A frequent topic of conversation on the Columbo subreddit is “what’s the worst episode of Columbo.” It almost always ends the same way:
- The people who don’t acknowledge the revival: Last Salute of the Commodore
- The people who acknowledge the revival: No Time to Die and/or Undercover
- Me: Sex and the Married Detective, with It’s All in the Game a close second
The people who think No Time and Undercover are the worst Columbo episodes are correct. That’s because they’re not Columbo episodes. I think everybody knows by now that those two episodes were based on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels. That had a TV show in the really early 60s, so I’m willing to bet that someone dug out an old script and updated it for the 90s. That said, they’re great episodes of a cop drama that’s not Columbo.
I file them under “Stories other people tell about Columbo” so they’re going to get stuff about the Lieutenant wrong, which explains his out of character behavior. Like they’re the stories younger generations tell about the Legend of Lieutenant Columbo.
“So my uncle’s dad, my mother’s sister’s husband’s dad, used to work with Columbo. Did you know that? Yeah there was this one case ….”
Several of the 1990s episodes are tainted with the weird trend of softer than softcore porn that was everywhere. I mean none of that was new at the time, but it was new to prime-time television. Cable had been at it for a while and it was getting everywhere. Sexy drama. Sexy mystery. Sexy spies who are also lingerie models. Sexy murder. Suggestions of kinky sex or swinging or whatever would make Middle America blush right there on one of the big three networks.
And unfortunately it got on Columbo. Columbo was different from the other crime shows in its original run. It was softer. It wasn’t guns and grit, or action and chases. It was steady, quiet, slyly sarcastically funny. I’m pretty sure that’s what people still love about it.
So when they brought it back they didn’t really understand what it was about Columbo that made it Columbo. And because they were network-produced TV movies they probably had executives yelling at them to add sex to Columbo, and it ends up looking completely gratuitous (because it was) and very out of place with all the other episodes. Even the much hated episode Undercover feels a lot more like a Columbo episode.
Columbo going undercover several times seems like something he’d do (maybe he picked up the habit in the time between the original and revival). It’s a lighter tone, the story doesn’t really drag, and Ed Begley Jr is a returning guest.
Anyhow. That’s just me.