Natasha lyonne could come close but she has too much swagger. but I think she’s my best pick.
giamatti is too sarcastic but he has that capacity for rapidly switching between clownish and sincere.
Gosling can similarly switch modes between incompetent and intense but he’s too pretty. still I could see him stumbling around a room deep in thought collecting evidence. honestly I just don’t think he’s suited for TV though.
gonna be pondering this for a while
Damian Lewis was kinda like this in Life, a show he starred in prior to Billions.
Did the goofball/genius switch pretty deftly but is also perhaps too handsome to really be Columbo.
My other nominee is Ty Burrell, excellent at being a dumbass as shown in Modern Family but able to briefly dip into intensity as seen in a pretty gripping episode of Law & Order where he’s the perp.
i always thought the columbo reboot idea was weird and while i would like to see a ruffalo finally get his shot i’m honestly not sure how much “literally columbo” could work in a modern context. elsbeth pulls off a good balance of tricks to make something similar work (technically not a cop at all, fun aunt instead of fun uncle, actual ensemble cast, lightly serialized) but i dunno what you would do to have actual columbo.
the vibe was already weird having this 70s detective character around in the 90s run like if the fonz escaped the tv. how falk do you make it like a literal impression? a rumpled trenchcoat and a suit are just “what a cop wears” now not some signifier of anything. do you make it a period piece? are you gonna have someone who lives in a tiktok hype house mcmansion let a weird old man break into his house cookin pasta sauce or whatever weird shit?
actually maybe you keep it in continuity and just have this weird 100 year old man shambling around freaking people out.
anyway enrico colantoni would be fun.
This guy is one of the last true “hey it’s that guy!” guys left out there
Would also be great as one of those guys who keeps showing up in different eps to play a different murderer but with exactly the same vibe as the last one he played
got to thinking about that one where roscoe lee browne was on as a guy who possibly has the highest level of pure Columbo Villain Vibes of anyone who was just a side character
This was really fun, big fan of Inspector Ike now
finished the robot one. i liked it a lot, mostly because columbo rarely makes me laugh out loud but the ridiculousness with Dog got me. it’s silly!!
i like reading this guy’s blog about columbo
i think he is wrong like 75% of the time though. he ranks this as one of the worst episodes and…just no. wrong.
it’s not top tier but like, it’s pretty good. and it’s okay when the murderer is stupid. murder is stupid!
anyway on to Johnny Cash Murders Someone In Real Life now
I was thinking Tony Shalhoub who I guess is the big budget version of this guy. But he already had a Weird Detective show so let’s give it to Enrico.
one thing i like about columbo is that most of the killers are eager and ready to explain away any of the holes columbo finds in the case and casually brings up. it feels like they are incriminating themself by giving away so much false information because they are trying their hardest to get columbo to get off their back. like, everyone else who isnt the killer usually says something along the lines of “i dont know lieutenant” and leaves it at that. but the killer will sometimes change their mood completely just to swoop in and “save the day” for columbo who is acting really stumped or stuck on some tiny detail. as the episode goes on they often are so fed up too they stop trying even that lol. but there is hardly any episode where i can think of where that doesn’t happen.
so i got back into watching columbo thanks to this thread. the next episode is “forgotten lady”, and i put it on as i do chores. i’ll spoil my thoughts for anyone who isnt there yet (its season 5 episode 1):
basically, i was expecting the killer, grace wheeler, to make up more and more explanations as columbo goes to see her quite a bit, but she only really does it towards the beginning. the other times she gives him the info he asks for but doesnt bother to give anything to support her cover up. when she does tell him she knows why hes coming around so much, theres a long pause as im expecting her to finally confront him for suspecting her as the killer, but instead she says something like “you cant resist show business!!!” and acts all nice and such. theres no antagonism towards him, theres really hardly much of a rapport besides columbo’s usual star struckness. i still felt compelled, but mostly because i was confused since she was acting somewhat different than expected, and the scenes played out was like the writers knew that i would feel that way.
so when the twist comes, that she has some sort of very terminal illness that affects her memory enough to the point where she doesnt even remember killing her husband, i was kinda shocked!!! even moreso, the way it was delivered was great, with the last 20 mins or so having columbo reveal how he figured out how the killer did it to her faithful old co-star explicitly instead of her, stopping their conversation whenever she enters the room. and the way it ends and the kinda little clues i noticed but didnt pay attention to of her memory problems, idk, it was just really surprising and a little subversive for me, as someone who was expecting the usual columbo “tropes”. made me emotional, seeing the co-star confess to the murder instead just to buy her time so she can spend her final days acting… and columbo waits a bit before leaving, thinking about if he should really let her go or not…
i really enjoyed it, though idk if it’ll be one of those ones ill enjoy on a rewatch. it doesnt have much of the usual comforts the show gives me (mainly, columbo and the murderer’s cat and mouse interactions, or his usual comical inconveniences for himself or someone else). but the last scene… thats gonna stick with me for awhile.
speaking of prescription murder if you are going for the columbo 100% run you can watch the original original pre falk live teleplay
The Japanese Columbo blu ray box set came with a printed shooting script for prescription murder translated to Japanese
when will the gamer oppression end
if for some reason you want to see casey kasem do a columbo impression on the hardy boys nancy drew mysteries, well you can at about 1:40 here
amazing I wanna do a Columbo impression that well
