Episode 8 - Columbo from Columbo

A thermos is for having perpetually cold wine on hand, not warm booze. It's elite-tier alcoholic/queen-shit.

It's an essential piece of my Columbo headcanon that Columbo's wife is Grace Jones. She technically fits enough of how he describes her, and I love thinking of the two of them spending what little time they get together bowling, doing the drive-through zoo with the nieces and nephews, and watching TV like "O look, it's the show with that guy who shot his blackmailing producer in the sandwich place! Wild they're still airing this."

We need to bring back the Fat Tie Friday that Robert Culp rocks like a goddamn boss. Man's rocking effectively a crop-top apron for how wide that binch is.

This means you must watch some Poker Face, which is columbo if he was Natasha lyonn and also a human lie detector

I started this episode thinking it was Forgotten Lady--a completely different fading starlet Columbo episode starring yet another Hollywood icon!

I feel like the thing that's missing from the analysis of Columbo knowing who Edith Head is and being a short king. Is that Peter Falk is Jewish and it's well known we Jews are one of the few groups where knowledge of musical theatre is common among straight men as well as the girls and gays. I am now considering a podcast about how all detectives are actually Jewish.

To me, Columbo is a perfectly transmasc/trans male character. Wears a stupid ass coat, loves his wife annoyingly lot, tries to both look right but also knows that cis men (at least in his time) don't worry that much about their hair and nails, uses a mononym, has adhd and/or autism so he loses track of time and falls asleep in his clothes and then runs late, has no knowledge about cars or other "boy things" a cis man might pick up during their childhood/youth... Not to speak of the fact that he is a short king and is very open of his admiration of both men and women (but not exactly in a romantic way, rather in a genuine love for what they do or who they are, even if they are murderers.

Great episode, lovely guest as well, I used to watch reruns of old columbo on terrestrial TV in the UK and they would be always out of order. Would be really interested what you all think of the very first episode because I remember watching it and the vibe being very different from the later episodes which I mostly watched. Also many episodes with Patrick McGoohan, weird dude in life but great actor, will the pod be doing the Prisoner? The tone is more KJB but its television, maybe a crossover event? Spies and Detectives?

there really IS something extremely transmasc about being a short gremlin man who is endlessly fascinated by tall women. source: me.

I will admit that I enjoy experiencing the "Horrible little gremlin" form of masculinity as a cis man.

Yay, josh!

Love this episode. Saw plenty of Columbo in my younger years, though oddly enough, most of them in German I believe. Dutch TV didn't broadcast them that often, but German TV certainly did.

Mrs. Columbo has to be real as she got her own spin-off show staring Kate Mulgrew as Mrs Columbo! It was such a failure they had to rework it for the second season with all the Columbo references removed. It's kind of a fun show though, I do like the episode where the murder is committed by psychic blast via a TV.

Maybe the fact that I haven't seen the Columbo episode is making me uncharitable, but coding the murderer's relationship with her younger victim who works for her as unrequited lesbian desire strikes me as very lesbophobic...

I dont think there's a single costume design in Columbo that doesnt go extremely hard, Josh was absolutely right about that

I can't remember the last time I watched Columbo, probably a good forty years, so I thought what the hell. First surprise was to see someone not Spielberg directed. I had to pause and look up what-the-hey on Wikipedia. Okay, sorted. Things that took me way, way back about the episode: 1. Dialing the phone with a pencil--YES! I remember doing that. 2. Buying the plane tickets and checking bags five minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave--oh yes, there was a time before airport security and metal detectors

I suddenly want a "Columbo meets the 4th Doctor" episode. I think that would be fantastic.

they/them Columbo

I love the exchange between Josh and Lucy on the subject of the horrible tie, representing as it does detente between two houses alike in dignity, the Gender Reader and the Class Reader - a generation ago with marxist and feminist critics there would have been bloodshed

I am so glad that doing this episode could introduce you to Columbo. It's a fantastic show and there's so much of it for you to enjoy!

Thrilled for the transmasc-with-complicated-relationship-with-femininity Columbo rep

I love that y'all keep calling in Victoria Scott for car context, she's such a delight!

I had no idea we were dealing with precolumbian Nova all this time, though the repeated references to the Mesoamerican Ball Game should have tipped me off

in my experience there is nothing a tiny trans man loves more than lookin at leggy broads (respectfully)

BTW, there is a Mrs. Columbo TV show where his wife also solves mysteries

I believe that Wings of Desire is canonical and Columbo is an angel who chose to walk the Earth.

Couple of things I think about constantly with Columbo. 1. I love that it is very specific in the show that he fucks with the rich and often famous. He's not standing over a body after a liquor store holdup turns ugly. This is what makes him fascinating to me, like, who the fuck is this guy? Why is he allowed to operate with near-but-not-complete impunity against the great and good? What is the background support system that enables the LAPD to maintain this Rich Murderer Seeking Missile among its ranks? It reminds me in part of Heat and Training Day. In Heat you have the Robbery Homicide guys who just take down the big professional crews. In Training Day he's a minor character but there's a detective who is described as working with the 'poodle crowd' dealing with fine art theft. I like Columbo as a specialist. Somebody catches the call, it comes across his desk, and if the vibes are off, if he catches a whiff of blue blood, he fires up the Peugeot (or gets it rolling down the nearest gentle slope) and heads off to the scene. 2. Something I hope you get the chance to dig into, although not every detective will give you the chance, is how your subject detective approaches a crime scene. You get some crime scene work with Columbo and it's always so good. It's a whole other facet to his game and I love it. It's so well written and Falk brings this wonderful curiosity and knowledge to it. The ease of distraction, the interest in seemingly random objects, he weaponizes that perfectly. Weird as it sounds I could watch a Columbo episode where he doesn't intentionally get some rich prick's goat at all and just solves the whole thing looking tyre marks and shell casings.

the girlpile is healing

Also please do the episode of Poker Face starring John Darnielle of the mountain goats

Repeating that you should take a "those French special forces guys in that seige in Mecca that one time" approach and require that any non trans woman has to temporarily convert to Being One when you have them on

I absolutely adore Columbo, but I beseech you to keep an eye out for a recurring theme in old Columbo episodes - Small Peter Falk walking through enormous 1970s doorways.

As a long time Columbo fan this episode makes me so happy. There is one episode of Columbo that is a Whodunnit, "Last Salute to the Commodore." Considered by most to be the worst Columbo episode but I love it. Directed by known maniac Patrick McGoohan, and has Columbo at his most chaos gremlin. Maybe shouldn't be your second Columbo episode, but maybe third.

Columbo gives off such trans boy swag. I love him.

COLUMBOOOOOOOO

The original tv movie is probably worth an episode in its own right later on because the character isn't quite fully formed yet (the coat is practically clean) and they were doing a thing by having the antagonist be a psychologist so that they could psychoanalise the character. I think the original tv episode which became the play which became the movie which became the series is still available so it depends how into the weeds you want to get. I do like that the "just one more thing" catchphrase came from a rewrite and they couldn't be bothered to retype the page on a manual typewriter.

*Beater, I'm afraid. That Pugeot is a beater.

realising november's true calling in this world is spreading like a memetic virus her idiosyncratic mannerisms to every trans woman in the universe as i muttered "baffling" under my breath in regard to the discussion of the pre-episode highlight reel like 2 seconds before she did the exact same

Obligatorily making you aware of this https://youtu.be/dT_4OV1_24U?si=lntYT1x24Y6XI9Cr