6 ms·

Columbo shows the benefits of having reality bent around the assumption that you know the culprit instantly even if you don't know why. Is there a single Colum

• oneoff786 5y ago
  Ooh a cop show deconstruction where the protagonist has to confront the fact that 75% of his successes were incorrect would be great
  • mbg721 5y ago
    I saw an anecdote where someone asked the actor who played Perry Mason, "Haven't you ever lost a case?" and his answer was "I don't try the hard ones on Saturday night."
  • duxup 5y ago
    I don’t know if it is still on but I’m the US there was a show where they followed actual detectives. The bad guy gets away because they don’t have enough evidence. People confess when there is hardly any evidence (a lot). The detectives realize they were wrong. Lots of things happen. Detectives being wrong isn’t a very dramatic like you might think. Many operate like scientist, gathering data, testing their theory along the way and adjusting. One of the most interesting episodes was when they investigated a murder of a local girl in a park. Whole department assigned to work it because her ex and the main suspect was a guy who was a local criminal who had done time for murder before and was suspected in other cases. Lots of misc evidence pointed at bad guy, but not enough to prosecute him, just lots of elements that pointed to him. Bad guy was smart enough not to talk to the police when they brought him in. Near the end they got back some cell phone location info ... in the park that night wasn't the bad guy... but her current boyfriend (the local good college boy) phone was there. He claimed he was elsewhere / hadn't seen her that night... Good boy confessed when they confronted him. That episode was wild.
    • watwut 5y ago
      > protagonist has to confront the fact that 75% of his successes were incorrect would be great I would assume that "successes" here are people in prison who turned out were innocent.
      • duxup 5y ago
        Tough to do a show on that considering the time span involved but it would be interesting if they ever covered an episode where that happened. Of course the show is not a broad coverage of the detectives process. The detectives featured almost always are the most senior detectives and of course they cover situations on camera where ... maybe somethings won't happen. The cases featured in the show they almost never actually end up prosecuting anyone without quite a bit of evidence. They're not really the kind of cases you hear about where someone is just prosecuted on hearsay and one bit of evidence and so on, that i'm sure is by design (for the tv show). Detectives show a lot of skepticism about what people too, that was interesting. They follow those leads but those featured seem highly flexible. I wonder how much of the bad prosecutions / situations are about the prosecutor rather than detectives.
        • watwut 5y ago
          I am not sure now which series you have in mind here. But in many shows, actual evidence is super flimsy, if you think about it. Obvious issue is that such analysis tend to kill the fun, so we don't do it. This is supposed to be entertainment. The prime example is Sherlock Holmes who points at murder based on bit of dust caught of hat or some such. Any show where capture is based on subtle clues or manipulative trics would likely lead to a lot of false convictions. Or the ones where detectives mistreat suspects until they admit guilt - false guilt of admission from mistreated prisoner is actually a thing (especially when they are also sleep deprived or mentally challenged).
        • notriddle 5y ago
          > Tough to do a show on that considering the time span involved but it would be interesting if they ever covered an episode where that happened. Plenty of cold case shows that start the episode 5 years after the original investigation, when new evidence comes in to clear the convict.
  • JKCalhoun 5y ago
    I've entertained the idea of a series of farcical detective stories featuring a small-minded, bigoted detective who pursues wild, ungrounded-in-fact, grounded-in-stereotype leads only to stumble, by the books end and by a series of happy accidents, into actually solving the case.
    • apocalypstyx 5y ago
      So Inspector Clouseau, Barney Fife, etc etc. As the quote from Charles Babbage goes: > On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. Yes, sometimes that's exactly what happens.
      • JKCalhoun 5y ago
        > So Inspector Clouseau, Barney Fife Stupid, I agree, but not nearly as politically incorrect as our "hero". The humor is more of the cringe-variety (if you like that sort of thing) when our detective makes the big reveal only to walk right into it. David Brent (The Office) is more like our detective.
    • mbg721 5y ago
      I doubt that "Oh gee, it turns out the murderer was actually the black pedestrian in the suburban neighborhood this time" will get you published, though.
      • JKCalhoun 5y ago
        But that wasn't the idea. (Come on!) Yours might be the starting point for the "case" for our bigoted detective, but these leads invariably run cold but inadvertently reveal a piece of information or suspect that had not yet come to light (solved — maybe even simply by the process of elimination for our sad detective).
    • RAWDOGWARGOD 5y ago
  • simplicio 5y ago
    From what I remember, "Elementary" follows the opposite formula from Colombo. The protagonists almost always spend the first half of an episode pursing a red herring.
  • ElevenLathe 5y ago
    /Perry Mason/ always struck me as a rather subversive inversion of the usual police procedural for this reason. Since the protagonist is a defense lawyer, every episode that I know about is one where the cops and DA accuse a totally innocent person of a capital crime. They are then exposed and humiliated when Perry gets the real guilty party to confess in open court, usually under oath on the witness stand.
    • mbg721 5y ago
      In my household, we have a running gag that sometime in the 60s, Tragg was forced into retirement for harrassing too many innocent people and embarrassing the department, and they decided "Let's hire this Columbo fellow, he'll blend in and not make waves.". The LAPD had some issues.
  • not2b 5y ago
    "Law and Order" often had the police going after the wrong suspect or even arresting the wrong person and having them figure it out later, sometimes not until after the wrong person was put on trial.
• rob74 5y ago
  Well, in the case of Columbo, you (the viewer) have the benefit of knowing the culprit, because the murder is shown at the beginning of the episode. That's why Columbo is less a "whodunnit" and more a "howcatchem". But yeah, this infallible instinct that leads him straight to the perpetrator is pretty unrealistic...
  • mbg721 5y ago
    Yes, I should have been more specific; I meant "you, the detective" and not "you, the viewer". I'm speaking as a huge Columbo fan, btw; I've seen most of the episodes multiple times, and last year I watched the entire box-set in order.
    • ensignavenger 5y ago
      I too am a Columbo fan- since I was little and watched them on TV-- its been a few years since I last watched the box set... but I'm pretty certain there are a several episodes where Columbo does not know for sure who the murderer is right off. I also seem to recall one where he is unable to catch the murderer?
      • mbg721 5y ago
        You might be thinking of Columbo Cries Wolf, or It's All In The Game. He does resolve both cases, but they're unconventional (and both from the 80s/90s revival of the series).
  • scrollaway 5y ago
    That’s why I really like Psych. The guesses are fairly often incorrect even if they eventually catch the perp.
    • pfarrell 5y ago
      I really like Psych as well, but its formula is to always have them think they’ve solved the case quickly in act 2 only to find that person dead at the end of act 3. That being said, I don’t care. Just the chemistry and comedic timing of Sean and Gus is enough to keep me coming back for more.
• tablespoon 5y ago
  > Columbo shows the benefits of having reality bent around the assumption that you know the culprit instantly even if you don't know why. The shows don't show everything, but what they do imply is that Columbo starts by pulling on all the strings and then doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends. Also, in a lot of cases there could only be a handful of suspects. The main thing they actually is the interplay between Colombo and the culprit, and the rest is (almost always) offscreen. IMHO, the main weakness of the show are how over-eager the culprits sometimes are act like they're helping Columbo. Not just answer his questions, but play detective with him. > Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just one more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer? I haven't watched the whole series and don't recall a specific episode, but I'm pretty sure he's done that episodes where the murderer is trying to frame someone. There was also a not-great episode where the owner of a boat-builder was murdered and there were like 5 suspects (this one: https://columbophile.com/2019/08/11/trying-to-salvage-last-salute-to-the-commodore/ https://columbophile.com/2019/08/11/trying-to-salvage-last-s...).
  • mbg721 5y ago
    (I don't think there are any major spoilers below that would ruin the show, but I do reveal some Columbo plot.) Okay, fine, Last Salute to the Commodore is an exceptional case; it's widely regarded, along with the two later Ed McBain ones, as way out-of-character for the show. Usually when he confronts a character who has something to hide but isn't the murderer, he's over-the-top friendly and apologetic, like with the affair in Columbo Goes to College or the victim's bride in Double Shock. There are probably some better examples. Yeah, the usual formula is that the culprit tries to demonstrate innocence by helping with the investigation until Columbo gets too close, and then abruptly shuts up. I think that mostly speaks to Columbo's style, though; it's realistic that a murderer would do one or the other given how they're being questioned. I'd still maintain that the biggest weakness of the show is that Columbo almost never has the wrong suspect, and sometimes he has the correct suspect far too early (why does he read the palm in Death Lends A Hand?).
  • concinds 5y ago
    > IMHO, the main weakness of the show are how over-eager the culprits sometimes are act like they're helping Columbo. Not just answer his questions, but play detective with him. I've watched most Columbos multiple times and I think that's by design. Columbo plays dumb, and tries to make the suspect think that Columbo can easily be misdirected or manipulated; so suspects volunteer to "help" Columbo in order to protect themselves. This overconfidence on the part of suspects' is deliberately engineered by Columbo. It also plays in the consistent "Columbo vs. the highly educated upper-class" motif, where the "dumb" cop who earns $11k a year asks for help from millionaires who are "much smarter and more worldly" than him.
• nelblu 5y ago
  The closest that I can think of is "Columbo Cries Wolf", in that episode he keeps accusing someone (Sean) of murder when he hasn't really committed one (yet). Another huge columbo fan here :-). Edit: Another one I can think of is "Murder in Malibu", it is really hard to tell who is the murderer in this one. And even Columbo seems unsure for a while.
• themodelplumber 5y ago
  > Is there a single Columbo episode where he asks "just one more thing" of someone who isn't the murderer Yep, for example "Fade in to Murder," an episode with William Shatner. Also "Murder by the Book," "A Friend in Deed," etc. The writers played lots of little tricks on the audience with the show. But also sometimes the Lt. simply asked procedural questions to somebody who wasn't involved.
  • mbg721 5y ago
    (Again, no blockbuster spoilers that I know of, but be aware) I guess in Murder By The Book he sits down and asks the victim's wife if she can come up with anything. Fade Into Murder had the whole blackmail thing going on in the background. Where did Columbo hound someone who wasn't Robert Culp in A Friend In Deed? He was a little squirrely getting the private-spy's info at the water fountain (and the whole ice-cream/swing encounter) but that's all I can think of.
    • themodelplumber 5y ago
      Good q, I might be remembering a different episode which is always possible with actors like Culp. Will look into this issue, your ticket ID is @ny01dp0r7 Ticket update: He uses "just one more thing" on Mrs. Halperin, but she was not the murderer.
• jiveturkey 5y ago
  well yeah. the premise of the show is not to discover the perp or their method. i dare say, you’ve missed the point. in real life, we know that crimes are often “solved” not by evidence at hand but by confession of accomplices. i mean that’s why “snitches get stitches” is a thing. columbo takes that to the next level, extracting the suspects own admission through his apparent bumbling. in every single episode, if the perp had only just kept their mouth shut …