Columbo - S/D

*sees softball coming over the plate, takes a swing*
Is a bizarre technicality similar to a bizarre gardening accident?

These episodes are on 5USA tomorrow - any favourites?

10:05 Murder In Malibu (1990)
12:00 Murder - a Self Portrait (1989)
13:55 Short Fuse (1972)
15:25 Murder Under Glass (1978)
17:00 Grand Deceptions (1989)
19:00 Murder, Smoke and Shadows (1989)

Murder Under Glass is pretty fun.

That's the Demme one? It is wonderfully dated, with the worst 1970s food you can imagine.

I wouldn't bother with the ones from 1989+.

I have been known to enjoy some of the later ones, though 70s are generally better of course.

Short Fuse has Roddy McDowall and an unusually tense climax.

Started watching this with our kid, first episode we watched was MURDER BY THE BOOK, directed by Spielberg (!) and really good twisty story with a particularly nasty villain played by Jack Cassidy. Also co-starring Barbara Colby as a lovelorn store owner who blackmails the bad guy in an ill-advised scheme.

Within a few years, and real life, those two guest stars would be tragically killed in a fire and unsolved homicide, respectively, Colby murdered in a random double murder (three episodes into her new supporting role on the first season of the sitcom Phyllis.)

*in real life

have also been watching this, but only selected episodes, the Columbophile blog a good curator

All of the original run is pretty good, I don’t remember a bum episode.

Pretty sure there isn't one.

"Old Fashioned Murder" is pretty weak. Conceit is that the murderer acts older than her age, but Columbo always had old villains so it isn't obvious.

there's an episode set in a "think tank", back when that didn't have crackpot political connotations, with a kid named steve spielberg as a tribute to their boy genius director.

The one where he goes to Jolly Old England is bad

Oh yeah, that one isn't good.

the columbo-goes-to-a-rave episode is exactly as good as you'd expect

i.e. at least 10 times better than the Morse goes to a rave episode

That's right

also just recently started watching this for the first time. it rules so hard. crazy that every episode is over an hour long

^^It was originally presented as part of a series of weekly TV Mystery Movies, rotating in a shared time slot with similar film-length episodic shows like McMillan & Wife with Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James, and McCloud with Dennis Weaver. That's why the seasons seem so short.