

"Fade in to Murder". Season 6 opens with William Shatner playing an actor playing a colorful TV detective - who is being blackmailed by his producer/former lover over the fact that he was a deserter during the Korean War (which makes me think that he and Don Draper, sorry, Dick Whitman, were hanging out together and…well, anyway). It’s amusing, enjoyable. It involves what was then cutting edge technology. Walter Koenig makes a cameo as a cop. Not great, but I loved every minute. And what a closing line.

"Old Fashioned Murder". So I’m a little in love with Joyce van Patten. I’m struggling to remember what else I’ve seen her in, or maybe I just have a thing for brilliant hard working spinsters who suffer in silence. But as the person keeping the family museum going and insistent that it continue, she hires a no account ex con security guard and then sets him up, murdering him and her brother, so that she can take control of things. Her niece, who might be her daughter (long story) played by Jeannie Berlin (I also love Jeannie Berlin, but I knew that going into the episode) is caught in the crossfire. Just incredible writing and incredible acting and perfectly put together. Really affecting and I’ll make the argument for it being one of the series’ best.

"The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case". An entertaining episode with a murderer who is both loathsome but whom by the end, it’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for. And it’s episodes like these where the writing is just so perfect, those lines that are so sharp and has those little moments that made the show what it was. Also, just three episodes, what a short season.

"Try and Catch Me". Ruth Gordon essentially plays Agatha Christie and murders her late niece’s former husband, whom she blames for her niece’s death. (A death btw that is essentially how Natalie Wood died four years after the episode aired….just sayin’….). Anyway, I love Ruth Gordon. For so many reasons. I mean, her work as a writer is incredible (Adam’s Rib, A Double Life, etc.) but her performances, especially Maude in Harold and Maude, not to mention Rosemary’s Baby. This is one of those episodes where you can see that Columbo knows almost immediately that she’s the murderer, but he’s also taken by her as well. You can’t not like her, you can’t not feel for her, but she found an especially brutal way to kill him. And how the no account nephew managed to finger his murderer while trapped in a dark safe was impressive. And if that’s not enough, this was the first Columbo episode directed by James Frawley, best known for directing The Muppet Movie and The Monkees TV show.

"Murder Under Glass". An episode set in the restaurant world directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Louis Jourdan as a murderous critic. Also it’s nice to see Falk do things that aren’t strictly related to his job and watching him cook was entertaining. Even if it took him too long to figure out the murderer.

"Make Me a Perfect Murder". The episode has moments but overall, not great, and too long! There were a few points where I left the room and came back because it was moving slowly and I could still hear it and wasn’t missing anything. It felt padded. Also, the episode gets points taken off for the clue centering around changing film reels. I’ve lost track of just how many episodes where that was a clue.

"How to Dial a Murder". Honestly chilling. I mean there are unrepentant killers on the show, but the guy trained his dogs to kill a man and then was willing to let the dogs be killed. Cold blooded. But a solid and very clever episode featuring small appearances by Kim Cattrall and Ed Begley, Jr. Every aspect is well done and the tense brutality gives the show a slightly different feel than the average episode, without ever veering off to make anyone feel like they’re watching something else.

"The Conspirators". An IRA gun smuggling plot involving a poet that fails for me because I never understood the killer’s motive. I mean we know what he says to the guy before killing him, we know what he says to others afterwards, and while he says the guy is a traitor, he seems to be the only know who knows this and has seen proof of it. Then he’s struggling to find the guy’s supplier, because he didn’t plan ahead or tell anyone else he was going to do it. Overall an odd episode in many ways. Not bad, but also a sign that the show was starting to run its course.

And thus ends the series. As with most series, it ended with a whimper. Which is how most shows end, to be fair. Even in the final season there were still good episodes, still enough there to remind viewers of what made the series so good.