Tag: Peter Falk

Old School Summer TV

If you read this blog with any regularity, .you know of my fondness for the TV detective series, Colombo, starring the late Peter Falk. In my area, the Hallmark mystery channel runs it in the morning at 8 AM and ME TV runs it on 8 PM Sunday nights.

In this age of NCIS, Criminal Minds, and all the shows which show the actual blood and guts and violence, it is a pleasure to use my mind to try to figure out the. whodunnit of the plot. You don’t always need to see the violence. Isn’t real life bad enough?

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Columbo 

I finally figured out why I like Law and Order Criminal Intent.

Columbo!

Part of the NBC Sunday night mysteries in the early seventies, the Columbo series, starring Peter Falk, later was picked up by ABC for a bit, and then was cancelled.

We just sat and watched an episode of Columbo,and Blythe Danner was one of the stars of the episode.For anyone not familiar with her, she is now known for her osteoporosis commercials and being Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother.

Anyway, the similarities between Columbo and Law and Order Criminal Intent are what struck me. The nuances in the plots are enough to make anyone’s grey cells work. Good story line, excellent acting…they just don’t make them like that anymore.

  

Columbo-thon

Once again, I found myself surfing the channels and saw movie after movie and then what did I see?

The Hallmark channel was running back to back Columbo episodes.

Gosh, I love Columbo.

For those of you not versed in NBC Sunday night mysteries, later on ABC, or weren’t around back then, well…Sunday night mysteries had different characters/series running each Sunday. One week was Columbo, a police detective starring Peter Falk. Another was McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver, followed by Banachek, played by George Peppard.Susan St.James and Rock Hudson played McMillan and wife.and lastly Jessica Walter as Amy Prentiss.It was basically whodunit Sunday, of which Columbo was my favorite. It wasn’t quite the golden age of television, but it was great.

Those were the days.

columbo-show