Columbo wasn’t perhaps the greatest TV show ever made. As with the Rockford Files, you can start to see the joins in the last 15 minutes when they have to tie everything up. Both, too, routinely featured supporting casts which were in nowhere near the same league as their leads. Have you seen Peter Falk in Wings of Desire?
But one bit of casting you could never dispute the genius of was that of the dog. It was exactly the kind of dog Columbo would own. It was perfect. This blog’s contention is that a look at the little details, an examination of small corners, can tell us a great deal.
Oh, yes, and there are footnotes. This means you may need to do a bit of scrolling up and down. Or you could just read them at the end. Or ignore them.
