Columbo 1968 detective show

Name: Columbo
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Released: 1968-01-01
Rating: 4.6

Columbo (1968, United States)

At first glance, Lieutenant Columbo of the Los Angeles Police Department does not look like a real cop - the old beige raincoat, a shabby suit in hard to describe colour, a cigar and (quite often) something to eat in the crime scene. Oh, and he has a car to match the description - a rusty Peugeot 403 that no one can believe is still roadworthy. On second glance, you could notice his manners that are unorthodox (to say the least), he always has some weird anecdote to tell, some quirky story from his own life. But after a while you can realise that beyond that broken facade is a detective with two very important characteristics - he spots things that are unusual, and he is relentless in his job. And he will need those two skills as well, because he takes on cases that seem to be pure examples of a perfect crime. How do we know those were the perfect crimes? Because we saw them committing them!

Columbo was a very unusual series that made it a timeless classic, it had a basic formula that turned the whole genre around - instead of following the detective trying to work out who the killer was, we know from the very beginning who killed, we saw him or her cover up the tracks, hide the evidence, build a perfect alibi, before the detective is even shown on the screen. When he finally shows up, he seems like a person least suitable to find the weak spot in the alibi or find the missing piece of evidence - a forgetful, shabby-looking little man, who smoke cigars and just observes the suspect.

The series was, in different forms, present on the screens for 35 years with 69 episodes produced and each of them a small masterpiece in itself - it was a constant mystery how Columbo is gonna find evidence to prove that his suspect is in fact the killer. Despite being a long-running show, Columbo managed to keep the formula attractive even though it should have gone stale after a while. It as not as gritty or dark as today detective shows, but with small elements of comedy and very well written scripts, it remains the best comedy show ever made.

Can you solve a mystery like this one?

TRY IT YOURSELF ❱