COLUMBO: The 1970s - Seasons 1-7 (Universal, 1969 - 78) Kino Lorber

“Just one more thing…” For anyone of a certain generation, this catch phrase will forever be ascribed to actor, Peter Falk’s beloved/rumpled L.A.P.D. Lieutenant Columbo, whose franchise carried his namesake from 1971 to 1978 as part of NBC’s revolving ‘mystery movie’ lineup.  Falk’s brilliant incarnation of the seemingly and perpetually befuddled bumbler, eventually, through deductive reasoning to unravel the distortions behind a crime of murder, is, in hindsight, exceptional ‘must see’ television of the first quality. Because Columbo is not a ‘whodunit’.  Within the first fifteen to thirty minutes of each episode, void of Falk’s participation, the audience is shown precisely who did it, how they did it, and furthermore, how they plan to get away with it. So, the resultant storytelling is not gleaned from the traditional ’mystery’ of the moment, but rather in the police-procedural brilliance of this unassuming crime solver; an inversion of the TV crime story, later referenced as ‘howcatchem’. Falk’s virtuosity here is in making Columbo simultaneously engaging and exasperating. The mechanics of his mind appear, at first, to suffer from some ‘steel trap’ syndrome, and, never to be equal to the wicked quick-wittedness of all those devious masterminds responsible for these murders. Indeed, until the very last scene, it really does appear as though Columbo will be chagrined in his awkward search for the truth. 

However, like Agatha Christie’s far more accomplished detective, Hercule Poirot, the devil here is in Columbo’s meticulousness to root out the details. And thus, Columbo emerges victorious, in spite of his artificially laidback attitude and meandering crime-solving style. Sharp-witted, if blue-collar, here is a homicide detective whose trademarked rumpled beige raincoat, chronic cigar-chomping, and affinity for real beater, Peugeot 403, provides a cleverly inspired camouflage to put the criminal element off his super-sleuth’s scent. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link, the popularity of the series grew from its ability to take Falk’s alter ego out of his ‘comfort zone’ and class, and drop him into some very sinisterly moneyed backdrops – the crimes usually to inveigle Columbo with California’s haughty hoi poloi. Almost from the outset, Columbo and the prime suspect become ‘social’ with the suspect doing everything to remain aloof, yet contemptuous of Columbo’s anecdotal ramblings and deceptive clumsiness. Throughout Columbo’s 70’s run, episodes ranged between 70 and 98 minutes to accommodate a commercial-interrupted hour-and-a-half or two-hour timeslot. When NBC ‘officially’ retired the franchise in 1978, the syndication of Columbo ensured it never entirely vanished off the viewing radar, with its 1989 resurrection on rival network ABC practically guaranteed. This continued with intermittent ‘movie(s) of the week’ until 2003.

Likely, the unusual structure of these crime stories helped, not only to attract viewership, but also set the franchise apart from other contemporary crime shows. Owing more to the ‘cat and mouse’ folly, with Columbo as its ‘lamb bites wolf’, the character of Columbo rarely appeared in the first act of these stories, resulting in the entire second and third acts being considered as each episode’s dénouement. Furthermore, Columbo and the criminal he seeks are almost always fated to meet from the outset of the discovery of the victim, with the instigator doing his/her utmost to misdirect Columbo from their involvement. In most cases, Columbo is immediately suspicious of the murderer in his midst, with the murderer also suspecting Columbo’s lackadaisical attitude as a ruse for entrapment. The other departure here is in the crime-solving style of Columbo who, often, keeps not only the criminal element but also the audience in the dark regarding his narrowing proximity between the crime and the criminal until his penultimate ‘gotcha’ moment.

Falk’s expertise here enlists the character of Lt. Columbo with a beguiling, shabby charisma.  Even more curious, at least for a crime series, the victims are oft spiteful and, at least marginally ‘deserving’ of some sort of retribution, the ultimate revenge administered by someone who otherwise might not have reacted in such a moment of criminal insanity, creating an unease of empathy for the killer(s) rather than the deceased. While crime stories usually conclude on a hyperactive chase or daring attempt by the accused to escape from the law, the ending to virtually all episodes in the Columbo franchise reflects a more realistic and downtrodden sense of defeat and acceptance by the murderer to finally face their own moral bankruptcy; an Achilles Heel, unearthed too late to spare them life in prison or a date with the electric chair.  Variations on this centralized structure manifest in several episodes throughout the series with Columbo occasionally trailing the wrong person, while that person behaves in a devious manner to spare the real killer his/her fate. There are also several episodes where Columbo, unable to catch his killer via legitimate crime-solving techniques, plants evidentiary fakes to elicit a panicked confession from the accused that confirms his suspicions.  

Levinson and Link’s inspiration for the character derived partly from Crime and Punishment’s Porfiry Petrovich with a dappling of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown as well as a dash of Inspector Fichet from 1955’s thriller, Les Diaboliques. The dry run for Columbo actually came about in 1960 when Levinson and Link wrote an episode for The Chevy Mystery Show, in which a detective, then named ‘Fisher’ (and played by Bert Freed) exhibits Columbo’s penchant for a meandering crime-solving style. Like his later incarnation, Freed’s ‘Fisher’s personal appearance is disheveled. And he chronically smoks cigars. Buoyed by the success from that show, Levinson and Link went on to adapt their drama into stagecraft, casting 70-years-young Hollywood alumni, Thomas Mitchell as Columbo, Joseph Cotten as the killer and Agnes Moorehead as their victim. Meanwhile, things were gearing up at NBC for a rotational ‘mystery’ franchise to fill their Sunday night programming line-up. Eventually, two other series would be spawned from this franchise: McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver as a cowboy-esque sleuth let loose in the big city, and, McMillan & Wife, costarring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James as a sort of ‘Thin Man’ knock-off. Levinson and Link’s reworking of their stagecraft into a teleplay eventually found its way into NBC’s lineup. The network saw it as a ‘one off’ vehicle for Lee J. Cobb and Bing Crosby (as Columbo). Mercifully, both actors turned NBC down, allowing Peter Falk to enter the negotiations. Even better, Falk’s success in the role created a media buzz that immediately convinced NBC to make Columbo a main staple of their mystery franchise.

NBC had hoped to release a Columbo murder mystery every week, a commitment Falk refused to accept, despite his $300,000 per episode salary, owing to others on his roster of ‘things to do’. His salary would double when Falk resumed Columbo in 1989. Eventually, a compromise was reached, with Columbo airing the second Wednesday of every month for one episode only. During its first season, Peter Falk was honored with an Emmy. Falk would go on to win the coveted television honor three more times. By its second season, Columbo had permanently moved to Sunday nights along with the others in the ‘mystery lineup’. It would remain NBC’s Sunday staple for the duration of its run. Curiously, throughout the series, fans were never to know Columbo’s first name, nor ever to meet his wife who figured prominently in many of Columbo’s conversations. In the days before big screen TVs took over home viewing, Columbo flashes his badge in a semi-close up to reveal the name ‘Frank Columbo’ as part of his I.D. However, writer/producer Levinson has always insisted, Columbo had no first name…or rather, none worth noting. Falk was instrumental in creating the look of his character. Rather infamously, Peter Falk had only one eye, the other lost to cancer while barely three-years-old. Hence, Columbo also had one eye – never addressed in the series, but obvious for its lack of movement when studying Falk’s performances in close-up. True story – the trademarked trench and high-top shoes were Falk’s own. “I just felt comfortable in it,” Falk later said. As for Columbo’s catch phrase, “just one more thing” – Levinson would later suggest it was something he and Link came up with on the fly to add runtime to an episode running short. And thus, an indelible and beloved TV personality was created by happenstance.

Columbo’s pedigree is irrefutable. Not only did the series engage an A-list roster of stars from stage and screen, both past and ‘then’ present, but it served as a proving ground for such up and coming directors as Steven Spielberg, who shot the first season’s debut episode, ‘Murder by the Book’ to considerable acclaim a mere 4 years before Jaws transformed his reputation into that of Hollywood’s blockbuster director. Of the listed luminaries, British star, Patrick McGoohan played Columbo’s arch nemesis a record four times, with Jack Cassidy and Robert Culp bringing up the rear (3 appearances each) and William Shatner and George Hamilton cast as the ne’er-do-well twice apiece. Other high-profile talent eager to play the baddie included Leonard Nimoy, Johnny Cash, John Cassavetes, Edward Arnold, Ruth Gordon, Lee Grant, Jackie Cooper, Dick Van Dyke and Faye Dunaway. Ever more, the cameos in the series were also being populated by top-tier talent like Jamie Lee-Curtis, Kim Cattrall, Vincent Price, Myrna Loy and Rod Steiger. But the most reoccurring cameo belonged to Mike Lally, clocking in a record 23 episodes as token fodder, or approximately half of the original series’ run.

In 1968’s original pilot, Prescription Murder, a more slickly assembled Columbo, sporting clean-cut hair, confronts a psychiatrist (Gene Barry) who has murdered his wife (Nina Foch) and later, gal/pal and coconspirator (Katharine Justice). Nearly 3 years later, Columbo’s second pilot, Ransom for a Dead Man would inveigle the better known, disheveled Columbo, seeking to unearth the truth behind the murder of a wealthy businessman (Harlan Warde) at the hands of his scheming second wife (played by Lee Grant). When NBC officially declared Columbo as part of its reoccurring mystery franchise, its debut episode, Murder by the Book, had one half of a once prominent writing team (played by Jack Cassidy), jealously murder his ex-partner (Martin Milner) in order to continue on as a solo act. In Death Lends a Hand, an irascible P.I. Brimmer (Robert Culp) blackmails Leonore, the wife (Patricia Crowley) of media mogul, Arthur Kennicut (Ray Milland) after having an affair with her. Alas, when she refuses to play ball, Brimmer accidentally murders her, then makes desperate attempts to cover up his crime. In Dead Weight, Helen Stewart (Suzanne Pleshette) inadvertently witnesses Major General Martin Hollister (Eddie Albert) murder Colonel Dutton (John Kerr) after the latter suggests they dissolve their crooked embezzling partnership.  Suitable for Framing finds art critic extraordinaire, Dale Kingston (Ross Martin) cold-bloodedly assassinating his uncle to gain control of his priceless paintings. Lady in Waiting finds a murderous Beth Chadwick (Susan Clark) exacting revenge on her elder/richer sibling, Bryce (Richard Anderson) after he threatens to end her affair with company lawyer, Peter Hamilton (Leslie Nielson). Short Fuse has Roger Stanford (Roddy McDowall) kill his uncle David (James Gregory) to gain control of the family’s lucrative chemical plant. You can bet Aunt Doris (Ida Lupino) has something to say about this! In season one’s finale, Blueprint for Murder (the only episode directed by Peter Falk), Columbo investigates the disappearance of billionaire, Bo Williamson (Forrest Tucker) whose clash with architect, Elliot Markham (Patrick O’Neal) leads to Bo becoming a permanent resident of their new ‘super city’ designed to Markham’s specs.

While critics and fans agree, Season One had no false starts among its mysteries, Season Two would prove this was no fluke. The second season begins in earnest with Etude in Black, following renown pianist, Alex Benedict’s (John Cassavetes) vial attempts to cover up the brutal strangulation of his lover (Anjanette Comer) thus, keeping their affair from his suspecting and wealthy wife (Blythe Danner) and her mother (Myrna Loy). In Greenhouse Jungle, Tony Goodland’s (Brad Dillman) feigned kidnapping to win back his wife’s waning affections derails when his Uncle Jarvis (Ray Milland) legitimizes Goodland’s disappearing act for good. The Most Crucial Game finds football general manager, Paul Hanlon (Robert Culp) eager to put a bullet into the wealthy playboy/owner (Dean Stockwell) of the team, and, in Dagger of the Mind, Columbo arrives in London, England to unravel the murder of wealthy patron of the arts, Sir Roger Haversham (John Williams), killed by the husband and wife play actors, Lillian Stanhope (Honor Blackman) and Nicholas Frame (Richard Basehart) presently appearing in his failed West End production of Macbeth. In Requiem for a Falling Star, screen queen, Nora Chandler (Anne Baxter) unearths that her assistant, Jean Davis (Pippa Scott) is involved with rag journalist, Jerry Parks (Mel Ferrer) who is also blackmailing Nora. A Stitch in Crime casts Leonard Nimoy as a malicious surgeon out to murder his competition so he can continue to reap the benefits of performing experimental surgeries on unwitting patients. When nurse Sharon Martin (Anne Francis) discovers what he is up to, she meets a fateful demise. In The Most Dangerous Match, aspiring chess player, Emmett Clayton (Laurence Harvey) murders the Russian grand master to become the champion of the sport. In Double Shock a fitness guru (Paul Stewart) is offed by his nephew (Martin Landau) – a celebrity chef, conspiring with his twin to inherit the franchise and the estate.

Season Three’s crime line-up includes Lovely, But Lethal, involving maven, Viveca Scott (Vera Miles) whose timeless beauty is a façade, masking a desperate attempt to salvage her cosmetics company by concealing that her ‘miracle’ youth formula is a fraud. To keep her secret, Viveca murders Karl Lessing (Martin Sheen) – the only chemist who knows the truth. Any Old Port in A Storm has winemaker, Adrian Carsini (Donald Pleasance) murder his half-brother, Ric (Gary Conway) after the latter threatens to sell the family business to the highest bidder to support his hedonistic lifestyle. Candidate for Crime finds aspiring politico, Nelson Hayward (Jackie Cooper) killing his campaign manager (Ken Swofford) after the latter threatens to expose Nelson’s affair with his secretary (Tisha Sterling) to his wife (Joanne Linville). In Double Exposure, Dr. Bart Keppel (Robert Culp) rids himself of Vic Norris (Robert Middleton), the client who bankrolled Keppel’s early success, but now demands a bigger cut of the profits. In Publish or Perish, a disreputable editor (Jack Cassidy) pairs with heartless hitman, Eddie Kane (John Chandler) to assassinate novelist, Allen Mallory (Mickey Spillane). In Mind Over Mayhem, a cybernetic research director, Dr. Marshall Cahill (Jose Ferrer) kills fellow scientist, Howard Nicholson (Lew Ayres) when Nicholson threatens to expose Cahill’s son, Neil (Robert Walker) for plagiarism. In Swan Song, gospel singer, Tommy Brown (Johnny Cash) stages the deaths of his vindictive wife (Ida Lupino) and underaged mistress (Bonnie Van Dyke) in a fiery plane crash. Finally, A Friend in Deed has Hugh Caldwell (Michael McGuire) begging his good friend, Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Halperin (Richard Kiley) to help him cover up the ‘accidental’ murder of his wife, Margaret (Rosemary Murphy).

Season Four marked a paring down of Columbo’s yearly appearances from 8 to 6, also a foreshortening of each episode’s runtime from 2-hrs. to 1 ½ hours. The season begins strong with An Exercise in Fatality when fitness club guru, Milo Janus (Robert Conrad) murders one of his franchise owners (Gene Stafford) about to expose some serious fraud within the organization. Negative Reaction finds Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Paul Galesko (Dick Van Dyke) forging a ransom note in his dark room to cover up he has already murdered his wife, Frances (Antoinette Bower). By Dawn’s Early Light has Col. Lyle Rumford (Patrick McGoohan) execute William Haynes (Tom Wilcox), the man endeavoring to make their cadet academy more profitable by instituting a co-ed policy into their all-male student body. In Troubled Waters, a Mexican cruise turns deadly when a rich playboy (Robert Vaughan) feigns a heart attack to distract while he murders unscrupulous lounge singer/blackmailer, Rosanna Wells (Poupee Boucar). In Playback, a vicious electronics wizard (Oskar Werner) kills the company’s president – and – his mother-in-law (Martha Scott), caring for his paralyzed wife, Elizabeth (Gena Rowlands). In Series Four’s finale, A Deadly State of Mind, scheming psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Collier (George Hamilton) frames his emotionally scarred lover, Nadia (Leslie Ann Warren) for the death of her husband, Karl (Stephen Elliott) – a murder he committed right in front of her eyes. 

Season Five’s opener, Forgotten Lady follows the exploits of a deluded former song and dance sensation (Janet Leigh) whose aged/wealthy husband (Sam Jaffe) refuses to fund her big Broadway ‘comeback’. Predictably, the diva turns to murder to secure his fortunes. In A Case of Immunity, Middle Eastern Security Chief Youseff Alafa (Andre Lawrence) is killed by Hassan Salah (Hector Elizondo), resulting with international ramifications. In Identity Crisis, a pair of CIA operatives conspire on a planned heist. Too bad one, Nelson Brenner (Patrick McGoohan) is actually out to murder the other, A.J. Henderson (Leslie Nielson), thereafter to frame a corpse for his crime. In A Matter of Honor, an aspiring matador, Curro Rangel (A. Martinez) is gored in the ring. While recovering, legendary ex-matador Luis Montoya (Ricardo Montalban) promises his father, Hector (Robert Carricart) to kill the bull, and thus avoid Curro having to engage in a rematch. Instead, Luis drugs Hector and then unleashes the bull to finish him off. Now You See Him returns Columbo alumni, Jack Cassidy to the fray, this time as an internationally celebrated magician who shoots a cabaret owner blackmailing him to keep his spurious Nazi past a secret. Last Salute to the Commadore is widely regarded as a curious Columbo mystery as it sacrifices the Columbo formula for a traditional whodunit involving the murder of a curmudgeonly mariner (John Dehner), disgusted by his family’s backstabbing and ineptitude. This includes his ineffectual nephew, Swanny (Fred Draper), boozy daughter, Joanna (Diane Baker) and snooping son-in-law, Charles (Robert Vaughan); all of them out to transform his boutique boat-building enterprise into a corporation leviathan. At the end of Season Five, Peter Falk’s contract was up for renewal. And while many speculated the franchise would not be renewed, Falk eventually ironed out the details for another return to form.

Season Six of Columbo is the thinnest of the lot, owing to these stalled contractual negotiations and a bittersweet détente between Peter Falk and NBC. So, the season features only 3 episodes; the first, Fade in to Murder, concerning TV star, Ward Fowler (William Shatner) blackmailed by studio exec, Claire Daley (Lola Albright). Fowler then frames his assistant, Mark (Bert Remsen) after staging a daring robbery in which Claire is predictably shot and killed. In Old Fashioned Murder, spinstress, Ruth Lytton (Joyce Van Patten) is in danger of losing her family’s museum to crushing debt. Ruth bribes the museum’s security guard, Milton Schaeffer (Peter S. Feibleman) to partake of faking a robbery for which she promises to pay him $100,000 from the insurance payout. Instead, she guns him down to keep everything for herself. Finally, in The Bye-Bye Sky-high I.Q. Murder Case, accountant, Oliver Brandt (Theodore Bikel) having embezzled from business partner and life-long friend, Bertie Hastings (Sorrell Booke), now must resort to murder to keep his fabulous lifestyle afloat. There are many who consider this episode one of the best Columbo mysteries ever made.

Season Seven offers a ‘full’ season of Columbo mysteries, beginning with Try and Catch Me, involving the murderous intent of a famous mystery maven (Ruth Gordon). Murder Under Glass cast Louis Jourdan as a devious food critic, while Make Me A Murder stars all but forgotten Trish Van Devere as a villainous TV exec who kills her lover (Lawrence Luckinbill) merely to gain access to the executive washroom. In How to Dial a Murder, renowned behavioral psychologist, Dr. Eric Mason (Nicol Williamson) plots revenge against colleague, Charlie Hunter (Joel Fabiani) who was having an affair with Mason’s wife until she died under ‘mysterious’ circumstances. In The Conspirators, what would prove to be Columbo’s first ‘final curtain call’, waggish poet, Joe Devlin (Clive Revill) is running guns for the Irish Republican Army, but becomes embroiled with a crooked supplier, Vincent Pauley (Albert Paulsen) whom he later shoots dead. Interestingly, The Conspirators was originally intended as a pilot for a new show on NBC. Instead, it was repurposed as a Columbo mystery.

While Falk was eager to continue the franchise, NBC was not. Sagging ratings and a change in viewing habits and tastes ensured Season Seven would be Columbo’s farewell to the airwaves…almost. By 1989, Columbo was rife for resurrection, thanks, in part, to its chronic syndication throughout the decade, thus to ensure Falk’s rumpled detective never entirely left the air. When Peter Falk officially bowed out of his most famous role in 2003, he still had the desire to continue working.  As late as 2007, Falk hoped to reboot Columbo for another 2-hour mystery movie: Hear No Evil. Alas, the executive brain trust at ABC, the network having taken over the reigns of the franchise's mid-80's revival, saw no earthly value in the project. Later that same year, Falk was diagnosed with rapidly advancing dementia. Two years after this announcement Falk could barely remember his name, and, tragically, had no personal recollections of the series that had so indelibly etched his persona into the annals of television history. On June 23, 2011, Peter Falk died from complications of this mind-altering disease. He was 83.

Peter Falk was always protective of the show and his character, encouraging the entire staff to do their best work, and, on occasion, critical when he felt certain areas in the creative process were lagging. The luxury of time between episodes appealed to Falk’s meticulous sense of time-honored craftsmanship over the work-a-day ‘quick n’ dirty’ nature of then standardized TV fodder.  Occasionally, Falk’s fastidiousness ran afoul of Universal execs who erroneously believed quality could be maintained on a tighter budget and schedule. And Falk, infamously, had his rows with Uni’s executive brain trust over what he believed was their attempts to alter the terms of his contractual agreement.

Retrospectively, viewing Columbo today is a wonderfully ‘quaint’ experience that continues to reflect the world as it once was, while strangely to have remained highly relevant in the world that now, regrettably, is much closer to the show’s darkly cynical strain, only hinted at in every Columbo episode. What is absent from the franchise, unlike most crime story serials since to have followed it, is a bent for the grotesqueness in the crime of murder. The killings depicted in Columbo are all of the ‘clean drawing room’ variety, very much a return to the stomping grounds of an Agatha Christie thriller, more so than a Dashiell Hammett novel. And Columbo’s unassuming search for the truth favors the Sherlock Holmes model, later, successfully adapted to another Universal long-running crime series; Murder, She Wrote (1984-96). Because of this, Columbo endures as suitable, and strangely comforting for all ages, and likely, for all time. The creators’ insistence on a high level of quality, not to mention the ever-revolving roster of one-time A-list talents trundled out to excellent effect, promises that most every mystery is a gem. Granted, some are more highly regarded than others. And fans and Columbo novices alike are certain to have their favorites. But the creative verve to always keep Columbo at its level best is what keeps it joyful/charming ‘must see’ TV.

In an age where anything can be TiVo’ed to accommodate one’s discretion and leisure, it is easy to forget how wildly popular Columbo was with audiences back in the day. Literally millions stayed home, or otherwise, rearranged their schedules in order to tune in and watch the great detective solve another baffling crime. The elemental drawing power of ‘star’ names cast in well-intended cameos also helped draw in the audience. And, of course, we would be remiss to not mention the stellar writing and directing by up-and-comers and already established fellows like Ben Gazzara, Nicholas Colasanto, Patrick McGoohan, Vincent McEveety, Steven Bochco, Steven Spielberg, Jonathan Latimer, and Jonathan Demme, among others. But in the final analysis, what held the audience spellbound then, and keeps them coming back again and again since, is Peter Falk’s exquisitely nuanced, joyfully obtuse, and expertly crafted turn as the disheveled master of deduction.

Just one more thing…Columbo’s entire original series arrives on Blu-ray state’s side thanks to Kino Lorber’s alliance with Universal Home Video. Back in 2016, Uni made Columbo available only in Japan (odd marketing decision) in a handsome ‘cigar box’ package with extensive liner notes that, unfortunately, were also in Japanese. Kino’s effort is a slimmed down version, housed in plain cardboard, albeit, with new artwork commissioned from Tony Stella, and sporting ‘revitalized’ transfers, marketed as derived in 4K. If that’s the case, the results here, while mostly pleasing, do not necessarily bear out the marketing hype. While most of the episodes are represented in exemplary condition, with gorgeous color reproduction, exceptional overall image clarity, properly balanced contrast, and barely an age-related artifact to complain about, there are a handful of episodes looking much rougher than anticipated.

Some examples: ‘Murder by the Book’ and ‘Death Lends a Hand’ represent a quantum step down in overall image quality, with ‘Book’ appearing to have been sourced from archival elements at least several generations removed from an original camera negative. Image quality here is murky except in close-up, fuzzy to a fault and riddled in age-related wear and tear. Contrast also appears to suffer in spots, particularly during scenes shot at night. Another example: the credit sequence in ‘Playback’ is severely marred by horrendous gate weave and edge enhancement. A handful of episodes throughout the series are plagued with age-related dirt, damage and speckling. While none of this is egregious, it is, nevertheless, present. So, while Uni can claim to have mastered everything in 4K, they haven’t exactly spent the extra coin to ‘restore’ everything in 4K.

The 2.0 DTS mono audio tracks sound good for the most part, but there are some instances where obvious damage has resulted in very scratchy or considerably muffled dialogue and SFX. Given this is Columbo, and, also, that a lot of effort has obviously been invested to upgrade the overall quality of these tired old masters, it remains baffling – outside of the obvious coin necessary to properly complete the work – why Uni should have balked and not applied the finishing touches. The other disappointment here is extras. There aren’t any. While virtually all episodes offer up an isolated music and effects track, there are no audio commentaries, featurettes or documentaries to compliment with fresh insight. Bottom line: Columbo remains required viewing. Despite the passage of time, the series is engaging good fun in an age to have wholly forgotten what it means to really ‘put on a show’. The Blu-rays are mostly solid, with caveats throughout. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING: out of 5 – 5 being the best

4 overall

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5 overall

EXTRAS

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