Peter Falk played the role of his life as Columbo. The show is formulaic and the legality of Columbo's method is questionable at best, but I love the show. It's a reverse murder show. We see the murder, means, and motive in the first 15 minutes, then we get to watch Lt. Columbo slowly unravel the twisted web of violence. It challenges the comic book storyteller in me. How could you do a Columbo comic in 22 pages, and have Columbo show up on the 3rd page? Murder montage? I'll give it a try sometime, I'm sure.
Some trivia for you, just to get to watch an episode sometime if you haven't (it is streaming on Netflix after all). Peter Falk's performance was unique to him. His good natured politeness and bumbling were what he used to get to his suspects, unnerving them to the point that they'd crack. To get the best out of his guest star murderers, or perhaps just to be a jerk, Falk would ad lib and talk over the guest's performance to get them to actually dislike having scenes with him. So, when you have Leonard Nemoy yelling at Columbo on screen, he probably is actually frustrated with Falk.
More trivia, which explains the dead Batman in the background. Adam West's Batman show went from 1966 to 1968. Columbo one month before Batman's last episode aired. The world's greatest detective passed the torch to the world's most annoying.
(artist Kyle Latino has a blog at www.ktino.com, follow him on twitter @kylelatino)
I LOVE it!
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