For today's Tuesday TV Touchbase, I'm going to look at a couple of TV shows I that I tend to catch late at night.
Columbo runs on the Sundance channel in the early hours of the morning. Columbo is a long time favorite program going back to when I was a wee little Dave-El.
This was a series that followed a police detective, Lt. Columbo, who investigated homicide cases. What made this cop show unique was the story structure.
There was no question of "whodunit". The first act of each installment of Columbo would follow the murderer, their intended victim and the murder itself. We knew who did it, how and why.
There are some exceptions to the Columbo formula.
- Two episodes — "Last Salute to the Commodore" in the 1970s, and "A Bird in the Hand" during the 1990s revival — were classic whodunits with the killer not revealed until the end.
- Season Two's "Double Shock" tweaks the formula a bit. The murder unfolds in act 1 in typical Columbo fashion but then the murderer is revealed to one of a pair of identical twins. Which twin did the actual killing is not revealed until the very end.
- In "No Time to Die", the crime is not murder but kidnapping. Columbo and other cops are in a race against time to find the kidnapped person.
Lt. Columbo wouldn't enter until the 2nd act whereupon the murder is probably thinking, "I'm going to get away with this!" Lt. Columbo is hardly an imposing figure, a stout man in a rumpled raincoat (in L.A. where it hardly ever rains) with a bumbling manner.
The murderer is typically a person of privilege, owing to wealth or power or intellect. The murderer has a self view of being in a rarified level of society, certainly above this disheveled, bamboozled detective. Oh, yeah! They have been very clever and with this idiot on the job, they have also been very lucky.
Within five minutes of arriving on the scene, Lt. Columbo has already sussed out who did the murder and will now spend the rest of the episode annoying the hell out of the hapless murdering sonuvabitch until that person is arrested.
A standard routine is for Columbo to badger his suspect with a lot of questions about seemingly useless trivia, then excuse himself to leave and just before he completes his exit, Columbo turns and says, "Just one more thing..."
And that is that question, posed as an almost afterthought, that truly twists the knife in the murderer's gut.
Columbo is not a "whodunit" but a "howzhegonnagethim".
The moment at the end when the scales fall from the murderer's eyes and they realize that Columbo has them well and truly screwed is a veritable delight. Watching some privileged stuck up who thought they were better than most people and certainly better than this rumpled bozo getting brought low by that rumpled bozo is just so much fun.
In all of the episodes, Lt. Columbo is never given a first name.
He always talks about his wife but she too is never referenced by name.
Columbo was portrayed by Peter Faulk who so completely embraced the character, portraying him with a certain bumbling every man demeanor but with just enough of an edge to give us a hint that the wheels are turning with a level of insight and intelligence that's more than a match for those who seek to seem themselves as superior. Faulk was so perfect as Columbo, I can't imagine anyone else ever trying to revive this character.
Our next show for today's review is relegated by TV Land to the 4 in the morning. The New Adventures of Old Christine is a sitcom starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus after Seinfeld ended. Christine is a mom to a young son; she is divorced but is still close and friendly with her ex-husband. Her ex has a new wife who is also named Christine.
"Old" Christine does not have her life together. Neurotic and easily flummoxed by social interactions, Christine is not really ready to "adult" despite being a middle aged woman. Given a choice between facing up to a responsibility or curling up on a the coach with a blanket and a bottle of wine, Christine would opt for life on the couch and I can't say that I blame her.
On paper, "Old" Christine is not an easy person to like but Julia Louis-Dreyfus does such a great job with this role, wringing laughs from her various neuroses with sharp, comic timing.
New Adventures of Old Christine ran for 5 seasons on CBS but was never treated which much respect, placing in different time slots over the course of its run from 2006 to 2010. With the cast and crew expecting a renewal for a 6th season, CBS unceremoniously dropped the series.
The upside to the CBS cancellation was it left Julia Louis-Dreyfus free to for the critically acclaimed series Veep.
Meanwhile, New Adventures of Old Christine continues in reruns without respect, consigned to reruns at 4 in the morning. It's a really funny show that deserves more recognition.
OK, I think that will be that for today's Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and hey, keep it down will ya? I'm trying to watch some TV here!
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